Pony Gear Solid

by Posh

8. Honey and Vinegar

When you consider just how quickly the situation in the castle deteriorated, the fact that we survived at all was nothing short of a victory in itself. I'd gone into unfamiliar, hostile territory, with limited armament and a squad of ill-trained locals at my back, and not only did we successfully extract a hostage, we neutralized not one, but two potentially game-changing pieces of hardware – the IRVING unit and the Hind-D gunship – at the cost of one fatality and several casualties. Significant casualties, granted, but not life-threatening. Add to it the destruction of a small, but significant, outpost and a supply cache, and, from a military standpoint, we'd made out rather well.

From a morale standpoint, well... things could have been better.

I leaned against the trunk of a dead tree, dangling a cigarette from my lips. I'd popped my shoulder back into place and, with the help of Rarity's telekinesis, jury-rigged a sling for it out of my bandanna. It wouldn't hold forever, but it was better than letting it dangle. The others, what was left of the band that had gone into the woods, rested, nursing their respective wounds. From the intermittent sobs coming from Rarity, I figured they were grieving, too.

The loss of Rainbow Dash had robbed the ponies of whatever momentum they'd had. They held it together long enough to drag Twilight's unconscious body away from the chasm and into the underbrush where we'd hidden on our arrival at the castle, before fatigue and demoralization dragged them down and they all collapsed where they stood. Rarity cried. The rest didn't make any sound at all. Maybe they were too tired and sore to do anything but stew in their grief. If I'd taken a beating like that, I started to think, and then my shoulder throbbed powerfully, and I grimaced. Right. I had taken a beating like that.

Applejack was curled up in the grass, her eyes half open and her tail wrapped around her body, its tip resting on her nose. Her mane was singed where IRVING's flame thrower had burned off her hat, and the skin on her back was red and exposed. It occurred to me that she'd traded the life of her sister for the life of one of her closest friends. I doubted that was lost on her, and maybe that's what she was thinking about as she lay there.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie rested close to Twilight, who slept soundly, looking more content than any of us had any right to be. Every few minutes, Rarity would glance at Twilight, then sigh almost too softly for me to catch before turning away again. Pinkie, on the other hand – or hoof, I guess, if we're being pedantic – looked pensive, not agitated. She sat on her haunches, with her face drawn into a frown, and her forelegs were crossed over her chest. With one hoof, she periodically tapped her chin, emitting "hmm"s and "huh"s, as if she were pondering some great mystery. If she was grieving for Rainbow Dash, she had a funny way of going about it.

We'd malingered for thirty minutes, at least, before I started getting restless. I took a look at the path, wondered if I should say anything about getting back on track, but decided against it. After all, when would I get another opportunity to smoke without being lectured? I took a long, savory drag off of the cigarette dangling from my lips, held the smoke in my lungs for a bit, and released it in a slow breath.

"What do you think we should do next?" Pinkie whispered, breaking the silence at long last. "After we get back to Ponyville, I mean."

I didn't know who she'd been addressing – maybe all of us? We all looked at her, Applejack with one half-lidded eye, and Rarity with an expression of surprise, as if Pinkie had jarred her out of some daydream. She was the one who ultimately answered Pinkie, for which I was grateful. I wouldn't have spoken to her if I could've helped it.

"I suppose we find a way to warn Princess Celestia about what's coming," said Rarity, after that long, awkward silence. "Sending a letter is out of the question, since..." I heard a sniffle and a hiccup in her voice, and she dabbed a hoof against her eye. I wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.

"We could travel to Canterlot," Pinkie suggested. "Take the train, all seven—" Her sentence cut off, and there was a long silence before she timidly amended "all six of us."

"Rainbow Dash." Rarity sighed. "When the Princess raises the sun next morning, it's going to shine a little less brightly."

