Stepping out of the crystal castle, Spliced looked up at the sky and flared out her wings. Looking at Twilight, the green mare waited for the purple one to take to the sky before she started to join her in the air.
Annoyingly, Twilight was obviously pulling back in her speed but Spliced kept silent on the matter was it would do her no good to complain about it. Instead, she kept her eyes focused forwards and spotted an odd looking cloud formation quickly approaching.
Blinking in surprise, she saw that it was a large cloud, with curling wave-like forms coming out of parts of it and a very tall house on it, made entirely out of cloud; as she got closer she saw the pillars, also made of cloud, around the building’s outsides and what looked like a pair of rainbow-colored waterfalls that, as she looked around even more, she could see were each at the end of an entire river of rainbow that had spouted out from the very top and somehow branched off into two smaller rivers.
“This is amazing,” she breathed. “But how…”
“Like I said before, clouds used in construction are a lot more durable than normal ones,” Twilight said as she hovered next to Spliced. “Personally, I’m not entirely sure if Rainbow Dash just bought this from somepony else, or if she had anything to do with the design - she’s lived in it since long before I moved to Ponyville. But either way, it’s quite the sight.”
Spliced nodded, and the two flew up to the front walk, heading for the door. Before Twilight could knock though, it flew open to reveal Rainbow Dash.
“Hey, guys,” she said as she beckoned them in. “What’s up?”
“Twilight was telling me about weather and clouds her, and about cloud buildings like yours, so I kind of wanted to see what it was like up close,” Spliced said. Beside her, Twilight nodded and smiled.
“Cool! Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
As she led them through the main foyer, Spliced peered closely at things, and noted how… oddly normal some of the interior looked like. “Um, is all of this actual cloud?” she asked.
“Only some of it,” Rainbow Dash told her. “The foundation, the outer walls and the basic structure are all cloudstone, but the inside is a mix of that and normal Earth pony materials. We’ve got to be careful with some of these things; don’t want to accidentally make something that’ll start precipitating because we used too much of one thing or another in it.”
“I see…” Spliced looked around again. “And that statue…”
“Only one of my heroes,” Rainbow Dash said with pride. “It represents the Wonderbolts, only the most awesome flight acrobatics team in Equestria. They mostly do air shows nowadays, but they help inspire pegasi like me to improve our flight skills to become the best of the best. I’m actually one of their newest full members,” she added with a grin.
“I see…” Spliced had a few other things she was considering asking, but Rainbow Dash was already hurrying them upstairs to the main floor.
“This, of course, is my living room,” she pointed out. “And over here…”
Twilight and Spliced continued to follow her, as she pointed out the different rooms. Her eyes only widened a few times, such as when she saw an actual functioning stove in the kitchen, but she managed to restrain herself from freaking out over the thought of something that used heat being in a building made of cloud; the way things were going, she figured they had to have some kind of safety measure in it.
Finally, Rainbow Dash led them upstairs. “And here’s my room,” she said as she showed them in. “Oh, and duck.”
“Wha-” Suddenly, Spliced’s instincts triggered, and she dropped to the floor instantly, just before something buzzed over her head. As she looked up, she saw Rainbow Dash cuddling a…”
“What.” She pointed. “Is that.”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “This is my pet tortoise, Tank!” She cuddled the animal, her hooves carefully not touching the propeller on his back. “He’s been one of my best friends since I got him. Loyal, always willing to listen… and even before I got him this harness, he was willing to do what it took to keep up with me.”
“You have a harness to let him fly‽” Spliced’s eyes grew. “How…”
“It was Twilight’s design, actually,” Rainbow Dash told her. “She figured out all the details, but it works, and that’s what matters.”
Twilight looked somewhat amused. “It wasn’t too hard to design… coming up with a storage unit for the energy that would both be small enough and could store enough without having to be recharged every few hours was the tricky part.”
“I see.” Spliced looked at Rainbow Dash, still cuddling her pet. “He seems friendly though.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “He’s the best.”
Spliced found herself actually smiling back, watching the pair together while at the same time flicking her eyes around. She spotted a large terrarium, obviously Tank’s personal spot in the room, and nodded in satisfaction at the quality of it; even with his strange flight ability, the tortoise was obviously being well-cared for. She also spied a stack of books on one side of the room, and made a mental note to ask Twilight about them later.
