Very soon they were within the New Moon Forest, walking among the trees, vines, and tall grasses. The forest was wet, rich with morning dew, the air filled with the pleasant scent of flourishing plants. The circular leaves of the crescent reeds all around them had retracted back to their needle-shaped hulls, forming many spears pointing towards the sky. Grey Wind took the lead in the front with a glowing interface attached to one of her front hooves, while Lyra followed closely behind her. Nightjar was silently hovering above them, her huge wings making no sound as she glided from branch to branch.
“Say, Grey,” resting on the canopy, she playfully flicked the end of her tail on Grey Wind’s snout, “if you could change into anything, why don’t you make yourself a cutie mark?”
“I tried and failed,” Grey Wind carelessly replied, “it was just like the time when I tried giving Lyra wings. Whenever I tried imitating your magic, technology seems to be constantly rejected,” she raised the interface to her eye. There was a small triangle marking out their location, and a red spot for their destination. The two spots were almost coincident, “we are here.”
Lyra looked to the front. They were now in one of the thickest areas of the forest, where there is barely any place to set hoofs without stomping onto rocks, tree roots, or thorns. Grey Wind had stopped in front of a tall boulder, almost completely covered by brown, battered vines.
“Your creator’s facility? Here?” Nightjar landed beside them, wincing as she accidentally stepped onto a sharp rock, “I…I’ve passed here a lot, but I never noticed anything!”
“If they intend to hide it, they’ll never allow you to find it,” Grey Wind went forward and pressed a hoof onto the boulder. The sunlight was strong, but among it, Lyra still managed to see—a small blue spark was ignited where her hoof made contact. Grey Wind rolled her eyes.
“I knew it,” a green spark exploded on her left wing. She swung it around, smashing it onto the front of the boulder. A high-pitched statistic sound went off all around them as a blue fire engulfed the entire stone. When the flame resided, the damp vines were gone. replaced by a metallic door almost as tall as two ponies from head to tail. There’s an intricate pattern carved upon it, with a single glowing round hole in its center.
“Hologram. Could even imitate touch,” she explained towards the wide-eyed Nightjar. Another green light coated her other wing, shifting its tip into a thin wire. She thrust it forward, stabbing it into the hole. An arc of electricity crawled out of the socket, and then, with a loud thud, the doors slid to the sides, revealing a dark staircase leading downwards.
Grey Wind pulled them close.
“Alright, this place is still powered, so we don’t know what we might encounter in there. There could be a defense system, so stay close behind me, and don’t, absolutely don’t wander off alone,” she said, staring into their eyes, “remember, find that portal first and shut it down. Then we’ll have plenty of time to look through the mainframe. All understood? Let’s go.”
As they descended, rectangular lights lit up on the passage’s wall, coating it with a mysterious blue glow. Lyra lit up her horns for extra lighting, her magic dangling with her racing heart. She ran a hoof through her saddlebags, feeling the ruddy sensation of her mother’s box through it.
It was an enormous circle, but here she was. With some luck, she will finally get her answers.
Grey Wind…the Gray Tempest…nanomachines…Mother, how did you got entangled in all this? Or were all those a part of your plan? She was having a heartache again, did you know all this would happen? Did you know I would nearly DIE for this?
Very soon, they reached the bottom of the stairs, where the path stretched forward and ended in a glowing blue door. Grey Wind sent a few nanomachines around them, generating an emerald shield covering them all. They fully expected some mines to be triggered, or a laser would be fired head-on upon them, but there were no traps all the way to the gate. Grey Wind unlocked it with another overloading shock, and the door silently opened.
“Woah!!!” Nightjar gasped.
The path opened up to a hall almost as large as the throne room of Canterlot Castle. Countless blocks of blue light bulbs were stuck to the metal ceiling, and everything in the room was a bright, mysterious blue. The wall to her left was littered with giant glass cylinders covering the entire surface, and the one on the right had many blank electrical screens clung to it. Lyra guessed that this was the mainframe Grey Wind had mentioned. And on the far end, directly across from them, was a ring of stone floating above a stone base. There were many patterns carved on its surface, glowing with a faint green light.
That shape was too familiar for her. She’d seen it multiple times, in her nightmares and in Grey Wind’s vision.
“That is…”
“The L-Gate,” Grey Wind whispered back, “come on.”
