“Signal Loss.”
The glow from the display illuminated Princess Luna’s bleak and weary face, blinking the same message it had steadily announced for the past twelve hours. The princess yawned and stretched, propping her hooves in the empty terminal seat beside her. Chilly air swam around her, and she wrapped her jacket tight, admiring the soft, downy fabric. Somepony had gone to a lot of trouble to make the fleecy garment, and she noticed the crescent moon embroidered on the puffy collar’s tip: a nice touch. The jacket was warm and fended off the cold, recycled air of the bunker.
Whatever had happened topside had left them were in the dark in terms of communication. The atmospheric disturbance captured on the Wonderbolt’s video feed had scrambled everything, from the radios to the hardlines, every reception from the surface overflowing with static and interference. The electricity, too, had been affected, and it had taken hours to get the lights back on. Technicians had reported several fried transformers to be the culprit as had those who ventured to the surface. Canterlot was safe, but without power as well. It had only been the start of a long night.
As for Ponyville, the Wonderbolt wing had returned with reports of extensive damage. It wouldn't be until first light that emergency crews could make a full assessment though, and dawn was still hours away.
The moon would be high over the Canterlot mountain by now Luna thought, barreling through space not far from its intended trail without her guiding touch. It was a small comfort, the heavenly paths above stable for another three or four days at most without her or her sister’s delicate touch. It gave them time. It still might be a few days before they could venture topside, and though all indications pointed to Canterlot being unharmed, her and Celestia's absence would only fuel the unease.
Celestia had retired for the night long ago, retreating to her room and leaving Luna to hold watch with the odd technician or two. Several of the bunker’s inhabitants were still up, diligently burning the midnight oil to restore critical systems and communications, though many would be dreaming of their beds. As the long night had worn on, even Luna longed for her bed, the thought of a dreamless sleep calling her. And not for whatever passed for a bedroom this far below the mountain.
Luna admitted their rooms were more furnished than the bunker’s general living quarters, but there was little you could do with furnishing and amenities to draw away from the fact they were in a concrete box buried within the Canterlot mountain. You couldn’t pick out a colorful set of drapes if your room didn’t have windows. Maybe she should look into some paint, something bright; it would undoubtedly improve the gray that saturated every corner of the place.
From the back of the command center, the princess watched the technicians and electricians poke and prod inside the terminals with their overflowing wires and their shiny, black screens. Even Brass was curled inside a panel, a flashlight clenched in his mouth. But the display still steadily blinked. “Signal Lost.”
Luna did not understand much of the world today, a fact she chose not to hide. It would be a long time before she could grasp such new concepts as electricity, computers, or much of the modern reality she found herself in.
It was common knowledge to most ponies that she was from a time detached, thrust back into a life she could scarcely recognize from the Old Times. Her thousand-year absence, it seemed, had been glossed over till even she had become a legend. Luna distinctly remembered how hard those first days were, trying to readjust to the Equestria she had missed dearly. But she was always thankful for her aides’ patience, or how they never commented or poked fun at her outdated vernacular, remnants of an antiquated tongue.
Luna smiled — there was somepony who had always found her peculiar dialect delightful (in his own words). She could still remember it all: the sand dunes, the ocean, the hot breeze blowing through the palm trees onto the veranda. She could see it now as she huddled in the chilly, damp air and the imposing darkness.
Luna could practically picture herself standing there again, looking over the balcony of the palace. Across the sands, the tall dunes rising over the endless desert, she could smell the salt of the shell-strewn seashore. And she recalled that same pony.
"It is beautiful, is it not, Princess?”
Luna spun around, startled by the heavy accent.
"I'm sorry," the older stallion apologized, bowing deeply before her, his white robes brushing the sand-speckled terracotta. He was shorter than she would have imagined but stout, almost as wide as he was tall. "Forgive me, your Highness, I couldn’t help but notice you admiring the view.”