Pinkie looked at Rarity, perplexed. She tilted her head, one ear flopped to the side like a puppy. She blinked once, twice, and on the third, she kept her eyes shut and giggled. That was damned unsettling. "Silly Rarity," said Pinkie. "Dashie's not dead."

Rarity bowed her head. Tears blackened by mascara ran through the dirt-streaked fur on her face. "Oh, Pinkie," she sobbed, and she buried her face in Pinkie's chest.

"She isn't. She isn't," Pinkie insisted. She placed her hoof on Rarity's back and rubbed gently, soothingly. "I know she's not."

"You seemed pretty certain," I said, "back at the bridge."

Taken aback for only a second, Pinkie replied, "Well, duh, because I didn't have time to think about it. But now that I have, I'm totally one hundred percent sure – Dashie's alive." She looked at Applejack; the mare had stirred from her doze, and was watching her friends with a melancholy look on her face. "Applejack, back me up on this."

Applejack, like Rarity, was hesitant to answer. Doubtless, she wanted to protect her friend's feelings, but enabling Pinkie here would just feed into her delusion, and that wouldn't be good, in the short or the long-term. "Well now," said Applejack at length. "I reckon it depends on what happened back there." She looked at me. "With us bein' so tired an' all, Snake, ya haven't said exactly what went down with you an' Twi an' Dash. Since Twi's out like a rock, I guess that leaves you to tell the tale."

Well, damn. Way to pass the buck. I took another drag off my cigarette before I started. "The keep caved in on itself before we could get clear of it. Rainbow Dash got pinned beneath some debris. There wasn't time enough to dig her out, so she gave Spike to Twilight and I, and told us to get moving." I paused. "IRVING came after us not too long after that. It might have gotten Rainbow Dash before it caught up to us."

Not that it would have made much difference when the castle imploded whether or not IRVING got her. She would have been buried alive when the foundation gave way and the keep and its surrounding area collapsed. Death at IRVING's hands (or claws? feet?) would have been quicker than being crushed or suffocated, granted, but that's the best that anyone could hope for.

My answer made Applejack shoot a worried glance at Pinkie Pie. "But y'all didn't see it get her?"

I frowned, knowing full well where she was taking that line of thought. "No. But it's safe to assume—"

"So it's possible that she's okay," said Pinkie, interjecting quickly. A satisfied smile broke across her face face.

"Not probable, though," I pointed out. "The keep collapsed because of the damage IRVING did when it crashed through the window. The demolition charges we were running from hadn't gone off yet. When they did, everything in the surrounding area would have fallen into the castle's catacombs, and Dash would have been buried under tons of rubble when that happened. And you're still ignoring the possibility that IRVING crushed her flat on its way out the—"

"Heaven's sakes, Snake!" Rarity snapped, tearing her mascara-streaked face away from Pinkie's chest. "You're going through an awful lot of trouble to convince us that somepony we love is gone forever! Do you have even the slightest understanding of the toll this is taking on us?!"

Remarks born from equal parts anger and ignorance. Of course I'd lost friends on the battlefield before. It's never easy to accept, and that makes it all the more important that you do accept it. "You start grasping at straws, and you hold yourself back. Even if there's a chance that Rainbow Dash is still alive, it's infinitesimal – not worth holding out hope over."

"It's always worth holding out hope," said Rarity, climbing to her hooves, "when a friend's life is on the line." She advanced on me. "Something I'm sure you know nothing about. Don't try and convince me you've any tears for Rainbow Dash; you couldn't stand her, and we all know it! You didn't give a damn about her, and you clearly do not give a damn about any of us." She barked a harsh laugh. "I'd be shocked if there were anyone besides yourself that you've ever cared even the meanest amount for!"

Gunshot rings out through the blizzard. Body hangs limply over my shoulders as the New York sunset glimmers over the ocean. Spike lies in a pile of rubble, not moving, barely breathing.

Rainbow Dash smiles at me through her tears.

