Rainbow Dash shot upward, gaining speed as her wings beat faster and faster against the growing storm. The windigoes surrounded her, and the icy air was causing frost to form on Rainbow Dash’s wingtips. It was deadly cold amongst them, but Rainbow Dash controlled her breathing. She had been trained to resist all manner of atmospheric phenomena, and her new body gave her a much greater resistance to the frigid storm than she could ever have hoped.
“Hey!” she called to the windigoes. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but this way! Come this way!” She waved her hooves, and some of the windigoes understood. They galloped after her, and Rainbow Dash laughed. This day was indeed becoming more awesome than she could ever have hoped. “Follow me!” she shouted, changing her flightpath to lead the windigoes up toward the crystal overhead.
The ships were defended. They opened fire with technomagic beams arising from circles that formed on their lower surfaces. These hummed past Rainbow Dash, but she rolled and dodged, outmaneuvering them as she rushed toward one of the cables that supported the tomb.
“Cut the wires!” she screamed.
The windigoes obeyed. The wire was thin and strong, but as they each passed through it the amount of frost on the line grew thicker and thicker. Rainbow Dash had advanced nearly thirty meters when she finally doubled back and kicked the frozen spot as she passed. It shattered, and the crystal suddenly tilted as one of the supports holding it up failed.
“HA!” laughed Rainbow Dash. “That’s one- -OOP!”
A technomagic beam had nearly gone straight through her. It missed, rebounding off the crystal below. Rainbow dash looked up at the ships and saw that they had concentrated their attack.
“Fluttershy!” she called. “You’re up!”
There was no response except crying. Fluttershy passed by on the far side of the crystal, and Rainbow Dash face-hooved when she saw that Fluttershy was flying with her hooves over her eyes out of fright. It was that very fright, though, that kept her moving: a crowd of windigoes had gathered behind her, chasing her onward. Although this was literally one of her top fifty eight most horrifying nightmares, it pushed her onward at speeds that even Rainbow Dash found impressive for an out-of-shape Pegasus.
Fluttershy knew what she had to do, even if she could not see it. She charged one of the ships directly, stopping just before she met it. As horrifying as it was, she allowed the windigoes to catch up with her- -and pass her.
They rushed forward, their ectoplasmic bodies crossing into the ship. Its surface became overgrown with frost, and the technomagic below suddenly stopped firing. The vessel’s engine sputtered as ice overgrew its engines, and it suddenly started dropping.
Fluttershy peeked past her hooves and gasped. She cheered: “Yay.”
The damaged ship descended rapidly, but its adhesion to the crystal did nto fail. The tether suddenly became taught as the weight of the ship fell against it, and the sudden force tilted the crystal. Rainbow Dash’s group had already weakened two more of the five lines, and they snapped instantly. The remaining line was then left out of balance, and the force pulled the last ship downward. In order to protect itself, it cut the line internal.
The crystal, now fully released, fell back to the ground and landed with a deafening thud.
“OH YEAH!” cried Rainbow Dash. “I didn’t think it was possible, but this is EVEN BETTER than being sacrificed!”
None of the cultists were under the crystal when it fell. A few shoggoths were, but their protean bodies eventually managed to slither out from beneath it. Although it had been released, everypony on the outside remained unperturbed.
The same could not be said of Silken. While her body was certainly capable of surviving the impact, she was thrown by it and knocked around the room several times before finally settling against one of the walls.
“Protect the Lost Goddess, she said,” said Silken, sitting up and sounding mildly annoyed. “How am I supposed to do that?” She could hear the battle going on outside, and although the crystal partially attenuated her sensors, she was able to see that both sides were evenly matched. Worse, every second it went on was a greater risk of harm to Silken’s friends, and to the cultists who in other conditions she was sure would have been her friends too.
“I am not a combat unit,” she said. “I cannot do anything. I have no technomagic, and my strength is equal to theirs. If they came here, I would not be able to defend Cadence.”
She looked across the room to where Cadence had fallen off her final resting place. A morbid as that should have been, she looked quite alive, as though she had collapsed there. If anything, she looked small and vulnerable. Her hair had come undone, and the crystal flowers that her subjects had given her had shattered. As Silken watched, Cadence’s remains took a weak autonomic breath.
