Lightning wrenched Applejack’s head up so they were looking each other in the eyes. Applejack squirmed, but she was too tired to pull herself from Lightning’s grasp.
“You went into space,” said Lightning incredulously. “I put the airlocks on lockdown. All of them. But you got back in anyway. And you… You just escaped from the queen. How?”
“Long story,” mumbled Applejack. She rubbed her head. “What jus’…”
“Nullwave grenades!” Lightning said a bit too cheerfully. She waved a strange red spherical device beneath Applejack’s nose. “This place’s greatest achievement — even with neuromods. Briefly kill off magic in an area. Changelings don’t like it, but that just means more for me. And if you’re not expecting it, it really packs a punch! So how’s that earth pony stamina working out for you now?” She chuckled.
And just like that, Applejack knew what the emptiness in her was: no magic. It wasn’t that she was suddenly tired; her magic had just stopped warding that tiredness off. No wonder she couldn’t tell what it was; she’d never imagined a life without magic. Something had been cut off from her and she was flailing around like it was a lost limb, trying to find what had been severed.
“I would’ve tried ’em earlier,” Lightning said, “but the changelings, ah… They really don’t like them. The queen nearly bit my head off when I first showed them to her. Literally. I don’t mind.” Then her grin twisted into a snarl and she put a hoof on Applejack’s neck, pushing down just enough that it was hard for Applejack to breathe. “Why couldn’t you have stayed down, you farmer?” Lightning growled. “It would’ve made things so much simpler for us!”
“I’d be dead,” wheezed Applejack.
“Yeah! Simpler! Just like this whole thing was supposed to be simple, but that stupid queen just had to draw it out. Couldn’t even kill a bunch of eggheads while they were sleeping.” Lighting snorted and shoved Applejack away. “Why did I even bother…”
That phrase pierced through Applejack’s haze of weariness. Blueblood, she got. Treated like dirt his whole life, never given a chance to rise above it. And he still realized that he’d messed up. So what had happened with Lightning? “Why did y’bother?”
“Oh, like you’d know,” spat Lightning. “The Guard’s a noble position, you know. I protect lesser ponies and stand for Equestria. I shouldn’t be held back by anything! But there’s so much red tape, and you ignore it a few times, dump a little style into your job, suddenly you’re stuck babysitting some stupid Canterlotian fop.”
Right. Thunderlane had mentioned something like that a week ago. (A mere week?) Yet that was all it took to release the changelings? And she was still on their side? “Lightnin’,” Applejack gasped. Maybe she could reach her. “Lightnin’, listen. It ain’t worth it, it’s just a little-”
But Lightning just rolled her eyes. “Pfft. To be honest, I really don’t care anymore. If no one’s going to appreciate me, they can all rot. The changelings here, the queen? They get it. They know I have something to offer.”
“S-somethin’ t’offer?” Applejack sputtered. “Land sake, Lightnin’, d’you really think they’ll let you-”
“I told them everything!” Lightning roared. “I set them free!” She kicked Applejack in the ribs, over and over; Applejack screamed and curled up in agony. “If it wasn’t for me, they’d still be sitting in that cell! Can’t you see that, you stupid idiot? I am the pony responsible for giving them what they want! They’ll give me whatever I want! I-”
As Lightning kept ranting, her kicks stopped. Her legs pulled close to her body, Applejack stared at nothing, breathing deeply, trying to ignore the pain lancing through her trunk. Nothing Lightning was saying was making sense. Her reasoning for her actions was off, insane. At first, Applejack’s rational part chalked it up to her not being able to think straight.
But as the pain kept dwindling, Lightning kept ranting, and Applejack was able to think more, Lightning still made no sense. In fact, she started making less sense. She really thought this… swarm would reward her for this one action?
Then it hit Applejack: Lightning was just that stupid, just that egocentric, just that petty.
Equestria might die because one mare didn’t like being disciplined.
Suddenly, Lightning’s ranting stopped. Smirking, she leered down at Applejack, curled up and panting on the ground. “But, y’know, that all comes later. I’ve got some things I want that I can get now.” She raised a hoof over Applejack’s head.