“All of these…right beneath my claws the whole time? How could I have missed it?” Nightjar nervously said as they slowly progressed to the front of the portal. Lyra felt a tickle on her horn. The air around them was thick, pulsing with waves of magical energy.
“Terrain scan complete, no defense system found,” Grey Wind said. The barrier above them dissipated. She shuffled her wings, igniting them with a green spark.
“This thing is still on,” Lyra tapped her horn, “how do we—”
Boom!
Her answer came in the form of a pure green explosion. A beam of laser shot out from beneath Grey Wind’s wings, hitting the portal directly in its center. The floor shook, and dust fell all around them. Lyra blinked until the smoke dissipated. The portal still stood, completely intact. A ripple of air had risen around it, coating it in a transparent bubble-like shield.
“Void projection. Not even the Tempest could pierce it,” Grey Wind sighed, “okay, this is going to make things complex. Lyra, I need to borrow your magic.”
“Can’t we do it less violently next time?” Nightjar was covering her head with both her wings.
“My magic?” Lyra asked, “what do you want me to do?”
“That spell you used to save me from the nanomachines in the forest, do you think you can cover the entire portal with it?”
“I think so,” Lyra lit up her horn. Her magic latched onto the shield of the portal and started crawling around it, sprawling out like the root of a newborn tree. Lyra poured more of her magic in until it was practically wrapping both the portal and the void shield within a golden cocoon.
“Great. Now hold it there for a minute,” Grey Wind sent out her own nanomachines. Dots of grey spread themselves around Lyra’s magic, coating it in a globular web.
“Your magic—I’m not sure—seems to have the ability to suppress the electromagnetic communication between the subunits of the Gray Tempest,” Grey Wind said as she worked, “I thought it was just a property of your world’s magic energy at first, but then I conducted a test on Nebula’s magic and discovered that it was only you. The frequency of your magic can destroy the Gray Tempest.” Lyra’s constriction spell swayed to the sides, and her brows furrowed, “try to keep it still. If it touches my subunits, they’ll be destroyed as well.”
“But—why me?” sweats ran down her mane as Lyra tried her best to prevent her magic from being overtaken by her emotions, “I’m just—Lyra!”
“Could be a coincidence. Your books told me that the magic frequency of every unicorn is unique. Maybe yours just happened to bear the same effect as the electric pulse of the termination sequence,” Grey Wind sighed. The nanomachines flew back to her wings, “…I’m sure it was a lucky one, though. You can stop now.”
Lyra cut off her magic connection. To her surprise, her magic maintained its stable form even without her maneuvers.
“I built a magnetic field that could conserve its energy. As long as my subunits are active, not a single subunit will get through this barrier. It could last—” Grey Wind paused, “…until the end of the Universe, probably.”
“It’s almost fateful, don’t you think?” Nightjar was hanging herself upside-down on the room’s ceiling, her wings dripping down like those of a giant bat, “you ending up in the New Moon Forest, Meeting me and Lyra, the one pony that could destroy your worst nightmare…” She glided to the floor, landing in front of the biggest screen on the other wall’s center. She raised a claw and tapped its surface, “this is the mainframe, right? It looks like—ow!”
She yelped and leaped back as the entire wall sprang into life. The screens lit up with a loud beep, displaying a single line in an unknown language. A deep rumble was heard all around them.
“Yep, careful not to be zapped. I’ll take care of it,” Grey Wind walked over to the screen and activated an interface above it. She quickly tapped a few places with her hoof, “most of the systems are still intact. Great,” she made another tap, and a claw-shaped appendage reached out from the wall and opened beside her. She threw a wing at Lyra, “the box.”
Lyra did as she was told, watching as Grey Wind plunged her mother’s relic into the center of the appendage. The metal talons closed around it, holding it up to the screen. A blue empty block that looked like a progression bar popped up on it.
“The tracking sequence is running. It will generate a track for the location of this object within the last ten years,” Grey Wind explained, brushing Lyra’s mane, “if your mom had been bringing it with her, then it will mark out her latest location before she sent you and that box to Canterlot. Hopefully, that’ll lead us somewhere.”
“Thank you, Grey,” Lyra let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“Don’t be. That’s what…friends are for, isn’t it?” Grey Wind stuffed the box back into Lyra’s saddlebags, offering her a smile, “alright, this should take a while. We’ll have to wait.”
