In the room beneath the lift to the Flame District, Starlight paused, looking at the ceiling. She had a vague memory of a crack where Valey had shadow snuck everyone through, but now there was a clean hole in the crystal, polished and faceted and free of the chalky buildup that coated the untouched walls in the palace. It was convenient, though, and that was more than enough of an excuse not to question it.
Horn humming with pink energy, Starlight easily levitated Maple and Valey to the top, then conjured a crystal staircase for herself, pleased at how little effort magic took with the tree helping her and slightly sad she was about to leave it behind. Shinespark's ship had a harmony extractor that could fix her horn whenever she needed it, and all signs currently pointed to that being her ride out of Ironridge, but after almost disappearing thanks to the machine, she was nearly as leery of using it as Maple had been in warning her. Her sight was back, but to stay on the safe side, she might have to never use magic again.
She sat with her friends at the base of the lift, waiting for Fire, relishing that last taste of harmonic power like a shrinking piece of candy in her mouth. She leaned Maple against her, once again shivering from contact with the mare's warmth, and rested her cheek against Maple's shoulder and Maple's head atop hers.
"Your eyes are pink again," she remarked. "After laying in that flame with me. Are you all right? That's what broke your cutie mark last time."
"It felt like the right thing to do..." Maple murmured, completely spent. "It was much gentler than last time. And it feels good to carry, too. Not much... but just a little."
Valey raised an eyebrow. "I told you that stuff usually feels good."
Starlight grunted in agreement. If there was anywhere she wanted to wake up after thinking she was dead... well, Maple's bed in Riverfall was her first pick, but in the tree would make a close second. With Maple beside her, she could almost feel the flames still flickering around her, soothing her like a caring lullaby. Considering Maple was carrying some and she held their magic in her horn, maybe they even were.
"Hello?" Fire called out beneath them, splashing into the thin liquid at the bottom of the room that Valey had once said made a wonderful drink. In her aura, she floated Braen's armor, along with a glowing, pink-charged windigo heart. Starlight reformed the stairs for her, too, and together they started the lift on its ascent back to the Flame District.
The second elevator, Starlight remembered with a pang of dismay, had been destroyed in their fight against the mercenaries. The shattered, twisted remains of the carriage lay at the bottom of the shaft, a short distance above to the start of the core and a very long ways to reach the roof. Valey looked regretfully at her hurt wing, bandaged to her side and unable even to be flexed. Starlight growled at her horn, wishing to no avail that Fire had Shinespark's flight magic.
What Fire did have was exceptionally-powerful fire magic, demonstrated by a beam of pure sunlight wider than a yak that poured from her horn, melting a diagonal-upward passage several meters into the rock. She started to follow it, beaming and preparing to carve it further, when Valey stopped her with a cough.
"I dunno how you can stand on rocks so hot they're literally glowing orange," the batpony pointed out, "but we definitely can't. And it'll take hours before those cool off."
"Oh..." Fire blushed from embarrassment, though it might have been the light from the half-magma glowing off her sparkling cheeks. "Whoops. My magic can do that..."
Valey wiped her brow with her good wing, the proximity of the heat causing her to sweat even though the tunnel was on the other side of the cave. "Where were you when I was fighting Herman? Seriously..."
"Maple?" Starlight asked, glancing up at the earth pony on her back. "How did you get us down here in the first place? Did you just jump?"
"I don't remember..." Maple murmured, sagging. "It feels so long ago. I think I flew... I want to go to sleep..."
If Starlight hadn't needed all four hooves to remain standing under Maple's weight, she would have reached up and tried to stroke her ear. "Then do that," she insisted. "We've got this. Fire?" She stared at the unicorn. "That armor has a jetpack. Can you use it to fly us up?"
Fire couldn't figure out Braen's jetpack function. She couldn't figure out anything except the basic strength-enhancement powers, but apparently those were enough. Using her telekinesis to carry the other three ponies, she dragged herself up the tunnel wall, using the sharp implements along Braen's hooves for purchase on the rock.
The core itself was dark and filled with the sound of rushing water. Fire's horn illuminated dozens of columns pouring from overhead, fueling the formation of a vast, dark lake where the pit bottom had once stood. Smoke vents, once designed to capture steam and hot air and facilitate the melting of snow in the Sky District to feed the reservoir, now had their functions reversed, funneling meltwater from above underground, the pump and filtration systems designed to keep the flow one-way gone with the power.
