//------------------------------//
// Live Wire and the Last Crusade - Part 1 
// Story: Tales From the Well - Pirene Shorts 
// by Ether Echoes 
//------------------------------//

Amelia jolted from a nightmare, the moon casting a long rectangle across her motel bed, and panted with a hoof to her barrel. This in itself was a regular occurrence, but she couldn't turn and call out to Morgan. As much as she missed her twin, she didn't want to bring her into this. She had to look after Mag Mell in her absence, so fragile was their work in reforming it.
It took a long time for the pain to go away, and the whole while she sighed and tucked her pillow between her hooves. With sleep eluding her and nothing but the faint rattle of the room's air conditioner to distract her, the quiet sobs wracking Live Wire in the next bed over became impossible to miss. Laying her ears flat against her skull, she lifted her head. "Hey. Wire."
She pulled her pillow from her teeth and sniffed, her nose stuffed. "I'm sorry, Amelia. I didn't mean to wake you."
"No, it's fine. I don't need any help to sleep poorly."
Wire rubbed at her nose. "We know what's keeping me up. What's… what's on your mind?"
Amelia stared down at the bed. Her hooves flashed to hands in her memory, hands gripping a torn-off iron light fixture as if it weighed nothing. "The first person out I killed. The King of Cups."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"You of all people have no reason to be sorry for me."
Wire shifted in her blankets and leaned across the gap with a wing. "Of course I do."
"Don't." Amelia flinched back from it. "Please."
Wire pulled it back and sighed. "Okay. Just… try to sleep at least. I will, too. For Kindle."
"Right."
They settled back down under the sheets, and Amelia tucked herself into a tight ball of wings and hooves. The moment her eyes shut she saw his face. She saw herself plunge a metal rod through a small, golden-haired man's chest and watched the lights leave his eyes before the wooden Cup fell from his outstretched fingers to bounce on the floor.
She watched it again, and again, and again, and sleep never found her. Somehow, she didn't think that Wire had managed to find it any better than she.





Alighting on the doorstep of this cloud home of all cloud homes was no easy task for Live Wire. Below the cloud neighborhood that drifted lazily a mile above the ground, Ponyville sprawled from its quaint old village to the bustling, modern downtown that had sprung up along the river. Drawing a long sigh, she knocked a hoof against the door and waited.
"Coming! This better not be another solicitor." Hooves thumped up to the door, and it opened to reveal a disheveled pegasus stallion with a soft green coat and a white mane with a minty stripe, his eyes bloodshot despite it being the middle of the day. "I swear to Celestia, if you're here to sell me goblin knives, I'll - holy shit, Wire?" He clapped a hoof over his mouth at the swear and looked around. "Is Kindle here with you? It's not my week, though, is it?"
Wire's ears laid flat against her skull. She was too worried to be annoyed. "That's why I'm here, actually, Spear Mint." She rubbed her nose, tears springing to her eyes unbidden as her throat tightened. "Oh, Hera and Artemis…"
He pushed the door opened the rest of the way and stepped out, wings rising at his sides. "Live Wire, what's wrong? What happened to our little girl."
"Some bloody cythraul took her!" Wire whimpered as the memory of last night burned into her mind, the snake writhing on her daughter's bedroom floor as it died. "Cup Goblins. They… they wanted to hurt me for what I did to them when I was just a kid. Oh, Spear… I'm so worried, I'm sick right down to my heart."
The color drained from his face. Without thought, he pulled her into a hug. "Oh my stars. Kindle… what did the peace officers say? Did you contact them?"
Wire nodded weakly. Despite the distance that had grown between them, she could take comfort in their shared grief. "I called them this morning, and they're going to search across Equestria, but… but my friend knows how those people operate. She doesn't believe that the mortal authorities can find her. That's why I hurried here to talk to you in person. I want your help."
"Help? Wire, slow down." He pulled back, hooves against her shoulders. "What do you mean? You don't think the Equestrian Safety Bureau can find her?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so. We're on our way to the Hippocrene on the human side of Earth for support, but I don't plan on sitting around and waiting for them, either. It's my fault this happened, so I have to do something about it."
Spear Mint looked uncertain at first, but he nodded after a moment. "Okay. You're going into danger for our little girl, so you can count on me to have your back. Whenever we need to go, I'm there." He glanced around. "What about your friend? Is this someone you knew when you were still, uh, a goblin?"
"Uh, yes, but it's… complicated."
The air shimmered as Amelia appeared beside her and pulled back her hood. Spear Mint's eyes widened as he took in her great height, wings, horn, and cat eyes. His voice came out in a squeak. "Oh, Luna and Celestia help me."
