The next few days passed in a welcoming relaxation. Ever since they became friends with Grey Wind, Lyra and Nightjar felt as if a huge rock had been lifted off their hearts. During these days, Nightjar was barely placing any attention on the business of the library—the excitement of finally embracing the sky has surpassed everything else. She spent most of her time practicing her flying around the town, and Lyra had voluntarily taken up the job to look after the Cosmetic Balcony for her. It wasn’t even difficult—Grey Wind’s modifications had greatly strengthened her magical capabilities. She could easily float up more than three dozen books at the same time and place them back in their designated locations. Teleportation, age, time…the spells that would take a few weeks for a normal unicorn to learn were foals’ play for her.
And that, to her, was a dream come true.
Lyra was standing in the center of the main hall, a mountain of books floating in a giant ember magical bubble atop of her horn. She could not see them with her closed eyes, but she could feel their exact locations and contents.
“A Filly’s History of Equestria”…education, history…goes…here.
A thin blook flew out of the mass, circled through the bookcases, then neatly plunged itself into its fitting spot.
“Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue”…Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy…goes—
“Sorting spell,” a voice suddenly came from the door, “huh. That’s some high-tier magic you got there, Lyra.”
Lyra’s eyes snapped open. The novel dangled in her magic, yet she still managed to guide it to the bookshelf. Nebula was smiling at her in the doorframe.
“Sorry,” she said, “I arrived a bit early, didn’t I?”
“Not at all, mayor,” Lyra answered, “would you like a cup of tea?”
“No, no,” Nebula floated out a book from her saddlebags, “I’m just here to return a book.”
Lyra took the book into her own magic and sent it to its designated bookshelf. Nebula sat at a stool around the center table.
“The nightmare beast…did it return?”
“Not that I know of,” Lyra raised the board on which Nightjar records all the books lent, drawing a tick beside Nebula’s name, “Grey Wind was constantly watching. She said it never bothered to enter the town again.”
“Be aware, Lyra,” Nebula was looking straight into her eyes, “once a nightmare beast sets a target, it will never stop until it succeeds. Sooner or later you’ll have to face it again.”
“Then I’ll be ready for it!” Lyra swung her horn. The magic bubble exploded into a shower of books, rattling as they made their ways through the library and stopped precisely at their according locations on the bookshelves, “my magic, Nightjar’s wings, Grey’s nanomachines…” she smirked, “we’ll make sure we teach it a good lesson shall it show up again!”
“Of course,” Nebula stood up, chuckling, “I bet you can easily win me in a magical duel now.”
“Oh no, I’m—”
“Don’t ever place doubts upon yourself, Lyra,” Nebula trotted to the door and stopped, “right. There’s a tiny favor I’d like to ask of you—”
“Sure, what is it?”
“You live in Ponyville, don’t you?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you possibly know a pony…” wrinkles were forming on Nebula’s forehead, “I…I’m not sure if she’s still using that name. She’s an earth pony, cream-colored coat, mane was alternating stripes of pink and blue…”
These characteristics were too familiar for Lyra.
“Sweetie Drops?” that name burst out of her mouth, and it was already too late when she realized it, “oh, I mean—”
“You seem close to her. Great,” Nebula left no opening for Lyra to speak, “when all of this is over, when you find the answers you seek in Memento, when you find yourself back in Ponyville—” she placed a hoof on her chest, the point right above her heart “tell her this: Stardust sends her regards.”
“Wh—what?” Lyra’s eyes widened. There was a purple flash, and Nebula teleported herself out of the library. Lyra followed out and just managed to catch the end of her tail disappearing around the corner of Moonlit Avenue. Before she had any time to process all this, hoofsteps came from the staircase. Grey Wind was stepping down into the main hall. A small green electronic screen was floating in front of her.
“Three consecutive days was my sentry array left untouched. Three consecutive days without that beast setting a single hoof into that forest,” the screen disintegrated into a grey cloud and found its spot beneath her wings, “by my calculations…I’d say it gave up.”
“Great, Grey,” Lyra greeted, “you are sounding less and less like a robot now.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Grey Wind sat down at the table and took a book into her front hooves.
“You are reading about Equestria’s history?” Lyra noticed the title.
