“Okay,” said Lyra. “We may have accidentally uncovered a conspiracy between the Elements, a Princess who faked her own death, and our weird transfer student friend.”
“Twilight’s not weird,” said Moon Dancer.
The two of them leaned on the railing around the school roof. They were alone, using the roof for privacy before classes.
“I know a guy who could help us,” said Lyra. “He’s really up on tracker stuff and he may know how to make connections to other places if we brought this to him.”
“If Twilight really is bound up in this, would she want us to spread her name around?” Moon Dancer gave Lyra a look.
Lyra sighed. “I just feel like I need to tell somepony! This is so cool, and I’m happy for her.”
“Should we be?” Moon Dancer asked. “She looked freaked out when Magic and Honesty came to talk to her the other day.”
“Well, it’s not like the Elements are bad or anything,” said Lyra.
“I guess, but no matter how Twilight is involved, we can’t tell anypony. It could be dangerous for her. It could be dangerous for us.”
Lyra frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She bounced back. “So what about Fluttershy?”
“At this point, I think we have to assume she’s with Twilight. Fluttershy also stopped coming to school, and we know she worked at Café Cadenza.” Moon Dancer frowned. “I hope she wasn’t there when it burned.”
“The newspaper said the place was closed for the night and there weren’t any bodies found.”
“I went back to the library to search for anything about Fluttershy,” said Moon Dancer. “I didn’t really find anything, though she did at one point live in Ponyville. That’s near where the final battle of the war took place. That’s not much of a connection, though.”
They were silent for several seconds. Lyra said, “You know, the Elements of Magic and Kindness were both in Baltimare, and we didn’t see Twilight or Fluttershy during the hydra attack.”
“We saw Magic meet Twilight,” Moon Dancer reminded her.
“Yeah, it sounded silly even as I said it.”
Twilight actually got a good night’s sleep. It surprised her as much as anypony else. However, as she got out of bed that morning, she was already planning on another long day.
The development group met around the table in one of the castle’s smaller dining rooms. They were there to plan the operation against Starlight Glimmer’s village. Well, and have breakfast.
Twilight was late to arrive, having stopped to compile some notes. The interview the other girls had done with Tempest had been submitted as one report, not the individual documents Twilight had requested, but at least they’d had Rarity write it so it was thorough.
The issue of what to call Tempest had ultimately come down to security and convenience. The name she'd chosen for herself was made up and had no connection to her previous life. Not to mention, “Fizzlepop Berrytwist” was a mouthful.
When Twilight walked into the dining room, Tempest promptly stood up from the table and pulled a chair out for her. “Thank you,” said Twilight, sitting down to breakfast. Tempest sat directly to Twilight’s right. She was back to wearing her form-fitting black uniform.
Tempest’s pledge of loyalty had caught Twilight off guard, but it seemed genuine. Twilight was still cautious, though. She was aware of the potential of a pony like Tempest fused with the magic of the former Alicorn Amulet. If Twilight’s calculations were correct, it wasn’t going to be a problem, but they were in uncharted magical and medical territory and it would pay to keep an eye on Tempest. Though, if she was going to keep acting like Twilight’s butler or something, that wouldn’t be difficult.
As she ate, Twilight put the finishing touches on her plan, taking a few notes with her pen. When her plate was empty, she stood up to address the room, pulling a map of the area around the village from her notes and magically enlarging it for everypony to see. With Tempest’s information, they’d pinpointed the location of the village and she had told them about the layout, which was primarily one street with a row of identical houses down each side.
“We’ll take the airship and should arrive in the early evening. According to the weather schedule, we'll have a few clouds for cover. We’ll do some reconnaissance to make sure nothing has changed. If Chrysalis is there, our best bet would be to try and link up with her to get intel and see if she’ll keep her word of evacuating changelings. Other than that, our priority is Starlight Glimmer. With no information on her power or abilities, we should avoid engaging her one-on-one.
“This is going to be difficult because there may be quite a few innocent ponies in the way, which is another reason we should avoid a direct conflict. If it comes to it, we can use the airship as a fire support platform.”
“So we’ll be infiltrating?” said Rarity.
“They’ll notice that we don’t have the equals-sign cutie marks. Infiltration will have to be only with disguises. We’ll have to be restrained, though. In a small town, one new face might not be noteworthy, but half a dozen at once would be.”
“What’s our plan for prisoners?” said Applejack. “There might be a lot.”
