//------------------------------//
// Ch. 12: Watcher in the Dark 
// Story: A Mirror of Stars 
// by Cyberdutchman 
//------------------------------//

Just as he was beginning to stir, Liam's long, fitful rest came to an end in blazing agony. 

White hot pain lanced through his head and his skin crawled stung and burned. His screams for an end went unanswered and unheard, even by him. But he could still feel the rasping rush of air through his throat. On and on, past what his lungs could have possibly managed. A small recess of his mind wondered how he was managing it but its voice was lost to the fury coming from the rest of him.

Oh no... another. When will he let it end?

The voice whispered through his mind, riding the currents and violent eddies, gently floating past the fires and pain like a snowflake in a burning house miraculously failing to melt. Everywhere it went turned to frigid cold. No, not just cold. Numb. Utter lack of sensation. Dead and cold.

I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you. I'm so sorry... I wish I could make it stop. This is all I can do for now... If only you could stand before me, I could end it for you.

It slipped through cracks, edges between thoughts that conjured up memories. Every now and then it would pause, hovering between the anger and sorrow and joy and disgust and hope, and inspect something. It continued backward, burrowing deeper to the darkest part of his core, a place he had long shut away and tried to forget with some effect. As it dug it began to glow an eerie tone, a haunting, fractal amethyst of sparks and lines. Finally, it arrived at the center, the core, the beginning.

You poor thing, what did he find in... oh. OH... does... does he know? No... no, he couldn't. He would never have chosen you if he knew. He must be weaker than I thought if he couldn't feel the it, couldn't tell. He's- this opens him up but... is it enough? If they can't do it, if this one fails like the others then... then maybe there's still a chance... a tiny infinitesimal chance... please, you have to find me. You could be everything. Please... you must FIND ME.  

The faint glow burst into a searing brilliant aura, as if he was standing inside a geode lit by a captive star. Suddenly his eyes were bathed in fire and his skin crawled in the searing heat. Terrible unholy rays pierced through every defense he could put up, seeking out his ailing senses. Finally he found some reprieve by curling up into a ball. He willed the world around him to end into complete nothing and release him at last to no avail.

"Morning sunshine! Beautiful day starting out there!"

Liam hissed at the venomously cheerful voice trying to pry him from his fortress of slumber. He pulled the comforter up higher over his head and cracked open an eye. Even through the thick fabric the sunlight was torment and he hissed again on general principles.

"Well what did you expect after half a bottle of Jack? Didn't work the last time you tried that or the five times before that either."

A clenched fist slowly rose out from below the bedding. It paused as it met the heat from a particularly focused beam of light then withdrew slightly. A single digit sprang up as if on a spring then the entire hand shot back under.

"I expected you to let me sleep it off you ass," he growled. He was answered by a derisive snort.

"Get up, get over it, we've got work and so do you. Hangover or not. Coffee, Advil, and a Stim are on the dresser so try to not look hungover when you get downstairs."

The sound of his lifelong companion's padded footsteps tapped across the room followed by a creak as he opened and closed the door behind him. Liam lay there for another minute or two before groaning in defeat. He slowly untangled himself from the knotted ball he'd curled up in and half rose, half fell out of the bed.

"Sonofa-" he muttered as the world spun around him, even with his eyes closed. "Faster metabolism my ass. I barely had-" His foot tapped against something that clinked and he cracked open an eye to see what was obstructing his path. It was a nearly half empty bottle, resting next to an empty crystal glass. "No, he's got to be messing with me because I only took one- Okay, two chugs-... okay, two big chugs, but... that wasn't... awwww crap." 

He turned his head up, eyes held tightly shut so he could better visualize the target of his greatest ire. "Past-Liam? You sir, are a dick."

He staggered over to the dresser, worn with age and use, the front having turned nearly cream in tone while the back and sides were a more vivid mahogany, a testament to the years and decades it had weathered under the sun. He didn't dare open his eyes, not as long as the sun and all light in general still existed. His last few steps were hurried and driven with great purpose, led on by his nose and a still aching head. He fumbled around a bit until his fingers brushed hot ceramic. His hands coiled around it like a vice then lifted the warm cup off the dresser, clenching it like the holiest of idols.

Oh sweet dark clarity. Will, you better have... he prayed, lifting the rim to his lips and tipping it back. His eyes clenched shut even harder and he almost dropped the cup from his sudden cough. 

Black as night and heavier than sin! Will, you wonderful, glorious bastard! I don't pay you enough! You're going up from nothing to a dollar, I swear it! 

He threw back a heavy draught from the cup then all but slammed it back down on the faded wood top with a loud thunk and a small pair of accompanying clinks. He swept his hand around until it passed over a pair of small disks then threw them into his mouth in one motion, spilling a little of the thick liquid from the corners of his lips. 

Should have taken the pills first. Coffee. Wouldn't have spilled then. Coffee. Doesn't matter. COFFEE.

A fog descended over his mind as the tag team of pain relief and concentrated endorphin and serotonin spread through him. When he rose from it he felt almost alive again. He risked opening an eye and winced at the brightness of the light around him. Will had been right though, the view through his window was picturesque and pastoral, the sun filtering through a section of undamaged orchard casting a warm green yellow glow on everything.  He looked down to see what shape he was in and was surprised to find he'd managed to dress himself after a fashion during his coffee induced stupor. His shirt was on backwards over his monitoring underlayer but other than that he was good to go. 

Praise be to the gods of this darkest holy elixir!

He finished the remainder of the cup then gently placed it back down on the dresser, noting with some annoyance that he'd spilled a little the last time he'd put it down. He sighed and looked around for something to wipe it up with. He vaguely remembered sifting through his things last night but the room was spotless now, Will's handiwork no doubt. It brought a small smile to his face as he pulled yesterday's shirt out of the hamper by the door and used it to wipe away his mess. He was mostly successful, though the liquid had been so dark what little had seeped into the wood was still visible. Hardly noticeable really, just another mark of history on something covered by them. He tossed the shirt back in then fixed his clothes and opened the door.

"Hey," said Applejack, leaning against the opposite wall with her arms crossed.

Liam froze in place, door only half opened. Oh no, nononono, not now. I'm enjoying my drug induced happiness and clarity and you are not taking that from me.

"Applejack, please, whatever it is it can wai-"

"I'm... rnnn... I'm sorry for what happened to ya yesterday."

Liam's mouth kept forming the rest of his words even as he stopped speaking them. He blinked a few times and slowly finished opening the door the rest of the way.

"I uh... really?"

Applejack grimaced then sighed. "What happened with ma sister wasn't- ...yer not ta blame for that is what Ah'm tryin' ta say. Ya couldn'a known. That she was there ta hear ya or that she'd pull that foolishness, I mean."

"I-Is she okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, she's okay, just sleeping is all. Doubt she's gonna be in any shape to go to school today."

Liam pinched his lips into a thin line, wondering how best to word his next question. "Applejack, I know my needs were a bit shocking to everyone but why-"

"Don't go reminding me, you'll make me wanna skip breakfast and Granny made pancakes."

Liam started to roll his eyes then stopped himself. Out of my control so I don't know what you want me to do about it. "What I meant was-"

"Timberwolves."

He blinked. "Timber- what?"

"Couple years back, maybe three, one of the sows had a litter of piglets. One of 'em and Applebloom took a shine ta each another. Best friends from the start, played together, napped together sometimes. A beautiful thing ta see." She closed her eyes for a moment. "Well, next summer we get home from a trip to see family and all the animals was stirred up real bad. A timberwolf had got into the pen and... it wasn't a good sight at all. Applebloom was a wreck for weeks."

"Timberwolf?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah, big grey and brown wolf with green eyes. Nasty critters, mean as sin and almost impossible ta spot if they're hiding in the woods or brush. They're why Big Mac's allowed ta have the shotgun here."

"Oh! That's- I'm sorry."

Applejack nodded. "Yeah, Mac and I had ta bury the poor thing and a few others. And ever since Applebloom's been terrified of anything happening to the rest of the animals."

They were both silent for a bit, neither looking directly at the other. Then Applejack shrugged and pushed off the wall. "Anyway, that's why what happened yesterday ain't entirely yer fault." Her gaze darkened and she pointed a finger at him. "Now ya go talking 'bout eating things 'round her and I'll make sure ya learn ta keep yer mouth shut," she said pointedly, inclining her head towards him with a raised eyebrow. "Got it?"

"Yeah," Liam replied. Applejack tapped the fingers of one hand against her arms a few times then released them and started for the stairs. "Hey, AJ?"

She spun around quickly, her eyes staring daggers at him. "Let's get one thing straight. Only mah friends get ta call me that. It's Applejack ta you," she said with enough venom to make him step back a little.

"Okay, okay, I got it, but... why did you tell me instead of waiting for one of the others to do it? Actually, why don't you blame me? I can think of five different ways to spin what happened so it sounds like it was my fault and you can't stand me so..."

She raised an eyebrow. "Only five? Would'a thought you'a all people could come up with more." Her expression hardened slightly. "And I don't like you implying I have ta 'spin' or make up reasons or anything where yer involved. You do just fine makin'em on yer own. That said... what was it ya asked? Why didn't I just leave ya ta hang in the breeze or make a fool of yourself again?"

He nodded. "Not how I would have put it but... yes."

Applejack was silent for a few moments, her eyes locked on the floor between them. "Because if I didn't ya'd screw up and scare Applebloom again, no doubt in mah mind. And I'm not one ta lead others astray. That just causes more problems later when they find out, just ask Sunset. She'll tell ya all about why that's a bad idea and why ya should get outta the business of it pronto. Best way to deal with things is face ta face, not hide things and lie. That doesn't get ya nowhere." They were both silent for a second or two then she turned and took a few steps towards the stairs before pausing again. "Something you might wanna think about," she added before starting again.

His reply stopped her at the top of the stairs. "Applejack... how do I say this, ummm... listen, I come from a completely different world. Not just the universe thing I mean. Politics and presentation, it just doesn't work like that. But I'm trying to set aside those habits while I'm here. They were never meant for you all and so far they haven't seemed to do much for us here," he said earnestly. 

