“I can’t kill them,” Jackie started, before the copy of Alex could try to swim away again. “I was right up there on the stage with those bodies, I could’ve easily wrecked their shit. But that would spoil all the hard work we did to undermine everypony’s trust in Athena. If we make them disappear, then she can use that to justify a war. Are you trying to make Thestralia go to war?”
The little fish raised her forelegs defensively. “I’m not… trying to do anything, Jackie. Your subconscious created me to remind you of the things you forgot. What you do with that… well, I should probably go…”
“No.” Jackie splashed her down into a little fishbowl, then summoned back her model and settled the bowl onto a tower. She watched the figment struggle to escape, entirely without success. She’d trapped her with physical laws this time. “You’re staying here until I figure this out.”
She leaned right up to the glass, glaring. “I can’t kill them, because then Athena gets a war. What do we do instead?”
The fish seemed to think about it, though it was hard to tell for sure exactly what a seapony was thinking at that size. “We could… try to convince her to stop? Maybe talk to Athena directly. Bluff her? Could you get her to believe you’ve got a real bomb?”
“No,” Jackie huffed. “She knows I’d never nuke most of the population. And even if it worked, doing that would make me way more than a nuisance. She’d have to kill me at that point. Only reason she hasn’t tried already is because I’m not a rogue element. I’m so predictable she probably let me bumble into this whole fucking mess.”
Were there any more gods for her to supplicate? Mystic Rune could probably stop Athena if they needed to, he’d helped build her in the first place. But he didn’t dream anymore, and was probably halfway across the universe by now. Voeskender was no friend of technology, but actually fighting the infrastructure of Mundi would be difficult for him. Spirits were about belief, after all, and there were a hundred million ponies who still believed in their city. For a little while, anyway.
“We can’t kill her Alicorns,” Jackie said again, gathering up her packets of instructions. “The spirit gods would be weak as shit if they tried to interfere with civilization. Our own Alicorns are out of reach. But we’ve got a lot of strength too. A whole dead civilization’s worth.”
Jackie knew what to do. She turned away from her model, raising her dagger and slicing back into the world. “Wait, don’t just leave me—” She just left her.
Back into the physical she went, taking one quick glance before vanishing to reappear in front of somepony else with more instructions. She didn’t stay to answer their questions, just kept moving and trusted to the competence of the rebels. She had no choice—there was too little time to do otherwise.
She had no watch, but her own sense of time told her she now had about fifteen minutes before Athena’s solution landed. Less time than I would’ve hoped for. But there was nothing she could do about it.
“We have bigger problems,” she told Lavender Eclipse, crouched low in the night market as ponies flowed past her. She could see the clear outline of the portal in the distance, with daylight streaming in from the other side. “While you guys keep the other doors open, I’ll make sure this one stays.”
Lavender saluted, taking her packet of instructions. “If you’re sure, Dreamknife.”
She didn’t even respond to that, cutting her way through the universe back to Thestralia.
There, at the base of City Hall, the connections of the Arcane Network fed into an arch of metal and rusting iron, forming an invisible slice in reality through the air. There were hundreds of ponies here, with tables of supplies and information. Jackie took one look to make sure no Mundi police were killing her people, before vanishing again deeper into the tree.
The heartwood pulsed all around her, a heartbeat almost as fast as a hummingbird. Eureka stood in the center, surrounded by his own crystal equipment as he kept the portal open. Jackie had no idea how it worked or what he was really doing—but it didn’t really matter. This was out of her purview.
“You’re here?” He raised an eyebrow, though he didn’t actually look away from the round panel of crystals and broken screens he was using to keep the spell going. “Aren’t you supposed to be redeeming our good name?”
“Well… yes,” she said, settling down right in front of him. “But Athena’s reacting quicker than we thought. She’s probably gonna have control back in… maybe fourteen minutes?”
“You don’t think you’ll have everypony through by then?”
She shook her head. “There are… a lot more than we thought. What are we supposed to tell them; ‘sorry, stay enslaved for a little while?’ I’ve been where they are, not a chance.” She walked over to his control panel, though she didn’t get close enough to touch it. She could tell from the way her fur stood on end that there was enough magic running through this room to barbecue an elephant.
“So I’m dealing with it, but the one thing that we need to worry about is Athena trying to shut down this portal. She’s about to have five really powerful unicorn-level bodies, and she knows the academics of magic as well as Archive ever did. She won’t be able to do Imperial stuff like you, but…”
Eureka sighed. “I liked it better when she thought I was dead.” He leaned back in his chair, glaring at nothing in particular. “They’re going to retaliate. I hope you realize that. If you don’t give them a victory—if you don’t let them feel like they won, they’re going to get back at us somehow. You still want me to try and hold the portal open?”
We could’ve assassinated one pony, and it wouldn’t have blown up this bad. Jackie was beginning to wish she’d given appeasement more of a go. But the City Council had demanded action. Maybe that action would be war. Way more than one pony is dead now. Mostly on our side. But they’ll blame us for that. We’ll be a security risk. This is already enough of an excuse for war.
