//------------------------------//
// Chapter 37: Special Delivery 
// Story: Harmony Theory 
// by Sharaloth 
//------------------------------//


The effect of the Elements on probability and happenstance cannot be overstated. Coincidences pile up around them. Improbable events become commonplace. One merely has to look at the unrealistically frequent afflictions that plagued Ponyville to see a concrete example of this effect in action. Not even being next to the Everfree Forest can account for the preponderance of catastrophe experienced, almost all of which was in some way connected to a Bearer and thus to the Elements.

Simply put: they make things happen, even when not directly in use. For many years they were either locked up in Canterlot or attached to the Tree of Harmony, yet still their influence could be felt and, indeed, measured. Even as of this writing, years after I personally sealed them away, I am seeing evidence of their manipulations.

…Interestingly, the events so created seem to have some sort of purpose. More often than not, especially in the early days, the result was a friendship lesson. Later they took on more subtle hues, but retained their essential base quality: the events manufactured by the Elements are explicitly done to provide an experience, lesson or revelation to the Bearer.

While I have only anecdotal evidence to support it, my hypothesis is that these lessons are meant to teach the Bearer how to use the Element. Once my friends and I started becoming more comfortable with our Elements, the rate of incidents dropped off, only to pick up again when we passed them to our ‘successors’.

This is another indication that the Elements, for lack of a better term, want to be used. In the face of this, and their capacity to manipulate the world, I am left wondering exactly how far they will go to achieve this end. Or how far they have already gone.

-From the third section of Harmony Theory by Twilight Sparkle




Chapter Thirty-Seven: Special Delivery



“I’m fine,” Applejack lied.

“You should come out,” Fluttershy pressed as boldly as she dared. “You’ve been in your room for days and we’re getting worried.”

“We?” Applejack asked, giving her an incredulous stare.

Fluttershy couldn’t hold her gaze, eyes dropping to the floor. “Rainbow Dash is worried too.”

Applejack’s eyes flashed with fury. “That traitor don’t have to worry none about me. I’m doin’ just dandy!”

“I don’t think–”

“Thank you very much for your concern!” Applejack snapped. “Shut the door when you go, please and thank you!”

“Oh… okay.” Fluttershy retreated from the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Applejack was becoming more withdrawn with every hour. Dash had begun talking to herself. Two friends so close by, and Fluttershy had never felt so alone.

Yet… She reached up and touched her face with a hoof. Sure enough, her lips were set in a small, delighted smile. She rubbed at her face, wiping that terrible smile away. She couldn’t be happy with her friends’ misery. She just couldn’t.

Even if it was exactly what they deserved.

She mentally repeated the scrubbing, blotting out the thought. It was so unlike her, so ugly, so uncharitable, so… unkind.

You’ve been kind for far too long.

A voice interrupted her thoughts, saving her from contemplating further on her own contrary mind. “She’s not coming?”

Fluttershy composed herself and turned to face Max Cash, who wore the smirk of someone who had seen the embarrassing thing you’d just done and wanted you to know it. Fluttershy ignored the look; it was just one of a variety of smiles he wore, each one more fake than the last. She didn’t understand how someone so deeply unhappy could smile so much, but she knew all about pretending for the sake of others, so she let it pass without comment.

“Applejack is, um, resting,” she said. “What about Rainbow?”

He shrugged. “I asked, and she told me to go f–” he cut himself off, giving her a considering look. “Well, she told me no, but with gusto!” He chuckled and turned towards the door. “All for the best. This will work just fine with only the two of us.”

“Won’t they… won’t they be dragged along anyway?” Fluttershy asked.

“We won’t be going too far,” he replied. “And we intend to come back. I think they’ll be fine.”

She could do little but accept this, so she went with him without asking anything else. The elevator ride down was quiet, almost peaceful. For once, he wasn’t trying to engage her in conversation, and she had a moment to consider what she was doing.

She knew her friends didn’t want her spending time with him. They’d both been adamant about that. Yet, with both Rainbow Dash and Applejack withdrawing so much from each other, she was left with the choice of being pulled apart by her friends or spending time with the stallion who had, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped them.

It didn’t help that he was so friendly. He hadn’t said an unkind word to her yet, hadn’t even raised his voice, though his regular manner of speech was still louder than she would have preferred. He clearly wanted to get to know her better, and despite the warnings of her friends, she had decided that she wanted to get to know him as well.

So, when he had told her he wanted her to come with him on this little trip, she’d said yes without dithering. She’d requested that Applejack and Rainbow Dash be asked along as well, and he’d been fine with the idea. Perhaps because he’d known that they wouldn’t want to go.

The elevator opened to the lobby of the hotel. The mare behind the counter smiled at them and Cash gave her a little wave. Fluttershy could see the bags under the mare’s eyes, and noted the little tremble in her face as she held the smile. She’d been spending her nights sleepless and worrying. The reason why wasn’t hard to guess.

The rain splattered against the windows in sporadic gusts. Beyond, the storm raged unabated. Somewhere, miles and miles away, a terrifyingly powerful monster assaulted two armies. When she was done with them, she might be coming here. Fluttershy knew that such things would keep her awake.

Just as they were stepping towards the doors, a thought struck her. “Oh! We don’t have any umbrellas!”

“You’re right,” he said, and it clearly wasn’t a revelation to him. “But I don’t think we’ll be needing them.” He gave her a sly, expectant look. “I think you can take care of the problem for us.”

“Um, I’m not really good at weather-work,” she admitted, dipping her head in embarrassment. “I can’t do much more than push around a few clouds. A storm like this is too big.”

He chuckled, grinning at her. “A nice thought, but not what I meant.” He reached out and tapped the gemstone hanging from her neck. “You have the power, Fluttershy. You can calm this storm with a thought.”

She stepped back from him, turning her head to conceal her face behind her mane. “I don’t know. I don’t think I have any kind of power like that.” It wasn’t a complete lie. She really didn’t think she had power like that. She knew the Element had power, though. She could feel it like a warm caress, like all her furry friends snuggled up to her at once.

“You do,” he said, and there was such amazing confidence in his voice. Like the thought of her not having the power was laughably absurd. “You can do anything you want. All you need is some encouragement. Close your eyes.” She did so, taking a deep breath as she felt him step close to her again. “Think about the storm out there. Not about how you can move it or how big it is. Don’t worry about that.” His mouth was right by her ear, close enough that if she flicked it she would brush his lips. He did not whisper, but spoke with a calm and even cadence, the rhythm of it almost hypnotic. Yet despite how close he was and the strength of his voice, his breath wasn’t enough to tickle her hair. How could he speak so clearly with so little breath?

“That storm is following a pattern. It swells and it roils and it spits out lightning and rain because the patterns of air and heat and moisture determine that it should swell and roil and spit. Nightmare Umbra may have created the storm, but she doesn’t decide where each raindrop falls and when each bolt of lightning strikes. That’s down to those patterns. Think about those patterns. See them in your mind. Feel them. Can you feel them?” She nodded. She could feel the storm almost as if it were inside her. It felt like all her fears and anxieties bundled up and set alight. It scared her. “Those patterns guide the storm, and they’re wild things. Born in an ever-moving system. But you know how to deal with wild things, don’t you Fluttershy?” She could hear the sly grin in his voice, the chuckle on the edge of being let out. “All they need is a little attention, some love, and some regulation, and they’ll be eating out of your hoof.”

Fluttershy’s mouth opened in a soft gasp. She’d never thought of weather as a wild animal before. Of course, weather had never been wild for her before. It had been carefully prepared by pegasus ponies and put to work like any other tool ponies crafted for their use. This… this was no tool. It was practically alive. She reached out to it, though she would never be able to explain how, and touched it like she would a skittish animal. She stroked it and murmured encouragement to it, and soon enough it yielded to her.

Her eyes opened just as the rain stopped falling and the clouds opened up above the city, letting a fall of glorious sunlight gleam on the slick streets and glass buildings. She felt a warmth within her. A glow of pride, and of a joy that she had been missing since she had awoken in this time. And, secretly, she felt a thrill at the power Cash had just helped her find.

“See? Wasn’t that easy?” Cash said, then he strode towards the door, a vicious grin stretching across his features. “Come, come! Lots to do!”

She followed meekly behind, eyes fixed on the wide blue sky. The sky she had made happen.

They travelled first to a photography studio. She recognized the type from her horrible time as a model. This wasn’t so bad, though, since this time there were so few others around. Just her, Cash, and the pony with the movie camera. Cash and the filmmaker exchanged a few quiet words and some slips of paper Fluttershy took for currency, and then it was her turn. She was nervous as Cash laid out what he wanted her to do, but in the end she followed through on his script and an hour later they were heading to a postal office with a canister of film tucked in his bags.