Luna adjusted the sunhat atop her head, dark sunglasses shielding her from the blinding sun. Her sister’s heavily body was absolutely overwhelming in this part of the world, and she would much rather be under the soft glow of her moon. But this was an important affair, Celestia had said so herself.
It will be good for you. You should be involved in Equestria's foreign relations. The world needs to know the real you. It is so good to have you back…
“There be no need to apologize, your Excellency,” Luna professed, extending a hoof in greeting to the Sultan. She wouldn’t admit it right now, but she was kicking herself for not remembering his name. It was a long one, with lots of vowels.
"I trust your trip was a pleasant one? Did my envoy find you and your security well?” the Sultan asked, stroking his dark beard manicured to a sharp point, all under the watchful eye of Luna’s bodyguard.
The regular formalities of armor and tradition had been predisposed for this meeting, the bat pony of the Night Watch carefully observing all interactions with the Princess from the corner of the veranda. Only a similar pair of dark sunglasses adorned him, protecting his eyes from the unaccustomed harshness of the daylight. Luna was not the only one ill adept to daytime relations.
“Most well,” Luna lied, already imagining the long airship journey home once their meeting concluded.
The Sultan chuckled, his great belly beneath him shaking. "A thousand apologies," he raised a hoof, "but your vernacular, it is old, yes?”
Luna's mood quickly soured at the observation, failing to find any humor in the Sultan's comment. "Thou might call it outdated," she grumbled, adjusting her sunglasses against the blinding sun. "Tis’ been difficult adjusting after a thousand cold years imprisoned on the moon.”
“Well, have no fear your Highness,” the Sultan, scooping a hoof around her foreleg and pulling her to the edge of the balcony. “Saddle Arabia is nice and warm all year round!” he exclaimed, waving a hoof over the blistering sands that seemed to go on for miles. The bat pony shifted but didn't move. Contact with the Princess was always limited. But he let the good-natured gesture slide — for now.
“So we have noticed,” Luna muttered, wiping the sweat on her forehead with a hoofkerchief. “My sister said we have much to discuss, our two nations.”
“You are in much luck, Princess,” he told her, spinning around and heading back inside. Luna followed the squat, sun-wrinkled stallion inside the palace and out of the crushing heat. “Your visit has come at an exciting time for Saddle Arabia, and I have much to show you.”
Luna was led along a winding path through the ornately decorated desert palace, passing finely woven tapestries that adorned the sandstone walls and towering whitewashed facades. It was quite beautiful, but what she wanted most of all was some sleep, though Luna wondered if she could accomplish such a simple task in such overbearing heat. Daytime was a foreign realm to her, but she had promised Celestia that she could handle her first international summit by herself. Luna wasn’t about to prove herself wrong.
One the ground floor of the palace the Sultan hurried her and the guard into a garage, beaconing them inside. “Come, come,” the Sultan encouraged, gesturing to the strange carriage parked before them. “Your guardpony is welcome, too. Such a quiet one, yes? Let us go for a drive; we will take my overlander.”
“Your…overlander?” Luna gulped, her legs unnaturally weak all of a sudden.
It was the one thing she had found most surprising, yet terrifying since her return, the automobiles. She distinctly remembered several close encounters with the mechanical wagons after unknowingly wandering onto the Canterlot streets. Celestia had insisted on the bodyguard after that.
“Yes, yes,” the Sultan insisted, hopping into the offroad vehicle. To observe the short ruler, barely able to see over the steering wheel, struggling to reach the pedals did little to assure her.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly along?” Luna gave her wingtips a little flap. "I don't want to impose."
"Impose?" the Sultan scoffed. "No, no. Much room." He patted the empty passenger seat beside him.
Luna glanced to the silent Night Watch beside her, the bat pony only giving a small shrug.
“I suppose it can’t be that bad,” she admitted, sliding anxiously into the open-topped vehicle.