“Incomplete,” said Silken as an idea suddenly occurred to her. She stood up. “That is why you’ve been here so long. That is why this makes me so sad. Because you have been here so long, incomplete. Unable to help.” She looked up. “That battle. If you were here, you could help Twilight. You could help everypony.”
Silken picked up Cadence, cradling her grandmother in her long, robotic arms. Arms that would be useless in the battle she needed to fight, but that could find use here. She lifted one, and it shifted, its tip expanding into various narrow tools that had once been used for installing microcircuitry into the skeletal interfaces of starships.
“I am sorry for this, grandmother. But Twilight ordered me to protect you. The best way for me to do that is to make you whole again. I think this is what you would have wanted.”
As the battle raged outside, Silken’s face split in half and opened, revealing the central processor held within. She raised her hoof, and began the procedure.
Magic bolts and spells were flying everywhere amidst plasma weapons, lasers and windigo ice. For Twilight, this was all too familiar. She had been in so many battles not unlike this one that she had lost count long ago. She half expected the Witchlord to appear at the head of the battle, her characteristic horned helm glaring against the sun in challenge.
No such enemy arrived, though, nor could Twilight fight her own cultists as she had once raged against the hordes of revenants that Sarkon Vortrenth had once summoned against her. Even in their state of rebellion, Twilight still cared for them. That, and she needed to ensure the safety of her friends.
“Applejack! Pinkie! Fluttershy!” cried Twilight through the chaos. She engaged a scanning spell simultaneously with a full-reflection spell, causing a beam from a cultist to rebound and strike a nearby remnus in the back.
“Sorry!” called Twilight. As she did, her scanning spell picked up something. She ducked to the side and rolled underneath the body of a white shoggoth who was in the process of tearing through a heavy mech with a magical beam. On the other side, Twilight spied Pinkie Pie. She was jumping on the back of a fallen cultist.
“Take that! And that! Kick ‘em when they’re down!”
“This is not an effective way to fight!” cried the cultist. “You are not injuring me at all! It is also rude!”
“Pinkie, stop messing around!” said Applejack as she bucked the cultist in the face.
“That did not knock me out,” said the cultist as she crawled away. “It only hurt a whole lot!”
Applejack and Pinkie joined Twilight. “Where are the others?” asked Twilight in desperation.
“I’m right here,” said Rarity, bounding out of the crowd. “Oops, sorry dear, my- -did you just pinch my rump! How- -excuse me- -” She emerged, and Twilight saw that she was wearing a set of cultist robes.
“Where did you get that?”
“Well, if you are going to accuse me of looting the fallen then I’m not going to listen to you! Besides, have you seen this thread count? I didn’t even know it could get this high!”
“Rainbow and Fluttershy took down the ships with the windigoes,” said Applejack.
“I’ll get them,” said Twilight, spreading her wings. “We need to get you out of here.”
“No we don’t! We know how to fight!”
“And I think some of them might have jewelry,” said Rarity.
“No! I can’t let you get hurt! This isn’t a place for you! And that’s final!” Twilight flew into the air, barely dodging several of the winged shoggoths as they passed. They flew upward and latched onto one of the few ships that remained, tearing it apart and incorporating its pieces into their own bodies. Twilight suddenly had a better idea of what that particular set of her allies was fighting for.
Before she could get to altitude, she saw something in the distance. She looked closer, enhancing the view with her visor, and her heart fell. Swooping in from above were more ships, as well as nearly a hundred cultists sailing in on black wings of steel.
“Twilight, what is it?” cried Applejack from below.
“More of them!” replied Twilight.
“More? How many more can there be?!”
Before Twilight could answer, the air suddenly became charged with magic. For a moment, Twilight thought that it was Starlight again, but she saw Starlight: she had returned to the atmosphere to regroup her windigo forces. Besides, the magic was far more powerful than anything Starlight could ever have hoped to summon- -and it was familiar, although in a different way.
A beam shot forward from the base of the fallen crystal. The pure blue light tore through the atmosphere and struck the nearest of the approaching ships, tearing it in half and incinerating the wings of several of the cultists. As they fell, Twilight looked down toward the source of the beam and saw that a plume of energy had knocked back every individual standing in a wide swath, not differentiating between friend or foe.
What Twilight saw, she could not comprehend. There, standing in the epicenter of the blast and still sparking, stood an unmistakable alicorn. There was no ambiguity in her identity, and Twilight stared in shock as she stared at the impossible.