“I’m hoping that once we take out Starlight, the rest will be free of whatever control she had over them. We don’t really have the resources to do anything else.”
“We could distract them with a party.”
“It would have to be a really good party, Pinkie.”
Twilight turned to begin speaking again, but Pinkie kept talking. “Yeah, it would be,” said Pinkie, rubbing her chin and apparently seriously considering it. “I’d have to pull out, like, all the stops. Punch and cake and ice cream.” She looked at Tempest. “You’ve got the ice cream.”
Tempest looked at Twilight. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t think a party is really what we need right now,” said Twilight.
“If we could figure out how to do it without arousing the townsfolk’s suspicions, it would be a great way to get them all in one place and maybe talk to a few of them,” said Pinkie.
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Twilight asked.
“If it’s a good enough party, nopony will care. Tempest, you get the ice cream.”
“Wait, Tempest is going?” said Rainbow.
“She knows the town better than any of us,” Twilight said. “And if we don’t even have enough hooves to sort out prisoners, we can’t really spare anypony to keep her here under guard.”
Rainbow looked like she wanted to argue, but dropped her head and closed her mouth.
“I do have a job for you, Rainbow.”
Rainbow perked up.
“If we’re going to get going this morning, I think we should have a diversion. If any of the Commander’s contacts see the airship leave, they’ll probably take a guess where it’s going. Why don’t you go down to the shopping district and sign a few autographs to draw reporters away? You can catch up with us.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Fine with me.”
“Everypony else, let’s go load up.”
The meeting concluded. Save for Rainbow, everypony headed for the Guard transportation shop. The airship had been brought in for refit, still under the cover story that it had been seized from pirates.
Tempest stopped in the doorway, staring. The entire airship had been washed in a light blue-grey. The Crown seal had been painted in gold on each side of the bow.
“For cover, they converted it to a Guard ship,” said Twilight. “They did some work to change the profile, but there wasn’t enough time to do too much more than paint it.”
“I don’t think the Commander has too many more of them,” said Tempest.
“Oh, I meant to ask, did it have a name?”
“No.”
“Well, what do you want to name it?”
“It’s not my ship anymore,” said Tempest. “Though, not that it ever was.”
“We could call it Friendship.”
“If it pleases you.”
“That was a joke, Tempest. Let’s just do like the Guard does and look up a random positive character trait in the dictionary and call it good.”
Twilight turned away to supervise loading of supplies for the trip. She didn’t anticipate it the expedition taking more than a day or two, but that depended on how much they wanted to recon the town before making a move.
When the airship was ready to go, they guided it out of the maintenance shed and promptly set off. Twilight ordered a course that put the bulk of the castle between the airship and the city of Canterlot below. Once around the mountain, they headed up into the patchy clouds. The new paint job helped with concealment against the sky.
They were going to wait at a predesignated spot north of Canterlot for half an hour for Rainbow. Once she’d come aboard, the airship would turn east for the trip to Starlight’s village.
Twilight decided to have a nap. The trip would be several hours, and she should probably catch up on the sleep she’d missed over the past few days.
“Hey, check that out!” Lyra jumped out of her desk and pressed her nose to the window. Around her, other students were doing the same. The teacher called for order, but nopony was listening, all distracted by the faint rainbow trail in the distance.
“That had to be Rainbow Dash!” said Lyra. “It looked like she was heading downtown!”
Excited murmuring broke out in the classroom. It was only a few minutes until lunch, so the teacher just gave up.
“Come on!” said Lyra, seizing Moon Dancer’s hoof. “If we hurry, we can get there and back during lunch period.”
The two of them left the school and trotted in the direction they’d seen Rainbow Dash go. “We don’t know where she went,” said Moon Dancer. “We can’t spend too much time looking.”
“Somehow, I don’t think it’ll be hard to find a pony like that.”
Lyra’s prediction turned out to be prophetic. Arriving downtown, they found who they were looking for.
Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, was surrounded by a small crowd. She seemed to be busy talking with them and signing autographs.
“I just realized I don’t have anything to get her signature!” Lyra turned a pleading look at her friend. Moon Dancer rolled her eyes and gave Lyra a notebook.
“Do you...think we could maybe ask her about Twilight?” said Moon Dancer.
“Maybe. I don’t know if she would tell us.”
Moon Dancer frowned. “Especially with all these ponies around.”