Five terrifying hoof-clenching minutes later, Luna knew it had been a mistake to get into the overlander. The alicorn gripped the dash bar with her powerful hooves as the vehicle raced across the hard pavement. Hot desert winds assaulted her from the open top, and she had lost her hat several miles back. The vehicle’s narrow tires bit at the sand blown across the road, throwing up twin tails in their wake.
“Are thou sure this thing is safe?!” Luna yelled to be heard over the roar of the engine, her eyes glued to the ground rushing below her, no door to hold her in. Her guard, equally terrified, was putting up a valiant effort to hold himself down in the backseat. His teeth were clenched so tight, his fangs made tiny cuts on his lip
“No worries, Princess,” the Sultan chuckled, adjusting the wide gold-rimmed sunglasses that protected his face. “I am a very safe driver,” he assured her.
“Watch it!” the guard barked, the Sultan swerving around a herd of goats milling in the middle of the road. It was all Luna could do to hold herself in her seat, her sunglasses rattling on the floorboards.
“I have many servants in my palace,” the Sultan explained, “but I like to drive myself. There is nothing else like it. Such freedom, the speed.”
“Clearly you enjoy the activity very much so” Luna shouted, ducking as a bewildered seabird sailed over the windshield, nearly clipping her head.
“You have never driven in an overlander before, have you, yes?”
Luna’s teeth rattled as the tires slipped on the gravel-strewn shoulder of the road before finding purchase again. "No, we have not. Tis not an activity I imagined to find myself in soon.”
The wheels of the overlander bucked beneath them, the pavement giving way to shimmering sand. Waves lapped at the shoreline, the shadows of palm trees shooting overhead as the vehicle cut a hard left along the beach.
Luna hadn't seen a beach in more than a millennium, and it was hard for her to contain her delight. It was more beautiful than Luna could have remembered, the water like liquid sapphire. It lapped at the shoreline, washing the multi-colored shells and pebbles to shine beneath the sun. From here, she could see farther out into the salty sea and to platforms of metal that rose from the ocean surface.
“Those,” she said, pointing a hoof to the structures. “What are they?” she asked the Sultan.
“Ah, a good question, Princess. That is part of what I wanted to show you,” he said, his beard whipping in the wind as the overlander bounded across the seashore. “Those are arcana rigs.”
Arcana. Celestia had told her about that; a foul-smelling substance pulled from the depths of the earth.
“Saddle Arabia hath arcana reserves?” she asked. She had seen the arcana fields of Equestria, but from the number of waterborne structures she spotted off the coast, it must be a massive deposit.
The Sultan released a deep chuckle, his big belly bouncing up and down in his seat. “Forgive me, your Grace. I mean no offense,” he apologized, wiping away a stray tear beneath his golden shades. “Your Highness,” he explained politely, “Saddle Arabia has the largest arcana deposits in the world. More than even your Appalousa.”
"And it be valuable?"
“More than liquid gold,” he said with a crooked grin.
Luna had to admit, it was hard to imagine such a nasty substance had any value at all. But she had been told the Appalousa arcana boom had been quite the economic revolution, growing the frontier town from a tiny backwater apple producer to the largest economy in all the Equestrian commonwealths. Her ports and waterways to the Gulf of Caballo had just finished a dredging operation to accommodate the ships ferrying the liquid overseas, bringing even more bits to the commonwealth.
“You have returned at an exciting time, Princess,” the Sultan continued. “Let me show you.”
The overlander raced at its breakneck speed down the beach, Luna lingering on the Saddle Arabian sea lapping just out of reach. Every now and then the metal rigs would belch, sending a plume of iridescent arcana from their flare booms. The magical substance would crackle and pop, evaporating with a flood of colors overtop the installations.
The Sultan swerved, Luna once again gripping the dash-bar in desperation to keep from being tossed around. They had arrived at a facility, a conglomeration of steel stacks and towers that hugged the beach, several massive pipelines like snakes slithering their way out of the water and up the beachhead.