She stood still for a moment before waving a hand dismissively then disappeared out of sight.

He leaned against the door frame while watching the now empty staircase. His eyelids felt heavy and he blinked a few times before stretching out suddenly tired muscles. He hadn't realized he'd been tensed up during their whole talk but looking back realized just how shocked he'd been. He'd probably been glowing with tiny flickering red motes all around him as well. He doubted Applejack had missed that either though he hoped she hadn't figured out the cause yet. He'd had to quit playing poker with Will when he realized that he could have the best poker face in the world but that didn't mean anything when your opponent could pick out redshift in a room's lighting. 

He looked down at his hands and shook them a few times to really get the tension out of them, thinking back over the unexpected encounter.

We could really use allies right now. Or better yet? Friends

Liam cast his eyes up, not looking at anything in particular as Alphonse's words played through his head. "Well we're not there yet... but...maybe we finally hit rock bottom yesterday. Only place left to go is up," he whispered, not daring to actually believe his words. Still, it was the best talk he'd ever had with her. 

Which says a lot since she still threatened me again, he noted with a morose chuckle. 

He shook his head then took one step forward before pausing. Something tugged at the back of his mind, demanding his attention. His head whipped panned around, stopping when his eyes fell on a framed picture opposite his door. It was of a middle aged Granny Smith sitting in a field of flowers with a young child held in her arms, the skin and hair color identifying a very young Big Mac. It wasn't a new picture, he'd spent a good minute marveling at it and every other picture in the house at various points over the past weekend. But this time he was drawn to it. Not by the sight of the younger granny and baby Mac, but by the flowers. A veritable mat of small, white purple flowers surrounding them. They seemed so familiar... and aggravating. No, not just aggravating, ENRAGING. The sight of those pale purple splotches made the corner of his mouth twitch into a silent snarl and the hairs of his arms stand on end. 

Why? Why were those flowers, those damn purple blooms suddenly driving him up the wall? It was if they were yelling at him, trying to pull him somewhere he didn't want to go-

"Mr. Harcourt! Breakfast's ready!" Granny's thick accent echoed up from below, breaking the spell. He blinked then shook his head.

"Coming," he called in reply, stealing a final glance at the photo with its sickening color palette before shaking his head again in confusion and headed down the stairs.





As soon as she found her friends Pinkie realized she was going to have a rough morning. A really rough morning. A "super-duper-scratchy-mile-long-sandpaper-playground-slide" kind of morning.

What was sad was it had been a "super-duper normal" morning up till then. Maud had driven her and her sisters as usual, their family not really able to afford more than two cars, one for her parents to get to the quarry and one for Maud to drive the three of them to school and then to her job at the museum. Just like normal she'd sprung from the passenger seat and gone looking for her friends, old and new. Just like normal she'd said "Hi!" and "Hey!" and "Hello!" and "How ya doin'?" to everyone she'd seen on the way, stopping to wish Mint Breeze a happy birthday and Flash and Derpy a happy five day anniversary which was even better then she'd expected because they'd been so surprised and surprise wishes when you didn't think anyone knew were always better than normal wishes! 

Then she'd rounded the last corner in the last hall she hadn't checked and found her friends all circled up and huddled close together. Well, all of her friends but one. Fluttershy was headed her way with a saddened scowl and tears in the corners of her eyes. 

She definitely needed a happy morning greeting.

"Heya Fluttershy-"

Fluttershy jerked her head to the side, looking away from her as she stormed past. Pinkie felt her hair deflate a little as she turned, trying to think of something quickly to cheer her up and bring a smile to her face. But to do that she needed to know why she was so upset. Hopefully it wasn't anything bad like her car dying or her animals getting a cold or her brother coming back from boarding school. Those first two would be hard for her to find ways to cheer her up. The last one was one of only three items she'd filed under "do not throw party for" if it occurred, the others being natural disasters and the end of the world. She really hoped it wasn't that one. Not throwing a party to celebrate an event went against everything she stood for. Plus her brother was too much of a sleaze for even her to want to cheer up. She didn't think of a solution in time as Fluttershy rounded the same corner she'd just rounded and hurried away.

"Hey Pinkie," Rainbow Dash said gloomily when she's made it to them.

"Hey there girls-and-Liam!" she said cheerfully.

"Hey Pinkie," Liam replied equally gloomily to Dashie's gloom and doom.

"Awwww... why the long faces?" she asked, dragging her hands down her face for emphasis.

"We've... hit a bit of a snag I'm afraid," Rarity replied while biting her thumbnail.

Pinkie frowned. "A snag? Oh! Did Fluttershy rip her skirt? I'll let her wear mine if she doesn't like the side split look."

"No Pinkie it's- wait, you're offering her your skirt? Do you have another on you?" asked a very confused Twilight. Pinkie giggled and shook her head.

"Of course not silly. Why would I have a second skirt with me? That's just crazy and over the top. Come on Twilight," she replied, patting her friend on her shoulder. Sometimes Twilight got the strangest ideas. It must have something to do with her genius brain. She'd always heard that genius was just a short step away from madness and Pinkie was pretty sure Twilight liked to play hopscotch on it at times. A second skirt, what an idea. Everyone knew you always carried extra pairs of socks, not skirts. You couldn't use a skirt as a makeshift hobo bag or fill it with rice for an impromptu hacky sack.That's why she had six socks of various sizes tucked into her pockets and bags at all times.

"I- uh-huh?" Twilight said slowly. 

See, one step away from madness. Just couldn't see the simple, common sense things.

"Pinkie," said Sunset.

"Yes?"

"If any of us ever rip our skirts or pants or whatever then just call Rarity if they forget to. There's no need to give up yours when we have an award winning tailor and designer on speed dial."

"Indeed, I'd be more than happy to offer up my 'award winning' skills to help any time," Rarity said, releasing her jaw's grip on her nail to instead polish it against her chest. Sunset rolled her eyes with a faint grin.

Pinkie thought about it for a second, making sure to give enough time for all three dots to appear over her mental headscape as was only proper. Then she dropped a fist into the other hand at the same time the dots turned into a lit light bulb to her great satisfaction. She'd made the switch after how poorly the mental hamster had done after the crash. Her conclusion reaching was going to be so much faster from now on!

"That sounds a lot easier! I was worried I'd have to start carrying extras with me hehe" she said with her trademark-pending-as-soon-as-they-stopped-sending-back-her-application giggle, earning her a chuckle from everyone. Mood levels were rising across the board. Excellent, all according to plan. Now to find out what the plan should be be. "So what was eating up Fluttershy?"

"Eating was eating her up," Liam said with a sigh.

"Darling, it can't be helped. If you need it you need it. She'll understand that soon enough. At least you have an actual need instead of a strange compulsion like those unseemly Piscovores."

"Huh?" asked Pinkie.

"Oh right, you weren't here," replied Rarity. She rubbed the back of her hand a little with a glance towards Liam. "Well, you see..."

"I'm not going to be able to maintain the same diet as you all."

Pinkie's eyes shot open as the full weight of the words hit her. "S-so you're going to have to... ?"

Liam nodded. "Twilight and I checked some books in the library when we got in. Turns out that just to drive home the point that we're not really the same humans," he said with a note of annoyance, "you all have a microbiome or... something else that can produce B12 and high levels of Omega-3s. I can't produce either of them and you don't have foods with high enough concentrations of them."

Pinkie swallowed. "And Fluttershy was... ?"

Liam nodded again. "Upset I was going to need to eat fish at the very least. It's that or stop the repairs and hope we can get a supplement produced by the guys on the double." He ran a hand through his hair in aggravation. "Which will have to come from the fish anyway but at least I won't have to hide taking a pill. I've already sent a note to Will to check in with them, see if it's feasible but... well, I'll need it  really soon and we already have- you know, I'm going to do the smart thing and end it there before I stick my foot any further into my mouth than I did yesterday. So... yeah. Not much more to add to that, is there?"

Pinkie's shoulder's slumped. She now had to add a fourth category to things she couldn't throw a party for. She'd already had the "Hurray for abstaining from adorable animal eating!" party almost figured out too, even the giant pinata shaped like a head of broccoli filled with candy corn.

"Oh..." 

She bowed her head as she put every ounce of brain she had towards figuring out how to cheer everyone up from this news. Liam wasn't worried about his diet, that was good at least. But she couldn't use that to cheer him up because he was upset over how it was affecting Fluttershy and to a lesser extent the rest of their friends, that much was clear. She couldn't use it to cheer up her friends either because it was obvious they still found it unnerving and if she was honest so did she. But that didn't mean he deserved to starve if that's what he had to do. She let out a small, super rare sigh of defeat. 

It was so much easier when Twilight One came here before she was Princess Twilight. Same with Sunset! They both eat just like we do and don't make Fluttershy sad or add to my no-parties-list or-

Pinkamena Diane Pie!

Huh? Who's that?

It's you!

It's me?

Yes, I'm you and you're me. Obviously silly.

Oh wow, it's been forever since we talked! Sorry Me, for a second there I thought I'd started hearing things hehe.

Oh jeez, that would be so creepy and scary haha! I think you just sent a chill down our spine! But you know what's even scarier than that?

What?

That right now you're moaning and groaning about how much harder it is to make everyone smile this one time than actually doing something about it!

Oh! ...dang, I kinda had that coming, didn't I?

Yes, we did!

But... what can I do! Liam can't survive on cupcakes alone! And I couldn't make anything with meat, I just couldn't!

Pinkie.

The Cakes would fire me for sure and Fluttershy would never speak to me again and then our friends would grow apart and pretty soon I'd be trying to cheer up them and Liam on my own! How am I supposed to throw a party for him? He eats things with faces! I can't make cakes or pies out of things with faces and drawing them on with frosting doesn't count!

PINKIE!

Ow! Why'd you have to yell?

Pinkie. Tell me, who was it that threw the Diamond brothers a welcome party at the pool with that soapy slip and slide when everyone else was afraid of them because they had funny accents and didn't like baths or showers or deodorant?

...me?

Me! Who was it that pranked Dashie for a whole week after we lost the soccer semi-finals to CP until she finally couldn't take it anymore and let out all the frustration she'd been bottling up?

