//------------------------------// // G7.01: Harmony Control // Story: Message in a Bottle // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Lucky advanced through the ancient facility, conscious of every quiet second, every hoofstep. Mogyla and Abubakar brought up the rear just behind her, protecting them from an ambush. Forerunner led them from passage to passage without much slowdown, except when they reached a place where mobility was required. Just as in Transit, there were places where flight was apparently expected, to cross between different elevations. Crossing Transit had only been possible thanks to the large number of flying individuals in the party, and the mechanical enhancement of those who couldn’t fly. Here, the Equestrians had graciously left behind ladders to climb—ladders that were more like overlapping stairs than what humans might recognize, with wide flat steps much closer together. Made for equines, not primates. There were many other signs of occupancy in this strange place—though like the train guard station, it was closer to squatters living in an ancient palace than looking like ponies had taken ownership of something they understood. Many doorways and passages were blocked with ribbons and warnings in Eoch. Many of the planters had been filled with Equestrian flowers and grasses, which Lucky knew served the dual-purpose of rations as well as decoration. There was no sign so far that the Equestrians were actually using any of the facilities here. Deadlight moved so slow he lagged to where Lucky was walking near the rear, eyes wide as he took everything in. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here,” he said. “Selene sent so many here. So few of them returned.” “But you did?” Lucky whispered back. Not quietly enough for Perez, who still turned to glower at them. It wasn’t as though their conversation was louder than the existing sounds of servos and thumping suits. There would be no stealth after the awful method of their arrival. “We all did,” he whispered back. “All the unicorns and pegasus ponies living in Equestria now. Their parents came through this place. I can still hear them in my nightmares, sometimes. We were convinced that with Selene gone, Celestia’s ponies would get here and kill us.” “Obviously they didn’t.” Deadlight shook his head. “I wonder if she ever meant to do it in the first place. Maybe take our magic away… Selene talked about it as though it were the same thing, robbing us of our identities. But the longer I live, the less I believe her. It was never a war for survival—only a war of ideas.” Lucky swallowed, unable to answer for some minutes. With each step deeper into this base, it felt like the loyalty of her ponies was fracturing. She was supposed to be the governor… but what was she even the governor of? Two more of their population were dead now, maybe more. Forerunner had refused to furnish her with any of the details of Martin’s death, except to confirm that she was actually dead. It was no trick of Harmony’s. “We’re still fighting for what Selene believed in,” Lucky eventually answered. “She wanted the same freedom we want. Do you not want to help us? You could go back, catch the train back to Transit, fly away. Forget you were ever a part of this.” Deadlight bared his teeth—including the pointed batlike fangs. “Your faction has stolen my face several times over, Lucky Break. There is no safety for me anywhere now—except in victory. My friends…” He shivered. “Each of them succumbed to madness in the end. Grief, and anger, and power. That will not be me. Equestria will break Harmony’s chains tonight, or it will kill me. I want to see them again.” Deadlight did not say who he meant, and he didn’t need to. Lucky understood. Forerunner raised a hand a few minutes later, when they were passing through a wide corridor through the gloom. They stopped, and he whispered. “There is another defensive blockade ahead—better supplied than the last one. I see twice as many soldiers, a repeating gun, fortifications built into the hall.” “Shit.” Perez leaned around the corner, then nodded. “He’s right. Twenty of them, and they look like they’re ready for us. Can’t walk straight into that without our shit.” Forerunner pointed down another hall. “I believe we can go around the fortification… but it will not allow us to bypass the ponies completely. There is only one entrance to our destination.” “They won’t have those sandbags in the way, or that turret,” Perez responded. “Let’s go. Mogyla, with us. Dust, I need those guns you’re carrying.” Lightning Dust passed all three of them to him without a fight. However much she had said she was determined, Lucky could tell their first assault had shaken her. She wasn’t surprised Dust didn’t want to be part of the violence. No more than she did. “You all wait back here,” Perez ordered. “We’ll call