Neighmann awoke to the sound of a hoof banging on his door. Muzzily, he looked at his antique mechanical alarm clock, trying to get the pointers to focus.
"Three in the morning?" he muttered, confused. Sunlight was streaming through the half drawn curtains and casting a furnace-hot patch of yellow light on the wall, painfully bright. Forgot to wind it again, I really must get a spellcraft model, he thought, mind wandering off on a tangent.
"Celestia dammit, Neighmann, are you in there? Your neighbour said she heard somepony come back late last night."
His mouth twisted into an 'o' of enlightenment, then his eyes widened. Oh horseapples, he thought, I completely forgot about Equilibrium. Now fully awake and panicking, his legs windmilled, striking the cabinet next to the sleeping pad with a loud thump. The banging stopped abruptly.
"If you're alive in there, Neighmann, open this door and I promise I'll make your end as painless as possible!" Equilibrium snarled.
"Wait! I'm here, hold on, let me just--" Limping to the door, Neighmann popped the latch, then stepped back hastily as Libi, her ears so far back that they were practically hidden by her mane, stomped into his one room apartment.
"I'm sorry I missed--" he started, only to be cut off when she jabbed him in the shoulder with one sharp hoof.
"Where were you?! The last thing I knew you were right behind me, then you vanished off the face of Equestria. I came back to look for you, only to discover you were last seen heading for the roof. I thought you'd... Dammit Neighmann, I even reported you missing to the Guard and went around the hospitals to see if you'd been admitted!"
He stared at Equilibrium for a second, seeing for the first time her dishevelled look and the damp patches under her reddened eyes. "I'm really sorry, Libi. I had the strangest night." I was hijacked by Princess Luna and spent several hours discussing ways to control a monster I thought was a myth, Neighmann thought. That sounds crazy even to me. He cast his eyes around the untidy room, hunting for the scroll he'd been given by one of Princess Celestia's assistants.
"I think I've been offered a job," he started, then held the scroll up to forestall the furious mare, the half sun, half moon 'chasing alicorn' seal of the Royal Palace clearly visible. He then launched into his story, with many backtracks and repetitions, telling Equilibrium everything that had taken place the previous night.
Equilibrium was silent as Neighmann talked, staring at the scroll as it hung between them in his orange telekinetic field. Finally she couldn't take it any more and snatched the thing from his grasp.
"I'd have thought we knew each other well enough that you wouldn't have to make up a ridiculous excuse," she said, voice going cold.
"I'm not!" Neighmann said quickly, his stomach dropping at the thought of losing his best friend over a stupid misunderstanding. "Open it, look for yourself."
Equilibrium narrowed her eyes and broke the seal, a little ringing chime audible as the anti-forgery enchantment confirmed its authenticity. "I hope for your sake this didn't come from Pinkie's."
Neighmann winced at the thought that somepony was playing an elaborate practical joke on him, then relaxed. Not even Pinkamena's Joke and Party Supplies would dare forge a Royal Seal.
As the scroll unrolled, a second, smaller roll of paper fell from it; Neighmann grabbed it before it could hit the floor, twisting it nervously in his magic as his friend read the document. He watched with mounting relief as her expression changed from anger, through confusion and happiness, then on to excitement.
"I'll forgive you this time," she said, mock scowling even while her eyes shined. "What will you actually be doing? This thing doesn't tell you anything. Look at this," she said, rattling the scroll under his muzzle, "it uses the phrase 'contingent to the Defence of the Realm Act of nine-ninety seven' half a dozen times."
Neighmann felt his ears droop and sweat start to bead on his flanks; the DRA was the catch-all enactment of the Royal Prerogative, the modern equivalent of 'just bloody do it or I'll send you to the moon.' "It's... possible I shouldn't have told you anything," he said, finally remembering Luna's command to not tell anypony what they'd discussed. "Can you keep a secret?"
Libi pursed her lips, a crafty smile on her face. "I dunno, you'd have to make it worth my while..."
"Look at it this way -- if you do tell anypony, you'll always know exactly where I am!"
"Heh, yeah. I'll be able to see you every night, if I get a big enough telescope. What's that you're holding?"
Neighmann looked down at the little scroll. Much smaller than the first, it was made of a fine, silky paper that had a faint smell that reminded him of a summer meadow. Written on it in a cursive, calligraphic script was a single word: 'Equilibrium.' His eyes widened in surprise. What the hay? "I think it's for you," he said, offering her the scroll.
Her eyebrow quirked up. "Really? Gimme."
