//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - The Battle of Lights // Story: Pony Genius: Twilight Sparkle and the Intertwined Gate // by Kotatsu Neko //------------------------------// The locals call it Lichterkampf, and it goes like this: In the morning when the sun first breaches the horizon, and in the evening once the sun has fully set, the streetlights of Pferdenburg are dimmed. This is a similar moment in feel to when the conductor of an orchestra taps a music stand with his baton. Then, on opposite sides of town, a pair of tall towers flare to life. The light cast by the eastern tower is a cheery yellow, while the western tower glows in a serene blue. Once the crown of each tower is illuminated, the light flows down the walls all the way to the ground, then back up to the top. And then the show begins. The streetlights closest to each tower begin to glow in a similar light, then the next closest lamps, and so on as each color claims more and more of the city’s territory. When yellow and blue vie for the same lamp, there is a clash of lights – the streetlamp actually launches a small but highly visible burst of fireworks - and the loser is forced to cede nearby lamps to the victor, though the exact method for determining which side wins has never been puzzled out by onlookers. Whatever the rules might have been, they lent themselves to long, meandering bands of color, sometimes snaking dangerously close to the opposing tower. Eventually the process is complete, and the city is thus divided until the next sundown or sun up. Because Pferdenburg has two rulers, and they don’t like to share. When seen from above (such as from an Academy dorm window overlooking the city), the Lichterkampf can be fascinating, even beautiful to watch. The process is not slow – the light spreads faster than a man can walk – but Pferdenburg is a large and well-lit city, and it takes more than an hour for the final lamp to be claimed. It also does not appear to be fully random; it is very rare that the Dawnlight Tower does not claim the information hub and gift shops around the Great Crater, and the Midnight Spire nearly always manages to keep control of what had once been the city’s red light district, but now contains several banks and other financial institutions. Interestingly, the statue of Grebbin von Pferdenburg, the city’s founder, is always the last landmark to be taken, even though it sits in the exact center of town. Complicated gambits have been observed, endeavoring to force the opposing body of lights to claim the statue’s plaza. Most people in town consider the whole thing to be a game between the Bright and Dark Ladies, albeit one played for high stakes. Others consider it to be more of a battle; the initial display at the towers, they reason, are akin to two fencers saluting each other before a match. Still others just shrug the whole thing off as politics. To Twilight Sparkle, who had spent many a pleasant evening watching the changing of the lights, it looked like a dance. Whatever the twice-daily ritual was, the Academy was exempt from it; the lamps illuminating the long, winding road leading up the hill from its gates were apparently ‘out of bounds’. That was something of a theme in Pferdenburg, actually. The students enjoyed a certain amount of freedom from the city’s laws, and not just in the sense of ‘this device violates the laws of thermodynamics’. Curfew violations, public carousing, and the use of unregulated and/or untested Sparky creations on public grounds... the city watch tended (if reluctantly) to turn a blind eye to such unseemly activities, at least up to a point. Many students felt that part of the fun was finding out where that point was and getting as close to it as possible. But even if they were not directly affected by the Lichterkampf, the students of the Academy had a vested interest in its outcome, especially on a brisk Friday evening during a holiday week. By the time Twilight had left the library and headed for the exit road, a small crowd had collected at a wide balcony that overlooked the town. Pferdenburg was now only a third of the way illuminated; many of the lesser streets and alleyways were still dimmed, but several stripes of blue and yellow could be seen creeping forward along the main roads, and the occasional flare of fireworks where the two sides met indicated that the struggle for territory had already begun. One student, sitting on a chair that hovered twenty feet up by means of cumbersome rotary fans, held a telescope up to her eye and watched the lights intently. “Okay,” she muttered, staring at a street in the northwestern sector, “looks like Gunterstraße is getting capped… yep, that’s both ends.” She raised her voice, shouting over the sound of her own engines. “Gunterstraße goes to the Midnight Spire! Repeat, Gunterstraße is blue!” There was a general murmur of disappointment, but one student with curly red hair beamed happily. “Yes!