“So, just what’s the difference between the cloudstone you use here and regular clouds?” she asked cautiously, half curious and half-dreading the answer.
“Pyrobloin,” Rainbow Dash replied. “It’s a special compound that gets mixed in with the water vapor and makes the clouds denser and more durable. Normal weather clouds don’t get it, but the cloudstone does, and then we shape it into whatever form we need. It’s not infallible, but it’s a lot better than nothing.”
“But… how does it work?”
“Beats me,” Rainbow Dash said with a shrug. “I may work in weather management, but even I don’t know all the details. Plus I’ve heard that the whole procedure for making it is top secret, way beyond my pay grade. Now, if you want to see how we make rain and snow clouds, or even thunderstorms, they’re on display at the weather factory in Cloudsdale.”
“I see.” Spliced looked disappointed. “Well, thank you for telling me this.”
“No problem.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “Nice to see another weather enthusiast around here.”
A few minutes later, the trio were back at the doorway, saying their goodbyes before Twilight and Spliced flew off.
“Well, that was certainly educational,” Spliced remarked. “Wish I could have learned a little more, but still…”
Twilight nodded. “I’ll have to see what the requirements for learning about this pyrobloin are. I’ve never even heard of it until now - I mean, I knew there was something that differentiated the cloudstone and normal clouds, but I never knew the name they had for it.”
Spliced nodded back. “Still, it’s a relief to know that there’s some actual logical reasoning for it and not just manipulation of strange energy fields.”
“Hey…” Twilight gave her a look. “Manipulation of those ‘strange energy fields’ happens to be my special talent.”
“Really?”
Twilight nodded. “I was just a filly the first time Rainbow Dash ever broke the sound barrier. It was a long ways away from Canterlot… but it was still loud and bright enough that it startled me into losing control and having a magical surge that blew the roof off the building, levitated some of the ponies around me, turned my parents into potted plants - they got better after Princess Celestia calmed me down - and did what everypony else thought was normally impossible.”
Spliced sighed. “I’m already hearing things that should be impossible. But what was it?”
“There was a dragon’s egg in the room.” Twilight looked at her, a serious expression on her face. “I was in the middle of a test to enter Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns… the entrance exam is to try and hatch a dragon’s egg. Except they’re so magically resistant, using magic to hatch one is almost impossible. My surge not only bypassed that resistance, it made the dragon inside grow big enough that he went through the roof… it took Princess Celestia’s magic to help revert him back to being a baby.” She smiled fondly. “And that’s how I got Spike.”
Spliced did a double-take. “So that’s how you came across a dragon’s egg… I’ve been wondering about that.” Then she did another double-take. “And… why would you be at a school for gifted unicorns, if you’re a Pu-alicorn?”
Twilight smiled. “I wasn’t born an alicorn, Spliced. I became one when I pushed my talent beyond its limits and invented a completely new type of magic.”
Spliced almost fell out of the sky when she heard that.
When she’d gotten her wings back under control, she was still staring at Twilight in disbelief. “You… became an alicorn‽”
Twilight nodded in satisfaction. “I never would have thought it was possible, but it happened,” she said. “I’m pretty sure there were a few other factors involved, but only Princess Celestia knows for sure.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head. “Anyway, once it happened, I was almost immediately crowned the fourth Princess of Equestria, and though it took me a while, I found my niche as a princess - spreading the magic of friendship to those who need to learn more about it. Like Starlight and the ponies in her old village, or the griffons of Griffonstone. Fluttershy and I even helped figure out the cause of an old feud that had been going on for… well, ages, and resolved it.”
“That is…” Spliced pondered and gave a light laugh. “If you’re that effective, I almost wish you’d been in my world back in the day. Maybe you could have resolved that war I got caught up in before it got as bad as it did.”
Twilight nodded. “It would be nice, but time travel spells are too dangerous.”
“That’s a good joke, Twilight,” Spliced laughed openly only to see that Twilight was not laughing as well. With a gulp, she asked, “Those actually exist?”
“I went back in time a week to try and warn myself not to worry about the future, but my younger self was so busy asking questions about the future, I never got the chance to tell her what I wanted, so she wound up working herself into a frazzle over the disaster she thought was coming,” Twilight said dryly. “And it turns out it was a stable time loop, since I only went back because I’d worked myself into a frazzle; I tried to give my younger self the advice that I hadn’t gotten since I was too busy interrupting my future self, but I just wound up causing the events that ultimately led me to go back.” She shook her head. “Not one of my better moments… and keep in mind, I could only go back a week, and it only works once per individual. Even as an alicorn, I can’t send myself back again.”