Lightning was correct in the way the nullwave grenade worked. She was correct in assuming it had disrupted Applejack’s magic. She was correct in claiming Applejack was weaker than she usually was. She was correct that Applejack was exhausted. There was, however, one problem with her overall assessment.
Indeed, the bulk of an earth pony’s strength came from magic. With no magic, an earth pony was just as strong as an identically-built unicorn or pegasus. But Applejack had grown up working on a farm, and although most of her duties had been consumed by automation, there were still times when she had to (or got to) drag this or that machine part across the fields to fix something, or even just do some heavy lifting she had no machine for. Magic or no, physical exercise worked the muscles. Even without magic, Applejack was still stronger than the average pony.
And as Lightning had talked, with every word that had come out of her mouth, Applejack had begun caring less and less that she was tired. When her life was finally threatened, adrenaline kicked in again.
In the split second before Lightning stomped, Applejack hastily lashed out at her hooves. She caught the leg still on the ground and Lightning toppled forward. Her nullwave grenade rolled away from her and bumped against Twilight; still, she managed to catch herself by flaring her wings, but Applejack was already coming up. She caught Lightning around the chest, lifted her, then slammed her into the ground.
The entire room shook from the impact and Lightning screeched. Applejack barely heard it. She definitely didn’t feel any sympathy, not for this psychotic. She picked Lightning up, slammed her again. Lightning battered at her head, squirmed, managed to wriggle free. She fluttered backwards to try to get out of Applejack’s reach, only to bump into some of the pushed-aside crates. The sudden impact brought her flight to an end and she fell to the ground in surprise.
Lunging, Applejack was on her in an instant. On a reflex, she wrapped her front legs around one of Lightning’s wings and squeezed. Lightning roared and thrashed in her grip, but Applejack held on tight. She kept squeezing and squeezing, harder than she ever had in her life, until-
CRUNCH.
Lightning’s screams of rage became those of pain and fear. Bile suddenly rose in Applejack’s mouth as she felt the bones splinter in her grip and pure revulsion made her let go. Lightning kicked ineffectually at Applejack’s face and scrambled into the arboretum, howling, sobbing, her good wing flailing at the air as her bad one twitched grotesquely.
Applejack immediately jumped to her hooves and made for the exit. She couldn’t let her go. Lightning was the one responsible for all of this. She needed to die. And worse. She needed to-
Twilight coughed.
Applejack immediately wheeled around and staggered over to her. It was like the jewel of her rage had shattered. Maybe Lightning did need to die, but that wasn’t important right now. Twilight was. The way things were going, if she left to catch Lightning, Twilight would be dead by the time she got back. No. Not that. As she pulled Twilight up, Applejack said, “Hey. Twi. Y’still with me?”
A moan. Weak, but not distressingly so.
“Good.” After scooping up Lightning’s dropped nullwave grenade (just in case), Applejack pulled them both into the GUTS.
She barely remembered the trip back down to the cargo bay. She didn’t encounter anything she needed to fight, anyway. But all of a sudden, she was outside the doors, hammering on them, hollering, “Hey, open up! I got Twilight!”
Immediately the doors were pulled open. Spitfire came out first, a big smile on her face that quickly slipped away. She looked at Twilight, to Applejack’s left and right. She opened her mouth.
“Dead,” Applejack said. She felt choked up, a knot forming in her throat. “All of ’em. I- I’m sorry.”
Spitfire stared at Applejack for a long while, making little sounds of questioning. Then, her eyes glistening, she blinked and nodded. “Well,” she said quietly, “you- got the princess. Let’s get her some medical attention.” Several guards rushed forward, taking Twilight from Applejack and gently carrying her into the bay.
“She’s still alive,” Applejack said lamely. “Real strong. Dunno how she’d holdin’ on.”
“Yeah,” said Spitfire. Her voice was quiet, distant. She took a long, shuddering breath and wiped her face down. “You… also got the… the thing, right?”