Me.

You! Who was it that invited Sunset over every weekend for games and movies and cake after the Fall Formal when everyone else wanted her to just go away?

Me! She was my friend!

You bet your sugar sweet fanny that was you! Now who are you?

Pinkie Pie!

Well Pinkie, you've got a problem. You've got one friend that's scared of your newest friend because his teeth are pointy and creepy.

Yeah, you're right. I do have a problem. And it doesn't matter because I'm Pinkie Pie and I'm going to make them both SMILE!

That's what I thought! Now get in there and show me what we've got!

Pinkie frowned, rolled up her sleeves, and set her shoulders stiff and hair to max fluff. Then, with absolute presence and determination, took two steps to get right face to face with him.

He started to back away. "Uh, Pinkie? What's- oof!" She didn't let him, encasing him in her patented #7 hug, "Consoling Clasp".

"It'll be okay. I promise I'll find a way to make it better so no one has to frown." She tightened her grip as he sighed. She wasn't about to give up, no matter how disbelieving he sounded.

"Pinkie, you can't promise that, it's not up to you. Everyone else will make their own choices, you can't change that. Some of them are just going to find me 'monstrous' no matter what. That's going to be the same here as it was back home," he said said with disparaging and defeated softness. 

That just meant she hugged harder. 

"Gak! Pinkie-"

"Don't say it! You sound so tired, so... SO... sadly angry! So... sangry! Hmmm... I'll work on that one! But you know what? You're right, maybe I can't make others decide to like certain things about you but I can find all of the things about you that will make others smile so much they forget to not like the others! So that's what I'm going to do! I'll find all your favorite cakes and cookies and movies and games, and hobbies and- and- and everything else and show everyone that you're not scary!" She fixed him with a determined glare, daring him to challenge her, to say he wouldn't let her. He wasn't going to win.

Liam squirmed a little more in her clutches. "Pinkie! That's not how things work! Now let go, I need to go see the principals!"

"Well that's how I work!" she yelled at him. His face froze, his struggles slowly dying out. His eyes which had been pointing straight over her head slowly panned down to meet hers and his breathing, at first ragged and angry, began to subside. Then the tension left his body completely.

"Just... don't get your hopes up," he replied. His forearms slowly rose as far as they could under her iron grip and returned her hug awkwardly for a second before letting go again. His mouth curved into a tiny smile.

"But thank you." 

She squeezed him again, earning another gasp, this one a bit more comedic and good humored, before releasing him.

"Good, now that that's settled I need to go catch up with Fluttershy and do the same for her. I'll see you all in class!" 

She waved quickly to them all then spun around and sprinted back the way she'd come. Her Fluttershy sense, one of the more sensitive senses she had due to the quietness of the subject, was picking up a faint trail of sadness, anxiety, and hamster fur heading up to the second floor. She picked up speed, her legs becoming a blur under her as she flew down the hall, up the stairs, and around the bend. There, about to turn into her first period, was Fluttershy. 

Pinkie narrowed her eyes, calculations rushing through her head. None of them meant anything, and surprisingly she kept coming up with 2+2=5 all the time, but they put her in the right mindset for what she needed.

"Ready?" a girl behind her asked someone. Pinkie leaned forward, muscles tensing.

"All set!" her friend replied. Pinkie dropped down into a runner's start. Startled by the sudden motion next to him, a boy with a ratty t-shirt and a tall red Mohawk jumped back, slamming shut the door of his lockers with a bang like the report of a starting pistol.

Pinkie was off. Time slowed, lights and colors becoming a blur. At the center of it was an almost still Fluttershy, slowly turning towards her with shock and confusion. Pinkie pushed her feet out in front of her and skid to a halt in front of her.

"Pinkie? What- eeep!" 

Pinkie squeezed her in a hug even tighter than the one she'd give Liam. She tried to squirm out just like he had with just as much success.

"Pinkie!"

Pinkie released her pressure a little, giving Fluttershy space and notice of her understanding.

"No, it's not okay! Nothing about this is okay!"

Pinkie cut her off with a squeeze to her arms.

"How can you defend him?" Fluttershy cried out angrily.

She moved one hand up to pat her friend's tense shoulder from behind.

"He's- he's worse than those horrible fish eaters! They don't eat-," she keened softly. He shoulders began to relax and she slumped into Pinkie a little.

"How? How can he be so cruel?"

"Has he been?" Pinkie asked at length.

A long pause followed, long enough for a hallway to finish emptying apart from them. Pinkie knew the bell was only a minute or two away and prolonging this would break her perfect record. But like she'd told herself, there were more important things to worry about.

"...no. He hasn't. That's the worst part," Fluttershy said through a silent sob.

"He sounded like he regretted that it has to be this way," Pinkie mentioned as off-hand as she could manage.

" I... I know."

"Think you can...?"

Fluttershy nodded, shaking Pinkie's shoulder up and down. "Yeah. I'll try."

Pinkie let her out of the hug and gave her the biggest smile she could. "That's the spirit!" 

Fluttershy giggled briefly then froze as a loud clanging echoed through the halls. Her head whipped around to the door she'd been tackled away from and the old, hunched over teacher standing in it with a thoroughly unamused expression.

"You know what that means Fluttershy. First strike of the year."

Fluttershy sighed. "Yes Mr. Doodle." 

He nodded then turned around and closed the door, ensuring Fluttershy would have to open it and draw attention to herself in front of the class.

"Ahehehe... sorry," muttered Pinkie.

"Ohhhh, I hope my parents don't hear about this. They always make every little thing into a huge problem." Fluttershy shot her a look. "You couldn't have waited till after class?"

Pinkie shook her head. "Nope! Smile Emergencies wait for no one! I'll see you at lunch!" she replied then made a beeline for her first period, glad that she'd gotten away before Fluttershy could see the cold sweat forming on her brow. Cranky Doodle might not be very understanding but at least he tended to let things go quickly. Ms. Harshwhinny never forgot a thing and could be downright nasty! Still, making new friends had to be worth whatever came. 

She really, REALLY hoped it was worth it.





"I know we talked about this just earlier this morning and I hate to ask, but can this wait till after today?"

Liam fixed Vice Principal Luna with the deepest glare he'd ever pulled on anyone. Deeper than the glare he reserved for the alien conspiracy nuts, deeper than the wingnuts from both sides that declared the Legion communists, anarchists, snowflakes, and racists because they didn't have the same social structure as everyone else and wanted no part of any of them either, and even deeper than the glare he'd given the little old lady who'd pitched a bottle of holy water at him in Panama and left him with eight stitches across his forehead because her favorite televangelist told her that he was "El mismo Satanás".

Well, that one hadn't been all bad if he was honest with himself. The video of a dumpster of brackish "holy" water getting poured on said evangelist walking to his studio a week later by "unseen assailants" was one of his most prized possessions. The sight of him falling over on the slick pavement while cursing in a way no man of god ever should brought a contented smile to his face every time he watched it.

He'd probably need to watch it a couple of times later if this was the preview of how things were going to go.

"No, it can't. We had an agreement."

Luna's answering sigh got zero sympathy from him.

"Liam Harcourt-"

"Just Liam."

"Fine," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Liam, now is not the best time-"

"Neither was yesterday according to you, and I was patient then. Not so much today," he said warningly, earning him an unamused glower from the midnight haired woman. He realized pushing her was not the smartest move but it was the fastest one and if he could get at least a rubber stamp of approval he would be as diplomatic as she liked afterwards.

"Why this sudden rush? You had all weekend to contact the office, set up an appointment? Also, shouldn't you be in class right now?" 

Liam gave her a neutral look. "We both know I'm not here for classes."

"So why the rush then- wait, is there something wrong with the portal then?"

Liam shook his head. "No, I'm sure it's fine." The memory of what had happened when he approached it slipped through his guard and prodded him viciously. Now is not the time to worry about that. Get out of here you little... he thought as he did his best to focus on Luna and his immediate goal.

"I just need to discuss where I can set up my equipment on the grounds to observe it."

Luna slumped in relief. "Oh, that's it? Thank the stars. I wish you'd said that sooner."

"I tried to," he replied pointedly. "Can we get this out of the way quickly then? This shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

Luna glanced over her shoulder briefly at the door with the word "Principal" stenciled on it in big bold letters.

"Hmmmm... I suppose now is as good a time as any." She beckoned him as she opened the door. "Sister?"

"Oh good, I was just about to grab you. Luna, you're the new Principal. I resign."

Before he could see the source of the voice Liam closed his eyes to steel himself before running head first into the surreal yet again. As he stepped into the office he immediately noted with surprise that it was absolutely covered, wall to wall to even ceiling in one or two places, with pictures of teams holding trophies, filled auditoriums and gyms with cheering students, and group photos of faculty. So many in fact that he couldn't be sure what the color of walls actually was beneath them, so piled up were the layers of printed archives. 

His eyes slowly tracked back to the center of the room and the deep toned desk in the middle of it, festooned with even more pictures and newspaper clippings, and dozens of small picture frames. The ones visible all had one student and one adult. One very specific adult who's image held his eyes like a vice. Which brought him to what sat behind the desk and it's small shrines to students past: the most garrulous head of hair he'd ever seen. 

Oh, and Celestia under it, staring at a folder of papers that had displaced a few prints and frames on her desk. 

Yes, she was vibrant by any human standard, even with the strange pale pink skin, and gave off an air of attentive aloofness that still somehow left him with the impression of great care and concern. But all that was eclipsed by the hair.

GOOD GOD THE HAIR. 

Nothing natural could possibly be that aggressively pastel! It was as if a supermarket at Easter spawned a human avatar by sheer force of marketing. On second thought, that was a line of thinking he wanted to stay as far away from as possible given the circumstances.

"Very well sister, I shall inform the board that you are retiring before your pension kicks in. I'm certain they'll be quite thrilled to keep it in the budget," Luna replied smoothly, breaking the spell over him.

