//------------------------------// // Chapter Fifty: These Pink Eyes // Story: The End of Ponies // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// The End of Ponies by shortskirtsandexplosions Chapter Fifty – These Pink Eyes Special thanks to Vimbert, theworstwriter, and Warden for editing Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art         The flight of Harmony and Pinkie Pie wasn't lost to one particular guard. Gazing up under a rattling helmet, the young Dredgemaner gasped to witness the amber blur soaring through the mad fireworks of the night. He nervously reached for his net gun and aimed it towards the spectrally-assaulted sky.         Right then, the lamppost above him exploded in a flurry of multicolored sparks. Blinded, he let out an anguished cry and stumbled into two guards standing next to him. The three members of the militia collapsed in a confused heap, eliciting spontaneous laughter from the crowd.         The sound of cackling spread like hysterical wildfire—in tandem with row after row of suddenly sparkling lampposts—as every source of torchlight in the ravines of Dredgemane bled in a rainbow series of explosions towards the heart of Town Square... ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         ...where a stupified Breathstar was stumbling down the wooden steps of his scaffold, nearly tripping on the silken edges of his robe. He spun about and stared with disbelief while rainbow-sparkling lampposts added to the chaos of the colorful fireworks shooting overhead. He was further stabbed to hear a roar of a different thunder filling the expanse of Town Square with a bizarre sound, an alien sound, a joyful sound.         “Stop it!” The Counselor of Dredgemane snarled. “Stop it, you insufferable children! Stop laughing!” His commands were drowned out by the rainbow bursts that boomed with five times as much ferocity as his own voice ever could manage, pulpit or no pulpit. “This is supposed to be a time of worshipping Gultophine, not madness! Cease your exclamations! You insult the Alicorn of life with your giggles and chortles and—!”         A gigantic explosion—piercing the fireworks—lit up above him. The Bishop shrieked girlishly and covered his trembling, horned head as a fountain of brightly colored confetti fell over his dark mane. He glanced up, along with several gasping Dredgemaners, in time to see a cloaked figure atop the City Council building, reloading a cannon with another explosive ball of streamers.         “Look!” One voice out of several lit the air.         “The Royal Grand Biv!”         “It is!”                  “No way!”         “What's it doing here?”         “I swear to Celestia! He's unstoppable!”         “Mommy! Daddy! This is the best Gultophine's Harvest ever!”         “Snkkkt—Hahahaha!”         “Heeheehee!”         Breathstar shook. Breathstar quivered. Breathstar fumed. “Everypony!” He spat through the air and pointed an angry hoof towards the figure atop the City Council building while frowning in the militia ponies' direction. “Catch that Biv—!”         He yelped as another explosion of multi-colored party favors lit up above him. This time, it had been launched from another part of town far from the City Council building. Breathstar, Haymane, and Sladeburn spun to see the Royal Grand Biv standing miraculously across the Town Square in a blink, wielding a smoking cannon.         “H-how...?” Sladeburn sputtered, glancing blankly from Haymane to Breathstar to the flabbergasted Council members. “Oh Elektra alive! There's more than one of them! There's an entire bloody company of Bivs! Dang it all—”         Another explosion interrupted this lucid statement, as yet another shadow launched a cannon of confetti from the south side of the Square. The bonfire-lit crowd surged and murmured excitedly as militia ponies stumbled their way through the bodies in a desperate attempt to reach all three lofty shadows at once. The Royal Grand Bivs merely played with them, toyed with them, hopping in cyclonic, counter-clockwork fashion from one rooftop to another, firing off their party cannons into the great chaotic night of fireworks, adding to the prismatic insanity as the Dredgemane trinity reeled in helpless shock. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         At this point, a young and mesmerized Deacon Dawnhoof was standing up on his rear limbs, propping himself breathlessly to the lid of the thin window, staring up from cobblestone level to witness the many colored explosions lighting the air of Dredgemane like a great, joyous battlefield. Sparks and fireworks and streamers flew through the air. The Grave of Consus had become a frenzied party, and the young cleric-in-training felt his heart pounding with a euphoria that he had never felt before.         The candle atop the table of the barren place had snuffed itself out; the unicorn hardly noticed. He glanced his warm chestnut eyes across the names of dead ponies in the cobblestone just beneath his window. The bright rainbow flashes lit the chiseled letters with renewed vigor, like melting ice to hot molasses, something that could dare ghosts into dancing.         Dawnhoof couldn't help it. At the end of an exhaled prayer, he smiled... and he kept on smiling. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         Harmony's copper hooves landed in a dark alley, echoing with the sudden thunder and laughter of a brightly painted Dredgemane. Panting, she relaxed her wings, set Pinkie down, and galloped over to the edge of the corridor. She squatted low and craned her neck around the edge of the nearby granite building. She squinted her amber eyes across the street and saw the steel-frame of the Militia Headquarters.         Right then, the entire building's worth of reinforcements were presently scampering out of the structure. Three dozen militia ponies were nervously donning the last of their armor in mid-gallop as they struggled to answer the much-needed call in Town Square. The City was going up in rainbow-colored smoke. Every able-bodied guard pony was needed to combat the unfathomable waves of chaos assaulting the town, and that left the shell of the Headquarters...         “Empty,” Harmony murmured. A devilish smile. “Well, it worked, Pinkie. If I had a catch-phrase, I'd sooooo be saying it with a smirk right now.”         “Uhm...” Pinkie Pie blinked innocently. “'Narf?'”         “Let's not waste any time,” Harmony hissed under the thunder of the strobing fireworks and yanked the hood of her brown cloak over her amber-streaked mane. “Scoot!” She darted out into the street. Pinkie Pie yanked her hood over her fluffy head and bounced after her. Together, the two mares swiftly sneaked past a trio of guards desperately attempting to snuff out the sparkling mess of a torchlight. The pair flattened themselves against the front of the Headquarters, peered in through the crack of the entranceway, and slipped effortlessly inside. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         Haymane watched, his body reduced to a numb slump as he witnessed his beloved city being transformed into a series of laughable rainbow explosions. The Mayor hung off the frame of his wheeled tripod while Bishop Breathstar paced breathlessly and ineffectually before him, spitting and shouting desperate commands to the floundering droves of the Dredgemane militia who were attempting to thread their armored flanks through the crowd to get a better aim at the Royal Grand Bivs above with their net guns.         “Do not give them another chance to launch their vile, multicolored flak!” the pale unicorn shouted. “Is it enough that they've desecrated Gultophine's Harvest that we let them get away with this pathetic display?!”         “But Bishop, sir!” One of the younger militia ponies shouted. He monitored a pair of guards struggling to lean a thick net gun towards the three bounding shadows atop the surrounding rooftops. “They keep moving too fast! We can't afford to miss! Our supply of nets are running low!”         A plume of screaming, rainbow fireworks blew up behind Breathstar's mane. The priestly stallion flinched as Sladeburn galloped up and replaced the explosion with his own, growling voice.         “Counselor! You must get a hold of this situation! For the love of Elektra, your militia's letting utter chaos run amok!”         “Do not remind me, Overseer!” the Bishop snarled and shook a hoof at the guards. “Just fire your blasted weapon, already! Send those vandals off running—”         As he was shouting this, a cannon fired, but it hardly belonged to any of the militia ponies. A bright flash erupted on one of the rooftops, and a large glob of paint sailed down and exploded over a row of gasping, sputtering guards. Their armor was covered from mane to tail with every dripping color of the spectrum. Outside the range of the splashing liquid, the thickly gathered crowd of Dredgemane citizens broke into immediate laughter. The guards glanced at each other and their rainbow mess, and a few of them helplessly chuckled as well.         