“Hurry up Psychoshy, we don’t have all night!”

I couldn’t help staring into the face of a mare I’d only seen in Memory orbs and on posters. The leader of the Ministry of Awesome, hiding in an old house just outside a run-down town in Hoofington. She was staring back at me, her eyes wide almost like she was expecting another pony to be at her door. Finally, she spoke, but her voice didn’t sound like that of the Rainbow Dash I’d seen in Night Stalker’s memory orbs. It was softer and sounded younger, less of an edge to it unlike the fearless pegasus from two hundred years ago. “Oh, I thought you were Charity or…why are you staring at me like that?” she asked.

“Rainbow Dash?” I asked, then I wanted to hit myself in the face. Shadow this isn’t Rainbow Dash, she would be over two hundred years old and you can tell that she’s not a ghoul just by looking at her. It hit me then that this must be Glory, the mare Bottlecap told me about. So I shook my head, then said, “Sorry, you couldn’t be Rainbow Dash. You’d look all gross and ghouly.”

I heard a soft chuckle from the stairs, then P-21 saying, “I’ll admit, the joke is still kind of funny Glory.”

“Oh shut up P-21,” Glory said turning back to look at me. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“I’m Shadow Star, P-21 said I could stop by if I needed a place to rest up for a few days,” I replied.

She sighed then glared back to P-21 who seemed to have disappeared. She sighed again then moved aside. “Might as well come in, and please don’t say that name again. I’m not her, I just happen to look like her right now.”

I stepped into the living room, looking around the place as I did. “This is a nice house. For The Wasteland at least.”

Glory stepped past me and went over to the kitchen where something was cooking on the stove. It smelt burnt and smoke was wafting up, but she just kept on working on whatever mess she was trying to create. As she worked, she asked, “So why did P-21 say you could just come and stay here? It’s not really a good time to have guests.”

I shrugged. “I figured he was being nice. I ran into him at the store that’s run by Charity. I was bringing the package from Bottlecap, she said you needed it.”

Her eyes went a little wide as she looked at me again. “You’re that filly from New Pegasus, The Courier right?”

“Yeah that’s me,” I said walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down with a sigh.

“Would you believe me if I said a star creature took over my body and took me here for no good reason?” I asked.

She frowned at me from the stove. “If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you don’t need to make up a strange story that sounds like a Zebra’s tale to scare fillies and colts.”

I just sighed. “Figured as much, still I didn’t intend to be here, I just woke up and now I’m trying to get home.”

“Depends on what you’re making there,” I said, “I mean I’m not trying to be rude, but the smell isn’t appetizing.”

She looked down at the slowly bubbling pot, “Oh this, no this is for Blackjack, she’s…well a cyber pony now and I’m trying to make something she can eat to help keep her limbs working properly. I have a few other things that you can eat though. Our zebra friend left some strange looking meals here if you like that kind of food.”

“Zebra food! I’d love some!” I said, getting up and walking over to a place on the counter she’d pointed to with a wing. I did see a few leaves with strange gravy-like stuff on them. It reminded me a little of Yaksha’s cooking. I took a couple of things and brought it back to the table.

“Have as much as you want, I personally don’t care for them,” Glory said, turning off the stove and walking over to me, sitting down on the other side of the table.

I started eating and smiled like a filly with a piece of candy. “I love Zebra food, I have a friend named Yaksha who’s a good cook.”

She smiled a little as I ate. “P-21 told me about meeting you, though he left out the part about you staying here for a couple days. He said Rampage helped you with some Raiders?”

I swallowed with a happy sigh then nodded my head. “Yeah, if it wasn’t for her I’d be dead. When I woke up, I didn’t have any of my weapons or armor. I managed to find an old security baton at Pony Joe’s then got my hooves on a rusty knife after I killed one of those crazy ponies, that was all. It was scary, I’ve never seen Raiders like that before.”

“If you’re from New Pegasus then I’m not surprised. I’ve only encountered them here too. I’ve managed to get a good look at the brain of one after a fight with Blackjack not long ago and from what I can tell, they have some kind of virus. This virus eats away at part of their brain until they become giggling idiots who lose most of their intelligence and crave pony flesh. If they go too long without it they’ll even start eating themselves,” Glory said with a shiver.

I remembered the chewed flesh of the first Raider Wiz, it looked like she’d been eating herself. I shivered as well asking, “Are you some kind of Doctor?”

“Once upon a time yes, now I’m a Dashite. I shouldn’t be, but The Enclave seems to think I betrayed them and I was marked because of it,” she said in a sad voice.

“You would say that, most Wastelanders don’t understand what the Enclave is really like for most of the ponies who live there,” she said.

I don’t know why I did it, but something about her sad face even if it looked like Rainbow Dash, made me want to help her feel better, so I said, “I’m not most Wastelanders, I was born in The Crystal Empire.”

Her eyes went wide at that. “You’re from the Crystal Empire? That’s amazing, it’s not often you see anypony from there away from the city or Nimbus.”

I shrugged. “my mom took me away from there when I was little. She was trying to find a way to keep me alive, later we ended up in Stable 28 so she could hide from some ponies she pissed off.”

I just shrugged again. “She did once, now, I’m not so sure. She did abandon me for eight years in that same stable. When I escaped and went to find her, all I found was a shell of her former self, she doesn’t even remember me…well not entirely.”

Glory gave me a knowing look and a bigger smile. I felt tears start to run down my face so I looked away. Glory said, “I lost my mom when I was young too, it’s not easy I know. It’s got to be extremely taxing on you I’m sure since, you know, she’s still alive and can’t remember who you are.”

I sniffed. “I’m sorry, I keep telling myself that I’m not going to cry, but it seems like every time I try to tell myself that, I can’t stop it,” I said as I rubbed my eyes with a hoof. “Now, I’m stuck on the other side of Equestria, my friends are in danger, my family is in shatters. I have a damned price on my head from not one but TWO factions, I’m losing my mind to some fucking monster and to top it all off…Aura’s not here to tell me everything’s going to be okay.”

I couldn’t stop the tears now or the sobs racking my body. Glory got up and came over to me and to my amazement, she pulled me into a hug letting me cry into her shoulder almost like a sister or a mother would do. For a few minutes she just let me cry, let me get it all out and as my sobs quieted down, she asked, “Who’s Aura? Is she your sister? Your friend? A mare friend?”

I sniffed, but kept my face buried in her shoulder, “Mare friend…well not really a mare friend more like a girlfriend I guess. She’s a griffon.”

Most ponies when they heard or saw that a pony was with a griffon acted like something was wrong with me or her, not Glory. She just held me tighter asking, “Is she the one who’s always there for you when you’re feeling down?”

“Yeah, she’s been my rock for almost as long as I’ve been out of my stable. If not her, then Stardust, or Wingnut, or Wind Thrasher. They’ve become my family,” I said, finally lifting my head.

She smiled then looked around the house for a moment saying, “I know how you feel. My friends are like a family to me too, I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

“I just wish I’d stop letting them down so much,” I said pulling away from her.

“What do you mean? From what I can tell, it wasn’t your fault that you ended up in Hoofington and it sounds like you found a way home,” she said.

I felt ashamed as I remembered what I tried to do only a few nights ago. I didn’t know Morning Glory, but something about her, even looking like Rainbow Dash, made me trust her and want to tell her more. So, I held back more tears as I said, “I tried to kill myself a few days ago…”

“Shadow! Why would you want to do something like that?” she asked, looking a little shocked.

“To keep them safe,” I said with another sigh. “What I said before about a Star Creature wasn’t a joke, I really do have something living inside of me and she’s slowly taking control. She…did take control…locking my mind in a world where she was the architect, so she could use my body. I wanted to make sure she couldn’t hurt the ponies…or griffon I love, so I tried to do the only thing I could think of to stop her. By putting a bullet through my head.”

Glory took my hoof and pulled me off the chair, “Come here Shadow, I think you need to tell me everything. It might help…a lot.”

I didn’t protest as she led me to the small couch in the living room. She made me lay down on it as she moved to sit in the rocking chair. When she was done, I asked, “Why do you want to know everything that happened to me?”

She smiled. “Because I’m still a Doctor, and I made an oath to help ponies. With the small amount you’ve told me, I can already tell that you’re suffering from a type of depression, you’ve also tried to kill yourself which worries me. I just think you need somepony to listen too. Since you can’t have Aura here, then I can do my best to help you at least in some ways.”

“Okay, but when I’m done, can you tell me more about you and the rest of your friends?” I asked.

It took a minute for her to respond, but finally she nodded, “I…think I can do that, sure.”

With that, I laid my head down and started to tell her everything. I started with me getting sick, telling her some of what I knew that I learned from some of mom’s memory orbs. I then went on to tell her about the time spent in The Wasteland when I was a foal, to my cure by Aquila, to Stable 28. I told her about my memory loss, how I had to cope with who I was and where I came from. I told her about how I was treated as a foal by the rest of the stable. I told her about how I found the Mark II and my escape, to meeting Stardust and Aura, later Wind Thrasher and Wingnut. I went on about how we got to New Pegasus, how I made enemies with The Enclave, The Sins, Mom, The Steel Rangers…everything.

It took hours to tell her everything, as I spun out my tale, we had to stop twice to eat, and once to use the restroom. At some point a green filly came down from upstairs forcing Glory to make me stop my story for a bit while she tended to the young mare. I found out her name was Scotch Tape and she’d been affected by Killing Joke as well and was just getting back to normal. She stayed with us, sitting on the other side of the couch listening with Glory about my life. P-21 showed up as well, lurking by the stairs as I went on.

When I finally finished Glory took a few minutes to take it all in then finally spoke. “That’s quite a tale, I’m amazed that you’ve made it so long without losing your mind or your life. I’m also a little worried about this thing inside of your head. Normally I’d say you suffer from multiple personality disorder, or some sort of psychosis, but from how you describe it, I know that’s not the case.”

“There’s no need for name calling Scotch,” Glory said sternly. “Anyway, I say that for two reasons.”

“What’s that?” I asked. “Is it because you think I have something worse or that I’m just fully nuts?”

She shook her head. “No, one reason is because with multiple personality disorder, the two personalities can’t communicate with each other or lock one up in a cage like Aquila did to you. The other is because I’ve read a lot on Grimoire Spell’s work. She’s kind of a legend in The Enclave medical field. She created a lot of new ways for both pegasi and unicorns to help ponies while she worked with the research department in Nimbus. When she ran away with her foal twelve years ago, it created an uproar in all of The Enclave.”

“And here I thought Nimbus and Stratus kept themselves separate from the rest of The Enclave,” I said with a slightly mocking tone.

“You’d be right about that, but the medical departments all keep in contact with each other. We don’t care as much about which city has more power or who’s got better clouds, we care about helping ponies. Dr. Morning Star, the stallion who taught me spoke highly of your mother and what she did.”

That made me laugh. Glory and Scotch tape both looked at me like I lost my mind. It took me a minute but I finally said, “I’m sorry, but did you say Dr. Morning Star?”

“I’m sure he is, but I just find it funny because that’s the name mom gave me when we first went into The Wasteland. She changed my name from Star to Morning Star, then later to Shadow Star when my coat turned black,” I said still giggling a little.

“Well it’s not that uncommon to be honest. I used to work with two stallions both named Falling Rain, my own name is Morning Glory and I worked with Morning Star. Enclave ponies aren’t very creative with names,” she said gigging a little too.

“Not like Griffons that’s for sure. Do you know how many griffons I’ve met whose names all start with a G?” I asked.