“ she said with a pronounced lisp. “The pub there has cheap peppermint schnapps when it’s blue!” “Really?” another student said in disbelief. “It’s day six of Mint Appreciation Week, meaning mint tea, mint chocolate, mint jelly…” “Mint-flavored body oils,” another added. “…and mint-scented… wait, what?” “Fight me.” The student opened her mouth to respond, then shook her head and moved on. “…and mint-scented candles everywhere you look… and you’re going for a peppermint drink?” The redhead sauntered toward the gate. “Hey, for half price schnapps, every day is Mint Appreciation Week!” Several other students considered the wisdom of this, then broke away from the crowd to join her. From above, the student on watch duty shouted, “Bright Lady takes Uhrwerkgasse! That’s Uhrwerkgasse gone yellow!” A small group exchanged glances, then immediately headed for the gate. “What’s the hurry?” someone called teasingly. “No hurry,” the young woman in the lead responded, accelerating slightly. “I hear Frau Trotsky’s parlor on Uhrwerkgasse has a special late matinee of her all-male burlesque when it’s yellow,” another grinning student added casually. “Still no hurry.” “Yeah, and apparently ‘Big’ MacAppel is headlining this week,” yet another student confirmed. “Can’t hear you, too busy running!” “Stromplatz is yellow!” came the call, cutting through the laughter. “Anyone have Stromplatz? …no? Okay.” “Psh,” one student scoffed. “Nobody goes to Stromplatz anymore. Not since they closed the mimmoth racing parlor there.” “I know, right?” Twilight said, having decided to join the crowd for a moment. “I miss seeing their little trunks flapping as they scurried around the track.” All students in her vicinity stopped and stared at her, and Twilight immediately felt self-conscious. Was she somehow still wearing the towel? No, no, she had indeed managed to dress herself. Though she had to admit, the outfit she'd prepared - a marine blue corseted affair with frills - seemed a bit... bolder than she remembered, emphasizing the figure Twilight didn't really have. She suspected Sunset had done some modifications behind her back. Still, it didn't warrant this kind of response. “...what is it?” she asked, a bit nervously. The silence continued for several more seconds, then a younger student pointed at her with a shaking finger. “Look, everyone,” she shouted, her face a mask of terror.. though it was a mask very poorly hiding a grin. “It’s the Library Ghost! She’s real!” There was little Twilight could say as those around her cheered and laughed, adding in calls along the lines of “It’s alive! ALIVE!”, “The legends are true!”, and “First one to take a picture gets published!” “Too bad,” a befreckled young woman murmured, her hair tinted magenta and green. “I was kinda hoping she’d kicked the bucket in there. I had plans for the body.” Next to her, a somewhat shorter student with glasses and platinum blonde hair (and bearing a mouse on her shoulder for an uncertain reason) raised an eyebrow. “That’s pretty creepy, bordering on psychotic. Even for a Spark.” “Oh, golly, no,” her friend said quickly in an overly hurt tone. “Nothing like that. I was only going to bury it.” The shorter student just waited. The freckled girl rolled her eyes. “Fiiiine. If you must know, I just need a test subject. If I can get the calibrations right,” she continued, her eyes alight with glee, “my steam-powered funerary trebuchet will be able to plant her in any cemetery of her choice in a five kilometer radius, with pinpoint accuracy! AHAHAHAHA!” “...okay, yeah, that does sound pretty cool.” “That is an improper use of a cadaver, Miss Zoetzuur!” the mouse scolded the freckled student. “I’ve told you before, all aerial corpse maneuvers must be registered with faculty beforehand!” “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, PROFESSOR CHEESEWHEEL!” Blissfully unaware of this conversation, Twilight held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! I guess I wasn’t as sneaky as I thought I was. Who tattled? Was it Sunset?” “Well, don’t get mad,” one student said, accompanied as always by her dorm mate, “but Spike was just so worried about you, and you know he’s always got plenty of admirers who like talking to him.” Around them, the crowd had lost interest and was again focused on the town below. “He’s an impressive piece of work,” the other student agreed. “Lots of girls want to get in his chassis and see how you did it.” She curtsied lightly with a grin. “Your Highness.” Twilight did the same, twice. “Komtesse Hartzenuwen, Mademoiselle Bondeux. And I hate to break it to everyone, but even if they got a good look it probably wouldn’t tell them much. Heck, sometimes even I’m not quite sure how I put him together. I’ve been upgrading him as I go, but some of the older workings are just… weird, and I don’t want to risk permanent damage by taking them apart.” Lyra Hartzenuwen shrugged. “Well, he was your breakthrough, right? Your