//------------------------------//
// Now It's Personal 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"Oh bananas." Valey's ears fell as she finished listening to Starlight's story. "That's... You guys... really..."

Starlight stood before Maple and Valey in a cabin, swallowed, and nodded. Anything about Percival, as she had promised Jamjars, she would keep to herself, but this was important. "The papers we found made it obvious. There's no other reason they'd be tracking what cutie marks the mothers got from their moon glass on the same sheet as they tracked foals brought to Izvaldi."

"Were they all brought to Izvaldi?" Maple whispered, looking placid and near shock. "I remember hearing something about Kero bringing foals back to the orphanage here, but you said White Chocolate's name was on there too."

"So they're keeping track here of kids that haven't even been born yet in Ironridge? Yeah, there's just no way..." Valey sat, staring wide-eyed at the ground. "Bananas. I'm not okay with this."

"I can't believe we didn't think of this before," Maple murmured. "Back when we saw the list of names in Kero's house in Ironridge, and heard from his will that they were all having their moon glass marks disappearing..."

Valey put a hoof on her shoulder, not looking up. "Hey," she said. "Don't blame yourself. You were a little more worried about us getting asked to take Puddles' piece to the Empire, getting drawn into another political mess like we had just gotten out of. If anyone should have realized, it was me. Since, you know, my history..."

"Are you going to be alright?" Maple breathed, gaze shaking. "Knowing that there are... more..."

"More like me?" Valey finished for her. "Ponies whose souls and cutie marks came from outer space, if they're real souls or marks at all? Nah. I don't think I am. But not because of that." She straightened up, eyes hardening. "You know what keeps me up at night? I'm sure I've talked about it before, but I'm afraid of being artificial or a machine. I wanna be a real pony. And the thing is, I know I am. Having friends like you two and Sparky is prove of that. I get to fight for what I want to fight for, care about who I want to care about. I'm me. Just takes some reminding sometimes. But this?"

She scowled into the distance. "Taking this stuff... taking moon glass, then finding a bunch of mares who can't advocate for themselves and using them to turn that moon glass into a bunch of foals who also can't advocate for themselves, then keeping them around to do who knows what? That's treating ponies like machines, whether they are or not. What you are or where you come from might not matter, but this absolutely does." Her hoof stomped against the ground. "Bananas if I'm not taking this personally. Whatever the reason, this is not forgivable."

Starlight swallowed and folded her ears. "They're absolutely doing something bad," she agreed. "But I was thinking about it on the way back, and if those foals in the orphanage here really were inside moon glass once, do you think they'd rather still be there than fully alive?"

Valey shuddered. "That's not a fair question. It took an atrocity to put me together too, you know. I can't say I rather wouldn't without..."

"Yes you can." Maple put a hoof on her shoulder, returning the gesture from earlier. "The ends justifying the means? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? You don't have to put yourself down to say treating ponies like this is inequine."

Starlight nodded. "I'm just saying that you shouldn't blame the foals. They're ponies who need to be helped, not something evil."

"Helped..." Maple trailed off. "Do we have any idea what they're using them for? Why Izvaldi wants to collect ponies who came from moon glass?"

"Looking at myself, I could make a pretty good guess..." Valey studied her foreleg. "You know what I'm good at. Fighting. Breaking and destroying stuff. Better than just about everyone else in the world. It was the first thing I did when I came to, you know. Cleaning the clocks of the scientists who awakened me. So good at it that even before I learned about Nightmare Modules, I wondered if I was created as some kind of weapon. According to Puddles, Navarre is here. He's the dude who put me together, so they'd know that's where I'm from. Kero works for Izvaldi, and his mercenaries were in Ironridge for a long while, so they'd have watched me and know what I do. My guess? Is that they're waiting for these foals to grow up, get their marks... and then use them as some kind of otherworldly army."

Maple took a shaky breath, still looking like a panic attack was in the process of catching up to her. "They could win the tournament with ease that way."

"Forget the tournament." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Remember the pirate ship? Kero's mercenary company? One of me is worth an entire regular army, or a small company of elite normal soldiers. One. The list we found in Ironridge had at least seventy mares, and Starlight is saying they had folders for Yakyakistan and Varsidel too?" She frowned at Maple. "And who knows if they're doing anything in the Empire. I haven't heard anything about moon glass being illegal, and Izvaldi strikes me as a place that's not the richest and still trying to rebuild its population after that stuff Felicity told us about with Percival's dad."

Maple swallowed. "When a mine failed several decades ago and poisoned the city's water supply, killing off a huge number of ponies? I remember..."

Valey sighed. "Yeah. Fortunately that was years before the moon glass fell, so at least there's no possibility these are related... but still. Point is, if all these foals grew up and turned out as strong as me? Forget the Griffon Empire, Izvaldi could probably subjugate Varsidel."

"There were records on what the cutie marks did," Starlight said, cutting in. "Not a lot of them. Most sounded like very normal cutie marks to me. It looked like they were investigating them while they were on the mothers, like how White Chocolate still had hers when we were there."

"Fair point..." Valey chewed her lip. "And plenty of ponies have tried using moon glass to get cutie marks without doing the whole transferring-it-to-a-foal thing without word of any walking superweapons. But maybe it just doesn't work right when you've got two souls stuck together in the same body, or something? I heard Sparky once explaining about that pendant I used for Nyala, the one she prototyped and built into Braen so she could still fly while wearing that. Apparently with normal ponies... Non-batponies, that is. Apparently only your own mark resonates with your body, or something. She implied others might have a weaker connection or not work right? Since the pendant wouldn't let just anyone use a piece of moon glass. So maybe they need to give these marks real bodies for them to unlock their full potential. Batponies are different, since we can physically change to match any mark."

"What do you think happens to the foals' original souls, then?" Maple asked quietly. "If the moon glass ones are attuned to their bodies like this..."

"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "If I had to guess, there would never be a reason for them to be created in the first place? But I have no idea how souls work. I don't even know what they are or if they exist, period. And with everything I've learned about learning these things, I really think I don't need to know."

Starlight shook her head. "No, we don't need to know, because there are a lot more important things to think about."

"Yeah," Valey agreed, swallowing. "Like what Stanza has to do with all this, since it's also related to Izvaldi and Puddles... and Puddles was clearly related to this too. All of this has to tie together somehow."

"Are we going to find out?" Starlight frowned. "Fly down the hole in Puddles' room like she suggested?"

Valey nodded. "I wanna go tonight. This isn't something I'd like to wait for, especially since they've gotta know I'm the same as those foals. Unfortunately, Sparky's not recovered yet, and I was kinda counting on her to fly all of us down that hole..."

"Just you and Starlight, then?" Maple asked with a sigh of resignation. "Are you sure you'll be alright? You've barely even had time to rest after your fight and going to Gyre."

"Yeah, I'm sore, but this is more important than soreness." Valey rolled her shoulders. "Gonna get Birdo in on this, and he can carry you if you want to come too. I bet Jamjars will want to come as well, but the two of us can carry the three of you. You ready?"

Starlight sighed, then nodded. "Fine. We're ready."