“The neuromod, yeah.” Applejack pulled it from a pocket and held it up. Even after all it’d been through in Applejack’s suit, it barely looked damaged.
“Good. Good. At least…” Spitfire’s neck suddenly went limp and she held her head, eyes tight shut, barely holding back sobs. “Let’s get inside. And… tell me everything.”
“Everythin’? Even…” Applejack let her voice trail off. There were lots of things a pony might not want to hear.
Spitfire’s nods were short and quick. “Everything. I… need to know.”
The worst part was how short it all was. From start to finish, the entire squad had died in… five minutes? At most? As they sat in one of the storage bay’s side rooms, Applejack barely had any time to let any one pony’s death sink in for Spitfire before she was on the next one. Spitfire remained silent the whole time, almost motionless except for the occasional ear-twitch. She tried to remain expressionless, but tears kept falling from her eyes.
When Applejack was done, Spitfire heaved a long, wavering sigh. “You know,” she muttered, “we were… holed up in for so long, safe and sound, I… kinda forgot… I thought I’d been numbed to all the death, but I guess I just stopped thinking of it as a risk. And now…” She hung her head in her hooves, muttering obscene nothings between choked half-sobs.
After a moment’s hesitation, Applejack reached out and awkwardly patted Spitfire on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Spitfire nodded without looking up. “I- I know. It’s just- so…” She sat up straight so quickly Applejack jumped in surprise. “But you got Twilight,” she continued in a voice that was clearly trying to keep her emotions down. Her face was streaked with tears, but she ignored them. “It could be worse.”
Applejack went with the flow and the change in subject. “Y’think she’ll be alright? She seemed real outta sorts when I found her.”
“I got a decent look at her when you brought her in, and honestly? She’d probably be dead if she wasn’t an alicorn,” said Spitfire. “But mix an earth pony’s endurance with a pegasus’s metabolism and a unicorn’s passive magic, and you’re left with some pre-tty hardy ponies. Now that she’s actually getting medical attention, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s up and walking soon.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You know those stories of old queens and kings tanking ballista bolts or machine gun fire? Not just stories. My grandmother saw the assassination attempt on Queen Selena. The assassin actually hit her, but because she was an alicorn, it didn’t do much.”
“Dang,” Applejack said quietly. She’d known alicorns were something else, but never actually seen it beyond the extra magic necessary to move the sun and moon.
“I know, right?” Spitfire glanced out the doorway. “Still, I should probably see how she’s doing…” She looked briefly at Applejack, then left the room.
Normally, Applejack expected this would be the part where she curled into a ball and slept for twenty hours, but she felt… awake. Battered and beaten, but if she tried taking a nap, she’d be restless. She definitely felt better than when fighting against Lightning, more full, more complete; was her magic back? Hopefully. Imagine going through all this, only to get back to Sweet Apple Acres and being unable to buck the five or six trees she reserved for bucking. Maybe she just wanted to do the thing with the neuromod and get this all over with. Might as well talk to Twilight, then.
But just as she was getting up, Trixie came into the room, looking very… unsure of herself. She was rubbing her hooves together and looking at the ground. She wrenched her head up and said, sounding unsure of herself, “I… don’t know how to do this, but… are you… feeling okay? I… was listening outside,” she added guiltily.
Applejack just shrugged. “Dunno. I think so. Guess I’m gettin’ numb.” Was she? Maybe. It was nice to pretend she was, anyway.
One of Trixie’s ears twitched. When she spoke again, she sounded more confident. “Are you sure? Because you’ve been running around playing the hero for a long time. You’ve been the hero for a long time. You helped Trixie get here, and Trixie doesn’t want to lose her savior to something as boring as burnout. You just told Spitfire about some of her ponies’ deaths and she didn’t ask about YOU once. Are you really doing okay?”