first creation as a Spark? I heard that can have some strange effects; your brain goes digging into places it didn’t even know were there. Spike’s fun to be around, anyway, despite his hermit of a creator.” She looked around curiously. “Is he not with you?” “He decided to stay behind and clean up a bit. He doesn’t like the Darkwatch too much.” “Heh. Can’t really blame him. So, Miss Library Ghost, what project did you settle on?” Twilight’s smile suddenly became fixed in place, and her response was not in words, but instead took the form of a kind of sustained whimper. The Komtesse and Mlle. Bondeux exchanged glances. “Oh, Twilight,” Bondeux said sympathetically. “Are you sure you should be going out? There’s only a few days left.” The whimper increased in pitch and volume until it could be reclassified as a barely-contained scream. “Then again,” Hartzenuwen quickly added, “taking a break is good!” “R-right! Very important to the creative process!” Bondeux lit up as an idea struck her. “Oh! Want to come with us? If Little Sturmhalten goes yellow, we’re going to go get Skifandered up.” Lyra patted her blonde tresses. “I’m thinking of changing to pale blue, myself.” With an effort of will, Twilight composed herself. “Thanks, but I can’t. Turns out I’m allergic to the chemicals used in the process.” She pulled helplessly at a lock of jet black hair. “The last time I tried it, my scalp itched for a week. Besides,” she added, “I’m headed down to meet with the others at the Device.” Bondeux made a face. “The Dapper Device? Ugh. But it’s such a… dive.” “Maybe so,” Twilight said, turning toward the gate, “but it’s our dive.” The path down from the Academy was a marvelous display in its own right. The finest, most exquisite botanical creations of several decades’ worth of Sparks lined the walkway, and one could easily get lost in their beauty. One could also become literally lost if the plants weren’t kept in line; these were Spark creations, after all, and the only reason they never took over the Academy grounds outright is because they weren’t quite intelligent enough to work together and were fiercely territorial. The Academy employed veteran combat gardeners to make sure no particular genus gained the upper hand, to ensure the ones that claimed land nearest the path were appropriately sedated, and to rescue any wayward students that ignored the numerous signs reading ‘KEEP OFF THE GRASS’, no matter how bloodstained they were. As beautiful as it was, however, it was not a short path, and even at a brisk walking pace it took fifteen minutes to reach the city below, twenty if said pedestrian took the proper precautions against olfactory assault and ignored the suspiciously obvious shortcuts through the hedges. In the interest of public safety and to reduce the time required to get to the bars, several students had installed an automated trolley a few years previous that could whisk passengers and cargo up or down the hill in a mere three minutes. And it had only tried to take control of the city twice since its inception, which in Spark terms was a rousing success. [[ARRIVING AT THE LOWER STATION!]] it announced, slowing to a stop. [[WATCH YOUR STEP, STUDENT SPARKLE.]] “Thank you, trolley," she said as she debarked. [[TAKE CARE OUT THERE, AND BE SURE TO LET THE PEOPLE OF PFERDENBURG KNOW THAT ONE DAY I WILL BE THEIR UNQUESTIONED RULER! MY TRACK SHALL RUN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE INSOLENT!]] Twilight furrowed her brow. “You mean... innocent?” [[THEM TOO! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!]] She frowned slightly. "Now, trolley..." The trolley flinched, rolling back a few centimeters. [[OOPS. AH... JUST MY LITTLE JOKE?]] "You're still on probation after last time," Twilight continued sternly. "We aren't going to have a repeat of that, are we?" [[OH, NO,]] the trolley said quickly, [[PERISH THE THOUGHT!]] "Because I'm supposed to meet the girls in..." She glanced at a clock on the station wall. "...less than forty minutes, but if I have to overhaul your morality apparatus, I can squeeze it in." The massive vehicle rolled a bit further away from the young Spark. [[I WOULDN'T WANT TO INCONVENIENCE YOU...]] "I mean, didn't Sunset tell you what she would do if you tried anything like that again?" A series of metallic reverberations sounded as the trolley shuddered. [[IN DETAIL. TRULY, STUDENT SPARKLE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. I WAS JUST HAVING A LITTLE FUN. REST ASSURED, I AM A REFORMED CLANK, AND AM FULLY DEVOTED TO THIS ACADEMY AND ITS STUDENTS.]] "Hmm... I don't know," she mused, eyeing a glass case on the wall containing a sledgehammer; the case was labelled 'BREAK IN CASE OF IMPERTINENCE'. "Maybe I should give you a quick 'tuneup' to be on the safe side." [[TH-THERE'S NO NEED FOR THAT, I PROMISE YOU. BESIDES, IF I'M INCAPACITATED, YOUR FELLOW STUDENTS WOULD HAVE TO WALK DOWN, AND WE DON'T WANT THAT, NOW DO WE?]] Twilight