The morning was evil.
Sunlight invaded and pillaged the room, brutally piercing through the blinds and Starlight’s eyelids, stabbing her in the retinas, going straight through to storm her brain. It roasted her mind, incinerating every thought she tried to make that wasn’t, “I want to go back to sleep.” She could feel it running down her neurons, gleefully shoving aside everything else in favor of more painful sunlight. It was too early in the morning to be early in the morning. It was too early in the morning to be too early in the morning to be early in the morning.
Starlight wondered just how many anti-Celestia factions had been started to get the sun to rise a bit later.
“Haaaaaaaappy moooooooorniiiiiiiing!”
And now there was a morning pony in the room, too. Great.
Starlight cracked open her eye a millimeter. Sunburst was standing over her, grinning wide enough to swallow a watermelon. “It’s time to get out of bed, you sleepyhead!” he sang brightly. Why was he singing? “You can sleep when you are dead!”
“Mmffll,” Starlight said sagely. She clamped her eye shut again.
“Come on, Starlight, get up! We’ve got lots to do today! Lots of magic! Lots of mystical wonder-working! That’s where ‘thaumaturgy’ comes from, you know. It’s literally Thessalian for ‘wonder-working’! Boo-yah! Etymology!” Sunburst moonwalked away from the bed, bobbing his head to some silent beat. “Aow, aow…”
Starlight attempted to bury her pillow in one ear and her sheets in the other. Morning ponies needed to be burned at the stake. Or hanged, drawn, and quartered. Or keelhauled while skimming a reef. Or tied to railroad tracks by the most mustachioed guard around. Or maybe just bucked in the stomach. Any one of those worked. Perhaps Luna hadn’t become Nightmare Moon because ponies shunned the night, but because morning ponies were just that annoying.
Sunburst pronked back up to the bed and shook it. “Are you excited? I’m excited! And eager. And nervous. And terrified. And gleeful. And a lot of things! I’m just so full of all of the emotions!” Trotting in place, he threw his head back and whinnied. “I feel like they’re about to explode out of me! I sure hope they don’t explode out of my butt.”
“Quiet down, Sunburst,” mumbled Starlight. “’M still tired.” She yawned. “And how’re you up already?”
“Not already! Still!”
“Uhnfh.” Starlight pushed herself up onto her forelegs and blinked blearily at her pillow. “Still? Y’were up all night?”
Sunburst nodded like a bobblehead in a blender. “Allllll night! Got a lot of work done! Totally awesome!”
“Sunburst, you really should get so-”
“Don’t worry! I ate looooooooots of coffee!”
“Ate?”
“If I drank it, I’d have to get up every five minutes to pee.”
“Is… issat-” Starlight cut herself off with a yawn. “Is that healthy?”
“Aaaaaaabsolutely! More antioxidants! Less calories! And since the grounds are absorbed through the mucus membranes in your mouth, you get the caffeine even faster!” Sunburst pumped a hoof in the air. “Heck yeah! Biology!”
If this was just Sunburst on coffee beans, Starlight either really wanted to know what he was like on something stronger, or didn’t want to know in the slightest, and she wasn’t sure which.
“I designed so much last night!” gushed Sunburst. “At least I think I did. I’ll have to check with you and Lyra today. New arcanoscope transmission methods! Telepathy communication medallions! Rope-retractors in case we ever go climbing! Bags of holding because why not! And of course: thermite tape!”
And suddenly Starlight was attempting to imitate a skyscraper, she was sitting up so straight. “…Why,” she asked slowly, “would we want thermite tape?” Even she knew about thermite. Namely, that it was bonkers hot and mishandling it meant she was in for a Very Bad Time.
Sunburst shrugged as if creating extremely-high-temperature incendiary devices that bordered on explosives was something he did every day. “No idea. But we have it! Or at least a design for it. And it’s awesome! If it works. And I hope it does, because otherwise, we might just burn the house down!” Sunburst leaned in and whispered in Starlight’s ear, “I think that might be bad.”
“Oooooookay then.” Any thoughts of sleep banished like Luna to the moon after the talk of thermite tape, Starlight reluctantly got out of bed. “What time is it?” she asked, dreading looking at the clock.