“It won’t be publicly viewed, I assure you,” Cash said, sensing her mood as they walked. He laughed. “It’ll probably be a national secret halfway through the first viewing!”

“I, um, I don’t mind that,” she said, with as much sincerity as she could fake. “But, well, when Pinkie and Rarity see it, I wonder what they’ll think?”

“Hopefully ‘by Luna’s starry mane, we’ve got to go help her!’ and then they’ll race to cross the Storm and come straight for you.”

And right into your clutches. An incongruous snicker drifted through her mind, and she shook her head to clear the offending thought. “I just hope they’re not upset.”

“Why would they be? You’re safe and sound and learning new languages and cultures! If anything, they should be happy you’re getting out.”

“I suppose,” she said, entirely unconvinced.

“Here we are!” Cash announced as they entered the office.

Like everywhere else in the city, it was practically deserted. Also like everywhere else, it wasn’t shut down. As unceasing as the storm was, it was mostly wind and lightning with frequent but short bursts of intense rainfall. It hadn’t actually rained enough to cause much flooding, so the impact on the city’s ability to operate was minimal. No, it hadn’t been the storm that had driven people away, but fear of the one who had caused it.

The mare behind the counter was like any of the others who’d stayed. Some were stubborn, some were fearless, but most of them were simply too poor to leave. The stores and shops were still open, and someone had to tend them even if there were no customers. If they didn’t work, they didn’t get paid, and never mind the Destroyer thrashing the two most powerful militaries in the world only a few hundred kilometers away. Money was king in the Nightlands, and in some ways it was a more oppressive tyrant than any Solar noble could ever manage. She looked tired, slumping at her post, but she perked up as Fluttershy and Cash walked in.

“Welcome to the Pegasus Parcel Service! How may I help you today?”

Fluttershy held back, standing surreptitiously behind Cash as she studied the mare. She was a pegasus pony with a long blue-green mane, a russet coat and a nametag that read ‘Kelly’. Her Talent in Writing Music was printed in sigils on her flanks –something Fluttershy was never going to get used to– which made her wonder why the mare was working here. Her smile was genuine, and if it was more for the rays of sunshine coming in through the open door than for the customers themselves, well, Fluttershy wouldn’t blame her.

“I’d like to send a package,” Cash said, striding up to the counter and hefting his bag onto it. The mare took in the bag, then took a closer look at Cash. Fluttershy could see her recoil when she saw the broken stump of his horn, but she recovered quickly and smoothly, ducking below the counter to bring out a scale.

“Of course. I must tell you, however, that due to the recent… troubles, our express delivery service is not being offered right now.”

Cash shrugged, rummaging in the bag to pull out the canister of film they’d just shot. “That’s fine. I don’t particularly care how fast it’s delivered. In fact, I’m sure you’ll get it where it needs to go precisely when it needs to get there.”

“Thank you for your confidence, sir,” Kelly said, taking the film and weighing it.

“Think nothing of it,” Cash said, and there was an acid edge to his voice, as if he was holding back from laughing in her face. “Seriously.” He dipped a hoof into the bag again, and this time came out with the Element of Generosity.

“Oh!” Kelly’s eyes widened as she saw the Element. “What a pretty necklace! Are you sending that too?”

“Yes I am. It’s for a special lady. I promised I’d give it to her, but it looks like I won’t get the chance in person for a while. I’m hoping this will help speed our reunion.”

“How romantic!” Kelly gushed. “Well, for jewellry we require that insurance be purchased. How much is this beauty worth?”

“More than all the stars in Luna’s night,” Cash said, and Kelly laughed. “Put it down for two thousand full moons.”

She let out a low whistle. “Expensive, is there anything else you’d like to send?”

“What about it?” he asked, turning to Fluttershy. “Anything you want to add?”

Fluttershy squeaked, freezing in place as their attention turned to her. She was about to shake her head and scrunch down a bit, but she stopped herself. “Could, um, I send a letter?”

Cash grinned at her, and she couldn’t get the first inkling of what was going on behind that rictus smile. “Well, sure.”

Fluttershy turned to Kelly. “Could I please have a pen and some paper?”

“Absolutely, I’ll add it to the bill,” Kelly said, fetching the supplies.

Fluttershy didn’t spend long writing her letter. She didn’t have a lot to say. Cash hovered at her back. Not quite looking but palpably curious. She didn’t show him what she’d written. She was sure he would have been fine with it, but some part of her wanted him to suffer in ignorance. She folded up the page neatly and gave it to Kelly. “There,” she said. “I’d like that included as well, if, um, if that’s alright.”

“Sure, that’s no problem,” Kelly said brightly, and Fluttershy retreated once more. The mare gave her a considering look, but didn’t say anything, instead returning her attention to Cash. “With the insurance, the basic fee for inter-Republic delivery is twenty-five full moons. Are you sending this package outside of the Republics?”

“Nope. Just to an address in, hmm, Orion City.”

“Oh! I’ve got a cousin who lives there. Have you been?”

“Couple times. Met some very special people in that area. Of course, the last time I was there didn’t go so well, but, hey, you can’t win ‘em all, right?” She smiled in agreement, and the two continued their bantering small talk as Cash spelled out the address for her and paid.

Fluttershy didn’t pay much attention to them at that point. Cash was being charming, but she could hear the double meanings in every other sentence that came out of his mouth. She imagined he was enjoying himself immensely with the mare. Perhaps that was why he was dragging it out.

Finally, they finished up. The film, the Element and Fluttershy’s letter were boxed up and sent into the back room, where they were assured the package would be on its way in a matter of hours. Cash and Kelly bid each other farewell and they were once more on the move. “Now,” Cash said. “There’s one more thing to do before we head back to check on our grumpy little roommates.”

Fluttershy gave him a questioning look, but didn’t say anything as he led them down one street after another. He stayed abnormally silent himself, only shooting her gleeful looks every few steps. She resolved to enjoy the walk. The sun on her wings felt good, and she could hear the sounds of birds taking the opportunity to sing. The smell of drying rain and the quiet sounds of a city beaten into slumber were a heady mix, reminding her of Cloudsdale on the morning after the Storm Season Festival, when the rain clouds had all been delivered and all the pegasus ponies who had worked so hard on them had partied well into the night. She had walked the cloud-streets of her birthplace and felt the same sense of calm in a place not meant for calmness.

Eventually, they came to a large park. Fluttershy was delighted already with the thought of spending some time around trees, but Cash led them even further. When she saw their destination her heart leapt up into her throat and she let out a little squeak of joy. The park was home to a small petting zoo, and the animals had been let out to play in the sunshine.

She took wing before she knew what she was doing, speeding ahead until she was among all the furry creatures that she had missed so much. Lambs and pigs and possums and marmots and so many others. They looked at her with uneasy surprise, but very little fear. “Hello, little ones,” she said, light and sweet and welcoming. “I’m Fluttershy, and I’m so very pleased to meet you all!”

The animals jolted as if struck with an electric shock. She saw a new light dawn in their eyes: comprehension. She knew from what Applejack had told her that the ability to speak with animals was probably unheard of in this age. These poor little creatures had probably never had a pony to talk to before. Cautiously, almost with an air of reverence, the boldest of them, a goat with two nubs for horns, nudged up to her. She reached out her hoof and stroked its head. “There, see? I’m perfectly safe. Why don’t you come over and I can greet you all properly.”

With that the others rushed to her, surrounding her in a fuzzy swarm of bleating, barking, squeaking love. She listened and she spoke, learning each of their names and listening to their stories. She laughed and smiled as she stroked them and hugged them and assured them that the storm was over and that everything would be all right. For a time, she felt like herself again.

Eventually, though, it was time to eat and the little ones were called away by those who ran the zoo. The sun had moved a fair distance across the sky, and she was beginning to feel peckish herself. She made her way over to where Cash had stood watching her frolic, his eyes fixed to her the entire time. She hadn’t minded his gaze, a fact that somewhat surprised her. If it had been anyone else, she would have begun feeling self-conscious immediately. Not for him, though. No, being stared at by Cash was like… well, it wasn’t like anything at all, really.

“I see you had fun,” he said. “Going to need a bath, though. Grass and mud stains show up crazy-good on yellow.”

“Thank you,” she said, then frowned. “But, um, if you don’t mind me asking, why do this for me?”

He shrugged, turning to walk back through the park. “I have a feeling you and I are going to have a complex relationship, Fluttershy.”

She trotted up to stay at his side. “Oh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, on the one hoof I want to watch you play with bunnies and take you to all my favourite diners. For some reason I want you to like me.”

“And on the other?” she prompted when he fell silent.