Applejack bit down on the reflexive response and pulled her thoughts together. She was tired and scared, but that was pretty much par for the course, now. It wasn’t like it was any worse than what she’d felt before, no matter how much worse things had gotten. In all, “I ain’t doin’ great,” she admitted. “But I ain’t doin’ that bad, either, compared to most folks ’round here. I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on.” Shrug. “All I can do, really.”
“…Why do you have to sound so gosh-darn folksy?” demanded Trixie. “You could shrug off getting killed and being resurrected with necromancy!” Groan. “Sorry, sorry, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re just keeping up appearances or if you really mean it.” A pause. “Trixie thinks you mean it, by the by, but she thought she’d ask.”
“Well, thanks for askin’, anyway.” Applejack raised a hoof to walk away, then said, “Y’know, you don’t seem like the kinda pony to do this.”
“Of course not, but Trixie threw you into space and you’re still talking to her. It’s kind of obligatory that she offers you a shoulder to cry on, especially if nopony else will.”
“Oh. Uh…” That… kind of made sense, in a very strange sort of way. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Trixie gave a small bow. “Now, Trixie is sorry, but she needs to get back to work. None of these idiots knows anything about tech support…” She walked away, shaking her head and muttering angry nothings.
That settled, Applejack made for the not-med-bay. She passed Spitfire on the way, who confirmed that Twilight was recovering quickly. Still, Applejack wanted to see for herself.
The room was mostly empty, the ponies Applejack had seen earlier gotten moved out. Twilight was resting on her side, her wings spread out, breathing steadily. The wound on her side had been sutured shut, and Applejack could catch a hint of magic around the threads. It still looked bad, but it wasn’t horrifying anymore. “Hey,” Applejack said — not too loudly, in case Twilight was sleeping. “Twi. Y’up?”
One of Twilight’s eyes cracked open, then she opened them both wide, smiling. “Applejack!” She pushed herself up into something resembling a sitting position. “Spitfire says you’re the hero of the night.”
“Eh.” Applejack wanted to downplay it, to say that she wasn’t anypony special, but… she had done a lot, hadn’t she? Getting the reactors up, finding Twilight, rescuing ponies… But she didn’t want to come right out and say it; she was never any good at bragging. She settled for shrugging. “I guess.”
Twilight’s laugh wasn’t strong, but it was still stronger than Applejack would’ve expected. “You really need to take some more pride in your work, AJ. You liked to brag about your farming, and why should this be any different?” She pushed herself up and glanced around. “Where’s Spike? I thought he’d want to see me ASAP.”
Applejack tensed up immediately, her ears folded back. Twilight noticed and put a hoof to her mouth in horror. “Oh, no…”
“You-” Applejack choked out. “You probably don’t wanna hear how just yet.” Immediately, she regretted her words; just what ideas were running through Twilight’s head now? But she knew Twilight wouldn’t want to know.
“I- Alright,” Twilight said. “I…” Her ears and wings were limp. She clenched her jaw — whether from pain or just trying to stay in control, Applejack couldn’t say — and pushed herself up. She loped over to the room’s window, where she leaned against the wall and looked down at Equus.
Applejack walked up to her, but didn’t say anything. She knew this mood. A deep, thoughtful one, where Twilight dove so far into herself she basically forgot the outside world. And who could blame her? Right now, it was best to let her think and sort things out. It wouldn’t take that long.
At least, that was what Applejack thought. Seconds stretched into moments stretched into a minute, and Twilight was still sitting there. Her brain worked fast; just how many thoughts had she turned over as sat? How many of them were about Spike? How many of them were about everyone else on board Golden Oaks? How many of them were about her subjects down in Equestria?
And just what could Applejack hope to offer all that?
A friend, maybe.
“Twi?” Applejack asked eventually. “Y’alright?”
Twilight said nothing, but she started blinking and her wings twitched. For a long moment, she just stared out into space. Then she took a deep breath, wiped her face down, and said quietly, “I used to wish we weren’t alone in this universe.”
Applejack put a hoof on Twilight’s. “I’m sorry.”
Smiling sadly, Twilight patted Applejack on the shoulder. “T-thanks.” She sniffed, then said in a surprisingly businesslike voice, “So, how much do you remember? About our plans?”
