Eventually, I gave up on trying to get my party back together. Corsica was easy to keep an eye on because she was too sluggish to wander much, and Coda refused to unglue herself from my side, but Papyrus hadn't waited for everyone to wake up before running off to poke his nose into the current situation, Leif didn't feel like sitting around in plain sight to be ambushed again, and Unless was probably staging another counter-ambush in case we had a repeat of last time, but hadn't let me in on her plans either way.
"One more time," Corsica muttered under her breath to Coda. "You say Chrysalis is in Icereach."
Coda nodded. "One or more creatures with the wherewithal to trigger my detection. You will recall that in Ironridge, this spell returned a guaranteed false positive due to the presence of a certain imperial ex-goddess. As such, the city was a blind spot for me, and thus an excellent hiding place for my vile mother." She frowned. "Icereach, to my knowledge, has no such factor, and so the signal should be true. Unless there is something equally unspeakable here of which I know naught, though that would hardly be reassuring..."
"And you're sure you're not just detecting yourself?" Corsica raised an eyebrow.
"Indubitably." Coda didn't even hesitate. "Were it otherwise, my spell would never return false, as it has on many occasions."
The thought crossed my mind that, depending how this spell worked, Coda could potentially be detecting windigoes. I thought better of it when I remembered there were windigoes in Cold Karma, but doubled back again because Coda did read positive there... I didn't want to say it, though. Even raising the possibility that this could be a false alarm felt like a jinx. Better to let myself hope that was the case and not have Coda immediately tell me a reason the spell didn't work that way.
"Well..." I got to my hooves. "No point in speculating when the yaks might be able to spare us the effort. Come on."
The hideout was so full, it was harder to find a place to ourselves than anything, and so finding yaks was a simple matter. Finding Balthazar, on the other hoof... Eventually, I gave up and stopped in the statue room turned barracks, which thoroughly reeked of unwashed yak. Coda watched the statues with intense interest, and I noted with some annoyance that the net trap had already been reloaded and was ready to use again.
I loudly cleared my throat, addressing the whole room. "Who are you trying to catch in that, anyway?"
The yaks noticed me. Awkward shuffling ensued.
"Trap set for changeling ponies," Tarkov eventually said, the biggest and most slab-faced of the yaks. "Not want to get hit from behind. Is very long story. World can change much in few weeks."
"Sorry you had to be the one to give it a stress test, buddy," Darius apologized with a rueful grin, the one yak who could speak without leaving out every third word. "Long story short... Well, actually, there's only so much this one can be shortened."
"Is that a challenge?" Papyrus drawled, emerging from the tunnel to the Nemestasis room. "Bet you I can fill these ladies in with twice the words and half the time."
"And just what have you been up to?" I asked, more keen on talking to Balthazar than him.
He shrugged. "Watching Senescey stare at some giant machine like it just asked to officiate her wedding vows. As for these shag bags, it seems an airship turned up about a week ago from Yakyakistan containing 'Corsica', a whole battalion of infantry, and some church chick with a pretentious title no one can be bothered to remember. Insults were exchanged, and voila, Corsica's now in charge. Of course, given that a fake Corsica already tried to take over Icereach half a year ago, and she came from the opposite direction you sailed off in... The only thing this one's got going for her is a very large army."
I stared at the yaks. "Is this true?"
"Real story have much more nuance than pegasus tell," Milton grumbled. "Cannot believe state of youth these days."
My heart chilled. Then not only were Leif's warnings about Yakyakistan invading coming true before my eyes, but Yakyakistan had changelings on its side... at best. Hopefully it wasn't the case that Chrysalis had Yakyakistan on her side, instead.
"And what about Jamjars?" I pressed. "What about Ludwig? Why set a trap on that door instead of, I don't know, literally the front entrance?"
Even as I pointed at it, I realized that the front door was, indeed, even more fortified than the way we had came in.