“Quarter to eight. I wanted us to have a lot of day in the day today, so today I decided to get you up early in the day today. Sort of early. Not really that early! But yeah, sorta early.” Sunburst was actually wagging his tail as he leaned in and smiled at Starlight. “Ready to work? I am. My mind won’t stop! And it was lonely during the night. I mean, holy crap, no wonder Luna went psycho bonkers crazy. I wonder what kind of capital-N Nightmare I’d be? Especially with this color. I think I’ll get our friends up. See you soon!” Either Sunburst had learned teleportation or the coffee was really getting to him, because as soon as he’d said that, he was gone.
By the time Starlight had managed to pull herself to the dining room, Bon Bon was already there, staring at a cup of coffee like she wanted to murder its family in front of it. “Morning, Starlight,” she said.
“Morning, Bon Bon,” Starlight replied. She grabbed the coffee pot and took a swig. Heavenly, life-giving caffeine flooded her veins from head to hoof. It even tasted alright, as far as coffee went.
“You didn’t tell us your best friend was a mad scientist.”
“He’s usually not,” said Starlight. “And knowing me, are you honestly surprised?”
“Not really, no.” Sip. “At least his plans look alright.”
“Did somepony say ‘plans’?” Sunburst practically materialized on the other side of the table. “Let me know when you’re ready, Starlight!” he said happily. “I’ve got a lot of work that needs to be done and not enough skill to do it myself! Just like CEOs! So why aren’t I rich?”
Bon Bon shot a Look at Starlight and took a long drink of her coffee.
Meet with the bad guy. Do as she says. Don’t compromise your allies. Don’t let the bad guy get suspicious. Gather as much intel as possible. Look awesome while doing it.
Rainbow Dash was living a spy story, and it was sweet.
The sounds of the casino annoyed her once again as she entered the building, but for once, Rainbow Dash didn’t care. She was high on the experience and her own capital-L Loyalty. She was holding her head aloft, looking over the place with an easy yet alert eye. If only somepony was watching her, swooning. If only she had a breeze to send her mane sweeping out like Celestia’s and Luna’s. If only-
…Where the deucenugget was Goumada’s office?
Rainbow went straight into panic mode. Had she been told where Goumada’s office was? She ran through the conversations again. Panic mode disengaged; no, she hadn’t been told. All the fault on this lay right at Goumada’s feet. She’d just said, Meet me at my office sometime tomorrow. Nothing like, My office is over here… Sadly, the villain being responsible for Rainbow’s current predicament did nothing to actually fix said predicament. She had (shudder) a meeting to attend and no idea where it was.
Time to ask a guard. Which guard? Eenie-meenie… That guard next to that door, that earth stallion with legs like tree trunks and a jawline that could cut steel. His key gem was glinting near his fetlock; up close, it looked like some kind of diamond. Rainbow sidled over to him and leaned against the wall. Her grin was the cocksurest it’d ever been, and that was saying something. “Hey,” she said.
The stallion glanced at Rainbow. He might’ve blinked; he was wearing sunglasses, so Rainbow couldn’t tell. But his only reaction was to look away. “It tastes alright,” he said blandly. “What about it?”
It was only through a monstrous amount of self-control and pure luck that Rainbow managed to not beat his head in over that pun. But her grin was no longer a record-breaking amount of cocksure as she said, “I need to meet Goumada. You know where her office is?”
“She’s busy.”
“I can wait.” Not for long, though.
“And I suppose you want me to just take it on your word that you need to meet with her,” droned the guard. “I presume you’re a last-minute addition to the anniversary’s entertainment?”
“Stunt flier, to be precise.” Rainbow laughed and flared her wings. “This babies can outfly sound itself. Let’s see the princesses do that.”
“Right.” The guard didn’t move.
Rainbow scrapped her grin, trading it in for a scowl. She trotted in front of the guard. “Seriously, dude, what’s your problem?” she asked, poking him in the chest. “I need to see your bossmare. You got a camera or something I can wave at to get her attention?”
“Sure,” monotoned the guard. “Right there.” He pointed at a small hole in the ceiling. “And there.” Another. “And there and there and there. We’re always watching you.”
“Well, good! This’ll just take a sec.”