“Incredible,” Spliced said, shaking her head as she took all this in before she let out a sigh. “On second thought, it is best that you were not there during the war. You’re far too innocent for it and would have been taken advantage of immediately by the Pures.”
Twilight sighed. “I know I’m not perfect, but… are you sure they wouldn’t have listened? I mean, I can be intimidating if need be.”
“Really?” Spliced looked at her doubtfully. “Are you…” Then she noticed Twilight had her eyes closed, and was clearly concentrating on something.
Then her eyes opened, and they were glowing.
Spliced flapped her wings a bit, moving back as she saw the glow spread to the rest of Twilight’s body, and then stared in utter shock as the younger mare literally burst into flame.
“Is this intimidating enough for you?” she growled.
“Y-yes!” Spliced stammered.
“Good.” Then Twilight sighed as she slowly reverted to normal.
“How did you do that?” Spliced asked as the glow finally faded.
“It’s a long story, and it involves memories and a lot of practice,” Twilight replied. “Memories of things like Tirek. I almost wish I’d practiced it before he got loose; it might have given me an extra edge against him during our fight. Of course, it may or may not have helped in the long run, given what we ended up needing to do to really beat him, take away the magic he stole, give it back to its original owners and send him back to Tartarus… still, I’m working on being able to call on it more easily. Right now, anger is the fastest and easiest trigger, but I need something safer, more positive. Something that won’t burden my spirit like a negative emotion would.”
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?” Spliced asked.
“It’s a habit,” Twilight admitted. “I’ll admit it, I’m a bookworm who’s obsessed with studying all kinds of things, especially magic in all its forms and figuring out new ways to do things. I can’t understand everything - like I told you a while back, I still haven’t figured out Pinkie’s sixth sense. But I figure I’ll get back to it one of these days. This, on the other hoof, I just know there has to be an answer…” She sighed. “I’m not looking forward to having to use it, but knowing some of the beings we’ve run across, I’m aware that I’ll have to take that next step at some point. I don’t want to, but I’m not naive enough to believe that I can avoid it forever.”
Spliced let out a breath. “That’s… something.”
Twilight nodded. “Anyway, it’s getting dark… we should probably get back to the castle.” Then her ears flicked. “And reassure everypony that the sudden burst of flame they might have seen wasn’t something to worry about, just me practicing a spell.”
“Good point.” As Twilight started to descend, Spliced followed her and wondered to herself.
The more I learn, the more I find how little I know, she thought. Such as… just how many layers does that mare have?
As they landed in front of the castle, Twilight had called out for Pinkie Pie for a bit of help to reassure everypony that everything was okay with the mare appearing from under a rock and happily agreeing to do so before bouncing away.
“H-how?” Spliced asked, her mind trying to comprehend what she just saw.
“She’s Pinkie Pie and trust me, it is best not to question such things,” Twilight replied. “That’s another one of her abilities that I went nuts trying to figure out, right around the same time I was trying to figure out her sixth sense… actually, it drove me so mad, it triggered that change I did, the one you saw a little while ago, for the first time.”
“Riiight,” Spliced tried to push what she saw out of her mind as they walked inside of Twilight’s castle. As they made their way to the kitchen, Spliced thought of what Twilight had said and felt a stab of concern building in her and she knew that she had to speak. “Twilight, regarding what I said about before you not being mature enough, I really do mean it. I-”
“What do you mean Twilight not being mature enough?” Starlight said she looked up from the meal she was making. Spike had gone over to Rarity’s, so it was just the three of them tonight.
“We were talking about how Twilight would have done in the war I was in and while previously I said she could have managed herself, I recanted that opinion. I stand by that decision despite your impressive display.”
“And whyis that, Spliced?” Starlight asked with Spliced snorting, about to snipe back at her when Twilight coughed loudly.
“Do I need to separate you two?” Twilight asked rather sharply.
“I didn’t even do anything,” Spliced protested.
“You were about to,” Twilight countered with Spliced nodding her head sheepishly. “Now can you please sit down and explain what you mean while Starlight finishes making supper?”