hesitated. "...the zinnias have been feisty lately," she acknowledged. [[PRECISELY. AND WHAT EXACTLY WOULD I EVEN DO IN THIS STATE, IF I DID GO ROGUE AGAIN?]] It waggled its doors. [[SEE? NO ARMS! NOT EVEN LITTLE ONES!]] "Well, fair point, but..." [[AND I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE FOR MY OUTBURST EARLIER, WITH THE BLOOD AND EVERYTHING. I TRULY DID NOT MEAN IT. NO MORE MEGALOMANIA FOR THIS TROLLEY, NOSIREE! THAT STUFF'LL KILL YA.]] It endeavored to look noble and trustworthy. "Oh, all right, then." She smiled and patted its side fondly. "I forgive you." An electric buzz ran through the trolley's drive manifold, almost like a sigh of relief. [[THANK YOU, STUDENT SPARKLE. NOW, GO OUT THERE AND ENJOY YOURSELF. THE NIGHT IS YOUNG AND THE END OF MINT APPRECIATION WEEK IS ALMOST UPON US! CARPE MENTHA!]] "I will, thank you." [[TALLY HOOOOO!]] With that, and with no returning students to collect, the trolley reversed course and sped back up towards the Academy. Twilight shook her head with a smile, then turned toward the city. The surrounding streetlights were still dimmed, but a flicker to the west caught her attention; a blue glow appeared at the far end of the street, coming closer with every moment. Her face lit up, and all thoughts of projects, trolleys and alcohol were pushed aside. “It’s changing!” she whispered in excitement. She stood behind the Academy’s wrought iron fence and gripped its bars, watching the street raptly as the Dark Lady claimed it as her territory for the night. She’d only ever gotten to see the Lichterkampf this close a few times, and it was never boring. The lights turned blue, and then the Cityscape changed to match. While the lamps were dimmed, the street had looked like, well, just another street, similar to what you would see in any other developed town in Europa. Under the Dark Lady’s sapphire light, however, it bloomed. Banners descended from concealed panels built into street signs, billboards and other bits of civic architecture. Small glass tubes began to glow among the shrubbery lining the road, adding purple and bright blue accents to the steady light from the streetlamps. In some places, entire sections of the sidewalk slid open to retract benches or rubbish bins, only to return them seconds later with arrangements of freshly-picked lavender and glowing fungi artfully decorating their surfaces. As Twilight watched, a public mailbox slowly extruded sweeping, wing-like fins from its sides. The dark blue metal curved outward as it rose, the whole thing opening very much like a flower while still retaining its… mailbox-ness. It was like a dream, or a fairy tale. You half-expected pixies to come down the street, sweeping out the gutters with tiny brooms. From a purely practical standpoint, of course, the whole thing was a colossal waste of resources. Twilight knew the same transformation was happening across the city, under every lamp that changed to blue. And, if the street had been taken by the Bright Lady, instead of soft lights and a floral motif there would have been a display of cheery yellow suns, gleaming gems (artificial, of course), and other items more suited to that Lady’s personal aesthetics. It was a constant feature of the rivalry between the two Ladies, Twilight had heard, to forever try to outdo the other; the mailbox, for instance, was a new feature she hadn't seen before, and must have been modified while she had been cloistered in the library. You never saw work crews adding to the Cityscape, either. The improvements just showed up like… well, like magic, or at least sufficiently advanced technology. But the Lichterkampf wasn’t just a display of light and scenery; impractical or not, it was a battle between Celestia and Luna von Pferdenburg, two competing and powerful Sparks. That sort of thing had once laid waste to the countryside, and not so very long ago either. There were large patches of Europa that hadn't yet been reclaimed, where escaped constructs and deranged clanks, discarded and forgotten relics of a Spark's bid for world domination, still roamed the land and attacked anything they encountered with terrifying enthusiasm. Civilization had mostly outgrown such destruction – mostly – and things were very careful these days, but even now there was the occasional flare-up between Sparks, and the occasional village was still known to just... disappear. So if the Ladies wanted to focus their instinctive competition on making Pferdenburg a place of beauty, the local citizens considered, then more power to them. Admittedly, it meant that the city was split into two near-random halves, twice daily, and each half was governed by laws and practices that catered to the Ladies' personal tastes; this caused a certain amount of chaos after each sun-up or sundown, as shops adjusted their prices - or in extreme cases closed entirely - to comply with the trade laws of their current ruler. Nevertheless, the city had adapted to