Bishop Breathstar would have none of it. “Stop laughing, you incompetent delinquents!” His eyes twitched as he roared at the flinching militia. “This night has become a veritable abomination, and I will not have you contribute to it—!”         His speech was cut short by a second volley of paint that fired from the rooftops and landed directly across his flank. The priest gasped as his rich, silk robes were soiled through and through with viscous, prismatic fluid.         Haymane's eyes twitched. Sladeburn winced. The crowd shuddered, snorted, and then broke into the loudest howls of laughter yet. Marble Cake's eyes dried in time to tear again, this time from the desperate shakes of her quivering giggles. Mister Irontail doubled over, wheezing forth a lurching breath as his entire body shuddered to produce a rumbling guffaw. The blacksmith's wife leaned against his side to stop from collapsing under her own cackles.         Breathstar fumed. He roared indistinguishable words at the militia. In a panic, the guards obeyed by firing madly—and blindly—up into the air. A squadron of flailing nets splashed through the sea of fireworks and colors above. The Royal Grand Bivs outran everything—the lights and the ribbons and the sparks—sending the madness of Dredgemane into a brighter and brighter blur as they continued pulling the greatest prank to ever grace the Grave of Consus.         Meanwhile... ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         ...in the stairwell of the Militia Headquarters basement, Harmony and Pinkie Pie dashed down a winding flight of granite steps. The scavenger from the future slid to a quiet stop in front of a metal door and pressed her head up against it, cautiously and expertly pricking her ear to listen for any signs of movement from beyond the frame—         Pinkie Pie gracelessly slammed into her.         “Ooof!” Harmony burst through the door with a loud metal clang. She emerged into the body of the candle-lit basement. Thankfully, the immediate hallway was empty of any remaining guards. Sighing, she cast a brief glare at a nervously smiling Pinkie Pie, then snuck ahead on a soft shuffle of copper hooves. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         A pair of blue eyes fluttered open. Her pointed ears pricking, Zecora sat up in the barren cot of a tiny, metal-barred jail cell. She raised an eyebrow as she awoke to a deep, bass rumble that was coursing through the steel-reinforced body of the building within which she was imprisoned. It felt as though a gigantic storm had erupted beyond the surface of the streets above her. Concentrating hard, the zebra could detect explosions, stomping hooves, and—most haunting of all—an utterly alien sound to the likes of Dredgemane.         “By the Shadows, is that laughter that I hear?” She murmured obligatorily to the walls of the cell. “Is this something that I should rejoice in or fear?”         “Pffft!” A bright, pink face suddenly pressed itself up to the bars across from her. “Seriously, girl?! Are you wacky-doodle in the brain noodle?!”         “Gaah!” Zecora shrieked and fell out of her cot. Lying on her back with her legs curled like a dead, black-and-white beetle, she seethed and frowned the mare's way. “Pinkamena, you gave me quite the start! One of these days you will be the end of my heart!”         “That's no way to thank the ponies who've come to bust your sun-swirly flank out of the militia tank! Heeheehee!” Pinkie Pie bounced aside and motioned towards a copper pegasus walking up and lowering her cloak's hood. “You tell 'em, Har-Har!”         “Well...” Harmony exhaled with a smile. “What we lack in punctuality we sure make up for with theatrics, don't you think?”         “Harmony!” Zecora beamed as she stood up on wobbly limbs. “You are a most righteous blessing!” Her eyes narrowed in a shuddering wince. “The superstition of these Dredgemaners is most distressing! With threats and imprisonment, they've left me quite vexed. I shudder to think what they have in store for me next!”         “Well, don't you fret a thing, Miss Zecora.” Harmony reached a hoof through the bars and gently patted the zebra's shoulder with a soft smile. “We'll have you out of here in a jiffy. As we speak, we've got all three Royal Grand Bivs distracting the entire city. That gives us an opportunity to—”         “Hold on for just a second, dear friends.” Zecora blinked confusedly at both Pinkie and Harmony. “There is more than one Biv and with them you have made amends?”         “Zecora, look...” Harmony sighed as her eyes melted into dull marbles that reflected the prisoner's expression of disbelief. “It's a long enough story as it is without having to discuss it in detail with a rhyming zebra. Let's just bust you out of this cell and then get the hay out of Dodge.”         “And don't forget Alex!” Pinkie Pie bounced while Harmony fumbled with the lock to the jail cell. She smiled Zecora's way. “Have you seen where Alex has gone?”         “Forgive my memory for being bleak. I do not know this name of which you speak.”         “The machine, Zecora,” Harmony said, glaring aside at Pinkie. “Have you seen what became of the healing machine? Y'know, the thing that you, Miss Pie and I spent all of friggin’ yesterday putting together? We heard from Sladeburn's lackeys that the militia may have dumped it down here along with your smexxy flank.”         “But we so totally came to free you too, Zecchy!” Pinkie added with a nervous giggle. “Alex was just icing on the cake.”         “Then this icing you will have to fast, I fear.” Zecora shook her head with a sad look. “I'm sorry, my friends, but the machine is no longer here.”         Pinkie and Harmony simultaneously blanched at that. They exchanged pale glances, then looked hopelessly at their companion behind the bars.         “You mean that Alex ran away?!”         “If it's not here...” Harmony couldn't help but snarl. “Then where the heck is it?!”         “Please do not fret, my copper salvation. The Dredgemaners merely took it to a new destination.” Zecora smiled proudly. “For I overheard in the middle of the night the guards' decision to move it to another site. It was on account of the Harvest, you see. They must have expected a daring robbery.”         “The guards aren't half the dum-dums that we half-thought they half-were!” Pinkie exclaimed.         “Did they say exactly where, Miss Zecora?” Harmony asked in earnest.         “Yes, though the truth will induce you to frown. It would appear as though they moved the contraption clear across town.” Zecora rubbed a hoof through her mohawk and thought aloud. “The city warehouse on 'Marble End,' I do believe, is where you'll find that which you wish to retrieve.”         “Har-Har!” Pinkie Pie gave the pegasus a worried look. “That is at least twenty blocks away!”         Harmony gulped. She stared up through the granite ceiling of the candle-lit basement and shuddered. “The rumbling is dying down. The fireworks will be done soon. If we still want the crazy lights and noise to act as cover, we better get friggin' moving—like—right away.”         “Then leave me, and make haste!” Zecora exclaimed, planting her hooves up against the bars with emphasis. “For the foals' sake, the machine you mustn't waste!”         “Did we or did we not say that we came here to bust you out?” Harmony frowned and returned to fiddling with the lock. “What the Dredgemaners did to you is cruel and pathetic, Miss Zecora. If anyone deserves a one-way-ticket out of the Grave of Consus, it's you.”         “Your sympathy is most endearing, friend Harmony. But unless you can pick the lock, this whole plan was just absurdity.”         “Yeah, keep saying that.” Harmony tensed her copper features. With Entropan strength, she snapped the lock clear off the bars and swung the jail cell door open. “There. Busted out. Can we go now?”         Zecora blinked, her blue eyes twitching fitfully.         “Heeheehee...” Pinkie Pie leaned in and nuzzled Zecora's cheek, winking at her. “I know what you're thinking, but the real question is 'Does she even lift?'”         “Miss Pie!” Harmony shouted over her flank as she made a brisk gallop for the stairwell. “No dilly-dallying! Let's make like a parasprite and split!”         “I'll tell you the answer later!” Pinkie waved at the zebra and trotted off. “Come on, Zecchy!”         Zecora exhaled long and hard and ran after them. “By the Shadows, after this insanity I am never again leaving Everfree....”         