“Well…” Spliced moved back, finding a spot to settle down in. “The fact is, my world is an ugly place. And I’ve seen some of what you’re capable of. The question is, are you readily willing to use that kind of force to prove yourself to others, without hesitating or holding back? The answer, from what I’ve seen, is ‘not really’ - you’re still more reliant on talking, rather than making others behave. And without that kind of willingness… I doubt you would be able to really handle the ponies in my home dimension. Sometimes, sheer brute force, and the willingness to use it, is all they’ll really listen to.”
“Spliced.” Before Twilight could say anything, Starlight walked over to the green alicorn, and stared the other mare right in the face. “You may see that as a weakness. But here, Twilight’s methods have saved more lives than I can imagine.”
“Starlight-” Twilight began, but Starlight held up a hoof.
“She needs to hear this,” she said quietly, and Twilight shut her mouth. “Now. Things may be uglier in your world… but here?” She looked down. “Twilight’s methods… with what I did, I wouldn’t have blamed her for having me thrown in the deepest, darkest pit she could find. But instead, she showed me what kind of pit I’d thrown myself into. My own hatred and anger, my sheer obsession with the path I’d set myself on… I very nearly destroyed Equestria all out of a misguided attempt at revenge on Twilight, all because she’d done her best to show me how wrong I was. Then I saw the consequences of what I was doing. And she not only brought me back to my senses... I literally owe her my soul for what she did to help me.” She looked at Twilight meaningfully. “And there’s another pony I’m pretty sure feels the same way, from what you’ve told me about her.”
“You are lucky then,” Spliced said, tapping the table. “Because if you were in my dimension, you would have been killed for your actions. No trial as you would have been viewed as a Third, and thus less than a normal citizen for these serious crimes. If you were a Pure, you would have a semblance of a trial, but the end result would still the same - death.”
“Good thing we live here then, where that sort of thing is the absolute last resort,” Starlight said before she turned and walked away.
“Indeed,” Spliced said. “But that is just normal stuff in times of peace where things can be civilized; during war ponies can use… question, what do you consider your most lethal weapon currently in usage?”
Twilight blinked. “We… don’t, really,” she admitted. “We’ve never had to, not in ages - swords and spears used to be common, but in the past several centuries, the most we’ve ever used are armor and battle spells. Maybe shields or big rocks.” She winced. “Of course, that’s just Equestria itself; there are… other places with weapons that are destructive in ways that I don’t really like to think about.” She winced again for a moment, and Spliced wondered what she was remembering.
“So… no real projectile weapons?”
“Does that fight you mentioned having with the buffalo a few years ago count?” Starlight asked from the other room. “You used pies there.”
“Right.” Twilight shook her head. “That’s the worst we’ve had in Equestria itself, in terms of weaponry. Even the fight with the Changelings was almost all hooves and magic, and my fight with Tirek too.”
Spliced looked disgusted. “In my dimension, the standard choice of weaponry is something called a blast pistol; it projects a solid wave of kinetic energy that can render a pony stunned on the lowest setting and on the highest tear a fair chunk of flesh out of an armoured pony that cops are not allowed to use unless they are fighting for their lives but…” Spliced shrugged her shoulders. “There is also the shock staff which does about the same but instead of shooting, it just sends the energy through the road into the pony in question with the same results. There is the lower tech option that uses physical ammunation instead of energy that can do just about the same damage if not worse and there are a wide range of variations of firearms, that increase the lethality and rate of fire as well as the ease and effectivity of the usage of said firearm.” Spliced then lifted the glass of water to her mouth to wet her throat before continuing. “There are a number of other types of archaic weapons that have been modified for deadly use; swords, knives, axes, - hell, there are, or were as I do not know anymore, a gang that used bladed tip whips for their signature weapon that could tear down to the bone. And this is just personal usage, not looking at what a proper military organization could have access to or what a starship would have; those are much more dangerous and destructive than what anypony could have on hoof alone. They have explosive weapons that can wipe out an entire city with the force of… well, just one of the weakest ones put out sixty-three terajoules of energy.” Then she noticed that Twilight’s face had gone white. “Um…”
Twilight was suddenly right in front of her. “Are you telling me,” she said quietly. “That you have atomic bombs?”
Spliced blinked in surprise. “You know of them?”
“I’ve been through a portal to a land very, very different from this world a few times,” Twilight said. “I read up on their history. One of their worst wars ended when a bomb of that size was dropped on a city. A second, dropped a few days later, was eighty-eight terajoules. The sheer destruction caused was so horrific that…” She closed her eyes for a moment.