"You've explored Ironridge," Jamjars' voice declared, the mare herself walking out of the crowd, her mane fixed and her poise back after getting messed up by Unless. "You know who the power players there are. You might even know what various factions have to gain from aggression in the middle of nowhere like this."
I pulled out my stolen pattern card and showed it to her. "And you've explored this place. You might even know what I'm doing with a random trinket like this."
Jamjars gave something between a grin and a grimace. "Touche."
"It's called karma," I said, aware that we were speaking in front of a large audience, wishing I was talking to Balthazar instead. "Now then. Since we never got the chance to do so earlier, maybe we should put everything on the table and figure out where we stand."
"I took you in." Jamjars shrugged. "Asked no questions. Answered all of yours. Gave you unlimited freedom. Kept my secrets, of course, but never probed into your own. You sound like you're about to drop an ultimatum. But before you go and waste your breath, consider whether you could get what you want by just saying please."
I pointed a hoof at her. "Deals that good don't exist. What do you want from me? And what's with the stun powder? You knew I'd hate how you... You know..." I trembled, just a little.
"If you can't forgive your allies for being ruthlessly effective, you should have thought twice before coming to a place you need a windigo's help to get out of." Jamjars narrowed her eyes. "I know you know that. You couldn't have gotten in that way without finding out. And it was effective, because we're no longer having a conversation about whether you're real or agents of Cold Karma. As for what I 'want from' you..." She fluffed her mane. "I just want you to have a little agency in your lives. Get to make your own choices, realize and control your own potential."
I raised an eyebrow.
Jamjars rolled her eyes. "If you must have an uncharitable motive, let's say I have a vested ideological interest in screwing over someone who would prefer that you remain sheep who can't play the game, but it's unhealthy to look at life purely through that lens. Ponies have all sorts of reasons for doing what they do, often at the same time. And we're allowed to help others succeed purely because they like them, you know."
I stared at her. "If you're on my side, prove it with an apology for that stun powder stunt."
Jamjars sighed. "I've never been known as a champion of producing sincere apologies, particularly when I mean it, but I regret catching you in my trap."
Papyrus stuck his tongue out. "Sap like this is why I could never get into romance. It's always-"
Jamjars clenched her aura around his muzzle. "Shut up, the adults are talking. So!" She gave me a stressed smile. "Apology given, on to business. You're showing off my pattern card and you know what it does. Feel like contributing to the cause?"
"And the bath thing?" I wasn't about to let her off the hook this easily. "Setting a trap and taking precautions is one thing. Removing my boots because you knew it would get to me in particular is another."
At my side, Coda gave my boots a curious look. Great. Now I'd have to explain myself to her later, as well.
"Yes," Jamjars insisted with a grimace. "Apology. Given. And all that."
"It's as if the act of feeling contrition causes her to feel physical pain," Coda remarked. "This one certainly is cut from a different cloth than my usual admirers. Such ego..."
Jamjars' eye twitched, but she forced a very forced smile.
I didn't know how to feel about this. And this wasn't particularly the pace I wanted to deal with it, or the mindset I wanted to be in when I did. Who knew where Ludwig was, and how badly he was messing with the way we felt.
Corsica didn't look like she had any ideas either, though, and Papyrus clearly just wanted to stir the pot. I sighed. "Truce until we get back to Ironridge and you can answer every question I have without time pressure or whatever's going on in here."
"Excellent!" Jamjars uncoiled like a spring. "Now, about that pattern card, because I'm so eager to start bargaining with Ludwig to turn the teleporter on..."
I looked around at all the yaks, preferring to parlay with them instead. "You're backed in here because Yakyakistan's come to call. And now you want to use the teleporter to escape to Ironridge?"
"Yaks did not know teleporter existed when come to cave," Mustafa said, his mustache swaying with his breath. "In Icereach, Holy Sparkbearer ask yaks to help lock down city. Cannot fight home city. Cannot fight home country, either. Yaks found by windigo Ludwig. Windigo Ludwig let yaks stay in cave while try to convince to fight one way or other. Not sure what next."