Amelia rolled her eyes. “I’m sure, if they were here, the only help they’d give would be to tell you to chill out, Spear. I’m here to help find and rescue your daughter.” She extended a polished hoof. “Amelia Ocean, aka Morning Star, aka the villain of the Battle of the Canterhorn.”
He looked at it as though she were about to strike him with it, but to his credit he swallowed and wrapped his hock in a quick shake. “My mother always told me never to judge a pony by their coat, and I suppose if we’re dealing with goblins, we’ll need all the firepower we can get. Can’t beat an alicorn for that.” He looked to Live Wire, brushing her side with a wing briefly. “I don’t understand, though. Why would the goblins of the Cup seek revenge? I admit, I don’t exactly have a fantastic grasp of politics in the other worlds, but I was under the impression that they were our allies?”
“The current King of Cups is among our strongest allies at the moment, especially when it comes to operations in the developed world of Earth. I think we’re dealing with something new, and it’s deeply concerning. Our first step, after visiting the Hippocrene to pick up some things from Naomi Quinn, is to visit the new Cup Palace.”
“Where is that? If we’re going to the human world, it isn’t in Mag Mell?”
Live Wire shook her head. “No, Spear. It’s, well… the new King of Cups, like the current King of Swords, is a human. It’s rare, but sometimes the Cup chooses bearers like that.”
“I guess the previous one was human, too.” He glanced over at Amelia with some suppressed heat.
It stung, but Amelia didn’t let it get to her, facing him calmly. “I have never been human. Only in form, and only for a brief period of my life. My family roots go way, way back.” She ruffled her wings, sighing. “I apologized to your sister, so I suppose it’s only fair. I’m deeply sorry for the role I played in hurting Equestria. I wish terribly I could take it back, but thinking that sort of thing walked me down the path that brought me to that moment, so doing things like this is how I prove that I’ve changed. Please, let’s not start this journey off with antagonism.”
“You talked to Silver Mint?” His eyes widened.
“She wanted to murder me, yes. It’s complicated, we had a talk. I hooked her up with a great therapist.” She gestured out with a wing. “We should go, though. I suggest making sure someone will be able to watch your house, but I don’t think you’ll need to bring anything.”
“Wait!” He charged into the house, wings flapping as he leapt to the second level. He came back a moment later with a pair of saddlebags, a collapsible goblin steel spear tucked in a strap, and a stuffed, winged serpent in his mouth. After sticking it into his bags, he swished his tail nervously. “Kindle forgot Noodle the last time she was here. I want to make sure she gets her back.”
Live Wire worked her jaw, staring at him for a moment with her heart in her throat before turning to Amelia. She spread her wings, but Amelia hadn’t moved, her eyes lost. She knew that look, having seen it in shellshocked goblins all her life. Nudging her gently, she whispered, “Amelia?”
Shuddering, Amelia pushed her back. “Sorry. I…” She sucked in a breath. “Sorry. Let’s go. I know the way.”
With that, she tucked her wings and leapt off the cloud before Live Wire could ask what was wrong. Spear Mint came up to her side, and the two of them spread their wings, leaping off after Amelia’s shrinking shape. She looked to him as they flew, their wingtips almost touching as they glided towards the onrushing darkness of the Everfree, remembering the first flight she’d taken with him long ago, after she’d graduated. The fading sun caught in his mane, and she remembered, too, that night curled up together when they’d made Kindle. The determination on his face as he flapped his wings and leveled out with her spoke volumes.
“Is she going to, ah… is she going to be okay on this trip?” he asked over the wind. “Her reputation painted her as a much scarier individual than what I’ve seen so far. For a moment, she was, like, as fragile as glass.”
“There ain’t no one I know who can be more terrifying and vicious than Amelia when she puts her mind to it.” Live Wire turned her head to follow her streaming aura of dawn, with suggestions of her sister’s verdant aurora. “I know for a fact that whatever bloody bastard we’re facing is going to regret it for as long as they exist. I… I know she carries a lot of pain, too. We haven’t spoken much over the years, but the events that made her into the nightmare over Canterlot warped her in a way most folk can’t imagine. I think she’ll be okay, but… I don’t honestly know, Spear. We just have to get our daughter back. That’s all I want.”
He swam closer in the air, brushing a tear off her cheek with a wingtip, and gave her a determined smile. “We will. No matter what we have to face, I’ll… I won’t screw up this time. I promise. I’ll go through Tartarus and back if I have to for our little girl.”
Live Wire couldn’t help but smile, quelling her tremors as she put on a burst of speed to keep up with her old friend.