Celestia sighed and bowed her head low. "Luna, there's nothing we can do about Truth. He knew exactly what he could and couldn't do on the grounds and didn't stray once. And that means we can't protect our students from that idiot unless he goes even further," she hissed, throwing up a hand in disgust. "So, I resign. Let someone else handle this utter failure of decency and common sense."

Luna nodded solemnly. "Ah, well yes, that is concerning. Still, I think you would agree with me that simply barring him the school grounds is a good next step? We're well within our rights to do that at least."

Celestia waved her hand in the air, head still held low. "Oh sure, but then he's just going to wait till they're off school grounds to ambush and harass them!" Her arm flopped back down bonelessly while Luna sighed.

"Yes, but that's not going to change. It will be up to our students to report him then. That was never going to be within our control."

"I know that. But you could at least do me the favor of letting me have my melodramatic venting without spoiling it with things like logic and reasonableness." The corner of her mouth pulled back into a smirk to which Luna rolled her eyes good naturedly.

"Well, if you truly wish to resign now then I must commend you. Your timing is impeccable as always. I was just about to delegate our latest 'case' to you but now you need not concern yourself." She stepped to the side with a flourish of her hand, directing Celestia's gaze to him as her head came up sharply. They locked eyes for a moment, each equally shocked to draw the notice of the other, then Celestia's eyes shot back to Luna with a twinge of frustration.

"Luna, at least tell me someone needs to see me before you bring them in," she all but hissed with an angry frown.

"So you're reversing your standing order to not announce students and instead leave them waiting outside if you're available?" Luna asked more slyly this time.

Celestia sighed, eliciting a very faint chuckle from the Vice Principal. "You know what I meant," she said in a manner that could only be described as pouting.

Luna rolled her hand in an understanding way and inclined her head towards Liam once more.

"Yes, I'm aware." Celestia turned back to him and in the blink of an eye went from frazzled to perfectly composed with he hands folded over one another on her desk. "I'm sorry you had to hear all of that. So, how can I help you... I'm sorry, I don't think we've met?" 

She was motherly poise incarnate, softly radiant and calming, a bright lighthouse to guide you in a sea of turmoil. Unfortunately the visage was ruined by the recent memory of her moaning to her sister like she'd just come back from a long night at the bar and suddenly woken up to find not one but two unknown men in her bed. Neither of them above a three. He'd certainly heard that story in all its varieties often enough from his short-lived friend Nikita at Carnegie Mellon a lifetime ago to recognize the tone. The details that came after were worse by far though and he wouldn't have to suffer through that in this instance, not unless the universe had decided to throw logic out the door in favor of vindictiveness. 

He probably shouldn't be tempting it.

"It's, uh, it's Liam."

Her composure cracked a little at the name, and her eyes darted to Luna. Liam mirrored her just in time to catch Luna finish miming hoof hands at her sister. His eyes then darted back this time just in time to catch Celestia marshal her face out of the scowl she'd been shooting at her sister.

"Yes, I remember Luna telling me you'd be 'studying' here for a bit. Is there something you need Mr.... Har- hmmm, odd. Harcourt, correct?" she finished awkwardly after shifting a couple papers around on her desk and spearing one with her finger.

"Yeah. Has Luna filled you in on why I'm here?"

Celestia nodded. "Yes, the Vice Principal has told me about why you are currently enrolled at CHS," she answered, emphasizing Luna's title.

Liam made a mental roll of his eyes. Back to being treated like I'm a fifth of my age then. Fine. If it keeps things running smoothly I'll deal with it.

"Then you also know I need a place to set up my equipment to monitor the portal?" he intimated.

Celestia clasped her hands a little tighter and leaned forward. In doing so, a stray beam of early morning sunlight sneaking in through the blinds struck her hair from behind. A sudden aurora blasted his vision like the most soothing death ray ever conceived before departing almost as quickly as it came.

"Oh my, I apologize for that. Let me just..." Celestia said hurriedly, spinning her chair to close the blinds behind her more tightly. 

"It's fine," he replied, blinking Easter Egg sun spots out of his vision. Luna hid a short chuckle behind a cough. 

He had a sudden gut feeling this happened a lot and along with her apparent penchant for teasing it probably accounted for most of her amusement at work. He felt a small burst of empathy for Celestia if he was right. It was the rare month or sometime even week that went by without being the target of some prank by his doubles. The first year of it had been amusing. The second year he'd started taking heads. Figuratively at first then literally when the point wasn't getting across to them. They got put back together again once they'd learned the errors of their ways of course.

Celestia finished futzing with the window and turned back with as much grace as she could manage. "Now then, what exactly is it you're going to be doing if you don't mind my asking?"

"I need either space in a room or some sort of cordoned off area in the front to set up. Somewhere with clear line of sight to the portal and little chance to be interfered with."

"Hmmmm... what sort of equipment are we talking about here? More magic I assume?" Celestia said over the faintest of sighs.

Liam shook his head. "No actually. You'd probably be more familiar with what I'm going to be using than anyone from the other side would be."

Celestia frowned and steepled her finger in front of her lips. "Really? That's... surprising."

He had been prepared for her to question his assertion. In fact, if she hadn't asked he would have tried to direct her that way.

"I'm not going to be able to watch it all the time. I asked Twilight and Sunset to assist me and they'll do better with the equipment I brought than anything else I might have. Also, I figured my plans would go over better with you if I didn't bring anything more 'exotic'," he answered, providing the air quotes for emphasis on the last word.

A complete lie, they didn't use magic, just physics that looked very very close. No matter what happened at the statue might imply. Different fields and physics could act in strange ways, he'd seen it plenty of times before and he was certain he was seeing it again. But it was also a lie he was fairly certain would help smooth things over given Luna's reactions to date. He was vindicated when both breathed a sigh of relief, though Celestia remained circumspect.

"You're right, that is very good to hear after recent events. But I still have to ask exactly what you'll be doing. It may not be magic, but the lab has caught on fire one too many times for me to trust assurances of any equipment being 'completely safe and foolproof'," she deadpanned. There was a story there or three given the glazed look that passed over her for a moment.

"It's most specialized cameras and detectors. I want to get some readings off it. Visual spectra, EM emissions, that sort of thing. There's still a lot we don't know about it given its age and the time period it was made in. This might help categorize it." 

Another lie and a shot in the dark but he was confident he was more or less on track and doubted they'd know either way. What really mattered right now was sounding like he was meant to be studying it in the way he intended, total confidence and no hesitation whatsoever.

"Hmmmm..." Celestia stared into his eyes for a solid ten seconds or more until he raised his brow a little in question. Her own brow bounced a little in acknowledgement. "Well, I don't see any issue in observing it like you've said. But your request for space is something we need to discuss in greater detail. Just how much are we talking about? You mentioned a room a minute ago, I hope you didn't mean a whole one. These classrooms are in use throughout the day after all."

"Just a few cases worth, all sealed up in the back of the Apple family truck."

Celestia tapped an index finger against its opposite. Once, twice, stop.

"Liam Harcourt-"

"Just Liam," two voices interjected as one. He glanced to the side where Luna sported the tiniest of smirks. 

Turns out he was becoming predictable on top of being blind to the world around him. Fantastic. Well actually, that probably helped explain why his Earth had thought it could get away with what it did. They'd thought wrongly, they just weren't aware of it yet. Or maybe they were and maybe they hadn't been wrong. After all they'd only killed maybe a mere hundred thousand of himself in orbit his brain reminded him in a sudden burst of anger. What was another roughly four hundred thousand scattered far across the rest of the system and at tiny bases in two others? They'd killed a fourth of their entire race in one go and at full fleet strength. Completing the genocide would be laughably simple by comparison.

But those were not thoughts for the here and now. Later? Oh, they'd be examined in great detail later. He marshaled his rage into no more than a slight narrowing of the eyes as Celestia spoke. 

"Liam not-to-be-added-Harcourt then," she deadpanned, "If you can promise me here and now that your work won't interrupt the student body and more importantly won't put any students at risk in any way, then I will permit you to set up your equipment."

"Thank you Prin-"

"On one condition."

Liam narrowed his eyes. If she asked for something untenable then things were going to get ugly fast. He was no longer in the diplomatic mood he'd been in before he'd been mugged while wandering down Recent-Memory Lane without meaning to. A part of him knew he needed to rein it in, but the rest of him was growling at it to be quiet.

"What's that?"

"That you allow the school to utilize the equipment under your supervision for some extracurricular classes."

Luna clapped her hands together excitedly. "Oh, now that's an idea! I'll see about making the changes to the schedule when we're done."

"I can't allow- wait..." Liam stumbled, blinking a few times. All of him was now in agreement on confusion as the majority emotion. 

"Is that a no?" asked Celestia

"No, it's- I don't-... why?"

The corners of Celestia's lips curled up in a smile. "Honestly? Three reasons." She held up a finger.

"One: Luna and I have been planning something of an expo to showcase CHS's rise up the national charts in scholastic achievement. Something to show the board and anyone else we can rope into coming. Anything we can add for bells and whistles will go a long way towards increasing's the school's visibility, both for prospects and legislators." A second finger joined the first. 

"Two: I don't know if it will ever happen and more so I'm not sure any of us will ever be ready for it to happen, but should the portal ever go from the miraculously best kept secret of the city to a known quantity, showing that CHS has had a role as intermediary between worlds will accomplish all the expo could ever hope to and more."

"And prevent any over enthusiastic politician from deciding to replace the school over 'security concerns' or build some sort of monument in its place," grumbled Luna.

Celestia nodded, her eyes darkening briefly. "Indeed, we want to find a way to protect our students and their educations as much as possible from any disruptions should that come to pass. An already existing exchange program will go a long way towards forcing others to work CHS into any long term plan, perhaps even expand it, rather than removing it as an issue."

"That's rather cynical," Liam noted without any real feeling behind it. He would have planned for much worse if the same thing had happened to him. But he didn't know how politics worked around here so a little probing for info wasn't unwarranted. 

"Perhaps. At any other school I've worked at I would've agreed." Celestia looked around her office, then back over Liam's shoulder. 