I took a moment to think about that, then said, “Gillian, Greta, Gail, Gena, Gus, Grant, Gabriel, Gavin and those are just the ones I’ve heard in the past two months. I’m so glad Aura and her sisters all have non-g names.”

That made me laugh again, “You should’ve seen Crimson Canyon on their Rebirth Celebration then, I saw over five hundred griffons just for that.”

I nodded at the filly then said to Glory, “Yeah, me too, though I’m not sure it’s going to help me feel better.”

“Maybe not, but I’m sure in time, something good will happen,” Glory said.

“Maybe, we should let you get some sleep Shadow, you look really tired,” Glory said.

My eyes went wide waving my forehooves back and forth repeatedly. “No…I don’t want to sleep.”

“Why not?” Glory asked looking concerned. “Is Aquila keeping you from sleep or something?

I shook my head. “Every time I sleep even a little, I keep seeing…everything I did in that cage.” Okay to be fair, I only fell asleep once, but that didn’t matter much, even when I was awake I still kept seeing my colt die under a pillow, my daughter being killed by Wind Thrasher, Vervain dying because of me, destroying Cartwheel, and more.

Glory reached out and put a hoof on mine. “Listen, as much as it hurts to relive those moments Shadow, you still need rest and sleep. You’ll go mad if you keep those feelings locked up and if you don’t get the rest you need.”

To my amazement, Glory smiled, “From what I just learned about you, I find that hard to believe. I don’t think it’s fear that’s keeping you from sleep, it’s the fact that you don’t want to come to terms with that small dark side of yourself. The part of you it took to kill all those ponies.”

She was right and I knew it, I didn’t want to understand that part. Reliving those moments would help me understand that darker side, that same mindset I had when I destroyed Mill City Tower. I felt like it would make me more like her, Aquila. What if I couldn’t come back from that mindset, what if I became more like Wind Thrasher when she was under the bloodlust? I’d be just like my Uncle, I’d find a joy in killing others. It made me sick to think about that, but at the same time, deep down, I knew I liked it too. Maybe that curse that haunted our family and Aura’s was real. What if we were destined to live our lives in misery.

I looked back at my own family, Mom lost her mind for a while and almost lost me. She lost my father and my uncle. Oricalcos lost his body to darkness and became a monster, my grandmother lived in a shack near the wall of death in The Crystal Empire. Her husband was an abusive ass hole that didn’t give two shits about his family, only his own power and status. As far back as I could tell, not a single pony who came from Minuette’s line, had a good life. She even lost her own love, went mad, and died. Dad’s side wasn’t any better. Fighting and killing between siblings, depression, pain, loneliness, anger, all of it and more followed his side of the family right back to Night Stalker himself. Aura’s family had the same kind of problems as my own. It always led to death or pain sometimes both. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t be happy, we couldn’t be normal.

“She’s got a strange look in her eye,” Scotch said, breaking me from my dark thoughts.

I looked toward the not Rainbow Dash, “Yeah, I was thinking that’s all. Glory can I ask you something?”

She shrugged, “Sure, as long as you promise you’ll at least try to sleep.”

“I don’t want too, but I will,” I said with a deep sigh. “I wanted to know what you knew about Night Stalker.”

She cocked her head at that, “The first High Council Pony? What about him?” Then her eyes went wide. “I should’ve seen it before, your mother was married to Nightshade, his great, great, great, Grandson.”

I waved a hoof. “Yeah, yeah, that’s not what I’m getting at. I wanted to know if you knew what happened to him after he was made a Dashite.”

She leaned back in the chair deep in thought, finally she said, “Not a lot is known about him after he became a Dashite, apart from the fact that he was last seen near the Absent Ruins.”

She laughed, “You could say that, but the Pegasus who they’re named after didn’t die there, he just managed to kill a hundred highly trained pegasi, then he just vanished like smoke. We only heard his name once from a pony who he’d bought weapons from the day before. Absent Moon, a pegasus who took refuge with the griffons until he tried to take on The Enclave. One of Night Stalker’s children, his daughter Nightingale named the ruins after the stallion. She always respected strength and even if he was an enemy, he did manage to kill a lot of her brother’s ponies.”

“I’m not surprised, the leaders of The Crystal Empire don’t like it much because one of Night Stalker’s sons were killed there too. Still, Absent Moon doesn’t have anything to do with Night Stalker,” she said as she adjusted herself in the chair. I had to hold back a grin, she had no idea they were the same pony. Once she was comfortable again, she continued, “Some say that Night Stalker was seen near the ruins around the same time, I’m sure he was. The last place he was seen was in The Crystal Empire. To this day, no pony knows why he went there, he fought a lot of ponies to reach The Crystal Palace, but he was wounded during the fight. That was the place where he just disappeared. It’s said that a trail of blood was found leading to a statue of Luna, but nopony could find where he went after that. My father believes that Greta, his most loyal follower, found his body and took him from The Crystal Empire. She attacked an hour after he did, and managed to sneak into the palace while the guards were distracted.”

That made me think more about what I learned over the past two months about Night Stalker and Greta, then I asked, “Was she seen leaving the palace?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean much with Greta, even as an old griffon she was sneaky and strong. The only thing known about them from that point on, is that neither of them have been seen since. It’s one of the biggest mysteries in The Enclave,” she said.

She blinked again. “I thought everypony knew that one. Two of his sons brought evidence to Council Pony Thunderlane. Night Stalker was accused of being a traitor and should’ve been executed for his crimes, but Thunderlane took pity on his old friend and had him branded and banished.”

“Thunderlane? He was the one who banished Night Stalker?” I asked, a little surprised and yet not at the same time. I’ve seen how Thunderlane acted in the memory orbs, he seemed to do as he was told when it came to Night Stalker, but at the same time, he always tried to push the line.

She shrugged. “Our history shows that Thunderlane had a good reason to do so.”

She took another moment to think then finally said, “Honestly I’m not sure, I think Night Stalker was helping some faction that wanted to overthrow The Enclave’s control over the ground cities. Don’t quote me on that, history’s not my best subject. I only know as much as I do about Night Stalker because my dad loves that kind of thing. Also his wife later moved to Thunderhead after he vanished and became a council pony.”

“I wonder if he and Greta ever really left The Crystal Empire,” I thought out loud.

“He, as in Night Stalker, and Greta?” Glory said with a light chuckle. “I’m sure they did, their bodies were never found. The Crystal Empire’s a big place, but it’s still hard to hide a body, let alone two, especially well-known ones like those two.”

“You’re probably right, I’m just thinking out loud is all,” I said laying back on the couch.

“It’s a long story,” I rubbed the back of my head with my hoof. “A…really long one. I just want to know more about my family. I grew up most of my life not knowing anything about either side. Both of my parents don’t talk about it much.” I said.

“With Night Stalkers side I can understand, that family has had nothing but bad luck over the years,” she said.

“I don’t know much about your mom’s family, just your dad’s,” Glory said.

“Minuette huh…I don’t know that name well, just that she was a mare who helped build a lot of things that were used by The Enclave even today. She died not long before Equestria did,” she said.

“Well, if you don’t have any more questions, then you really should try and get some sleep,” Glory said getting up then forcing Scotch to do the same. “Let’s go Scotch, you need rest too, you’re still healing.”

“Yes you do, and if you fight me on it again, I will use a tranquilizer on you,” Glory said forcing the filly to go upstairs.

I gave her a little wave then sighed, putting my hooves up onto the couch as well so I could lay down. Still, I didn’t want to sleep, but I knew Glory had a point. I needed it and I couldn’t run away from my nightmares forever. So, doing my best to ignore my terror, I closed my eyes.

The Nightmare came again, even more vividly than it did the last time. My foals dying, killing mom, looking into Wingnut’s confused eyes as I slid Misery through his side and into his heart. I heard the screams of the ponies who lived in Cartwheel as Wind Thrasher attacked, watched the megaspell fall and destroy the town I loved so much. Blood, gore, screams, death, pain, terror, confusion, anger. All of it replaying over and over again until…

My eyes snapped open, my body riddled in sweat as I screamed, “WINGNUT I’M SORRY!!!”

I found myself face to face with a mare, one with a pure white coat, mane and milky eyes. She backed away from me as soon as I started screaming. Her proximity to me a moment ago just made me scream again and fall off the couch trying to get away from this strange looking mare. The mare ran and hid behind the chair Glory was sitting in before.

Once my heartrate started to go down, I let out a long breath then asked, “Who are you? I’m sorry if I scared you, I was having a bad dream.”

The mare poked her head out and looked at me shyly or fearfully? I’d never seen a mare that looked like her before. She was very skinny, even more so than Wind Thrasher, which was saying something. Wind Thrasher was a head taller than me and weighed at least fifteen pounds less. I waited a moment then said in a kind tone, “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. Can you speak?”

She let part of her long mane fall over one eye, like she was too shy to say anything, then slowly she trotted toward me. I put a hoof out wondering if something was wrong with her. She came close almost like a scared puppy then gently pressed her forehead up to my hoof. I stroked her mane and couldn’t help but smile at the way her eyes closed halfway, almost like she was enjoying herself.

She didn’t answer, but she did pull away from me looking a little happier than she was a moment ago. She trotted over to the kitchen then looked up at one of the cabinets. She then looked back at me then the cabinet again, like she was trying to tell me something. I got to my hooves, shaking my head a little, trying to rid myself of the lingering memories from the last nightmare. I slowly made my way to the strange white mare’s side then opened the cabinet only to find a bunch of wrapped snack cakes.

The mare jumped up and down then pointed at them with a hoof. I smiled and pulled a few out, hoping Glory wouldn’t care if a few of them went missing. I looked at the white mare, asking, “Mind if I have one or two myself?”

In answer she took one out of my magic with her teeth then started to try eating the cake, wrapper and all. I pulled it back, saying, “Let me open it first.”

I made my way over to the kitchen table and set the cakes down then tore one open for her. She sat next to me and ate it quickly, getting filling on her muzzle. While she chewed, she looked like the happiest pony in the world. I opened another for her and watched as she smiled then ate that one as well. Then she pushed one toward me with a hoof watching me intently as she chewed on her second snack cake.

She nodded, so I opened it then lifted it with my magic and took a bite. It was good, filled with a cherry filling. I felt my eyes roll back as I enjoyed the treat, something I didn’t get to do…well ever. I saw her watching me and I smiled and gave her another, which she ate slower this time, watching me as I ate mine.

“You don’t say much, do you? Oh well, that’s okay, my friends tell me I talk too much. Maybe I can learn a thing or two from a pony like you,” I said finishing my first snack cake then opening a second. Something about her seemed to make me feel better.

“You really shouldn’t let Boo eat so many cakes,” A voice said in my head.

I froze in the middle of a bite, the snack cake falling from my lips and plopping to the table with a small thump. I’d only felt that kind of thing from one pony before, but the voice wasn’t that of the only Alicorn I knew, Violet. I didn’t know much about alicorns, but from what I learned, they were the only creatures that could talk to you via your mind. Also, the rest of the Alicorn’s in Equestria were under the control of a creature called The Goddess. Violet told me that they all were part of Unity and all of them shared a single mind, in a way. I found myself turning toward the front door where a large dark purple Alicorn was standing, watching me eat snack cakes with the white mare.

She could’ve been Luna in the right light, but even from here I could tell that she wasn’t the Goddess of the Night, she was also missing a cutie mark, just like Violet. The mare smiled at me and said in my head, “Do not be scared, I am Lacunae…”

I jumped to my hooves and started to pull on my magic, but before I could I found myself trapped in a small bubble of magic. I tried to fire a spell, then remembered that my horn was still not listening to me. I glared over at the alicorn…Lacunae, saying, “Let me out of this thing.”