The three equines bolted up the stairs and entered the front atrium of the Militia Headquarters. They galloped briskly towards the wide, double-doors of the building, their only exit.         “Okay, Zecora, here's the plan. Halfway between here and 'Marble End,' we'll drop you off at one of the streets leading out of Dredgemane. Most of the crowd is located near Town Square, so you shouldn't run into anypony on your way out of the city. From there, head due west through the Grave of Consus, and you should be home free. It's a long journey back to Ponyville, I know, but at least you won't have to worry about Haymane or any of his cohorts treating you like a sack of manure anymore—”         “I appreciate your words of warning. But I currently do not plan on departing.”         Harmony stopped in her tracks and gave Zecora a double-take. “Say what?!”         “But Zecchy, you've been through so much—!” Pinkie began.         “I do not ask for your approval. Alas, this town cannot afford my removal.” Zecora stared emphatically at the other two. “I thank you kindly for setting me free. But I too wish to help the foals turn healthy. Until our business in Stonehaven is done, I shall not allow myself to be on the run.”         “Awwwww...” Pinkie Pie's eyes glistened as she cooed, “Has anypony ever told you that you're like the super duper queen of super duper zebras?”         “Just once, Pinkamena Diane Pie.” Zecora winked at her with a smile. “And suddenly I find it a great title to live by.”         “Well, the more the merrier, I friggin' guess.” Harmony sighed as she sauntered up to the doors and opened them in a flash. “Let's just save the warm fuzzy compliments for later when we can all afford to give a—” Her amber eyes widened. “Shoot!' She slammed the door shut.         “What?!” Pinkie Pie gasped. “Is it bats?!”         “No, it's not friggin' bats!” Harmony hissed, sweating suddenly through to her brown cloak. She gulped and opened the door just a sneeze. Both her anchor and the zebra craned their necks to see through the crack as well. They gasped at the sight of a solid line of guards—numbering beyond two dozen—who were presently marching with brisk speed towards the front entrance of the Militia Headquarters. Harmony groaned, “Okay, just what in Celestia's flaming flank is going on here?!”         “I thought the fireworks and the Bivs were distracting them!” Pinkie shrieked everypony's thoughts out loud.         “They appear to be lacking in their weaponry!” Zecora hissed. “Perhaps they have come back to restock from this repository?”         “Well that's just perfect.” Harmony grumbled under her breath. She flashed a look to her anchor. “Miss Pie, is there another way out of this building?”         “This place has a jail, Har-Har. The only way out is the way in.” She gulped and gnawed on a pink lip. “You could... uhm... m-maybe make an exit?”         At those words, Zecora glanced at Harmony's Entropan hooves, then at the pegasus' face. She raised an eyebrow.         Harmony exhaled in a slump. “Yeah, perhaps. But not without them seeing us. We can't afford to let them follow us to the warehouse where Alex—I mean the machine is.”         “We must make a decision immediately. They are approaching this vicinity!”         Harmony bit her lip and sweated, staring out the crack in the door as the guards marched closer and closer, their faces becoming discernible underneath their rattling helmets. “Come on, think. Think...” She murmured to herself, then shut her eyes and hissed into the crucible of her firing synapses. “For the love of oats, Princess Entropa, help me out here—”         Then, almost on cue, a loud braying noise could be heard immediately outside the building. Harmony's amber eyes flew open. She pushed the door slightly more ajar and was shocked to see a cloaked blue figure literally pouncing into the surging sea of armored militia ponies.         “Holy crap on a crap zeppelin!” the last pony exclaimed.         “Br-Brevis!” Pinkie squeaked.         Sure enough, the mule was throwing himself into the armored flanks of the many clambering guards. He crowd-surfed them with dirty hooves and yellow teeth swaying beneath sparkling torchlight and firework flashes.         “BraHahaHaha!” He yelped, bellowed, and laughed all the same. “The fates smile upon me! For I am finally taking a bath! And the water is made sudsy with the pathetic bubbles of a herd's army of pimply teenagers!”         The guards shouted and stumbled about, struggling to contain the thrashing, bucking mule in the midst of them.         “Oh what the hay?!”         “First the Bivs, and now this?!”         “It's that bum! Dang it all—Ow! My head!”         “Stop kicking, you lousy freeloader!”         “Freeloader?! Free of all loads of inane sacrament, you mean?!” Brevis shoved and bumped his way into the many armored shapes while laughing maniacally. “I'll have you know that I was raised on a freeloader farm! We planted seeds of whimsy and watched them sprout into dream-colored stalks that we ate off the plates of gods! But what worthless crumbs do you eat from and are they even worthy of a doggy bag, you hypocrites?! Verily, I baptize you with the holy water of ages. Ptooie!”         “Augh! Ewww—That's it! We don't have time for this! Put him in shackles!”         “We got you now, ya creep!”         “Elektra Alive, he smells!”         “Just grab him! Just—Augh!”         The guards reeled as he bucked them viciously while being engulfed in several dozen hooves at once. “Why do you fight true conviction, oh Dredgemaners! I am your secret Bishop come to administer grace! Ptooie! I baptize thee! Ptooie! Once more unto the bray! BraHa! Ooof!” His words were finally muffled as the entire company of guards piled on top of him.         “Wh-what's he doing?!” a very nervous, very panicked Pinkie Pie stammered.         Harmony's eyes twitched. In a solid breath, she said, “He's giving us a window of opportunity.” She glanced over her flank. “Let's move it! Come on!” She galloped out.         Zecora scampered after her. Glancing back at a frozen Pinkie Pie, she paused, shuffled back, yanked the yelping mare by the hood of her cloak, and dragged her along with the leading pegasus.         All three darted directly into the shadow of a nearby alleyway, beyond the sight of the guards who were too distracted in accosting the rampaging bum beneath them. Before the mares could make a complete exit, Pinkie Pie lingered behind, her teeth clattering as she stared fitfully into the fray before the Headquarters.         “Miss Pie! Let's move it!”         “But... b-but...” The candy-colored pony gulped. “Th-They got Brevis...!”         “He has made a noble sacrifice!” Zecora exclaimed. “But unless we hurry, it will not suffice!”         “We can't just leave the poor sap—!”         “Miss Pie, the foals, remember?” Harmony hissed under the lingering screams of fireworks. She clutched one hoof around her anchor's waist. “We gotta get the machine and we gotta heal them. Everything will change, so long as we get to the foals! Brevis knows what he's doing! We'll get to him later, I promise!”         “But—”         “No more delays!” Harmony wrapped her other limb over Zecora's flank. “Miss Zecora, are you scared of heights?”         “Friend, with eyes of orange, why do you—?” Before she could even contemplate a rhyme, she and Miss Pie were being hoisted high over the streets of Dredgemane via copper wings. “Yaaaugh!” she helplessly shrieked into the sea of colorful explosions all around. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         “Dear Counselor...” Haymane uttered, his voice drowned out by the mayhem of the grand glowing vista that was Dredgemane Town Square. “Bishop Breathstar, I am speaking to you—”         A soiled and furious unicorn stomped past the petite figure of his superior, too enraged by the taunting Bivs to pay the Mayor any heed. “Confound it! Captain, take your team up to one of the rooftops and get on an even hoof with those vandals!”         “But Bishop, the fireworks are making it too dangerous to climb any structure—”         “The Royal Grand Bivs are fearless! Why can't you be?! In the name of Gultophine's Spirit, I command you to climb up and take down those—”         “Counselor, we must think up a different strategy—!” a frowning Haymane tried to speak.         Sladeburn merely stomped up and drowned out the city leader's words. “Breathstar, if you don't put an end to this, I have the good mind to set dynamite to those blasted rooftops!”         “I am trying my best, you insufferable rock-digger! Perhaps if you helped me clear the crowds some so that we may have greater room to navigate—”         “Clear the crowds?! Breathstar, this was your insufferable ritual to begin with! Do I look like one of your ushers?!”         