She quickly shot forward and landed near the alicorn. The whole of the battle suddenly seemed to grow quiet in comparison as their eyes met.
“C…cadence?”
“Not quite,” said Cadence. She tried to take a step forward and nearly fell over. She did not seem to know how to walk. “Oop. These organic bodies, how do you control them? There is so much feedback!” She looked up at the sky. “And the horn…that is entirely new to me. I think I may have put too much power through it.”
Twilight’s eyes widened with a mixture of rage and surprise. It was only then that she noticed the thin surgical scar near Cadence’s hairline- -or the pony that had once been Cadence.
“SILKEN!” she cried.
Silken smiled. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“You- -you- -what- -how- -DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WRONG THIS IS?!”
“I am only following your orders,” protested Silken, frowning and seeming to enjoy the fact that Cadence’s face gave her far more options for facial features than her original did. “You said to protect this body. The best way for me to protect it was to integrate my central processor into it.”
“But you- -you can’t do that! That isn’t what I meant!”
“Well, I certainly will not lose track of it.” A cultist charged from the side, and Silken effortlessly raised a shield bubble that he slammed against harmlessly. “And I now have the power to defend you and the others!” She spread Cadence’s wings. “Do these work, or are they decorative?”
“Of course they work but- -Silken- -”
Silken walked awkwardly to Twilight’ side, improving with every step. She put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder and smiled. It was Cadence’s smile, but it was also genuine. That would not have been possible unless Silken was smiling too. “There was nothing left of her in this body,” she said. “And I know she would have wanted to help you. Do not worry. Trust me. I will keep her safe.”
Twilight looked up at her, into the large eyes that she had never thought she would see opened again. Then she hugged Cadence, and Silken. “I trust you,” she said. “Go ahead.”
Silken lowered the shield she had projected, and Twilight stood beside her as the pair of them walked into the fray. With the combined strength of two pure alicorns- -even if one of them had the brain of a remnus- -they pushed through easily. Silken quickly gained an understanding of how to use Cadence’s horn, and although her spells were limited they were unparalleled in power. She managed a combination of defensive shielding and simple offense, giving Twilight time to formulate more complex spells.
“This is so wrong,” said Twilight, sending out a chain of stunning spells that arced through eight cultists and incapacitated two. “This is just so wrong.”
“I like it,” said Silken. “It feels…natural. I’ve missed having an organic body.”
“Well don’t get too attached to it.” Twilight sent out another barrage that caused crystal vines to shoot from the ground and entrap several remni.
“I believe I am literally attached to it,” said Silken.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. I am only inhabiting it in the name of protecting you, and Cadence’s descendants. I understand that this state will not be permanent.” She lowered her horn and sent a tremendous blast of blue light into a crowd that was attempting to shoot down a group of windigoes. They were knocked back, but although they were unharmed they did not attempt to fire toward the sky again.
“I don’t even know how this is possible!” said Twilight. “Cadence’s powers are derived by love, a remnus shouldn’t be able to- -”
“To feel love? Twilight Sparkle, of course we feel love. It is the main reason why so few of us survive.”
Twilight did not ask what that meant, because she was pretty sure she already knew.
“I am going to try something,” said Silken, looking toward one of the heavy mechs. “Do you think you can handle yourself here?”
“Why? What are you going to do?”
Silken smiled- -her smile looked so much like Cadence’s, but a little different- -and her horn sparked. She took a step forward, and space ripped around her. In a flash of blue light, she vanished. Twilight was only confused until she heard the sound of an explosion near the mech, and saw Silken standing over it in Cadence’s body, tearing through its metal flesh with ease. She had teleported. Without an organic brain, it seemed, she was capable of moving through the planet’s interference without harm.
Her ability surprised even Twilight. Cadence had never been able to perform that spell, and yet Silken had using the same magic. As odd as that was, Twilight found her confidence in Silken’s ability to protect her precious cargo increasing.
With her confidence restored, Twilight turned her attention toward her former followers. Although she could not teleport in Equestrstria’s atmosphere like Silken could, there were a number of other spells she knew, and she had always wondered just how good her cult’s armor truly was.
High in the atmosphere, Phosphorescence and Luminescence looked down through their shared sensors at the battle below. Each stood on opposite sides of the bridge that they had now reconfigured to their own will. It had become angular and dark, with power conduits exposed to provide a sickly green glow. While it would not have been Light Gloom’s preferred style, they had taken the initiative to choose one that suited both of them equally well.