“Why? You were about to fire a spell at me and I really don’t want you to make a mess here or scare Boo. Blackjack would be upset if she came home to find her place in tatters and Boo scared out of her wits,” Lacunae said.

“I’ve been told a lot of things about alicorns, one of those is not to trust them,” I said, still glaring at her.

“From what I can tell, I am not the first alicorn you have met,” she said with a small chuckle.

“Yeah, but Violet is normal…well mostly normal. She warned me about the rest of your race,” I said.

“I understand the distrust, but I can assure you that I am not here to hurt you. I am one of Blackjack and Glory’s friends. Now I will let you out of that barrier if you promise not to start throwing spells around,” Lacunae said.

I sighed, “Fine.” Not like I could anyways, but I couldn’t let her know that.

She removed the bubble then walked over to the mare, saying, “Boo, you know that it’s not time for snacks.” Then she picked the rest of the cakes up and put them back, ignoring the Boo’s attempts to grab them.

“It is, Blackjack named her when she found her the other day. She doesn’t speak and doesn’t have much intelligence. But she is very kind and likes snack cakes a little too much,” Lacunae said, then looked over at me. “You are the mare who came here from New Pegasus, am I right?”

“Yes…but how’d you know that?” I asked, still a little weary of the alicorn.

“How’s that possible? The only slicorns where I live are Violet and a couple of her alicorns. Alicorns she keeps under her control,” I asked.

“The Goddess has her own ways of keeping an eye on ponies with great power. She has more than just her children to watch The Wasteland,” Lacunae said.

“So, you’re one of her spies then? Let me guess you’re here to report to this Goddess about what Security is up to?” I asked.

“I have no choice in the matter, but yes, though Blackjack knows as much. But I am not like other alicorns, I wasn’t just sent here to watch Blackjack, I was sent here to keep the memories The Goddess wants forgotten from ever rejoining Unity. I am a vessel created to hold all of the negative emotions away from the rest,” Lacunae said like it was no big deal.

“So, you’re some kind of trashcan for bad feelings?” I asked. “Or something like that?”

“Something like that,” Lacunae said, turning to make Boo head back to the living room. “I apologize, I did not want to bother you or anything, but The Goddess wanted me to tell you who I am and request a favor from you.”

“I don’t know this so-called Goddess, but I’m not much into granting favors to creatures that have such a bad reputation,” I said.

“We already knew this, but she plans on making you listen whether you want to or not. Be thankful, normally we would just force you into Unity and force you to do as you’re told, but she wants you to work outside of Unity. It’s the only way for her plan to work,” Lacunae said heading to the door. “Follow me please.”

“No way, I’m not in the mood to deal with an alicorn or your Goddess,” I said, turning to go back to the kitchen table so I could clean up the snack cake wrappers.

There was a flash of light and a moment later I was standing outside of Star House, face to face with Lacunae. “I am sorry, but she is not giving you a choice in this matter.”

I was about to protest her teleporting me without asking when I noticed a subtle change come over the alicorn. A moment later she got a cocky grin to her face and her whole demeanor changed, even her voice. “Hello Shadow Star, it’s nice to meet you at last. I am The Great and Powerful Goddess!”

“Yeah…okay, nice entrance and all, but like I said before, I’m not falling for it,” I said going to push past her and get back inside so I could ask Glory about this alicorn.

“If you walk away, I’ll have four wings of my alicorns kill Aura,” she said.

I froze and slowly turned back to the grinning monster, “If you touch her, I’ll find wherever you’re lurking and blow you to the fucking moon.”

“Aw, look at you trying to be so tough when I can see it in your mind that you’re scared to death,” The Goddess said with a giggle. “You have no idea what you’re doing do you? You’ve never had to fight one of my children let alone understand our power.”

“I don’t understand a lot of things, but that’s normal for me and it hasn’t stopped me yet. Also, Aura’s in New Pegasus, if you could do something to her there then you wouldn’t have waited so long to try and talk to me or would’ve sent your alicorns there a long time ago to stop Violet,” I said, feeling anger build up in me.

“Oh yes, Violet, that nasty little traitor. That’s the only reason I’ve bothered to talk to you now Shadow,” she said slowly starting to walk around me.

“My point still stands, you can’t do anything to her right now, so why should I help you?” I asked.

“Simple, The Great and Powerful Goddess has her ways of getting what she wants and knowing what she wants. Even now, I know that Aura is heading east, soon she’ll be in reach of my alicorns,” she said.

“So what, she’s dealt with alicorns before, she can hold her own,” I retorted.

“True, she’s dealt with us before, but that doesn’t mean much. My children learn from every one of their sisters who fall in battle. You can’t kill an alicorn the same way more than once. Now, I just want you to do me one favor and one favor alone. I want you to use the trust…Violet…has in you to steal back that amulet,” she said.

“And why should I do that?” I asked. “Even if she does trust me, she’s not going to just let me take the amulet. If I even get it away from her, she’ll just fall back under your control. I couldn’t do that to my friend.”

The Goddess, speaking through Lacunae’s mouth said, “You don’t have to steal it, all you’ll have to do is ask her for it. This one will make sure of it, when I let her take control again, she’s going to give you something that will convince Violet to do whatever you ask.”

“And why don’t you send some of your own alicorns to get it yourself?” I asked angrily.

“Because, if any of my alicorns get too close to her, I’ll lose my hold on them. I need that amulet, Violet just doesn’t want to be a part of Unity again, that’s the only reason she still wears it,” she said.

“From what I can tell, she needs it more than you do. She wants to keep her mind to herself, not join it with you again. Why do you think you need that thing huh? To make you even more powerful than you already are?” I asked.

“I need the Amulet to make sure my children can procreate. Right now, I can only make female alicorns, I need either the Black Book that Littlepip has, or that amulet to make sure the alicorn race can thrive,” she said.

I was a little shocked by her admission, I thought that maybe she wanted the thing so she could get more powerful. No, she wanted to make her so called children, a real race in Equestria. A race of powerful ponies sure, but still one that could procreate. Alicorn…foals? I’d never heard of such a thing before. Still, I knew her threat about Aura had to be true. I wasn’t going to risk Aura’s life just to defy a self-proclaimed Goddess, but I also wasn’t going to make it easy for her either so I asked, “What do I get out of this if I do get the Amulet?”

“There’s a first time for everything, now tell me what you’ll do for me if I do this for you. Threatening the Griffon I love isn’t really a good motivator with a pony like me. I kill monsters like you,” I said.

“Fine,” The Goddess said. “I can offer you three things, first is for Violet more than you. I will not pull her back into Unity if she gives you the amulet, I will let her stay as she is as long as she never leaves the New Pegasus area. Second, I know what you are searching for, the towers for the project Night Stalker was working on. I can give you memories that will show you where each tower is and knowledge about what was done to at least one of them to keep the project locked down.”

Both of those things would be perfect, I really didn’t care either way what The Goddess of alicorns did or didn’t do, as long as she left me and my friends alone. I kept my eyes locked on Lacunae’s. “And what’s the third thing?”

“I will let Lacunae grant you knowledge for one spell, giving you everything you’ll need so you can cast it. Any spell that she has stored in her is yours,” The Goddess said, sounding depressed she had to offer me something like that.

“My mind’s a little crowded at the moment, but if she’s willing to risk madness from a star demon then fine,” I said.

“So, do we have a deal then Shadow Star?” The Goddess asked, ignoring my statement.

I smiled. “It’s an old tradition from The Crystal Empire, my father taught it to me. It means that our deal is binding, it’s like giving your word.”

The Goddess through Lacunae smiled and took hold of my hoof with her own, “The deal is the deal then Shadow Star. When you get the amulet, bring it forty kilometers past the dam, my alicorns will meet you there.”

The Goddess smiled. “The deal has already been made, you should’ve asked for that before you agreed. We’ll talk again Shadow Star, and don’t you dare defy me.”

The alicorns eyes blinked, then her voice changed back to Lacunae’s. “She is gone now Shadow Star, you have my apologies. I did not mean to ambush you like that, but I had no choice.”

I sighed and slumped. “I’m guessing it’s not your fault, honestly I can understand what it’s like to just be taken over by something like her. Don’t any of you have the ability to defy her at all?”

She shook her head. “No, we do not, though I have greater freedom than most of the rest of my kind do. It hurts The Goddess to be around Hoofington, even to use me to speak. She keeps the rest of Unity away from here. The voices are too much for most of the alicorns.”

“Huh, what is it about this place that affects you so much? Honestly, I think it’s doing something to Aquila too, I can barely feel her anymore,” I said without thinking.

Lacunae seemed to miss what I said, at least part of it as she replied, “I have no idea what is in the core, but whatever it is, it is painful to creatures like me.”

“So, is this what you’re normally like? I mean when you’re not being controlled by the Goddess,” I asked.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who were you before you were an alicorn? I know a little about how you’re made, Violet told me once. I know that all of the bodies were once ponies,” I said.

“This body used to belong to a sad mare who did very bad things, but my personality was nopony before. The mix of emotions inside of me, created who I am from nothing. I have no soul, no real mind, I am just Lacunae and that is it,” she said.

“What would happen if The Goddess decided to take all of those memories back?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you die?”

She raised an eyebrow. “One cannot die if one has never lived. I am not truly a living pony, just a mix of memories that became a personality.”

I sighed and looked back to Star House. “That’s hard to believe, but I don’t know you either so I guess I can’t argue with you on that point.”

Lacunae walked closer to me then sat down, “That is true, still try not to dwell on it. Now are you ready for what The Goddess promised you?”

“No you do not, if you decide to go back on the deal you made with the Goddess, she has ordered me to bring you to her and make you part of Unity,” she said.

“I do not believe I have ever heard a pony say something like that when being told they would be forcefully joined with us,” Lacunae said.

“I’m sure you’ve never had a pony with an evil star spirit living inside their head join up either. Though I’m sure Aquila wouldn’t mind it much. Knowing her, she’d find a way within a month or so to take over The Goddess’ place as the ruler of your hive mind,” I said still chuckling.

“I’m sure that wouldn’t be a good thing for the alicorns or The Wasteland,” she said. “I’m guessing you agree with me on that, so first tell me, what spell would you like to learn?”

I thought about it for a moment, as I did, I asked, “Do you know any spells that can replace lost memories?”

“It depends on the memories you want to retrieve. There are many different spells that can help a pony remember. It depends if the memories were blocked by a spell or by illness, or if they were taken away. Was the pony hit on the head, or was the pony poisoned? Also, if you want a spell that helps restore memories, some depend on if the subject is a griffon, a zebra, or a pony. Some spells cover all creatures, while others are slightly different because the minds of each living creature are different,” she said.

“I have one pony that I’d like to restore the memories of. My mom had her later memories of me removed or blocked, I want to help her get them back,” I said.

She sighed, “Your mother was attacked with The Memory Stone, that magic cannot be fixed once the three days goes by.”

That took me by surprise, not her statement, the fact that she knew who I was talking about and what happened to her. So, I asked, “How did you know that. Also how did The Goddess know about Aura? I didn’t say anything to you about any of them.”

The Alicorn blushed, she fucking BLUSHED, as she looked away saying shyly, “My apologies, but your mind is more open than most ponies, it makes it easier to see into your deeper thoughts. I did not mean to intrude, but it is hard to ignore. Think about it like walking into a room and finding an open book on the table in a house that is owned by a pony that you are trying to get secrets from. You cannot help but take a glance at what is on the page shown, because it might be useful to you.”

