//------------------------------// // 11. The hope of science // Story: A Ghost of a Chance // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// Zest couldn’t get over the marvel of a predead she could safely get close to. She followed Sunny Flare closer than Flare’s own shadow. Zest took a quick and keen interest in their new guest. Flare soon found herself assaulted by a barrage of questions, ending up giving more information than she’d come to get. “Do you not feel cold at all?” Zest floated down low enough to look at her bracers. “It’s difficult to describe.” She placed a hoof on one bracer. “Cold still feels the same and to a similar degree, it simply doesn’t bother me. Being deathly cold is about as bothersome as having a bag on my back. I forget about it after a few minutes.” Zest’s eyes flicked upward. “What’s up with your headgear?” Zest waved a hoof in front of it. “You’re wearing night vision goggles?” “These are ghost vision goggles. I imagine I’d be an insufferable guest if I kept turning lights on in your home.” “Ghost vision? But you can already see me, can’t you?” Zest pointed at herself. “They don’t let me see ghosts; they let me see like a ghost. When I have these on, I see into the shadow realm just like you do.” “Shadow realm?” Zest blinked. “I thought we saw darkness.” “Seeing ‘darkness’ doesn’t make any kind of scientific sense as the dark is merely the absence of light. You’re looking into an alternate dimension overlaid on top of our own. The light of the material realm burns holes in the shadow realm. That’s why light appears as a void to you, because you are looking at an actual void.” “Oh, yeah. That does sound a lot more scientific, I suppose. But you can’t seriously be seeing the way I do. Colors are all different to me. I got bonus colors now, even!” “I think it’s a reasonable recreation of your vision with only a small number of exceptions.” “What color is the sky, then?” Zest had no doubt the color she perceived the sky as was a new color. It was a blue that somehow appeared darker than pitch black. “It’s stygian blue,” Flare’s answer came on reflex. “What?” Zest realized she’d smiled too soon. “Stygian blue is a shade of blue that appears darker than the darkest black,” said Flare. “It’s one of the impossible colors. More specifically, it is a chimeric color which includes self-luminous red. That’s the color you see blood as– a red brighter than pure white.” “But–” Zest faltered. That was exactly right! Were her eyeballs not as magical as she thought? “But you can’t see them, can you?” “Living ponies can see chimeric colors, but only as optical illusions.” Flare put a hoof on her glasses. “My ghost vision goggles can consistently induce this optical illusion for me.” “Wait! So there aren’t any ghost colors?” Zest’s ears drooped. She felt like her birthday got canceled. “They told me there were!” “Oh, there are.” Flare shook her head. “In addition to seeing forbidden and chimeric colors without assistance, you can see phantom colors. These are the colors I cannot see even with assistance. Ectoplasm, I believe, is phantom green. The color appears to come from a deep fissure in space.” Zest nodded. That’s how she’d explain it to a predead, though doubted one would imagine them correctly at that description. “Oh, wow!” Zest looked to Indigo with a big smile. “She can even see like we do! We all have so much in common!” Indigo clearly was not going to answer that question. Zest’s hope that they’d all become instant best friends was getting a bit of a reality check. The others refused to get anywhere near her for now. Indigo stayed off to the side and low to the ground, carefully watching Flare like a cat ready to pounce. Sugarcoat watched her silently from above, watching like Flare she was judging a rehearsal. You didn’t need to have an aura to feel the tension in the room. Flare was still on short notice with the others. Maybe it was just a habit. You spend twenty-plus years avoiding the living and it must get hard to approach one. Zest decided that, as a worm friend, she was the one who could bridge the gap between the living and the dead. At last, she felt the chance to be truly useful to her fraid! Pelting her with all these questions had to make her appear more like a real pony in the eyes of the other ghosts. She smiled, already coming up with a smart way to help. “What made you decide to join MSI in the first place?” “I was born there,” said Flare. “Eh?! You were born into a criminal organization?” “Perhaps MSI is larger than you may have thought,” said Sunny Flare. “It consists of well over a hundred buildings. Our population is approximately four thousand. We effectively control the area around for kilometers, though that’s little more than a few tribes and barebone settlements.” “Huh! So MSI is like its own town?” “Indeed.” Sunny Flare nodded. “We have our own school system and everything. It’s all a bit self-contained. Every building is connected by a network of tunnels. We get a lot of snow up in the far reaches.” “We get a lot of snow in Great Pines!” Zest’s fur prickled up. Laughing at ponies from the south being unable to deal with a couple of centimeters of snow was a common pass time in North Equestria. “All the colleges around here have the same thing going on. When I was in the sixth grade, we got clobbered by a hundred and fifty centimeters of snow one time.” Maybe it was closer to a hundred and twenty, but still. “Great Pines hardly gets that much snow.” Sugarcoat couldn’t resist the urge to join in at this point. Zest remembered too late that ponies from Crystal Vale laughed at them for thinking anything over a foot was a lot of snow. “In Crystal Vale, there’s sometimes snow on the ground in the summer. We’re much closer to the Crystal Lakes, so a meter of snow from a single storm isn’t noteworthy to us. Everypony there owns a sled.” Sugarcoat smiled in smug victory. Unable to compete, Zest could only bow her head, lower her ears, and blush in total defeat. “That’s still nothing compared to the far reaches,” Sunny Flare warned. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the earth before. More often than not, there’s too much snow to open the ground-level door. Our buildings have doors on the second and third stories because you can often walk out onto the snow from there.” Worry began to overtake Sugarcoat’s smile. “Then we have to deal with polar night. I know in Crystal Vale you likely have a day or two of solid night but for us, it lasts two months. It’s too bleak to go outside for the most part. To help us cope with the deary terrain, all of our buildings are overly bright colors on the outside. Inside we have fake grass, and the walls are covered in murals that look like more hospitable lands.” Now it was Flare’s turn to smile with pride while the other two could scarcely hold their tongues at being showed up. Indigo looked from pony to pony, unable to comprehend what was even happening here. “Yeesh!” Indigo threw her hooves up in frustration. “What is it with you northerners and bragging about how miserable the place you live is?” “You wouldn’t understand,” said Flare. “You don’t have the heart of the north in you!” Zest put a hoof on her own heart. “You probably think eight centimeters of snow is a lot.” Sugarcoat turned her nose up. “It is!” Indigo stopped to try and convert that in her head. “I think. Whatever! Flare, I declare you the winner. Your home sounds like the most horrible place in the world and I’d kill myself if I had to live there. Congratulations.” “Thank you.” Flare lifted her head with smug satisfaction. Zest smiled to herself a little too. She had gotten the others to at least talk to this pony a little. “So are we just going to stand here awkwardly, or are you gonna do your experiment already?” Indigo asked. “I feel like it’s been forever!” “I did bring something I’d like to try if you want to start now,” said Flare. Sugarcoat watched her with careful suspicion as Flare went over to her cart. From this she produced a pile of thin, metal boxes. Each one had this little door in the front, making it look like a giant advent calendar, though Zest didn’t dare open them. “The first pair of experiments I’d like to conduct are broad in scope.” Flare took out one of the metal boxes and put her hoof on the door. “Each of these containers contains a specially insulated blood sample. I simply wish to record your reaction to each of them. I’d like to know how they smell and taste if you’re willing to take the heat from them.” Blood? Zest sniffed at the cylinders. She couldn’t smell the warmth of blood through these containers. Normally, she’d sense it through doors and from hundreds of meters away. “There are two experiments, as I’ve said. The first is the blood has been allowed to cool, then reheated by various methods. The second set of blood samples each has had some component removed from them but are still warm from the natural body heat of the pony it was taken from. “For example, I’ve removed the platelets from one of the samples of blood,” said Flare. “My goal is to eventually isolate exactly what it is about warm-blooded creatures that draw you to them. Of course, if one of them appears putrid to you in some way, you can simply decline to eat it.” “That’s–” Zest slammed her hooves together. “That’s a brilliant idea! You could easily isolate what triggers our addiction like that! And – and then!” Zest turned excited to Sugarcoat who did not at all mirror her enthusiasm. “I suppose that sounds harmless enough.” Sugarcoat shrugged. “I’ll be in the other room if you need me.” Zest reached her hoof out as Sugarcoat left, but even her pleading aura wasn’t enough to stop her from leaving. She just couldn’t understand how Sugarcoat couldn’t be more excited about such a promising experiment. “No worries!” Indigo put a hoof on Zest’s shoulder. “Your big sis will stay here to make sure nothing bad happens to you.” “Thanks.” Flare opened the first container. The box let out a hiss and the door opened. The scent of the heat came gushing out now, like it’d been cramped in there too long. A rather large vial of blood revealed itself. Zest sniffed it close. It certainly wasn’t body heat. No, it smelled watery with that sharp ting salt left behind. “This one’s too easy!” Indigo rushed forward to give Zest a few hard smacks on the back. “I bet even our worm friend here can guess it.” “Heh.” Zest smiled. “You put this vial in warm salt water, right?” “Yeah! You got it!” Indigo grabbed her and held her close. Flare wrote down their response, saying nothing in return. “So? Did I get it right?” Zest flew around to her back to try and