One pencil theft and several napkin thefts later, Rainbow stood under the hole and held up a napkin. IT’S RAINBOW DASH was scribbled on the first one. THIS STUPID GUARD WON’T LET ME IN said the next. TELL GOUMADA I’M HERE. And finally, PLEASE. She waved at the hole to get the attention of whatever poor schmuck was stuck on the other side, then went through the cycle several more times. That had to work. Right?
“I hope you’re having fun,” said the guard. He still didn’t move.
“Not really.” Rainbow crumpled up the napkins and tossed them in a trash can. “Seriously, I’m not leaving until you let me in.” As long as “letting her in” happened in the next ten minutes. It wasn’t her fault Goumada wasn’t on top of things.
“Mmhmm.”
The seconds ticked by and the sounds of the casino got ever more on Rainbow’s nerves. The miniscule rolling of roulette wheels, the crank-clatter-ting of slot machines, the muffled rumbling of craps dice, the cheering and/or raging of ponies as they won and/or lost big (usually the latter)... Sweet Celestia. Screw the heist. Rainbow Dash was leaning towards committing arson. Of course, they could do both. Yes, both was good.
Suddenly, the guard yelped something uncouth and put a hoof to his earpiece. He kept opening his mouth, like he was going to say something, only to get cut off by whoever was on the other end. “Ma’am,” he protested, “I-”
He snapped his mouth shut. Then: “Ma’am, you didn’t-”
He grit his teeth and breathed slowly. “Ma’am. It’s not my fault if-”
His mouth became pinched. He took a long, long breath to compose himself. His voice was level but about as stable as a balanced egg. “I’ll send her in, ma’am,” he said, rolling his eyes. He waved his fetlock at a panel on the wall, pulled the door open, and waved Rainbow through as if this was a special form of torture.
Rainbow grinned. “Told ya,” she whispered, and trotted through the door. The hallways on the other side were a lot more visually boring than the casino, but the silence was pure, distilled heavenly bliss. The place was mostly empty, with only a few ponies and griffons going this way and that. Rainbow set off, heading for-
…Where the DEUCENUGGET was Goumada’s office? It could be anywhere in this maze.
Which… actually gave Rainbow Dash a good excuse for recon. “What’re you doing here?” “I’m looking for Goumada’s office, but I’m lost.” “This is the cafeteria.” “I’m REALLY lost.”
She vaguely remembered from the blueprints that this part of the casino was supposed to be laid out in a grid pattern. Boring, but at least it made a systematic search easy. Rainbow Dash turned left at the first chance she could and did her best to commit the layout to memory.
In his caffeine-powered mania, Sunburst had done one thing very right: he’d simplified the spells as much as possible so Starlight could foist some of the heavy lifting onto Lyra, or at least teach her how to do it. Starlight was strong, but she knew from experience that casting spells all day could leave her drained and probably hallucinating. And Lyra managed to be a quick (ish) learner.
At the moment, the two of them were working on linking a set of cheap anklets (the original design had called for necklaces, but these would be less conspicuous on the stallions, just in case). Sunburst had said they’d allow for sound-based telepathy between wearers (or something) so they could talk at a distance. And for some reason, the foundation of a love potion formed the basis of the spell. At least there wasn’t a risk of Starlight and Lyra falling for each other. Supposedly.
“Now,” Starlight said, “you feel the glow of the second anklet?”
“Yeah,” Lyra replied, keeping her eyes closed as the two anklets hung in the air before her.
“Use the spell I showed you to mold the two together. And don’t rush it! You’ll break the matrix and we’ll have to start from scratch.”
Rushing was exactly what Lyra didn’t do. She took it slow — maybe a bit too slow, but it was working — and twisted the spells in the anklets together smoothly. When Starlight swore she heard a ringing from the resonance, Lyra gasped and her eyes flew open. She took a deep breath, grinning like a loon. “I think I got it,” she whispered. “It… It felt right.”
“More advanced magic often does, if you do it the right way.” Starlight poked at the spell connecting the two anklets. It seemed strong enough. “If you force the spell, it’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. You be able to do it technically, but anypony who looks at it will know that that’s not how it’s supposed to be. Let’s test them out.” She put one of the anklets on and it was like an incredibly thin veil went over her ears. She was hearing things differently, but didn’t know how they were different.
Still smiling a little, Lyra put on the other anklet. “So now what?”