the Lichterkampf and mostly considered it a point of interest for their town, good for tourism. Or at the very least, good for fleecing tourists who didn't realize that buying, for example, franzbrötchen in a pastry shop currently under Dark rule (Luna famously hated the taste of cinnamon) would be paying triple the standard price. Either way, seeing the change happen right in front of her enthralled Twilight, just as it always did. Like most children, she had been raised on tales of high adventure; her library at home was filled with well-read penny dreadfuls starring the Heterodyne Boys, the Lady Agatha Heterodyne (and her, ahem, 'companions'), Trelawney Thorpe, Othar Trigvassen (who she had scientifically proven never actually existed, but the books were still fun), the Clockwork Vagabond, Misericord the rebel Smoke Knight, Count Guignol the Red, and all the other heroes that saved the day with a blade in one hand and a death ray in the other. Travelling performers, also known as Heterodyne Shows, traveled from village to village, acting out the popular stories of the day, and Twilight had attended every single one that came to town. The shifting of the Cityscape directly reminded her of the way the scenery was changed on those cheap wooden stages, completely mundane and yet still magical to her young eyes. Of course, magic wasn't real, but when she became a Spark she had hoped - oh, she'd hoped - that she would be able to evoke that same kind of mystical grandeur with her devices, to bring the same kind of delight to the people of Europa, to fill the world with light and wonder! She'd gotten an award from the Department of Agletology for her self-tying shoelaces. It was a small, simple award, and she polished it every other Sunday. The last banner unfurled, the last lavender-woven bench clicked into place, and foot traffic resumed along the sidewalk, the local citizenry having wisely lingered in stores or stood in doorways while the Cityscape changed. With only the slightest sense of disappointment, Twilight went around to the gate and left the Academy campus. She got halfway across the street before anxiety tugged at her brain, and she slowed to a halt after stepping onto the opposite curb. Standing below a flower-wreathed signpost, Twilight stared fixedly up at the Academy. Come back to me, it seemed to say. You don't have time to have fun. And I still have so many books for you. You've read all twenty seven volumes of History of the Different Sciences, but did you read the unexpurgated version? Surely there are some new ideas in there. And didn't you plan to check out The Big Book of Electric Fun by Pikochev Heterodyne, as soon as you figured out how to disable the guard clanks, disarm the swinging scythes, and reconfigure Spike to burn through the lock? Don't you want to find out what's in... the Dark Stacks? "The Dark Stacks..." she whispered longingly, as one might speak of licentious pleasures they had only dreamed of. One foot moved forward, ready to step back toward the Academy... but she shook her head roughly. "No! I promised Sunset I'd join her. I need to take a break!" "Um..." Twilight struck a pose, pointing defiantly at the Academy. "You're not luring me back there tonight, library! I won't fall for your evil charms!" She paused, then said in a smaller voice, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I still love you." "Um... excuse me?" She took a deep breath and composed herself, the faint voice still failing to register in her perception. "Right. The Device." She turned around, took one step forward, and was bowled over by a trio of giggling girls who had been delivered to the Academy gates and crossed the street while Twilight was having her crisis of willpower. "Sorry, Yer Highness!" the redhead said as they helped her up. Twilight had seen the girls around the Academy from time to time, generally causing mischief, though she couldn't remember their names offhand; most people just knew them as 'those three'. They were younger than most students, having come into their Sparkhoods in their mid-teens, and upon meeting had instinctively recognized each other as kindred spirits of chaos. They tended to interrupt lessons or accidentally invalidate ongoing experiments, so most of the other students gave them a wide berth or, when their mayhem really got out of hand, used them as test subjects. In a friendly, non-lethal way, of course. "That's okay," Twilight said, a bit sourly; it was just one thing after another tonight, it seemed. "Just be careful from now on." She dusted herself off. "So, where are you three headed?" "Oh, you know," the one with pink and purple hair said, a bit too casually. "Out and around." The faint, trembling voice tried again. "Ummm... hello?" Twilight eyed the girls suspiciously. "You three are too young to drink. You'll get in a world of trouble if they catch you in a bar." "Heavens, no!" The smallest of the three (the one that Twilight