peek at Flare’s notes. “I’m not sure yet.” Flare put down her pencil. “To remain unbiased, I can’t know which sample is which until I’ve written down my observations on it. I have a key to each one’s identity in the cart, but I won’t look at that until I’ve reviewed all of this information. “Heh! We got it right.” Indigo crossed her forelegs and nodded her head, smiling. “Our noses are way better than you probably think. If you heat up an earthen pot over a campfire, I can even tell you what kind of wood you were burning. You know, unless it’s some incredibly rare wood nopony’s ever heard of.” Zest couldn’t help but smile, too. She was impressed at her own ability to discern so easily something that would have struck her as impossible just a year ago. She felt like a pro ghost at last! “I like this game!” Indigo announced. “I bet I can get them all! You gotta come up with harder ones than that if we ever do this again.” “Part of my problem is I don’t know what’s difficult for you yet,” Flare admitted. “Perhaps we’ll repeat the experiment when I’m more knowledgeable. We can move to the next one.” Flare took out her next little box. Twenty-three samples into this little game and Zest felt like she needed to turn her pro-ghost card back in. Of them all, Zest got eight correct. Indigo had yet to stumble and took great satisfaction in showing off in front of a younger, less experienced ghost. It all seemed so easy to her that Zest would be shocked to learn any of her guesses were wrong later on. On the twenty-fourth sample, they got to a vial that smelled completely alien to Zest. She couldn’t so much as hazard a guess in even the most general terms and turned to Indigo for help after a single whiff. Indigo scrunched her nose and looked to the side, suddenly embarrassed at drawing a blank in front of her little sister. “Uh! Sugarcoat?” Indigo turned back to the school and sent a feeling of distress out into the aura. Unamused at being disturbed for this ‘side project’, Sugarcoat came back into the room and gave the two of them a slightly scolding look. Zest and Indigo hid behind Sugarcoat as she sniffed the mysterious vial. Each kept one forehoof on her back as they peeked over her shoulder. Sugarcoat hummed briefly before answering. “It was heated with radiation,” Sugarcoat concluded. “What?” Indigo came out behind her. “I was there when the super colossal hyper reactor melted down. I’ll never forget what that smells like and this ain’t the same.” “That’s shortwave super-radiation. This was longwave radiation. Perhaps microwaves?” Sugarcoat looked at Flare to get a nod. “Impressive,” said Flare. “I’m surprised you even know what microwaves are. Yes, in MSI we have ovens that can quickly heat food using microwave radiation. I could give you one if you think it would be useful to you.” “You heat things with radiation?” Indigo looked disgusted. “I’m immune to radiation and that stuff still scares me after what I’ve seen.” “Longwave radiation isn’t ionizing,” said Flare. “It’s categorically different from the sort of radiation you’re thinking of. It has even less in common with super radiation.” Indigo remained skeptical and kept her frown. If Flare had been hoping one of these would smell like real blood, warmed by body heat, then she’d failed to ‘trick’ them. Zest supposed it couldn’t possibly be that easy or somepony would have figured this out centuries ago. “I’m curious what good this test is gonna do,” said Zest. “This was fun, but all you learned is that we have a good sense of smell.” “Perhaps nothing,” Flare admitted. “You can never know what information will be useful in the future. For now, I just want to amass as much information as possible. We’ll learn what was useful later. Though this is the only direct account of how various types of heat smell to you.” Zest couldn’t help but be a little disappointed at that. She couldn’t possibly imagine her lame attempt to describe the scent of burning wood would ever be useful to anypony. Either way, the second half of the experiment promised to be far more interesting. Flare took out the second set of containers – the ones with adulterated blood. It seemed such a brilliant idea to her! It wouldn’t be long until Flare figured out what specifically about body heat attracted ghosts. Once that was settled, well it’d just be a hop, skip, and jump to solving this problem forever! The first container slid open with another hiss. Zest’s eyes and mouth both opened wide. Warm, pony blood! It certainly smelled as such. The adulteration didn't change that. And this was one of those rare moments that Zest could indulge herself without guilt, too! The promise of getting something so delicious made her forget all about science for a moment. Indigo leaned forward at the same time Zest did, so their heads bumped against one another. They looked into one another’s eyes with desperation. “You said we can eat the blood, right?” Indigo left her mouth open, salivating slightly. “If you want,” said Flare. “I’m not doing anything with it after this.” Before Zest could propose a way to share, Indigo sucked out all the heat, freezing the blood solid. She smiled and hummed in delight. Zest could only puff her cheeks out, turn her ears back, and glare at her ‘friend’. “Hehe!” Indigo smiled like it was no big deal. “You can get the