“Well then…that…was a strange and unique way of saying you can read minds and mine just happens to be easier than most to see into,” I said. I wonder if that has something to do with my closeness with Aquila.

“I guess your way of explaining makes sense too,” she said. “But to answer your question again, no I do not have a spell that can help your mother. I do not know much about that stone or what it can do, but I do know that none of the pony’s memories I have, know a spell to counter the effects.”

“That’s too bad, I was hoping that I’d be able to help her remember me,” I said slumping over.

I felt one of her wings drape over my shoulders, I winced for a second then relaxed. If she wanted to hurt me, she’d have done it already. “I wish I could help, but I cannot.”

“I can teach you another spell, there has to be something you would like to learn,” she said.

“I don’t suppose you know shadow magic?” I asked, mostly being a bitch, but not caring. As far as I knew, Uncle Ori was the only pony who knew that kind of dark magic. Even if I could learn it, from what I saw with him, I didn’t want to know any of it.

“I figured as much, just forget I said anything about it,” I said, thinking more about what I would like to learn. The first thing that came to mind was combat spells. Thing’s I’ve seen or read about that could help me in the future, but deep down I knew that if I just put my mind to it, I could learn them without much difficulty. It seemed like a waste to use this favor on something I could teach myself, if I tried harder. I’ve seen Violet and Mom both use shield spells before and even though I’ve never attempted them, I know I could do it. Those spells just seemed to make sense to me, almost like seeing them being used once, told me how the spell worked. I could already teleport…most of the time so no use with that, maybe invisibility? No, I read in Mom’s spell book that used to belong to my grandmother that those spells were extremely hard to do and draining. I could use a stealth buck for that if I needed to. Stronger telekinesis was out too, I really didn’t have a use for lifting heavy things. So, what could be helpful to me and something I had a hard time learning?

I could hear Lacunae giggling to herself. Alicorns can giggle? “You have a very complicated mind Shadow.”

Okay that was starting to freak me out a little. I shook my head vigorously and groaned and whined at the same time. “Stop reading my mind.”

“I am sorry, but your thoughts are kind of loud,” Lacunae said suppressing her giggling.

Then it came to me, so quickly in fact that I felt like calling myself an idiot. My first request was the right one to make, but not for a spell to help Mom. That card wasn’t on the table, but I could request to learn a memory spell. Those spells I’ve already tried doing after reading page after page in Mom’s spell book about them. Mom was great at those kinds of spells, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of them. If she had one that I could use, then maybe I could learn the rest once I understood the concept of one spell.

I grinned and looked up at Lacunae. “What about a memory spell? Not one for my mom, but something else?”

“There are a lot of memory spells out there, you’ll have to be more specific,” she said.

“I read in a spell book about a memory spell that was used by the Ministry of Morale to look into a pony’s, griffon’s or zebra’s mind to view a memory or extract it into an orb. Do you have one like that?” I asked.

She thought about it for a moment then nodded. “I do, but are you sure you want that spell? I could teach you teleportation or a good offensive spell.”

“Teleportation I can already do and I’m sure I can learn more offensive spells if I try. Memory spells though have been hard for me to grasp,” I said.

“Okay, I will give you this spell, but first let me warn you about what you are asking. Memories spells are tricky even if you learn how to use the spell properly. I can give you the knowledge on how to use the spell, but you will have to work to master it. Also diving into memories of a living pony is a lot different than going into a memory orb. First you will experience the memory a lot faster than you would through an orb. If you do it too many times at once, it can end up hurting you so be careful with it. Also, the more you dig into the minds of others, the harder it will be for you to know what memories are your own and that of another,” she said.

“If you’re worried, I’ll overuse the spell then don’t. I don’t need it for a lot of things, but I can use it to help me learn things I couldn’t before,” I said.

“Very well then.” She closed her eyes for a second then opened them slowly. “Also, my last warning. This spell is powerful, but still if you try to dig into the memories of a pony who is of sound mind or strong willed, you will find it more difficult to get what you want and take more power from yourself to do so. Lastly, if you push too hard with this spell, you will break the mind of the pony you are trying to extract memories from. A mind is fragile and easy to break if you’re not careful. Remember that before you go diving into the mind of another,” Lacunae said.

I felt like rolling my eyes, but she did have a good point. So, instead I just nodded. “I’ll be careful, you have my word.”

Her horn started to glow. “Good, now hold still while I transfer my knowledge to you, I will also give you the locations of the towers you’ve been looking for.”

The alicorn’s horn came down and touched mine. Magic sparked between us both and I felt as if hundreds of minds were forcing themselves into me at once. The first wave of magical knowledge was quick, as soon as she touched my horn I felt the magic flow into me and the spell was simple to understand now. Once that was finished another wave of information crashed into my head, so hard in fact that I even felt Aquila flinch inside my head. For a moment I thought she’d do something to stop this alicorn from digging into my mind like this, but strangely, she pushed further into my mind. Keeping herself as small and uninteresting as she could. It was almost like she was afraid of the alicorn.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, images started to flow into my head. The first one was simple, I saw the Lucky Horseshoe, then I was moving toward it, into the top level and past a fake wall. I knew that wall, I saw a terminal by it when I was in Mr. Tops’ office last time. Behind it was a small sitting area and another elevator. My vision went down the shaft and into the sub-basement where I saw another huge open space with a large terminal. The chamber itself was mostly a small room where the terminal was, a strange egg looking pod and a glass window that looked out at rows after rows of wires, weapons, armor and Securiponies that seemed to go on forever. Next to the terminal was a small platform, built the same way as the one in the underground power source for Falling Shadows. One last thing I saw before the chamber vanished, was a small pillar with a spot for one small gemstone to be placed into it.

Then my vision was at The Crystal Empire. I flew into the palace itself and into the throne room. Behind the throne, there was a secret chamber much like The Lucky Horseshoe had, only without the pod or the Securiponies or the pillar. Still it had cables coming up from below, that must lead to another power source. There was also another terminal, half the size of the other one that connected to something going straight up into the palace itself. My vision shifted again and I saw a city in the distance, one I’d never seen before. It took but a second for me to know where it was though as a sign flew by my vision that said ‘Welcome to Baltimare’. I saw a building come into view, it was the tallest in the city and as I got close I saw it said on the side ‘Equestrian Records’. At its top there was a large radio antenna, but it looked a lot like the one on The Lucky Horseshoe. I flew into the building and through a secret elevator that took me down to a smaller room with a single terminal in it and once again, more massive wires and cables leading to the terminal.

The last vision I got was me soaring though what looked like a barren wasteland or desert heading for a single tall white spire. A M.A.S.E.B.S. tower, but one that wasn’t quite as tall as the others I’d seen in Equestria. This time I didn’t go inside the tower. The vision stopped there for a moment just looking at the door that led into the tower itself. As I looked at it, I heard Lacunae’s voice say, “This is the last point and the one most ponies don’t know about for that project you seek. Now watch, because this is a memory fragment that will help you understand how Falling Shadows was locked down.”

So, I watched as the pony whose memory this belonged to, waited as a pegasus flew out of the door and straight toward me…or my host I guess. In a flash an orange pegasus with a purple mane and a matte black Pip-Buck landed in front of my host. She was breathing hard, but she had a grin on her face as she said, “I think I got it.”

Then a voice I knew all too well, that of Minuette said, “Good Work Scootaloo, I’m glad that Apple Bloom and you both decided to listen to Sweetie Belle about the dangers of that project.”

Scootaloo, the president of Red Racer and Vice President of Stable-Tec, was helping Minuette? What was this? I didn’t get time to think too hard about it because Scootaloo said, “Yeah, but what I don’t get is why you’re doing this? I thought you were the pony who came up with this whole project.”

“I did, and now I’m making sure nopony ever uses it,” Minuette said. “Check with Apple Bloom in Baltimare to make sure she got in and out, then make sure you two get back to Fillydelphia.”

Scootaloo did something with her Pip-Buck then said, “Apple Bloom’s already on her way out of the city from what I can tell. She should be good, I’ll start flying back now, but first let me ask you this. Why do you trust us with this secret?”

Magic flowed in Min’s horn as she said, “I don’t trust anypony anymore, I’m going to make sure all of you forget what you did today, but leave enough fear about what you did learn intact so you’ll do what you have to with all three of your Mark II’s.” And before Scootaloo could protest, Minuette activated a spell.

Lacunae’s voice came again, “Now do you see what Minuette did to keep that project safe?”

I did, but I didn’t dare say anything or even think it right now. Because if what I just saw was true, that meant everypony was wrong about what was needed for Falling Shadows. I pushed the thought out of my mind as best I could while Lacunae started to pull herself from my mind. She was almost gone when another presence seemed to appear in her mind. As soon as I felt the pony’s mind that was separate from Lacunae’s, I knew who she was. Even before she spoke, I knew her, my great, great, great something grandmother’s mind or soul or at least part of her memories were deep inside this mare. Minuette’s most painful memories and feelings were jammed into Lacunae like it was nothing more than trash. Something about her seemed to know who I was too because she took hold of my mind, saying in a mad pony voice, “You need to understand how it works, you need to see what it does. If not, you’ll never understand!”

“What the hell? What are you talking about!?” I started to ask, then I couldn’t say anything else as magic poured into my mind and a memory was forced into me like hot iron hitting my brain. Before the memory started, all I could feel was pain.

Like a memory orb I found myself in another mare’s body. I didn’t even have to guess who it was. She felt a lot like being inside Mom when I viewed her memory orbs, also when she spoke I could tell it was Minuette. She was giggling like a foal as Amethyst Star made faces at her from across a workbench. Still giggling my host said, “Stop making me laugh so much Star, I have too much work to do.”

“But I thought you liked it when I made faces at you while you worked Min,” Amethyst said as she stopped with the weird face she’d been making and sighed. “You’ve been working too much lately. Dwarf Star and I don’t see you hardly at all anymore. I thought you were retiring soon.”

“I am,” Minuette said as she pulled a small pouch toward her. “The Captain or… General now, I guess, asked me to stay on for another month, that’s all. We’re almost finished with Falling Shadows and I’m almost done figuring out this strange crystal thing.”

As she spoke she used her magic to pull a small crystal out of the bag. It was grey and had a crack running down it’s center. In the middle there was a zebra glyph. Amethyst looked at it too saying, “I’ve looked that thing over tons of times Min, and I still can’t find anything strange about it. You know that Night Stalker is just paranoid. I’ve told him numerous times that there’s no such thing as curses. I don’t know why you don’t just throw that thing away.”

Minnuette sighed. “Star, you know as well as I do that they could be real. I thought you’d believe in this kind of thing more after what we’ve seen. And I can understand why he’s so worried about it. Look at what’s happened to the team in the past few years. Phoenix Heart died the day Flash Sentry used this thing on the boss. A year later his adopted parents died during that zebra raid near Hoofington. Greta’s grandmother dies a few weeks later from an illness that hasn’t been seen in Griffonstone in hundreds of years. His sister almost died when a tunnel collapsed a few weeks after that. Thunderlane’s brother was killed while fighting a small group of zebras a few months later. Your mother fell ill and died not long after. Then we lost Comet Tail, and Prickly Petal. Bab’s lost her foreleg and now has to get around on cybernetics which made it so she can’t work for The Children anymore, the list goes on and on.”

“I know, but all of those things are just coincidences, that’s how curses really work. You think you’re cursed, then you start looking at every bad thing going on around you and you start thinking it’s because of that. Did you forget we’re in a war right now? Bad things happen,” Amethyst said with a sigh. “I just want you to stop worrying so much about helping Night Stalker and start being a mother to our son. He’s almost a year old now and he needs both of us.”