"Heh... good thing the power was already off when this hit," Valey muttered, eyeing the watery cavern. "Probably still gonna ruin a bunch of this equipment, though. Something tells me it's going to take a lot of work to bail this place out and start mining again."
Fire climbed catwalks and ladders, not risking jumps when she was unaccustomed to the strength of Braen's legs. Starlight clung to Maple as they floated along; her mother had kept her word and gone to sleep, and Starlight felt the rise and fall of her sides and listened to her heartbeat as if they were the only things that mattered in the world. Slowly, they progressed through the darkened and abandoned facility, finally reaching a thin walkway to a disused emergency door at the very top.
The shell of the skyport was chilly, but not life-threateningly so, and Fire's horn glowed with a warmth that kept even the mountain air at bay. She still carried Starlight, Maple and Valey, showing no sign of tiring as she paced across marble floors with occasional cracks and stepped through connection tunnels that felt slightly off-center.
An eastern morning sun shone through the remains of the clear glass, some rooms with their domes cracked but intact and others wide open like the atrium. Deep blue and cloudless, the sky welcomed them back after the storm, promising the same kind of disgustingly-hot weather Starlight had suffered under the day before... or had she been gone so long that it was two days, now? She didn't care. They were alive, and could go home.
The snowfields outside were melting. At their latitude, Starlight didn't doubt they'd be back, but her sight was graced with the actual mountain surface, craggy folds of gray protecting white in their lees and rivers in their lowest gaps. A sea of gray and white, tossed like waves and foam in a frozen ocean, stretched out for miles and miles to the south, until eventually it met the towering ridge of the true mountain wall that separated Ironridge from Equestria. Hopefully that much meltwater wouldn't make the flooding worse, though she had little doubt it would.
Skyfreeze still stood in a proud, golden spire, no clouds present by which to measure its progress in touching the sky. The one time Starlight had been there, she had been blind, but she knew it served as both the center of government and residence for councilmembers, wealthy traders and diplomats. If Ironridge was truly cut off from the world, as Fire had said, what would they all do? Sit around in their giant tower without energy and debate policies that had no impact? Starlight wondered who in the districts would even listen to them, after all their leadership had brought the city to. That had, after all, been part of Herman's plan.
Then she saw the city itself, lifted high enough to view beyond the mountains' edge and into the crater. It sparkled with wetness in the morning, looking as if it had just been flattened by a giant mop. Everything seemed to sag, simultaneously brighter and duller, and despite the distance Starlight's eyes were drawn to a myriad of tiny specks of color. Everywhere, across the western Stone District, Blueleaf's misshapen stack, the Karma Industries tower to the north, ponies were outside and moving around.
That was nice. Hopefully they were moving and doing productive things, rather than moving and blaming or fighting... but what could she do if they were? As well-rested and freshly-charged as her body felt, Starlight was still tired, and putting herself back out under more risk and stress to fix problems other ponies had caused for themselves was just too much. It was time to leave. Time to go.
As they drew down the broken tunnel to where the flightless airship still sat, Starlight saw Shinespark's greatest work for the first time in the light of day. It had been righted, sitting on a broad slab of rock with landing gear extended, waiting powerless for the harmonic energy that would give it flight once again. Curved and lovingly sculpted from wood over metal, every trace of snow within a certain radius of it had been completely annihilated, and the air almost felt springlike to her nose. Was that the scent of flowers?
They didn't go unnoticed. Gerardo's head shot out from the bridge, staring right at them, before calling something loudly down below. Soon, Arambai stumped up the stairs, followed by Dior and a self-levitating Shinespark with her leg in a cast. All of them watched in interest as Fire levitated the three gently to the deck.
Arambai sighed as he made eye contact with Starlight, almost able to manage a smile. "Well. Look who survived. Gotta admit, after what I saw with you and that surge back in Riverfall, and then that explosion... I figured you bit it. Would've explained why poor Maple was so upset. Glad to see at least someone's back in once piece, though..." He looked away, then glanced back curiously. "What did happen to you?"