“In all the years since then, they’ve continued making and testing more and more powerful bombs. The tests are always in isolated areas, which is a good thing - there was one that almost vaporized an entire island and spread toxic debris for miles around. And that one was approximately sixty-three petajoules, far more destructive than any other bomb detonated by that country in their history.” She opened her eyes again.
“Ever since those two bombs that were dropped at the end of the war, nobody in that world has dared actually use one outside of testing - there’ve been threats, but nobody ever got to the point where they went through with it. Between all the governments with those weapons, they’ve got an arsenal that could literally crack the planet in two if they used it in the right way. But just knowing what it’s capable of, they don’t want to.”
She withdrew from Spliced’s face, and Spliced could tell she was doing her best to calm herself.
“They must be smarter and better restrained than those in my dimension,” Spliced said. “There were one or two wars in the past where galactic governments used multiples of what they call planet busters to force the other side to give in.”
“Sweet Celestia and Luna,” Starlight said weakly. “That is terrifying.”
“Of course, there are other variants that don’t destroy the planet or the resources but we are about to eat and I don't want to make either of you queasy. The only advantages you would have over them would be Discord and Celestia, the former for his claimed unlimitless power and Celestia for having access to the nuclear energies of a star at her hooves.” She seemed thoughtful. “I wonder how powerful she could get if she tapped multiple stars at once…”
“Don’t.” Starlight shook her head before she focused on the stove again. “I actually saw what she was capable of when she was… unrestrained, without anything holding her back. It was terrifying, and the only reason I’m not having as many nightmares about Daybreaker as I used to is because Princess Luna’s been helping me.”
Spliced’s eyes widened. “Wait… your Princess is the Daybreaker that Discord mentioned to me?”
Starlight looked surprised. “Um… I guess. He mentioned her to you?”
“The first time we met, before I went into Fluttershy’s house,” Spliced replied. “He… well, he said he could be even scarier than her if I didn’t behave myself, but he didn’t say who she was beyond her name and that she could be very angry. But… he meant Princess Celestia?”
“Princess Celestia when she’s not holding back,” Twilight said. “I… asked her about that, after Starlight told me about the whole thing. She compared it to something from one of Spike’s comics, actually. That most of the time, she feels like she lives in a world of cardboard, and that she always has to hold back to keep from breaking everything around her. Daybreaker is what happens when she doesn’t care enough to hold back anymore, to let loose with everything she has without worrying about the consequences. And that’s something that she’d only use as an absolute last resort.”
“How…”
“Powerful?” Twilight sighed. “You saw my other form, and that was just me showing off what it looked like. At minimum, Daybreaker is like that… but millions of times more.”
“I get your point.” Spliced winced. “And now I have yet another reason to not-” She caught herself, but the other two mares were staring sharply at her.
“Not what?” Starlight asked dangerously, with Twilight’s expression matching hers.
“Not to incur her wrath,” Spliced said, aware of how close she’d come to revealing the full extent of what her dimension, and her in particular, were capable of. “I am here solely because of her good grace and I’ve no inclination to do anything that will result in me being incarcerated again.”
Starlight simply looked at her, shaking her head. She seemed that she was about to speak when Twilight coughed loudly. “Before you two start arguing again, let us have a nice dinner for once, okay?”
Both Starlight and Spliced shared a sheepish look between each other and nodded their head. “Okay,” they said as Starlight placed down the spaghetti she had been making with Spliced just barely managing to stop her eye from visibly twitching.
After the three of them had finished with dinner, Spliced had said she wanted to take an early night and was going to her bedroom now. Starlight, for a change, didn’t try and remind Spliced it was her turn to do the dishes and helped keep the peace in the castle.
While her student was cleaning up and her guest going to sleep, Twilight had time to write a letter to Celestia about Spliced’s actions today, although she had to create a proper frame of thought first.
She had learned a fair deal about the mare today; she was highly interested in learning although extremely stubborn in what she thought was true and convincing her otherwise was like talking to a brick wall. The main problem was that Spliced had the intelligence to back up her claims that made it hard to dislodge her from a state of mind when she was wrong.
Despite her arrogance, once she saw that she was wrong, Spliced was all ears to learn about the truth of the matter at hoof and took in knowledge like an eager student in front of a teacher. While she continued to insist that there was no such thing as magic, Spliced was not dismissing it out of hoof and was clearly doing her best to find some sort of order in it, as if she could create a universal standard of magic through scientific methods alone.
