Jessica stood outside the farmhouse, luggage at her side, watching Luna stretch and yawn. No one was around but them, even the zombies were nowhere to be seen, but she heard activity nearby. They were probably doing farm-related activities. Well, not every zombie was absent. It had come as a shock that the mounted heads and various other taxidermy around the farmhouse were also technically zombies, even if they couldn’t move around or talk. They could see, and that was all the zombies needed these to do. She was happy that she was leaving this place for good. It was creepy, and she’d had more than her fair share of creepy this weekend.
Luna put on a necklace from her saddlebag. The design clashed heavily with her regalia.
“There, I’m now ready to return you to Wabash Manor,” Luna said, giving herself one last body stretch. “I may impose on young Miss Gilmore for a room once we arrive. I’m rested enough to do this teleport, but I still require more sleep.”
“I doubt Jordan will mind,” Jessica replied. “What’s with the necklace? Another of Auntie’s talismans?”
Luna nodded. “It was a gift from my student. It allows me to bypass her defenses so I may come and go to Wabash as I please. It isn’t necessary when I am alone, for I’m not normally troubled by my teleport putting me far too high above the mansion–as I can fly, something most unicorn invaders can’t do. However, the defense also causes some disorientation after the teleport, and that means I might end up dropping you and being unable to catch you before I can recover. For your safety, it’s best to wear the necklace.”
She definitely didn’t want to fall immediately after the teleport.
“Are you up to this?” Jessica asked. “You said you’re still tired, and you used a lot of magic getting us home.”
“This is hardly going to be an effort compared to that. Everything will be well,” Luna assured her with a smile.
Jessica pulled out her phone from her pocket. “Let me call Jordan so she knows we’re coming. We don’t want the guards freaking out when we arrive.”
“That would be advisable. I don’t wish to cause a disturbance,” Luna agreed.
The phone rang twice before Jordan picked up. “Jessie!”
She smiled. “Hi, Jor. Luna’s going to be teleporting us to Wabash in a moment or two. I wanted to make sure your guards were expecting us.”
“Oh, yeah. I can make sure of….Hey! Andrea! Luna and Jessie are going to be teleporting here in a moment. Let the guards know. Oh, real mature! Sorry! Sorry! You doing that just ticked me off a lot for some reason. Thank you for all you do! …..Um…okay, Andrea just rolled her eyes at me about it, but she’s taking care of it.”
“Thanks, Jor. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Jessica said. She hung up the call and looked at Luna again. “Everything should be good to go.”
Luna nodded and put her saddlebag on before walking beside Jessica and her luggage.
“While this may not disorient me much, you may…no…you will feel quite ill. It is a defense that the necklace does not bypass, so brace yourself,” Luma warned.
Jessica grunted. “Thank you for the warning.”
Luna lit her horn, and there was a blinding flash. Jessica’s stomach lurched. She fell to her knees and hacked. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything in the last few hours, so there was nothing to vomit up but a little bit of stomach bile, which dribbled out of her mouth. She was sitting in grass, at least she thought she was. Her ears were ringing, probably from the very sudden elevation change. Denver was much higher above sea level than Skytree.
“Take a moment to recover,” Luna said, sounding breathless.
“She couldn’t give you something that bypasses that?!” Jessica asked in disbelief.
“She was concerned that the necklace might get stolen and still wanted some defense,” Luna explained. “Only Miss Gilmore’s talismans completely bypass the defenses.”
“Why does she have to be so paranoid?” Jessica said as she started to recover.
“Survival,” someone nearby said. Jessica looked up and saw Andrea standing there. Andrea smiled. “This is my first time seeing this defense in use–very effective. It even downs an alicorn for at least a second, which is more than just about anything else can do to an alicorn. I can appreciate a good defensive tactic, particularly a non-lethal one. The real question is, why couldn’t my sister have intensified this rather than go through the whole lethal drop while they were feeling too sick to do anything about it?”
“Because she hates torture, and that would be torture. After her capture by the Shimmerists, she would rather see someone dead than torture them,” Luna answered.
“How kind of her,” Andrea grumbled.
“She is far from perfect, but she tries her best,” Luna replied.
Jessica stood to her feet, still feeling a bit woozy. A pony collided with her legs and hugged her no sooner than she stood up, nearly knocking her back down.
“Oh! It’s good to see you again!” Jordan said happily.
She smiled as she put her hand on Jordan’s back. “It’s only been a few days.”
“But a lot happened! I had an intruder!” Jordan exclaimed.