Never in all their years had either Spear Mint or Live Wire seen the human world except in pictures. Flying over it, shrouded from sight and radar by Amelia’s magic, they flew over dense urban and suburban areas that coated the horizon. They’d heard that the population of the human world had swollen to over ten billion souls in the course of a century, but it seemed unreal to two ponies used to soaring over hundreds of miles of tractless landscape with scarcely a few villages to break it. They’d heard that the entire population of their world had passed one billion only a short while ago, and showed no signs of growing significantly beyond that. By all reports, humanity would top out at around eleven before slowly declining, and it seemed unreal.
“To be fair,” Amelia said as Live Wire voiced these thoughts, “a lot of humans aren’t really human. So many dead from the Age of the Gods have wound up reincarnating into human bodies, trapped in this world alone, that we have no conception of how many actual humans there are versus the sleeping souls of ponies, deer, griffons, centaurs, the awakened wolves called vargr, and so on.” She beat her wings, the three of them appearing as warped outlines in the night sky. “That’s the main purpose of the Hippocrene these days. Amelia’s society exists to find and help emigrate these lost people to safety. Equestria and her neighbors have got plenty of room.”
“At what cost, though?” Spear Mint asked, gazing down at the seemingly endless lights of a Massachusetts’ night. “How many are there? A billion, two? What’s going to happen to the wilderness.”
“Not my department. They’ve got plans, though.” Amelia banked as the lights of a huge city, one at least as big as Fillydelphia in the present day, came into view, spiraling down towards a large warehouse and parking lot that sprawled between dense trees. “We can’t land at the headquarters. Even with my concealment efforts, alicorns like me are a beacon. It’ll draw trouble they don’t need to deal with.”
Live Wire and Spear Mint descended with her, landing with a clatter of hooves along the asphalt. The distant sounds of an endless stream of cars on the nearby expressway were muffled by the trees, but even so Live Wire pinned her ears flat and wrinkled her nose at the scent of exhaust. She’d grown up in a fortress far outside Mag Mell, so she’d never really been much of a city mare. Her cloud house outside Los Pegasus had been as close as she’d dared.
The garage doors on one part of the warehouse opened, revealing a familiar earth pony mare with radiant red locks spilling down her side. She hugged Amelia at once, almost cracking bones. On her thighs her mark revealed two strands of wheel spreading seeds.
“Miss Golden Fields,” Spear Mint said, his voice still tight with worry. “It’s an honor.”
“That your pony name, Naomi?” Amelia quirked an ear, smiling down at her. “It occurs I’d never heard what you all picked.”
“I go by either, really. I figure I might as well, especially since I’m raising foals.” Naomi swatted her and laughed, going to give Live Wire a more chaste embrace. They’d never really known one another, but she’d hung out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders enough to get to know the whole group. “Wire, Spear, I’m so sorry. If any of my babies were missing or kidnapped, I’d be absolutely frantic. You have our full support.”
Live Wire sniffled, hugging her back. “Thank you. I’m… I’m grateful for any assistance.”
“Has there been any word since we last talked?” Amelia asked, her own ears pinned back. “Anything from the seers?”
“Not a peep. We’ve gotten word out to Daphne, and she’ll head to her tower to see what she can find in the waters, but our enemies know about her. She constrains their movements a lot, but they’ve got all sorts of tricks for evading our divination efforts.” Naomi gestured to the garage, and a sleek, black jet rolled out. Equestrian magic and human engineering combined into a faintly ominous triangle of angled armor. “I think your idea of talking to the Cup King is best. We’ll follow up in other places, of course - if any goblins back in Mag Mell or elsewhere know what the Cup Reversed is, or any other suit reversed, we should be able to find out.”
“I didn’t know Marcus was rated to fly a jet, since he usually flies himself around,” Amelia said, whistling appreciatively as she flapped around the craft. “Nice piece of hardware. I can practically taste the spells woven in.”
Naomi cleared her throat. “Marcus, actually, is already on assignment at the Cup Palace. Some volunteers who were visiting the Boston headquarters wanted to get involved.”
“Volunteers?” Amelia landed, turning from the plane to look at Naomi quizzically.
With a flash of light green magic, three figures pounced on her from behind. One, with four wings and claws, wrapped around her neck from above, while another, pale and with a horn, tackled her from the side. A third, powerfully built, wrestled her down from the back.
Amelia squawked, and it might have taken her completely if not for Celestia’s own strength and memories coursing through her. She twisted in place like a serpent, locking three powerful limbs about necks. The three were no slouches, though, squirming into a new position as a wave of green magic slammed in.
Amelia’s horn glowed a vibrant shade of green with a white hot core, but it faltered as she gasped. “Girls!”
Live Wire’s eyes dilated, taking in the forms of the three mares who had once been her best friends.
“Hey Amelia,” Scootaloo said, alone of them not to have a cutie mark, her fangs bright.