Minuette frowned a little then looked at her mare friend. “I know, but I can’t, not yet. I promise that once I’m finished with this mystery, then I’ll be finished with everything. The war, The Children, everything.”

Amethyst sighed then moved around the table to pull Minuette into a tight hug. “Fine, but that’s it, once you figure this out and finish with Night Stalker’s project, then you’re all mine.”

Amethyst pulled away then looked over at another larger crystal on the table. If I could have jumped, I would’ve, it was the memory crystal I found in her lab back at The Lucky Horseshoe. She nodded her head toward it asking, “So what’s that thing anyway?”

I felt my host’s eyes and mouth widen excitedly, “It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever found. Well I didn’t find it myself, a friend of mine who works for The Ministry of Arcane Sciences found it in some old ruins while he was working on some project for Twilight. He didn’t know what it was, so he sent it to me. It took some digging and a few favors to Rarity to find the books I needed, but it turns out that it’s an old version of a memory orb. They called it a memory crystal.”

“Really? I had no idea that kind of magic was even around before the war. How old is it?” Amethyst asked, her horn glowing to pull it closer.

“This thing isn’t like your normal memory orb. During my research I’ve come to find that if you don’t activate it the right way, you can be pulled into it and you might never be able to free yourself from the memory. Also, the memory itself is so in-depth that it’s pretty hard to tell if the memory is yours or not. This crystal is at least a thousand years old, if not older, and after many unicorns died because of misuse, they were banned and mostly destroyed,” my host said.

“That’s amazing, if not a little scary,” Amethyst said. “So how do you activate it?”

“It’s simple once you understand it,” Minuette said, activating her magic, she sent a simple spell that even I was able to understand the mechanics of toward the crystal. Once it touched the memory crystal, seven colored lights appeared in the air over the crystal. “The spell to unlock the crystal is simple to do, once you use it, you just need to match the color code to get into it. This one’s code is yellow, red, blue, blue, red, orange, and violet. Once that’s done all you have to do is wrap it in your magic and you’re in. Though you still need to have a lot of power to use it, if not you can still get stuck in it for a while, though not forever. Unlocking it helps with that, and once you’re out, it re-locks itself.”

“Oh yes. Twice now to be exact. I couldn’t believe who made the crystal,” Minuette started to say when an alarm started to go off in the lab.

The Griffon was turning to run back out the door, but she stopped saying, “Somepony at Halo One stole the range finder and just used it on a refugee camp not far from here.”

“No…” Minuette said, pulling on her magic and teleported before anypony else could say anything. She reappeared on the roof right next to Night Stalker who was looking to the east where I could see a dust cloud around where the blast must’ve hit. It wasn’t far from Spitfire’s Flight Academy.

“How the hell did anypony get the range finder? We had it locked down in Halo One, in a safe that only The Children of the Night and Professor Augustine could get to,” Night Stalker said, angrily.

“Boss, Cloudy Nights and Thunderlane were near there with Noire and Lightning Dust, they were going over the last details of the project and I think Noire was checking on the camp…he may have been in that blast,” Minuette said.

“Or he was the one who did that. You know how he feels about his own race now. What would’ve stopped him from getting the range finder from Halo One and using it?” Night Stalker asked.

“The spells I put on the safe, he wasn’t one of The Children who could get into it,” Minnuette said.

“Are you sure?” Night Stalker asked as Greta and Amethyst finally made it to the roof.

“Yes, I’m sure, he couldn’t have been the one to steal the ranger finder. Honestly, I don’t know why anypony would, Professor Augustine told me in her last report that the weapon didn’t even work yet. She was still testing the programing. The satellite only went up a week ago,” Minuette said.

He sighed then looked at Greta, “Come with me, we need to get there before Morale’s ponies do. We need to see if anypony survived, then figure out who took the range finder. After that we need to see if any of our own were caught in the blast.”

“I’ll teleport there now sir,” Minuette said, starting to pull on her magic.

“No, you have your own job to take care of,” Night Stalker said, opening his wings.

“That’s an order Minuette. I need you to finish looking into that crystal. I have a feeling this is another problem due to that thing,” he said. “Let’s go Greta.”

He flew off, Greta only taking a second to shrug at both the unicorns, saying quickly, “I’ll message you if we need you.”

Then they were gone, as they flew away Amethyst said, “I’m starting to think he’s right about that curse.”

“Me too, though I wish he would’ve let me go with. I could’ve gone through those ponies’ heads without any problem,” Minuette said.

Amethyst looked over at my host. “I think what you need to do is finish with that crystal like Night Stalker said.”

“I think I may be able to help you with that. I know a zebra who works at The Applewood, she knows a lot about zebra folklore,” Amethyst said.

“How is that going to help me? And how did you meet this Zebra anyway? You never go to The Applewood,” my host asked.

“Met her when I was adding to my gem collection, she’s just as interested in rare gems as I am. We got to talking and I found that she knows a lot about the subject of Gems and how her kind use them for their magic,” Amethyst said.

“I guess it’s worth a try, let me grab a radio and we can head over there. Maybe we’ll learn something interesting,” Minnuette said.

Amethyst looked back at my host again, saying, “If I introduce you to her, you have to do me a favor.”

“Yes, but she won’t just talk to you about that crystal unless I’m there with you. She doesn’t like most ponies to know that she knows so much about her kind,” Amethyst said.

My host smiled a little then gave in. “Fine, what do you want me to do? I warn you though, I’m not doing that thing again with the strap-on and the bowler hats.”

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to go with plan b,” Amethyst said with a wink. “Tomorrow, you and I are going to Canterlot for an entire day to ourselves, no work, no research, no complaints. I want one day where you’re away from this place so we can just be a happy couple and forget about the war for a day.”

The memory faded with the two mares heading back into The Lucky Horseshoe, the world around them seemingly forgotten. Still, I could feel tension in Minuette’s chest as she went back inside. I could tell that she wanted to be with Night Stalker and her team, finding out how one of their weapons fell into the wrong hooves.

I jumped as the memory ended, falling back onto my haunches. I looked around for a moment wondering what the hell just happened then caught Lacunae staring off into space. I winced as I got back up, I managed to irritate the spot where I was shot a few hours ago as I stood. I looked at Lacunae, asking, “What the hell just happened?”

She didn’t respond for a few seconds, when she did, she blinked a few times, then said, “I have no idea, one of the memory fragments somehow came forth inside me and connected to your magic. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

“That memory was from my distant grandmother, Minuette. Why is one of her memories inside of you?” I asked, looking at the alicorn with some confusion.

“That is because Minuette was taken into Unity two hundred years ago. She is one of the first who became one of us when the Goddess formed. I have a lot of her memories inside of me. She was in a lot of pain when she came looking for her friend Twilight,” Lacunae said.

“That would explain what happened to her then. Everypony just thought she disappeared one day right before the megaspells blew. I never thought she became an alicorn,” I said.

“She likely never even left the Goddess’ Unity with how much pain she was in. Her body is most likely being used by one of the souls the Goddess trusts and can control easily,” she said, looking a little ashamed.

“Control is a light way to put it. The Goddess and the rest of the souls that are part of Unity all share one mind. This collective, makes it easy for us all to know what’s going on with one another no matter how far we are from the Goddess. Control of Unity all depends on who has the stronger will power, the pony who became what is now the Goddess was once known as Trixie, a mare who was good at deceiving others with her magic and low magical talent. She is a very determined charismatic soul who always thinks she is the greatest and because of that, she was able to take over early. Once she had control of the hive mind, she started pulling away memories of the others who joined with her to keep herself powerful. That’s what makes me special, she puts all of the memories she wants forgotten inside of me.”

“I don’t think of it as an attack, I think a part of that memory felt your magic and knew it was familiar. Because of that familiarity it was drawn to you,” she said with a shrug.

“What are you talking about? That was just a memory. There is no soul inside me that could have spoken to you,” Lacunae said.

“Maybe I just imagined it,” I said, knowing I hadn’t, but I really couldn’t trust this alicorn. She was nice and all, but still she worked for this Goddess. The less she knew, the better. So, I continued, “So if you’re done with me, can I go back inside?”

“One more thing Shadow, I need you to take this and give it to Violet,” Lacunae said, her horn flashing. A jolt of pain shot through my head making me wince in pain. A second later the pain was gone.

“I placed a memory inside of you, one that only another alicorn can retrieve. The Goddess wants you to tell her about it and have her view it. Once she does, she’ll give you the amulet,” Lacunae said.

I rubbed my head with a hoof, saying, “Fine, but damn that hurt. Can we go back inside now?

“That was all I needed to do, so yes. Just remember to keep your side of the deal,” Lacunae said as she walked past me.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, thinking to myself, ‘As if I’d ever do what you wanted me to.’

We arrived back at Star House a few minutes later to find Glory already up, sitting next to Scotch on the couch. She was fiddling with her Pip-Buck. “I don’t think she’s going to just up and send a signal out through the radio.”

“I know, but I just want to make sure. I don’t want to miss anything just in case,” Glory said, looking up at me and Lacunae as we walked in. “Oh, I see you met Lacunae.”

“Yeah, I…ran into her when I was heading outside, she gave me a bit of a scare,” I said, walking back in to sit on the chair across from Glory and Scotch.

“Lacunae’s a little strange for an alicorn,” Scotch Tape said, still flipping though the channels on the radio. “I still think this is stupid.”

“You’ve been having me search for messages from Blackjack for three days now, she’s not going to send something out to us like that. How stupid are you?” Scotch said with a huff.

“Whatever,” Scotch said, going back to her Pip-Buck, then she looked back up at me. “Shadow, why is your Pip-Buck silver and red?”

I’d forgotten that she’d come down last night when my story was almost finished, so she hadn’t heard when I explained what the Mark II was. So, I looked over at the filly, and said, “It’s a prototype model used to test features for the Delta model. This one used to belong to Sweetie Belle. I’m not sure though why it’s the color it is. The other two look different too, though I never found out why.”

“Oh, I thought maybe your stable did that to match your mane and eyes,” Scotch said as she continued to search though the radio stations.

I looked down at the silver Pip-Buck with its red accented lines and cocked my head at it. “Huh, I never thought about that before.”

“How the Mark II matches my mane and eyes, that’s really strange,” I said.

Before I could think of anything else to say the door opened and Rampage walked in saying, “I’m starting to think finding Blackjack is going to be impossible.”

She looked over at me then started to laugh. “Wondered how long it would take you to find this place, good to see you again kid.”

Glory got up from the sofa saying, “Rampage, what are you doing back here? I thought you went to look for Blackjack?”

“I did, couldn’t find any trace of her after a while. Figured I’d head back here and see if you have any other clever ideas on how we can find her,” she said, then walked over and plopped down in the chair next to me, squashing me into the seat with her bulk. “Hope you don’t mind if we share.”

“Not at all,” I said in a squeaky voice. I really couldn’t breathe well, but when an immortal death pony like Rampage wants to share a chair with you, you don’t say no.

“What’s all the damn noise down here?” I heard yet another mare say. I looked up and saw a yellow mare with a yellow mane coming down the steps, “Can’t anypony get even a little shut-eye around here?”

Rampage glared at the pegasus, saying, “Shut up Psychoshy, nopony asked you.”

Psychoshy looked over at me next, then tilted her head toward me. “Who’s the kid? Don’t tell me you’re starting a house for lost fillies Rampage.”