She stepped back. “You had someone break in? Is everything okay?”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah, she got caught right away. Nothing gets through the defenses here. We also had the auction, and I redecorated the entire place. How was your trip? Anything fun and exciting happen?”
“I got a funky glowing stone, got to see some stars up close, found the ruins of a prehistoric civilization, and met Triss,” Jessica listed off
Jordan gaped. “Um…did I mention I redecorated? Yeah, exciting stuff. Okay, you had a more eventful weekend.”
Jessica laughed. “I didn’t mention the zombie foal or that I saw Rebecca get serious.”
Jordan started laughing. “Okay, you had me going until you mentioned that last one. I can believe all the rest if it was you who told me it, but I can’t believe that last one.”
Jessica stared. “That was the most unbelievable thing? Seriously?”
Jordan nodded. “Um…don’t you know her?! She can’t be serious to save her life!”
Jessica crossed her arms. “Well, she was. She was in command of the mission, and I watched her tell off Triss–which was weird because she was just kinda hostile to Triss, without anything to provoke her. I’ve never seen her get that way. There were a few other moments where she abandoned all the silliness and got direct. She was still primarily the cloud-headed buffoon that she normally is, but those moments did happen. There’s more to her than I thought.”
“I had an opportunity to converse with the young Dreamwarden while on our journey. My conversations with the Marshmallow demonstrated a much more complex and multifaceted individual than she presents. I will not reveal things she told me in confidence, but they were enlightening. She may be impulsive and sometimes absent-minded, but it would be foolhardy to dismiss her intelligence and wisdom just because she is cheerful and encourages nonsense. She reminds me of Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie maintains a cheerful and playful persona as well, but most don’t understand that the party pony has intelligence that surpasses Twilight's. Pinkie Pie might be the most intelligent pony alive, but she is only interested in tasks and subjects to assist her in making others happy rather than broader fields. The Marshmallow may not match Pinkie Pie in intelligence, but she is not without it, and she has a broader group of interests,” Luna stoically commented. “I can also verify that Doctor Middleton is not speaking in jest about what we encountered, and I request you keep such information private. We do not wish this knowledge to become widespread.”
Jordan stared at Luna for a few seconds. “So…you are where Phobia gets it.”
Luna’s ears flicked. “Where Phobia gets what?”
“Being long-winded,” Jessica explained.
Luna frowned and snorted, flicking her tail. “I prefer to say it is being eloquent. May I trouble you for a room with a bed? I’m tired and need more sleep.”
“Oh, um…sure,” Jordan replied. “I guess you know your way around. Feel free to take any room you want. I recently redecorated, so many beds might be smaller, but we still have some bigger ones.”
“I can make do with almost any bed on Earth. You make them so big here,” Luna replied. She then yawned. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll leave you two to catch up.” Luna then walked away towards the house.
Andrea must have wandered off at some point. The guards were at their usual stations, with one near the front door, a pair out near the gate, and one walking around the yard. Luna’s teleport had brought them to the front of the house, a stone's throw from that angel statue that sat right in front of the main door. Jessica’s car still sat beside the statue with a cover pulled over it.
Jordan saw her gaze. “Some of the people here for the auction looked under the cover. They tried to get me to put your car on auction. They were offering a lot of money.”
“Well, thanks for not letting them get my car. The body was a gift from Wild Growth for when I earned my first Masters, but the engine is all my work,” Jessica replied. “I honestly don’t know what it’s worth to others, and I don’t care. A lot of work went into getting that thing roadworthy. I count it as my number three great accomplishment.”
“Number three?” Jordan asked. “I’m guessing that Middleton's Law is your top accomplishment you’re proud of; what’s number two?”
Jessica shook her head. “Middleton’s Law is number two. Someone else would have figured that out; I just beat them to the punch, maybe by mere months. What I’m most proud of is helping save all my friends during the Cataclysm of Riverview–primarily you.”
Jordan turned a much deeper shade of purple. “You’re making me blush!”
“Well, it’s true,” Jessica said with a grin as she grabbed the handle of her luggage. “I might not have done it all–it was a group effort, but I bought us time for Wild Growth to come to our rescue, and I specifically saved you. I’d have never been able to live with myself if my best friend died.”
“You almost died doing it,” Jordan said. “If I’d been braver and jumped when you told me to, Bill would never have gotten on the same branch as me. You’d have stayed a pony, and don’t give me excuses about how happy you are you didn't. We all know why the spell wasn’t able to make you completely human. You didn’t want it.”