Starlight twitched in surprise. She’d heard Lyra’s voice, but Lyra’s voice had also just appeared in her head without bothering with the ears, and the double hearing was distracting. She held up a hoof. “Wait, don’t say anything.”
Based on the way Lyra’s eyes and then grin widened, it was working for her, too. She quickly pulled the anklet off. “I’m going to the other room, okay?” she said quickly, and was off before Starlight could reply. A few seconds later, Lyra’s voice drifted through Starlight’s mind (and thankfully not her ears). “Okay. Can you still hear me?”
“Yeah,” said Starlight. Her tail began buzzing with excitement. “Can you hear me?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Starlight’s ears went down. “Well, come back here, we’ll-” She blinked. “-have to…” She groaned and planted her face in her hoof. “Did I really just say that?” she mumbled.
Lyra’s laugh was loud enough to hear from the room over. “Oh, wow, you COMPLETELY fell for that. Just… heh. Hang on.”
After a few seconds of shame, Starlight was grinning again. Sure, there were other commercially-available objects enchanted for long-range communication, but she’d made this set, and its operation was smooth as silk. It was barely even noticeable, since plenty of ponies wore anklets, and these weren’t especially attention-grabbing. Sunburst was what was termed a Smart Pony.
Lyra’s voice cut through Starlight’s thoughts (almost literally). “Okay. Did you hear that?”
“No. Hear what?” Starlight said. “And that’s not getting back at you, I really didn’t hear anything.”
“Hmm. I thought, maybe if I thought at you really hard, it’d pick up my thoughts and, I dunno, send them to you. Guess not.”
“Why don’t we ask Sunburst about it? I’ll meet you in the living room.”
The living room was where Sunburst and the Doctor were hard at work, cobbling together their modified arcanoscope from the materials a morning hardware store run had picked up. After Starlight had spent the better part of an hour enchanting the right parts (and Lyra spent the worse part of an hour doing the same), the two stallions had thrown themselves into the act of constructing a proper magic sensor.
Starlight hoped that the Doctor pressing a mess of wires against a wall and giggling while Sunburst hid on the other side of the wall had something to do with their objective. You could never tell with scientist-types.
“Alright,” said Sunburst, “move it ten inches to the right. Your right, remember.”
“I only made that mistake once in the last minute!” protested the Doctor. He moved the thingy ten inches to the right. About halfway across, the thingy suddenly went ding. “We’ve got one reading at six inches.”
“Perfect! Which is exactly what we wanted!”
“Ha ha! Victory!” crowed the Doctor. He held the machine aloft like he’d discovered fire. “We’ve done it. We’ve finally done it.”
Starlight and Lyra exchanged glances. The former cleared her throat. “So, Doc, why do you look like you’re having a religious experience?”
“Because…” The Doctor held the machine up to the wall. It went ding. “Ding.”
“What’s that?” asked Lyra.
“It’s a machine that goes ding.” The Machine That Went Ding went ding. “It’s an enhanced version of the arcanoscope. Can go through walls, goes ding when it senses the right magic at up to, oh, forty paces, right, Sunburst?”
“That’s what the math says, at least,” Sunburst said from the other side of the wall. He sounded like he’d come down from his caffeine high, but only slightly. “And the math doesn’t lie. It can’t, no matter how much you might want it to! Although I might be misinterpreting it. But I’ve double-checked and I don’t think so. And, remember, this is just a prototype, so it’ll totally be way better once we’ve worked more on it.”
“Also, we think it might double as a hair-straightener. Whether you want it to or not, actually. Check out Sunburst’s beard once he gets back here. It ought to be a bit wavier.”
Slowly but surely, Lyra began grinning. She opened her mouth, but Starlight cut her off. “No, we are not hiding that underneath Rarity’s pillow.” To the Doctor, “So what are you testing it on?”
Sunburst poked his head around a doorway. His beard was definitely straighter than it ought to have been. “Just charged gems. They’re easy to get. C’mere.”
On the opposite side of the wall as the Doctor was a large array of subtly glowing gems taped to the wall. “Just some concentrated magic for the arcanoscope to detect. Any sort of magic at this point. It’s still a little temperamental. Or was. The Doc had an epiphany and it sounds like it’s working. How’re the anklets coming along?”