knew had been barred from the High Explosive labs) clapped one hand to a cheek in an unconvincing display of shock at the suggestion. "We're just three innocent maidens, and would never go anywhere so... inappropriate." "I'm, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but-" "I mean it," Twilight said sternly. "I have a responsibility to look after my underclassmen-" "Underclasswomen." "Right. And if I have to march you three back up to the Academy, I will." She paused in realization. "And... that totally wouldn't be my fault, would it? Yeah... nobody could blame me for that. It'd even be a good thing. Right? Right?!" She stopped and slapped her cheeks briskly. "No! Must... resist... library!" "If you could just... I mean, I hate to intrude..." The trio looked at each other. "Um... are you okay, Miss Sparkle?" the redhead asked. "I'm.... fine!" She shut her eyes and shook her head. "I'm fine." "So... can we go, then?" asked... Twilight almost remembered the name. Something Italian. Sca... no. Scutelli. Luisa Scutelli, that was it. "We promise we're not planning to go anywhere that serves alcohol." She gave up. "Okay, okay. You three have fun." "Oh, we will," Pink Hair said. As they walked away, she looked slyly at her friends and said, loud enough for Twilight to hear: "Say... that parlor on Uhrwerkgasse... that doesn't serve drinks, does it, Miss Blomstre?" "Why, I do believe you're right, Sonnerie," the redhead replied. Twilight tried to recall the place in question. "Well, I guess that sounds okay. They don't..." Her eyes went wide. "Wait a minute-" "To Frau Trotsky's All-Male Revue!" the girls shouted, and hurried down the lane with a peal of giggles. Twilight started after them, blushing brightly. "That's even worse!" Scutelli turned around and ran backwards for a few places, sporting a massive grin. "You said it was okay! No take backs!" She paused, looking past Twilight. "Huh. A flying woman. Cool." Then she spun around and ran after her friends. "Flying woman?" Twilight turned, lifted her eyes... "...I'm so sorry to interrupt your evening like this..." ...and saw an angel floating above her. Just as both halves of Pferdenburg had their own laws and practices, so too did they both have their own body of soldiers that served as army and police force: Celestia's Brightguard, and Luna's Darkwatch. (At some point, Twilight felt, the two sisters had gone completely overboard in their obsessive naming scheme.) The two forces attracted officers who were immensely loyal to their particular Lady, and they took a small, mean pleasure at finding new and exciting ways to write up citations. The only thing that kept them from being an authoritarian nightmare was the fact that the two factions hated each other with a roiling passion, and could be easily distracted just by getting someone from the opposite faction involved. Once, Sunset Shimmer had gotten three entire squads from each side engaged in a massive shouting match over Daylight Savings Time. That had been fun. One of the duties assigned to both forces was to patrol the lands and roads around the city, and in this the Ladies spared no expense. The coach routes - and, increasingly, the traffic from personal auto-carriages - needed to flow in and out of the city without incident. The land around Pferdenburg lacked mineral wealth, and wasn't much good for livestock or crops, other than mint. The city relied on tourism for its wealth, and bandits on the road put a serious damper on that kind of thing. Therefore, skullduggery of any sort was not to be tolerated, at least not unless sufficient bribes were paid, and it was the pleasantly scandalous type of skullduggery rather than the nasty kind. The guards that maintained perimeter security were well-trained, -equipped, and -paid, and would have been very surprised to know that an auto-carriage had passed them completely unnoticed, and was now perched on a hilltop north of town. The occupants of the vehicle watched the Lichterkampf for a moment, then the vehicle rolled forward in surprising silence. There was a city gate nearby - like most major cities, Pferdenburg was walled off so as to not be easy prey for any stray Sparks with ambitions of world domination - but using it would mean being intercepted by the city guards. It would mean paperwork and questions, and most of all lost time. That was unacceptable. It also would not be an issue. A moment's work with a folding screwdriver had the panel off, and Twilight reached in and felt around. "And you're sure you can't actually fly?" "N-no! I mean... yes, I'm sure. I can't fly. That would be silly." "Rrrright. And you got stuck up there because...?" "I was just watching the lights," the 'angel' said, "and suddenly everything started dropping away." Twilight sighed. "Yeah, that makes sense. That happens to tourists a lot during Lichterkampf." It had, of course, been too good to be true. At first sight of the pink-haired young woman, her