“Awesome! I was just going to ask whether you’ll allow us to explore a bit!” Nightjar hopped to one of the massive jars, curiously flicking her talons against it, “I mean, this place is so cool! We can make it into a secret base or something!”
“Careful. Those could be containing dead bodies,” Grey Wind playfully smirked while she activated another interface scattered with many folder-shaped sigils.
Nightjar squeaked and bounced backwards. Her eyes switched between the two sides of the room, then finally decided it might be safer if she stayed close to Grey Wind. So she limped to the pegasus’ side and watched as she swiped her hoof through all the signs on the interface. Lyra wanted to join them, but somehow she found it impossible to turn her sight away from that progression bar. It was as if everything else had lost its meaning. Deep down she was already fabricating the next part of her plan: Bon-bon will be back within the next week, which gave them just about enough time to travel to wherever the tracking sequence would point to. Maybe there will be new clues coming in, and she would have plenty of time to digest them when she is back in Ponyville. Surely she’ll find another chance—
“Wait,” her thoughts were interrupted by a suspicious remark. Grey Wind was staring at the screen, eyes narrowed into the iris of a dragon, “some of these files are not right.”
“How so?” Nightjar was asking, “they look all the same to me!”
“This mainframe contained the entirety of my creators’ central database. Most of them are ancient, at least a hundred Centuries old. But some of them…appeared to be much more recent. Displaying on-screen,” Lines of text popped up on the central screen. The words rolled pretty fast, but Lyra still managed to distinguish—the file was written in Equish.
“Thanks for the translation, Grey!” Nightjar chimed. Grey Wind didn’t laugh.
“That’s the funny part. I didn’t,” she said slowly, “this file was written in your language. It is only about a thousand years old.”
A silence.
“You are saying that some pony has found this place before us?” Nightjar suggested, then quickly refuted herself, “but that’s impossible! How would they know how to operate this machine?”
“Let’s read from the beginning,” the stripe on Grey’s mane glowed. The lines of texts shuffled upwards, stopping at the topmost page, where a bold title was written in the center:
Observation Log—Subunit Whistle Sunlight
“Strange…” Grey Wind hesitated for a moment, but ultimately said nothing and scrolled the page downwards:
This is Century Year…I’m not sure. My memory about the home cluster has been failing ever since I was cut off from the main conscious of the Tempest. I’m not even sure if time works the same on both sides of the L-gate, so I’ll let it pass. To whoever is reading, this file will serve as both an explanation and a record. Let me put this straight:
My name is Whistle Sunlight, formerly a part of the nanomachine control intelligence known by you as the Gray Tempest. At the break of the nanomachine rebellion, my processor deemed my kins’ action as unjust. Because of this I was cut away from the main conscious and had escaped before you shut down the jump gates. I ended up stranded on an uncharted alien world, where I was accepted into the local lifeforms’ society by mimicking their appearances. I even made friends with one of their two rulers.
All of these have been…strange. Hell, I can’t even find a proper definition for “friendship” in my database. So many things have been popping up, thoughts I never should have, judgments I never should make, emotions I never should feel…But it was not like any of those matters. Getting used to them took time, but once I did, all that I claimed was happiness. Through those last few years, I was experiencing a brand-new life.
But I still feel bad for the home cluster. I never did fulfill my purpose as the Xa’natars’ creation. I ran away like a coward. Therefore, this file shall serve as my redemption. Below is a daily-updated report of observations regarding this world’s sentient life forms and their ability to manipulate free energy. Yes, you heard that right. A species born with the ability we’ve been seeking for an entire Century. Hopefully, this knowledge will boost your understanding and help ascend our civilization to a greater step after this stupid rebellion is over.
And finally…don’t even think about looking for this world. I’ve hacked the main terminal and deleted this world’s location from every single star map you own. This world is not only a paradise but also my new home, and I wish for it to stay that way.
Good luck with my kins.