“They’re working out great. We just finished up a pair, actually. But Lyra and I were wondering? Do they pick up thoughts, or just sound? Lyra and I were trying-”
Sunburst shook his head. “No, unfortunately. I tried to make it like that, but it turns out, enabling telepathy is a lot harder than it looks. So I just stuck your own voice into your head. I hope that’s fine.”
“It is. Just wondering.”
On the other side of the wall, Lyra yelled, “You want me to do what? With what?!”
“You know,” Sunburst said with a sigh, “working with the Doctor’s great and all, but since he can’t use unicorn magic, it’s sometimes hard for him to realize just what most unicorns can and can’t do.”
“What’s he asking Lyra to do?”
“Probably long-range thaumatic resonance transference coupling.”
Starlight scoffed. “Well, that’s not that hard.”
Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Easy for you to say. C’mon. Let’s go help. And by ‘us’, I mean ‘you’.”
Not for the first time, Thorax-Earth-Beige wondered: if he could feed on his own emotions, would that qualify as autocannibalism?
Changeling biology was exceptionally weird.
Thorax-Earth-Beige was wondering that because, as he sauntered to the Artifact Vault again, he was just about in love with himself. Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope had enchanted the bits just like he’d suggested, the changeover to poker tokens had gone swimmingly — no, flyingly — and the tracker gem with the lights pointing at the coins was reading loud and clear. And now he was going to win another few thousand bits for their little adventure. He was helping and it was easy. His self-confidence was so high he could literally taste it. (It was a mix of apples, happiness, and chocolate.)
He struggled to keep his swagger down. Get the other players to underestimate him. Or maybe, if he kept his swagger up, they’d think he was overestimating himself, and then underestimate him. Actually, that sounded good. He didn’t want to look confident; he wanted to look cocky. Cocky and stupid and easy prey.
And so, his chips clinking distractingly in his bag, Thorax-Earth-Beige walked to a table with so much swing in his hips you’d think he was a reincarnation of Elkvis. The other four players were stone-faced and the dealer-unicorn-violet looked at him with a little concern. Thorax-Earth-Beige grinned as cluelessly as he could as he put his chips on the table. “Well, hey!” he said. “Why the long faces, everypony? Can’t we have some fun?”
The emotions of the players were largely the same: derision and amused disbelief. Thorax-Earth-Beige prayed it was because such an easy target had just walked up to them; one of the (minor, admittedly) problems with tasting emotions was that it was hard to tell what the thoughts behind those emotions were. But when two of the players exchanged sharklike smirks, Thorax-Earth-Beige was pretty sure he was on the right track. Oh, if only they knew- Wait, no. That’d be terrible, terrible, terrible. Right to his left, a mare-earth-orange who had seemingly replaced her muscles with boulders stared at him blankly even as suspicion bubbled over in her. But Thorax-Earth-Beige held his naïve smile as the next round’s cards were dealt and that suspicion slipped away.
If anything, the emotions of the better players were more potent than those of amateurs because these players refused to let them out. Then those emotions turned back in on themselves and if you were even remotely metaphysically sensitive to them, you could feel them a mile away. And now that he was paying close attention to the players’ emotions, Thorax-Earth-Beige had started picking up subtle differences between feelings and what they meant (anxious happiness tasted almost the same as happy anxiety, but they were two very different beasts in practice). He could almost play this game blindfolded.
After he’d bluffed his way through half a dozen rounds and neatly come out on top, the table’s attitude towards Thorax-Earth-Beige had shifted like whoa. Everypony spent almost as much time looking at him as they did their own cards. One player-pegasus-gray was so shocked that it’d rolled over into despair. Another was thrilled, probably because she finally had a good player to test her skills with (she’d been one of the better players). And the mare-earth-orange’s suspicion had returned with friends. And just a hint of anger.
Uh-oh.
It was hard to separate her churning emotions from her emotionless expression; that poker face suddenly more closely resembled the blank, stupid look of a sociopath on the verge of caving in your skull to use your scalp as a stylish hat. Thorax-Earth-Beige tried to keep up his smile, but there was no way he could look into those eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. He started averting his face from her. And he knew she noticed.