Twilight took a sharp breath of air as something uncomfortable began to form in her mind.
Spliced, from what she had heard from the mare herself, was used to working alone and preferred it that way; she very obviously did not place much or any confidence in others in being able to keep up with her with how openly she criticized Twilight’s old lab, calling it a foal’s attempt to make one, and refused to let Twilight inside the new one without Spliced being there to make sure nothing went wrong to which Twilight reluctantly understood was the best thing for everypony.
Twilight reviewed her thoughts and let out a sigh as she could not deny it any longer; the parallels between Spliced Genome and herself were striking and alarming.
She could see much of her old self, the pony that she was before she had come to Ponyville, in Spliced. The towering intellectual loner that believed she didn’t need anypony, that all she needed was her knowledge and that she was correct in any matter. How others could just hold her back from her own greatness and that other ponies, that friends, were pointless. Though… Twilight reconsidered for a moment. She at least had had a few others she’d looked up to or cared about; Princess Celestia and Spike, for starters. Spliced, on the other hoof, had been completely alone.
And then there was the whole matter of Spliced’s backstory or at least the parts she knew of. The mare was a war criminal in a race war and yet did not care about either tribe at all. That she was so indifferent to something like that was just disturbing, in Twilight’s mind. She spoke of dangerous, horrific weapons and while she did not want to imagine them being used on ponies, she was able to see it being done by ordinary ponies and yet Spliced was made immortal, sent to a lunar prison to be killed again and again in complete ignorance. What crime had Spliced committed that was so heinous that it warranted such retaliation?
Twilight didn’t have all the answers yet but she was aware that while Spliced could have ended up like Twilight herself if she’d had somepony to look out for her when she was young, the inverse could easily be true and that scared her.
Shaking herself out of her frightened mindset, Twilight began to pen a letter to her former mentor about the mare from the moon.
As Spliced prepared herself for bed, she was a bit curious to which death she would be visited with this time.
Slipping into her bed and pulling the blankets over herself, Spliced willed herself off to sleep.
Spliced was in her cottage, making herself some breakfast after she had left her lab. She was still angry with herself that none of tests were giving the result that she needed for the company she was working to make these damn viagras. It didn’t help that they wouldn’t let her use proper test subjects but then again her opinion that using ponies as test subjects opposed to animals was considered morally reprehensible according to that blasted ethics test.
Spitting out her decaf coffee, she was about to return to her lab when there was a sudden chim of her doorbell. Frowning at this intrusion, she made her way to her front door made out of actual wood and pulled it open to see two Thirds holding one Third up between them with one Third leaning against the left side of her house. The one that rang her bell looked up at her and said, “Miss, we need help.”
“With what?” Spliced asked, wrinkling her nose as she smelt a wave of different chemical components from the ponies in front of her.
“We’ve been attacked by the government,” the stallion that was being held told her, drawing Spliced’s attention to his injurious that looked like severe chemical poisoning
“Why?” Spliced asked in complete honesty.
“The... the war,” the mare on his left said, looking completely surprised. “The whole civil war that’s happening right now between the Thirds and the Pures.”
“Oh; I didn’t know,” Spliced with the Thirds looking shocked at her words. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s been poisoned with mustard gas,” the stallion holding the other side with desperation. “He’s going to die-”
“No he won’t, mustard gas is easy enough to cure,” Spliced said as she was a bit insulted to hear that they thought mustard gas was a death sentence; sure, it was carcinogenic, but that could be treated. “Come inside.”
The four ponies gave her a confused look but did as they were told, stepping into her house and closing the door behind them. With her horn lighting up, she quickly made her way to her lab and began to pull out the needed components to heal the stallion. “Do not touch anything,” she told them sharply, using her thaumatics to close any cabinet doors she left open.
“Are you sure you can do this, ma’am?” the other stallion asked her, his eyes roaming her lab with awe. “No offense, but you have no replicators here and-”
“I was one of the smartest of my biochemistry class in the Alexandria university,” she snapped, angered at the notion she would need to rely on such means to do her work. “I know how to do this.” Without waiting for any more of their inputs, she used what she’d learned and crafted the cure, put it in a syringe and plunged it into the stallion.