Neighmann passed her the scroll, taking the larger one in exchange and rerolling it. He then had an interesting minute watching the inside of the cream mare's ears blush a delicate shade of pink with embarrassment.
Equilibrium lowered the scroll and stared at Neighmann open-mouthed with a mixture of shock and outrage. "What exactly did you tell them about me?" she demanded.
"N-nothing!" Neighmann protested, "what does it say?"
Wordlessly, she handed him the letter, then staggered off to slump on the edge of his unmade bed, forelegs wrapped over her muzzle.
Now more than a little alarmed, Neighmann read it himself, muttering under his breath.
Dearest Equilibrium,
Please forgive us for interrupting your tryst, you may rest assured that, even though he spent the evening alone with us, he was the perfect gentlecolt and nothing occurred that would affect your interest. I have spoken with Luna and she agrees that your choice of Doctor Neighmann is suitable and thus we give the match our blessing. We hope you will accept the enclosed as some poor compensation for your inconvenience,
Celestia.
Attached to the bottom of the scroll were a pair of tickets to the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration, impossible to get at this late stage unless you had some serious connections and a lot of cash. Their embedded spellcraft anti-forgery tracing glittered gently, outlining the words VIP section. "Oh crap," he said, sitting down with a thump. "What do you say Libi, shall we make it a date?"
"Would it be treason if I said no?" she replied faintly.
===
The Everfree National Park, four years later
The gentle thrum of the airship's motors was a soothing background white noise, only barely audible over the rush of the wind and the flutter of crewpegasi wings as they flitted along the outside balconies. Beneath them, now only a few hundred metres past the swell of the hull, was the canopy of the Everfree National Park and Resort, a lumpy green carpet of densely packed trees. The air was warm and scented with a range of night-flowering blooms, just starting to open as the sun was setting.
Equilibrium rested her muzzle on the rail and sighed, staring out at the colours starting to spread across the western sky. Without turning, she leaned sideways, pressing cheek to cheek with Neighmann. There was a moment's tension in the stallion's jaw, a quiver of the big mandibular muscle, then he relaxed and returned the touch. What is with him? she thought. It's just a holiday -- the Everfree hasn't been dangerous for centuries, and this bit is practically a garden. "Why so stressed, dear? I know you're more of a city pony... I'm still surprised you picked this spot for our break."
He shifted a little and gave a chuckle that was supposed to sound relaxed, but wasn't. "I know how much you've wanted to come here. It seemed only fair that we should get out of Canterlot." There was a slight tension in his words, something he was making a poorly-disguised effort to suppress.
Libi felt a faint wave of unease. Neighmann was always on call, and her own recent promotion as one of Fancypant's roving spellcraft engineers meant that overlapping their personal time was getting increasingly difficult. I've spent too much time out of the country, she thought. This holiday is the most time we've had together in months.
"Is that's what worrying you? We're not that far away; they can always come and get you," she said, nudging him playfully, smiling to make the words non-confrontational, but his ears drooped anyway. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I know what you do is important, and I don't mind." She snuggled closer, nuzzling at the back of his head, making a little line of nibbles behind one ear. "It is lovely here."
He sighed again, finally relaxing as she continued to work. "Yes, yes it is."
The meal, taken after a quiet stroll to work off the kinks of the flight, was excellent, as might be expected from such an expensive restaurant. "Have you been keeping two sets of accounts, or are they just paying you more than you are letting on?" she asked, as they headed off for the guided tour of the ruined castle, one of those limited place things that let a small group poke around the less seen areas, complete with dramatic presentation.
"Panopticon expenses. I just have to make sure Luna doesn't read it too closely," he said promptly, in a tone of such pomposity that she giggled. "We don't do this nearly often enough..." His voice dropped, becoming a little sad. "I wish I didn't have to do what I do."
"Hah!" The exclamation was loud enough that heads turned in their direction, and Neighmann stopped, blinking at her in shock. "You don't half talk some rubbish at times. We both know that you love your job almost as much as me!"
"No, no, that's not right at all -- you are both equal in my heart--" He ducked, dancing away from the snap of her teeth, laughing.
"Oh you... Come on, we don't want to miss the start."
They walked on, joining up with the tail end of the little group, enduring the small expressions of disapproval from one older stallion, and ignoring the sly grin from his mate. The guide, a well-toned pegasus mare in the gold barding of the Royal Guard, flicked an ear in their direction and continued with her speech.
"...and so it was here, in the Castle of the Two Sisters, that we made our final stand." The burnished gold of her armour, brilliant even in the artfully subdued lighting of the cavernous main hall, had become faded and pitted. Burn marks scarred its surface, while something leprous seemed to grow along the length of her muzzle. "Celestia had been fighting the Nightmare for days and was at the end of her strength; she had none to spare for the rest of us..."