She briefly considered the idea of killing the Alicorn puppets. If Mundi might already go to war over this anyway, there was no sense in not doing as much damage as possible. Except that’s a guarantee. There are loads of ponies who still worship them as gods. Even bats. Granted, most bats she’d met worshiped a pony they didn’t know was based on her. Or worse, on Artifice.
“Yes, we’re keeping it open. I don’t care if you have to drain every last drop of magic from every stockpile left on the network. We won’t get another chance like this. Might as well save as many ponies as we can.”
Eureka nodded. “May you ever be the one to make the decisions—and bear the weight of their consequences.” He rose to his hooves then, and suddenly every spare crystal piled up around him rose up. Magic began to roar through the room, through the living heart of City Hall.
“Get to the gate!” Eureka shouted, over the growing din “I’ll keep the power fed from here, but you can’t let one of her puppets physically touch the runes. Athena could burn their lives to shut it down, and there’s jack shit I can do about it from this end.”
Jackie nodded, slipping back into the world of dreams. She found a fishbowl waiting for her, and an annoyed little Alicorn tapping on the glass. “Couldn’t you just let me go?” she sung in her tiny voice. “I’ve already helped you. More than I should’ve with the way you treated me. Just let me swim off and I won’t bother you again.”
Jackie passed down the thousand steps that led to the doorway of greater slumber, then pushed it open. Even at a crawl, her time was counting down.
The bowl kept pace with her, though it had no means of locomotion. Jackie could leave it here, but it would be kinder to just kill the little figment. “I’ve only created three figments that became sapient in my life did you know that? Each one was for a very specific reason. Each one of them was engineered so that it wouldn’t grow out of hand. A friend today is an enemy tomorrow. The Dreamlands shift and twist even the best intentions into nightmares. I can’t let you go until I’m certain you won’t be that way, and right now I really don’t have the time.”
Jackie arrived in the enchanted wood, muttered the secret zoog passwords, and didn’t drink from any of the moonlight wine. The predatory zoogs eyed her companion as she flew, but Jackie shook them off. Even a figment deserved a better end than sushi.
“Where are you going?” asked the tiny voice beside her. “This isn’t the quickest way back to Axis Mundi. We’re way too far from civilized dreams.”
“Yes.” Jackie’s ears flattened. “How observant of you. A regular little dreamwalker.”
“I wouldn’t be little if you didn’t force me.”
She ignored that, along with the temptation to just drop the bowl and leave the zoogs to their own devices. But it was a near thing. “There’s only one surefire way to stop her Alicorns from a war,” Jackie finally said. She lifted into the air as soon as she left the forest, searching for the right star. “We prove they’re imposters. Bring back the real thing.”
“She’ll never come,” said the little voice. “I know her. I know what Athena made her promise. Athena thinks she’s a god now. She wanted a thousand years and a day. The real me won’t break her word, no matter what.”
Jackie swore loudly, coming to a dead stop in the air. She didn’t question where the figment had heard such things—likely Jackie herself had known them, in the wisps of overheard dreams from a thousand sources. Of all those who lived, only Athena was immune to her prying. She didn’t even have a mind as Jackie conceived it. Let alone a soul.
“But there’s another way. It’s so obvious I can see why you missed it.”
Jackie held the bowl right up to her face, glaring inside at its shimmering occupant. “I swear if you don’t tell me whatever you’re thinking right now I’m going to find a hungry griffon somewhere in here and watch them eat you.”
It was a lie, though dangerously close to the truth. Ponies out in the world of ordinary time were dying, or would be soon. Unless she did something.
“It’s obvious,” the figment said again, her tone infuriatingly smug. The real Alex had never talked like that. “Athena has been using fake Alicorns to control Mundi for more than a century. Why can’t you do the same thing?” She swam around the tank, glaring up at her. “I’m basically her. I can’t dreamwalk…” She smacked her head into the glass then, for emphasis. “But I can do magic. I can speak in her voice, and confuse the hell out of their police.”
Jackie let herself drift back down to the forest, no longer searching for that little star of distant dreamers. Maybe the figment was right—she didn’t need the real thing.
Jackie might not have the power of an Alicorn. But neither did Athena. It was really just about who could make the more convincing fake.
“She’ll know what I’m doing,” Jackie said. “Or she’ll figure it out eventually.”
“So what?” asked the figment, flipping around in an eager aquatic summersault. “None of those pretend Alicorns are bats. And none of the bats are going to help her fight your dream-magic. They’re all on your side.
“But if I help you…” the speaker went on. “You have to promise to set me free. I want you to swear it to me. This is the proof I’m not dangerous. If this works.”
Jackie grumbled under her breath, searching desperately for other options. But the figment was probably right. “Fine.” She extended a hoof towards the glass. “But only if you don’t tell the real one about you.”
“Fine,” not-Alex agreed. “Now take us back to Mundi. We can’t have much time left.”