Still, they kept going, entering the outskirts of the crowd. Everypony was pushing and shoving, trying to get closer. Flashbulbs were going off.
“Hey Rainbow Dash!” Lyra called, waving and grinning.
She actually looked up, eyes moving from Lyra to Moon Dancer. She purposefully looked away. “Alright everypony, that’s all the time I have, gotta go!”
Spreading her wings, Rainbow Dash zoomed skyward, disappearing faster than the eye could see, to the wonderment of the crowd.
“Was it just me, or did it feel like...she recognized us?” said Lyra.
“It wasn’t just you,” Moon Dancer replied, still looking after Rainbow Dash even after she had gone.
“That is so cool!”
“But...why?”
Lyra only just stopped to consider it. “That’s a really good question, actually. If Twilight and Fluttershy somehow know the Elements, do you think they mentioned us to them?” Her eyes started to sparkle again. “Do you think they would introduce us?”
“I’m more concerned about what the Elements would think about our research. What are they going to do if they find out what we know?”
“I’m not worried,” said Lyra. “The worst thing would probably be just a memory charm.”
Moon Dancer looked at her, eyes suddenly wide. “What if...that’s already happened? What if that’s how Rainbow Dash knows us - because we’ve met before?”
Lyra snorted. “I would remember if somepony put a memory cha...oh.” She frowned suddenly. “What could have happened? Where could we possibly have been to have seen Rainbow Dash before? What could we have seen that made them modify our memory?”
“Think hard,” said Moon Dancer. “At any point since Twilight first showed up did you get the sense that you had lost time or something?”
“It’s been weeks since Twilight transferred. That’s a lot to remember..”
“I guess we don’t really have time to think about it now,” Moon Dancer reluctantly conceded. “Come on, we need to get back to school.”
Twilight jerked awake, from the folded blanket she’d slept on in the hold of the airship. She’d turned it into a makeshift office for the trip.
You need to get to Manehattan right away. There are reports of shadow creatures inside the city.
It was Celestia’s voice that had awakened her. Princess?
I know you set out for the village, but this is a threat right now.
We’re on it!
All grogginess from being asleep faded instantly. “Where are we?” Twilight called out, getting up. The others should have gotten the same message.
“West of Manehattan,” said Tempest.
Twilight jumped, not realizing she had been sharing the room. “How fast can we get there?”
Tempest glanced at a map. “Twenty minutes.”
“Not fast enough. Rainbow!”
“I’m on it,” Rainbow replied distantly from the upper deck. Twilight felt a surge to the airship’s speed.
“What’s going on?” said Tempest.
Oh right, she wasn’t connected to the network. “Change of plans. There’s an active attack of shadow creatures in Manehattan right now.”
“This doesn’t sound like a coincidence,” Tempest replied. “Especially when taken with the time you were in Baltimare during the attack there.”
“A good point, but why would somepony attempt destruction of places while Elements were there to stop it?”
“To test you. To distract you.”
Twilight looked at her. “Do you think they knew we were after Starlight’s village and this was meant to draw us away?”
“It could be.”
Twilight grit her teeth. “And it’s working. We can’t just let this happen.” She headed for the upper deck.
The Manehattan skyline was already in sight. The setting sun from the west cast long shadows out to sea from the tall buildings. Rainbow was behind the airship, pushing for all she was worth and Twilight could feel the increased wind over the deck.
The radio crackled, apparently just barely within range of Manehattan Air Control. “Unknown airship inbound from the west, this is Manehattan Control. Be advised that Manehattan is under attack from monsters! Strongly advise you reverse course!”
Twilight grabbed the microphone. “Manehattan Control, this is Guard airship-”
“I named it Service,” said Tempest.
“This is Guard airship Service. We’re here to help. Tell us where the monsters are, and anything else you know.”
“Oh thank Celestia. They’re down near the harbor in the eastern district. There are reports that they’re k-killing ponies. Somepony said they’re made of shadows, like from N-Nightm...from the shadow army.”
“Roger that, we’re on our way.” Twilight put the microphone down and stared at the horizon. “We just have to get a little closer and I can teleport us there.”
She glanced at Tempest. “Nice name, by the way. It sounds exactly like what the Guard would have called a ship. Good job.”
She turned away, missing the expression on Tempest’s face. “Alright everypony, get ready. We’re going to go as a single unit. Spike, take high cover and watch our backs. Spitfire, Soarin’, I’m going to need you to stay back to help Tempest with the ship.”