Jessica involuntarily started to ball her free hand into a fist and gripped her luggage tighter with her other. If it were anyone other than Jordan who said that, she’d be screaming at them right now. Even her family couldn’t get away with saying something like that, but this was Jordan, and Jordan could get away with a lot more.
“Feelings change,” she replied, deciding to not commit to saying anything concrete about it. “But one feeling that won’t change is I don’t regret what I did and would do it again.”
Jordan must not have seen the fists, or maybe she failed to recognize the gesture for what it was–ponies, at least, younger ponies, sometimes missed that kind of thing. Jordan was practically beaming.
“Aww, thank you, Jessie,” Jordan said happily.
She took a deep breath, trying to hide her unpleasant feelings. She wasn’t going to let herself be mad at Jordan.
“How about we get out of the yard, and you can show me how you redecorated?” Jessica suggested. “I also wanted to talk to Amicus if she’s available.”
“Yeah, she should be,” Jordan replied. “Why do you need to talk to Amicus? Need a lawyer?”
“Yes, I do,” Jessica said with a nod as they started walking to the door, pulling her luggage along with her. “I was also told she might know how to do makeup and hair for humans. It would be nice to know something about that before going on a date with Adam.”
Jordan flicked an ear. “Amicus? Really? But she’s so old. Are you sure?”
“She was young once upon a time,” Jessica reminded her. “Maybe her beauty standards are outdated, but she knows at least the basics. Unless you think you know what you’re doing with human makeup and hair?”
“Um, not really,” Jordan said, frowning slightly. “I mean, it can’t be that different, but you’re right; it’s probably better to trust someone who has actually dealt with it before.”
“She’s the easiest to get in touch with. I could try Bev or Jenny, but Bev you have to make an appointment to even have lunch with, and Jenny is often on the road. I’m not even sure where she’s at right now. That makes me kind of a cruddy friend,” Jessica replied.
Jordan shook her head. “They’re both older than you; you’re like a kid to them. It would be like if Drizzle kept constant tabs on me. I wouldn’t expect her to do something like that–I would be a little weirded out by it, honestly. She has friends her own age to hang out with. She is a friend, but she’s just a kid too. I’d expect they feel the same about you.”
“As someone who was six years of age displaced, I don’t see it quite that way. Drizzle’s closer to our age than Jenny and Bev, close to the physical age difference between you and me, so what you said is a little unfair to her, but I get what you’re saying,” Jessica said.
Jordan laid a single ear back as we reached the front door. “Was it hard for you…dealing with me while you were growing up? We are only a year apart in age, but we were at two different stages of our life. It must have been annoying dealing with a seven-year-old filly when you were dealing with full puberty and all the other stuff you were going through.”
“I admit, if you were around all the time back then, I’d have probably told you a bunch of hurtful things that I didn’t mean,” Jessica said with a sigh. “It got easier when you got to be a teenager, and we were close to the same wavelength on the emotional maturity spectrum. My early teen years, the physical early teen years, were…not great. You adapted to being a teen faster than I did. It took me forever to get things straight. I think we emotionally matured somewhere around the same time.”
“I don’t claim to be perfect when it comes to being emotionally mature,” Jordan replied. “Then again, have you met Andrea? I think some people never emotionally mature.”
Jordan opened opened the front door, and Andrea was standing there.
“Oh…um…hi, Andrea,” Jordan sheepishly said. “Did you hear any of that?”
Andrea’s ears flattened, but she ignored Jordan and looked at Jessica’s luggage. “What is in your luggage? I initially thought it was Luna alone giving me a headache, but you’ve got something in there that makes me sick to my stomach when I focus on it.”
Fudge, that rock could be detected by crystal ponies. What would happen if she kept it in her apartment? Every crystal pony that walked by would notice. How far away could they detect it from? The closest example to compare it to would be crystal ponies feeling an alicorn. How close to an alicorn did crystal ponies have to be to detect them? There needed to be a solution for this. Why had Rebecca insisted she keep the thing?
“It’s something I picked up on my trip,” Jessica replied. “It is highly concentrated thaumic matter. It’s not dangerous. It is specifically keyed to me, and it has to be in physical contact with my skin to become active, and I have no intention of pressing any bare skin against that thing.”
Andrea grimaced as she continued to stare at the luggage. “You’d fucking better figure out some sort of plan for that thing. That’s the kind of thing Sunset would have locked super-deep in the vaults. My sister ever tell you about something she made called the Chorus?”
“No….” Jessica said, uncertain she wanted to know where this was going, but sure she’d find out anyway. “What the fudge is the Chorus?”