Overhead, across the gaping holes in the roof, flitted alien shapes, all sharp edges and bat wings. Magic flashed in the distance, actinic pulses like heat lightning, accompanied by long drum-rolls of thunder that hit the beats of the guide's words perfectly. Libi felt a shiver run down her spine and her ears and tail flattened.
"...the chiropt had little magic of their own, and were targeting our unicorns. In the gloom of the night eternal they had no problems; the Darkness had made them well. Her conversion forges ran constantly; every pegasus they took became another soldier for her forces..."
Ahead was the back of the hall, with what was left of the twin thrones, all metals and stone, smashed and burned by the first strikes of Luna's rebellion. Discreet signs and a low barrier blocked their progress; Libi's ears flicked forward at the sight of the green glowing trefoil, giving Neighmann a nudge to attract his attention. "Don't go collecting any souvenirs," he murmured, muzzle brushing her neck, eyeing the scattered beads and globules of metal from the millennia-old fight.
Libi nodded, listening to the storyteller, but looking up at the tattered tapestries hanging behind what was left of the thrones. The strikes must have been very focused, she thought, very little backlash at the outset, then shook her head and returned her focus back to the tale. Above, the broken and faded outlines of Celestia the Ghost and Luna the Darkness, the former burned and slashed, rippled and waved in an artful breeze.
An hour later the Nightmare had been banished, their guide restored to her previously smiling self, and the show was over. They exited, of course, through the gift shop. "Wow," Libi said, stopping short before a display of fuzzy pony-dolls. "I wonder what Luna thinks of all this?" Her horn glowed, gently lifting out one of the darkly furred, purple-maned things. Reacting to her touch, the figure twitched, wings flapping and fanning her muzzle, then threw its head back and gave a tiny, sinister laugh. "They even gave her fangs..."
Neighmann plucked the doll from her grasp, turning it this way and that before putting it back. "I don't know," he said quietly. "It's been fifteen centuries... all there is left of that war are scary stories and pony plushies. Perhaps she views it as a penance." He stepped close, nudging her with his shoulder. "Come on, let's go outside." Libi looked at him curiously; the tension had returned to his muscles.
The air had cooled, but only a little, and the scent of the night blooms had grown even stronger. I wonder if they taste as nice as they smell. She snorted, smiling in the darkness. Probably horribly toxic. Taking the lead, Libi wandered away from the ruined castle, picking one of the more secluded paths that wound a complex network of routes in the immediate vicinity. Artfully designed, with plenty of twists and turns, and dotted with little glades, these managed to give the impression of solitude even on a busy day. Now, in the middle of the night, it felt like they were the only ponies in the world.
Neighmann was silent, following close behind on the narrow track, and she accentuated the pendulum sway of her hips and braided tail, knowing full-well the effect it was likely to have on him. Little glimpses out of the corner of her eye and the slightly ragged cadence of his hoof falls showed it was working, but he seemed to be getting more tense, not less. What in Tartarus has gotten into him? Hiding a slight frown and feeling unsettled, Libi walked onwards.
In a few short minutes they reached one of the many glades that budded off the path like leaves on a vine. Neighmann stopped, then wandered into the clearing looking up into the shaft of moonlight that fell like a solid object, lighting the grassy space with silver and casting deep shadows under the trees. She followed him in, her hooves silent on the spongy surface, close-cropped by thousands of visiting mouths. He looked... lost. "What is it, Neighmann? You've been acting funny all day."
"I never was any good at hiding anything from you."
He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile of a pony on holiday, rather one that would be used in the face of some horrible decision. Libi's ears came forward and her head lifted. Is it bad news? It has to be... is he ill? Some rare thing that we can't fix, or... another mare? Is he trying to let me down gently? She shifted her weight, muscles bunching in a sudden urge to flee. "You would make a terrible actor," she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.
He nodded, then looked away. "We've been together, what... four years now?"
"Yes," she said in a whisper. Out with it, damn you! "Is there a problem? I thought we were okay--"
His head came up, a look of absolute shock on his face. "No! I mean, yes. It's nothing like that -- nothing bad. At least I hope not." That last was little more than a mumble, barely audible even in the stillness. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to scare you. It's me who's afraid." He paused, looking up into the moon, big and very nearly full where it hung over the treetops. "In the light of Luna... I want to be yours forever. Will you be mine?" There was the dim flare of magic, and he pulled a loop of braided hair out from where it had been hidden under his mane.