Each sister wore a thin, silver chain. These chains were attached to the pair of collars that Heliotrope and Golden Star wore. They were unable to pull themselves free, and despite the lack of technomagic holding them there was no way either of them could physically oppose the heavily armored cultists. They were left to lie on the cold metal floor, watching. Fate had at least been more kind to them than it had been to Journey End: her processor had been stripped from her body and placed in storage for her “crimes” against Princess Twilight.
Both of the chained ponies grew increasingly despondent, to the point where they were unable to look at each other. Golden Star had already given up completely, and Heliotrope’s resolve was withering as well. There was nothing that either of them were able to do.
“I am losing vital signs on Vast Six,” said Luminescence. She paused. “She has been forced to eject her central core. Vital signs have flatlined.”
“The situation grows dire,” replied Phosphorescence. She showed no sign of emotion, aside from mild annoyance.
“Our intervention could turn the battle in the favor of the Will of the Goddess.”
“Agreed. Would Light Gloom sanction our plan?”
“He cannot be discerned on our sensors. We will therefore extrapolate his intentions.”
“Confirmed.”
The ship suddenly lurched. Heliotrope was young, older than Golden Star and far older than Inky Nebula had been. She had been involved in enough mission to know the subtle cues of a ship beginning descent.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Neither of the sisters answered, electing to ignore their pet despite the fact that they had baited her by speaking instead of using their hardwired communication channel. It was obvious that they intended to humiliate their captives, and the plan was working.
“Should we proceed without inertial suppression?” asked Phosphorescence, a tone of viciousness in her voice. Golden Star could not help but gasp as his eyes widened, betraying his fear.
“I oppose this idea,” said Luminescence. “I would prefer to keep our pets with their skeletons competent. I intend for mine to last quite some time.”
“Interesting,” said Phosphorescence. “Without the High Priest, we do not have a way to break deadlocks.”
“This is not a new problem. Nor is it a relevant one.”
Phosphorescence sighed. “Technically correct, although I find you to be something of a killjoy, sister.”
“And I find you to be more sadistic than befits somepony of our station.”
The ponies on the ground could not tell if this exchange was meant to be serious, or if the pair were partaking in a kind of joke. It did become more clear that the ship was descending, though. Both understood that there was a fight occurring between the Cult and the Goddess, and that the presence of the paired starships would bias the battle unequivocally toward one side.
“We have to do something,” hissed Heliotrope.
“There is not anything we can do,” replied Golden Star, who was on the verge of sobbing.
During this exchange, the heavy metal door that sealed off the bridge from any potential intruders slid open. The ponies looked, hoping to see a familiar face that would aid them. Their hopes were dashed instantly as a pair of cult remni entered the bridge.
They were identical to all other cult remni: the same black surface, manipulated slightly to emphasize the fact that their bodies were cold and hard, like armor; the same white faces with the same tiny pupils; the same disinterested smile. The only difference was their height, and even then that was only trivial. One of them was slightly taller, and bore a rank denoted by three red lines. The other wore one thin violet line on her right shoulder. Both wore the mark of Twilight Sparkle on the left.
The pair moved in unison, separating in the center of the room so that each one could stand next to the cultists. Their goal, it seemed, was to preserve the symmetry Phosphorescence and Luminescence had so carefully cultivated in the room.
“You have caused the ship to descent,” said the red-denoted remnus.
“We have been dispatched to provide processing assistance,” said the other.
“And to protect you in the event that we will be boarded.”
“We will not be boarded,” said Phosphorescence. She sounded as though she had been insulted. “We will deploy the remaining cultists to cover ourselves. I will take command personally.”
“Although processing assistance would be welcome,” said Luminescence. “With the power so low, we will be forced to perform the operation manually.”
“Of course,” said the remnus with three lines. She bowed softly and gracefully.
Then the pair moved in unison. Their speed was incredible, and far faster than anything an organic pony could have hoped to achieve. With their attention distracted, the pair of cultists did not realize what was happening until it was too late.
The remni summoned simultaneous technomagic spells. Of the two twins, Luminescence was the only one able to raise a shield spell in time. It did not matter, though; the spells that the pair of remni had created would have been unable to penetrate the cultists’ enchanted armor anyway.