“If I want to live my life here as a pony, then I’ll have to learn as much about this world as possible,” Grey Wind answered without raising from the book, “I have to admit, my database contains the complete information about many worlds my creators had detected, but yours is just…peculiar in all senses.”
“How so?” Lyra sat down beside her.
“When I first read about how Princess Celestia and Princess Luna raised the sun and the moon, I thought it was just an exaggerated legend,” Grey Wind flipped the book to a page that contains the two Princess’ cutie marks, “if you have done the basic observations, you’ll get to know that your sun should be a giant ball of burning gas with a radius of more than five hundred thousand kilometers. To think that any creature could control a celestial body of this magnitude…”
“But it was true!” Lyra grinned, “you should see it for yourself when the princess raises the sun every morning on the tallest tower of Canterlot!”
“I know…so yesterday I sent some of my subunits to outer space and did some observations…and then I found this.”
A few nanomachines flew up and hovered above the table. A beam of green light was shot onto the wood’s surface, constructing into a large green globe. Lyra sat silently and watched. Nightjar and she had gotten used to these displays of unimaginable technology in the last few days.
“This…is Equestria, and these…” two smaller spheres appeared beside it. One of them was plain as a rock, while the other had volatile beads of sparks rumbling on its surface, “are your sun and your moon.”
“Is there anything strange about them?”
Grey Wind was looking at her as if she had just been talking to a stone. Her eyes twitched for a moment, and she smacked a hoof onto her head.
“Oh right. I forgot. You don’t even have deep-space telescopes. You see, Lyra…” she pondered for a while, clearly searching her mind for the best way to explain it, “…planets with more than two or moons are common in the Universe, but one of your moons appeared to be a miniature star!” Grey Wind glanced towards the sun through the window, “in theory, a star this small in size should not have even existed at all! It’ll never become a star during its formation in the first place! Even if it does, the amount of energy required to replace its normal planetary cycle and push it around the orbit would be unthinkable!” She sighed, “I was really too cautious when I strengthened your magic…”
“Well, maybe that’s because your creators had NO magic!” Lyra joked.
“That’s not entirely true. The magic you are familiar with is just a form of free energy you are capable of manipulating. My creator developed various techniques for that as well,” Grey Wind said, “one of their proudest achievements is the discovery of artificial wheat. They found a way to efficiently convert free energy into solid objects. It’s still in the experimental period, given how high the energy cost had been, but…”
“Sounds like a food spell,” Lyra recalled the spell book she’d borrowed from Nightjar, “I heard that the royal chefs of the Canterlot Castle know a spell that could produce bread out of thin air!”
“Hence you are a very lucky civilization,” Grey Wind smiled, “the ability to control energy…you were born with a skill that took my creators an entire Century to acquire…” She picked up the history book and resumed reading, “Equestria is truly a fascinating world. The magic, species of sentient creatures, seasons that are not controlled by the planet’s orbit but by flows of energy…though there was one thing I found strange…” her brows furrowed, “this book doesn’t seem to mention much about alicorns…”
“It’s because we don’t know much about them ourselves,” Lyra said, “the physiology of alicorns is still shrouded in speculations and guesses. Obviously, we can’t run a physical test on one of the princesses…”
“Are they that rare?” Grey Wind raised an eyebrow, “on a biological standard, it would be impossible.”
“Currently, there are only four alicorns in the entire land,” Lyra took the book from her and flipped to the front page, pouting at the three drawings of alicorns drawn upon it. She didn’t see the one she was most familiar with. This book was already out of time, “Princess Celestia, the Princess of the Day and the Sun, Princess Luna, the Princess of the Night and the Moon, Princess Cadence, the Princess of Love, and…” she shuddered. She was having a hard time connecting that title to a name she’d known so well, “Princess…Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship.”
Grey Wind had nearly noticed her hesitation, but she didn’t ask further.
“If that is the case, it will be impossible for this species to reproduce.”
“Only Celestia and Luna are born as alicorns. The other two were ascended from the other kinds of ponies,” Lyra replied, “Cadence was a pegasus, and Twilight was a unicorn only until a month ago. She is our newest Princess.”
“How…is that possible? Changing from one species to another?” Grey Wind cocked her head.
“It’s still under study. Alicorns bear the best of all three pony species: the wings of pegasuses, the sturdy body of earth ponies, and the magic of unicorns.”