next one! We’ll take turns.” Zest’s expression softened as Flare wrote down the results and she took out the next container. Already, Zest’s brain was getting ready for the dopamine hit. She bounced up and down slightly as Flare fuddled with it. The container opened and that glorious smell filled the air. Freezing animal blood already tasted so incredible, she could hardly imagine how amazing pony blood would feel! This was it, the ultimate pleasure a ghost could experience and nopony would die from it. Zest glanced sideways at Indigo. From the looks of things, she didn’t have much time to eat before having this snack stolen too. She inhaled and– “Guh!” All of Zest’s excitement faded until she was left with only a whimper. “It tasted like water!” “So it smelled normal but didn’t satisfy you,” said Flare. “Interesting. Have you encountered such a situation before? Or have a guess as to how the blood was altered?” Indigo’s perplexed look of intense interest answered the question already. Still, after the pride she’d displayed during the first experiment, she was hesitant to say it out loud. “Nope!” Indigo closed her eyes and turned her hooves up, defeated. “You got me there.” Finally! This sounded promising! Even if making blood taste gross didn’t have any practical benefit, it was still something even a veteran ghost like Indigo didn’t know. Still, she shot Indigo a look, a reminder that the next sample was still hers, and Indigo backed off. The next one was mercifully ‘normal’, and Zest finally got the experience she craved. It was like having your being converted into pure bliss! Zest had nothing to compare it to. She wished she could have an entire vat of pony blood to eat and in that moment, she very nearly understood why some ghosts were willing to freeze predeads to death. That had to be even greater! She sobered up soon enough and understood now why it wasn’t tenable for them to simply take frequent blood donations. She could already tell that feeding her addiction like that would only make it grow. The constant reminder would make her desire ever more to do away with mere snacking and devour an actual meal. They went through vial after vial. Of the twenty-five samples, sixteen smelled and tasted normal. Five smelled normal but tasted odd. It was the last four that held promise. Three didn’t smell or taste like blood and the final sample had no scent to it but tasted normal. “So like.” Zest pointed left with her right hoof. “If we can figure out the first group, we might be able to mask the addictive scent predeads have.” Zest pointed right with her left hoof, crisscrossing the two. “And if you figure out the second one, we can maybe make an artificial source of satisfying body heat!” “Should I ask where you got all this blood?” Indigo asked. “All that was about what you’d get from bleeding three ponies dry.” Zest tensed at the mention. “The ponies in MSI are eager to support science.” Flare kept her eyes on the notebook. “They donate blood every day.” Zest let out a sigh of relief. “How can you two not be more excited about this?” Zest looked at each of them in turn. “This could be huge! Tell us what you did to those last four!” “Forgive me.” Flare closed the book and bowed her head. “It will take some time to compile the results. As promised, I’ll give you a report but that might take a week or two.” And now Zest felt like she was waiting for a holiday once more. Though at least that was better than waiting for death. Training. Training. Zest created a blade of ice around her foreleg and looked upon its flawless form. Not one nick or imperfection interrupted its razor edge. This one had the strength of steel and glowed softly with the magic she poured into it. At last, she had created a true blade. Zest held it up to the void of the moon, watching little bits of its blue light stream upwards toward the sky. Zest hit the blade hard against the tree, slashing a large gash into it with little effort. And she frowned. Not long ago, she’d been so excited to be able to make anything. Even that pathetic excuse for an ax that shattered against a tree made her giddy. Back then, she’d imagined this very moment would fill her with such joy as to break out into song and dance. It didn’t. There was still a lot more she’d need to learn before declaring herself a proper ghost and a peer to the rest of her fraid. She didn’t know how to possess things. She couldn’t control her electrical powers. There were still so many aura and ice magic abilities to learn. It was hardly that she was daunted by still having a ways to go that dulled her enthusiasm. She just wondered more each day what the point was to any of this. Zest knew for a fact she could never win. It was like being asked to race a marathon where every other pony started only one kilometer from the finish line. Why bother? Sure, there were ponies like Indigo who’d sprint like mad just to see how far they’d get before the end. There were times when Zest wanted to run alongside her friend. Yet, when she was alone she always found herself looking off in the direction of Crater Cemetery and thinking of how her days were numbered. Instead of trying to cut down the tree, Zest merely tapped it repeatedly, pulling back, then smacking it with little enthusiasm. Zest wasn’t the type to give up hope that easily, of