Haymane wheeled himself up between the two towering stallions and attempted to grab their attention. “Gentlecolts! Please! If you would just calm yourselves—”         “How dare you insult this most sacred of Harvests!” the unicorn sneered into the dark workhorse's brow. “You're almost as bad as the Bivs!”         “You compare me to those pathetic vagabonds?! I think somepony's robe is on too tight!”         “Do not incur my wrath, Overseer!”         “Or what?! You'll preach me to death?!”         Haymane snarled. He was about to shout, when a breathless guard pony ran up through the crowd of awestruck spectators under the flash of fireworks and confetti streamers. “B-Bishop Breathstar! Counselor, sir!”         “What is it?!” The unicorn spun with a snarl.         “It's the prison!” The guard panted and struggled to stand on four limbs as he spoke, “There has been a break-in! The zebra witch doctor is gone!”         “Gone?!” Breathstar's horn shimmered furiously. His eyes rolled back as he ran a hoof over his paint-stained face. “Blessed Gultophine, give me strength...”         “Who would have the audacity to help that zebra sideshow attraction escape?” Sladeburn remarked. His eyes shrank, and he growled, “The pegasus...”         “This was inevitable,” Haymane said with a shudder. He stared down into the confetti-littered cobblestone. The gray sepulcher lengths of Dredgemane were stained with a mosaic of colors. “If we had been subtler in our chastisement of the Canterlotlian and her allies, we wouldn't have this swift and merciless vengeance being dealt us tonight. I think we should—”         “Round up four companies of the militia!” Breathstar outright ignored Haymane's words. He stood angrily before the guard and grumbled, “Send them out into the streets! The Bivs are a mere distraction! We must find that insufferable pegasus and her heretical, zebra accomplice before they do something to threaten the security of this town!”         “What security?!” Sladeburn exclaimed, waving a dark hoof towards the fireworks that were only then starting to sputter and die. “This is an utter laughing stock!”         Haymane opened his mouth to say something—         “We must not give in to the Bivs' wicked agenda!” Breathstar retorted. “Right now, this town is full of chaos but completely devoid of answers. We need to find out what that pegasus is up to!”         “There's been another development, Bishop,” the guard said. He gulped and remarked, “Somepony was found at the scene of the jailbreak. A possible accomplice.”         “Somepony?”         “Well... 'some mule' is more like it.”         Breathstar stared into prismatic space. Then, with a blink, he slowly and icily frowned. “Bring me to the Militia Headquarters, without delay...” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         “Marble End” was a circular patch of cobblestone built into a granite pocket at the northern edge of town. The lofty wooden office of Haymane was within sight, basking above in the twin penumbra formed by the starlight and fading fireworks over Dredgemane.         Touching down on copper hooves, Harmony planted her anchor and the zebra down before the broad doors of a giant wooden warehouse. Her two companions wobbled dizzily as the time traveler squinted her amber eyes up at the three-story structure.         “Well, it's certainly broad enough to be a barn. I guess that'll make the next part easy.” She stepped back fifteen paces and grinded her hooves against the cobblestone.         “Harmony, I am amazed at your invulnerable skin.” Zecora fought a vomitous sensation and steadied herself. She weakly murmured, “It is like you have a goddess built within.”         “You couldn't be much further from the truth, desert dame.” Harmony smirked and tensed her muscles. “Now stand back as I make things easier for the three of us.” With a snarl, she galloped murderously towards the building with a flurry of Entropan limbs.         “Heehee! Hey, Har-Har! Look!” Pinkie Pie opened one of the doors loosely to the dark interior. “The silly thing's unlocked—”         “Gaaaaaaah!” Harmony tried to stop. She skidded, stumbled, and flew like a bounding missile through the black opening her anchor had just made in the entrance. A loud crashing noise emanated from deep inside the supply building.         Pinkie Pie winced. “Oops. I guess I should have given you a warning.” Belatedly, her ears flopped, her eyes fluttered, and her knees twitched. “Oh hey! There it is! Heeheehee!”         “Let us make haste!” Zecora shoved the candy-colored mare into the warehouse. “There is no time to waste!” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         Inside the building, a copper pegasus was struggling to disentangle herself from a wooden yoke that she had collapsed into. She tossed Pinkie a brief glare before ultimately snapping the structure to splinters and hobbling up onto even hooves. Along with her two companions, Harmony trotted down the lengths of several metal aisles. The rusted shelves were mostly barren, housing a random box or two every few paces.         “Whew... This place is like a robbed tomb,” the time traveler murmured. “Just what gives?”         “Dredgemane is in the middle of a rock harvest,” Pinkie Pie explained matter-of-factly. “Most of the city's commissioned tools are in the hooves of local farmers this time of year.”         “If anything, it should make the machine easier to find,” Zecora said. “You keep your eyes peeled and I'll keep mine.”         “Hey!” Pinkie Pie stopped at a wooden engraving of a goat-fish creature. “What's this thing supposed to be?”         “A celestial capricorn,” Harmony muttered.         “You sure?”         “Pretty sure.”         Pinkie shrugged and bounced along. In separate waves, the mares scanned the walls and aisles of the place.         “Come on... Come on...” Harmony took wing and flew down the aisles at a swift pace, keeping within forty meters of Pinkie Pie as she dutifully checked every metal shelf and platform with twitching, anxious ambers. “We don't have time for a friggin' game of finders keepers. Where is the dang thing?!”         “Alexxxx!” Pinkie Pie cupped a hoof to the side of her mouth. “Yooo hooo! Alexxxxx?!” She blinked. “Now, if I was a flaming vacuum cleaner, where would I be hiding?” She looked every which way, paused, then stood on her haunches. She clapped her hooves twice. Silence. “Nope. Guess that didn't work either.”         “Ponies, look in this direction!” Zecora called from the far corner of the warehouse. “It appears to be a box of supreme construction!”         “And it's empty...” Harmony said, squinting as she hovered down beside the zebra and beheld a giant metallic case stamped with the Dredgemane City Seal. “If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a lock box. Miss Pie? Is this the sort of thing Haymane would have important city materials secured in?”         “Erm... Maaaaaaaaybe...” The bright-maned anchor winced as she shuffled up. “I've only been in this place once with Daddy. They sometimes put samples of freshly mined arcanium in this thing before sending them off on their merry way to Canterlot.”         “Well, the machine's not here...” Harmony said with a growing snarl in her voice. “What's that mean, you think?!”         “It's gone!” a voice gasped from behind the three of them.         Zecora, Pinkie Pie, and the time traveler spun as one. Their eyes widened at the sight of four guards suddenly standing inside the warehouse, staring at them, their dark armor slumped over their limbs as they wilted in disbelief. For a brief moment, the militia ponies were more distraught by the fact that the lock box was empty than by the sheer presence of the three intruders.         “Oh Goddess Gultophine, have mercy. They took it!” Another guard's voice squeaked.         Harmony's brow furrowed. “Who took what?”         “That no good pegasus freakjob from Canterlot took the machine and obviously ran off with it—” The guard stopped as his gaze centered on the last pony and her two companions. “Oh. Well, crud.”         “Look.” Harmony raised her hooves. “Let's talk this over. A lot of crap is going down in this town tonight, and there's no need for us to get bent out of shape over—”         “What did you do with the machine?!” Another guard squawked, raising a glinting polearm. “First we hear you bust out the zebra, and now we find you here retrieving your weapon to unleash mayhem on Dredgemane?!”         “Does it look like we're retrieving anything?!” Harmony gestured madly towards the empty lock box. “If anypony should be explaining where the machine went, it's you guys!”         “Hey, we were sent to check on the warehouse after the Bishop found out about the jailbreak! We're not the rotten apples here!”         “Apples! Oooh... I could so go for some caramel right now!”         “Miss Pie...”         The lead guard gestured towards his comrades. All four aimed a phalanx of net guns and polearms at the intruders. “We've giving you on the count of three to tell us where you hid the weapon!”         “Dang it all! It's not a weapon!”         “One...”         “She's right! Alex is more like a flaming vacuum cleaner with an elephant truck studded with moonrock noserings!”         “Dear friends, I am deeply troubled. Explain to me this 'Alex' before my confusion is doubled.”         “Two...”         “Oh for the love of—We don't have the machine!” Harmony growled with her copper brow furrowed. “If we did, we'd be gone by now, don't you think?”         “Three! Dredgemaners, attack—!” The guard thew a hoof forward—         Pinkie Pie suddenly slid over to Zecora and forced the zebra's head forward in a deep bow. The candy-colored mare stuck her hooves into the equine's black-and-white mohawk. “Sandipedes!”         The four guards froze in their tracks. Their armor rattled. “I beg your pardon?”         “Sandipedes!” Pinkamena Diane Pie hissed, her eyes narrowing into icy sapphires that glared in a sinister fashion across the four militia ponies' faces. “They're like centipedes, only they live in the sand, and they're eeeeeevil!”         “Pinkie Pie! What are you—?!” Zecora sputtered towards the ground. She tried to raise her head but the bright pony hoisted her neck back down and parted her mohawk some more.         “In their Zebraharan homeland, zebras breed these creatures from the larvae, and then they give them a home in their mane so that they can launch them in a swarm at a hoof's drop!” Pinkie Pie slurred with dreadful menace. “Which of you vile Dredgemaners dare incur the wrath of the sandipedes?!”         “Dear Elektra, I hate zebra hocus pocus...” One guard shivered, his polearm shaking fitfully at the end of his hooves. “Just tell us what you want, and we'll hear you out!”         “Really?” Pinkie Pie smiled wide. “Hey, any of you got some munchies on you?! All of this running around and fireworks and stuff is working up an appetite!” The zebra in her grasp groaned and groaned.         The lead guard snarled. “She's bluffing!”         “Yeah, you think?” Harmony frowned. The time traveler pointed behind the guards' flank. “Why don't you ask Haymane's opinion?”         “M-Mayor?” The young guards all turned—         “Haaaugh!” Harmony bucked the nearest guard with a pair of Entropan hooves.         “Waaaaaieee!” He flailed as he soared through the length of the warehouse and crashed through a pile of wooden boxes. The other three beneath him reeled, yelled a warcry, and charged ahead.         Harmony spun, tossed her entire cloak off her “naked” body, and flung it over the face of one guard. The militia pony galloped blindly into a metal rack with a clang. In the meantime, Harmony twirled into another guard who was aiming a net gun at her. She swiftly stuck a copper wing out and slammed him in the chest. Bending over with a wheeze, he aimed his net gun point blank into the floor of the warehouse. Harmony reached her hoof in between his limbs and pulled the weapon's trigger. The cannon fired, and the expulsion of the net gun propelled its user backwards with a shriek so that he fell through a pile of rock harvesting equipment.         The fourth pony had pounced upon Pinkie Pie, shoving her off of Zecora. Pinkie gasped as she was forced up against a concrete support pillar, the polearm jutting sharply into the nape of her cloaked neck.         “Don't either of you move!” The young guard exclaimed, shivering as he held the time traveler's anchor hostage. He stared off against Harmony and Zecora as the second guard floundered under a blinding cloak in the background. “We're staying here until backup comes to arrest you! It's bad enough that we have the Royal Grand Bivs tripling in numbers and attacking this city without you having to—”         “Uhm, can you let me go?!” Pinkie Pie asked from under his weight.         “Shut it! You're not in control here!”         “Well, it's just that you've woken up Gummy, and I was kind of hoping he'd be asleep for this...”         “Gummy?” The guard looked up. From underneath Pinkie's hood, the pony's mane shook and parted ways. A wall-eyed reptile poked its head out sleepily, yawned, and fell forward so that its jaws clamped wetly over the guard's face. “Aaaaah!” The guard stumbled away from the candy-colored mare and reeled across the warehouse. “Getitoff! Getitoff! Getitoff!”         Zecora stifled a snicker. Harmony rolled her eyes.         “Help me! An alligator is trying to eat me!” The guard spat.         “Pfft—Well duh!” Pinkie Pie spat. “You didn't think I needed the munchies for me, did you?”         The guard gasped and flailed and tumbled his way into Harmony. The last pony effortlessly yanked the alligator off his face. The guard gasped, sputtered, and ran his hooves over his drool-stained but decidedly gator-less muzzle. “Oh... Oh praise Gultophine! Thank you! You are an angel—”         Harmony punched him in the gut.         “Ooof!” The guard lost wind and keeled over, unconscious, to the floor.         “Here. I think you dropped something,” Harmony droned as she tossed the tiny green reptile Pinkie's way. The mare bounced and caught Gummy with her forehead. The alligator yawned and crawled back into her fluffy mane. “Heeheehee! Have alligator, will travel!”         “Meh.”         In the meantime, the second guard finally... finally disentangled himself from the copper pegasus' discarded cloak. He blinked fitfully through the lengths of the warehouse, turned, and found himself staring point-blank into the snout of a “Zebraharan witch doctor.”         “Boo,” Zecora uttered.         “Daah!” The guard spun and ran straight into a concrete pillar. He was out like a light.         Silence fell. Harmony eventually cleared her throat. “Well, now that we've courageously wrestled with Dredgemane's Finest, what are we going to do about the machine?”         “I could have sworn it would be in this place,” Zecora said with a frown. “The guards' words I did not misplace.”         “Nopony's doubting you, Miss Zecora. But, if I didn't know better, I'd say some other burglar got to the machine before we did.”         “But who would want to steal Alex?” Pinkie Pie pouted. She blinked, then blushed. “Erm... b-besides us, that is. Teehee.”         Just then, a roar of approaching hoofsteps lingered from directly outside the warehouse. The three mares stirred with unease.         “I do believe we must relocate ourselves from hence!” Zecora murmured. “It sounds like too many for us to take advantage of their incompetence!”         “Nnngh...” Harmony spun with a growing growl from deep inside her gut. She gave the large, empty Dredgemane container an exasperated look. “Brand me with a rusted horseshoe. I hate this crap! Why can't plans ever work out simply? This idea was certainly stupid enough to have worked!”         “There is a time to mope and there is a time to fret.” Zecora nudged the pegasus towards a side door. “Let us move, for all hope is not lost yet.”         “Yeah, but move where?!” Harmony snarled as she sauntered towards the door.         “Anywhere but here!” Pinkie Pie gulped as the approaching hoofsteps grew in volume. “Gummy doesn't like crowded spaces! Believe me, you don't wanna be directly underneath a baby alligator when he's scared!” She rushed ahead and bucked the side door open. “Let's boogie!”         Harmony followed her anchor with Zecora in tow. Just as the dimly-lit aisles of the warehouse filled with the echoes of invading guards' hooves... ~*~*~*~*~*~         ...the three mares burst out into a thin alley directly behind the building. There, they almost immediately pratfalled into—         “A wagon?!” Harmony's jaw dropped. She and her two companions breathlessly stared at a four-wheeled, wooden cart lying in front of them. A grand, black tarp covered the entire rear of the vehicle. Judging from the trails in the dust below, the thing had just been pulled up to the rear of the building a few naked minutes ago. “Where did this thing come from?! Could it belong to the militia?”         “Nuh huh!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, nervously glancing down the end of the alleyway and towards the torchlit street dancing with the hoofsteps of several guards. “They don't haul anything around that they can't carry on their flanks. But does it matter? Har-Har, they're almost breathing down our necks! These aren't the good kind of goosebumps I'm having!”         “Shhh!” Zecora hissed. “Ponies, I fear our fate is bleak! They're so close that they can hear us speak!”         “We take to the streets!” Pinkie hoarsely whispered.         “Fat chance!” Harmony snarled under her breath. “They'll see us at this rate!” Her eyes twitched and she regarded the wagon once more. “Here!” She reached in and raised the tarp up with a copper hoof. “Let's hide! Quick!”         Zecora merely gawked at the idea. “Have you gone mad?!”         The scavenger from the future nodded. “Like a bat out of—”         “Eeek!” Pinkie Pie shrieked at the thought.         “Shhh! Inside!” Harmony practically tossed her anchor into the rear of the wagon. Zecora gracefully climbed in, and just as the shadows of guards loomed into view beyond the alley's entrance, Harmony slid into... ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         ...the back of the wagon and covered the three of them with the tarp. The burning aura of Gultophine's Harvest faded into a diffused glow as the opaque material obscured the madness of the night over the mares' trembling manes. The fireworks had easily died, and the sudden absence of chaotic thunder made the naked hoofsteps of the shuffling guards beyond the wagon all the more loud and imposing.         Pinkie Pie's teeth chattered. Gummy's wall-eyed face briefly poked out of her mane as she reached out and clung, shivering, to Zecora. The zebra held the earth pony tight as she stared quietly through the black material, her blue eyes darting within her deadpan face as she awaited the fate of the three equine souls. Harmony's Entropan wings coiled tightly—as did her copper limbs—as she prepared to spring her body violently outward at the first moment a random guard might happen to uncover them.         For the longest time, however, no single militia pony did just that. The three heard the guards' movement, heard their desperate shuffles, heard their stammering voices. Then, out from the midst of the muffled bedlam, one set of hoofsteps decidedly marched closer, heading towards the covered ears of the three outlaws.         “Mmmmm...” Pinkie Pie began to whimper. A black-and-white striped hoof covered her mouth. Zecora and Harmony exchanged worried glances.         The hoofsteps came to a stop right at the edge of the wagon. There was a pause. The clopping then resumed, orbiting the cart before coming to another stop, this time at the front of the vehicle. There was a tugging at the reins, and the wagon broke into a gentle roll, being dragged over the rattling cobblestones of the street lying blindly beyond sight of the tarp.         The last pony blinked, her amber eyes narrowing. She squinted across the dark rear of the cart at her two companions. “The cart's moving,” she obligatorily whispered. “We're being taken somewhere...”         “This certainly does not feel right,” Zecora murmured. “Who would make this delivery on such a hectic night?”         From beyond the obscurity of the streets beyond, there was the shouting voice of a guard: “Hey, you there! Halt!” A series of loud clopping noises galloped up to the cart as the entire vehicle lurched to a stop.         Harmony gulped. She muttered, “I think we're all about to find out.”                  The hoofsteps of two, possibly three guards stomped up to the side of the vehicle, their armor rattling just beyond the lengths of the flimsy tarp hiding the three ponies. “Why are you making a delivery during Gultophine's Harvest?! Don't you know that Mayor Haymane and the Council forbids labor on this holy occasion?”         The voice that retorted was a deep, slurring thing. “You call this 'Gultophine's Harvest?' You sorry sack of yahoos have let this day turn into a drunken rendition of a Wonderbolts Airshow! Trust me, I'm an expert on intoxicated absurdity.” The wagon-puller's voice took on an even more caustic tone. “As for my 'forbidden labor', I'm delivering much-needed medical supplies to Stonehaven, a place that can't afford to 'celebrate' Gultophine's Harvest. Now, need I remind you pimple-faced ignoramuses just whose idea it was to establish the sanctity of the city's sanitarium in the first place?!”         “Ahem. No. No need. If Haymane's hospital needs its supplies, far be it from us to impale such a process.”         “'Impede.'”         “Huh?”         “You meant to say 'impede such a process,' not—Nnngh—You know what? Forget it. Go find yourselves a thesaurus, ya lousy teenagers. Celestia knows you'll have much better luck grabbing that than the Biv.”         “Hrmmm... Be on the lookout, sir. There're foul miscreants about.”         “Aren't there always?”         The guards' hoofstops clopped away, and soon the wagon was rolling off down the cobblestone street once more. Zecora blinked across the dark recesses of the tarp-covered vehicle. “By the Shadows, unless my mind is sore, I do believe I've heard that voice before.”         “Of course you have,” Harmony murmured. She navigated the intoxicating fumes of whimsy before blossoming forth a drunken smile. “Vimbert, you hollow-horned rascal, what are you up to?”         Pinkie Pie suddenly gasped. “It's Alex!”         Harmony blinked across the way and whispered to her, “Vimbert, Miss Pie. It's Vimbert.”         “No!” Pinkie Pie grinned wildly, slid across the wooden bed of the cart, and pulled a canvas blanket off the unmistakable shape of a black metal healing device. “It's Alex, see?!”         Zecora did a double-take, her blue eyes wide.         Something twitched in the last pony's copper forehead. She reached across the wagon and ran her hoof across the familiar body of her own hoofcraft, from its bottle of glowing orange flame to its sparkling thunderpearl to its long, runestoned neck. She glanced with disbelief at Pinkie Pie. Her anchor smiled cheekishly back, positively glowing pink.         “What are the odds, Har-Har?! Huh? What are the odds?”         “I don't know...” Harmony smirked. “But somehow I don't believe we have a mathematician to thank.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~                  Through the black gates and before the gray granite steps of Stonehaven, an orange unicorn in a dark jacket pulled the wooden wagon to a stop. The rest of Dredgemane glowed brightly beyond the lengths of the serpentine trenches behind him. The air above the Grave of Consus had been joyously stained with rainbow-colored mists on account of the combined smoke of the dying fireworks and sparkling lampposts.         Mutely, the former college professor disentangled himself from the reins of the vehicle. Vimbert shuffled over towards the side doors along a stretch of the building's first floor and opened them wide. Suddenly pausing, he sighed long and hard. He then spun about to face the wagon and leaned back against the doorframe with his blue eyes hanging in a bored squint.         “Are you ladies coming out or do I have to drag you out by your nostril hairs?”         Silence.         He folded his forelimbs and frowned. “Well?!”         The tarp shuffled. One head poked out, then a second, then a third. An earth pony, a pegasus, and a zebra limply stumbled out of the wagon with the metal contraption in tow.         “Mister Vimbert...” Harmony stared at him.         “Who'd you expect?” He grunted. “Mystery Janitor X?”         “Heehee! Oh Bert!” Pinkie Pie bounced up and smiled in his face. “I'd sooooo hug you right now if knew you wouldn't burn to the touch!”         “I'm afraid I do not understand this turn of events.” Zecora trotted out in the open, glancing curiously at the orange unicorn. “Harmony, is this another one of your arrangements?”         “I wish I could say that it was...” Harmony spoke aside to her black-and-white friend. All the while, she stared quizzically at their brown-maned savior. “Mister Vimbert, do you realize that you just single-hoofedly saved the machine, my friends, the foals' lives, and perhaps all of Dredgemane's fate?”         “Sure, why not?”         “Uhhh...Don't take this the wrong way and crud...” The last pony leaned forward, squinting hard. “Can I ask why?”         Vimbert ran a hoof through his bangs beneath the shattered horn. He sighed and produced a limp shrug. “Mmmf... Meh. The bar was closed today.”         “The bar was closed today...”         “You heard me.”         “So, uh, is this what you do when you're sober?”         “No.” He frowned. “This is what I do when I'm stupid.” He pointed a hoof towards the glowing reaches of Dredgemane's Town Square beyond the granite trenches. “Haymane's militia will come crashing down on whatever silly plan you've got going like the hoof of an angry Princess Celestia. Quite frankly, I think I just ended whatever peaceful existence I had going here.”         Harmony raised an eyebrow as her lips curved. “And just what peaceful existence was that, pray tell?”         “Aye, there's the rub,” he said with a yawn.         “Uh huh, that's really cool,” Pinkie Pie unemotionally droned, then in one bounce she spun to face the last pony. “Let's introduce Alex to the foals already!”         “Zecora...?” The last pegasus subtly pleaded.         “But of course, Harmony. I shall assist gladly.” Zecora lifted one end of the machine and Pinkie lifted the other. Together, the two equines carried the healing device through the double doors of Stonehaven and into the basement of the sanitarium. Harmony and Vimbert followed suit. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         The unicorn janitor carefully shut the wooden side entrance to the basement at their rear. He was in the middle of locking it when Harmony, lingering behind while the other two ascended a nearby stairwell, trotted up and stated, “As much as you've always admired the martyr, I don't think that's what you've become today.”         The orange stallion grunted over his shoulder. “I beg your pardon? What martyr?”         “'And so it is the world began, and so it is the world shall end.'”         Vimbert blinked. He turned and glanced curiously at her.         She smiled back. “I knew I recognized those words. It wasn't until the night before last, while talking to Miss Pie, that I suddenly remembered who had spoken them.” She leaned her head to the side as she gazed deeper into the jaded unicorn's blue eyes. “It's what Starswirl the Bearded said as he scaled the gallows of the Lunar Republican camp at Whinniepeg. He was facing his execution.”         “You know, I never did care for the term 'Lunar Republic.' It's a historical fallacy, to say the least.”         “That's not the issue, Mister Vimbert,” Harmony said, shaking her head. “The fact is, Starswirl the Bearded, toward the end of his life, fought for Princess Celestia's cause so diligently and for so long. Still, even for a unicorn of his age and wisdom, he too succumbed to the overwhelming ennui brought about by the Celestial Civil War. He could have avoided his execution, but instead he allowed himself to be captured and killed. He allowed himself to become a martyr. Why? He no longer believed in progress, or providence for that matter. He felt that the world was summed up by its present as much as its past, that there'd be no hope for anything but death and bloodshed for all of Equestria. Though it was a noble death on his part—a sacrifice that swayed the Celestial Army into a swift, retaliatory victory at Whinniepeg—it's a wonder to imagine just what would happen if he had chosen to do another, far braver thing. Imagine if Starswirl the Bearded had chosen to live. What miracles could he still have accomplished in the name of science? What magical spells would he have woven for the Court of Canterlot? What... What a joyful and luscious world could such a legend as Starswirl have witnessed today?”         “Jee, you're making me misty-eyed,” Vimbert droned. “Is there a point to all this?”         “The point is, Mister Vimbert,” Harmony trotted around him with a smirk. “Is that for a unicorn with a broken horn, you've got a lot more gumption than even the legendary Starswirl ever did, because where he gave up, I think you just now flew beyond.”         “Yeah, well...” The janitor sighed and dug a hoof lethargically into the dusty floor of the basement. “A soul gets tired of watching the ashes of this world weep for children when nopony else will. After hearing that you, of all ponies, came back after being banished by the Council, I guess I heroesquely decided to do something genuine for a change.”         “Incorrect.”         Vimbert blinked at her. “H-huh?”         “'Heroesquely' isn't a proper adverb.” She winked at him with a wicked smile, then cantered off towards the stairwell after Zecora and Pinkie Pie.         Vimbert's brow furrowed, but then his face produced a glowing smirk. “I'll make your mother an adverb,” he muttered, and followed swiftly after the pegasus. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         Brevis wheezed, sputtered, and chuckled through a fresh frame of bruises that hung across his blue features. He hung in a slump, dangling from a series of rusted metal shackles that anchored him to the steel-reinforced wall of the Militia Headquarters' basement jail. “It was a free and green world, full of curiosity and discovery,” he sing-songed with a crooked smirk of yellow teeth. He gazed up as his eyes reflected a pale figure lingering before him. “And then the robes came...”         Bishop Breathstar frowned down at the cloaked creature. The rainbow paint against his immaculate silk and coat had hardened into crusty bits of bitter hues. At least three dozen guards filled the cramped basement alongside him, pointing their polearms at the haggard, hoof-cuffed mule as if the bum would explode at any second. With flaring nostrils, the tall cleric glanced aside at one of the militia ponies and uttered, “Has he breathed a word about the location of the zebra?”         “No, Bishop. He's been rambling nonsense ever since we brought him down here. He put up quite the fight, even busted a nose or two. So, we had to chain him to the jail cell wall.”         “There is no prison except for a life lived backwards,” Brevis slurred, grinning wickedly. “Like a horse who backtrots into the ocean. What do the sea ponies know of madness? You can only float in the waters; you cannot fall! BraHahaHaha—” His laughter dissipated into a series of wincing coughs.         “We were... uhm...” The guard shifted nervously beside Breathstar. “We were hoping that your authority and conviction would inspire him to tell the truth with more vigor than he was willing to do before us.”         “My words spark action amongst the righteous,” Breathstar murmured in a dull breath. He fought to maintain his temper as the madness of Dredgemane roared overhead to spite him, spurred on by the confusion and the cacophony produced by the undaunted Bivs. “In the ears of heathen outcasts, they mean nothing.” Nevertheless, the priestly unicorn strolled a few meters forward and leered above the battered mule. “My child, there is no pony...” He winced slightly at that last word, but tactfully continued, “...who is so lost that Gultophine's Grace cannot find him. If you tell me where your accomplices took the zebra, then I shall use the authority granted me by the Church to absolve you of a lifetime of horrible sins.”         Brevis grinned. His eyes rolled back as his head rolled back and he fell against the slack of the chains. “Ohhhh to be a butterfly catcher on this night of short screams and explosions! I would spin my net before a fountain of fluttering sins, for I would not know what a transgression was until I caught it, until I kissed it deeply and told it how sorry I was for imprisoning an atrocity by the sheer fact that I willed it into being!” After a dry chuckle and a sputter, he hissed through smiling yellow molars. “There is nothing to absolve, for I would never pin such delicate, winged blemishes to any wall. Not yours, not mine, not Consus', for even he was too busying plotting his own death to ever plan living beyond it. A god of self-defeat is as much a mortal as you or I.”         The Dredgemane guards instinctually reacted with shocked gasps and murmurs. Bishop Breathstar frowned harder. He gritted his teeth and practically snarled, “Listen verily, dear sir. If you do not tell me what I need to know—what this entire town's future depends on knowing—then I will have no choice but to—”         Before he could so much as construct a threat, another guard suddenly rushed into the basement jail and trotted up up to the Bishop. He removed his helmet and bowed low. The multicolored battlescars of the street blemished his armor as he nervously rattled forth, “Counselor, sir. There's been an incident in the supply warehouse at Marble End.”         Something in Breathstar's eyes twitched violently. “You mean where we relocated that infernal machine?!”         “It's... It's gone, sir,” the guard stammered. With a gulp, he then added, “Four guards were found knocked unconscious at the scene. We managed to wake one of them up. He told us that the machine was taken by the pegasus, the zebra...” He winced before adding, “...and Quarrington Pie's daughter.”         Breathstar took a deep breath. He glanced into the jail cell.         Brevis merely grinned back.         The Bishop's nostrils flared. “Captain...” he spoke to one of the nearby guards. “Go to Town Square, and summon Overseer Sladeburn.” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         Nurse Angel Cake was a trembling mess. Pacing nervously across the Immolatia Ward, she quietly and dutifully checked on each of the sleeping foals, making sure that they stayed blissfully locked in their bed-laden slumber as utter chaos spread across the lengths of Dredgemane like a rainbow blight. Her eyes nervously flickered across the glowing horizon of granite beyond the fourth-story windows of Stonehaven. Her heart raced wildly under her sanitarium gown as she trotted from one bed to the next, stifling a foalish whimper of her own.         