He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to her, their snouts almost touching. The moment their eyes met, she felt it. The Stare. Her Stare. She’d used it to cow cockatrices and talk down Dragons, seeing it from the other side was a whole different experience. The most shocking part of it was that even as she found herself unable to pull away, unable even to blink, she felt no fear. “On the other? On the other, every time I look at you I feel like I’m going to scream. With rage.” He grinned. Not a joking-grin, but a mad smile full of glee at some terrible notion dancing behind his eyes like a great coiled creature winding around his brain. “So, yeah. Complicated. And boy oh boy is it only gonna get worse from here!” He laughed, a wild, braying sound that would have made most ponies flinch.

Fluttershy let the grating noise wash over her without a twitch, holding Cash’s gaze. “Well, um, thank you anyways.”

“You’re welcome!” he said, and turned away, releasing her.

She watched him go for a few steps, contemplating what she had seen within him. Her gaze tracked up to the sky, and the swirl of clouds that spun around the city without touching it. She’d done that. She had the power.

You’ve been kind for far too long.

Cash was going to take them someplace terrible. He was going to use them, use the Elements, and she didn’t believe the explanation he had given to her and Rainbow Dash for a second. Something awful was coming, and she wouldn’t be able to hide from it this time, no matter how much she wanted to. Applejack and Dash were increasingly unable to help her, and while the message she had just recorded would send the others running to her, they would be running right into a trap. If anything could be done, she would have to be the one to do it. She had the power, now she needed the strength of will to use it.

She knew, somehow, what she had to do.

Time to be cruel.

As she started after Cash, the clouds stopped their swirling, pausing for a long moment as if in indecision, or as if listening to someone giving them new instructions. Then, with peals of thunder roaring like laughter, they rushed back in to bury the city.


***


The Pegasus Parcel Service prided itself on being able to get a package ‘from anywhere in the Republics to anywhere in the Republics’ within forty-eight hours. Even standard mail services were held to a high standard. Certainly, so went the corporate literature, higher than those other courier companies a pony could choose. While the potential end of the world had put a hitch in the regularly smooth service, the decision makers at the top of the corporate pyramid had decided that on the off-chance that the world didn’t end, then if they kept the mail moving during the crisis they would come out the other side with a reputation bump, soon to be followed by a revenue bump, and a hefty round of bonuses shortly thereafter.

So while Max Cash’s special delivery wasn’t guaranteed the fastest transit, he could still rest easy knowing it wasn’t going to languish in the back of the office, and would be well on its way before the end of that day. Not that he ever doubted it. He was, after all, taking advantage of powers far beyond any mere corporate bureaucracy.

The package was loaded into the back of a truck that was otherwise empty. The ponies driving it were thankful for that, as it would speed their way out of Virgo City. Kelly looked at the truck wistfully as it pulled away from the loading bay of her little office. She wished that she could go with them, but knew that she’d be fired for abandoning her place, and she couldn’t afford that. Little did she know this was the last chance she would have to escape the city for a long, long time.

Shortly after the truck had passed out of the city limits the winds kept at bay by Fluttershy came back with a vengeance, ending the few hours of light and peace that had graced the city. Then there would be flooding and power outages and wind stripping roofs from buildings. Emergency shelters would fill beyond capacity, and the prospect of evacuation would vanish along with any hope of outside help.

But the package was already gone, bound now for Orion City.


***


“So what did you tell her?” Rarity asked, leaning forward, ears perked. The hospital cafeteria was a bustle of activity, but none of it came close to where they sat, allowing them to carry on a conversation in normal tones. The table between them had the remaining scraps of their lunch, which was a limp salad for her and a cutlet of some kind of greyish meat that Rarity strove not to look at for him. Next to them was a large window that looked out on a quaint little garden area where patients could sit or walk in. Hard Boiled was out there now, talking with Traduce. Rarity was trying very hard not to look at him, too.

It had been two days since Spike had gone to talk to Star Fall, and they’d both been kept busy enough in that time that this was the first chance they’d had for Spike to tell her all he’d revealed in that meeting. Just in time for Star Fall to call them both up for some kind of briefing with everyone involved in the fight against Max Cash. Spike, his leg finally out of its steel brace, answered her question with a helpless shrug. “What could I tell her? I told her Discord was a spirit of chaos, that he could only be defeated with the Elements, and that he really, really pissed us off. There’s not much more to tell.”

“The way you flinch whenever his name is mentioned makes it obvious that’s a lie,” Rarity said with an accusatory glare. Then she sighed and slumped back in her seat. “I was hoping you gave her the full story. At the very least then I’d have an excuse to pry it out of you myself.”

Spike slowly shook his head. “We thought he was our friend, Rarity. For years. We thought he’d reformed. Then he betrayed us all.”

“Yes, you’ve said that, but you haven’t said how he betrayed us. Really, it must have been quite something to bring out such an extreme reaction!”

“It was.” Rarity sat back, expecting this to be the end of it, then he began speaking again. “It was personal. That’s what makes it so bad. You’d think, after everything I’ve seen and done in the thousand years since we put him down that I’d be over it, but I still can’t think about him without flinching. Because it was personal. The war, the Schism, was worse for me in every conceivable way, but I can talk about it. I can understand it; what led to it, what came of it. There was a logic to the Schism, if a terrible one. And I know that even though it hurt me, even though I still have scars from it, it wasn’t personal. I wasn’t special, it didn’t create those torments just for me. Not so with Discord. When Discord turned, he made a living hell designed specifically for us.”

He let out a soft growl, the tip of his tail twitching in agitation as it lay curled on the seat beside him. “And it makes no sense! Not that I should expect it to with him, but… well, we still don’t know what set him off. Even when he was our friend there were times he’d get nasty, but there was always a reason: some insult or snub that usually only existed in his imagination. Something to justify him acting out, at least to himself. This time I guess he just… I don’t know, got bored of being a good guy. It was just after the Summer Sun Celebration, which was always a magnet for trouble. We went to sleep after the party, and when we woke up all the children were gone.”

“He kidnapped the foals at the party?” Rarity asked.

“Not just the foals at the party. Every child. Everywhere.” Rarity stared at Spike in shock. “Yeah, even baby Dragons. Which I still, technically, was. The only reason he didn’t take me is that I was the Bearer of Generosity at the time, and the Element protected me. He took all the children, Rarity. Imagine what kind of havoc that would create.”

“I can practically hear him laughing about it,” Rarity said, shuddering at the image.

“It was crazy. But that was only the beginning. He used the children as leverage on their families. Got them to do things for him.”

“What kind of things?”

Spike wouldn’t meet her eyes, staring out the window instead. “Things you don’t want me describing, trust me. Some of it was the usual chaos and madness. Some of it, though, was aimed directly at us, the Bearers. We’d… well, our reputations as heroes and badasses were pretty solid by then. Most bad guys wouldn’t mess with us anymore. At least the ones who didn’t have a spell to lock the Princesses in a snowglobe or a magic bell that summoned an army when rung or some other stupidly powerful advantage like that. We could handle ourselves against world-ending threats and demonic invasions. What we couldn’t handle, what we could not even begin to handle, was a mob of terrified parents who just wanted to make sure their children were safe.”

He leaned his head against the window, his horns clunking against the glass. His eyes weren’t seeing the scenery, however, locked instead on something far away and long ago. “The love of a parent for a child… It’s such a strong thing, Rarity. A lot of parents say they’ll do anything to keep their child safe, and Discord set out to see if they meant it. Most of them did. What do you even do against that? We had no idea, and the more we scrambled trying to find a solution, the worse it got.”

“But you did defeat him, eventually.”

“Eventually. I don’t know how long it really took –you know how time gets freaky when Discord gets going. All I know is there were a couple false starts before we got it right. When we confronted him the first time he just brushed us off. Threatening him could work, sometimes, but not this time. Even Fluttershy couldn’t persuade him to bring the children back, and you can be sure she gave it her all.”

“Fluttershy? Why her?”

“She was his first friend. Sort of. He liked her more than he liked anyone else, at least.” He snorted. “Fat lot of good that did us. Anyway, we got in touch with some of the kids that he’d taken. They were all in some crazy dangerous alternate dimension –it’s a weird story. Working together we managed to trap Discord. Then we turned the Elements on him.”

“Bringing all the children back, safe and sound,” Rarity said, sure there was no other way to end it.

Spike nodded. “They all returned to their families no worse for wear and with a few exciting adventures of their own to tell about. Discord was a statue again, but… but we’d had enough of him. We shattered him, taking the pieces and scattering them all over the world. Even throwing a few into space, not that Luna was very happy about it, but Twilight argued that the more dispersed his essence, the better chance of him being put out of commission permanently. After that, we… well, we tried our best to forget him. Even saying his name became kind of taboo. None of us wanted to remember how he’d turned on us. What he’d done. Just mentioning it makes my scales crawl.” He looked over to her, meeting her eyes again. “I know it’s not the best story, but the details would just make you angry.”