course. She still wanted to do things. She merely saw another path laid before her that rendered her old one pointless. Flare’s research became her new hope. And she had devoted herself to that well enough! Zest spent the last few days haunting Sunny Flare’s every waking moment. The two of them talked for hours every day. Zest eagerly detailed every aspect of the ghost experience to her until Flare had written a small biography about it. They went through all the basic experiments that Flare had brought with her and quickly ran out. There was equipment back in MSI that she hadn’t intended to bring down here unless they agreed to help her. Yes! Zest couldn’t possibly get strong enough to defeat the fraid of Crater Cemetery, but with the power of science, she could accomplish something! She still had some hope of turning things around! Sugarcoat came up from underground to catch Zest zoning out again. Zest quickly straightened up and tried smacking her blade against the tree, only to embarrassingly miss in her panic. Her sharpest and most dangerous weapon yet flew off unhinged into the forest. Zest twirled around, smiling as though she’d meant to do that. Sugarcoat appraised the situation with a deep frown. “I think you’re ready to start honing on your elemental abilities,” said Sugarcoat. “We can start now if you want.” “Huh?” Zest turned back to Sugarcoat surprised. She had no clue what part of that pathetic performance would make her think that. Even just a few days ago, Sugarcoat was talking like it’d be months still. “Maybe later. I had the idea to have Flare look at those chains! Like the ones that were around that hungering mist? She might be able to analyze them in some way.” Sugarcoat watched her with a quiet frown. “You were overly excited about getting to use them before,” Sugarcoat noted. “I thought you’d jump on this.” “Yeah, well.” Zest put her hoof on the back of her head and looked out into the forest. “We can do that later! We only have a couple weeks until Flare goes back to MSI for a while.” “You haven’t been putting your all into your training lately,” Sugarcoat went on. “Or your chores. You used to be so enthusiastic.” “I guess.” Zest turned back, smiling. “Do I really need to try much harder with this? I’m self-sufficient now. What’s the point of doing any more than that. It won’t accomplish anything. We already lost.” “Of course it matters.” Sugarcoat sighed. “There’s more to life than destroying Crater Cemetery. Even in the worst-case scenario, we still have years left.” “But if that’s where we’re at, why don’t I just goof off all day and live it up till then? Building all of this up isn’t fun if I know it’s going to get destroyed.” “I don’t want to see you giving up.” “I probably help out more than anypony else!” Zest put her hoof on her headphones. “I’m the one helping Flare with all her research and earning money and stuff! You two barely even talk to her! And you know what? All her science stuff is more likely to accomplish something than just sleeping for twenty years or whatever!” “I’m aware of this.” Sugarcoat flicked her glasses. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful for your contributions. I’m just… worried about you. It’s unlikely there will be some huge breakthrough in the matter of weeks like you seem to expect.” “Look, do you want me to give in to despair or not?” “I don’t want you to set yourself up for a fall,” said Sugarcoat. “You know I care about you.” Sugarcoat extended her aura to Zest. One good thing about being a ghost was that you never had to wonder if anypony else actually loved you. They could just show you they cared with their aura. Sugarcoat’s aura always felt like a blanket of safety and warmth being wrapped around her. Zest knew Sugarcoat wanted to protect her and help her grow, probably more than anypony else ever had. But Sugarcoat wouldn’t be able to protect her in the end, not forever. Sugarcoat felt this reaction and pulled her aura back. “I’ll be back soon!” Zest smiled. “It’ll be fine.” Zest rushed off to meet up with Sunny Flare before Sugarcoat could say another word. Indigo suddenly decided she wanted to tag along, though Zest suspected Sugarcoat asked her to. Indigo was still wary of the predead. Flare slowed them down a bit on their way back to the site of the battle. Mostly, it was her difficulty crossing the river. Daylight alone counted as rough terrain for Zest, so she often forgot about such things. But they did manage to find the right spot. The heap of chains still lay on the ground in a pile big enough to bury five ponies. Even as they sat there lifelessly on the ground, they had a sinister aura to them. They still glowed that faint red from far within and all the foliage close to them had withered and died. Zest had to remind herself that they had frozen to death, rather than having been corrupted by some fel magic of the chains. And she wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but she could still feel something sickly radiating off them in her aura. It was enough for Zest to stay close to Indigo as they approached. Flare didn’t need the location to be pointed out to her. She saw them immediately and trotted over, kneeling to get a better look. “I have seen these before,” said Flare. “Really?” Zest floated closer. What if this was a big reveal?! “Yes,” said