Suddenly, there was a shuffling noise from beyond the hallway door. Angel Cake spun with a gasp, staring across the ward. She worriedly trotted over to her nurse's bench, leaning against it with a tremble. Before she could utter anything, the door opened quietly. An orange unicorn shuffled inside, his calm blue eyes gazing across the shadows of sleeping children until he met the nurse's gaze.         “V-Vimbert!” Nurse Angel Cake stammered. “What are you doing here at this hour?! What's going on in town?! Where is—?”         “Shhhh...” Vimbert calmly trotted over and placed a hoof across her lips. Quietly, he smiled and said, “I bring you a gift.” He stepped aside, revealing Zecora and Pinkie Pie as they marched into the Ward with a black metal contraption balanced across their flanks. Following up the rear, a naked copper pegasus shuffled inside and closed the door to the dark hallway behind her.         “Oh Dear Gultophine...” Nurse Angel Cake trembled and fell down to her haunches. Her eyes darted confusedly between the time traveler and the bizarre machine. “What is happening? I-I can hardly take this anymore...”         “Oh Angel...” Pinkie Pie smiled sweetly. After helping Zecora place the machine down on the floor, she bounced over to the nurse's side. “There's no more need for scaredy-catness. Remember what I always sing to the children?”         “P-Pinkamena...” Angel Cake recoiled from her. The mare's eyes instantly filled with tears. “Please... Please forgive me. I'm so sorry. I-I told them everything. Breathstar's priests came and were asking all of these questions and... and I was scared! I was sc-scared for the children, and I don't even remember why anymore! H-how could you even look at me after all I've d-done...?”         “Shhh... Shhh...” Pinkie hugged Angel Cake close to her. She smiled warmly over her shoulder and hummed into the pony's ear. “It's alright, ya silly filly. You did what you had to do. I'm not even remotely grumpy about it, and neither is Inkie! Let's be joyful tonight. Okie dokie lokie? This is going to be nothing but a happy evening, I promise you! Pinkie Pie Swear! Heeheehee!”         “I... I-I don't understand...” Nurse Angel Cake shuddered and parted from the hug with a sniffle. She gazed at the machine while biting her lip. “What are you doing here? Just what is that thing?”         “The stuff dreams are made of,” Vimbert said while lighting the first of several lanterns across the room.         “Alas, there is no proper ritual for the history we are making,” Zecora spoke in Harmony's direction. “Shall we wake the children for this undertaking?”         “Yeah.” The last pony nodded as she trotted over towards the machine. “Better make it quick. The Bivs are awesome, but they can't keep the town's attention forever.”         “Alright, ya little squirts!” Pinkie Pie bounced loudly across the black-and-white tile floor. She stomped her hooves between the beds and chirped through the air, “You colts and queens of the ocean! Your Auntie Pinkie Pie is here! Time to wake up and smell the Alex! Heeheehee!”         “Could she make this any less graceful?” Vimbert remarked with a raised eyebrow.         “It's a charming grace,” Harmony said, hoisting the machine up in her front limbs as she braced her copper flank against the wall. “It grows on you, sort of like the drunken-boxing of infinite altruism.” She took a deep, shuddering breath for courage and gripped the pull-string to the machine's crankshaft. “Now let's kick some major infernite butt—”         The world suddenly jolted. A wave of bright light swam across the Immolatia Ward in a billowing explosion. At first, Harmony thought it was a belated firework having flown violently into the side of the Stonehaven Sanitarium. Judging from the unfliching bodies of the foals who were slowly stirring to wakefulness, she realized that she was the only pony in the room to have noticed the phenomenon.         Then it happened again, and the emerald hue of the flickering flame was unmistakable. A piercing migraine briefly rocketed through the time traveler's skull and flew back down to a suddenly surging core deep within her Entropan chest. Harmony gasped, and the voice that came out was a wavering thing, hanging off the flaming tongues of fatefully crumbling cohesion.         “Oh no...” ~*~*~*~*~*~*~         “It is hypnosis,” Brevis slurred. He hung off the wall of the jail cell as a dark and ominous shadow crossed his blue, cloaked figure. “Some ponies call it 'faith,' others call it 'ritual,' but goodly Brevis knows what it is. It puts our extremities to sleep when we should be dancing to our own beautiful music, a music we could have composed, a music we can still compose, for the wind that begs to fly through our wind instruments is a free wind, a gorgeous sphere of air donated liberally to both gods and ghouls alike. Who are we but good Equestrian minds lingering in between, hungering for knowledge, hungering for the escape from the shackles of such hypnotic bondage that keeps us from cantering beyond ourselves?”         The shadow belonged to an ever darker shape, that of Overseer Sladeburn. The workpony shook his head and frowned at the sight before him. “By Elecktra's limbs, does he ever shut up?”         “He has no respect for my authority nor my ministry,” Breathstar murmured into the stallion's ear from where they both stood in the basement of the Militia Headquarters. “I figured that he might... be more apt to respond to your style of persuasion.”         “But of course, good Bishop,” Sladeburn said in a soulless tone. “When Gultophine wills that you must apply force, we Dredgemaners know where your words end and my hooves begin, do we not?”         The priest suddenly shuffled where he stood, as if a grand piece of his pride had crumbled in an instant, or else it wasn't even there to begin with.         Sladeburn took a deep breath. “No matter.” He glanced aside at his fellow administrators whom he had summoned from the flaming streets of the rainbow-tainted town above. “If you will, please?”         One lackey nodded at him. With the assistance of another pony, he lifted a black iron box and unlatched it. Four horseshoes of dark steel rested in their wooden frames. The Overseer reached in and pulled out two of them. As he fastened the articles to his front limbs, several razor-sharp cleats glistened in the basement's lantern light. Each barb was easily four centimeters in length, and they showed the chips and wear of age, of having been used over the decades to carve into innumerable burrows throughout the quarry, digging deeper the gaping wound into the Grave of Consus.         The guard ponies surrounding the Overseer shifted uncomfortably. Many of them glanced forlornly in Brevis' direction. The mule visibly gulped, but his smile only beamed brighter. “What is a proponent of the herd if not an observer? Even as he sings the psalms of a dead god and pledges his heart to all that decays, he is not growing, he is not falling, he is only what he is, forever and ever, an eternally recurring accident made forever jaded, for he will not take advantage of the brilliant gasp of the rainbow-stabbed instant.”         “Yeah, you keep talking.” Overseer flexed his limb and observed the mining cleats in his hooves. “I don't know what makes me more sick, that you never stop being an annoying bum, or that you decide to test our patience on a tragic night like this month's botched Harvest.” He trotted darkly into the cell and stood above Brevis, each hoofstep a metallically ringing horror that echoed against the bars of that suddenly claustrophobic coffin. “Everypony in Dredgemane knows that you don't have a job. So, since you're no fan of work and more accustomed to play, let's have ourselves a game. We're going to see what comes out of you first: all that you know about where your friends took the machine, or all of your teeth. Either way, following the rampant embarrassment of tonight...” Sladeburn's dark eyes narrowed. “I'm going to enjoy this.”         “Hmmmm-Hmmm-Hahaha!” Brevis' eyes lit up as his head tilted from his fettered position against the wall. “You cannot see what she sees! You cannot see the bright shinies! What do you have to enjoy?! BraHahaHaha!”         Overseer Sladeburn twisted his whole body back. He raised his hoof. The guards bit their lips. Bishop Breathstar looked away. The mule laughed and laughed. When Sladeburn uncoiled with a swing of his serrated horseshoe, the laughter turned into a splash of juices across the jail cell's wall, and all of them red.