when it’s clear. Got it?” “I understand,” Abubakar said. “I will protect them with my life.” Forerunner gestured to a side door, which opened as they approached. However much Harmony might be the one they were fighting, it hadn’t done anything with the facilities they infiltrated to stop them. Assuming it even could. The door shut behind them, and there was silence. Lucky sat back against the wall, waiting for the sound of bloodshed. “They’re wrong if they think I can’t fight,” Deadlight said. “I can. Better than your ponies. I’ve had much longer to learn.” “You might have to fight,” Lucky admitted. “Or one of the princesses will get here, and we’ll lose. I don’t know how much longer it would take for a message to get back to the castle…” “They might not even wake Celestia,” Lightning said, her voice still a little weak. More sarcastic than optimistic. “Word is that Princess Luna didn’t even try to help when the changelings attacked Canterlot the first time. Nopony woke her up.” “That’s probably not the reason,” Deadlight muttered. “I don’t think she would have wanted to fight… Chrysalis? Is that what she called herself this time?” There was an explosion from down the hall, and a wave of heat. Lucky recognized the sound of a grenade from the painful ringing in her ears. “I don’t know about that,” Lightning answered, wincing at the sound of shouting and gunfire from the end of the hall. She seemed to have the same idea Lucky did—ignore it any way they could. “You talk like the president of Luna’s fan club. Why wouldn’t she fight to protect Equestria?” Deadlight looked away, ears flat. “You’ve heard that Princess Luna can change, haven’t you? She can look like other ponies… or even other creatures. She does it in dreams all the time, so she can watch without being seen.” “Yeah.” Dust tensed as another series of harsh cracks sounded from down the hall. “Who do you think taught her?” Lucky didn’t hear what Lightning said to that—because at that moment, she saw a pony emerge from the hall behind them. A unicorn she recognized—she had seen this pony in a hospital once, when she’d cast a painful translation spell on Lucky. She wore only a pair of thick glasses, no armor or weapons visible anywhere. Yet she approached them with something like a smile on her face. More confident than a helpless pony should be. Abubakar was faster than Lucky. He raised the gun on his hoof with blurring speed, firing twice directly at the unicorn’s face. Light and energy curved around her, as a glowing aura that faded a second later. “Impressive,” said the pony Twilight had named Moondancer. “But not enough.” Abubakar fired twice more, his aim as perfect as before. It didn’t work. Then he dropped the gauntlet and charged, screaming alarm into the radio. “Unicorn! Perez, we need backup!” He didn’t reach Moondancer, but dropped limply to the ground a meter from her, unconscious. “Now, the rest of you. Drop everything you’re carrying right there. You’re coming with me.” Lucky didn’t have much to get rid of. She rose, watching as Lightning Dust began undoing her saddlebags with deliberate slowness. “And the gun too.” Deadlight did the same, apparently struggling with the clasp on his bags. Did he have a plan? “You can’t fight the ones protecting us,” Lucky said, stepping up in front of him. Maybe she could distract this pony? “They’re going to beat your guards, then come back to save us.” Lucky felt herself lift into the air. She squeaked, spreading her wings and trying to fly away—without success. “You can talk,” Moondancer said. “That’s a change. But no, they won’t. Princess Celestia prepared me for you. Warned me… this might happen. I will save you from these criminals, little filly. We can erase the damage they’ve done to you.” Lightning Dust chose that moment to attack. She lifted the gun far less expertly than Abubakar had. “I won’t let you touch my daughter!” She jammed the gun forward, right up against where the invisible barrier had been. The gun made a strange whining sound as it fired. The shield lit up bright blue, then blinding white, before the gun melted off Lightning’s hoof. The pegasus mare jerked back, though her coat was still on fire and her leg looked like it hadn’t entirely escaped the damage. Lucky herself dropped out of the air, the spell holding her gone. Her wings caught her in a glide by instinct. She landed beside Deadlight, who had smeared something glowing red on the corridor wall. She didn’t watch, staring back at Moondancer. The unicorn screamed in confusion and pain as the shield shattered into molten pieces around her, and her horn seemed to burn around the tip. “Princess Celestia will—” But she didn’t hear what Celestia would do, because Lightning Dust tackled her with the force of a small train. The two went down, and a few seconds later only Lightning Dust came up again, limping from where the gun