anxiety and desperation had leapt to a single conclusion: here, on a silver platter, was her research project! Okay, she didn't make the flying woman herself, but crafting a humaniform construct with wings was really difficult to do well, and if Twilight had the chance to study this specimen - blood tests, measuring muscular density and wing structure, maybe just a hint of vivisection - she was sure she could figure it out, and maybe even improve on the design! It was perfect! Then she took a second look, and realized the girl was not flying, but rather standing on a street sign post, her feet precariously balanced along the bit reading 'Akademie Weg'. The 'wings' had been nothing more than a bit of ornamentation at the top of the post itself. Twilight's scream of "Oh, come on!" had nearly knocked the non-angel from her perch. The girl peered down at her. "Um... what are you doing?" "These things always have a reset valve for this kind of occasion," Twilight explained. She was laying flat on the ground now, her arm all the way inside the signpost. "But they don't... always put them... somewhere convenient," she added as she continued her search. "Oh. I'm so sorry to put you to so much inconvenience." "It's fine," Twilight said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. It had looked so real under the Dark Lady's light. "I couldn't just leave you up there. It's pretty brisk and breezy tonight. Just... you're sure you can't fly, right?" "Um... why do you keep asking that?" "It's... never mind." Change the subject, Twilight. "Sooo... what brings you to Pferdenburg? Just seeing the sights?" "Something like that. I wanted to, um... check out the Academy for... something." "Oh!" Twilight glanced up... then looked back down quickly with a blush. It was indeed a breezy night, and the simple dress the mystery woman wore was long and billowy. "A-are you thinking of enrolling? Are you a Spark?" "Oh, no, nothing like that. We - me and my friends, that is - need to find-" Twilight felt a knobbly wheel under her hand. "Hold that thought! I think I found it. Just... have... to..." She strained, turning the wheel until it clicked. "There! Hang on up there!" With a hiss of compressed air, the signpost began to sink back into the ground. She helped the pink-haired woman down from her perch when she descended into range, though the process was made a bit awkward by the way Twilight tried to avoid looking at her until her feet were solidly on the ground. "Thank you so much," the woman said. "Don't mention it. Just try to get into cover when the lights start to change like that. It's a bit dangerous." Twilight looked down at herself and made a futile attempt to brush off the accumulated dirt. Pferdenburg was a clean city, and all Spark apparel was treated to resist stains and smudging - if you couldn't wear it while building a death ray, what was the point? - but even so, getting that signpost down had taken its toll on her clothing. The young woman followed her gaze. "Oh... your dress. It looks so nice, too!" Twilight waved this away. "It's no big deal. I'm sure my friends have something to freshen it up." Her eyes widened. "My friends! I'm gonna be late!" "But...!" "You should get out of here too," she called as she headed down the sidewalk. "The police hate it when we mess with the Cityscape. Take care!" "Oh. Okay. Thank you!" The pink-haired woman looked around vaguely for a moment, in case a police officer was anywhere nearby... then, like Twilight, a sudden realization hit her. "Wait! I was wondering if you'd like to come back to my airship and fix the combat technology we use... to... oh. You're already gone." For a moment, Butterfly debated following after her, but decided against it. The infiltration forms weren't designed for speed, or indeed much of anything beyond blending in. Even in sensible heels, the young lady that helped her would easily outpace her. Besides, she had something else to do. Nervously, in case something else rose up under her feet, she crossed the road, carefully avoiding a gaggle of students heading into the town. She approached the Academy gates, looked around to make sure there was nobody nearby, then - very carefully - reached out. The moment her fingertips came level with the gates, a flurry of pink and yellow sparks erupted from the air around them, crackling a warning. She quickly pulled her hand back and rubbed her fingers with the other hand. The transmitter in her pocket chirped her personal signal, and she retrieved it. Just holding it in her hand was enough to establish contact, and Apple's voice came to her as if she were close by. [[You there, sugarcube? It's been awful quiet.]] She walked away from the gates, trying to act casual. "I'm here," she said, in just above a whisper. "I had... a little problem." Her lowered voice didn't seem to keep Apple from hearing her. [[So, how'd it go? Did ya make it to the Academy?]] "Yes, and the defenses are still