“It’s enough,” Rarity said, though she hungered to know more. What had Discord set those poor parents to doing that made Spike so upset? The possibilities that floated up from her imagination were legion, and ranged from the silly to the lurid to the horrifying. The fact that she was naturally creative added an extra sting to the possibilities, giving them depth and color a lesser imagination wouldn’t have. She gave herself a mental shake, trying to throw the horrifying thoughts off. They had other things to focus on.

“Do you think Star is going to talk about what you told her today? About Umbra and… Twilight?” The meeting Star Fall had called would begin soon, and Rarity was almost as curious about what would be discussed there as she was about what really happened with Discord.

He shrugged. “I don’t think so. At least, not much. She said she has ideas about what to do now, so I think she’s got a plan. Something to defeat Umbra and Max Cash and get the girls back.”

“Well, wouldn’t that be a welcome thing!” Rarity said, pushing the remains of her salad away. Then her expression became closed and she stared at the tabletop for a long moment. “Spike, there’s something else.”

“Go ahead, I’ll listen to anything you need to say,” he said, leaning in so that she could smell the mixed scents of meat and sulphur on his breath.

“When I was… following Laughter’s power. That thing I saw…”

“The ‘dark egg’?” he asked, remembering what she had called it when she had woken from her faint.

“Yes. Whatever is inside it is something terrible and evil, I know that, but I also felt like I knew it. It certainly knew me. Could it be… could it be Discord?”

Spike frowned. “I hope not. Because if it is then every precaution we made a thousand years ago wasn’t enough, and I don’t know if anything could get rid of him in that case.”

“It’s probably not, though. Right?” She looked into his eyes, seeking affirmation there.

He had no answer for her.


***


Outside, Lieutenant Hard Boiled sat in a wheelchair, eyes closed as he enjoyed the warm sunlight on his face. Or, he would have been enjoying it if he wasn’t simultaneously trying not to move a single centimetre, lest the change in balance tug his bent horn in a way that would send him into screaming convulsions of agony. It was a delicate balance, and the anxious worry that he would mess it up prevented him from truly enjoying such moments of peace.

Traduce stood next to him in her yellow earth pony disguise, and he could feel the look she was giving him. If he turned his head, he knew exactly what would be in her eyes. Not pity, never that. No, there would be something else there, something that was a far cry from anything compassionate or caring. It was a look that would have held all the raw, forceful need he was feeling from the bond she had forged with him. A need that was more than sexual, and more than just friendship. It was something he didn’t know how to respond to, something that frightened him as it echoed in the space between them. Just as he knew it frightened her.

“You have to get better,” the words were a plea, but spoken with a hard edge that made them sound more like a demand. “You have to.”

“I don’t have a lot of control over that,” he said, and though he meant them to be gentle his own words came out harsh with resentment.

“If you don’t… if you’re stuck in this hospital… I can’t stay with you. Whatever happens, I’ll be leaving to help deal with Cash and what he’s done.”

“I know,” he said. The thought galled him. It was twice now that Cash had escaped justice. Every detective bone in his body demanded that he pursue the criminal to the ends of the earth. Unfortunately, the one bone that mattered was refusing to cooperate. “But even if I could go with you, I’d be useless. Without my magic, I’m just a half-decent detective with chronic pain issues. You don’t need that kind of load weighing you down.”

Traduce shook her head. “HB…”

“It’ll be ok,” he assured her, trying for a self-deprecating smile. “You’ve gotten along without me for years, you’ll do fine.”

“You arrogant blue bastard. Of course I’ll do fine.” She shook her head again. There may have been tears in her eyes, but for both their sakes he didn’t look to find out. “It’s not about me.”

A cloud seemed to roll over the sun, though its light remained undiminished. “What are you saying?”

She took a slow breath before she replied. “How much pain are you in?”

The pit of his stomach dropped out at that question. He didn’t need his magic to understand what she meant by asking it. “As much as I’ve ever been in before,” he replied in a quavering whisper.

“It’s only a third of what it should be,” she said. She moved around in front of him, so he was forced to look into her eyes. To see the serious set of her jaw and the slight twitch of her lips that showed the restless worry that made her want to scream. He fought to control his breathing as the sheer gut-ripping horror of that statement pounded into him. “I’ve been eating the rest. That’s why I’ve kept so close to you. I’ve been using my own recovery as a cover, but it’s… we Changelings heal fast, when we have love to feed on. Calumn and I have been spending afternoons in the pediatric cancer ward, and now we’re both nearly full strength. I don’t know what Princess Fallen Star wants to see us about, but I guarantee that part of what comes next is her giving us official permission to enter the Solar Kingdom and go after that son of a bitch. I can also guarantee that Straff will be sending me along with whoever else is going.”

“And when you go…”

“I can’t help you anymore.” The silence between them after that statement stretched on for over a minute before she spoke again. When she did it was with an authority that came from desperation. “So you’re going to get better, and fast. Better enough to go with me, at least.”

“It’s, uh, it’s pretty good incentive,” he said. The problem, as he saw it, was that he wasn’t sure how much ‘better’ he could get. His horn was mangled, every motion bringing stabs of pain like fiery pokers being thrust into his brain. Who even knew what the effect on his magic was? It was likely that even if they managed to straighten his horn again, he was too far gone for rehabilitation. Odds were, he was a cripple for life. The best they could do was detach the horn’s nerves completely, ending the pain but forever denying him even the possibility of regaining his magic. That thought frightened him worse than the idea of Traduce leaving.

Still, that didn’t mean it was over for him. His magic had been what made him a superlative detective, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have the mundane skills to do the job. The weakness, the exhaustion, the headaches, they were all just manifestations of pain. He knew pain. He’d lived with it all his life. The only difference now was a matter of degree. He wouldn’t let himself be beat just because his horn had decided to turn up the dial a bit.

Even as he thought that, a part of him knew it was a lie. Pain of this magnitude would ruin a pony; there was almost no way to truly cope with it. Traduce was gulping that pain down by the litre to keep him from feeling it, and even the remnant she wasn’t able to swallow had been keeping him in writhing agony since their return from the jungle. His only hope to remain sane and regain the use of his magic was to be allowed to go with her, and even if he managed to get his blue butt moving, the odds of that were all but nonexistent. It was a hard truth that he couldn’t allow himself to admit, couldn’t even let himself think of. He was racing before a tempest, and if he faltered he would be drowned.

So he slowly, with a will bolstered by fear, forced himself to rise from the chair and stand before her. He felt the moment his hooves touched down like a lightning bolt, the impact jarring his horn and setting off sympathetic sparks of wretched agony pulsing down his spine and out to the very ends of every limb. His vision swam and his empty stomach clenched in turbulent nausea. Yet he rode the pain, letting it ravage him and moving through it. His lips slowly went from a grimace of pain to a smirk at Traduce, silently willing her to ignore the tears in his eyes. “Look, I’m feeling better already.”

Green fire raced over her as she shed her earth pony disguise, and she looked at him with her true eyes so that he might see the fierce pride in them and know it to be true. The smile she returned to him had more than a little of her old mischievousness in it as well, and was all the warning he got before she leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. He might have been surprised at the move once, but he knew her too well now. He wasn’t about to pull away when the motion would bring fresh agony from his horn, and she was not going to pass up a chance like that. And somewhere, deep inside, he didn’t want to pull away.

When she broke the kiss she didn’t step back, instead holding herself close and breathing in the scent of him, both emotional and physical. She opened her mouth and he could feel the words on the edge of being spoken. But there were things that once said could not be forgotten, and lines even she wasn’t willing to cross. So she finally drew back and if her parting didn’t take any more of his pain with it, he still felt better for having had her close. “We should get going,” she said, slipping back into the shape of the yellow mare. “It won’t do to keep the Princess waiting!”


***


The room had been cleared of beds and furniture, leaving it spacious enough to fit everyone in comfortably. When they entered, Star Fall was standing above an array of spell-sheets carefully arranged in the center of the room, testing her balance with the simple prosthetic hoof they’d given her. It was an ugly thing, bulky and incongruous. Yet it allowed her to stand and walk with only a slight limp, so it was a vast improvement over the alternative.

They came as a group, gathered by RIA agents and led here for a meeting they probably didn’t understand the purpose of. She wasn’t even sure she understood it, but she had to find out in any case. There was little chatter as they came in, a rarity where Blaze and Pinkie Pie were concerned. Every one of them knew Star Fall had something important to say, and they would do their best to give the princess their full attention.