“Would both of you shut up!” Glory yelled. “Psychoshy, now’s not the time. Rampage, stop fighting with her and tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s like I said, nopony’s seen Blackjack, I can’t follow her trail when there’s no trail to find,” Rampage said, leaning back on the recliner and almost sending both of us flying backwards.

Scotch looked over at Glory. “You know I may have an idea that might help us find Blackjack.”

“I don’t know why all of you care about finding that nutcase so much,” Psychoshy said yawning. “I’m going back to bed.”

“No you’re not, you’re staying right down here and helping,” Rampage said with an evil grin.

Scotch Tape seemed to ignore the rest as she looked at Glory, saying, “I can modify your Pip-Buck to search for her Pip-Buck tag. I have it listed on mine. I’ll also rig it so that it will scan for any transmissions she sends out. As soon as she does, we can use Lacunae to teleport us to an area close to where she is. Once that’s done, we’ll be able to use the tag to find where she’s located.”

“You can really do that?” Glory asked. “Hey, why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”

“I would be willing to go soak up some radiation for a while, so if we do find out where she is, I’ll have no trouble teleporting as close as possible,” Lacunae said.

Rampage leaned forward again, making the recliner flip back forward, almost throwing me out of it again. “Sounds like a good plan to me, let’s get started.”

A few hours later I was sitting outside, right next to the front door to Star House making a connection to Byte’s Pip-Buck again. “Hey Byte, you awake?”

“Not much really, I just wanted to see if Aura’s headed out yet?” I said, leaning my head against the wall of the house.

I heard her yawn, then say, “Yeah, she left a few hours ago. I tried to get in contact with you, but the connection was poor. How are things going on your end?”

“Fine I guess, I’m staying at a house near Chapel right now with some weird ponies,” I said.

I couldn’t help chuckling a little, but the humor didn’t last. “I guess, honestly they’re nice ponies, though with a lot of issues from what I can tell. I’m just happy they decided to help me out. I don’t know what I’d do here if I didn’t have a place to stay. It seems like it rains every five minutes here.”

“Listen, you’re not the type of pony to just call somepony like me up and just talk about the weather. What’s bothering you?” she asked, sounding a little annoyed, well she always sounded annoyed, but this time it was more than normal.

“I…I can’t seem to sleep. Every time I do, I keep having nightmares about what happened to me while I was trapped in my own head,” I replied.

It took a moment for her to respond. When she did, for once she sounded like she cared about what she was saying. “You went through something nopony should have to. I still don’t know everything that happened to you in that world, but Oricalcos explained to us what needed to be done for you to escape.”

“He told you that I had to kill everypony or griffon I cared about to unlock my cage?” I asked.

“More or less. What matters is that we know a little of what you went through. It’s something that’s going to haunt you for a long time, if not the rest of your life. The only way you can get over the pain of what you witnessed and had to do, is to accept that it was necessary. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t kind, it was brutal, and you had to do it. But it was also fake,” she said.

I sighed and closed my eyes trying to breathe normally, holding back the tears I could feel building. “I know it wasn’t real, but that doesn’t seem to matter. It felt real, I thought it was even when I was killing ponies I love.”

Byte sighed then said, “Shadow, sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with what happened to you. Maybe when you get back, you should just take a break. Take some time to rest up here at The Shadow Talon’s base or in The Lucky Horseshoe.”

“Why does it have to be you? You have great friends who love you and would do anything to help you. Have them take a little of the weight off your shoulders so you can rest. You need a break, that’s the only way you’re going to heal. Trust me, I’ve had to deal with something like this after my mom died,” Byte said.

“You better be,” she teased before sounding serious again. “Anyway, I know it’s not the same thing, but I still have to get over my pain, just like you have to. I don’t need to remind you that I hate your mother and your uncle because of what they did to my mom, but right now, I’m working with them and putting my pain aside so we can do what needs to be done. That’s what I have to do to heal, you need to do your own thing to heal too. You need to take a step back and just be Shadow Star. Let The Courier go for a while and just be who you are,” Byte said.

“The Courier is who I am, and once I’m back, ponies will expect me to keep helping,” I said.

“Right now, all of New Pegasus thinks your dead. Use that to heal, don’t put the duster back on for a while and just rest. Maybe try acting your age for once and stop trying to be an adult so much. Sooner or later you need to realize that you’re still very young, just like me, and you need to just be a filly for a while,” Byte said.

That filly is wise beyond her years sometimes, but I couldn’t help the bitterness that came to my voice as I said, “Byte, I am an adult…”

She cut me off, “In Stable 28 yes, out here no. If you grew up in Trotston, you’d be a filly still. You’d have to wait another two years before you’d be given more responsibilities. Your stable needed ponies that were younger to help keep that place running from what I’ve heard from Milkshake. The age to be considered an adult is younger to help with that. I know you think you can deal with the same things as any grown pony does, but you still haven’t hit that age of maturity yet to understand things that ponies like Stardust or Wind Thrasher would. You still act with more emotion than common sense and because of that, you put your friends and your own life into danger. So please, at least think about what I’m saying. When you get home, rest, stop being The Courier for a while and just have a happy life.”

“I know that, and don’t worry about her. Grim’s got a plan that we know will work,” she said.

“Sorry, can’t tell you, Grim says that if you know what she’s doing, Aquila will too. You’re going to have to trust us okay?” she said.

I sighed again and gave in, “Fine, if you think it’s for the best then I’ll trust you.”

“Good, well if you’re done, I need to get back to sleep,” she said with a yawn.

“You said you’ve been talking to Milkshake. I take it she made it to the Shadow Talons’ base?” I asked.

She yawned again, “Her and Balefire yes, the rest of your stable is staying with The Queen. Aura will fill you in when you meet with her.”

“Fine, Wind Thrasher’s pissed at you right now. Once we told her that we found you, she almost flew off before Aura could leave just so she could give you a piece of her mind,” Byte said. “Listen, when you get back, you have to talk to her and don’t start it off with ‘I’m sorry’, just listen to her and take whatever anger she’s going to throw at you. Trust me, it will help both of you.”

“She’s that pissed huh?” I said laughing once. “Damn, she’ll be scarier than she is now.”

“Yes she is, Stardust had to step in to stop her from going with Aura. We had to send Solstice with Aura because Wind Thrasher kept trying to say that she needs to go with, to help Aura stay safe. She wouldn’t stop until Aura finally said she’d bring Solstice to watch her back. Even then it took everything Stardust had to keep the bat here,” she said. “Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Yeah…and thank you Byte,” I said, wanting to know more, but I didn’t want to push her.

“Whatever, just don’t get yourself killed, and get some sleep,” she said, then cut the transmission.

I yawned then shook my head as my eyes started to droop, “Sorry Byte, but I can’t sleep…not yet,” and with that I got up and headed back into Star House.

I just got inside the door when Rampage almost bulled me over as she tried to run out the door. “Oh sorry Shadow, but I have to run,” she said looking back over her shoulder. “Hurry up Psychoshy, we don’t have all night!”

“I hate it when she does that,” Psychoshy said, flying past me and almost knocking me down as she followed Rampage.

“What was that all about?” I asked Glory who was sitting at the kitchen table with Scotch.

Scotch was the one who answered, “Glory got a message from Blackjack, it wasn’t long, but it said something about Blackpony Mountain. They’re heading off to find Lacunae so they can teleport there.”

Glory looked like she’d just woken up. She looked over at me, saying, “She sounded like she was in trouble.”

“Normally yes, but she’s been going through some things. She almost died a few days ago and she hasn’t given herself time to rest since then. She’s not at her best right now, I just know it,” Glory said with a sigh.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay, Rampage will find her, I’m sure of it,” I said, going over to the mare who looked like Rainbow Dash and giving her a hug from behind. “How about we find something to keep your mind off Blackjack for a while.”

She looked up at me and gave me a small smile. “Okay, that’s probably a good idea anyway. Thank you, Shadow.”

A few hours later I found myself sitting with Glory, Scotch, Boo, and P-21 outside of Star House looking through Mom’s notes on the Mark II. Glory thought it would be a good idea after what she learned from me about my quest. I was surprised by how much information I found about the Mark II and the project that Mom made notes about over the years. The sad part was that none of it helped me one bit. I was going to have to head into town soon and see if I could find my uncle’s notes. Maybe Charity would know about him and his notes.

I was just finishing up with a log Mom left about The Forgotten Library when Scotch said, “Hey Glory, I think there’s another transmission coming from Blackjack.”

“Okay, she just told me to get the others and hasn’t said anything else yet. I was listening on my ear bloom when it came through,” Scotch said, pulling said device from her ear and switching her Pip-Buck to play the station she was listening to.

A moment passed then I heard a mare’s voice coming out of it. From the look on Glory’s face, it had to be Blackjack, “Hey Everypony. It’s me. Blackjack. I hope you’re actually getting this. Knowing my luck, I’m sending it straight to the Seekers. So I’ll be quick.”

She paused then kept going, “I wanted to tell you that you were right, Glory. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have run away. I should have been strong enough to face my fears with you rather than tearing halfway across the valley. I know that letting me go off on my own couldn’t have been easy, but I want you to know that I’m better now. I have friends helping me and... and I’ve started to try and deal with my problems. I know... sounds like an impossible task. Shooting things is easier. Running is easier. But in the end, I hurt people who didn’t deserve it. New things to atone for... like Scoodle. P-21... I want to tell you something. I want to tell you how Goddesses damned brave and awesome you are. You actually had the guts to do something I couldn’t. You’re doing the right thing. And I hope that you get to have something none of the stallions ever got to have... a family. I guess that makes you unique in two ways,” Blackjack said, chuckling a little. “I know you’re hurting right now. But I know... I just know... you’re tough enough to stick it out. Anypony who follows me around for a month without going crazy can do anything.”

She paused again, almost like she was thinking over what she was going to say next, keeping all of us on the edge of our seats. “Scotch Tape, I hope you’re helping Glory and keeping an eye on P-21. I know he’s not the most talkative pony. I know he’s probably frowning right now. But he loves you. I’m sure of it. But please be patient. I know you’ve waited a long time for him... but it’ll still take him a while to open up,” she paused for another second, as she did I looked over to see P-21 was indeed frowning, then she continued, “And yes, Boo. I’m here. I’m fine. You be a good pony too. Don’t make a mess for Glory. I know you’re a real pony, Boo. You’ll show us all sooner or later.”

The White Mare was looking at Scotch’s Pip-Buck like she was trying to figure out why she couldn’t see Blackjack. “Glory... I want you to know that I love you. I don’t care who you look like. I love you. I always will. And I hope when I see you again, I can show you just how much I do.” I saw Glory get teary eyed as she said that.

That expression changed a second later as Blackjack went from being sweet to saying something so stupid, that it made me look smart as hell, at least when it came to how a marefriend talked to another. “I met a guy. He’s pretty quiet, but he’s nice. He helped me get through what happened on the boat. Real champion in bed. Something about fliers... I know you’re not into guys, but I hope the two of you can be friends.”

Glory’s face went blank and she whispered, “Champion in bed? She…didn’t.”

She didn’t get a chance to say more because Blackjack, the mare who just said and did the most stupid thing a mare could then, decided to end her transmission with, “Well, I should probably get going. I’ll talk again soon. Hopefully... everything will work out and I’ll be back right away. Take care.”

I looked down at Scotch Tape’s Pip-Buck in horror after the transmission went out. I was about to say something when P-21 started saying, “Glory, wait!” The door to Star House slammed as Glory walked back inside.

“Fuck…” P-21 said. “Blackjack is going to be in a world of hurt when she gets back.”