"If Ludwig wants you to fight that army, he's not going to just help you walk away," Corsica pointed out. She glanced at Jamjars. "But if both sides of this teleporter are gatekept by windigoes, how did you even think it would be possible for someone hostile to come through it? Setting a trap there still makes no sense."
Jamjars shrugged. "Word reached my ear that trouble might soon start in the region, so I came here to lock the place down a little. But lo and behold, the key to the teleporter home was missing, and suddenly I found myself trapped. It's always healthy to keep a little doubt for your accomplices, and who better suited to tamper with the teleporters than the ones who ran them? For all I knew, my little basement dweller might have decided it was time to get rid of me."
I grimaced. Hopefully I never got paranoid enough to think that way... Though it was a legitimate concern, given how I had been treated by windigoes in the past. Ironic, too, given that Jamjars had just lectured me about paranoia.
"Where is Ludwig?" I asked, then hesitated. "Actually, before him, where's Balthazar? Been looking for him all over."
Milton pointed to the fortified exit to the Trench. "Balthazar take guard duty. Very noble."
"Any reason I couldn't go say hi?" I took a few steps closer, checking to ensure Coda was staying back with Corsica.
"Is night out," Tarkov warned, getting out of the way anyway. "Try not to become pony popsicle."
I winked, my mind drifting to my bracelet. "Duly noted."
Past the vault door, I had a bit of sheltered tunnel before getting to the open Trench itself, but the temperature was already plummeting. I shivered, relishing it. Living so long in Ironridge had almost forced me to forget what it was like to be truly cold.
Eventually, though, I lit my bracelet, turning it up just a hair past flashlight mode - I didn't want to banish the cold, but it felt like a decent idea to survive it. It didn't take nearly as much as my climb during the Aldebaran incident. Although it was midway through the night, the winds were still and the sky lacked a single trace of cloud.
I reached the Trench. Balthazar was waiting.
The yak was mostly facing south, watching Silverhorn's Plummet and the pass at Wystle Tower that led down to Icereach, but he sat to the south of the entrance so he could watch the cave, too. "Hey," I said, stepping out into the starlight.
"Balthazar have many dilemmas last few days," Balthazar said. "After civil war, all yaks take oath of pacifism. Only fight foes who want to fight. Use strength for peace. Simple oath. Simple life. All decisions easy to make when keep to important principles. But what to do when home fights home? Might be changelings in new army, but yaks, too. Changeling cannot be yak. Balthazar would have to fight own country." He shook his head. "No easy answers. And when Balthazar try to keep friends safe, end up hurting science pony Halcyon. Balthazar deeply ashamed."
I hesitated. "I'm... still pretty annoyed about that. But, I forgive you."
Balthazar hung his head. "Why Halcyon return to Icereach?"
"Looking for Mother," I explained, stars glittering in the purple cosmos above. "Things are... messy in Ironridge. I want to move on, try again to find somewhere new to see. But I heard things might be getting rough here, and didn't want to leave her behind."
He nodded. "Everything feel left behind now. Even if Halcyon find mother, what next? Icereach yaks are simple yaks, ask for little in life. Stability. Camaraderie. Good food. What to do when foundation suddenly gone? Yakyakistan is suddenly enemy. World has changed, and nobody ask if yaks liked it way it was. What now? Who yaks trust? How yaks make important decisions? Suddenly, old wisdom not seem like enough anymore. Ironridge pony Jamjars come and talk about dangerous changelings. How can yaks tell if advice is good or bad? Old ways of figuring out not work anymore. New world... is not yaks' world."
Balthazar. Unshakable, grounded, an endless fount of wisdom who never got distracted from what was important in life... reduced to this. I listened to him, and I knew for sure: it wasn't just me.