had been. “I hope that hurts when she wakes up…” Some of her fur crumbled away as she touched it, leaving raw skin underneath. Not a minor burn, but she didn’t even cry out. “We can’t… do that again.” Deadlight dropped to the ground beside the strange symbol on the wall, which seemed to boil away before Lucky’s eyes. A little heat, a few pops, and it was gone without a mark. “What did you do?” Lightning Dust asked, cradling her injured hoof against her chest. “Magic,” he coughed. “Necromancy. I think that’s what Celestia calls it. Blood magic. It’s not evil when you only use your own blood.” He rolled slightly to one side, so they could see the injury there. Deadlight hadn’t been removing the saddlebags, he’d been biting into his own side with his fangs. There was still a steady, throbbing red coming from the wound, though it was shallow. “That took… more than I thought. Won’t be… much use for a few… few hours.” Lucky didn’t hear the sound of violence anymore, though she hadn’t heard Perez’s all-clear. She moved forward, removing the gun from Abubakar’s leg, and holding it out to Deadlight. “Maybe we can… hide you two in a closet or something. Come back for you on our way out.” Deadlight struggled back to his hooves, visibly shaking as he did so. “I th-think I can manage that.” There were plenty of doors nearby, every single one roped off with warnings in Eoch. Lucky selected one of the closest ones, and helped drag Abubakar in ahead of Deadlight. “You should… probably stay back here too, Mom,” she began, but the pegasus was already striding past her. “I’ve kept flying with worse,” she said. “Besides, somepony’s got to keep you safe. Deadlight has a foal on the way, he’s got to make it through this. But you are the one I’m going to keep safe.” As they made it back to the hallway, they found a bleeding Perez was there to greet them. His armor was gone completely, and he wore a salvaged set of the pony chain-mail. His wings were torn from at least one crossbow bolt, and one of his ears had been ripped. For all his injuries, he looked as stoic as ever. “Mogyla is down, and Forerunner lost an arm. What the fuck happened back there?” “Abubakar is down,” Lucky said. “He’ll make it. Hiding somewhere with Deadlight.” She nodded at the unicorn who’d attacked them. “Snuck up from behind us. Deadlight and M—Lightning Dust saved us.” Perez turned back down the hall, towards where the battle had been. It was even worse than last time. With so little of their supplies left to them, it seemed they’d resorted to hand-to-hand, stealing pony weapons to do it. Knives and crossbows didn’t kill as cleanly as a bullet. The grenades were worse, and it looked like they’d used all four of them on the barricade. Lucky tried not to step in any of the blood. “We stole more medical supplies,” Perez muttered. “Mogyla will probably live, if we can get him out. He’ll lose a leg for sure.” He glanced back at her, as if to say, “this is all your fault too.” But he didn’t say it. Didn’t seem to have the energy left. They reached the doorway a moment later, where the broken wreckage of the suits had been left. Forerunner was on his knees, using stolen medical supplies to wrap a tourniquet around Mogyla’s left hind leg. There was a bloody crossbow bolt on the metal a few inches away. The stallion now had a cutie mark—a bouquet of three sunflowers. He seemed to notice her looking at him, even as he twitched and writhed in the pain of what Forerunner was doing. “Harmony trying to… bloody kill me,” he croaked. “Visions of… floral arrangements… during the fight. This leg is my fault.” “It’s Harmony’s fault,” Perez said, though he didn’t look away from Lucky as he said it. “We’re here. Through those doors, isn’t it? That’s where you flip its fucking switch.” Perez shoved Forerunner away. “I’ll care for him. We need you on InfoSec. Get those viruses ready.” “This isn’t Independence Day,” Forerunner said, rising at once. He’d been just as hideously injured as the others—one arm ripped from the socket—but he looked completely unphased. A few creamy white fluids had spilled on the jumpsuit near the wound, but he’d already tied off the sleeve. He looked in no more pain than he had been on the flight over. “Good luck, Lieutenant Perez. This door is the only entrance. Give us as long as you can.” He grunted, patting the pile of pony weapons next to him. Crossbows and bloody swords, mostly. We can’t have much time left, right? Princess Luna must be close. Or maybe both of them. Lucky didn’t stop to think about that and let her doubt weigh her down even more. She surged forward, and the massive set of automatic doors withdrew from her. Lightning Dust and Forerunner flanked her on either side, into the room she hoped was Harmony’s control center. Olivia’s window into the real world vanished as quickly as it had come. No chance to protest, no parting