I clenched my jaw and moved to meet Rarity halfway. "You don't know the first thing about—"

"Stop!" Applejack interposed herself between the two of us, warding off Rarity with one hoof and staring me down with a look in her eye that verged on panic. "The two of you comin' to blows out here? Friends fightin' friends? Rarity, you know that ain't what Dash would've wanted."

"Friends?" Rarity scoffed. "Some friend he is."

Applejack preemptively silenced me with a stern glare, then looked at Rarity. "You got no idea, sugarcube. I was with Snake, y'know, jus' before IRVING went bonkers." She cast a smile my way. "Plan was to slip out quiet-like while we tangled with the bad guys, right?"

I nodded. Simplistically put, but accurate.

"Now, that ain't how it worked out, obviously," Applejack continued. "'Cuz when you saw that feller in the guard tower, drawin' a bead on Rainbow Dash, you took a shot that blew your cover to save her. That pony you didn't even like." Her eyes, silently imploring me to speak up in my own defense, met mine, but I held my tongue, unprepared to say a word in light of this new turn in the conversation. Rarity had nothing to say either, though from her tense, rigid body language, she was still clearly seething.

When she finally understood that I wasn't going to say anything, Applejack looked back to Rarity to pick up where she'd left off. "I tell you what, Rarity. If he didn't take that shot? Maybe he'd be okay, still have two good shoulders instead of one. But I'll bet you an' me, we wouldn't be standin' here right now." She nodded at Pinkie. "Neither would she." At Twilight. "Or her." And then down the path, off into the woods. "An' they wouldn't have gotten away clean at all."

Rarity fumed. She pursed her lips and glared at me, but I could tell that her anger was ebbing. I still didn't say a thing. Honestly, Applejack's little speech had rendered me quite... speechless.

"It hurts to think about. Hurts more to hear out loud." Applejack ran a hoof over her singed mane, cringing a little as it came into contact with burned skin. "An' me, I'm gonna hold out hope that my friend is still alive, an' that we can get 'er back somehow."

I watched Pinkie smile broadly and thump her tail against the ground like a puppy being offered a treat.

"But this feller right here, he ain't selfish." Applejack shook her head. "An' I know that for truth."

Rarity sniffed, but I could tell that Applejack's defense had taken the will to argue out of her. She avoided looking at me for a long couple of seconds. When she finally did, it was with a soft smile on her face. "Well, if the element of honesty says it's the truth, I suppose I have to believe her."

Element of honesty, element of loyalty... The rest probably had their own equivalent titles, too. Give Twilight an eyepatch and megalomania, and she and her friends might've had promising careers in special operations.

"That reminds me," said Pinkie, her face appearing suddenly between my feet. "You've been doing a super-duper bang-up job helping us out of a buncha-bunch of tight spots, so I think it's only fair to make you an honorary pony!"

Flattering.

"The only problem is," said Pinkie, frowning, "I can't think of what your cutie mark would be, because I can't figure out what your special talent is. Shooting bad things? Being a sourpuss? But who'd want a frowny-face on his hiney for the rest of his life?"

Rarity hid a smirk behind a hoof, and Applejack was smiling openly. It's nice that someone was amused. "How about my foot stomping on your face?" I muttered, stepping away from Pinkie.

The obtuse manifestation of a stomach ulcer pulled herself off the dirt. "Being a sourpuss it is! First thing when we get back to Ponyville, I'm getting you inked."

"And I'm going to shoot myself," I said, amid snickering from Rarity and Applejack.

"And I," said a fourth voice, "am going to eat an entire bowl of aspirin."

Pinkie gasped, turned to the purple unicorn, and darted to her side. "Twilight! Oh, you had us all worried there." She flopped across Twilight's back and wrapped her forelegs around her in a hug that no doubt crushed several ribs and collapsed at least one of her feeble pony lungs. "You're not hurt, are you?"

Twilight choked out a few unintelligible syllables. "Uh, Pinkie?" Applejack said with a chuckle. "Twilight's gotta breathe to answer you."