“Do you need me to go?” Tempest said. “I can have my armor on in thirty seconds.”
Twilight shook her head. “We have no idea what we’re going to find down there. Stand by to provide fire support if we call for it.”
She transformed. Grabbing a guard-issued walkie-talkie from the supplies they’d brought onboard, Twilight tested it against the airship’s radio and then dropped it into one of her pockets.
“Alright girls!” The other Elements came to her. Twilight lit up her horn.
“Stay safe!” Tempest said.
“You too,” Twilight replied reflexively, wondering where that had come from. She didn’t have time to think about it, though, as the next instant she had teleported to the ground with the other five Elements.
The street was covered in broken masonry and glass. It wasn’t exactly covered in bodies, but there were still dozens.
Three creatures of shadow, each standing as tall as an abandoned taxi at the end of the street and appearing vaguely canine, were clawing at buildings, screams marking their targets.
It was strange to see them in broad daylight, and perhaps that made them weaker than they would have been otherwise. That didn’t mean they could be allowed to continue their assault any longer.
The six Elements charged forward. Rainbow’s crossbow began firing, injuring each of the monsters, but more importantly distracting them from civilians.
As the three of them turned, the Elements broke into unspoken formation. Pinkie took the monster on the left, hitting the pavement and sliding on her armored knees beneath its belly where she turned into a whirling tornado of blades. Applejack ducked an attack from the middle beast and swung her scythe, blade ripping its chest open. Rarity thrust her shield up to meet the jaws of the righthand monster, deflecting its momentum sideways. Seeing an opportunity, Twilight met it from the other direction, swinging her sword down to meet the anvil of Rarity’s shield and taking the monster’s head completely off.
Spike, are there more?
There are two a block north, those size-changing chicken-looking things after civilians. Also an elephantine-thing three blocks west and moving fast through buildings.
“Rarity, with me! Everypony else go west!” Twilight ran to the corner and turned north. In the distance, she could see a creature looming over the rooftops. Where was the other one?
The tall monster turned its head, red eyes on them. A limp body dangled from its beak. Just as Shining Armor had…
There was a sudden impact as Rarity was knocked into Twilight’s side. The smaller monster, apparently cued by the other, had rushed them from an alley. Rarity had managed to block it, but not keep her balance.
Twilight turned, sword lashing out. The monster stepped back, beginning to grow.
“Rarity, stay here!” Twilight checked to make sure she was back on her hooves, and then teleported.
She appeared in the air, several stories above the smaller, and still shrinking, monster. Twilight conjured a force rune, adding her own momentum as gravity carried her down. The spell released and hammered the creature flat. Twilight used the recoil to catch herself and land lightly on the pavement.
A chunk of something that seemed to be both fleshy and shadowy landed next to her, and another fell a fraction of a second later. Oh right, the creatures were linked. Through a gentle patter of gore falling from the sky, Twilight headed back to where she’d last seen Rarity and found her completely covered in dark ichor.
Rarity wiped her helmet’s eye slits. “Lovely. Warn me next time?”
We’re done over here, Rainbow reported. The thing fell on its face when we cut its legs out from under it.
Alright, Twilight replied. Just a-
A sound like nothing she’d ever heard before made Twilight wince and flatten her ears. It seemed to carry a physical force with it and even rattled the plates of Rarity’s armor. “What in the wide world of Equestria…”
Out in Manehattan bay was a creature Twilight had never seen before, not in any book or any battle of the previous war. It rose slowly from the water, out near Manehattan’s signature mare statue. As Twilight watched, however, she realized she was only looking at the creature’s head. More of its body appeared as it moved towards land. It resembled a dragon, but she had never seen any nearly so large.
Twilight grabbed the radio, but had to pause as whatever the monster was let out another ear-piercing roar. When the reverberations had died away, she called “We need those cannons now!”
She ran to the water’s edge. Over the buildings to the west, she could see the airship. Seconds later, the guns fired. The two explosions against its hide distracted it, but didn’t stop it. The distance to the creature had played with Twilight’s perception, but the relative size of the explosions told her how big it was. It was taller than the mare statue, and had begun to pick up speed towards shore as the water shallowed.
Rainbow, do what you can to stop it before it makes landfall! On the radio, Twilight said, “Keep shooting and try to draw it away!”
