//------------------------------// // 3: High Ground // Story: The Best and The Worst // by Firesight //------------------------------// It took Twilight a moment to regain her bearings after they rematerialized, which she always found a little more difficult to do if she was the passenger instead of the driver of the teleport, casting the spell herself. The roof was in no better shape than the buildings, with rusting rails and moss growing all over the edges; water pooling on sunken areas that spoke to the slow collapse of the structure. “I apologize for the discomfort of the transit, my student. But now that we have the high ground, what can you see?” “Um…” Twilight looked around at the rows of identical buildings, occasionally punctuated by a taller one that had the same bland architecture as the apartments. There had been at least some effort to provide residents recreational areas, she noted in some minor relief, with parks and plazas visible with swingsets along with the old Mare-is wheel. But looking out further, she saw an odd emblem mounted on the roof of a nearby building, its colors faded but still present, of what looked like a blacksmith hammer overlaid with a harvest implement earth ponies sometimes used. I’ve seen that symbol before… she knew, but she wasn’t immediately able to place it until she recalled some of her human history books. “That’s the sigil… of the Soviet Union.” “Sigil might be too strong a term, as that symbol bore no magical properties, my student. Though there were—and sadly still are—those who believe it does,” Celestia sighed. “But yes. Well-spotted again.” “Then this town… once belonged to it?” Twilight guessed, recalling that the Soviet Union had been once a vast nation that covered much of two continents, and that its written language had been Cryllibex. She knew humans had a slightly different term for it, but she couldn’t recall it just then. “But that doesn’t make sense, Princess! I studied human history, and that nation dissolved nearly thirty years ago!” She recalled, then blinked as something else occurred to her. “But this place has also been abandoned that long…” Celestia remained silent, letting her student follow her logic chain. “Are the two events connected?” Twilight suddenly wondered out loud. “As the Soviet Union no longer exists, this place must fall under the dominion of one of the new nations that replaced it! I remember the big one was Russia. But there was also Belarus, Latvia, Lithumanea…” she hoped she wasn’t mangling the words too much; she had to constantly check herself from ponifying the human location names, which were often eerily similar to places she knew back home. “Wait—Pripyat. That is also the name of a large series of swamps in Belarus. Is that where we are?” Celestia couldn’t help but smile at that. “Close, but not quite. Those are the Pripet marshes, my student,” she corrected gently. “The similarity in names is a coincidence. But if it helps, the marshes are not that far to the north.” “Then we’re south of them… in the Ewecrane—er, I-I mean Ukraine, sorry,” Twilight deduced from the clue as she continued to look around, the puzzle of their location providing at least a brief distraction from the more ominous mysteries she found herself struggling to solve. “I see a confluence of two rivers as well as a large lake or reservoir they flow into, past that industrial area in the distance. That the forest is just breaking into spring at this point of the year suggests we’re in the northern fringe of the country. In that case, I think we’re not far north of Kiev, the Ukranian capital city. And that being the case, the larger river is likely the Dnieper,” she concluded, recalling from her reading its historical importance to the nation as both a waterway and a natural barrier to military operations as late as seventy-five years earlier. “Well done, my student.” Celestia bowed her head. “I am gratified you have kept up on your human history studies so faithfully. We are indeed where you say. But I regret that does not answer the questions before us,” she motioned out to the town again with a sweep of her wing, a gust of cool wind ruffling her large feathers. “And the one I wish to be answered before we depart is very simple: What happened here?” A chill instantly returned to Twilight, one not imparted by the breeze; she was suddenly keenly aware of the prickling, tingling sensation on her horn all over again. “So is that why you brought me here? You want me to determine the answer to that question from the available evidence?” she guessed, going downcast. “With respect, Princess—for all we’ve seen of this… contamination I’m sensing, I’m not even sure I want to at this point.” “In part, that was my purpose, yes,” her mentor conceded. “But this is not merely a test of your deductive abilities, Twilight. There are reasons I have brought you here that go far beyond that, but I wish you to first reach the correct conclusions on your own. I know this place makes you uncomfortable, as well it should. But there are important lessons to be drawn here, for ponydom and humanity alike,” she promised. “For ponydom?” Twilight looked around dubiously at their dilapidated surroundings. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m not seeing that. All I do see is evidence of some form of disaster I can’t yet quantify, let alone identify. Something that required the residents to leave and leave quickly, never to return. Something that might have to do with this evil energy in the air.” She shivered again. “No, check that—at this point, I conclude it definitely does.” “Then you are already halfway there, my student,” Celestia noted. “And our investigation continues. So what should be our next step in solving this mystery?” Twilight instantly guessed the answer even as she cringed to think it. “Find the source of the corruptive energy,” she knew. “And that means we have to find the highest concentration of it.” “Precisely,” Celestia concurred. “You said before that you were unable to determine a source because the ground and air were both saturated with it. But we are off the ground now. So perhaps you could try again?” she suggested gently. “Yes, Princess,” Twilight grimaced, finally understanding that the Princess had been one step ahead of her yet again, bringing her to the roof in part for that purpose. She ignited her aura and scanned the surroundings once more, trying but not entirely succeeding in tuning her awareness to the odd energy emissions that continued to uncomfortably prickle her horn. It wasn’t a magical energy by any stretch, but she’d gotten good at reading electrical and magnetic fields as well, which were very common in the human world. This, however, was neither, and the more she grasped at it with her magic, the more it simply seemed to slip through her net like grains of sand, refusing to be analyzed or contained. “Anything?” Celestia prompted after a minute, watching her student carefully as she struggled to sense something that eluded even her considerable abilities. Twilight waited a few seconds before replying. “It’s not easy, but… now that I have some height, I can sense that the energy is stronger… over there!” She pointed in the direction of what appeared to be a more industrial district, at the center of which sat an oddly lopsided building with a single large smokestack in the middle; the confluence of rivers just visible behind it. “It’s hard to say from here, but I think that structure is the source of it. Princess? I don’t want to go there. I really don’t think it’s safe,” she added with an involuntary swallow, the prickling sensation now spreading from her horn to all over her body, though she wasn’t sure how much of it was due to the odd energy and how much to simple anxiety. “That you can detect such a thing at all means your magical awareness is superb, my student,” Celestia praised, then bowed her head. “But it is there we must go. And this is why you must be under my protection, Twilight. Even outside of that building, there are hotspots, for lack of a better term, that are not safe to be in. We will avoid them where possible. But where not… I must be present. So I instruct you again to not stray far from me, my student.” “Don’t worry,” Twilight promised. If it was up to me, I’d run away from this poisoned place as fast as I could!