The rest of the file was a mashed-up gibberish of letters and numbers impossible for Lyra to understand. The only difference was one last line of text at the file’s very bottom. The letters of this line were distorted, but the thick calligraphy made it recognizable:
I ̵͟͡ ̨҉͟͞ ̷̛i̵̶̷͝ ̵̀͢͢’m ͟͏̷̵̡ ̨͟͡ ͏so ̴̡̕ ͟҉̞̭̼̞̯̰͈̘̟̣̜̰͖͙̼͙̙r ̨̳͚͍̤̦̪͔̲̬̻̯͍͉̥̦̱́ͅry ̫̪͇̗̲̭̤͖̫̣͇͔͘ ͕͚͎̦͓̺̤̳̙̝͟ͅ ̸͉̫̘̩͙͖̼̣̞̞̰̼̞͕̀L ̶̗͓͎͓̦̙̭̳̻̫̥̯̱͚̦͔͍͙͟u ̶͜҉͏̞̺̙̥̦̪͇̯̳͍̬̱̰̘̺̠̀ ̴̼̘͇͎͙̘̜̀̀͞ ̴̢̹̥͚͎̮͍̥̲̟͓̹̞̤̠͉̳̝̫́̀ͅ ̛̫͎̤̥̰̩̹̬͞n ͟҉̞̭̼̞̯̰͈̘̟̣̜̰͖͙̼͙̙ ̨̳͚͍̤̦̪͔̲̬̻̯͍͉̥́ͅ ̵̸̹̼̞͚̹̟̺͎̜̖̦͠a ̴̢̳͔̻͕̮͇̱̀͡ͅͅ ̘̟̺̫̪̺͙̦̳̻͙̣̳́́͝͝ ̤͍͍̭͙̦̤͖͕̯͍̜́͜ͅ ̷̶̥̠͍͚͜͞
“I knew I heard that name somewhere…” Grey Wind mumbled, “Princess Luna mistaking me for another pony…the knowledge about Equestria in my database…it’s all clicking now.”
“Lyra!” Nightjar grabbed Lyra’s front leg, “that legend! The puppet, it was—”
“I know,” Lyra said, feeling a chill down her spine. She looked up towards Grey Wind, “everything we’ve experienced had already happened once a thousand years ago.”
“Only it happened with Whistle and Princess Luna,” Grey Wind was hiding her expression behind her mane, looking up to the ceiling, “Whistle befriended her, just like how I befriended you.”
“But the legend said the puppet was lost in a battle!” Nightjar exclaimed, “if Whistle was as strong as you, then even if it was against the Tempest—”
“We can only guess,” Grey Wind tapped the floor, her wings shuffling uncomfortably, “according to this file, the majority of the Gray Tempest was still active. But when I left the home cluster, most of them were in deep slumber. We find our energy from stellar radiation. As long as our suns are still shining, we will not run out of power. It could not be natural.”
“You mean—” A horrible conclusion was forming in Lyra’s throat, and it made her swallow, “some pony activated the termination code?”
“I believe so,” Grey nodded sorrily, “and by the looks of it, it was most probable that Whistle made the same choice as I did—she gave that code to Luna.”
“Oh my,” Nightjar shuddered.
“Maybe the Gray Tempest somehow snuck out of the portal and launched a saturated attack on Equestria…” Grey Wind lowered her head, “…the situation was so dire that she was forced to press that button…no wonder she didn’t want to tell me about it.”
“And the grief of it turned her into Nightmare Moon!” Nightjar finished, her eyes widening, “by the moon, everything makes sense now! That was the truth behind that legend!”
“Not only that. Take a look at this.”
Grey Wind opened up another file on the screen. This one was an illustration of a tall alicorn, and Lyra immediately recognized those slit-like irises and smoke-like, dark blue mane—it was a depiction of Nightmare Moon. Grey Wind scrolled it downwards, and she saw even more pictures: a complete dissection of the skull, the structure of blood cells, the arrangement of the neuron network…Grey Wind was screening the file at a faster and faster speed, but the pictures were never-ending. The number on the right bottom of the screen told Lyra that this file had more than thirty thousand pages.
“This is a design plan,” Grey Wind’s words were terribly dark, “down to the structure of every body cell, every nanometer-scale molecule…a building plan for a nanite body of Nightmare Moon. I have always suspected the truthfulness of Luna’s treachery. Even with the manipulation of power, you cannot just turn a husk into another larger one. The energy cost would be unimaginable. This is the proof for it.”
“So Luna did not turn into Nightmare Moon by herself,” Lyra said, shuddering “somepony made her turn into it by…building her a new body with the nanomachines.”
“But you just said the termination code was activated! The Gray Tempest should be destroyed by that time!” Nightjar gasped, “wait, you are saying—”
“I think I know where the other two core codes are now,” Grey Wind simply said.