"Well, duh. Why would you even bring up something so ob – oh." Pinkie released Twilight, who immediately gasped for breath. Pinkie blushed. "So, um, are you okay Twilight?"

Twilight smiled weakly. "My headache is the stuff of legends, but other than that, I seem to be just fine." She winced. "Except I think you broke a couple ribs there, Pinkie."

Called it.

Applejack trotted to Twilight's side and knelt beside her. "How long you been awake?"

Twilight started to turn in Applejack's direction, but froze, hesitated for a moment, and quickly directed her gaze at the ground. Huh. "The first thing I heard was Rarity yelling at Snake. It sounded pretty intense." She glanced at me, then Rarity, and frowned. "Is everything okay?"

Rarity and I exchanged a look. For my part, there wasn't any animosity toward her, vexing as her remarks had been. She was emotional, grieving – it's only natural that she would have lashed out. "We're alright," she said. I couldn't tell whether she meant it, despite her gentle expression, but I echoed her sentiment with a curt nod nevertheless.

"Good," said Twilight. "This has been a hard enough day without me having to pull you two off each other." I saw something in her face – the briefest glint of light at the corner of her eye – but she blinked twice, rapidly, and it was gone. I reminded myself that, as difficult as Rainbow Dash's death was on the others, Twilight was a witness to it, at least partially. As admirably as she composed herself, I saw right through her, and if I could, then I doubted that her friends couldn't. I guess, though, that in a crisis, you need to believe that your leaders are holding themselves together, even when they're clearly not. They let Twilight believe that her mask of composure had them convinced, and Twilight, in turn, let herself believe that it was convincing.

Something had to give, sooner or later.

"What's our next move?" I asked.

I saw a dull purple glow at the bottom of my field of vision an instant before my cigarette was yanked from my mouth, crushed into a ball the size of a peanut, and dropped to the dirt. Nice while it lasted. "We need to get back to town," Twilight said. "Mobilize some kind of defense against the humans, and find a way to contact Princess Celestia." She paused. "I'm open to suggestions on how to do that."

"My vote's for the train," said Applejack firmly. "The six of us take the express t'Canterlot an' tell the Princess ourselves. Eyewitness testimony, an' all that."

Pinkie raised her hoof. "That was my idea. I want everypony to know that I had a good idea." All eyes turned to Rarity, who, after a moment, nodded.

I shrugged my left shoulder. "Train it is, I suppose," I said. "As for mustering a defense—"

"We'll worry about that when we get there," said Twilight. "There hasn't been an all-out war in Equestria in a very, very long time, so Ponyville's ability to withstand a siege is..." She scrunched her face up. "Iffy, at best. I want to review all of our assets, everything that could potentially be used to defend Ponyville against attack, before I jump the proverbial gun."

"This assumes they plan to attack Ponyville," I said, tapping a finger impatiently against my bicep. All this standing around and talking was making me antsy. "I doubt it's a high priority target."

"Better t'be prepared, Snake," said Applejack. "I'm with Twilight on this."

As were, I suspected, the others. "Fine," I said. Addressing Twilight, I asked "Are you good to travel?"

Twilight wiggled her forelegs, one after the other, and kicked her hind legs backward tentatively. Climbing to all fours, she stretched out her back, letting out a slight groan as she worked her muscles. "I'm kinda stiff, but I guess I'm mobile. Whatever magic I tapped into when I took out that bridge must've rejuvenated me."

Convenient, but at least it wasn't nanomachines.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you, Twilight," said Pinkie, leaning her elbow against Twilight's shoulder. She looked askance at Pinkie, but didn't brush her off immediately. "That was a super cool trick, with the melty bridge and the great balls of fire." Pinkie whistled appreciatively. "Goodness gracious!"