Once they were all settled in a circle around her spell array, with Astrid nestled onto the plate installed in the ceiling, she carefully took the book that was at the center of everything and laid it on the ground at her hooves, ensuring that they could all see it. “This is Harmony Theory,” she began. “Written by Twilight Sparkle over the course of something like thirty years, it is the culmination of her research into the origins, abilities and purpose of the Elements of Harmony. It is meant to be an examination of their power, but it can also serve as an instruction manual on their use. This is what Max Cash has been using to control the Elements, to twist them to his desires.”

She looked around, meeting each of their eyes. They were with her so far, and most already knew or had guessed what she had said. “I’ve had a week to read through it; he’s had a lot longer. If I’m right about when he acquired it, he’s been in possession of this book for twenty years. That means that just getting it away from him won’t put a dent in his plans. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could recite it cover to cover. What it does give us is a chance to use it ourselves. To stop reacting to his moves for once and get out ahead of him.

“To do that, though, I need everyone to be on the same page. That means all of us need some basic understanding of what we’re dealing with. This is going to be a bit of a lecture, so I apologize in advance if I get too long-winded or too technical. I’ve tried to simplify things, but I just don’t understand it all well enough to do a good job of that.”

No one made a comment on that. Even the least-attentive of them still watched her with quiet patience. She took a deep breath, and began. “The Elements of Harmony are more than just six magic gems. They are a kind of extra-universal entity or object of immense proportion, and of which we can only perceive an aspect as it intersects with our reality. Think of it like a mushroom. We see a toadstool popping up from a field, but that’s just a tiny part of a massive organism that could stretch for miles under our hooves. The gems are that toadstool.

“The Elements have their own powers, which are more conceptual in nature than actual, by which I mean that their limits seem to be defined by ideas rather than anything physical. Take Loyalty, for instance. It can make someone willing to die for you, or it can glue two things together, or it can make two things repel each other. From what I have read, what it’s actually capable of doing is unlimited, so long as what you want it to do can be somehow thought of as ‘binding’. The rest are similarly awesome in power with equally vague limits.

“However, their individual abilities pale in comparison to what they do together. When used in concert they quite literally end existence. Not just as we know it, but completely. Then they rebuild existence in a manner that suits their wielders. Twilight called this a ‘Harmony Event’. The ethical, moral, theological and intellectual problems I have with this concept are staggering, and from what I’ve read and been told by Spike, Twilight Sparkle if anything felt even worse about it than I do.

“Now, this is all well and terrifying, but the Elements don’t do this stuff on their own. They need Bearers to take them up and use their power. Here, we have some interesting complications. There are two types of Bearer: True Bearers and Proxies. Rarity and Pinkie Pie are both True Bearers, as are Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy and Twilight. Everyone else who has used them, including, apparently, the Goddesses, is a Proxy. When the Elements are used by Proxies, their power is much, much less and their Harmony Events are merely cataclysmic instead of apocalyptic.

“This is where it gets really relevant to all of you. Proxies are not just anybody. They have to have a particular kind of cosmic-level connection to each other. A resonance, if you will. This resonance is not something that can be defined, since it doesn’t seem to conform to any particular model of behaviour, but it can be detected. Which brings me to the practical portion of today’s lesson. Pinkie, I need you to leave.”

“Aww, but I was listening! I really was!” Pinkie said, standing up on her hind legs to put a hoof on her heart and making the saddest face Star Fall had ever seen. “I’ll be good! I won’t fall asleep or space out and start thinking about butter tarts and funny balloon animals, I promise!”

“It’s not that,” Star Fall assured her. “I need you to leave because I’m going to bring out the Element of Laughter.”

Pinkie was halfway out the door instantly, without seeming to cross the distance from where she had been previously standing. Star Fall was still sufficiently unused to Pinkie’s strange abilities that she felt her heart pick up a few frightened beats at the sight, and several others actually let out quiet sounds of surprise. Rarity and Spike, she noted, did not even blink. Pinkie Pie gave everyone a big smile and a wave. “Woops! Gotta go everyone! Tell me how it went after, kay? Buh-bye!”

Star Fall watched the door swing shut, then nodded to Straff, who pulled out his radio and spoke a few quick words into it. Less than a minute later the door opened again and an RIA soldier carrying a heavy case came in. He set the case next to Star Fall, then retreated back outside the circle of watchers before Star Fall opened it. Within, nestled in a hollow in gray shock-absorbent foam padding, was the Element of Laughter.

Star Fall took the Element out, laying it on the spell-sheets she had spent two hours painstakingly drawing out. She took a breath, whispered her mantra, and released the spell.

Light exploded from the Element of Laughter. Blue and joyful, it swirled and eddied like a dancing flame, pouring around the occupants of the room in a rippling flow. Where it touched the watching people, some gained a glow of their own. Faint, in most cases, but still visible. When it touched Rarity, she burst into her own purple incandescence that rivalled what was coming from the Element.

They looked around at each other, blinking in surprise and awe. Star Fall only let out a long breath as her suspicions were confirmed. She herself glowed with a steady magenta hue. Blaze’s rapid, swirling aura matched the blue of Laughter. Astrid stood in a light that gave a ruby tinge to her feathers. Calumn gawked at his hoof, and the pink light that played in rippling waves across it. Hard Boiled’s orange aura seemed to extend itself over Traduce, lending her a faint shimmer of her own that still somehow clearly belonged to him. Spike’s purple light didn’t surprise anyone, and if it didn’t hold a candle to the brilliance of Rarity’s aura, it still outshone all the others by an order of magnitude.

Star Fall looked from them to the others, but couldn’t see any light around Gamma, Straff or Birchfield. That was only further evidence for Star Fall. They hadn’t been part of the trip to the ancient pegasus temple. This group, right here, had been pushed together for that mission. Now they would have to stay together to have any hope of defeating Max Cash. She only wished she knew how to make that happen.

“Twilight called this ‘testing the resonance’,” she said, catching everyone’s attention again. She picked up Laughter and dropped it back in the case, shutting it firmly and handing it back to the waiting RIA operative who quickly carried it from the room. He would ensure that Pinkie was informed it was safe to come back, but Star Fall wasn’t going to wait. The auras lingered for a moment as the Element was sent away, but faded out shortly after. “We can all guess what this means, but to lay it out clearly: those of us who showed a reaction just now are potential Proxies. If we get our hooves on the Elements, we can use them. That makes us the best weapons against Cash.”

“Excuse me, Star,” Rarity said, raising her hoof. “But will it be as easy as all that? I mean, I was a Bearer of Generosity for over a year, and I was never able to ‘use’ it other than when fighting Nightmare Moon and Discord.”

Star Fall nodded in acknowledgement of Rarity’s point. “There is that. According to Harmony Theory, though, Proxies and True Bearers learn to use the Elements in different ways. As best as I can discern, a Proxy has to work at it, experimenting and pushing the limits to figure out what they can do. You, and the other True Bearers, can essentially just… make stuff happen whenever you need to. So, since you didn’t need them to do anything in that year, they didn’t. Whereas, for instance, Charisma seemed to master Loyalty in a matter of days. We’ve found the remains of her experimentation, and she clearly worked very hard to achieve her level of competence with using the Element. You wouldn’t have to work at all, you’d just need something to happen, and it would. Do you understand?”

“Not entirely, darling,” Rarity said. “But I believe I’ve gotten the gist of it.”

“I’ve got a question,” Hard Boiled said. His voice was rough, his eyes narrowed with pain. Star Fall had requested that the doctors dial back his medication so that he’d be more lucid for this meeting, and the effects of that were showing. It was encouraging that he was standing on his own, though. She had expected him to be much worse, and he would need to be mobile for what was to come. She gestured for him to continue. “So what? We can use these Elements, I guess. What good does that do us? How does that get us a way to put Cash in the ground so that he doesn’t just dig his way back out again?”

“Cash is connected to the Elements just like we are,” Star Fall replied. “Except in his case he’s somehow forced a connection not to one of them, but all of them. I believe this is how he survived both your gunshot, Lieutenant, and evisceration by Astrid. He’s using their power to become invulnerable. If we get the Elements, we can turn them against him, essentially revoking his immunity.”

“Great, why us? All the old heroes are back, right? Why not have them do it?”

Star Fall frowned. “There’s… Well, when a Proxy calls on the Elements, they’re not really getting the power.” Confused faces gazed at her, and she stamped her artificial hoof, trying to get her stump to settle more comfortably in its cup. “The True Bearers are still in the loop, so to speak, and the power of the Element is really going to them. Proxies kind of sit between the Element and the True Bearer and siphon off some of that energy for themselves. When a Proxy calls on a lot of energy suddenly, the Bearer gets hit with the load. The Element feeds a lot of power into them, but at the same time takes a large amount out. Twilight called it feedback, and it’s a shock to the Bearer’s system. Enough of one that it incapacitates them for a while.”