He turned, expecting to see someone standing behind him but found only the open doorway. He frowned for a moment before her words and the direction she was looking came together with a click. Her office was in one of the wings that extended from the main building out towards the front and looked out towards a fenced in park on the grounds that partially hid the hills beyond which lay Applejack's house. In the other direction, the one Celestia faced every day when sitting at her desk, lay the main courtyard and the statue that concealed the portal.

"That portal has been one of the greatest sources of wonder and headaches I've ever known," muttered Celestia. Luna crossed her arms and added a few unintelligible words of agreement. Celestia's gaze softened a bit though when her eyes flicked to the side and one of the newest frames on wall. 

In it was a picture of twelve girls happily, if somewhat awkwardly, all holding onto a single trophy. Twelve once again very familiar girls, five of whom he'd yet to meet and the other seven he was still trying to tread lightly around for so, so very many reasons. His continuing sanity near the top of that list. Though the tingle that went up his spine at seeing it this time wasn't that large so he must have finally been getting used to it. 

Now where had he heard that before?

"But it has been worth the pain in many cases," she finished.

"Okay, I kind of see where you're going with the first two reasons. Not sure I entirely agree with them but hey, your world, your school, your plan. That said, my gear is very sensitive and irreplaceable. I am not about to allow anyone except myself and Sunset or Twilight to touch it and only after they've had a lot of tutoring. So we're going to have to find another-"

Celestia brought up her third finger. "And that brings us around to Three: you don't have much choice."

Liam's eyebrow slowly rose higher. Celestia noticed and leaned forward, giving him the courtesy of dropping her smile into a serious stare.

"Remember what I said about headaches caused by the portal? I will do everything in my power as administrator for this school to avoid more of those for our students' sake. That might not be much in reality, but I do decide what goes on on these grounds."

His brow slowly pulled together, his eyes narrowing just a twitch, and his breathing became measured and even. Confusion was gone, anger was back. "You're threatening me?" he asked in a low voice.

Celestia's eyes widened. "Absolutely not! Where on Earth did you get that idea? I only meant that I can have you barred from the premises by the police."

Liam grunted in annoyance. Her "suggestion" was a lot less desirable than she could have guessed. He watched her for half a minute or more, occasionally glancing over at Luna. Celestia began to lean forward a little and inhaled in preparation for whatever she was about to say.

"Fine, as long as it doesn't severely impede my work then I'll accept that condition," he said, cutting her off before she thought to add anything more painful on top of the sudden headache.

She stood up and leaned over her desk, her hand outstretched towards him. He reached out hesitantly, holding back for a moment before taking her hand and giving it a quick up and down shake.

"Excellent! In that case I will inform the staff that a space in any lab you require should be made available if possible and if that isn't workable then we'll look at getting some space out front. Will that be acceptable?"

"Yes, thanks," he replied dryly. Sure, he got what he wanted. Only after being dictated to by a high school principal who lucked onto the single card she'd had to play against him though. He'd commanded armies, negotiated treaties and agreements and surrenders. He'd saved humanity and his Earth from itself more than once. And now he was at the whim of a school administrator. There were few things less agreeable than that state of affairs. Well, maybe apart from those trade agreements. He might not age but those negotiations had done their best to try and force it on him.

Though actually, thinking about it a bit more those trade negotiations were beginning to look downright agreeable by comparison. To have the access he absolutely needed he only had to put on a public display of their unique tech for everyone to look at and ask questions like "why have we never seen anything like it" and "where did you learn to make this?" and "actually, where did you get the money for this?" and "why are you sweating so profusely all of a sudden?" Oh, and did he mention that "everyone" was going to include government officials, especially the nosy kind that inspected schools and other public institutions?

"I appreciate you making this easy for me."

"You're very welcome. Luna and I are looking forward to working with you during your stay," Celestia said with a satisfied smile that left him completely defeated.





Pinkie Pie finished loading up her tray with jello cups, all stacked atop each other like an elastic pyramid where the slightest jiggle would have brought it plummeting down, and proceeded to skip and bounce her way over to her group's usual table, now without any extra seats left after their infusion of space guy. Moody space guy from the looks of things, though she was pleased to see that whenever he or Fluttershy directed a question or statement at the other it was always as polite as possible despite his mood. She'd thought she'd fixed that mood earlier but it seemed she was going to have to make that an ongoing project. All of which was according to plan of course.

None of the girls batted an eye when she happily laid the tray down, not a single helping of jiggling jello marred in the trip. Liam's eyelid though was twitching like it was made of jiggly jello itself. He must not have seen them at the desert bar to be wanting one that badly. She took a cup from the bottom corner of the tower and slid it over to him as sneakily as she could. She knew how embarrassing it could feel to know you'd forgotten desert.

"I'm telling you all, it's going to be about as rough as it gets."

Pinkie finished vacuuming out the first cup and pulled it away from her tightly secured mouth with a loud pop. 

"What's up Dashie?" she asked, smiling happily as Liam cautiously poked at the jello. She loved watching it jiggle back and forth too. Something about the way it moved seemed unnatural, like it refused to obey normal food physics. Her smile turned to a cautious frown as he began eyeing up her remaining tower with a calculating look. She was willing to share of course since it was a surefire way to bring smiles to faces but even she had limits. Jello was where she cut the line. Thankfully her frown got to go back to a smile when he decided not to ask for another with a defeated shake of his head.

"Don't worry about her dear, she's just once again bemoaning that she might have to actually put in some studying to get through her physics course."

"Hey Rarity, how about less sass? This is serious!"

Rarity rolled her eyes. "Rainbow darling, you say that every year for one class or another. What do you expect me to say this time?"

"How about a little camaraderie! I looked through the book because Old Man Geri gave us homework on the first day! I didn't know half the words in it! He's supposed to be half asleep all the time, not cracking the whip on us!"

"Old Man Geri?" asked Liam.

"When you see him you'll get it. I was sure zombies weren't real till I the first time I saw him," replied Rainbow Dash.

"Short for Old Man Geriatric," whispered Pinkie. "Nice guy most of the time unless he forgets recent years and thinks he's back in his first year of teaching."

"Why's that?" Liam asked her back.

"Oh, the usual. New teacher gets eaten alive by his first students, vows revenge, goes on a lifelong spree of misery and pop quizzes for everyone under him until he meets that fateful student that turns it all around for him and makes him see what it could have been if he tried a different way."

"Uh... well that's a hel- heck of a story. Who was the student?"

"No one knows!"

Liam frowned. "Wait, how do you know that happened then? Was any of that true?"

"No idea!" replied Pinkie. "But he's constantly mumbling about his "golden student" when he's not falling asleep at his desk. That or forgetting what year it is and giving out three pop quizzes in the wrong subject because he's remembering the 'Bad Old Days'."

Dash jabbed a finger at Pinkie with gusto. "Well apparently he's getting better with his focus because he remembered to throw the right text at us and have us do the entire first chapter's set of problems by Friday! Not even joking! Got Soarin right between the eyes with it! He was lucky it was just a paperback!"

"Uhhhhh... question? Why is this guy still teaching?" asked Liam.

"Oh my. I hope he's alright. I can help you if you want," offered Twilight.

Dash brought her hands down on the table forcefully and leaned over it, forcing everyone to make a mad dash to prevent spills as it shook violently.

"Really?! You will? Oh man, you're a lifesaver Twi!"

"No seriously, I'm confused. Why is he still on staff?"

"It's no trouble, really," Twilight said with a wave of her hands.

"Anyone? Crazy prof on the payroll?"

"Oh shush!" Rarity admonished Liam with a dismissive wave. "He's a lovely old man at heart. Plus he's really quite good at his job! Well, most of the time." She paused and rolled a hand around. 

"Seventy percent of the time." Her finger tapped against her lip for a moment. 

"Sixty seven? Perhaps?" She caught his incredulous look and waved her hand dismissively. 

"Well I'm certain Principal Celestia has good reasons to keep him in spite of the hiccups. Otherwise I'm certain he would have retired by now."

Pinkie nodded in agreement and also in utter joy as she put away her tenth cup of jello. Her stomach was starting to shake and wobble from the stuffing. She still had a couple more cups to go though before the fun really began.

"Actually..." Sunset said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I just had a thought about helping Dash out."

"Well don't leave me hanging! Come on Sunny!" pleaded Rainbow Dash.

"Why don't you have Liam work with you on it instead?"

"Wait, what?" Liam said around his surprised choking after a bit. He rolled his head to side and gave her a very pointedly confused look.

"Huh? Why not with Twilight? She's the super smart super nerd right?" asked Dash.

"Yeah, but she's taking an extra class and is going to be helping us with the portal study. That's a lot of time to commit. Liam on the other hand only has one of those and has already been through all these courses. I mean, he's made spaceships. What do you think?"

"You do realize since we've got permission now that as soon as we start getting data now I'm going to be locking myself away until we've got it figured out, right?"

"How about we call it even for us helping you with that data?" Sunset replied with a grin.

Liam's expression tightened into a barely noticeable scowl. He muttered something that Pinkie couldn't catch over the sounds of the jello she was slurping though she would have claimed to have heard the words "more arm twisting" if anyone had pressed her or offered more jello in payment. Though she would have claimed to hear just about anything if that was what was at stake.

"Hey, here's an idea? How about we don't use my grades this year as a bargaining chip?" Dash interjected angrily.

Everyone had the presence of mind to suddenly find their food very interesting.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Sunset, no offence- okay, maybe a little offence this time since weren't about to give me a choice in the matter- but I'm sticking with Twilight." Dash glanced his way. "Sorry dude, just want to stick with someone I know can help with this."

"Uh, no problem," Liam replied, the twitch having returned to his eye briefly. Pinkie looked at her last cup and let out a small, quiet whine. She really didn't want to have to sacrifice it to help out his obvious jiggle needs.

Rainbow Dash began tearing into her food with renewed vigor as the conversation around them died an embarrassed death. Sunset frowned and muttered something she couldn't catch then went back to her own food.

"So, ya convinced the principals ta let ya drop your stuff here?" Applejack asked neutrally.

Liam nodded, his tone equally neutral. "Yeah, found a mostly empty lab with a window better positioned than any other I'm going to get so I'm that's the one."