Flare. “These are the chains of the shadow realm. They aren’t actually in the material plane. See?” Flare ran her hoof through the chains. They went straight through it, meeting no resistance. Zest realized she’d never tried to touch these before, but supposed a ghost must be able to make contact. Slowly reaching forward, as if to touch a dead possum, Zest poked the chains. It was at once as though they were and weren’t there. She felt a rumbling sensation and a pulse of anger through her aura, but her hoof did phase through them. “Don’t touch those too much,” Indigo warned. “So both of you know what these are?” Zest asked. “I guess this is what happens when you drop out of highschool. What the heck are the chains of the shadow realm?!” “Alicorns used the shadow realm as a sort of prison, you see,” Flare explained. “They’d dump anything they couldn’t deal with at the moment into this reality and seal them away with these very chains.” “Eh?!” Zest pulled back and frantically looked around. As she’d learned, Zest saw only the shadow realm. “But I haven’t seen any monsters like that running around!” “There aren’t that many,” said Flare. “Most of them don’t run around,” Indigo added. “Because they’re tied up? If you go way down south to the Festering Scar, you can see The Darklord. He can’t talk to you, but he’s there.” That was a relief. She sighed, then turned to Flare with an excited smile. “But this is still an amazing discovery, isn’t it?” Zest’s eyes sparkled. “There’s gotta be something we can do with this information!” She turned to Indigo, hoping her more senior ghost might be able to take this further than she could. “Sorry if I’m bursting any bubbles,” Indigo spoke up. “We know way more about the shadow realm than you predeads do. Living ponies have only known about it for a few decades, but ghosts have for thousands of years! We’ve known about these chains forever. Nopony’s figured out anything to do with this yet.” “Have you pieced together how she manages to use these chains?” Flare asked. “Interacting with the shadow realm is notoriously difficult.” “We got no clue where she came from or how she got so ridiculously strong.” Indigo shook her head. But this revelation seemed so important that Zest refused to let it go. She turned everything she’d just heard over and over in her mind. “Hold on!” Zest’s eyes widened. She turned to Indigo, throwing her forelegs wide open. “What if – what if the Crater Cemetery lady was one of the monsters sealed away in the shadow realm?! And she somehow got out!” “That’s one theory, sure.” Indigo nodded. “But there’s no way to tell.” “Well, what else could it possibly be?” Zest’s legs and ears deflated slightly. “That’s an argument from ignorance.” Flare shook her head. “Eh?” “You can’t conclude anything based on your own lack of ideas and information,” Flare explained. “What you said may well be the case, but we can’t be sure just yet.” “Oh.” Zest blinked. She guessed that made sense. “But do you have any other ideas?” “Are you aware of the Crater Cemetery event?” Indigo asked. “Well yeah. I’m not that uneducated,” said Zest. But now that she brought it up, the connection between that and the specter seemed obvious. “Oh, wait! Ove a hundred thousand ponies got killed by that! And that’s how specters are made, yeah?! So– so like–!” “That would be the single largest mass death event in recorded history.” Flare turned to Indigo. “But I’m not aware of any correlation between the size of a mass death event and the power of a specter, are you?” “Not unless you count their echo,” said Indigo. “It’d be pretty horrible if she could just summon an asteroid that big whenever she wanted, though. We got lucky the one that hit was in the middle of nowhere. Imagine if she dropped that thing on Canterlot.” As if she wasn’t already intimidating enough! Zest couldn’t tell which of those two backstories would be more terrifying. Either their enemy could summon an asteroid, or they were some unspeakable, ancient horror. “Either way, it’s clear she can control these chains,” Flare noted. “That’s a power generally only associated with alicorns. They have the power to contain even gods. If only there was a way I could discover how to use them, too.” “Tch! Well good luck with that one.” Indigo smirked, looking in Zest’s direction as though she’d be in on the joke. That got under Zest’s fur a little more than she would have said out loud. These two were being far too antagonistic towards Flare! They kept down-talking her research left and right! “Flare is our best shot right now! Maybe we could be more supportive?” Zest asked. “We’re selling her information cause I want a pinball machine.” Indigo shrugged. “It’ll be years until she even knows as much as I do and I’m an idiot who will never invent anything.” Zest puffed her cheeks out and glared at her. “Come on!” Indigo laughed, trying to change the mood. “Don’t get all angry on me. You did your work for the day, let’s go turn on that music cylinder thing and dance, huh? You know you want to!” Truth be told, she kind of did, but she was still angry. “No way! I still got stuff to do here!” Zest made a point of turning her back to Indigo. “Well whatever. I helped out today so later. I’ll be over there when you change your mind.” Indigo left slowly at first, no doubt thinking