How were they ever going to stop a creature this massive?
Lumbering as it was, Twilight figured she might have as much as a minute before it got to her position. Her eyes searched sea and sky, looking for something, anything. She realized the shadows on the buildings had actually shortened. Had Celestia paused the sunset to aid their battle?
A solution came to her in a flash. Princess, please put down the sun and raise the moon.
Are you sure, Twilight?
I need it. She didn’t bother with further explanation, only beginning to charge her horn.
Teleportation was tricky for most unicorns. Most didn’t have the power or talent to do it. Teleporting things besides oneself was easier. Twilight could transport herself several miles, even with friends, but she had to be able to visualize her target, so that meant either someplace she had been before or could directly see. Trying to over-exert herself would result in dropping short of her intended target.
With time to prepare, Twilight was able to draw a series of runes with her sword, setting up a magical construct to act as a reserve of power. She could charge it, and then release it for additional fuel for a spell that she may not have been able to apply enough power directly.
She kept channeling magic, starting to sweat even though she wasn’t moving. Her eyes remained locked with the colossal monster as it came closer.
A sliver of moon appeared on the horizon as the sky darkened. Just a little more. Twilight’s breath was getting ragged as she kept going, pouring out magic. It felt like her horn was on fire.
The monster roared again. Being much closer, the force nearly knocked Twilight back. She was sure her ears would be ringing. It raised one of its giant clawed feet to take a step onto the seawall. Twilight looked at the moon, and let the spell go.
She blinded herself with the flash, her mane flying everywhere in a sudden rush of displaced air. Blinking spots out of her eyes, Twilight fell to her rump in exhaustion. The monster was gone.
Twilight squinted, barely able to focus her eyes through fatigue. No, it wasn’t gone. A small black speck drifted past the rising moon. Her spell hadn’t had enough power and had fizzled out somewhere along the way. She’d only sent it to orbit.
Well, that was good enough for now. She’d just have to make sure it didn’t reenter somewhere near a populated area. There hadn’t been time to do the astrodynamics calculations on the fly while putting it up there.
“I think I need a nap,” Twilight muttered. Rarity caught her as she fell over.
After school, Moon Dancer insisted that they go to the library.
“Something’s been bothering me,” she said as they went over to what was becoming their usual research table. “Do you remember that afternoon Twilight took us out? We tried to go to Café Cadenza but it was closed, right?”
Moon Dancer grabbed an older copy of the newspaper off the rack and showed it to Lyra. The headline carried a picture of a wrecked building, where a powerful but misguided former stage magician had challenged the Element of Magic to a duel and lost.
“This fight happened only blocks from the café.” Her hoof pointed at the details in the article. “It happened at almost exactly the same time we were there. We should have heard it. We should have seen giant blasts of magic going into the air. In fact, looking at the route from the school, we probably walked by that exact building.” Moon Dancer raised her hooves. “But that’s not what I remember.”
“Are you saying...we were there?” said Lyra. She tipped her head. “But what if, instead, we didn’t go to the café at all and somepony planted that false memory to make us think we were in the area?”
“If so, that’s a different, but equally troubling can of worms. Instead of trying to cover up Element activity, they would be trying to make us think they were covering it up. Given that Rainbow Dash seemed to recognize us, though, I think it’s more likely that it’s the former.”
“I guess.”
“So if we were actually there, what reason would anypony have to modify our memories? What could we have seen that somepony didn’t want us to see? The Elements don’t just wipe memories from everypony who sees them fight.”
“What if we saw an Element transform and realized their true identity?” Lyra tapped the newspaper. “Especially if it was the Element of Magic. Who else would be better at a memory charm?”
The implications that she had seen an Element’s true face with her own eyes made Moon Dancer weak-kneed. “It just seems so strange that we might have seen this, known this, but can’t remember. I can’t stand it! I wonder who she is?”
Lyra was silent for a moment. “You know...there’s a ton of evidence that Magic is actually Twilight herself, aside from that one time we saw them together in the park.”
Moon Dancer’s eyes widened. “If that’s true...and we saw her fight that magician, and she wiped our memories of it, she could have arranged that incident in the park to purposely throw us off if this ever came up again. The Element of Magic is probably powerful enough to pull that off, right? And...and if we accept that Magic is really Twilight, it becomes pretty easy to believe that Kindness is Fluttershy.”
“Oh my sweet Celestia,” Lyra whispered.