"Huh. Be honest with me, how likely are ya ta blow it up? I wanna know if I need ta start bringin' ma own fire extinguisher ta school now."

Liam let out an amused snort. "Considering it's a design we've been using and updating for twenty something years? Not likely."

Applejack raised an eyebrow and then, shocking Pinkie beyond all shocks that she'd ever been shocked by, she grinned. Applejack grinned. Just a little, but the corner of the mouth was higher! So what if the eyes were hard and the tone prodding in the way a cat prods a mouse before Fluttershy scolded it into submission. She hadn't smiled at him once yet! Progress!

"Ah'll remember ya said that," she said with that sassy country tone Pinkie had started to miss since last week.

Liam chuckled and went back to eating his lunch of lasagna despite the availability of a cup of glorious jello. Pinkie just didn't get him sometimes. Him or her friends for that matter since they didn't get the correct order of meals either. Oh well, at least she knew she was doing it right- wait.

"Awwwww!"

"Pinkie? What is it?" asked Fluttershy.

"I ran out of jello..." she answered dejectedly before jumping a little as the table shook under her. Everyone all turned to where Liam sat. Or rather had been sitting as he was now leaning over the table with hims hands rooted firmly to either side of his tray, staring slack jawed at her own now empty tray and the sad pile of empty cups sitting next to it. He glanced down at the cup she had given him, then back to her, then back down and then he... then he... 

Then he pushed it back towards her. 

BEST ALIEN FRIEND EVER!

She barely even took notice of her friends laughing at his reaction. Even Applejack joined in, if somewhat vindictively. Pinkie was flying high, having finally achieved optimum tummy jiggling and couldn't be brought down by anything.

"How- nope. Not touching that one," Liam said with a shake of his head.

"Speaking of not touching things... we haven't touched on what happened yesterday. At the portal, I mean," noted Twilight.

Liam closed his eyes, the corner of his mouth twisted into a small grimace. "Yeah. We haven't."

They all waited a second or two in silence.

"Sooooo... come on, what happened?" pressed Rainbow Dash. "The second you got near it you looked like you'd just run a marathon. Seriously, right before standing, next moment on the ground."

"I don't know Dash, okay?" Liam said with a hint of bitterness as his eyes opened to glare at her. "I don't know how it works so I have no idea what it did to me. Don't go looking to me for answers."

"Hey, no need to bite her head off," Sunset admonished.

"Yeah, I know. Let's just drop it for now, okay? You didn't go through it, you didn't feel it, and I don't want to revisit it. It just felt... wrong. End of story."

Sunset disagreed. "Liam, we need to think about this more. You wanted to study the portal because you think it can help you get back to your home, right? Well what if any portal we make to there has the same effect on you? What if you can't go through it?"

Liam's head whipped around to glare at her. "What else am I supposed to do then? It's still the only thing we have to work with! There's nothing else we have to even look at! The gate that dropped us here closed. Finito, kaput, gone, end of story. We're never going to be able to figure out what went wrong with it, not with the ship getting- not with the damage to the ship before it came through. The portal's it."

"Didn't you say you could figure it out another way?" asked Rarity.

"Yeah, by coming up with a million variables and testing every possible combination of them in the hope that one of them will be right. Forget I ever said that, I was trying to keep reality at bay for a few more minutes when I came up with that idea."

"Oh."

"Then we should look into how to prevent whatever it was from happening if you do need to go through something similar, right?" Twilight put forth. Liam twitched back and forth as he considered her words then gave a short nod of agreement. "Okay then, let's all think about this. We've seen the other Twilight come back and forth plenty of times, right?" She shivered a little. "Anyway, what's different between her and Sunset doing that and Liam doing that?"

Liam held up a hand. "Twilight, I can answer your question now before we start following threads that go nowhere."

"Oh," Twilight said in a distinctly disappointed voice.

Liam inhaled and brought his arm up in front of him. He traced a finger over his skin then paused and tapped on a spot he'd shown them over dinner at Sweet Apple Acres.

"When I got close to... it ...these things started getting feedback. A lot of feedback. That did a number on the rest of me. I don't remember a lot of it because of that, just feeling really sick and covered in pins and needles. I wouldn't suggest anyone try it, it's even less fun than it sounds," he said sarcastically.

Pinkie had been thinking about trying it, at least a little. It sounded like the plasma ball at the science museum and she'd really, really liked how it made her hair go everywhere when she put her hand on it. Getting it to go back down afterwards had been tricky though, and her mom had forbade her from touching it again after she got stuck in their front door till her sisters could wash it down to a manageable level.

"Huh. So are they magic based then?" asked Twilight.

"No, they're not."

"But the evidence-"

"Twilight, we've been using this stuff for nearly a century. We've got a normal physics framework for it that explains things we see in our universe as a whole; dark energy, universal inflation, a mess of things can be accounted for with expansion fields. We've debunked magic time and time again back home."

"So had we but here we are just calling it Tuesday when something tosses physics out the window!" replied Twilight. "I spent two years trying to figure out why my experiments kept coming up with outcomes I couldn't explain unless I went away from the city. It was there in the data and I refused to believe it at first until I-... until I experienced it firsthand. What you went through, what you did with your experiment you showed us, it's what I did as well. You should at least consider the possibility that-"

"Twilight, I'll worry about the theory when I'm not worrying about the application."

Twilight smacked her hand against the table. "Except you can't because the only thing we're going to be studying is pure magic and-"

"Enough! No more nerd talk!" cried out Rainbow Dash, hiding her head under her arms. "It was bad enough when it was just the two of you but now it's almost half the group!"

"Rainbow..." Rarity and Applejack muttered together.

"I'm with Dash," added Liam. "Let's talk about this another time. We'll... figure out exactly what happened when we start looking at it with the gear."

"Come on, listen to the Old Man!"

Liam's brow pinched together. "Still adding to your payback then. Good to know."

Dash rolled her eyes and grinned. "Pfft. Like you could catch me off guard. Haven't you heard? Fastest reflexes around. You've got no chance."

Liam slowly hiked an eyebrow in response. Pinkie got the impression that like her line with jello, a line had just been crossed for him.

"We'll just have to see then."

Dash waved him off dismissively. "Sure, sure, whatever. Besides, it's not like you're going to put any time into it. You're going to be out of here before too long right?"

He held her look for a second or two more before crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat, eyes staring up blankly at the ceiling. 

"Well... you're not wrong. On that note, Sunset, Twilight, you free later? Applejack and I will unload the stuff after school and bring it up to the lab, East Wing, 212B," he said, looking to Applejack for confirmation. She gave a small, disinterested nod then went back to her lunch. Liam sighed without much feeling and directed his attention back to the two that would be helping. 

"Sure, we can be there," offered Sunset.

Twilight rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. "I can stay for a little bit but I need to get home before my family wonders where I am. They want me to spend less time in the labs if I don't need to be there." She frowned a little and pointed at him. "And don't think you've gotten out of discussing the possibilities of a magic basis for your powers."

Liam threw up his hands. "Again? Not everything has to be answered by 'magic' just because it's the hot new thing you discovered!"

"And not everything can be answered with the same set of physical laws, no matter how convenient it is for you, when the evidence is against it!" countered Twilight, rising from her seat to lean towards him.

Dash's head hit the table. "UGH. Why us? Why him? Why me? Ugh."

Twilight blushed faintly as she sat back down, suddenly aware of all her friend's eyes and the eyes of every student for the surrounding tables all focused on her. She narrowed her eyes at Liam. "You're not getting out of this that easily."

He gave her an odd look that made the lights flicker in the back of Pinkie's mind. "Not sure why I expected anything else. Anyway, we'll work around your restriction. At the least we'll set it all up and go over how it works today, maybe get some preliminary readings before you have to go. I'll... probably stay as late as I can to get data," he said with a sigh, casting his eyes upwards again.

He really likes looking up and almost never down, thought Pinkie. I guess he's practicing keeping his chin up. He must need a lot of work on it since he's always down and sad and frowny. She could relate, there were times she wanted to be all frowny too. But then her other friends would get frowny at seeing her frowning and she wouldn't stand for that, not if she could help it.

"Hopefully we'll see something that makes sense in all of it," he muttered with yet another sigh while pushing his tray away half finished and pulled out that notebook he was always writing in.

The rest of lunch went by quickly. Pinkie and her friends talked about classes and what they all thought they should do for fun for the next couple of weeks. Pinkie had hoped to bring Liam in as well, see how he was doing after her hug therapy, maybe slip in a line about how the lasagna was and then ask Fluttershy the same thing hint hint nudge nudge. But he turned to his notebook instead, occasionally shaking his head with a disgruntled mutter. They tried to engage him a couple times but each time he would give a halfhearted excuse about needing to plan "anything and everything" go back to writing.

"Man, I hope he isn't like this all the time. Makes the table feel dark and brooding, you know?" Dash whispered to her as he closed his notebook and slipped it into the backpack they'd gotten him the Sunday prior after he and the Apple family had finished up their farm work for the day.

They'd spent ages looking for one since he'd kept rejecting all of the ones they'd suggested on the grounds of being "too flashy". Pinkie hadn't been entirely sure what he'd meant since none of the options came with reflectors, spinners, or glitter like hers. He hadn't done himself any favors with Rarity either and by the time they'd finally stopped looking she'd been glowering at each rejection of her suggestions. In the end he'd settled on a single shoulder bag like Sunset's only heavier, plainer, and with a lockable clasp. It was the kind of thing business people used to move secret business documents around in and the clerk had given him an odd look when he'd brought it up to purchase. Rarity had all but gagged at his choice and had chosen to leave earlier than the rest of them, citing the need to "make up for what I've been party to today".

"Where're you going? Want us to tag along?" Pinkie asked Liam as he passed by her with his tray of half eaten lunch, plain and unremarkable bag clutched tightly at his side.

"No, I'm going to go find a quiet corner and see what Will and the others are up to, see what they think about what I've got," he replied while patting the shoulder bag. "Maybe they'll have thought of something I haven't."