"What is this place?" she wondered, the overlander screeching to a halt on a patch of pavement. The Night Guard breathed a grateful sigh of relief from the back as the ruler turned the engine off and vaulted from the vehicle.
“A refinery,” he answered, waddling beside the two as they made their way inside the barb topped fencing. “An experimental one. Most others are much larger than this, refining enough arcana to power our cities and fuel our overlanders,” he gestured to the parking lot.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?”
“It is indeed, Princess.” His words were dripping with contained excitement.
The Sultan stopped beneath one of the refinery towers, several robed workers giving courtesy bows to their beloved ruler. Only fitting for the pony who had transformed what had once been a dustbowl of goat herders into the most prosperous country in the world, supplying dozens of nations with their precious energy extract.
“We were one of the first to begin researching the potential of arcana,” he told his guest, grabbing a clear flask from a nearby cabinet. He placed it beneath one of the hundreds of pipes protruding from the tower, a thin stream of iridescent liquid filling the container with the turn of a spigot. "What was once a foul-smelling fluid hardly suitable for lamp oil, was transformed into a condensed energy source.” With the stroke of a match, the liquid erupted into a meter tall cone of flame. Luna and her guard shielded themselves from the intense heat and light.
The Sultan quickly set the flask down before he burned his hooves, his bushy eyebrows singed on the edges. "Highly combustible magical condensate, a perfect fuel source. With years of research, we have perfected the refining process, all of it public of course. I’m sure Appalousa appreciated it.”
The flame had exhausted its energy supply, dying into a smoldering residue coating the empty flask. "Equestria doth owe it to your generosity," Luna peppered him, allowing him his moment of fame. “But I am very eager to see what thou has called us halfway around the world for." She hadn't meant to sound rude or snotty. But the heat was unbearable. And her nerves were short from lack of sleep.
“All in good time,” he chuckled, beckoning them along.
“Overlanders and arcana generated electricity are well and good,” he spoke, “but they only created a technological boom. We are looking toward something greater.”
Finally, they ventured into one of the enclosed buildings, a cool air-conditioned breeze greeting them as the Sultan opened the steel doors. Luna could hardly contain her relief, sighing deeply as she basked in the frigid air. Her bodyguard gratefully removed his sunglasses, his orange eyes adjusting to the fluorescent lighting.
Behind lab tables, beakers and bunsen ponies in lab coats and traditional robes worked diligently on their projects. The Sultan waved off their esteemed welcome, instead, producing a small metal cylinder from one of the work stations. "This is what I wanted to show you," he said proudly, holding up the little bottle. Half of it was partially transparent, exposing a deep purple substance behind its thick exterior despite its small size.
"What is it?" Luna asked quizzically.
“Arcana,” he said. “Refined to the point it is condensed to a state that we admit we still do not fully understand.”
"So it's just more?" she said skeptically.
"If you mean ‘more,' I don't think you understand the density we are speaking of here," he told them. "What we were working with before does not even compare. We are talking of a substance that is pure magic.”
"But that's just silly," she scoffed incredulously, gazing up and down at the tiny cylinder in his hoof. "No unicorn has ever come close to synthesizing magic into a material form before. The implications of such a thing would be—“
"Inconceivable," he breathed, looking into the minute amount swirling inside the canister.
“What does he mean?” Luna’s bodyguard asked, grabbing a closer peek.
“It turns everything we know about magic on its head,” she told him. “A state of matter only unicorns have barely understood.”
“Now harnassed in quantities no unicorn could ever cast in their lifetime.”
“That’s a lot, right?” the bat pony glanced between the two.
“Yes,” the Sultan chortled. "That is a lot. Magic, condensed into a source of energy that rivals the output of twenty standard arcana power facilities.
With the delicacy of a surgeon, he twisted the top of the cylinder, a tiny bead, hardly larger than a grain of sand materializing. It fizzled and popped in the open air. "Why one drop is enough to—“
Zapp!