“Really powerful stone that she made years ago,” Andrea answered. “Like most of her brilliant ideas, it was the culmination of a lot of stolen research from different people that she put together into something they could never dream of. She thought she could figure out how to use it to power the entire state, maybe the whole East Coast, and kept it deep inside the Bastion. My dumbass sister was always good at outwitting herself. That fuck-face, Poly Glot, wanted to use it to spread an unstable version of her temporary transformation spell, you know, the lovely version that makes people nutcases like those crystal ponies that tried to kill you two and your friends, across the continent. That would have caused anarchy worse than the original ETS. I don’t know what the hell went on in the last minutes before that place blew the fuck up, but I know that the Chorus had to be part of what caused it. Things like that are bad news. My recommendation is to destroy that thing.”
Maybe her original assertion that the stone could move the Sun and end all life on Earth wasn’t as improbable as Rebecca made it out to be. No, it couldn’t move the Sun, but unless she had something to demonstrate otherwise, this stone made this Chorus thing that Auntie had made look like a piece of coal sitting next to an equal-sized hunk of uranium, and now there were a dozen such hunks on Earth. The Chorus alone might not have caused the Cataclysm of Riverview, but it certainly provided the power for it. What could these twelve stones do in a similar situation? They could take out the entire planet.
“You aren’t going to scare Jessie with that talk!” Jordan declared, oblivious that Jessica was very much scared. “Jessie is smart. She can figure out how to make it safe.”
Andrea sneered at Jordan. “Just like my smart sister kept the Chorus safe? Ha! Your friend is a genius, but she doesn’t understand practicality. She’s one of those people who live in theories and math, not figuring out what to do with that stuff. My sister, she was the opposite. She might not have been able to figure out the theory, but she’d find a dozen applications to anything people like your friend dreamed up faster than she could consider whether any of it was a good idea or not. I don’t trust smart idiots to keep us safe.”
She was smart, and she could prove she wasn’t a fool. The first thing to do was figure out how to hide the damn thing so crystal ponies couldn’t detect it.
“Hold a minute; I need to make a call,” she told the two ponies as she stopped and searched for her phone.
“Kansas never experienced droughts on this level in the last hundred years. The only major thing that has changed is earth ponies working the land. Any fool can tell they are at fault!”
Wild Growth’s tail flicked as she sat and listened to this pompous windbag speak. They were supposed to be listening to experts, but someone had decided to include this corporate hack who only saw numbers on a ledger and didn’t have a clue about botany, ecology, climatology, geology, or any number of fields that would assist in coming up with solutions for the groundwater crisis in the Great Plains. Well, to be fair, he could be helpful if he were willing to discuss his company providing a way of effectively rationing their water usage, but, no, he couldn’t be bothered to care about science. It had to be someone else’s fault, and it had to be the earth ponies, not the vast corporations that directed them.
Connie pushed a handwritten note to her. Don’t let the jackass get under your fur. Wild nodded to the note. She had nothing to say to this man. It was already clear he wouldn’t help produce solutions, and he would deny any responsibility for the crisis that was even now leading to deserts starting to form in parts of Kansas and Oklahoma.
“Just give us more rain! Talk to the CCS and negotiate more rain!” the idiot yelled.
They’d already negotiated that, and more rain was coming with the last tropical depression of the season. It wouldn’t be as much as he wanted. The Confederated Caribbean States only had the water of the storms to work with; they’d yet to get to where they could form their own depressions–although that was only a matter of time. Taking the water to Kansas and Oklahoma meant other places weren’t getting as much, which put strain on other areas. The only way to get more than had already been negotiated would be for the CCS to take the rain promised for Mexico, which wasn’t going to happen. Mexico couldn’t afford a weak rainy season with its current political climate. Not getting that rain would be the last straw that set off the violence, and they were already struggling to keep the Mexican government stable. Also, negotiating the change in rain had meant giving in to more demands from the CCS, more American-made ships to extend their control into Atlantic waters further. Giving the CCS even more control over the weather was not a good thing. It gave them far too much leverage to pressure the USA into doing what they wanted.
After centuries of being at the United States’ mercy, the islands had found something to unite them and make them a significant power. They controlled hurricane season, and in time, they’d likely control almost all the rain that came in the western hemisphere. People seemed to forget too soon how much power Saudi Arabia once held over other nations by dominating control over one vital resource. The CCS were poised to dominate a different essential resource, and water wasn’t something countries could wean their economies away from like they had oil.