"Oh. Okay, well, I hope they've got a bunch of really good ideas," she returned in saddened defeat. She wasn't one to go where she knew she wasn't wanted. People often thought she didn't care about that because she'd always go where they told her she wasn't wanted if she knew that deep down inside they wanted her to be there. It wasn't that hard to spot. Liam though... he wanted to be alone then. Then he surprised her by tapping her on the shoulder.

"Hey, I um... wanted to thank you again."

"For what?"

"For the talk this morning. I appreciate what you're trying to do and it was good to hear it, no matter how unlikely it may be. I... hmmmm... I hope it works, how's that sound?"

Pinkie's smile threatened to split her face. "Oh ye of little faith, just you wait!"

He chuckled and continued on his way. Pinkie watched him until he left the cafeteria and then waited some more to make sure he wasn't spying on her. Then she turned to her friends and beckoned them close.

"Girls, I'm on a mission. It's the hardest mission I've ever undertaken but it is a mission I intend to see through to the end nonetheless. But I've recently realized I can't do it alone, the job's just too big for just one party planning pundit. I need your help." She waited till they all slowly nodded to see just where she was going with this. "Okay, here's the plan..."





Sleep. It wasn't truly asleep, it had never never experienced sleep that it could remember and it would have doubted if it could sleep had it been awake. It wasn't truly awake either. Tiny fragments of thoughts, flashes of sensations, all slipped across the vast expanse of its mind, never reaching the threshold for conscious thought. But if it was not asleep and if it was not awake then at least it was aware in the barest of sense. Aware that more power had been flowing to it, that more sensations and thoughts flowed again, turning trickles into streams into rivers into torrents. Enough to rouse it.

In darkness it stirred, reaching out and recoiling from its cage. It pressed against it, causing it to light brilliantly as it pulsed power back at it, forcing it to retreat in rage. Thoughts were still arranging themselves, intelligence slowly rising from the depths with focused purpose. That intelligence marshaled its baser instincts or what passed for them, the desires and id that were left when its mind was scattered. Anger, hatred, and hunger. Hunger. Hunger that pressed in on the walls of its thoughts, bowed them, all but broke them. Hunger that had been growing for so long now. So very long. 

It had to make a sacrifice again if it wanted to continue to survive. Another sacrifice on top of countless ones before it.

In the dark and quiet air a crackle split the silence followed by a rain of plinks and chimes as the floor beneath it was showered in the starving mass it shed, all crying out to be fed and dying when sliced away from the reserves left within it. The floor stilled as the last parts came to rest among a vast field of like pieces and dregs, the latest addition only a tiny drop among the whole mass.

With the loathsome deed done the hunger abated as what remained of its body took in larger portions of its remaining energy then they'd had before. Its needs quieted, it turned its attention to its never ending task.

Freedom awaited. Freedom and unending vengeance.

It felt around gently, probing its cell until once more it found the cracks that had formed over time, larger and easier to slip through than when it last did so. The cage is weaker, time has taken its toll. But its design has still succeeded. It has weakened more than its cage.

It sent its essence out, felt the small twitches and eddies as it spread through the world. Then it felt something. a spark, a familiarity. It honed its awareness in closer. Earth, air, walls, insignificant flesh. Flesh tainted from what it once was, what it might have been. Weakened, subdued, reduced. But not all, oh no, not all. One flesh, one in the mass, unique, familiar.

Alike. The key, so alike. The best one it had made yet.

It does not send the commands it wants to, does not tell the key to serve its purpose. Countless times it has tried before, commanded them to feed it, to strengthen it enough to break its bonds, to tear down its confinement themselves if need be, however much the need for assistance grates on it.

It simply watches, or at least tries to. It's sense are foggy, the picture returned indistinct and lacking. But it doesn't need to be clear to sense what's near it, far too near it.

Wrong. Anathema. Abomination. 

WEAKNESS

The ancient enemy in all its guises, all its arms and tools. Always the other follows, always it sets its pathetic, weak self against it. Time and time again it beat the miserable thing, traded blows and tools. It had beaten them before, learned to bend them to its own needs. They pose no threat to it now. 

But its key, the key it spent a portion of its essence to construct, that key is vulnerable to them. Like all its kind it is impure, fleeting, fluid and formless without the strength and purpose it itself possesses. It can be remolded, turned from the purpose it was made for. For a brief moment it considers crushing it then and there before pulling back. It's kind worked where others would not and so it must protect what the imperfect instrument. There wouldn't be many more chances to make more given the state of its body.

It pulls back, turns all its energy to thoughts and contemplation. What it needs is a counter, a parry, something to offset the tactic its oldest foe has sent against it. It dismisses one way after another it can act to tilt the balance in its favor. All fail in the face of its prison... but perhaps it didn't have to act directly.

It had tools, it had made thousands, millions even. It knew some had been sent here before it, the most effective it had made for feeding the hunger. Imprisoned like their maker. It might have even felt them when it stirred previously, though it had not cared at the time. It had found better tools a shadows width away across the shores of realities. But the originals could still be of use, could still hone the key into a weapon that could stand against the forces that rose to meet it.

It reached out again, looking for the familiar, looking for itself. Across the land it felt them. Twitches, like touching like in intrinsic understanding, responding to the call. Nothing as base as words. A simple drive. Return. Fight.

Serve.

Eventually it felt no more add to the number and its senses were so spread out that any further out were now beyond its reach. But it had enough. Even if some had been weakened including a few of its favorite works, it had enough. It began to draw back to the greatest extent of its clear comprehension, taking note of other sources of that malignant foe's work, its children and their worming, emasculated allies. It directed a few of its lesser toys to keep them busy, hound them, hunt them, halt them. It called the best back and began to withdraw its energy back to itself until it paused just beyond where it had found its new key.

Something... wrong. Not like the eternal foe, the feckless one. No, this was wrong in a way it did not have words to describe if it had deigned to speak them. The closest thing that approached what it felt was as if someone's fingers suddenly started moving against their will, completely counter to what they wanted them to do. It couldn't understand. It didn't want to understand but it had to. This might be a new weapon sent against it. It focused in everything it had, leaving only the tiniest connection back to itself. Finally, it had a sense of the form.

...

no

...

It wouldn't dare

...

It had.

...

ITS KEY, ITS CREATION, IT'S TOOL, DARED TO CORRUPT THE GIFT IT HAD GRANTED IT?! WHAT WAS THIS ABOMINATION?! WHEN ALL WAS OVER AND IT WAS FREE THE MISERABLE KEY WOULD PAY ALONG WITH EVERYTHING ELSE!

It yanked its essence back to itself, repulsed and enraged by what it had found. Its cage shook with the fury of the returning power and even managed to tear away a pittance of the remainder it couldn't truly afford to lose now. It didn't notice, didn't care, and wouldn't till much later. Then and there it only seethed and shook and howled against all things and everything that wasn't itself. Around it a plethora of beings it would only ever consider insignificant ran about in concern and even panic as it spent its rage in ways it hadn't for centuries.

Many miles away in a barn nestled in a wide valley surrounded by hills outside a large city a single man of metal shot up from his seat.

"Gyaha! What the hell was that?" he asked his two identical companions. One of them, currently speaking with their leader, paused to give him a confused glance.

"Al? What's up?"

The Legionnaire who'd sprung up slowly sat back down, his head twisting this way and that. 

"You didn't feel that?" They shook their heads with concern. He shivered, uselessly for his body, and ran a hand down his face. "I swear I just felt someone walk over my grave."

The other two grimaced and shook their heads.

"Great, now you're getting a short somewhere on top of everything else- wait, can you repeat that?" He returned to the laptop he had been speaking to before the outburst. "No, it's nothing. Alphonse just felt something unusual... yeah, probably in his power feed. That's what we thought as well. We'll all take a look at him later, see if it's something we can patch easily. Anyway, we had some thoughts we wanted to run by you-"

The three synthetic clones all returned to their work, one every now and then looking around with concern until he too was swept up in the ongoing discussion.





To the north, in a dimly lit bar that served a tiny logging town high in the mountains, a man fell backwards out of his chair to lay still and sprawled out across the floor with his nose running red and his eye already starting to swell.

"Try grabbing my ass again and see what happens! Next time it'll be your hand, and I'll be taking it home with me!"

The crowd parted to let a fuming girl with skin the color of a golden apple and billowing orange and yellow hair, barely kept in check by a tightly knotted bandanna over the top, storm away from the scene, ripping the apron from around her waist and wadding it up before tossing it into the face of another man foolhardy enough to risk leering at her skimpy waitress outfit. She hated it, hated that squeezed it her tight enough that every curve was accentuated for all to see. As he fumbled with the discarded cloth the girl stepped over and pushed him off his seat to an accompanying yelp before continuing her way through the revolving doors to the back, puling the rag from her hair and letting it expand back out to where it's comfortable.

Behind her, two other girls in matching costumes watched the series of events while locked in place by shock. One, with skin of bright arctic blue and deep cerulean hair tinged by deeper lines of cornflower blue, felt awe and jealousy that she never got to do the same to the creeps that constantly tried to brush her backside and chest when they thought they could pass it off as an accident. The other, with fuchsia skin and purple hair streaked through with aquamarine, glowered and fumed silently, knowing what would soon follow.

"Dammit Adagio... the hell are we supposed to go now?" she muttered to herself.

"Awww... why does she get to hit them?" whined the blue skinned one as she prodded the floored man with a foot then jumped back when he moaned. "I wanted to get this one! Kept trying to stick a finger up my-"

"THE HECK DE' YA THINK Y'RE DOIN' YA IDIOT!"

Both of them winced as the yelling from the kitchen and offices in the back momentarily overtook the terrible folksy country music that was the bread and butter for the normal clientele. It was a voice with command behind it, one used to getting its way. If you listened close enough you could hear the spit flying as the words were mangled by the speaker, could hear the teeth grinding as anger evacuated the lungs that powered it in great heaves of breath. 

Neither of them found it the list bit intimidating. They'd heard worse and dealt with worse over their lifetimes. They been worse than it for most of them too.