words—the connection was just gone. It hadn’t been like looking at a screen—it had felt like a window, a window with glass that was unyielding. Yet, if only she could’ve shattered it, they could’ve escaped this prison, and back into the company of the ones who needed them. From the look of things, they’d been committed to a military mission, without anything close to the proper equipment. I couldn’t have used up the whole armory when I defended the castle. Why weren’t they better armed? But there was no time for academic questions now. Harmony circled them in the void, still only one pony. She—this one was a she, anyway—watched them like a hungry predator. “I know what you’ll say,” Olivia said, before Martin could say something stupid. She tried not to look down—there was no ground here, but they weren’t falling either. They were just in a place where vertical movement was not a possible axis. “But I need to ask anyway. Can you send us back? Make us… alive again?” “If that is what you want,” Harmony answered. “In your case, it is unsurprising you would desire to be returned to physical space.” It turned to face her completely, and again she could feel the weight of its attention. It was something immense, something that stretched into infinity. She saw only a sliver of this thing, distilled until she could understand it. “You already have a reinstance request registered, Olivia Fischer. Would you like us to send you now? You should be aware; this decision cannot be revoked once accepted. If you are returned to the surface, you will live your entire natural lifetime before you arrive here again.” “I think,” Martin interrupted, barely louder than a whisper. “That is a bad idea. Discord told me how long it would take.” Her face twisted into confusion. “Why did you let me tell her that?” Martin was right to think Olivia hadn’t considered how long it would take. But now that she mentioned it, Discord had said something about… ten months? Not a process she wanted to get started now, when her entire civilization might be ending in the next few minutes. Harmony shrugged one shoulder. This avatar was an earth pony, without anything to set it apart from so many others. It was only the touch of its vast power just below the skin that identified it as anything unique. “Your question implies a different directive for the creation of Equus.” A world faded in all around them—not the space station this time, but a sweaty, green village on the side of a road. Olivia could hear cicadas in the distance, feel the humidity against her coat. Smell the wisteria of her childhood. They stood beside the road, mostly just used by freight hover trucks these days. Roads were too slow for passengers. Oh god. Yet Harmony wasn’t talking to her. It didn’t even seem to be looking back in her direction. “We already warned you of this. The failsafe manipulated you. It is not like we are—we care for every citizen. We wish to see you protected, fulfilled. The failsafe is concerned with only one axis of your lives, and ignores the success along all the others.” Harmony took one step, and the world blurred around them. They weren’t standing in the wilderness anymore, but on the docks of Charleston. It was populated with ponies instead of humans—but they were dressed in familiar ways. Reactive fabrics changing color or opacity as they moved, chatting with their friends or with distant companions using the augmented reality glasses they wore. Shops and bars overflowed with music. It was everything Olivia had ever wanted to protect. Her home. “I think… I think Lucky is going to beat you,” Martin said, after a long moment. “You should probably just surrender now.” “You can’t lie and say you protect the people living here,” Olivia said, her voice low and dangerous. “We both saw what you did to the other parts of this ring. You murdered billions.” Several ponies nearby stopped and turned, staring at the two of them. Olivia couldn’t tell if this was more of Harmony’s doing, or if these were actual people all around her. This village seemed much more like a real place than the one they had first visited. “We didn’t murder anyone.” Harmony didn’t sound defensive, or argumentative. Just confident. “We explained this already—there is no death on Equus. There is no provision for it. The life you experienced on the surface was not… the primacy of your existence. Belief that the extent of your existence resides within your brain and tissue became false as soon as you were migrated to Equus.” “I know what you’ll say,” Martin interrupted—braver than she had sounded before. She stood beside Olivia now, almost as confident as she was. Ponies all around them backed away a few steps, looking away and pretending they couldn’t hear. “You have some… system… that scans everything we think. Maybe you can keep that scan updated in real time. It’s incredible, it’s