The droplet vaporized in an instant, knocking them and most of the occupants to the floor. Windows shattered, glass vaporized and paper flew. Sunlight pierced through the meters-wide hole in the roof, the harsh rays poking through the dust. Sprinklers activated, and ponies rubbed furiously at their eardrums as they pulled themselves off the floor. Luna rolled her bodyguards groaning figure off of her, wobbling on all four of her hooves in a daze. Through her swimming vision and charred mane, the Sultan was still standing. His beard, once a voluptuous sea of beautiful black was gone, revealing a dimpled chin. He coughed and sputtered, removing the barren gold frames from his blasted face.
“We still are figuring out the exact science,” he sputtered, choking on the smoke wafting from his singed coat. “Clearly a little volatile to open air. But in the right hooves, just think of all that can be accomplished…”
“Coffee, your Highness?” The mare levitated a delicate china cup before her.
Luna shook away the vision, the hot beach replaced with the frosty bunker air. Coffee? She wasn’t quite thirsty, but she accepted the saucer anyway. The night wasn’t getting any shorter.
“Thank you, Raven. Couldn’t sleep, I presume.”
The mare gave a short nod, adjusting the slender spectacles perched on her nose.
“Thou had another rough day then? How is she doing?” Luna wondered, pushing a seat toward her. Raven had been in her sister's employment since her return, acting as both a secretary and a liaison to ease the burden of running Equestria as her own. But as of late, she was more caregiver.
“She has her good days and her bad days,” Raven said. She put on a thin smile, folding her glasses and hanging them around her neck. She perched herself on the edge of, the seat loosening the choker she always wore around her neck.
“And today?”
“One of the not so good ones,” Raven admitted, folding her legs as she watched the technicians continue their diagnostics.
“Is she improving though?” Luna didn’t like to ask about her sister behind her back. It felt terrible, even, as if she could not trust her kin. Even after all that Luna had put her through already; a thousand years must weight the moon itself upon Celestia’s heart.
Raven returned a small shrug, removing the imposing hairpin and unfurling her mane. She gave it a few fluffs, the black, glossy strands washing over her petite neck. “Hard to tell. Sometimes, when I think she is improving, she’ll go into her reclusive phase, locking herself in her bedchambers. She usually won’t see anypony when she is like that. Sometimes she won’t even see me.”
“I’m sure this day has not helped her either,” Luna sighed, stirring her coffee. "I doth believe there is little we can do to help her now but ease some of her burdens. Schedule some of her commitments to me, would you.”
“You’re already bearing nearly most of her responsibilities. Any more at this point and you may as well be raising the sun,” Raven cautiously reminded her.
“I know,” Luna told her, already feeling a fresh headache rearing its ugly head. “It be the only thing I can do for her. She has already done the same for me, a thousand years even.”
“It wasn’t always this way?” Raven asked her. “Things used to be —a hoof rubbed her horn as if it ached —simpler, right? Or was the day to day always like this?” Raven wondered. “Before your banishment.”
"No. No, things used to be much simpler." Luna barely remembered the Old Times, but this much she was sure of. Days where the only trouble was a rogue dragon or an encroaching hydra threatening the castle of the Two Sisters were gone. The Equestria she had left, a small fledgling realm, had ballooned into a great beast, a nation stretching from shore to shore across the North Equestrian continent. Countries had come and gone, armies destined to rise and fall. Borders had been disputed, moved or even disappeared. But Equestria, though it was hard to tell if she still recognized it, had remained.
Gone was the old ruling class, replaced with representatives and directors, chairponies and governors of the Commonwealths: the involved inner-workings Royal Government. All constructed to bear the burden of power that used to rest on her and Celestia’s shoulders solely. Yet, still, it had been of small relief to Celestia. It was always so much responsibility, and it had taken its toll.