The world didn't just seem chaotic and unpredictable and dangerous because of some trouble-magnet quality unique to me and me alone. It changed, frighteningly and unpredictably, for everyone. I probably could have pulled aside any random pony in the Day District or Night District or even Sky District, and they could have told me that so many things in their life made no sense either. That they lacked a foundation, sometimes had trouble distinguishing between what was common sense and what was lunacy. Odds were, they might even struggle enough to build a foundation they could stand on that they would succeed, except it would be imperfect or different from everyone else's and the way they had made sense of the world would seem like madness to everyone else. And those differences would only perpetuate the feeling of chaos, of no absolute truth that could unify the world or ever bring it back together again.
"Where are you?" I whispered up at the sky, knowing my words wouldn't reach whoever created the world, but hoping anyway. Not the light spirit, no; I had seen that in person and talked with it and partaken of its magic. It was too real. Real enough that, since it existed, if it could have fixed everything, it would have. I sought something higher.
"Why aren't you real? And why aren't you here?" I breathed. "There can't just not be anyone out there. All this has to have some reason to it, some meaning we just can't see, something that Balthazar and all the yaks and everyone else can trust in who will never be wrong and never change and never let them down. Please..."
But all I had was myself. A tiny little thing, idealistic and unpolished and a lot less formed than most ponies, who had been created to take over the reins from another young mare who decided that she couldn't reconcile herself with her world and gave up on living. All I had was me, my friends, some poorly-understood magic, and a special talent in becoming anything I wanted to be.
...Actually, I had one other thing, one which had cost me dearly to obtain and seemed to be in very short supply: answers.
I knew, concretely and without the need for philosophy and speculation, the reason for my existence. I knew how to keep my head above water in this crazy world; not enough to prevent myself from taking hits, but enough to get some wins with my losses, to push an agenda and have a say in my destiny. I knew more than many about the state of Ironridge and Cold Karma, the reason for the dysfunctionality, the reason Yakyakistan was here and their intentions for war.
This current predicament, that had left my yak friends homeless and shaken their trust in their church and nation? I understood it. Not perfectly, but well enough to navigate. And because I had my bearings, knew which way was up and which way was forward, I had agency. I could make a difference.
I remembered Leif warning me vehemently, when telling me about the war, not to think that just because I had been forewarned, I had an obligation to change it. But now that I sat at the bottom of the Trench, my bracelet gently aflame, I knew that that didn't matter because I would have wanted to change this whether I had the power to or not. What mattered was that Icereach was my home, and I cared about the ponies who lived there. And thus it was my duty - all of our duties, but that included me - to do what we could.
And I could do quite a lot. I was getting my redo, and I would show the world how much I had grown.
"Hey, Balthazar," I said. "Fight me."
Balthazar rumbled curiously.
"For old times' sake," I insisted. "Can't let me get rusty when I might need to be in top form, here. Besides, it's freezing out. Gotta get moving."
Balthazar got to his hooves, marched to the middle of the snowfield, and turned, waiting for me to make the first move.
I focused on my bracelet.
I need to know what I can do, I told it, green energy dancing around its plain, black surface. If I'm really going to give my all and save my home for real, I need to be able to hold nothing back. I need to know that I won't freeze up again if I try to turn you on while others are watching. All the knowledge in the world won't make a difference if I don't have some power to back it up. And Balthazar's a big guy. He can take it. I'll be careful, turn it up a bit at a time, and stop before either of us get hurt. Mother said I'd be able to tell before that happened, right? Now... let's dance.
As I focused, the flames intensified, little arcs of green energy occasionally lifting off from the bracelet's surface, running through the air like weightless cords between two points, and with a little more leeway those arcs started crawling across me, too. I blocked out the entire world, concentrating, as if I was alone.
The cold receded. I felt... empty. Suddenly aware that I was just a shell with a mask. When the energy touched my body, it didn't quite feel like it was my body. The flames licked at the air, and tendrils of fear started licking at my mind.
You'll burn, it whispered. Mother sacrificed her leg so you could have this chance at life, and you're following her?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Someone will see, it breathed. It won't be just a flashlight to them anymore. They'll know what you can do, and they'll ask more of you. You'll ask more of yourself. Safer to be nobody, and to hide away.