“She’s not a very smart pony is she?” I asked. “I mean who does something like that?”

“A mare from Stable 99,” Scotch said with a sigh. “You think you’re stable was messed up Shadow? You have no idea what ours was like.”

P-21 answered, “No, you really don’t. I should go check on Glory, she’s going to need somepony to…hug, I think.”

I could see that he didn’t want to do that, so I said, “I’ll talk to her.”

“No, I really should, I’m from 99 too and I can explain to her why Blackjack thinks the way she does,” he said quickly.

“Maybe, but right now, I think she needs a pony who understands her side of it more than hearing excuses for a mare who doesn’t seem to understand how a true relationship works. If I can’t get her to talk, then you can try,” I said getting up then looking back at P-21. “Let me ask you this first, does Blackjack really love Glory?”

“Of course she does, she just doesn’t understand things are different out here,” Scotch said.

“Works for me,” I said, then headed into Star House, Boo following me for some reason.

It only took me a moment to find Glory’s room, I knocked and right away I heard sobs from Glory as she yelled, “Go away!”

I sighed. “I’m sure you do, but you also need to talk to somepony first. I might be able to help.”

For a long moment she didn’t answer, when she did, she sounded defeated, “Fine.”

I opened the door and walked in, Boo following me. I closed the door once I was in and found Glory laying on the bed, her face in her pillow. I moved over to the side of her bed and sat on it right next to her. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Blackjack wasn’t thinking straight or something stupid like that. I know you don’t want to hear it, so I’m just going to sit here and if you feel like talking then talk. If you need a hug, then I’m here, if you just want to stay quiet then that’s fine too.”

That’s what I did, I sat there for a long time listening to Glory as she sniffed and muttered to herself. After about an hour she finally turned her face toward me, saying quietly, “Why does she have to do stuff like this?”

“I know,” she responded, turning onto her back and looking up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. “Blackjack’s stable was a horrible place to ponies like me and maybe you. I don’t know what your stable was like, but for her, it was normal. The mares were the only ones allowed to have jobs and the only ones to have freedom for the most part. The stallions were treated like nothing more than tools. They were used to breed and that was all, kept on drugs to keep them tame and easy to control. They only had twenty unicorn stallions and twenty earth pony stallions on the breeding cue. Once another male was old enough to breed, the rest were bumped up and the last one in line would become the twenty-one of the cue and be put down.”

My jaw dropped open at that. “But…isn’t P-21 from her stable?” Then it hit me, it was in his name. “Oh my Goddesses, so he was meant to die?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Blackjack saved him though…kind of, mostly they escaped together when their stable was attacked. My point to telling you this was that in her stable, sex was just something you did when you wanted to have a little fun or get away from work for a while. Sometimes it was so they could have a foal, but not much else.”

“It sounds to me like she doesn’t really have much of a concept to how relationships work,” I said.

She chuckled then started to cry as she did. “You have no idea. But I thought that after all this time of her being out of Stable 99, that she’d start to understand that you can’t just go have sex with random ponies because you think it will help you feel better.”

I leaned back and laid across her hindlegs looking up at the ceiling too. “I’ve always seen sex as something that would be fun to do, but scary to attempt.”

I laughed. “No, but I only lost mine a few weeks back. Got drunk for the first time and woke up with a strange rock singer in a casino. I don’t even remember much about what we did. What I do remember was fun, though I was ashamed of myself. Later I met Silver Snip and we had fun a couple of times, once with another mare, and then Aura, that’s all though.”

“You sound like Blackjack, you’ve been with…what…four partners in a few weeks?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “The difference is that I wasn’t looking for it. The singer was a one-time thing. Silver was my marefriend…for a couple of days, but she loved me and wanted to show me how much. When the other mare joined in, again I was drunk. Aura was kind of a surprise to be honest.”

“I was going to ask you how that happened, I’ve heard of griffons and ponies together before, but never met anypony who’s in a relationship like that,” she said, sounding a little better. At least my strange sex life was getting her off her own problems.

“I think I liked her not long after she joined us, but I tried putting that off as me being stupid. When Aura first joined us, she wasn’t very nice. She was hostile with Stardust all the time, always had to prove she was stronger than everypony, and never seemed to be happy. I was scared to even think about her in that way,” I said with a sigh, still laying my head on her hindlegs.

“Let me guess, that changed the longer you were around her?” she asked, laying back again.

“In a way yes, she changed some as we traveled. She cheered up more, she started talking to me about her past. Hell, she even told Stardust not long after she started traveling with us that she liked me. She was hinting for a while that she wanted me, or at least wanted to know if I liked her. The problem was that I’d just lost Silver, I was being hunted by The Enclave, I thought I was losing my mind and so much more was going on, that I never stopped to see what I should’ve. It wasn’t until she almost died that I saw how I felt…then I blew up Mill City Tower,” I said.

“For such a young mare, you’ve been through a lot,” Glory said, and I felt her hoof rub against my mane.

“I’ve learned to deal with it,” I said, closing my eyes and enjoying her stroking my mane. I knew this wasn’t her trying to make a pass at me or anything like that. I could tell that Glory loved Blackjack even after what she pulled with that stallion. I loved Aura, and nothing was going to change that either. No, Glory just wanted somepony to understand her feelings, since her own marefriend couldn’t and I think she just liked being able to be herself without worrying if the pony she was talking to wanted more from her.

“You caught me, deep down I’m a mess,” I said, trying to make it into a joke, but failing. Glory seemed to have a knack for seeing past bullshit.

“Yes, you are, and you really should start to fix that mess before it becomes impossible for you to do. Doctors’ orders,” she said.

We stayed like that for a while, both of us just trying to ignore our shit for a little while at least. After some time passed, I heard Boo rummaging though Glory’s stuff. A moment later, Glory said, “Boo, put that down.”

I looked up to see the white mare holding a large envelope in her muzzle. She was standing a few inches away from me, I reached out with my magic and took the envelope from her muzzle and saw that it had two words on it, ‘Too Blackjack’ I looked over at Glory who was blushing for some reason and asked, “What’s this?”

“Nothing really, just a…well a love letter…kind of, that I wrote to Blackjack while we were in Manehattan when she almost died. I was going to give it to her when she got better, but decided not to,” she replied.

“Why not? Maybe something like this will help her understand your own feelings more,” I asked.

“No, it’s not really meant for that, it’s more of an ‘open it if something happens to me’ kind of letter. If she reads it now, she’ll just think something’s wrong with me and she’ll never leave me alone,” Glory said, laying back down. “You can just throw it in the garbage, not like it will do much to help me now. Blackjack has a new guy friend…”

“I don’t think you should throw it away, who knows, it might still help,” I said.

“Trust me it won’t, but if you won’t toss it then at least put it back in my bags, please,” she said, closing her eyes.

I sighed again then, got up to do just that. I looked down at the letter again. It was sealed so I couldn’t just open it and see what she had to say to her marefriend, but still I had a feeling that she needed to read this. If not now, then later. Still, she asked me to toss it. So, I’d do what she wanted me to.

I dropped the letter in the trash. I was about to go back to the bed, but Boo went and picked it back up then nudged me with the letter. Sighing, I took it from her and threw it away again. But Boo just picked it up and nudged me again. It was like she was trying to tell me something. I took the letter again and moved it toward the trash, but watched Boo as I did. She frowned as it moved closer to the bin, so I moved the letter toward Glory, who was still laying there with her eyes closed, again Boo frowned. Not knowing what this odd mare wanted, I picked up my saddle bags which I dropped by the door when I came in, then moved the letter toward it. Boo smiled then nodded. Something in the way she looked at me told me that she wasn’t going to leave me alone until I did what she wanted me to. So, I slipped the letter into my bags, I could always toss it later when Boo wasn’t around. That way I wouldn’t feel like I was stealing from Glory.

I moved back to the bed then plopped down hard next to Glory making her yelp. “Hey, what was that for?”

I smiled at her. “Let’s get your mind off Blackjack and her crap for a while.”

“Shadow, I’m sorry, I may be angry at Blackjack for what she did, but I’m not going to sleep with you just to get back at her,” she said, though her cheeks did blush.

I was almost tempted to see how long that would last, I was sure just by the way she was blushing that she’d thought about it. I hadn’t, but I had a fun, awesome, smart, and don’t forget sexy griffon. A griffon I wouldn’t ever cheat on, I loved her too much, even if the mare next to me did look like a mare I thought was the coolest mare from the war. So I pushed the thought of tempting her to the back of my mind, then I placed it in a box, then I buried the box, built a house on top of that box, then threw away the key…in the deepest ocean on Equus.

“That’s not what I meant, I mean let’s get out of this room and find something to do that will keep you distracted for a while,” I said.

“Okay…well let’s head back downstairs,” she said, getting off the bed and heading out of the room…her rear shifting back and forth as she did. Okay, put an angry Aura in front of the house covering the box with the thoughts of tempting this not Rainbow Dash mare. Yep that worked. Angry Aura is just as good if not better than a cold shower.

For the rest of the day and night I helped the others with random things around the house. I heard a lot more about P-21 once he got used to me being around and a little about the life he used to live in Stable 99. He was amazed how different my stable was once I told him about it. He even said he wished he could’ve seen the place, until I told him what happened to it. Scotch Tape was almost like a mix of Wingnut and Byte I came to find out. I spent three hours with her that night letting her look at my Mark II, of course that was after she bribed me with some sparkle cola and an old memory orb she found that she was hiding from Blackjack. She said something about Blackjack spending too much time in them.

Scotch was able to show me how to do things with my Mark II that I never even thought about. Faster ways to access my broadcaster, how to boost its signal so I could use the interconnection system easier, ways to make my S.A.T.S. last longer. She even found the spot where I’d access the system to take off the Mark II if I ever needed to…and if I ever got my hooves on a master key. She found notes and recordings I never even saw while I was messing around with it and even a spot on the Mark II where I could find out how many terminals or systems it had locked down.

By the time I was done with her, I had a lot more respect for the cranky filly. Glory though was the most interesting one of them all, at least to me. Scotch kept saying she was boring, which normally ended up in some kind of argument. From what I could tell about Glory, she wasn’t too much older than me, at least with her bouts of immaturity I thought as much. I enjoyed her company because she was an Enclave pony and not one that was trying to kill me or a member of my family. She told me a lot about how the politics worked in the clouds and how the rest of The Enclave saw my home. The Crystal Empire was a jewel of some kind to the rest of The Enclave, if it wasn’t for the alliance of Stratus and Nimbus, The Crystal Empire would be in another cloud city’s control now. She also told me about a city that Thunderhead thought existed, but they’d never been able to prove it. It was called Cirrus, and the rest of The Enclave thought that it was a place where both Stratus and Nimbus kept all their military secrets or firepower. Because of this, none of the other cities dared to attack the west.

I thought this Cirrus city was just a myth that Stratus or Nimbus cooked up to keep themselves safe, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d have to ask my dad about it when I saw him next. After that they all went to bed, but I found myself once again laying awake on the couch downstairs. Glory tried to give me something that should help me sleep and honestly, I tried to, then another nightmare came to me. This time it was Mom’s head rolling off her shoulders as Misery cut through her neck. I woke up screaming and spent the next hour with Glory trying to calm me down as nightmare after nightmare hit me. My dreams had become death, and I wanted to stay as far away from them as I could.

The next day, I found myself back in Chapel at Charity’s shop with Boo and Scotch tape. Boo mostly because she kept following me around, Glory said it might be because she thought I was Blackjack with different colors, since I was the only other unicorn mare Boo had met. Still I didn’t mind, I kind of like the white mare. Scotch was just finished going over some plans for Chapel with Charity when I was finally able to ask her what I needed to.