Mouth open, Libi froze; it was only the look of increasing desperation on Neighmann's face that shocked her into motion. She plucked it from his grasp, slowly spinning the pale yellow hair in front of her muzzle. It smelled of him, and obviously had been pulled rather than cut. That must have been fun; I would never have taken you for a traditionalist. "I thought your tail looked a little thinner, but figured you'd just had it styled for the holiday," she said in a distracted tone, gaze held by the gloss on the hair. Something glittered in there; fine gold and silver wires had been woven into the braid to hold it in place.
She realised that she was staring at him, then smiled. "In the light of Luna, I will be yours, and you will be mine." Neighmann seemed to lift up onto the tips of his hooves, as if some crippling weight had been lifted from his back. Libi walked up to him and nuzzled his neck, then turned and lifted her tail so he could fit the band of hair around its base. This done, they stayed in the glade, enjoying each other's company by the light of the moon.
The following morning, Libi applied a brush vigorously to her own tail, starting to collect enough hair for a mating band to give to Neighmann.
===
The Bloodline ceremony was old long before Luna succumbed to the Nightmare. It was still a way to ensure that diversity was preserved, and that prospective parents were not too closely related, but had changed from an examination of lineage to genetic testing. What hadn't changed was that it was an excuse for a party.
Equilibrium stood next to Neighmann, the mating band a comfortable pressure at the base of her tail. It had only been a few months since the holiday, but there had been no reason to delay -- after all, it wasn't like this changed anything about their lives, except allowing the addition of tiny hooves in the near or far future. Not straight away, perhaps; need to get some things sorted out first, Libi thought. I think we're ready for this.
To add to the carnival atmosphere, this was one of the city-wide holidays set aside for the event, and many couples were making the same declarations. The sky was clear and the sun bright -- pegasi had been carefully shepherding weather systems for weeks to prepare for this -- and it felt like everypony from a hundred kilometres around was in the park.
They had staked out a spot on the perimeter, between the Royal Institute's Dawn War museum and the Crystal Empire memorial. The enormous mural on the museum's side -- some artist's rendition of the final battle in that conflict between dragons and Diamond Dogs, an event so far back in history that it was part of the global geology -- acted as something of a garish backdrop and meeting point, but Libi had seen it so many times that she could ignore it. There were constant efforts to get it removed, in deference to Dog sensibilities, but the rumour was that Princess Luna liked the thing, so up it stayed.
One of the ushers pushed through the gaggle of mares and stallions -- relatives and relatives of relatives from both family lines -- laughing and wishing them well, to whisper in Neighmann's ear. He blinked, then smiled nervously in her direction and followed the pony to the perimeter of the section of park they'd picked for the function. Making her excuses, she trailed after him, catching up just as he was talking to a pair of unicorn mares.
How does he know these two? Libi frowned; both were striking in their own way, slender creatures, one a pale blue, the other a pale yellow. There's no family resemblance, and I'm sure he's never mentioned them before... Her attention sharpened, ears straining forwards to catch a hint of the conversation. Something from his past?
The little group broke apart as she approached, the yellow mare pausing for a moment at her side. "Congratulations," she said in a throaty whisper and winked, moving off when the blue one gave her a nudge.
"I can't take you anywhere," the other mare said, then the pair drifted off into the herd, leaving her standing there staring at Neighmann.
"Who...?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He laughed weakly, then glanced left and right to make sure nopony was in earshot. "Remember how I was recruited? The blue unicorn is 'Selene'... I'll give you one guess who the yellow one is."
"Wow," Libi said after a long pause. "Well, I guess they deserve a break as much as the next pony."
===
Chaos Group research post, Canterlot Palace grounds, two years later.
Neighmann cast his gaze once more over the control board, biting his lips as the miniature crane, a small machine with six legs that made it look like a pony-sized praying mantis, shuffled along moving one limb at a time. The similarity to the insect was eerie; the front third was hinged upwards and the pair of forelimbs were wrapped around the module.
The thing it held was a cube of spellcraft almost a meter on a side; enormously expensive and the product of one of Fancypant's more specialist facilities, it was the third iteration of a program started almost five years ago. The first version had been very much a test bed, but these should actually function. Of course, it's very hard to check that... Neighmann shivered at what the module implied. To think we've come so far in only this short time... but will it be enough? Sometimes I wish I had a better understanding of spellcraft. Libi would love to get a look at this stuff. Libi... There was some thought waving for attention at the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Too much to do.