“Like what happened with Applejack,” Calumn said.

Star Fall nodded. “Yes. I saw it happen to Rainbow Dash, too. You got off lucky in the temple; the first time they get hit with the feedback they tend to scream.” Star Fall shivered, remembering the haunting wails that she had heard from both Dash and Applejack. “When they do that, it can get… rough, even for the people around them. Anyway, Cash can likely do this at will. I don’t know if he needs physical contact with the appropriate Element to do it. It seemed like he did at the Temple, but I wouldn’t bet on that still being the case. That means Rarity and the others are the worst choices to take on Cash. No, it has to be us.” She gave them a lopsided smile. “It’s not all bad. One of the advantages of our connection to the Elements is that we have a measure of resistance to their effects. We’re not immune, but we’re not as vulnerable as anyone else.”

“Nice to know,” Astrid said with a laughing snort. “But something tells me you’ve been giving us the good news so far. Spill, Fall, what’s the downside here?”

Star Fall’s smile fell away. “The downside is Inversion,” she said. “Which is exactly what it sounds like. The Elements can be flipped, positive to negative, and when they go they take their Bearers, True or Proxy, with them.”

“What does that mean?” Hard Boiled asked.

“It means that the Element becomes the opposite of what they were originally. Loyalty becomes Betrayal, Generosity becomes Greed, etcetera, etcetera. And the personalities of their Bearers undergo the same inversion.”

“Discord!” Rarity gasped. Spike reached out to wrap a comforting arm around her. The others didn’t pay much attention to the exchange, since the word was meaningless to them. Star Fall, however, noted it. Spike’s explanation of who and what Discord was had helped her understand what Twilight had been talking about in Harmony Theory, but it had also left much to be desired. Especially considering what the book said about the chaos spirit in its seventh section. She hadn’t shared that part with Spike. Considering his reaction to the mere mention of the name, she didn’t know how he’d take it.

“So the Bearers become evil?” Blaze asked.

“Not evil,” Star Fall replied. “It’s not about morality, though that inevitably shifts. Their personalities rearrange so that the dominant trait associated with the Element is opposite what it had been. The Bearer of Kindness becomes cruel. The Bearer of Generosity becomes greedy. Supposedly, they don’t even know something is wrong. Their new and wildly different behaviour seems perfectly natural to them.”

“You think Cash can cause the Elements to Invert,” Spike said.

“I’m sure of it. There’s no other explanation for how he got Rainbow Dash to help him. With her loyalty inverted, she betrayed us all. We have to be prepared for this to be true of everyone he took with him. Which means that when we find them, they might oppose us.”

“Fighting an evil Dash?” Astrid shuddered. “Gimme back Charisma. She at least was a professional.”

“I would be worried about Fluttershy, myself,” Rarity added. “The poor dear is so timid most of the time that it’s easy to forget that when she comes out of her shell, well, she really comes out of her shell.”

“I’m worried about all of you,” Star Fall said. “And I’m worried about all of us. A lot of what’s happening isn’t in our control. It’s…” She paused, struggling with words she didn’t know if they should hear. Words about fate, about free will and choices that were not choices. Would they understand? Would it even matter? In the end, she decided that it didn’t need to be said. “We’re still running ten steps behind Cash. We’ve got to get proactive, and that means we need to get moving. Astrid and I are headed to Gemini City to address the gathered Senate. It needs to be done, and at any other time it would be the most important thing in the world, but right now it feels more like a distraction. Cash wants a war. He wants us all looking in the wrong direction when he pulls off whatever he has planned. But even if we stop that, the time we spend stopping it lets him get closer to his goal.” She snapped her wings, shaking off the trepidation she felt. “It doesn’t matter. I will do what I can with the Senate. Everyone else has to start preparing for a trip through the Everstorm.”

She looked at them again, meeting each of their eyes in turn. She noted with suppressed unease that Pinkie Pie had somehow re-inserted herself into the group without anyone noticing. It was good that she was here. They all needed to know their parts in the plan she had cobbled together from desperate intuition and half-understood scraps of knowledge. “I know a lot of you were hurt down in the jungle. Clearly, I was too. I know this is all a lot to take in, and it’s coming so fast it makes your head spin. Celestia knows I’m grinding myself down just trying to keep up with it all. But we can’t let anything stop us. This is it, guys. The fate of the world is in our hooves. I’ve got a plan to make it all work, but I need you to do your parts. This is a lot to ask, I know. A lot more than most of you signed up for. But I can’t do it without you, any of you. Will you help me?” She looked to them, pleading with her eyes.

The wave of warmth she got back from them, carried in the determined set of their eyes, in the heat of their smiles, nearly bowled her over. They didn’t need to think about it now, they’d had two weeks to contemplate whether they wanted to keep fighting Cash and his machinations. Their choice had been made, and nothing she’d said here changed that decision. Calumn glanced at the others, then back at Star Fall, showing his fangs in a happy grin. “I think it’s unanimous, Princess. We’re all in.”

“Thank you,” Star Fall said, and blinked away the tears that had begun to well up in her eyes. They could do it. So long as they kept up the strength and togetherness they were showing now, they could win. “Now, here’s what I need you all to do. Blaze, you’ll be leading us through the Storm, so you have to put together a list of what we’ll need for a group this big. At the same time, I need you, Calumn and Pinkie out in the desert. There’s some things that need to be tested, and that needs to be started before we cross the Storm. You’ll get more details on that later, but I want to keep the objective quiet for now.” Pinkie saluted while Blaze and Calumn shared an inscrutable look. She turned her attention to the next group.

“Lieutenant, you need to focus on convalescence, but we’ll be transferring you to Orion City so you can be closer to the Storm for when we make the crossing. I’ve asked Director Straff to assign Traduce to assist you in that.” Hard Boiled tilted his head slightly, wincing at the pain even such a small motion caused him. She hoped he would be ready, though if her fears about what was said in Harmony Theory were correct, then she needn’t hope at all.

“Spike, Rarity, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need the both of you to go to hell.”

“Come again, darling?” Rarity said, eyebrow rising quizzically.

“Tartarus,” Star Fall said, and Spike’s eyes widened in understanding. “You know what we need.” He nodded. Rarity looked at him with her own questions plain, but he murmured something to her and she focused once more on Star Fall.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” she continued. “Celestia only knows how far Cash has made it by now. The moment Astrid and I are done with the Senate, we have to be ready to move through the Everstorm. You have to be ready. Director Straff will be co-ordinating your assignments. Everything’s already been cleared by him and Gamma.” She gave the two spymasters an appreciative nod. They’d helped her craft this strategy in a lightning brainstorm session early that morning. Their agreement with her plan was one of the few things that assured her it would work, and their silent support had kept her voice from wavering as she laid out the apocalyptic power of the Elements for those who might be forced to use them. She turned her attention back to the watching faces of the disparate group that had somehow been chosen to save the world. “You leave in two hours. Good luck, and may the Goddesses watch over you all.”


***


Gamma knew that Straff was approaching well before he spoke. She could feel him, the weight of their shared past gaining new gravity in his presence. It conjured memories of smoke and wind, the smell of burning bodies and the taste of the poisonous crystal shards that had blown like fine dust, coating her lungs with every breath. She could feel the burn of the rope around her neck, and the terror inspired by seeing the luminous eyes of Nightmare Umbra staring at her with such cold hatred.

She let none of this show, of course. She’d become so practiced at hiding her thoughts and feelings that she didn’t know if she would ever be able to let her guard down. In that, at least, she was in good company.

“Your protégée is impressive,” Straff said as he stopped a respectable distance back. Close enough that their conversation could be kept low, far enough away that he could react if she lunged for him. He knew she wouldn’t try it, knew that as long as they were allies she wouldn’t consider harming him. More, he knew that even if she did, she wouldn’t make it far before the RIA agents around the perimeter of the hospital’s side entrance brought her down. Still, he was being cautious, and the sight of that was professionally satisfying.

“Agent Fall is an exceptional individual,” she replied.

“One with a talent for attracting other exceptional individuals into her orbit.” He looked towards where the mare in question and her Griffin bodyguard waited for the car that would take them to Gemini City, and a historic moment in the diplomacy of their two nations. “I recognize some things that I taught you in how she handles the others: collaboration, honesty, a willingness to admit her own shortcomings. I’m both surprised and touched that you chose to pass that along to her.”