Now it was Twilight's turn to blush. She looked away from Pinkie, clearly uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the direction she turned her eyes in happened to be where Applejack stood, and she trembled, and looked in a third direction. She coughed and gently pulled away from Pinkie; her elbow hovered in the air momentarily, as though she were still leaning on something, before gravity sucked her down. "In any case," said Twilight, ignoring her friend's praise, "I can walk on my own, so." She grinned sheepishly at Rarity. "No need to lug me around like a sack of potatoes anymore."

Rarity chuckled primly. "None of that, now, Twilight; you know I'd carry you a thousand miles if I could." Despite, it seemed, how damaging it was to her primping. Her pristine white coat was matted and smudged with dirt, and her hair, which had been curly and bouncy when we'd met, was in a state of disarray and plastered against her face with sweat. "Hopefully, though, there'd be some sort of shift system, where we all take turns bearing you as a burden."

"I told you I'd be glad to take 'er off your shoulders for a while," said Applejack. "Both o'yours."

"Hey, you're not the only one with rock-hard, toned muscles from a lifetime of farming, y'know," said Pinkie Pie, a touch defensively. "I could probably take her all by my lonesome, if Rarity would let me."

"Oh," said Rarity, "you know I could never subject a friend to that kind of burden alone. Besides, what's life without a little adversity? After all, half the fun of generosity is complaining about the pains you take to be generous."

I snorted. "One hell of an albatross hanging around your neck."

My remark was met with four very perplexed stares from four pairs of pony eyes. Pinkie frowned. "Now, you're just lucky Fluttershy isn't around to hear you say that. She'd give you an earful."

"It's from a poem. A man shoots an albatross, and he's forced to wear it around his neck as a burden."

Rarity gasped. "Surely you're not attributing something so gruesome to moi? Honestly, Snake, that would be just too horrid, even for one so rough as you!"

I gave up and sighed, tossing my left arm in the air with exasperation as the ponies all shared a chuckle. Having fun at my expense – not something I'm used to people doing. I let it slide, though, ignored the bruising it did to my ego to have pastel ponies laugh at me. Just like I saw through Twilight's composure, I saw right through each of their laughing, smiling faces. They were sore, tired, and broken-hearted, but even they needed to laugh.

Twilight made the decision to put me on point for the duration of our journey, reasoning that, dislocated shoulder or no, my guns made me the most potent threat in the group. Curious, because after watching her display at the bridge against IRVING, I figured it'd be her, rather than any of the rest of us. Judging by her reaction when Pinkie brought it up earlier, though, it seemed she wasn't too thrilled with her newfound talent for wanton destruction.

A while into our walk, Applejack sidled up to me. "How's the shoulder?" she asked, keeping her tone low and conversational.

"Not too bad. The sling helps."

I was lying. It hurt like a son of a bitch.

"Glad to hear it. Honestly, Snake," said Applejack with a hollow chuckle, "after all the licks you took back there, it's pretty dang impressive that'cher still on your hoo – uh, feet."

I ignored the faux pas. Applejack had earned enough goodwill for that. "Funny," I said. "I was thinking the same thing about you back there. That was one hell of a beating that IRVING treated you to, not to mention that shot in the back from Trenton."

Applejack shuddered. "You can't imagine jus' how awful that felt."

"I speak from experience." Not first-hand, granted, but Jack's expression when Olga nailed him with the blunt of her katana told me all I needed to know. "I mean this in the best possible way, Applejack, but you really shouldn't be alive right now."

"Earth pony constitution," said Applejack proudly, "an' a lifetime of apple buckin'. Come an' work on the farm with me a li'l while; we'll toughen you right up."

I raised an eyebrow. "Earth pony constitution or not, Applejack, I'm willing to bet there's one or two things that I could teach you."

"Oh yeah?" Applejack grinned at me. "Feel free to step in the ring when yer all healed up. You an' me, we'll go a couple rounds."