The mantis-robot carefully deposited the fourth module and scuttled back for the fifth, moving far more rapidly now its delicate burden had been relieved. Two more and we're done. Then it's just the cabling to swap over. Neighmann yawned and stretched, bending to bite at whatever was irritating his left foreleg. Things had over-run -- some issue with final calibrations when the modules left the factory -- and this obvious work was restricted to when the Palace was closed for the evening. I should have been home hours ago. He took a few steps and glanced up past the edge of the canopy; it was leaden and overcast, a deliberately solid blanket that sealed away the sky and made it harder for prying eyes to see what was going on.
At least construction on the proper facility has only another six months or so to go. Neighmann pawed at the expanded mesh underhoof, the bars making a quiet ringing sound. The lawn beneath them, once the pride of the head gardener, was half dead from being under a canopy for so long, despite the efforts of the earth pony contingent. That heavy mesh covered what yellowed tufts remained, protecting the bone-dry ground from the combined assault of hoof, track and wheel.
The site, at the edge of the world-renowned statue garden in the Palace grounds, was organised into rings. The outer layer held the airtrucks, portable dormitories and office spaces. It was here that Neighmann had his workspace and occasional sleeping quarters, much to the disgust of Equilibrium. Inside that were the banks of equipment, sensors, computers and monitoring stations, all constantly occupied by members of his organisation. The innermost ring held six coffin-sized metal boxes, all linked with thick cables that ran back to an airtruck marked with the logo of the Royal Institute's analytics division. Along with the expected scientists and technicians crewing the machinery were three other ponies. They had made some effort to fit in, but it had been obvious from the start that their special talents were not in the sciences.
Those ponies changed every so often, but it was always one from each clade. All had that ease of motion that came with absolute confidence, and all looked like athletes. Neighmann was officially the local dig leader for the Canterlot Archaeological Society; unofficially he was Director of the Chaos Group, under the aegis of the Panopticon, the Equestrian intelligence organisation. In that role he'd had some dealings with the military and had encountered ponies like that before; these were from the Fast Operations Air/Land group.
The FOAL teams, Luna's own troubleshooters. Neighmann shook his head. The first time they'd shown up, with the original iteration of the metal boxes, he'd made the same joke anypony would have made faced with that acronym and they'd smiled and laughed along with him. It was only sometime later that he realised that they'd masterfully steered him away from their airtruck; watching them do the same trick on anypony else who became curious made it clear that he wasn't going to get any answers that way.
He did have some time to examine the boxes, however. The size and complexity of the wiring loom that linked them hinted at sophisticated instrumentation and equipment that required significant amounts of power. This was something else that Neighmann didn't know too much about. All he'd been told was that they'd come out of military laboratories that didn't officially exist; the kinds of places nopony wanted, but everypony needed when the magic of friendship broke down. He'd had his theories, though. There'd been some interesting developments in spellcraft that had vanished from the public science journals...
The following day he'd been briefed by Luna herself, who'd assured him that what they contained would have no effect on anypony, but might just give the Princesses time to gather the Elements of Harmony and respond to Discord's escape. Now, having worked with the Chaos Group for nearly six years, he was privy to their inner workings and was intimately involved in the configuration of this newest set of hardware upgrades.
At the very centre of the bustle of activity was a little area of calm, the eye of the hurricane. All of those working here knew what they were dealing with and none wanted to approach the statue closely; ponies would unconsciously walk in wide arcs, circling round the figure rather than get too close. Not that it would do any good, of course; if Discord did choose this moment to escape his time-slowed prison, his power would propagate at close to the speed of light. If those nondescript boxes didn't do their job -- and the Lord of Chaos wasn't in a playful mood -- there would be no place on this world that would be safe.
Neighmann sighed, his nostrils twitching. There was a vague and distracting odour on the wind. Unconsciously, his upper lip curled, intensifying the scent. Slightly embarrassed, Neighmann made a conscious effort to prevent the flehmen response, glancing around to see if anypony else had noticed. They had, and more than one eye was looking in his direction. Some looked confused, but a couple were distinctly amused. Did somepony forget to put on their masker? It wasn't a crime, by any stretch, but a matter of politeness... and self defence, on the part of the mare.
Unless she wants the attention, Neighmann thought, then froze. "Oh, rutting Tartarus, no!" Was that tonight? He swallowed, stomach contracting into a dense knot, mind working back through days to remember when Libi had taken the drugs to restart her estrus cycle. There was a certain amount of leeway with the things, biology being what it was, but, now he actually thought about it, her parting comments regarding getting home at a reasonable hour made sudden, horrible, sense.