She looked over at me, saying, “So what do you need today Shadow? If you take too long to answer I’m going to charge you extra for loitering. 10 caps a minute.”

“I just wanted to ask if whomever owned this shop before you took it over ever said anything about a dashite named Striker leaving something here in town,” I asked.

“Depends on how long ago that was, I’ve run this place for a long time,” she said.

“For five years?” I asked, knowing that she couldn’t have because of her age.

“Huh, yeah not that long. Hell, Chapel wasn’t even much of a town back then. But still that name sounds familiar,” Charity said, getting off her counter and going to check a ledger she kept behind the counter. “Ah here it is, he stopped in once a few years back. The shop was nothing more than a wannabe store, but he did keep his shit written down. Says here that he paid a lot of caps to have something kept here until he could come back for it.”

“Unless it was never written down, then yes. Has been for at least four and a half years…shit, wish I was running this place back then. That’s a lot of caps to pay for storage, though after all this time I guess it makes sense,” Charity said. “So why do you want to know?”

“Because I want those notes, or whatever was in the stuff Striker left here,” I replied.

Charity jumped back onto the counter and glared down at me. “I may not have been the pony to take payment for this, but still it was left here to keep it safe and only to be given to Striker or a family member who he didn’t name. I can’t just give it to you because you want it.”

I laughed a little. “Well good thing Striker’s my uncle, because I’m not leaving without it.”

“Um…because I know he left it here and how would I know where he left it?” I asked, though once the words were out, I felt stupid.

She jumped down and looked at another ledger, then said, “Says here that if Striker doesn’t come for it then his family member should know the true name of his great grandfather from the war…and don’t try peeking, I’m not going to let you see the answer.

So, Striker did know more than most of The Enclave about Night Stalker then. I smiled and said without hesitation, “Absent Moon.”

“No, he’s distant my grandfather too, though his name isn’t well known to most ponies so I could see why that would be a good passcode,” I responded.

She went into the back room, when she was gone I looked back at Scotch Tape who was looking over some new tools she’d gotten. “She has a vault?”

“No idea, it’s not like she lets me go back there,” Scotch said, not even looking back at me.

A moment later Charity jumped back on the counter and dropped a large folder in front of me, then a box, saying, “That’s all there was, take it before I make you pay me more for how long it was in there.”

I did, not wanting to mess with this filly. She scared me a little even when she was being nice. “Thanks Charity.”

“Careful with the box, it has like three or four memory orbs in it, don’t think you want to get stuck in those,” she said.

I lifted the box and looked inside and saw that she was right. Four memory orbs were laying on top of old papers to keep the box padded. Two had a dark purple glow to them, one was the normal silver I’d seen in most, and the last was a bright blue. I tucked them away for now, at least they would be nice to have while I was traveling. After another ‘thank you’ to Charity I headed for the door.

I was just about to close it when she said, “Oh, and I forgot, I got word from Bottlecap, Captain Gunny will be here soon to pick you up. He’ll be landing near Star House.”

She didn’t respond so I just headed out of the shop, Boo following and Scotch leading the way back to her home. “So I guess you’ll be out of here soon huh?”

“That’s too bad, I’m going to miss having you around. Your way more level-headed than the rest of the group,” Scotch said as she turned toward Star House.

I was about to say something when I heard somepony…no make that someponies landing behind us. I knew that sound all too well, pegasi in power armor. Turning slowly, I saw four of them all with rifles aimed right at us. Slowly I turned my head toward Scotch, saying, “Get Glory or P-21, tell them The Enclave is here.”

“None of you move, we’re here on behalf of Captain Strife of Thunderhead and The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Small mare, are you Shadow Star, also known as The Courier from New Pegasus?” the stallion who looked like he was leading them said.

“If I say yes, are you going to shoot me or threaten me with pain and stuff like that?” I asked.

He either had no sense of humor or he was just ignoring me, because he said, “If you are the mare we’re looking for, then you are under arrest for crimes against The Enclave.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nope, names Silver Snip, I’m visiting from Manehattan.”

A mare next to him moved closer, saying, “She’s lying, Silver Snip was the name of Shadow’s marefriend who’s been dead for weeks now, that’s her.”

Okay, how the hell did they know that? I frowned and took a step back. “Sorry to disappoint you all, but I have a ship to catch and I really don’t feel like playing today.”

The Stallion growled. “You aren’t going anywhere Shadow Star, you’re wanted in Nimbus and Stratus as well as Thunderhead for your crimes. If you come with us, we won’t kill your two friends there.”

“Funny, because last time I checked my dad cleared me of any charges from The Enclave, you might know him, his names High Council Pony Nightshade,” I said, hoping by throwing Dad’s name out there, that they would back off. I also hoped he didn’t kill me himself for doing this.

The mare from before laughed. “Nightshade won’t be leading Stratus or Nimbus for much longer kid, even if you were his kid, you still broke our laws and now you’re being taken in for those crimes. Captain Strife has issued this herself along with her brother Winter Frost. You killed three High Council ponies and you can’t run from that.”

“Hmmmm…yeah, I’m sure I can,” I said pulling my shotgun from it’s holster and firing.

All four ponies dodged the shot and I took that moment to run, yelling, “Scotch, Boo, get back to the house NOW!”

They didn’t have to be told twice, both ponies bolted for the door which wasn’t far now. I ran the other way, away from the house and town. Shots from their battle saddles rang out and I dodged to one side, the lasers just missing me. I wasn’t in good shape right now for a fight, with my lack of sleep and the magic Aquila used still having an effect on me. All I could do was hope that I could get far enough away from them to find help.

That was until two landed in front of me with their battle saddles charged and ready to fire. One was that mare, she grinned, saying, “Unicorns are so stupid, almost as bad as dirt ponies.”

I pointed my Shotgun at them ready to go down fighting. I wasn’t going to let The Enclave get ahold of me, not after I put up with the fucking Sins. Another shot rang out followed by another and another. In a matter of a few breaths, three of the Ponies fell with a bullet flying through the small gaps in their visors. I looked around for the shooter, saying, “What the hell?”

Then we heard somepony whistling a merry tune from just up the road. I looked toward the sound of it and saw the strangest pony I’ve ever laid eyes on. He was a stallion with a vivid purple coat, his mane was a tangle of ebony locks done up in jagged and spiky dreadlocks, a tricorne hat tucked on his head. He had slow burning match cords shoved into the hat, burning, and also in his tangled uneven beard. His eyes were strange too, one was bright blue the other gold. He was wearing a long coat with boots on his hooves and a special rigged battle saddle with a long rifle on it. His grin told me that either he was crazy or wanted the world to think he was.

He chuckled to himself and spoke in a deep drawing voice, “Ah Capin’ Gunny’s done it again. T’ree fer t’ree and wit only a small tilt too far to the left. Meant to get the last one in the ass. Capin’ Gunny knew Capin’ Gunny shouldn’t have trusted that trader in flank with the sights. I says, that only Capin’ Gunny can fit a sight to his rifle perfectly, but nah, the kid wanted to prove himself. Sad lot that one, sad lot. Now what do we have here?”

“Who the Fuck are you?” the mare yelled turning to point her battle saddle at him.

“Capin’ Gunny at your accountance…no that ain’t right, nah, is it at your service. Can’t be right either Capin’ Gunny isn’t here to service her, though she is a fine-looking mare, even with that armor covering all her tiddly bits and whatnot,” the stallion said…wait this was Captain Gunny?

“I don’t care who you are, you just shot my pegasi, you’re going to pay for that!” she yelled.

“Right, but first can Capin’ Gunny ask you a boon? You by chance aren’t Shadow…somethin’ er ‘rether are ya?” he asked…I think.

“That’s me, she’s an Enclave solider trying to kill me, or take me to The Enclave for the bounty,” I said.

“Ah yes, Bottles said ya was a unicorn,” he said then turned back to the mare. “Sorry love, but Capin’ Gunny has made a deal with this mare to take her to some place far from here.”

“Doesn’t matter she’s mine,” the mare said, then her head whipped back as a bullet flew clean through her skull.

“She talks too much,” Captain Gunny said, pushing a button on his battle saddle, as I watched it retract to his back. “Still a little too much to the left, damn.”

He bowed low, “Capin’ Gunny at your service…Shadow…somethin’. I’ll be taking ya to the Bitter Cob right haste.”

“Don’t you mean right away, or did you mean post haste?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Ah yes, Shadow Star…or somethin’ like that, that was the name Old Capin’ Gunny was told to look fer. We best be going, got a long way ta go, and even more rum to drink,” he said, turning to leave.

Before he could, Glory, P-21, and Scotch all came running, Glory saying, “Shadow, Scotch said you were in trouble…what the hell happened here?”

Glory and the others all looked a little confused, but she managed to say, “So wait, you’re leaving now?”

He was going to be oh so much fun to travel with. Oh well, at last I have memory orbs. I sighed and looked back at Glory. “Yeah, Aura will be waiting for me and I really do need to get home.”

She smiled a little then pulled me into a hug. “It was nice meeting you Shadow, I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.”

I hugged her back. “Me too, but that’s how life goes. Maybe one day, Blackjack and the rest of you can visit me in New Pegasus.”

“If things calm down here then maybe,” P-21 said, nodding at me. “You have a safe trip Shadow.”

Scotch to my surprise hugged me too. “Don’t go letting evil shit into your head again. I’m glad I got a chance to meet you.”

“Same here Scotch,” I said, then looked back at Glory. “Try to forgive Blackjack and tell her how you feel. I’m sure if you try hard enough, things will work out for the better.”

She blushed a little then nodded. “I’ll think about it, you just get home safe and make sure you try and get some sleep.”

I hugged her again then said my goodbyes. In all honesty, I wasn’t really ready to go just yet. I liked these ponies, they made me feel more grounded than ever and something about this place kept Aquila at bay. If the city wasn’t so dangerous, then I’d just say to hell with New Pegasus and move back here with my friends. Sadly, I knew that I couldn’t do that, I had responsibilities back at home and a heavy leather duster to don again.

I turned back to Captain Gunny and gave him a crazy grin. “Okay you old crazy pony, let’s go back to New Pegasus.”

“Now that’s the spirt Capin’ Gunny likes to see. Follow me, the Bitter Cob’s just on the other side of that hill,” he said, then looked down at the bodies of the Enclave soldiers then back at Glory and her friends. “Don’t worry about the mess, got a clean-up crew comin’.” And with that, the earth pony walked away, laughing like he didn’t have a single care in the world.

I couldn’t help but laugh myself as I followed him. He might be crazy, but he did save my life and maybe he wasn’t that annoying…for a… Pirate? I guess? I really hope that his ship was an airship of some kind, because I really didn’t want it to take weeks to get home…and I couldn’t deal with an earth pony, calling himself a Sky Pirate only to find that he called his carriage a ship. Either way, at least I was one step closer to getting home. I got my uncle’s notes, Mom may have found a way to get Aquila out of me, I was going to see Aura again soon and I made new friends. Maybe going to Hoofington, even for a short time, wasn’t so bad…I had no idea how wrong I was…

[FOOTNOTE: LEVEL UP!]

NEW PERK ADDED!

Lone Wanderer: You’re getting better at wandering The Wasteland on your own four hooves. As much as you like to travel with your friends, sometimes you just have to go it alone. Gain +1 to Strength and Endurance when you’re traveling on your own.

Fallout Equestria: Falling Shadows

by Drako Moon

Chapter 58: Wish You Were Here