“You can’t take all the credit,” Gamma said. “A lot of that is natural to her.”

“And wholly unnatural to you.”

Gamma let out a small sigh, shaking her head just enough to indicate the weariness of having her interpersonal skills questioned for the thousandth time. “You are not here to question my leadership skills or style. You are too professional for such pettiness. You are not here to discuss the mission at hoof, or you would have led with that and foregone any preamble. I am left considering that this conversation is personal in nature, which does not fit with either our mutual history or current circumstances. Since neither you nor I have expressed any personal interest in the other’s life or history since our parting, I am wary of any change in behaviour now. What has happened?”

“I wonder if that’s something you imparted to her,” Straff continued in the same tone as before. “That first instinct of thinking that she’s the smartest person in the room. That she has to explain everything for the rest of us. I’ve seen her backtrack on herself several times now when she realized that she shouldn’t be doing all the mental heavy-lifting on her own. Is that natural as well? Something you had a hoof in? Or is it, as I suspect is true, a reaction to being raised by mares who do naturally work that way?”

“She’s a smart girl,” Gamma snapped, lacing her voice with a precise degree of annoyance. “I’m sure she operates in a way that works best for her. What has happened?”

“Someone who thinks that way can be prone to overreach. I just can’t help but wonder if she’s going to take on too much, too fast. With all the responsibility that has been thrust on her, burnout is a very real danger.”

Gamma glared at him. More than a little of the heat in her eyes was genuine. He turned his head to meet her eyes, and she stared into irises that were so blue they practically burned like fire. Just like her own eyes burned. The taste of the crystals was in her mouth again, their poison quickening through her veins. “What has happened?” she asked again, making sure her tone communicated that this would be the final time that she did him the courtesy of asking.

“We know where Max Cash is,” Straff replied.

Gamma did not jerk at that pronouncement. Her eyes did not widen, her breath did not speed. She would show no such weakness before the stallion who had tied a rope around her neck and left her to dangle at its end while the world erupted around them. Instead she nodded as if the news simply confirmed something she had believed all along, while her Talent went to work analyzing the new information. “He’s still in the Republics, in one of the coastal cities.”

“Virgo City.”

“Very close to the Stile Islands. I see.”

“The analysts say he won’t be able to find passage around the Storm so long as Umbra continues her assault.”

“They’re wrong.”

“I agree.”

“I assume you’ve already dispatched an assault team to capture him, futile as that will be if he’s being guarded by Agent Dash, to say nothing of the Elements.” He would have to make the effort at least, to satisfy his Senate masters that he’d done everything he could to contain the problem to Republics borders.

To her genuine surprise he shook his head. “Any attempt to send forces to Virgo City has been deemed unfeasible.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, knowing he would explain. “Yesterday, the Umbra-generated storm cover over Virgo City cleared for a period of approximately three hours. By ‘cleared’ I mean that the clouds parted in a perfect circle over the city, a process that took seconds, then spun around it like the eye of a hurricane. The phenomenon collapsed as quickly as it began, and in the aftermath the intensity of the storm has increased to catastrophic levels, cutting the city off completely. There are only two beings known to have such power over the weather. One of which is still on the Stile Islands and has no reason to clear the skies over a city hundreds of kilometers away.”

“The other is Rainbow Dash,” Gamma finished for him. “Though, with no mention of rainbow etherealizations or spectacular aerial displays, I wonder if it might not be the work of the other pegasus, Fluttershy.”

“She was not described as particularly adept at weather manipulation,” Straff pointed out. “However, the possibility cannot be ignored. Either way, Max Cash is there, and there is no chance of us stopping him before he’s able to bribe or coerce someone into taking him to the sunlands.”

Gamma nodded again, finally understanding his approach to this conversation. “Thus your concern with Agent Fall. Or, rather, Princess Fallen Star.”

“For better or worse, we have ceded leadership of this mission to her. I see a lot of the best of us in her. I recognize lessons I attempted to teach you coming to fruition in her, coupled with the same incisive, powerful intellect that drew me to become your mentor. However, I also see some of your worst habits, but not the iron control that allowed you to fool me and the rest of the RIA about your true loyalties for years. I am worried that without that control those bad habits will cause her to overreach herself.”

Gamma considered this for a long moment before making her reply. “She is not merely a product of my training. Just as I am not solely a product of yours. She has had many teachers, and the one who has influenced her most is not me, but her adopted mother.”

“I was afraid of that,” Straff said. “I know you. I can pick out the ideas and actions that have their genesis in your training, because in a way they began for you in my training. I thought I knew Professor Twinkle Shine, at least by reputation, but she had us all fooled. What, then, do we make of her daughter? What things could a millennia-old war-Goddess have taught her that you or I can’t even imagine?”

“I think Twinkle Shine taught her that she was loved,” Gamma said. “And how to love in turn.”

Straff looked at her with surprise bordering on shock. “Sentimentality? From you, Gamma? Don’t be absurd.”

“It is absurd, isn’t it?” Gamma snorted. “To love, and to be loved. What a thing to teach someone. I can’t even imagine it.” She quirked her eyebrow at him again. “Can you?”

He turned away from her, unwilling to show her the impact her words had. The crystal-shard taste receded, and she took a deep, quiet breath to remind herself that she could. “Is it enough?” he asked.

“She cares,” Gamma replied. “She will use every asset to its fullest, but she will care about them while she does. They recognize that, and I believe they will love her for it, and thus perform above and beyond anything we could goad out of them. That is why we ceded authority to her. We are both respected, effective commanders, but in essence we are dictators. She is a leader, and we both recognized it from the moment we first laid eyes on her. I spent years cultivating that potential, and the stresses of everything that has happened in the past few months has only made that potential bloom in full.” She paused for a moment, gauging the proper length of silence for maximum impact. “Twinkle Shine wanted her to run.”

“Run?”

“The King was planning to marry her into the Royal family from the beginning. Twinkle Shine didn’t want that for her, and went to great lengths to ensure that Star Fall had the ability to escape to the nightlands. I aided the Professor in this, making sure she had missions in the Republics, that she would be familiar with the place she would have to run to. At the same time I saw in her the makings of a true leader, so I prepared her for both possibilities. She had everything she needed to disappear into the nightlands, and all she would need to thrive at court. If anything, the Professor wanted to teach her to let that potential die and save herself. But she didn’t. Instead the Professor taught her how to love. When the time came, that love led her to choose to take on the challenges of leadership. She chose the burden, and it truly is a burden for her, because she knows how to love. Because that’s the kind of pony she is. She can’t help but love.”

He let out a small chuckle. “I’m beginning to think Rainbow Dash’s appearance has brought with it a terrible pre-Schism disease that we have no immunity to. Some virus that attacks the mind and changes the way people think and act. First my Changelings abandon their duties to attach themselves to ponies that should be nothing more than assignments to them. Now there’s you pontificating about love as if it were the highest of virtues.”

“Do you disagree with my assessment?”

He slowly shook his head. “No. Which probably just means I’m infected too.” He turned back to her, a weary smile ghosting across his lips. “Well, it’s out of our hooves now, isn’t it?”

“And in hers,” Gamma agreed, then corrected herself. “In theirs. Star Fall will not be alone in this.”

“Alright. I’ll trust them,” he said, then his eyes narrowed. “But I still won’t trust you.”

“Fair enough. Do we tell them where Cash is?”

“No. There’s nothing that can be done about it. Telling them will just make them worry. Once Star Fall is done speaking to the Senate, we let her know, and she can decide what to use the information for, if anything. Agreed?”

She nodded, turning to look back at her Princess. “Agreed.”


***


The Pegasus Parcel Service has excellent mail re-routing services. New addresses for those who move are filed and implemented within a day. There is a fee, of course, but it’s hardly an obstacle for those with the means and the need to have all their mail redirected suddenly. When Cash’s package arrived in the Orion City depot, it was quickly discovered that the address it was to be delivered to no longer existed. Senator Birchfield’s mansion was now just a hole in the ground. Some said it was destroyed by sunland terrorists. Others said it was the Gray Mare. Some bought the official line that it had been an unfortunate gas explosion, though they were few and far between as it was well known that there had been some sort of shoot-out at the mansion the night before and the coincidences were just too much to look past.

Fortunately for the hardworking employees of the sorting center, the good Senator had left an emergency forwarding address. So the package had a new destination sticker placed over the old, and it was shuttled off to the appropriate mail truck, which got rolling towards the local RIA offices just as a very different truck was arriving there. This second truck carried not mail and parcels, but people.