"I forgot," he murmured, "how in Tartarus did I forget that?" The answer was obvious; delays, too much work, the stress of the defence upgrade and the minor risk of a break-out, the requirement to do the work in secret and to Luna's schedule. None of which would do anything to mollify Libi. "I didn't come home, so she came to me." There was a slight sense of movement out in the darkened field, and the silhouettes of two ponies walked out of the gloom and into the lit perimeter.
One of them, a chiropt Night Guard whose name contained far too many syllables in the ultrasonic to be pronounced correctly by anypony other than another of his own kind, and went by the nickname 'Chirr', marched, so fast that he was almost trotting. The other pony was Equilibrium. She wasn't so much walking, as stalking, a near-feline motion that shouldn't have been possible for a creature without a significant chunk of gryphon in its genome.
"Wow," Neon said, whispering in his ear, "I don't think I've ever seen a mare so..."
"Angry?" Neighmann said weakly.
The pegasus snorted, trying to suppress a laugh. "Actually, I think ready is a better word," she said, voice full of merriment.
Neighmann nodded shakily; Libi's tail kept shifting sideways despite her efforts to keep it at a neutral position. "I am in so much trouble right now."
"Oh yes. Boss... I think you should go and meet her, rather than wait for her to get all the way over here."
"Yes." Jerking as if stung, Neighmann leapt into a canter, skidding to a halt in front of Libi, who stared back at him, wild-eyed. Chirr did a quick about-face, shunting the mare around so she was pointing away from the work site, expertly sidestepping her instinctive kick as he did so. Neighmann scampered around to stay in front of her, backpedalling as she advanced once more. "Love, I--"
Equilibrium didn't seem to notice that she'd been deftly turned around. "Don't you 'love' me! You forgot! How could you forget this night?! We are not going to put our lives on hold, just because of old stone-face over there. We agreed, remember?" she said, her ears folded flat against her skull. She lifted one forehoof, jabbing him in the chest when he didn't retreat fast enough.
He winced; her voice was loud and carried easily on the still air. Over her shoulder, many pairs of ears were turned in their direction. "Not deliberate, I promise. The work overran..." He swallowed heavily. "I'm sorry, I can't leave; the Princess will--"
Chirr cleared his throat. "Actually, Director, Princess Luna won't be here for about an hour... I'm sure your staff can spare you for a bit," he said, canine teeth flashing in the light as he spoke. His grey-furred, slightly foxy face wasn't quite the perfect 'Guard blank', and he seemed to be having no problem with Libi's presence.
Not quite the same species, I guess, Neighmann thought, slightly distracted by the sudden look of calculation on Libi's face. Her eyes swept the shadows of the bushes and plants dotted about the statue garden, before locking on to the looming mass of the hedge maze. There was a focus to that stare; it was the kind of attention that could be used to call down an airstrike. Her ears came up, hindquarters shifting slightly as if to relieve some discomfort.
Neighmann followed her gaze; Libi's thoughts were as obvious as if they were hanging in the air above her head. "Not on the Palace grounds, surely? What if somepony sees--"
Chirr snorted, putting on a look of offence that was almost convincing. "This whole area is covered by the Defence of the Realm act. Only those with security clearance are within kilometres. I can guarantee privacy."
There was a terrible sense of inevitability to the conversation, made all the more obvious by the effects Libi's siren scent was having on his brain. "This is all going in the day log, isn't it?" Neighmann asked.
Chirr nodded, muzzle twitching in an effort to suppress a grin. "I'm really going to enjoy writing this one up."
Libi abruptly nudged him, shoulder to shoulder, then nipped him playfully on the withers, dancing way to look expectantly over her shoulder. He sighed and gave in, the promise of ribald banter in the coming days pushed aside by the look and the smell of her. Jumping forwards, he went straight into a gallop, following Libi's pale hindquarters into the darkness.
===
Neighmann smiled fondly at the ten-month old memory. At least there won't be a repeat of that tonight. He was still getting the occasional off-colour joke.
He missed her deeply; for the last few weeks she'd been away on a business trip. She'd also done well for herself, advancing up the ranks of Fancypants Industries alchemical synthesis division to the point where she was one of their lead installation managers. The job took her travelling more than he would have liked, but this time he was glad she was far away. The current project had taken her to the gryphon kingdom of Razorclaw, overseeing the commissioning of a new spellcraft-powered feedstock converter plant that would increase their farming efficiency. Ponies weren't enormously popular with the gryphon population -- the half-cat, half-eagle people were just too independent to like receiving assistance from another state.
That's the quirks of biology for you, Neighmann thought.