Zest would follow, before moving more swiftly upon learning she was mistaken. Help? Hardly? “Can you believe how ignorant they are?!” Zest folded her forelegs in a huff. “This is just like back when ponies laughed at the mare who invented airships. They just lack vision and stuff.” Zest turned back to Flare with a smile. “Well we don’t need them right?” Zest came over to Flare’s side. “We’re going to figure out the source of the addiction in no time and then they’ll see!” She hesitated, as for the first time, Flare took a step back from her and sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell you this until I was ready to give my report in a few days,” said Sunny Flare. “But the only samples that didn’t trigger your addiction were the ones where nearly all cells were removed from the blood.” “Right! So all we gotta do is…” Zest worked through the implications of that. “Have everypony remove all of their blood cells?” Zest blinked a few times, realizing just how hopeless such a goal would be. “Can you make a blood cell alternative?” Zest asked. “At the moment, I assume I’d have to eliminate every cell in their entire body,” said Flare. Zest put her hooves on her headphones and winced. This was not what she needed to hear right now, especially not from this specific pony! “Okay. But even if I have to wait a few years, that’s still better than nothing! I probably have that long!” Flare shook her head. “Well– come on!” Zest ducked her head down, trying to look Flare in the eyes. “You gotta be close-ish to something useful, right?” “I don’t expect this research to be finished within my lifetime,” said Flare. “I might not develop anything of practical use before I die. All I can do is gather as much data as I can. I’m too close to the starting line to even know what information is important, let alone reaching any such lofty goals.” Zest closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Why did everypony want to take this away from her so much?! Why did she need every hope she ever had to get thrown into the mud? Zest literally killed herself to escape the cartel only to become an accursed monster with no place in the world. She tried so hard to become a proper ghost only to learn she was playing an unwinnable game. Where the heck did it end? She wanted so badly to hold onto hope. Hope had been the only thing she’d ever had. She’d always clung to that in the absence of something real. “But then what’s the point?!” She shouted at Flare. “If you just know you’re going to fail… that you’re never going to get where you want to… then why even try?!” Zest watched Flare breathlessly as she considered the question. “I suppose.” Flare looked up. “I feel fortunate to even be at the starting line. It’s a privilege no other pony has ever had.” “The privilege of being light-years away from your goals? The privilege of never truly escaping your own ignorance?” “The only reason I was even able to begin this research is because of those that came before me. Mages experimenting with portals found a way to create micro-tears into the outer realm some two hundred years ago. The original pioneers of mad science died attempting to exploit this discovery, but the next generation learned from their mistakes until eventually, I was able to use it without fear.” Flare looked down at her cufflinks, what allowed her to walk among ghosts, the products of somepony else’s hard work just as much as her own. “So perhaps all I’ll accomplish is clearing the way of pitfalls and dead ends for whoever follows me. My predecessors did the same for me, and now it’s my turn to help the hero who will someday make these actual breakthroughs. I can’t call anything I learn useless because I have no idea what they’ll need when they finally arrive. I suppose that’s the hope that I have. That no matter how hopeless things are for me, they won’t be for someone else.” Zest could merely watch her as she made this speech. The meaning of her tears changed from hopelessness and frustration to admiration. Flare knew for a fact that she wasn’t going to complete her research, but it didn’t matter to her. It didn’t matter to any of them. Everypony else felt the same way, didn’t they? Zest fancied herself such an optimist and yet she was the only one who hadn’t found this forlorn hope. “I guess I can’t tell what will be useful in the future either.” Zest sniffed and wiped away a tear. “It… it doesn’t matter if things seem completely hopeless, does it? Because I can never really know what good will come of my actions… even if I do lose.” Yes. It would still be worth it. Even if she lost, she could still accomplish something before the end. Maybe Zest, too, could eliminate one wrong turn for whoever got thrown into this horrible labyrinth next. Maybe someday, somepony would finally escape and undo their enemy… And just like that, defeat seemed so much less intimidating. Nothing seemed useless anymore if she didn’t know what use it’d be in the future. She needn’t fear even a total rout, because if her goal was never to destroy Crater Cemetery, but to be the shoulders another pony could stand on one day… then she hadn’t really lost. “I think I understand.” Zest smiled and looked up towards the stars. “I want to help whoever comes after me too.” Maybe she’d never even meet them… But any amount of hope was