Thorax-Earth-Beige deliberately botched his next hoof and wound up playing two pair against four of a kind (thankfully not losing too many chips in the process). Most of the players seemed to be relieved that the newcomer wasn’t completely infallible. Except for the mare-earth-orange. She was even more dubious than before.
The cards were dealt again. The mare-earth-orange was focused so completely on Thorax-Earth-Beige that her emotions didn’t change at all when she looked at her cards; she just didn’t care. Thorax-Earth-Beige’s own cards were decent, a ten of diamonds and a nine of hearts. Then the flop came: a king of spades, a queen of spades, and a jack of spades. That was a straight, right there. Good.
Or at least, it would’ve been, if the player-unicorn-sanguine across from him hadn’t had a burst of joy so potent it could’ve only come from a royal flush. Daggit. The second his turn came up, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “I fold.”
Just as promptly, the mare-earth-orange said, “Also fold.”
Huh. Interesting. And her emotions had turned to those of… anticipation? At each player’s turn, she stared at them like she’d been hired to kill them. Her tail was twitching.
Just as Thorax-Earth-Beige had expected, the player-unicorn-sanguine did indeed have a royal flush, to the other players’ disappointment. And to the mare-earth-orange’s rage. Butter his biscuits, what was up with her?
The cards were dealt. The mare-earth-orange didn’t even look at hers. She just stared at the center of the table, brooding so much she was practically a stormcloud generator. Everypony else was ambivalent about their hooves, although nopony folded. Thorax-Earth-Beige had a two of spades and a seven of hearts, which was a pretty dismal hoof. If anypony else had been remotely satisfied, he would’ve folded.
Then came the flop, and wow did it get reactions. Everypony despaired almost immediately. At least, everypony except the obvious. She was still angry about something. The first two players folded. Thorax-Earth-Beige glanced at the orange-earth-mare, probing her feelings. But she was just a big, seething ball of angry. There was nothing there that could remotely tell him what she was feeling about- Wait, no. Just beneath all that pissed-offness was a hint of resignation. She’d almost definitely gotten a bad hoof, too. After a tiny bit of hesitation, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “Raise.”
“Effh,” said the mare-earth-orange. “Fold.” She flicked her cards to the center of the table. The last player also folded. As Thorax-Earth-Beige collected his chips and the dealer-unicorn-violet gathered the cards up again, the mare-earth-orange looked straight at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “You’re awfully… good,” she said, pronouncing the last word like it was some kind of curse.
Thorax-Earth-Beige did his best to smile. “Yep!” But the word didn’t come out as peppy as he’d wanted it to. He immediately became incredibly interested in examining the cards he’d been dealt.
“You’ve also been getting some good hooves.” The mare-earth-orange glanced at her own cards. Thorax-Earth-Beige nearly felt her blood begin boiling. “While mine have been… lacking.” The other players exchanged looks with one another and quietly moved their chairs a few inches away from the table.
Seizing on a term he’d heard Shining-Unicorn-White use once, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “Well, what did you do to annoy the Random Number God?” Whatever that was. “Forget to blow on your dice? Call.”
“It just seems a bit… convenient, is all.”
Thorax-Earth-Beige could do without certain pony instincts, such as gulping when nervous. Being unable to breathe only made things worse. “Well- that’s- just how the cards fall!” His voice was high-pitched. He glanced at the other players, but any emotions about their own cards were drowned out by anxiety over the mare-earth-orange.
“Maybe.” The mare-earth-orange’s voice was the rumble of an approaching avalanche. “Maybe not. You seem to know an awful lot about everypony else’s cards. Especially two hooves ago, at that royal flush.”
“Ma’am?” asked the dealer-unicorn-violet. “Are you calling or folding?”
“Oh, come on!” blurted Thorax-Earth-Beige. “It’s not my fault your hooves have sucked. What, do you think I’m cheating?”
And just like that, Thorax-Earth-Beige could taste the mare-earth-orange’s composure snap.
“…You know what?” The mare-earth-orange stood up, pushing her chair away so roughly it nearly fell over. She leaned over the table, looked Thorax-Earth-Beige in the eye, and growled, “Yeah. I think you are.” She twisted her neck; it cracked audibly. Barely restrained wrath flowed from her like a waterfall. When she spoke, each word fell with the force of a ten-ton weight. “And I. Do not. Like cheaters.”