Instead, they forced stun spells directly into the computer systems that linked to each cultist’s brain. That part of them was by definition unprotected, and the force of the magic flowed instantly through the wires that linked them to the ship and directly into their brains. Luminescence and Phosphorescence convulsed suddenly, and the latter let out a thin cry. Then they slumped forward, their still-smoking connections tearing away as they collapsed into a pair of heaps.
The larger remnus stood over one of the pair, scanning her. To her dismay, her hypothesis about their nature was confirmed. In any event, the vital signs of the pair had been fully suspended, but they were alive and would most likely recover in time. They had, however, been rendered completely unconscious.
“Idiots,” said the red-marked remnus, kicking Luminescence in the gut. “Did they think I would not remember how the interfaces work? They didn’t even shield the cables. Absolute morons…”
She walked past the fallen ponies. The smaller remnus moved in her wake, pausing to break both chains with a blow from her pointed metal hoof. The two captives were freed, and the remnus extended her hoof to Golden Star. He paused, afraid, but then took it. She helped him stand.
“Did they injure you?”
“No,” he said. He looked into her large eyes, and her tiny blue pupils stared back at him without blinking.
“I…I know you,” he said.
The remnus smiled, and for some reason Golden Star shivered. “My name is Moonrise,” she said. “But in life, you knew me as Inky Nebula.”
Golden Star’s eyes widened, and Heliotrope gasped.
“No…Nebula…”
“Heliotrope. It is good to see you again. It is good to see you both. I am very happy.”
“But you were so young!”
“I was,” said Moonrise, “but I do not think my sacrifice was without purpose. I do not think either of our sacrifices were.”
Moonrise looked to the other remnus, and the pair’s eyes followed her gaze. As they did, they saw the expression on the red-lined remnus’s face, and they suddenly understood who she was.
“Captain?” they both said in disbelief.
“Who else would I be?” She pointed to herself. “This color scheme is terrible, but I look good even as a machine, don’t I?”
“I certainly think so,” said Moonrise, walking to her side.
“And I have a new name. Horizon Edge. I like it.” She paused. “It’s good to have a name again, and it’s good to be able to walk. I had forgotten what both felt like. And it’s good to see you two again.”
Edge closed her eyes, and the rear armor of her neck retracted like liquid, revealing the spinal interface beneath. A set of luminescent violet cables drifted upward. As they did, a different set of blue cables descended from above. The others realized that she was standing where Light Gloom had stood before, in the location that had once been hers.
“Being like this doesn’t change my opinions,” she said. “I don’t think it ever did. Most of that stuff remni tell you? It’s all lies. I don’t know if the arrogant fools thought changing my body would somehow make me loyal, because it didn’t. I’m taking my ship back.”
“Captain?”
“Well?” said the captain, her narrow pupils looking at them all and somehow conveying annoyance. “Why are you not at your stations? Or are you forfeiting your commissions?”
“My sensory uplink is loaded,” said Moonrise. Technomagic panels and readouts formed around her body, displaying mathematics that shifted so fast that it was mindboggling to the living ponies.
“See? She’s dead, and she’s showing more life than both of you! Get to work or get off my bridge!”
As she said it, the bridge began to reform. What had become angular became curved, and what had been black or metal dissolved into clean white morphiplasm. Elsewhere, the ship once again began reconfiguring itself. This time, it shifted toward the N689. Horizon Edge had an understanding of its structure, and its nature. She was a machine, and one with the machine that she had been born to pilot. Together, the other ship was no match. She consumed it.
The two pony officers smiled and stood at attention. “As are your orders, captain Edge,” they said before separating and taking their places on the newly reformed bridge.
“Your orders, captain?” said Moonrise, looking upward at Horizon Edge. Horizon Edge returned her stare, and although they both had identical artificial eyes a sentiment passed between them, and they both understood- -and both smiled.
“You stay right at my side, Moonrise,” said the captain, “and don’t even think about leaving it. I’m not changing their coordinates. I’ll use what power the ship has left and bring it to Twilight Sparkle. If she hasn’t gone to that traitor’s side, then I promise you all that I am going to give her the very best day ever- -and repay what Light Gloom did to me tenfold, at least.”
The others remained silent, because no words were required. They each knew how genuine her oath was, and mentally, each one shared it in kind.