Apple Bloom, her thighs marked with a towering tree bole bare of branches, her red mane unbound, grinned. “Pinned ya this time.”
“Yeah. We got you good.” Sweetie Belle, her curls a little frayed by her scuffling, giggled. Her tail swished, drawing the eye to the musical notes adorning her sides.
“Only because I let you,” Amelia huffed, squirming in a truly awkward position. Spear Mint coughed and averted his gaze. “You jerks. What are you doing here?”
“We were visiting Miss Quinn, and when she mentioned what happened to Live Wire, of course we weren’t just going to sit by in Boston and do nothing.” Scootaloo released her, claws clicking on the pavement. She turned and pulled Live Wire into an embrace, all four wings wrapping around. “We’re so sorry, Wire. It’ll be like old times. You had our back, now it’s our turn to get your back.”
Wire was getting choked up with all of these reunions, hugging each of them in turn. “I… I couldn’t ask for a better crew.”
“An army would be nice.” Spear Mint scuffed the asphalt, smiling. “I won’t say no to anypony who wants to help, though. Or, uh, anygob.”
Scootaloo shrugged and smiled. “I still live in Equestria most of the time. I may be a goblin, but who cares? So is Marble Stone, and she looks more like a pony than I do. Live Wire isn’t even a goblin at all anymore, are you?”
She scuffed a hoof and ducked her head, glancing at a feathered wing. “Nay. I’m happy to have a cutie mark, my friend.”
“Let’s not waste any more time,” Apple Bloom said, her voice having deepened with age. She’d grown taller than her sister and stronger, too, which was saying something. “We can catch up on the flight.” She helped Amelia up, catching her in a proper hug with even more crushing force than Naomi.
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle said. “It’s not much, but it’s fast, apparently. There’s an honest-to-goodness human flying it, too! Not one of the emigrants we got to meet.”
They took the ramp up into the craft. It was practical and pressurized, and Live Wire had to pause to admire some of the work that went into it before herding with the others towards the front. There were seats that unfolded from the wall with either human or equine configurations, and up front a young woman with a helmet and detached oxygen mask. She had the look of a former soldier, serious and reserved.
“Greetings,” Amelia said, transforming between one step and the next between a cat-eyed alicorn to a cat-eyed young woman, sliding into the copilot seat.
“Hey.” The woman didn’t seem impressed, going through a checklist as she flipped switches. “You know how to fly, Princess?”
“Not a princess, and, no, not one of these, just with my wings. Don’t let me touch anything; I’m just sitting up here because I’ll need to have line of sight to kill anything that might attack us along the way. What’s your name?”
“Fair enough. Jesse Cline, Ranger. They don’t really do rank, but I was an Air Force captain before I got sick of bombing children in the Middle East. These days, I mostly get to bomb demons, so that’s pretty nice.”
“Wow. I’d heard the militaries here could be pretty bad, but I had no idea.” Spear Mint made a face as he let Live Wire help strap him into a seat. She almost fell over on him, having to reach over for one of the straps, and she blushed and mumbled.
“Over there, you all serve at the pleasure of ancient beings who have the best interests of all life in mind. Over here, our rulers are almost always corrupt jerks in the pocket of large corporations.” She powered up the engines. “Passengers, please strap in. This baby goes stratospheric, so we’ll be in Las Vegas in less than an hour.”
The craft rose vertically into the air, heading out in almost the opposite direction as their destination. If it was about to enter the upper atmosphere, that wouldn’t matter nearly so much as avoiding going supersonic over a populated area.
Feeling a hoof touch hers, Live Wire looked over to find Spear Mint wrapping his hock about hers, their eyes meeting. “You got some great friends, babe.”
She blushed, pinning her ears back, and pulled her hoof back. “Yeah… yeah I do.”
“So,” Sweetie Belle asked from the back. “Where are we headed again?”
“Las Vegas,” Amelia called back over the speaker in the fuselage, pulling on an oxygen mask. The others found ones suited for equines. “We’re going to the Cup Palace.”
A shudder went through the others. “I thought the Cup Palace was in Mag Mell?” Apple Bloom asked, echoing Spear Mint’s earlier question. “Ain’t in a hurry to go back there, I gotta admit.”
“Hah, no.” Amelia settled in, relaxed as the engines revved up, taking them higher and higher as acceleration pushed them back. “That’s the old palace, and they don’t use it as much. We’re going to the Cup Palace Casino and Resort, at the heart of the Las Vegas strip. Brace yourselves, ladies, for the greatest show in the Nine Worlds.”
All other sound was lost as they screamed into the air, racing like a comet in reverse into the upper atmosphere, all of Live Wire’s hopes and prayers flying with them.