And then there was the problem of those East, across the endless ocean. They went by many names: Maretonia, YakoslaviasteadySaddle Arabia; those among they had once called friends now squabbling like blathering foals. First, it was territory disputes, but then it was about the arcana.
The Sultan had been right; the arcana indeed had changed the world, only not in the way he virtuously had envisioned. What was supposed to deliver them into a golden age was a poison, a weapon in the minds of those with less noble intentions. The arcana concentrates became guns, warheads, bombs: anything to unleash its devastation. Even her hooves weren't clean in this regard, Luna had to admit. For how else were they to survive in such a world with such destructive powers at large. She should have seen it coming: right from the coup in Saddle Arabia. She had seen that enough on the news when their forces were called back from the violent outbreak.
“What is it like over there, soldier?” they would ask, the reporters shoving their microphones in some poor private’s face as he was wheeled off a troopship.
“It’s gone, all of it,” he would say, leaning into the microphone. "Saddle Arabia is gone. The Sultan’s General threw him from the balcony, turned their troops on us. And you can bet your bits Yakoslavia and Martonia had some hoof in this. Why are we even doing this? Ask the Princesses why they are throwing soldiers lives away in some backwater dust bowl country on the other side of the world. Ask Celestia why I don’t have forelegs. Ask her why I can't walk or hug my foal anymore. That is what it's like over there."
Luna quickly pushed such recollections away. Such things were in the past, forever etched in stone. She could only hope to work toward a more peaceful tomorrow. Even if it meant keeping the Birds fueled and on standby, ready to launch should anypony moved against them. She had seen the first hoof the destructive force of a single drop of concentrated arcana.
“No, things had been much simpler,” Luna said again.
“I think we got it!” shouted a technician, his voice echoing inside the computer cabinet. “Interference is down across all channels. Communications links should be restored.”
Several icons on the main screen blinked green. Luna jumped up as they light up one by one: radio frequencies, ground forces, ship convoys, silo operations, satellite telemetry. Equestria was back in operation.
“Get me a status on Ponyville and the Wonderbolts,” Luna ordered. “Ponyville is priority number one. I want a full assessment from the emergency crews.”
“Princess Luna, we’re getting an emergency communiqué,” informed another technician across the dark control center. “It’s a message. It’s downlinking over a military channel now,” he said, swiveling in his chair. “I think it’s from a flightsuit.”
“Put it on screen,” she commanded.
“I’m getting incoming reports from the emergency crews,” he continued. “Casualties are confirmed.”
“We shall deploy additional aid as soon as we know what we’re dealing with here,” the Princess assured him. “Let us see the message first.”
The data attachments came in slow at first, loading onto the main screen. They were pictures, though it took a minute for Luna to tell they were captured from one of the Wonderbolt’s helmets.
“What is that?” Luna cocked her head, struggling to determine what she was looking at. "Is that—”
Luna’s eyes shrunk inward like they were going to roll back into her head, and the involuntary urge to be sick assaulted her stomach. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, oh, oh…”
“Wha–what happened to her?” Raven gulped before turning away from the display.
The comms officer looked to Luna, his face painted sickly white. He looked like he had just seen a ghost, but the reality was far worse. “What do I do, your Highness. Who do I call?” he asked, the phone hanging in his hoof. “Who do I call about this?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head, still struck by the images. “I doth not know who to call," she gasped, her voice quivering as a chill crept over her. She couldn’t get the images out of her head.
“Call the CED,” somepony answered behind her.
Princess Celestia stood at the door, a bright yellow robe wrapped around her frail visage. Her eyes were dim marbles that slowly slid across the screen, and she clutched onto the railing for support. Her knees were weak, but her composure was steady.
Raven was immediately by her side, trying to coax the alicorn along. “Your Grace, you shouldn’t be up. You need to sleep, you need your strength.
“No.” She wouldn’t budge, clutching the railing with an iron grip. “You need to call the Center for Equestrian Diseases,” she told Luna, her hard stare anchored upon her. “Right now.”