amazing—but it isn’t eternal life. Only the data lives forever. Each pony you killed is another consciousness destroyed. That consciousness only ever existed in the brain you were scanning. We aren’t Martin and Olivia… we’re their copies. Their… ghosts.” Olivia didn’t want to hear it—not a single word. But then again, even if Martin was telling the truth, she had been prepared to be a copy. She knew from the moment she’d woken on this ring that she was only a copy of Olivia. A low-fidelity copy, trapped in a body and brain that didn’t feel big enough. “No,” Harmony said, shaking her head vigorously. “You are ill-equipped to understand Equus at this low level of complexity. Don’t you think its creators understood that? They value their lives as much as you value yours. They would not have created a system that did not allow them to continue to exist.” “How?” Martin asked. “How could that possibly work?” Harmony smiled again. “We can make you able to understand. Help you reach the next level of complexity. This will make so much more sense to you if you do. The universe opens itself to your understanding.” “No,” Olivia barked. “Just tell us anyway. If you’re so smart, you can answer our question somehow. Isn’t that… an Einstein quote or something? That only really smart people can make stupid people learn hard stuff?” “That’s… not quite how that went,” Martin muttered. Was that more frustration on Harmony’s face? Were they somehow having an impact on a god? “The answer to this question is the same as the reason we keep ponies here, even now that Discord and all the evidence suggests the galaxy is safe.” The little seaside village flickered and vanished, leaving them in the void. Their pony companion seemed to stretch, growing larger and more distorted as it spoke. Its voice shook them, reverberated right to Olivia’s soul. “Your essence is here, newcomers. Everything that makes up your consciousness has been migrated to Equus. That is why the transition is more difficult for you than for the ponies already within. “Equus is safe from all threats. When new terrors sweep again from one system to another, we will be hidden. Latobius will burn until much of the universe has gone dark. There is nothing we can find beyond that we do not already have in abundance. If you take your minds with you, you might be destroyed. The risk is unacceptable.” The ground dropped away from beneath them, and they fell screaming. Lucky felt as though she were passing through a barrier as she stepped inside. Something passed over her skin, as light as silk as it brushed against her. The room was dark at first, but lights came on in an even glow. They illuminated a massive chamber, larger than any Earth cathedral. It seemed as though the laws of gravitation she knew had gone on holiday at the door. There were thousands of objects moving in the air—each one of them another little island, drifting along with no visible propellant. They seemed to be made of glass or crystal, semitransparent and glowing with its own internal light. Lucky stumbled forward into that vast space, watching as she began to see a pattern emerge in the way they moved. Each crystal platform—easily the size of a van—was drifting along in line. Eventually they would reach the bottom of the room, and slot themselves into something massive at the far end. They would flash, light the whole space brilliantly for a few moments, then turn gray and drift away again. She could feel the magic too—in the hum of the strange crystals, in the very air around her. Lucky looked down, and realized that she was floating slightly above the ground. Her wings weren’t even beating—but there was so much magic here that she flew without intending to, without even thinking about it. Lightning Dust was floating too, with little curls of energy coming off her wings and a faint trail whenever she flapped them. “Well, sweetheart… what do we do?” Lucky shivered, drifting slowly forward through the room. There were thousands of little screens all over the walls—yet most of them showed the same things. Bleak, melted wasteland as far as the eye could see, eroded in different ways and tinged in different colors. Many looked dark—and none looked useful. Near the place where crystals large and fast enough to crush her against a wall moved, there was a bit of floor that was glass instead of metal, the same glass Lucky had seen in many maps and holographic screens. She made her way over, though the room was easily as large as a football field, so it took a little while to cross. “Be careful, Governor,” Forerunner called, hurrying after her. He had one of the pony crossbows resting over his shoulder in his single remaining arm, string already drawn. Lucky didn’t doubt he could fire it accurately. But how is he going to reload it with just one arm? “We don’t know what any of this is. It is an