Her phone started vibrating on her leg, and she lifted her leg to glance at who was calling. Jess? Why would Jess be calling her? Jess never just called her for no reason.
She stood up, attracting all eyes to her and briefly silencing the shithead. “Sorry, I have a call I must take. If I’m not back in time, I concede my time to the gentlewoman from Colorado.”
“Oh, the great Wild Growth, running away from responsibility again,” the corporate shithead sneered. “She could fix all our problems if she weren’t so lazy. Nobody believes you’re really burnt out.”
She did her best to ignore him. If she were eighteen years younger, she’d likely have thrown something at him or stomped and seriously damaged the chamber, but she had learned how to control her temper over the years and limited her reaction to flattened ears and a strong flick of her tail. The chairman was yelling at the douche, telling him he was out of line, and so was Connie. She gave no further response and exited the chamber out a side door.
The phone had stopped ringing, but once out of the chamber, she called Jess back. It only took a single ring for the girl to pick up.
“Wild? Thank you for calling me back so quickly,” Jess said, sounding relieved.
“I was in the middle of a Senate committee meeting, but it wasn’t going anywhere,” Wild explained. “What’s the problem? I’m assuming it is either money or something very big. Actually, before you tell me that, tell me where you are at.”
“I’m with Jordan and Andrea at Wabash Manor,” Jess answered.
Wild rolled her eyes. Of course, there was always some issue at Wabash. “Do me a favor; walk out the front gate and tell me when you’re at the sidewalk.”
“Why?” Jess asked in confusion.
“Because while you are inside the grounds of Wabash, this call is being monitored. I don’t know what you are calling about, it could be completely innocent, but I prefer not to have the FBI listening in. It makes me paranoid,” Wild answered. “Go ahead and walk out the gate. I know it takes a few minutes; I’ll wait.”
And wait she did. While she waited, she took two more pain pills, and screw it if anyone saw her taking them and tried to say she had an addiction to pain medication. They didn’t have to deal with their insides constantly ripping themselves apart and healing right back again at rapid speeds. Damn Sunset Blessing never found a solution to it…or at least…nothing that was a good idea according to her, though she hadn’t said what the bad idea was. If it was a bad enough idea Sunset Blessing to have her believe it bad, it was safe to say it was an extremely bad idea she wanted no part of. However, some days, she felt like she could entertain whatever bad idea it was.
It took Jess about two minutes to speak again.
“Okay, I’m outside the gate, and I’m shielding this conversation from being overheard on both ends,” Jess announced.
How did she manage to use her powers over the phone? They were across the continent from one another. Human magic tended to do weird things with electronics, so there was no telling.
“So…money or favor?” Wild asked.
“Favor, I guess,” Jess replied. “I went on an expedition to Jeg’galla’gamp’pi with Luna, Rebecca, and some others. While there, I acquired super dense thaumic matter. It isn’t very big, about the size of a textbook–a little smaller, but crystal ponies can feel it when they get near it. It gives off a lot of energy. A lot of energy, like the crystal ponies would feel around you or one of the alicorns. Rebecca insists I keep this damn thing. I need some way of shielding that energy from being detected. I know there are ways, but they’re way too expensive for me. I don’t need a whole room, like a box, maybe?”
Her mind immediately went to thinking of the Chorus, even though she’d tried not thinking about that thing ever again, but the Chorus wasn’t small. That thing had been an enormous crystal. Now they had carry-sized versions of that?
“I think we are better off destroying it,” Wild said firmly. “There are things that no one should have access to.”
“We literally can’t,” Jess replied. “It is super dense thaumic matter. It is indestructible. This thing could survive a nuclear blast or being thrown into a black hole. Rebecca explained the only way to destroy it is to kill me, and I hope you don’t think of that as an option.”
Wild’s brow creased. “Why would killing you get rid of it?”
“It’s got a connection to me. I’m still trying to figure out how that works, but it is my stone. It only reacts to me. It glows when I touch it, but not when anyone else does.”
The similarities to the Chorus continued to make her nervous. The Chorus had been tied to Tonya, but that didn’t mean its power couldn’t be accessed by others. She and the Dreamwardens needed to have a long talk about this thing and why they thought it was a good thing to give to a nineteen-year-old girl.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll get you a box. I’d say bury the box, but someone might dig it up. If I knew how to get into Sunset’s vaults, I would have you put it in there. Give me a day or two to see what I can do; then we can box this thing up and figure out where the hell to put the box.”
What the hell were the Dreamwardens up to?