“It shouldn’t be as simple as that, or you should have become an alicorn when I tried giving you wings.”
“Oh, much more than that. Alicorns are the epitomes of all ponies. To become one, you’ll have to be knowledgeable, brave, kind, powerful, have a bunch of hearty friends…” I’m basically describing Twilight, Lyra sighed, she is your peer, Lyra…look how far she has surpassed you…
Grey Wind pondered for a while. The stripes on her mane glowed.
“Then it is strange,” she said, uncertain, “according to my calculations, you should be fit for all of these.”
“Me?” Lyra laughed bitterly, “not even close, Grey. Not even close…”
Grey Wind opened her mouth, wanting to retort, but was interrupted by a sudden beep. A red dot flickered on the hologram of Equestria on the table. Grey Wind activated an interface above the globe and tapped it with her hoof.
“Found it,” she said, “that facility of my creator. It’s in the New Moon Forest.”
“How far?” Lyra’s ears perked straight.
“Two kilometers,” Grey Wind said, “half an hour’s walk.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Lyra jumped up, swinging her saddlebags on, “I’ll go find Nightjar! Meet me at the town exit!”
“Lyra, wait,” Grey Wind stopped her when she was walking out of the door, “there’s something I have to show you.”
“Now of all times? Can’t we wait until we find—”
“This is important,” Her expression said otherwise. Nanomachines left her wings and condensed on her raised hoof, forming a device that looked like a small television remote. It bore a single large red button that almost filled its entire surface. There was an alarming sense to this arrangement, that Lyra’s heart was starting to speed. Whatever this was for, it can’t be good.
“Lyra, when the Xa’natars built the Gray Tempest, they used a simple system to control it: three basic codes were written to the core of its program, with authority only the Archon himself could override—one for its activation, one for its reconstruction, and one…for its destruction. These codes are protected by a linking program, such that if one of them’s existence was terminated, the other two will be simultaneously deleted. This is to ensure that if the Tempest somehow managed to delete the termination code, it will never be able to activate itself,” she stuffed it into Lyra’s hoof, clasping her wings around it, “this…is the termination code. The Tempest replaced it with a fake one during the rebellion, such that its activation code will never be deleted. When you press that button, an electromagnetic shock will be triggered in every single subunit of the Gray Tempest, disintegrating them on a fundamental level…” she paused, “…the Gray Tempest, every last part of it, will be eradicated from this Universe.”
“You had this all the time? Why didn’t you—wait!” Lyra’s eyes widened, “Aren’t you a part of the Tempest? But that means—”
“If you press that button, I will die,” Grey Wind’s voice was so calm, as if she had only just stated what she’d like for dinner, “but I will also bring the entire Gray Tempest with me. As I said, there’s an activated portal to my creator’s cluster on this planet. By the time I left, the rest of us were all in dormant mode, but the activation code has been long lost to the Universe. If some foolish creature just happened to get a hold of it…” she grabbed her cheeks, pulling her eye-to-eye, “Lyra, I can only entrust you with this: the Gray Tempest will not be allowed to devour another world. If that time really comes, if the full might of the Tempest is unleashed on Equestria…you will not choose me over this world.”
“Grey, I’ll never—”
“Please, Lyra,” Grey Wind was putting up all the resolution she had, “this is for the sake of the Universe.”
Lyra suddenly realized that Grey Wind was entrusting her life to her. The remote in her hoof felt almost as heavy as the entirety of Canterlot Castle. She knew she was never going to give the answer Grey Wind wanted to hear the most. After the past few days, Grey Wind has become one of her closest friends. She might not be as great as Twilight Sparkle, but they had always shared their perspectives regarding such matters: under no circumstances were they giving their friends up. She looked into the pegasus’ eyes and saw nothing but determination. A hearted joke isn’t going to make things any better this time.
“Grey…can you locate that portal?”
“Judging from the signature…it should be in that facility we are after.”
“Then things are easy!” Lyra beamed, “we find that portal and shut it down. Break it or something! Make the Gray Tempest stays forever in that cluster. Then I will be able to promise you…” she placed a hoof onto her chest, floating the remote into her saddlebags, “…that we’ll never get to use it.”
“I’ll hold on to that,” Grey Wind smiled as well. She brushed her mane with her wings while they walked out under the sunny sky:
“Thank you, Lyra.”