I focused on Balthazar. That was the point.
The fear constricted, and the flames went out.
Balthazar watched me. He didn't seem shaken or surprised.
I focused on the bracelet again. "This is my power," I growled. "Mother left it for me. And she wouldn't have done that if she didn't want me to use it."
The bracelet slowly re-lit.
It was harder this time. I had to nurse the flame along. It felt hungry, like it wanted to feed and I had nothing to offer it. Alive, not just an artifact with a switch I could turn on and off. There was no pain, though. Not even a bit.
Just fear.
I pushed harder, trying to open the bracelet further than I had done before, even though it was barely in flashlight mode. It wasn't the bracelet that resisted, though. It was something in me. I looked around for Procyon.
She was watching with a frown. As soon as I saw her, I felt another spike of fear that someone would see, and the bracelet went out again.
"This is stupid," I hissed, trying again to light the bracelet. "What am I doing, being afraid of myself?"
Memories quickly rose up to provide an answer.
I saw myself sitting in the hideout, deliberating with myself about whether I could really sneak back to Icereach and save my home from Aldebaran. Past me went back and forth on the subject, but fear of failure barely even deserved a footnote in her mind. She was consumed with fear of succeeding, worried that, in learning she really was capable of it, her view of herself would be irreversibly altered.
I... I really had been like that once, hadn't I? It was so obvious, now. My mask was still like a newborn, and the shell of me that appeared when I took it off was holding my hooves like a watchful parent, giving me those fears to guide the way my life developed, to steer me away from becoming the pony she didn't want me to be. I had been terrified of learning new things about myself, of changing who I thought of myself as, because I was so unformed that every bit of identity I had was precious to me...
All those fears were leftover guide rails from my creation. They were there because my other selves left me in charge to get away from who they were growing up to be, and didn't want me to follow down a path they knew we could take - and that I would try to do it.
Well, I was my own pony now, no longer half-formed and jumping at shadows. I was ready to shoulder whatever made them give up on existence.
"I no longer need your fear," I whispered to Procyon. "I can do this. Now watch me!"
And then I pushed the bracelet as hard as I could, trying to open it as wide as it could go.
Force hit me like a whipcrack as my own body revolted, rebelled and fought back. For half an instant, the bracelet started to glow, and then it was flung free from my leg, arcing through the air and landing in the snow. Something else in me was struggling, flailing, refusing to let me take this path, and for a moment it gained enough control that I couldn't coordinate my legs and collapsed to the ground, shaking.
"No..." I choked out. "I can do this... I need to do it! What are you so afraid of? You bailed and left me with this body, so why won't you let me make my own choices?"
The wind had picked up just a little, blowing toward me from Balthazar. I was fairly sure he couldn't make out my words, but at this point I wanted him to hear, just to spite my circumstances. And words or no, he could see me. This wasn't fair! I had grown, and by so much, too! I was so much stronger and more decisive than I once had been, less easily cowed by stress and chaos, freer from self-sabotage... so why couldn't I claim my reward? Why, now that I had the do-over that I had begged for, couldn't I stop holding myself back and fulfill the potential I knew I had?
Cold clawed at my hooves. Now that I wasn't wearing the bracelet, I remembered, laying facedown in the snow and the night was a terrible place to be.
Work with me, I demanded internally, scraping my way back upright. If you're that terrified of what I can do with the bracelet, you'd better be a whole lot more scared of someone else can do with it. Don't seize control of my body again, and I won't use the bracelet again until we have a proper chance to talk. Deal?
Nothing stopped me as I picked the bracelet back up, though I couldn't be too happy. Something I had never quite known was how much ability my other selves had to take control while I had it - every time I had removed my mask so far had been purely voluntary.
Now I knew, and I didn't much care for the answer.
I slipped the bracelet back on, a bitter taste in my mouth, and looked at Procyon with an accusatory stare.