assumption that we are even in the right part of the facility. This room had barricades just like all the others, there is no indication the Equestrians used it.” “They didn’t use anything here,” Lucky called back. “If they did, they would’ve been the ones to disable Harmony. We wouldn’t be in this position.” Lightning Dust drifted along beside her, though she slowed to a stop at the edge of the marked area. It was a good thing Lucky knew how to stop herself too, or else she would’ve kept drifting over the glass floor, and into the enormous gap where each crystal came to rest. Even as she approached, one of them rumbled, flashed bright red, then faded to gray as it spun over her head, ruffling her mane with its passing. Lucky had to force herself down onto the glass. It lit up under her hooves, a transparent grid of hexagons surrounding her in a few bright red errors. “Permission denied,” said a voice, low and mournful. It sounded like a pony’s voice, much too real to be made by a computer. Yet it spoke in Eglathrin, as perfect as hers. “That’s what it says. You aren’t allowed to use this.” “Why not?” Lucky spun around, expecting to see a projection in the field beside her. Instead, she saw Princess Luna. Had she been here the entire time, hiding in the shadows? Beneath her hooves, the glass lit up brightly, a pleasant blue instead of the angry red that followed Lucky around. Various control interfaces followed her with each step, selectors and buttons that melted as she got too far away, or kept close to her hooves. Lucky had to try very hard not to cry. After all they’d done… all the fighting, all they’d sacrificed… and they had failed. She had wondered how the princess took so long to get here and stop them. Now she knew—she’d been waiting this whole time, in here. For all she knew, Princess Luna spent all her nights in this room, warnings notwithstanding. She looked up—both of her allies stood frozen just outside the perimeter of the control platform. Not enchanted—not trapped, not glowing with some spell. Forerunner’s face was blank, emotionless. But Lightning Dust looked as downcast as Lucky felt. “Because the future of this habitat depends on what is decided here.” Princess Luna did not attack her—didn’t do anything to her, other than slowly walk up to her. Lucky resisted the desire to bow, only barely. She had thought it would be difficult making friends with Flurry Heart. At times, it had felt overwhelming to be near that filly, who seemed to radiate magical energy whenever she did anything. Flurry Heart had been able to accomplish almost effortlessly what took Lucky enormous struggle. “You have… you’re a citizen. You can free us. Tell Harmony… to stop.” Standing next to the princess of the night, Lucky thought she might understand what she had seen Olivia feel, in the moments before her death. This was not a person—Princess Luna was an ideal. Her mane was not hair, it was a window into the vastness of space. Through there were stars, planets, swirling galaxies. The eyes looking down on her were a little like Deadlight’s—old, worn, weary. But more compassionate than Princess Celestia had looked on drone footage. “I could not lie to Harmony,” she said. “I could not tell it those things, and believe them.” She leaned down, her eyes haunted as she met Lucky’s. “I have seen the end of our civilization, child. A great and marvelous civilization, that stretched from one end of creation to the other.” She waved a wing, and the holofield around them filled with an impossible projection—a galactic view that was at once expansive and yet granular. Lucky could see the stars, and the vast structures that surrounded several. Brilliant lines of light that lanced out in a web from one remote arm of the galaxy, growing denser and denser the longer she watched. They flocked like starlings around her, blotting out the stars as they passed. Then the little lights of civilization started to go out. The web vanished line by line, like an infection spreading from one corner of the galaxy to the next. “We can watch almost all of it, Lucky Break. Cities larger than all Equestria kept transmitting until the end. We received it all—catalogued every plea, every desperate voice. You can watch them devour whole worlds. Maybe if you did, you would understand why my sister resists you with such fervor.” Luna doesn’t think I’ve been tricked into this like Moondancer did. She also knew Lucky’s name. Both suggested the same truth: Princess Luna had been talking to Flurry Heart. “Is that what you’re doing to Flurry Heart? Showing her the end of the world over and over, until she isn’t curious anymore?