Once science had advanced to the point where individual researchers could no longer grasp a whole problem, ponykind's capacity for cooperative action had made them the real power in the world. It made them an economic powerhouse as well, making Equestria close to a utopia. There was certainly none of the poverty or violence that seemed to be so common among the gryphons. Despite this, Neighmann had little fear for Equilibrium's safety; Razorclaw's government knew a good thing when it saw it, and had been treating the installation team as honoured guests.
"Director!"
The voice of Neighmann's assistant sounded out of breath as she cantered into the airtruck that was currently serving as his office. Neighmann looked up from the picture of Libi on the folding desk and smiled at the chestnut pegasus mare.
"Yes, Neon Sparks?" he asked, the building tension making his voice clipped and abrupt. "Are we ready?"
"Yes, Director Neighmann. The lifting team is just waiting for your final approval."
Neighmann got to his hooves and gestured for Neon to lead the way. "I'll be glad when this bit is over," he muttered, half to himself.
"Yes sir, but it will be nice to get the subject into a proper facility."
Neighmann nodded his agreement. There was only so much you could do from temporary structures on the Palace grounds -- and the excuse of an archaeological dig as a cover for their efforts was beginning to wear a little thin.
They'd scheduled the move for the early hours of the morning, away from the curious eyes of tourists and the increasingly nosy reporters. The whole site had been hidden under a red and white striped awning for a year now -- 'to protect delicate artefacts' -- so it was easy to bring in and emplace the heavy equipment they hoped they wouldn't need.
Neighmann stepped up to one of the monitoring stations, quickly scrolled down the status reports, then nodded in satisfaction. "Get the transport into position. I'll call their Highnesses." He'd been checking the chaotic activity incidence plot -- what everypony else in his department had taken to calling the 'Neighmann curve' -- over the last few days, refining the estimates of when Discord might break free from the Element's effects. The count was accelerating, but slowly. There was no sign of the precursor to the near infinite rate that was predicted when the creature would return to Equestrian time; the model estimated at least another two years before that unhappy event.
While watching the heavy lift airtruck gently float towards the statue, Neighmann clipped his phone's headset to one ear, tapping twice to activate the spellcraft dialling enchantment. Call Princess Luna, secure line, he thought, listening to the phone repeat the instructions back to him, then gently chime its 'waiting' tone.
"Royal Palace, how may I direct your call?" The voice was crisp, efficient and instantly recognisable.
Neighmann grinned; he'd had enough interaction with Celestia to finally get used to her sense of humour. "Answering your sister's phone now, Princess Celestia? Don't you have ponies to do that for you?"
"A mare gets lonely in the small hours; I've nothing to do but wait for the call of a handsome stallion."
"I'd need a stepladder to keep you company," he muttered, then froze. Did I say that out loud? he thought in a sudden panic. On the other end of the phone line there was a couple of seconds of total silence, suddenly broken by a most unladylike snort, followed by coughing. Neighmann could swear he could also hear the sound of at least one other pony trying to suppress a laugh.
"Ah, Princess, I'm--"
"I think you may have surprised even my sister with that sally, Neighmann," said Luna, merriment obvious in her voice while the coughing continued in the background.
Neighmann sank to his haunches and rested his head on the instrument panel, ears burning and ignoring the puzzled glances from Neon Sparks and the closest techs. "I'm on speaker, aren't I? Who else...?"
A third voice broke in, this one sounding a little less amused. "The normal crisis team, Director, you know -- the Triumvirate, some of the general staff -- nopony important."
So he'd just propositioned the goddess of the sun in front of the heads of the three pony clades -- unicorn, pegasus and earth pony -- as well as high ranking officers from the armed forces. Oh crap, he thought, shall I offer my resignation now or just pick a fight with one of the anonymous, but certainly highly trained, ponies guarding that unmarked airtruck?
"Don't mind General Buckler, she's just upset because I was taking a sip of tea when you, ah, offered your services," Celestia said, sounding hoarse but cheerful. "The room was getting a bit heavy; I thank you for lightening the tone."
"I'm just lucky that my comms rig is milspec. Can somepony pass me a cloth?" muttered the General. "If we've quite finished with the banter...?"
Neighmann's tone became serious. "We're ready, Your Highnesses. Are we okay to start with the move?"
"Please do. My sister and I are prepared if anything untoward were to happen. We even left the door to the balcony open to reduce the collateral damage should we need to join you in a hurry."
Ready and waiting, the Elements of Harmony out of whatever deep vault they were kept in and glowing with suppressed power. Or whatever it is that they do, Neighmann thought, relieved that the magical might of Equestria was backing him up. The Princesses and all the unicorn magic specialists didn't think that moving Discord would have any effect at all on the enchantment that trapped him, but nopony wanted to take any chances with the Lord of Chaos.