"Magic," Starlight grunted, not in an expository mood now that Maple was back on her back and there was a ship beneath her hooves. "Listen. If you want to make ships like this, there's a power source under the Flame District. Don't use me. Me and Maple are going back to Riverfall, and we're going to live together and be happy and not be bothered by any ponies with big, grand plans, okay?" She plucked the windigo heart from Fire's aura, a pink light radiating from its frosty surface. "This can run the ship. We need a ride back. Please."
Dior watched the crystal with interest, while Shinespark floated in place, looking shellshocked. Arambai squinted at it, and eventually rubbed his beard.
"Well, you're half in luck," he eventually told her. "See, we weren't all that sure what we were messing with, making this ship, so we built it to withstand absolutely anything. End-of-the-world levels of energy, you hear?"
Starlight swallowed. "There's a but coming. You're going to tell me I broke it, aren't you?"
Arambai looked apprehensive. "Well... yeah. The internals might have burned out in a place or two. Fortunately, they failed like they were supposed to fail, so it's not like the whole ship's junked. All we need are replacements for a few easy-to-replace parts... fuses and dials and regulators and the like. The important parts of the internals are all intact, and structurally, she's as sound as can be."
"All right," Starlight sighed, hanging her head and glaring. "How long will it take?"
Arambai grinned. "Seeing as Sosa's underwater..."
Starlight's eye twitched.
"...It'll just mean getting the ship back to my lab in Riverfall," he finished. "If you've got power, I'm pretty sure I can wire up levitation in under an hour with what I have here. That'll keep the ship airborne... without any controls whatsoever. And if you want actual propulsion, too bad." He raised an eyebrow. "Still, it's not too long a trip, so Shinespark can probably push it there in a few days, tops."
"Fine." Starlight turned away, heading for the stairs belowdecks. "As long as we can come with you, and don't have to do anything else after."
"Come with me?" Arambai shook his head sadly. "Oh, I'm not going back to Riverfall, Starlight. It'll be up to these two to fix it up for you." He shook a hoof at Shinespark and Dior. "Nahhh... You were out a whole day and two nights, and I haven't been up here the whole time. I've been showing my face a little around the city, here and there. Seems an old rival of mine is in a bit of a state of disrepair, while an old friend is looking to finally get her hooves dirty and see what she can do for the city. As for me... looks like the ponies are willing to try anything, even the stallion that sold them out to the economic council seven years ago, so long as it's not the system that brought actual war to their soil. I've got my old job to get back to, seeing if I can fix this place up and put things right around here."
Starlight blinked. "You're not?"
"Not going back to Riverfall?" Arambai's lips turned upward in a smile. "That's what I said. But don't worry. I'm pretty sure Dior will do a good job keeping old Hemlock annoyed in my place. Might even give all those frustrated mares someone even better to swoon for."
Dior bowed his head stoically.
"...Anyway." Arambai took the windigo heart from Starlight, rolling it over and examining it in his aura. "This is what we need, hmm? Well, I'll get to work. Enjoy wherever life takes you, and all that. And by the way."
He whistled, and in a crack of telekinesis, a short, plump, wine-red mare appeared in a slightly rumpled suit. "Yes, sir?" She primly straightened her glasses.
"Starlight, this is Hestia," Arambai introduced, waving a hoof. "Secretary for Mobius, before he coincidentally retired yesterday. You may have met her."
"I don't think we have," Hestia replied, moving to shake Starlight's hoof. Despite her being an adult, Starlight was fairly sure that if she wasn't weighted down with Maple, they would stand eye to eye. "Starlight? A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Mmm." Arambai lifted Maple from Starlight's back to his, freeing the filly. "I'll go put her somewhere comfortable down below. We're still cleaning the place up, but there should be a good room or two. Anyway, Hestia is an accomplished teleporter and can ferry a passenger across the entire city with just a few leaps. If there's any unfinished business you have in Ironridge, take care of it now. And if not... go for a walk, or something. It would be a shame to leave without at least one good memory of the city, and I hear the mountain air is good for the lungs. But that's your call. Come back here in an hour, or whenever you're ready to leave."
Starlight hesitated... and Valey instantly snapped to her side. "I'm coming, too."
Hestia nodded at her. "I can ferry two. You're Valey?"
"Reputations, reputations..." Valey hung her head. "Yeah. So, Starlight? Anywhere you wanna go?"
Starlight chewed her lip, thinking...