The other Thirds jumped at this but the stallion in question, after coughing and stumbling away from her for some reason she was not sure of, told them he felt better. “Thank you,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I didn’t think anypony could do create a cure that quickly.”
“I did say I was one of the smartest of my class,” she told him pointedly.
“But if that’s the case, then why are you here?” one the mares asked her who was walking around her lab.
Spliced’s coat bristled as she was forced to readdress this issue. “Due to some issues with my personal views in how to conduct tests clashing with the normal standard quo, I was restricted to being a biochemist researcher consultant until such time I can apply for another test.”
They shared a look between each other and began to talk to each other before they turned to her with the stallion that she cured stepping up to her. “Ma’am, we would like to ask you something; you know a lot about biochemistry and with the Pures beginning to use such weaponry on us...” He trailed off, waving his hoof as if she knew what he meant.
“And?” Spliced asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Well, we are hoping that you would consider joining us.”
“Why?” she asked, completely mystified to why they would want her or think that she would care about their war.
“You could help save more lives,” he said, looking a bit taken back at her answer but was recovering quickly. “I mean, you saved my life easily and you could do the same for so many more.”
“I’m a scientist, not a doctor,” she responded immediately, moving to fix up the few things she had left out on her counters. The Thirds began to follow her around, although they kept their distance.
“But you’re so intelligent;” the other stallion said, somehow appearing in front of her. “I mean, you can do so much to help us stay alive from those damn Pures trying to kill us!”
“If you are afraid of dying, then you shouldn’t have got involved in this war you keep talking about,” Spliced said shrugging her shoulders. “Now if you are quite done, you can take your leave; I’ve got work to do and-”
“If you join us Spliced, you would be working to counter the government's top of the line chemical weapons,” one of the mares said, causing the Pure to pause and tilt her head as she thought of that.
“That is true,” Spliced mused to herself, thinking of all of the restricted stuff she would have first hoof access to if she joined them. She would also be properly challenged and doing something that was worth her time and training for the first time since she became a consultant. “Okay, I am convinced.”
Spliced jolted up from her bed, rubbing her head as the last parts of the dream played out in her head.
She hadn’t thought of that day in a very long time and was beginning to wonder if she might have made the right choice or not all those years ago.
But the past was the past and there was nothing she could do to change it. In all honesty, she was glad to dream of that day instead of her just dying over and over again.
Out in the vast wilderness of the Crystal Empire, two guards were doing a patrol in the further reaches. They were natural citizens so the cold wasn’t bothering them all that much but it was still a noticeable influence to the point that when the storm began to pick up, they sought shelter inside of a cave.
Huddling, Stalwart Guardian looked at Rough Patch and said, “Haven’t heard one this bad in years. You?”
"Mmmm… maybe.” Rough Patch looked contemplative. “That huge storm before Princess Flurry Heart’s Crystalling was close.”
“Oh yeah,” Stalwart Guardian recalled. “That was a bad one.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Stalwart Guardian cleared his throat. “So, how long do you think we’ll be in here?”
“Good question.” Rough Patch looked around. “Hopefully not all that long, but… I’m getting the strangest feeling about this storm.”
“That some pegasus is doing this?”
“Not exactly,” Rough Patch said as he panned his watch light across the back of the cave. “Just… there’s something off about it, and I can’t quite put my hoof on it. It’s one of those gut feelings, you know?”
“Wait, go back with your light!” Stalwart Guardian suddenly said, his eyes spotting something.
Doing as he was told, Rough Patch moved the light back slowly and his eyes widen as he saw what Stalwart Guardian had. There was a blue coated pony half out of the cracking ice, eyes fluttering. Only their necklace had caught Stalwart Guardian’s eyes; otherwise the pony would have been completely invisible against the snow and ice. “How in Cadance’s name is there a pony out here?”
The question was irrelevant and there was somepony in need of help. They both raced towards the pony when Stalwart Guardian placed a hoof across Rough Patch’s chest, stopping as his eye went even wider. “Wait a moment, that’s not a pony.”
“By the Empress,” Rough Patch breathed sharply. “You’re right.”
They shared an uneasy look between each other as they tried to decide what to do. They could easily let nature take its course; if the weather didn’t kill it, then the cave that they were in would; it wasn’t stable and wouldn’t last long by the looks of it.
They also knew that they had a duty to all life, including it. Using their magic to lift the predator up away from the back of the cave, they began to make their way to the capital.