The ride hadn’t been much more than four hours, but every moment of it had been clear agony to Hard Boiled. Rarity had done what she could to keep the bumps in the road from jostling him, but there was only so much she could do. Traduce looked sick sitting next to him, as if she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her, but she had kept up a whispered conversation with him that seemed to help him keep his mind off the pain. The detective had needed help getting down from the truck when they had stopped at the Orion City General Hospital, but he insisted on walking his own way into the building. Rarity had watched him go with the grinding, useless worry of someone who desperately wishes they could help, but knows that they can’t.

“He’ll be okay,” Spike had said, with a forced cavalier air. “He’s a big, tough detective, just like in the books you used to r–”

“Don’t,” Rarity had replied. She was unable to articulate any more, but knew that he understood when he fell silent. Now, as they got out at the RIA headquarters, she turned to him.  “Let’s take a walk,” she said, and suited actions to words as she strolled off to the small, tree-lined green space that surrounded the building, giving it some privacy from the electric bustle of the city. Spike followed obediently, moving with only a slight limp.

Rarity set a meandering course, skirting around the parking lot and past the rear patio where RIA analysts had lunch on pleasant days. Finally, she came to a spot where they were screened from the windows and the eyes of those no doubt tasked with watching over them. She stopped, idly picking over her clothing and removing any little scuffs and burrs it had picked up during their walk. Spike waited with a calm patience that she would never have seen from him as a baby.

Finally, she turned to him with a hard gleam in her blue eyes. They hadn’t had a moment to themselves like this since Star Fall had given them their task, and she was determined to make full use of it while it lasted. “Tartarus,” she said.

He nodded. “Tartarus.”

“The place with the three-headed dog?”

He nodded. “Though, Cerberus has been dead for a while, which is too bad, he was a good dog.”

“The Schism?”

“No. Earlier. When Tirek freed the Tartarus Dragons. That’s kind of the reason we’re going down there.”

“Going into Tartarus. The place of torment and eternal imprisonment.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, the whole ‘eternal’ thing doesn’t really hold anymore, with all the things that kept escaping from it, but, uh, yeah.”

“You know where it is.”

“Yes.”

“You can get in, and –more importantly– out.”

His eyes darted nervously around, but her gaze didn’t waver, drilling into him. “Yeah, I can.”

“And you know what it is Star wants from there? How to get it?” He nodded. “So, with the logistics of it taken care of, could you perhaps tell me why we are going down into that… place?”

“Because the Tartarus Dragons were held there with chains made from a magic-eating crystal, and when Tirek freed them they left those chains behind. Star wants to use them as a weapon against Nightmare Umbra.”

“Will they work?”

He shook his head. “They’ll hurt her, weaken her, but what Star’s doing with the Senate will go a lot farther in defeating Umbra than anything we can dredge up from Tartarus.”

“Then why send us to get them?”

“Because sometimes you have to fight, and having the Chains gives us a weapon that will actually do something against her.”

“And why does she need me to do that? I should be out with Pinkie, helping them test the Element of Laughter, and don’t give me that look! It’s pretty obvious why she sent those three to a desert isn’t it? I helped Pinkie before! I should be there just in case it happens again!”

“She needs you to get the Chains of Tartarus, because you’re the only one we know who can use them.”

“Why in the world would she think that? As I keep telling everyone, I’m a seamstress, not some magical powerhouse, and certainly not some… dungeon-delving adventurer!”

He actually chuckled at that. “She thinks that because I told her you could. You’ve done it before, after all.” She goggled at him. “And more than a little dungeon-delving, too, come to think of it.”

“Spike!” Rarity gasped. “You know I don’t remember doing any of that!”

“But you did. And I can show you how to do it again.”

She snorted in irritation. “I suppose you can. I just wish you had talked to me about all this first.”

“You would have tried to say no. That you couldn’t do it. And Star… might have believed you.”

“You knew she would send us to do this?”

“I suspected. After she asked her questions about Discord and Umbra, she had a lot more to talk about. She already knew all the stories about how we fought the Tartarus Dragons and raised Elysium, but she kept asking for more details on the Chains and what they could do. I know her well enough to see when she’s putting a plan together. I was going to tell you at lunch, but you got me talking about Discord, and, well…” he shrugged helplessly.

Rarity sighed and turned away from him. “Well, this is perfectly distressing. I hope you know what kind of position you’ve put me in, Spike!”

He cringed. “I know, Rarity. I’m sorry.”

“I mean, what does one even wear for a trip to hell? Do I use bright colors to stand out, or dark to match the decor?” She rounded on Spike, whose attempt at an innocent look was ruined by the big, goofy grin that stretched his mouth. “I hope you’re happy, Spike! Oh, I will be up all night working on this!” Then she smiled, and with the both of them laughing they made their way back to the front entrance.

At that moment the Pegasus Parcel Service truck was just pulling up. The package was offloaded with little ceremony and handed over to the RIA clerk whose job it was to receive all incoming mail to be sorted and subjected to a battery of tests to ensure that it was not a bomb or poison or junk mail. The package was run through a metal detector first, and it gave a ping that said there was something metal inside. A unicorn with a poison detection spell went next, and she found nothing suspicious. So assured, the package was opened and searched for any dangerous device. The business with Cash and the Elements being kilometers above their pay grade –and the idea of finding one of the mythical artifacts being sent through the mail having never occurred to those who did know of them– they found nothing worth noting.

So the package was loaded onto a trolley and wheeled out of the mail room towards the place where Senator Birchfield’s forwarded mail was being stored until he could come by to collect it. By one of those coincidences that was no coincidence at all, the opened package was coming out of the mail room just as Rarity and Spike were passing by the door. Distracted by the unexpected sight of a Dragon in the corridor, the clerk pushing the trolley couldn’t correct in time and the cart collided with Rarity, knocking both to the floor and sending the contents of the package scattering beside her.

“Oh, my! I’m so terribly sorry!” Rarity said, the words automatic.

“No, no, my fault!” the hapless clerk replied, eager not to offend someone who walked in the company of Dragons, but Rarity was no longer paying any attention to him. No, every fiber of her being was now squarely oriented towards the gleaming purple gem lying a bare hoof-length away from her. The clerk had disappeared from her world, as had the building and everyone around her. Her fears about what was happening to her kidnapped friends, the coming confrontations with Max Cash and Nightmare Umbra, the worries about delving into Tartarus and the expectations being placed on her, none of them mattered.

All that mattered was the necklace, and the terrible need she had for it.

“Rarity, what’s wrong?” Spike asked her, somewhere a million miles away.

“Run,” she said in a hoarse whisper. Visions of what happened with Pinkie Pie at the mansion flickered around the edges of her mind, unable to penetrate deeply enough to prevent her from reaching for the Element. For the first time she realized the amount of sheer willpower her friend must have possessed to have stopped herself from donning her Element for as long as she had.

“Oh no,” Spike said as he realized what was happening, an almost childish shock in his voice. When he moved, it was with lightning quickness. He grabbed the clerk and threw him down the hallway, eliciting a scream from the pony. “Rarity!” he cried out, reaching down to snatch the necklace away from her. He was too late.

The Element practically leapt to her throat. It locked into place with a small, satisfying click that vibrated through her soul like the wheels of some vast machine beginning to turn. She closed her eyes, waiting for the burst of light and the inevitable devastation to follow. When nothing happened she risked her voice. “Spike?”

“I’m here,” he said, and she could feel him curled protectively around her. He would have used his body as a shield to give the people in the building an extra moment to escape. She felt an indescribable warmth in her chest at that realization, that he was willing to give his life to save others, indeed to save her. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. She knew it in the way she felt the heat of his body wrapped around her. She knew how far that heat was radiating, how it was slowly spreading through the floor and the walls. She could hear it in the voices of the crowd that was gathering at either end of the hallway, which had taken on a new dimension of clarity. She knew, without even thinking of it, how the sound of those voices bounced along the walls, where it was absorbed and the exact point it would fade below the ability to hear.

She opened her eyes and looked at that crowd. She could see into the ponies staring at her. Not like their skin was transparent or anything as simple as that, no. She still saw them as she always had, but now she saw more. She could see the blood pulsing through their veins, could track the nerve impulses as they commanded muscles to bunch and stretch, could even plot the electrical course of the neurons firing in their brains. She could see all this, and she knew with a bone-deep certainty that all it would take was a nudge from her –no, not even that, a passing whim!– and she could direct all that she saw to move as wished.

She wrenched her attention away from them. She had to, the moment it occurred to her, thoughts of strokes and seizures and limbs exploding as all the blood in the body rushed to them at once screamed through her mind.

She took in a breath as deep as her lungs could allow, the air flowing in with shocking ease, concentrating to the point where it nearly liquified inside her. Then, in a voice like the ringing of a great bell, she screamed one word: “Run!” and in the wake of her cry the hallway exploded.