“Our-” It took Applejack a moment to realize what Twilight was thinking. “Princess, d’you really think y’oughta be thinkin’ ’bout that? Get some rest.”
“I can rest and think at the same time,” Twilight said resolutely. Princessly. “While I’m healing, I’ll be sitting around doing nothing except thinking. Besides, I need to know sooner or later. There’s more ponies than just me up here and the sooner we get them all out safe and sound, the better. Might as well get caught up now. And- And the more I’m thinking, the less likely it is that I’ll go to pieces.” In spite of her voice tripping over itself, it didn’t waver.
Applejack looked Twilight in the eyes. Twilight looked back, not an ounce of weakness showing. Applejack suspected Twilight was putting on a brave face for the crew, making sure to keep their morale up in an impossible situation. Maybe, after everything she’d been through, she was finally breaking down inside.
But if that was the case, it was a pretty dang convincing brave face.
“Alright,” said Applejack. “Take a seat, it’s a long story.”
Okay, maybe not that long. But just because Twilight wanted to hear things right then didn’t mean Applejack was going to let her stand the whole time. She still had a gash the size of a plowed furrow in her side, after all. A gash that seemed to be getting smaller every time Applejack stole a glance at it. Alicorns.
Applejack went through a vastly shortened version of everything that had happened since she’d woken up in the trash compactor. Finding Trixie. Finding Blueblood. Rebooting the reactor. Saving Zecora. Saving Rainbow. Getting the security tapes. Stunning the changeling. Get the neuromod. Saving Twilight. All that jazz. Twilight hung on every word, nodding slowly with each new development. From the way her ears were flicking, her mind was working like mad as she catalogued everything.
“So, uh…” Applejack said. “I, uh, got the neuromod-” She held it up. “-and I dunno what we do now. Just blast the changelin’ with it?”
“Well, not ‘blast’ so much as ‘inject’,” said Twilight, “but… basically, yeah.”
Applejack looked at the neuromod. It was tiny, barely anything. And Twilight thought it could save what was left of Golden Oaks. She remembered how it worked: using mirror neurons to teach the changelings empathy. Somehow. Maybe Twilight had explained it to her better before she got amnesia, because… Well. All that, from this one vial.
Of course, before she’d moved to Golden Oaks, the idea of neuromods themselves would’ve been crazy to her. Now, she knew how they worked firsthoof.
And she trusted Twilight.
“You feelin’ up for it?” Applejack asked. “Right now? I’d sure like a princess behind me when this all goes down.”
Twilight stood up straight. “Absoloof!” She winced, slouched, and rubbed her side. The gash was still getting smaller, but it was still there. “I’m fine,” she said too quickly.
“Are you?” Applejack asked skeptically.
“Yes.”
Applejack fixed Twilight with her best steely glare. Twilight’s return glare was much more effective. “Alright,” Applejack said, taking a step back. “Let’s tell Spitfire we’re doin’ this. Might want the extra help. Y’know… just in case.” She left the room, Twilight following close behind.
Spitfire was pacing in front of the exit from the cargo bay, apparently just to get rid of some of her energy. The second she saw Applejack and Twilight, her eyes went wide and she flap-galloped over to them. After a quick bow to Twilight, she snapped, “You’re letting her come around with you? She’s still healing!”
Applejack shrugged. “She wanted to come. You’re head o’ security, you stop her.”
Spitfire glanced at Twilight, who set her jaw and lit her horn. Spitfire twitched back an inch. “Fine,” she said. “So… what are you doing?”
“Y’still got the changelin’ we captured?”
“Ah. Right.” Spitfire’s wings tightened. “That. Um… Princess. Your Highness.” She bowed stiffly. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s the only idea,” said Twilight.
“That doesn’t make it good. Princess, I have… no idea what we’re going to try here. Just something about hive minds and empathy and an awful lot of maybes. It’s… And okay, let’s say I trust you and it works and that… thing in the cargo container over there-” Spitfire pointed a wing towards a large metal container. “-apologizes and everything. What then? Are we gonna make friends with it?”