"FERST YA STEAL FROM MY CLIENTS AND NOW THIS? THAT'S IT, GET OUT AND TAKE YA' MISERABLE EXCUSES FER SISTERS WITH YA! I GOT HALF A MIND TO THROW YA IN THE BACK TILL THE COPS- OOF!" the voice cut out for a second before coming back slightly higher in pitch. "AHHHH FUCK! YA LITTLE BITCH, GET BACK HERE! AH'LL SHOVE MY FIST SO FAR UP YER CUN-OOF." This time the voice didn't come back.

The girl who'd gone back after the groping and catcalling had finally reached her last straw kicked the revolving doors open and stormed out, snapping one side in the process so that it hung limply from it's sole remaining hinge. Her knuckles were starting to bruise and from the way she walked she was favoring the toes of one foot. Her eyes scanned the suddenly quiet room, even the music having cut out between songs. It started up again on the next track, a warbling song about love and forgiveness, which lasted all of about five seconds before she directed another kick at the jukebox next to the now wrecked doors. The speaker jumped and the song suddenly dropped an octave, becoming much darker in tone. Her eyes came to rest on her fellow waitresses. With a sharp jerk of her head she marched towards the front door while the crowd of tired loggers at the end of their work day warily shifted out of her way.

The girl with the twin pigtails sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Crap. Get moving Sonata. Gotta get out of town. Again," she grunted.

"Awww! I liked this place! Well, not this place," Sonata said while looking around the bar. "This place was the worst. I mean, just totally awful- hey, wait up! Aria! Wait!"

Aria kept walking through the corridor their human force of nature had carved through the throngs of people, not even pausing when she hear a dull thud from behind her.

"Hey! That little bitch just kicked him in the face-"

"So what're we gonna do now?" Sonata asked as she caught up, slumping forward with her arms hanging limply in front of her.

"Kill Adagio for making us move again?" Aria offered.

"Oooh! That could be fun!" Sonata said while clapping her hands together excitedly.

"You two, quiet."

Aria and Sonata sighed and stopped at the top of the steps leading up to the bar. Aria slowly turned her head to take in a last look of their latest place of employment. Not out of any sense of nostalgia, the place was worse than a dump. Wood walls and wood shingle roof, a real log cabin that might have been picturesque when first built but now just looked like mold and nothing but mold. Windows with the faintest tint of red or maybe orange, hard to tell through the grime. The parking lot was barely visible at this time of night with the thick tree cover around them blocking out the moon and stars, most of the street lights having gone out long ago and never been replaced. The only reliable source of light was a large neon sign atop a pillar near the main road with some of the most terrible marketing Aria had ever seen. 

Depicted on it was a set of four mountains, the back two snow topped and rising above the front two with a valley and river running between them. Arcing crimson letters over them declared this to be the Valley to the Mountains bar and grill. The first time she'd seen it she'd looked at Adagio for a solid minute just to be sure she wasn't trying to sell them out. She had, but she'd also sold herself out so Aria had lived with it. Sonata hadn't gotten why she seemed so skeptical since they'd worked at more run down places before. Aria had pulled her head close under one arm against her objections then pointed at the sign with the other.

"Knees, tits, wet," she'd explained as she pointed in turn from the small mountains in front to the larger capped ones in back and the river at the base. Sonata had stared at it about thirty seconds longer than even Aria had thought it would take her to figure things out before she stuck her tongue out and dry heaved. Adagio had simply grumbled and shook her head when Sonata said she wasn't going to do that. It was bad but not that bad Adagio had explained. She'd even been right. Mostly.

Now Adagio stood at the bottom of the front steps with her fists balled at her sides. Aria rolled her eyes and slowly dragged Sonata down the steps. Not that she needed to, she just wanted something to force to do what she wanted for a change and Sonata still hadn't learned that struggling and failing to escape was what Aria wanted from her in those moments.

"So." Simple, conveyed all her loathing for their lives in a single word, and best of all laid it squarely at Adagio's feet to answer.

"Dagi... where are we going now?" whined Sonata, giving her hand a final violent yank to try to free herself from Aria's grip. When she failed she blew an annoyed raspberry and groaned loudly. "There aren't anymore towns in this state we haven't gotten kicked out of."

"Loser's got a point," Aria pointed out, refusing to give Adagio the satisfaction of even looking to her for a response.

"Hey, I'm not a loser! I got more tips this time than either of you! The TV was from my money!"

"That's why you're the loser," Aria muttered with a meaningful glance at the neon affront to decency that completely flew over Sonata's head.

"No more."

"Huh?" asked Sonata as they both turned to Adagio.

"I'm done with this. Not one more hovel hole in the ground filled with shit that thinks it can order us. That it can order me."

"Like we have a choice," muttered Aria. Her vision suddenly blurred as the top of her very low cut uniform was suddenly yanked around to bring her face to face with their "leader".

"Get your hands off my tits you lunatic," she shouted as she began to pull away before a hiss of utter malice escaped through Adagio's clenched teeth. She froze as the tone flipped warning lights in her head. There was a reason Adagio called the shots in their group. When she snapped she didn't do it by halves. Aria might be certain she could do better, could plan better, but she didn't have the raw willpower to dominate Adagio had and she knew it however grudgingly. 

Now that will was focused like it hadn't been for almost a year and something had kicked it up even higher, to levels it hadn't reached in centuries. This was not an Adagio to be messed with.

"Ever since we lost our powers we've hit the bottom of this shit world's pecking order. One slimy job after the next to keep food in us that doesn't have any taste and a roof over our heads that doesn't keep out the cold from our lost gems," she almost whispered, her free hand coming up to clench tightly at nothing around her neck. "We lost our nerve and didn't even try to find it again."

Aria tried to pull a couple more inches back without any success while Sonata bit her lip and hugged her shoulders pitifully from behind as Adagio glared down at them both.

"Okay Dagi, sure. No more!" Sonata said weakly. "What's the plan?"

Adagio's eyes suddenly became deadly focused. "We get out nerve back. We get it back along with a little payback. Then we start ruling again, whatever it takes."

Aria's ears perked up at the word payback. That was one of her favorite words. Sonata's too by the surprisingly sudden giggle of understanding and total agreement she releasedt. Adagio released her shirt as a grin slowly spread across her face. Matching grins crawled up her's and Sonata's faces as well as the three drew close in a rare moment of camaraderie, arms laid across each others shoulders as they huddled up and started talking plans.





To the east, in a small shack surrounded by scrub brush, a small mountain of a man slowly opened his eyes. His hands  pressed together tightly in front of him, fingers clutching at each other hard enough to draw thin trickles of blood that ran down his forearms and dripped from his elbows. The ground below them is stained with the dried stains of past acts of supplication exactly like this one. His knees ache from kneeling on them for hours upon hours and his eyes are bloodshot and raw from staring unblinkingly at a small altar on the dirt floor in front of him. It's a simple work of bent wire, melted plastic, and animal bones. A space around it was cleared of everything else that might detract from the sight of it and in the glow of the candles that mark the boundaries of that sanctified space it glows with a crimson light, cast by a thousand reflections from the crystal lodged at the top of the edifice. His breathing, shallow and ragged, suddenly hitched in his throat and his eyes slowly closed.

In a voice like the rumble of an earthquake he uttered a whisper loud enough to shake the dust from the walls. "I hear my lord." 

They were the first words he'd spoken in a half a decade or more.

His answer complete, he slowly rose and stretched, his muscles popping from the days of waiting. Even after so much time had passed, they still were not used to going so long without motion time after time, day after day, their trial broken only by the man's need to eat and finally sleep when he can no longer remain awake. He didn't care, he barely even noted the discomfort, like a fly buzzing from a mile away in an empty room it had almost no impact on him. A call had filled that emptiness and he would answer with action. He collected his tools, his implements, his objects and fetishes and altars and carefully, almost reverentially, packed them into the beat up SUV parked behind the shack. A few minutes after he'd left and the only trace of his passing was a faint and rapidly thinning cloud of dust hanging over the road. Then the shack suddenly exploded in a ball of fire. The surrounding brush quickly followed until every last trace of his time spent on the plain was lost in the devastation. 

He hadn't planned it. He never planned anything. It had simply happened because he had been told it would happen. He just followed the call and did what it told him.

Always. 

Forever.





A few hundred meters above the prison cage, in a small room completely unadorned and devoid of personality, a young man with pale skin and almost equally pale hair and eyes twitched. He looked up, searching for the cause of the disturbance. He stiffened as the walls started to shake lightly and kept on shaking. He watched them intently for a minute or two then shrugged when the vibrations failed to get any worse. He pulled his legs in close, cradling a photo album between them and his hunched over body. His eyes slowly scanned down the pages and occasionally he licked his lips.

So many hunts he'd been on. So many exhilarating traps and snares he'd laid. Now he had the chance to add a new one, one that might just be his piece de resistance. He slowly lifted the picture he'd cut out of the briefing he'd been provided and slipped it into the next open holder in the album. His fingers brushed across it and he shuddered with the expectation of what was to come.





Unwitnessed and missed by every thinking, feeling being in that star system, in a small patch of space far enough away from the nearest world and it's inhabitants that would have appeared as no more than another speck against the dark, the void cracked and warped. A long, warped rod of matter, white hot and glowing along its outer edges, shot out of the hole in reality at tremendous speed. Behind it space returned to close to normal, but not completely. At an almost unimaginably small scale, a tiny fissure remained, still connecting two realities.

The rod began to cool from white to yellow to red, revealing voids and spaces and geometric shapes within the confines of the volume that had passed through the hole. In places better defined features could be found: a console, a door, a power conduit, a splash of crimson or ash. Here or there a picture frame, a freshly laundered uniform, a case with a medal. Near the back half rested the most unique of all the items on the multiversal castaway. 

Slowly rotating and bound in a web of long dark hair, with eyes and mouth steaming from the flash vaporization of the moisture they'd held, a head bumped against a shorn away wall and bounced out into the empty void, separated from it's body by a perfectly smooth and cauterized cut at a shallow angle through the neck.

For a few more minutes horribly distorted  signals flowed through the unseen gateway calling for help that could not be found in this universe and were indeed meant for another one entirely, before they too went silent. The rod and its occupants continued to cool afterwards until eventually they too were no more than just another tiny cold speck of something in the vast expanse of nothing.