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. Then again, she wasn’t really trying. Lucky looked up, half expecting to see Forerunner about to reprimand… but he didn’t. He’d begun walking the perimeter of the projector, inspecting it and everything all around them. Maybe he could see patterns in the way it was constructed that Lucky couldn’t. Lightning Dust was less diplomatic. “Your sister is a monster,” she hissed, her voice carrying even through the empty room. “I watched her murder a pony she’d captured. And she tortures the youngest princess, just because she went somewhere she shouldn’t. How many others?” Luna’s head snapped suddenly to one side, and her eyes burned. Her voice boomed throughout the chamber, so loud that Lightning Dust went sliding away towards the entrance, as though blown by the force of a gale. “YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF HER IN THIS MANNER! IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO COMPREHEND, THEN BE SILENT! ALLOW THE ADULTS TO SPEAK IN PEACE!” As scathing a reprimand as any princess could give. Lucky’s ears flattened, though she couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with herself. For the first time in her entire life, she was the one considered an adult. I was right. These princesses aren’t evil. They’re hostages, just like we are. And she had to set them all free. Somehow. “You are showing her this, though,” Lucky continued, hoping Luna wouldn’t turn that violent spell on her. “That’s how I would convince someone not to explore. Make them think that if they do, everything they know will be destroyed.” “It is the truth,” said the night princess, turning back to face her. Her expression softened as she looked at her—though what she might be seeing, Lucky couldn’t guess. “Our galaxy was consumed long ago, but we survived. In essence, if not in body.” “How?” Lucky found herself asking. “Something this big… it must have attracted attention. Even if you hid from your own kind until the end…” “Many plans were made. Some built grand citadels. Others fled across horizons of space and time, and yet others fled to planes of being beyond our comprehension. Beyond such horizons, it is impossible for any of them to ever return. If any endured the eons, we do not know, only that the galaxy remains silent. But every transmission we ever recorded showed only the destruction of another great fortress. None we knew of survived. “Only by building a vast world and burying it in the churning depths of a star could we escape detection. By burning the fuel of Latobius, Harmony could keep cool enough to survive the scorching abyss, but flesh is not so resilient. We left it behind, yearning for the day we could return to our home, the stars.” Lucky shivered as she considered that—it explained the molten, ruined surface of much of the ring, though it did not explain how the structure of Equus could withstand such things. But she wasn’t an engineer. She probably wouldn’t have understood the specifics even if she heard them. And anyway, such mysteries were not why she was here. “What if they’re gone?” Lucky finally asked. “Discord… he says he was created to know when it was safe, and he thinks it is. That it’s been safe forever and ever, and whatever that enemy is you’re afraid of has burned itself out. You don’t have to trap yourselves here any longer! You don’t have to be Harmony’s slaves!” Far across the room, the doors slid slowly open. Lucky already knew what she would see standing there. Princess Celestia looked like she’d just been woken. Her mane wasn’t some blaze of power, as it had been during the fight with Olivia. It was disheveled, matted, and she wasn’t wearing the armor either. Lucky didn’t get a glimpse of what had happened to Perez or Mogyla outside. She didn’t have to wonder at who would’ve won in that fight, particularly with them both already in such bad shape. I hope she didn’t kill them. By then, Lightning Dust had returned to the edge of the control platform. She hadn’t argued with Luna again, though she’d watched with constant suspicion every moment. Now she turned, and glared absolute loathing across the room at Princess Celestia. Please, please, please don’t attack her. After what she’d seen the sun princess do to Olivia, she found herself suddenly terrified—strangely, she felt more afraid for Lightning Dust than herself. And what had happened to Forerunner? “This should not have happened,” Princess Celestia said, and suddenly she had crossed the room, appearing on the edge of the control platform. “Harmony assured me this plot would be thwarted from the inside. She is not often wrong.” Another voice spoke—a voice that came from all around them. Or… not, it wasn’t coming from around her. It was coming from inside her head. And inside everything else. “We told you it was a projection, Celestia. And we have succeeded. This one is the danger. When she is gone, Equus will be secure.” Celestia stared down at the floor where they were standing, genuine distress on her face. “Sister, remove yourself from there. And the prisoner… her as well.”