Neighmann gave the signal to the waiting teams and watched nervously as the big airtruck settled to the ground next to the statue. A large crane arm mounted on the flat rear section swung over, its spellcraft telekinetic lifting pads glowing softly with a red light. With the arm in place the glow around the pads brightened and spread, covering the statue and starting to lift it upwards. The statue came free of its plinth with a loud 'crack' that made everypony jump, then hung there for a second, swaying like an enormous, badly made pendulum.
The glow around one of the lifting pads flickered and died.
The breath froze in Neighmann's throat as the statue slipped, dropping half a metre in a jerky, juddering fall before the remaining pads brightened and held it fast. Whoever's driving that crane deserves a medal, Neighmann thought, to react that quickly... Discord's frozen form hung at a sharp angle now, swinging violently from the sudden drop and uneven pressure from the telekinetic grippers. From somewhere in the airtruck came a whine, the high pitched pure tone of an overloading spellcraft device, the now brilliant glow around the remaining pads starting to flicker.
The plan had called for a slow and steady lift of the statue, treating it like it was made of nitroglycerine, before gently placing it into a specially shaped and padded recess in the back of the airtruck. That nameless crane operator had obviously decided -- correctly -- that a little speed was now the order of the day. Fighting a now erratic control mechanism, the pony managed to lift the statue over the recess and drop it more or less into the right orientation. The airtruck's landing jacks folded like they were made of paper under the shock, slamming the belly of the vehicle into the ground with a thump that rattled teeth.
Like almost everypony present Neighmann cringed, waiting for something, anything, to happen. When nothing did he started to breathe again.
"Well, that was exciting," whispered the voice of Luna in his ear. "Does the airtruck still fly?"
Neighmann nodded jerkily, then replied in a hoarse voice. "We'll just check." He watched the engineers inspecting the vehicle's spellcraft levitator, then accessed the data summary from his own instruments. Completely clean, except... There was a spike in the background magic signal, just about when the pad had failed. Not much, just enough to poke its head above the background noise.
"Neon? Take a look at this, I need a second opinion."
The chestnut pegasus trotted over and stared at the display with narrowed eyes. "What does it look like over a longer timescale?" she wondered, running a hoof over the touch-sensitive interface. The noisy graph shrank, individual peaks and troughs compressing into a solid band. "It's a bit of a coincidence," she said, "but there are others like it spread throughout the day."
Neighmann's brow wrinkled in thought. "True, and I suppose the spellcraft failure could have caused that spike rather than the other way around..."
"...but you don't like coincidences?" Neon Spark continued.
"You know who we're dealing with... would you?"
"No," the pegasus sighed. "I'll start checking all the data and see if there's anything... interesting there. You want the manipulator arm inspected?"
"Absolutely," Neighmann said, eyes still on that spike in the data, "I'm thinking we should get some smart and very paranoid ponies to take it apart down to the individual molecules."
"Agreed," came the voice of the unicorn General in Neighmann's ear, "my ponies will collect the arm if you'll have it dismounted."
Neighmann didn't know General Buckler by anything more than reputation, but if she was the one responsible for those unmarked boxes, then the stallion was sure she fit the description of 'smart and paranoid.' Over by the airtruck he saw the engineer close the levitator's housing and trot in his direction.
"Will it fly?" he asked the earth pony mare.
"It will, boss, need to take it a bit easy though; we'll never get the landing gear to retract," she replied, pushing back her foreleg spellcraft gripper and rubbing one oily hoof along her muzzle.
Neighmann stared at the dark streak in her otherwise green fur. How in Luna's name do they find oil in a modern airtruck? he thought, the levitator doesn't even have any moving parts! "That was always the plan; no speed or altitude records on this run." He looked seriously at the engineer. "Are you okay to accompany the airtruck and keep an eye on it?"
She shrugged. "Sure thing, boss. If ugly does get out it won't matter where I'm standing, will it?"
He smiled sadly back. "No, I guess not. Thank you." Another one I'll need to put in for a commendation. This is why you'll never win, he thought at the statue, watching as the engineer climbed aboard and the airtruck floated gently into the night's sky.
For a few breaths Neighmann thought he could hear laughter, deep, rumbling and cruel, then it faded into the sound of the wind stirring the ornamental trees and topiary of the statue garden. He shook his head vigorously, too long mane whipping over his face. So now I'm hearing things, he thought, I must get more sleep.