“Well, yeah.”
The answer was so quick, so confident, so sure of itself that even Applejack did a double take at Twilight. It wasn’t that surprising, coming from her, and yet…
Spitfire’s ears went up in surprise, then folded back. “Seriously?” she gasped. “Your Highness, that thing’s part of the reason everything went to Tartarus up here! Most of the ponies onboard are dead, and you were almost one of them! It pretended to be you so we wouldn’t go looking for you! And you still want to kiss up to it?”
“Did I stutter?” Twilight asked. She didn’t raise her voice, but it’d gained an edge it hadn’t had before. “Changelings literally can’t see us as people. It’s part of their biology. But if I can give them a chance to apologize and they take that chance, why not forgive them? Believe me, I know it’s hard. These are my ponies as much as yours. But there’s more than just Golden Oaks at stake here. If we can turn them into allies-”
“You better make a better argument than that,” growled Spitfire, “ ’cause I’ve got a lotta ponies wanting payback, and if friendmaking takes too long, I sure as sugar ain’t stopping them from taking it.”
Twilight blinked. Then she pulled herself to her full height and flared her wings and reminded Applejack of just how big alicorns felt, even when they were small. She intoned, “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Liminal Throne and of Friendship. I have made allies of some of Equestria’s fiercest enemies. I know full well what beings like him are doing to this station. But I will not see one single cell of that changeling harmed until I have offered him forgiveness. And if you want to dispute that…” Her grin was predatory, threatening even as she struggled to stand up straight. “You’re welcome to try to stop me. Emphasis on try.”
Spitfire nearly squeaked and flinched backward. She tried matching Twilight’s gaze, then grimaced and turned away. “So what about you?” she asked Applejack. “You think this is a good idea?”
“Look, I spent this whole time lookin’ for her,” Applejack said. “I’m gonna listen to her.” If Spitfire could change the subject, so could Applejack.
“Of course you are,” mumbled Spitfire. She flexed her wings. “Fine. We’ll let you inject that changeling with… whatever. But I’m keeping some guards nearby, and if it goes for you, we’re shooting it, period.”
“Fair enough,” said Twilight.
Spitfire gathered her guards and a ring formed around the storage container the changeling was in; Applejack wiggled her way in to get a good look. Twilight took a step forward; lighting her horn, she opened up the container and delicately levitated the changeling out into the open. It was very still, not even moving to breathe. Did changelings need to breathe in the first place? Some of them had survived in space just fine. Still holding it in place with her magic, Twilight took a few tentative steps forward, just enough to lightly put a hoof on the changeling’s neck. After a moment of waiting, she slowly moved her hoof up and down the changeling’s body. Then she froze, her ears twitching. Whatever she’d found, Applejack couldn’t tell.
“Is it even still alive?” asked Spitfire.
“Yeah,” said Twilight. She twirled the neuromod in her telekinesis and took a deep breath. “Here goes.” Slowly, cautiously, she pulled up an eyelid with magic, placed the neuromod against the changeling’s eye, and pulled the trigger.
She quickly backed away, but for a moment, nothing happened. The changeling lay there, unnaturally still. Then it spasmed and sat bolt upright, blinking. The guards raised their guns, but didn’t fire yet. The changeling gazed at the wall like it was a window. Then, slowly, almost painfully, it curled up into a ball and whimpered like a newborn foal, a confused gurgle of sound and emotion. Its wings twitched, buzzing fitfully like a leg shaking from fear.
Biting her lip, Spitfire waved for the guards to lower their guns. Twilight took a step forward, her ears aimed at the changeling, her wings ready to spring open. Applejack caught herself holding her breath. Would any of this be worth it?
The changeling lowered one of its legs and looked fearfully at the assembled ponies. Its eye had no pupil, but Applejack somehow knew it was jumping around. “I-I’m sorry,” the changeling said in a small voice. “I d-didn’t know.”