enough. Zest continued her attempts to purposely direct her lightning. It was still too early, but Sugarcoat decided to allow her to attempt it anyway. Indigo directly supervised Zest as she crouched down low and focused hard on a tube they’d taken out from a light socket. The fluorescent light flickered on. A white haze consumed the area around the two of them, hiding their presence briefly. Then it shut off. Such a skill was useless. It had no practical value to anypony, especially not a ghost. And yet– “I did it!” Zest put one hoof on her headphones and bobbed back and forth humming her little victory jingle. Indigo laughed and embraced her. “Cool. Cool. Now get all of them to light up.” Indigo pointed at the ceiling. “Uh.” Zest looked up, faltering briefly. “Can I do that?” “I’ve seen it.” “Alright! Then I’ll get all of them to light up– I dunno, five times!” Zest turned back to the light with even greater concentration than before. Sugarcoat watched all this from the top of the stairs overlooking the hallway with a small smile. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a younger pony around, how nice it was to see the world through their eyes not yet dulled by age or tragedy. In truth, depression had fueled most of her productivity for that first, lonely year. Her hard work served as a distraction more than anything else. Though she built a suitable home in record time, she felt no sense of achievement from it. She knew another ghost would show up eventually, but as to whether she could actually take them in or not… The interruption that was Zest annoyed her so much for the first few days, yet she couldn’t turn away another ghost in such terrible need. She regretted her decision to take her in less every day. Twice now, Sugarcoat had lost everything. She hadn’t regretted crawling back to her feet either time. Not even now, when a sword dangled just before her head. The alien sound of hoofsteps on the stairs alerted Sugarcoat to her guest’s presence. Sunny Flare stood even higher on the stairs than Sugarcoat. “I wanted to thank you,” Sugarcoat kept her eyes on Lemon Zest. “You’re welcome.” Flare stopped when she came to the same level. “But I’m not sure for what.” “For the first few days, I feared you might accidentally crush Zest’s optimism,” said Sugarcoat. “False hope would have been the worst thing for her. But it seems you’ve done the opposite in the end. I may have been unfair to you.” Flare smiled and looked down at the other two. “I wasn’t sure what to expect before coming here. What sort of relationship specters had with the rest of their fraid, I mean. I can see you care about the other ghosts under you.” “Do you have any younger siblings?” Sugarcoat asked. “No.” “Maybe you’re not old enough to understand.” “I’m still not sure how old you are,” Flare noted. “Or how you died.” Predeads always asked you that question with no filter when they met you. It was bothersome, but Sugarcoat decided Flare deserved a ‘reward’ of sorts. “I’m ninety years old. I died in the great earthquake that flattened most of Horseshoe Bay. Nearly everypony I knew died horribly that same day. I saw my father and sister crushed to death before the same happened to me. I had a brother who survived at first, but tidal waves often follow large earthquakes and he ended up drowning. I tried contacting some family still back in Crystal Vale but that was a mistake.” Flare listened with her head tilted and a small frown. Sugarcoat hoped she wasn’t just now realizing how sensitive a subject this could be. “That’s older than I would have guessed,” she said. “Ghosts spend a lot more time sleeping, it’s not as great an age as you might think. Still, I doubt I’ll ever get over seeing adults who weren’t even born in the 13th century.” Sugarcoat looked down at the younger ghosts. At least Indigo met that standard. Just watching them play with an electric light reminded her how much things had changed. “We didn’t even have light bulbs when I was a filly. It seemed a miracle since then, but ponies these days dismiss it as beneath their notice. There are so many wonders you have no gratitude for.” “But light bulbs were invented in the 1180’s I believe. That should have been before you were born, too.” “Objects don’t magically appear in every home the second they’re invented,” said Sugarcoat. “In Crystal Vale at the time, having an electric light meant you were one step down from Prince Crystallium. This one house that had a hundred electric lamps was like a tourist attraction and my family traveled for miles just to see it one time. They told me every room in Canterlot had electric lights in them and I could scarcely imagine such a thing.” Yes. Back then she thought happiness would be as easy as having a few light bulbs. As a ghost, she had the opposite concern now. Sunny Flare stifled a laugh. “Sorry,” she said. “I suppose I live surrounded by advanced technology. The idea of a light bulb drawing pilgrims is amusing.” “No technology is advanced for long.” Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses, then glanced sideways at Flare. “If that’s amusing, I have a few interesting, old articles I could show you in our library.” “I would like that.” Without another word, Sugarcoat flew through the floor and into the library. It’d take time for Sunny Flare to catch up.