"You can't do this," she replied. "You're pretending you've grown, but you haven't. You'll fail no matter how many times you try. Magic or no, we are the same pony, and you're trying to discard our fears instead of accepting them. And you can no more easily cut out parts of your emotions than parts of your personality. Which, if you think about it... Even Unnrus-kaeljos failed to excise me permanently."
"But..." I struggled to light the bracelet even enough to repel the cold. "I must!"
Procyon's eyes dug into mine. "Or?"
As if in answer, green lights appeared on the horizon.
Barely had I identified where they were coming from - Wystle Tower - before they were pointed straight at me, spotlights with enough power to light up the snow around me even far away on the Trench floor. I bristled, my ears pinning back. They were rapidly getting closer.
"Watch duty suddenly more important," Balthazar grumbled in warning, swiftly crossing the distance to me and grabbing me with a hairy hoof.
I winced, and not just from the contact: as he roughly grabbed me, my bracelet slid an inch down my leg, not yet properly fastened on. I tried to grab it and pull it back into place.
My wing resisted.
Are you bonkers? I thought frantically to any part of me that could hear. You'd rather leave that-
WHOOOOOSH!
With twin plumes of snow, two silvery things skidded to a stop in front of us before Balthazar was halfway back to the cave. They were vehicles, flying ones, but not like any airship I had ever seen. Sleek and curved, they had tiny wings that beat with emerald energy conduits and seats recessed into the tops, each one looking big enough for five or six ponies.
The wings looked familiar, I realized with a chill. Those were close cousins of inertial stabilizer rotors.
One was flying a white flag.
"I invoke the right of parlay!" a voice said, its owner dropping down from one of the crafts. "We mean you no harm!"
Two heavily-armored guards fell down to flank her, and the other craft pulled up, shining its spotlight down to illuminate the posse. It was hard to make out their colors under the sickly green, but the leader was a pegasus, perhaps a few years my senior, her mane done in a breezy cut that suggested a preference for speed. She wore quite a bit of jewelry, I noted, including jewels in her feathers, plus a tiara and a neck choker.
Balthazar tossed me behind him, starting to circle around toward the cave entrance.
"At ease, soldier," the mare commanded, her voice slightly raspy. "Please don't try to run again. Stay a while, and talk with us."
Balthazar continued circling, the night biting into my coat without even the barest flicker of green to protect me. Procyon was focused wholly on the newcomers.
"Balthazar only negotiate on neutral ground," Balthazar warned. "And only with other yaks present. Not with retreat route cut off."
The craft shining the spotlight, I realized, was being piloted by a yak.
"Who are you supposed to be, anyway?" I asked, my tongue fortunately working even though I couldn't guarantee my body would remain my own.
"I am the Holy Sparkbearer," the mare rasped, focusing on me. "Heir to the Church of Yakyakistan. See the regalia?" She shook her head. "I'm sorry for blocking you out here, but I need to talk to you! I dispatched with my army to Icereach in response to a mysterious distress signal from the embassy Yakyakistan maintains there, but can't find any information about how it was sent and everything in the city is somehow different from the way it's supposed to be. Case in point: you, yak, who are supposed to be guarding the airship dock and fled at the mere sight of our flag. Cooperation in this is not optional. It's extremely important!"
I blinked. Mysterious distress signals, huh? And everything being slightly different than it was supposed to be? This didn't mesh with the story I had heard from Papyrus and the yaks at all.
Balthazar narrowed his eyes. "Spark pony lies. Balthazar spoke words with you before yak exodus. Fail to reach accord, then leave. Not flee at first sight."
"What are you talking about?" The Sparkbearer stared at Balthazar in abject confusion. "This is the first time I've left my ship since arriving here. The guards weren't able to guarantee my safety in Icereach proper..."
Realization of what was going on here poured over me like syrup: someone was being gloriously gaslit by Yakyakistan's changeling infestation, and it was either me or the highest honchos the church had to offer.
Playing Spot The Impostor had been stressful enough when it was just me, Corsica, Ansel and Elise, but that was just the foals' league. I had a sinking feeling it was about to get much, much worse.