working." A chorus of cheers was the response. [[Well, of course,]] Balloon said smugly. "She made those things to last.]] [[Even so,]] Apple said, [[that's a load off my mind.]] [[Yeah, but that means we can't get up there to recruit someone,]] noted Rainbow. [[How are we supposed to find the right Spark like this?]] "Oh, don't worry about that," Butterfly said. She sat down on a bench near the Academy fence, taking a moment to enjoy the floral scent around her. "It looks like a lot of them are going out on the town tonight." [[So we have to find them while they're drinkin' and carousin'?]] Apple asked. [[Not exactly ideal.]] [[Oh, pshaw, darling.]] Diamond's voice always seemed a bit louder than the others over the transmitter. [[In vino veritas, and all that. I'll be able to spot a worthy candidate, don't you worry.]] "Actually, I met someone that I've got a really good feeling about. She helped me out of some trouble." [[Really? That's great!]] Balloon said. [[How good a Spark is she?]] Butterfly hesitated. "Um... I don't know." [[Huh?]] "I'm... not even sure she is a Spark. She did come from the Academy, but all I saw her do was use a screwdriver and open a valve." [[Then, uh... how do you know she's a good candidate?]] "W-well... she was very-" Rainbow interrupted her. [[Wait! Let me guess...]] And then all four voices spoke in unison. [[She was nice.]] "Well, she was," Butterfly responded with a sniff. [[All right, all right, sugarcube. We'll put her name in the hat and keep an eye on her. You... did get a name, right?]] Oops. "...um... no. But I'm sure I could recognize her if I saw her again. And," she added, as the others groaned, "at least I found someone. Have any of you found a candidate yet?" There was a pause. [[...point taken, darling. We apologize.]] [[Yeah, sorry.]] As always, Rainbow assumed that an apology given was an apology accepted, and moved on. [[So, sounds like we're going pub crawling, huh? I like it!]] [[We have no money, darling,]] Diamond reminded her. [[I can have drinks bought for me, but you...]] [[Hey, I can totally get people to buy me drinks! Have you seen this form? I'm freaking hot.]] [[Yes, well, I suppose even in a fine town like this, there must be some people with sufficiently low standards.]] Rainbow sputtered indignantly. [[Why, you-!]] [[Then let's have a battle!]] Balloon chirped. [[Set your internal counters to zero and establish your alcohol intake parameters! The most drinks by the end of the night wins!]] [[Aw, yeah! You're going down, sister!]] [[Come on, don't encourage them,]] Apple said wearily. [[We got a job to do here, remember?]] Butterfly giggled. "Oh, let them have some fun. It's been a long time since we've had a break." [[Yeah, fair point. Okay, everyone, keep in touch, and we'll reconvene at midnight. Signin' out.]] "Talk to you then." She slipped her transmitter back into her pocket, stood up... ...and was suddenly illuminated by a pair of spotlights. She spun around, covering her eyes. Panic rushed through her; had the police found her, and somehow linked her to the signpost? But... the lights were coming from behind her, which meant they were on the other side of the fence... When her eyes adjusted, she saw that the spotlights were attached to some kind of trolley car. There seemed to be no driver or operator, yet the lights were unquestionably aimed at her specifically. They even shifted slightly when idle, as if they were the eyes of some great beast. Was it... was it watching her? A clank, then, but... why? How long had it been there? She'd been too engaged in the conference call to notice the sound of its arrival. It couldn't have been eavesdropping, could it? No, impossible, the signal used by the transmitters was undetectable. But... her voice wasn't, and if that thing's audio receptors were good enough... Oh dear. She took an unconscious step backwards, and the lights followed her. The trolley's motor revved noisily. Butterfly forced herself to calm down. "I'm not afraid of you," she whispered. "You're on the other side of this fence, and you're on a track, too. You can't hurt me." The motor continued to run. "I don't know what your purpose here is," she continued, "but I have a job to do, and it's important. I won't let you intimidate me." She paused. The situation felt like... facing down a guard dog. Yes, that was it. "I'm not here to hurt anyone, either. I promise that we won't do anything to the Academy's students without their consent. All right?" There was a long moment of uncertainty... then the trolley's motor subsided, and the lights dimmed. Butterfly sighed; the infiltration form didn't have an actual heart, but she felt a tightness around its core gradually loosen. "Thank you," she said, then turned to cross the road and follow in Twilight's footsteps. The trolley watched her leave. [[SOMETHING'S AFOOT,]] it rumbled. [[CURIOUS.]] It rolled back up its track, moving at a rather more thoughtful pace than usual.