I chuckled, and for once, it wasn't out of derision. "Something to look forward to when all this is over." I pulled a cigarette out of my pack, but before I could raise it to my lips, Twilight's aura caught and incinerated it, giving me nothing more than a pungent whiff of tobacco. Son of a bitch; how did she even see me that time? "But I doubt you came up here to compare scars, Applejack. What's on your mind?"

The scorched orange pony glanced nervously over her shoulder, then back to me. "Look, that thing, with Rarity before—"

"Water under the bridge," I said. "I'm over it."

"Good to know," said Applejack, "but that's not what I was gettin' at." She nervously beat a hoof against the dirt. "It's jus', it reminded me that I never got 'round to thankin' you."

That's what this was about? Belated gratitude? "But you did," I said. "Before we split up in the keep."

"No, I mean – I mean for what I was talkin' about before. Savin' Dash the way you did, when you really didn't have to."

A cold feeling spread inside my chest. Why'd she have to bring this up again? As if I didn't feel bad enough living a lie to her, she had she had to go around telling all of her damned friends that I was some kind of self-sacrificing hero.

"I know y'all didn't like her. I know the feelin' was mutual. But, Snake—"

"It was nothing."

"It was everythin'. Snake, you—" She reached a hoof toward me, but thought better of it when I pulled away. "You put'cher self in harm's way to save somepony you couldn't stand. That kinda loyalty... it's the kind of thing Dash would appreciate. If she was here, Snake, she'd be sayin' this herself, but since she ain't..." She smiled warmly, beaming those big, green eyes of hers at me. "Thank you."

Damn it. Applejack was convinced – convinced – I'd taken that shot to save Rainbow Dash's hide. It might have been wrong to keep up that pretense, but I just didn't have it in me to tell her that the sniper had been aiming at me, not Dash. Not with her and her friends' morale dangling from a precipice. I thought frantically, searching for a way to change the subject, something, anything, that would—

"You know what this walk needs? A singalong. Anypony got any suggestions?"

Well, I DID say "anything."

"Don't go jumping to conclusions," I muttered, half-rolling my eyes. "For all we know, Pinkie's not delusional after all."

"Mmhm," Applejack murmured.

Her response wasn't actually much of a response – it was non-committal, delivered with a touch of uncertainty in her voice. "Don't tell me you agree with her," I said.

Applejack shrugged and smiled wanly at me. "More like I wanna believe her. Pinkie's got a sixth sense, y'know. It's somethin' we've all come to depend on. She says that somethin's so, I take it on faith it's so."

And I'd thought that Applejack was the only one with sense. Turns out, she was just as mad as her friends. If I adjusted my grading scale, though, I suppose she was the sanest of the bunch of them. "You'll forgive me if I maintain a healthy skepticism."

"Y'all don't know her, Snake," said Applejack. The words, which would have sounded reproachful coming from anyone else, were nothing of the sort when she said them. "This one time, see, she swore Fluttershy was in some kinda trouble, so me an' Twi an' Spi—" She froze abruptly, and an awkward silence hung between us for a few seconds. "Well, I don't tell it as well as Twilight. Ask her 'bout it later."

Interesting how she could hold out hope for Rainbow Dash, but not for Spike. Maybe because she personally saw him get injured? She was removed from what happened to Dash, after all. What happened to Spike probably felt more real to her, which made it harder for her to spin the way she and the others spun Dash's fate.

With the conversation having stalled, I took the opportunity to glance around my surroundings, noting, with mild relief, that we were coming into familiar territory. This was part of the stretch of road I'd walked with Apple Bloom the day before. The setting jarred a memory for me. I'd kept Apple Bloom's mind off of the situation at hand by carrying on a conversation with her. The same thing might work for her sister. "Twilight keeps research notes on Pinkie Pie, apparently."

"Yeah?" Applejack chuckled dryly. "She would, too."

"Oh Snaaaaake?" Pinkie sang from behind me. "Do you know any good human marching songs?"

"I don't like you," I said, "and will probably hit you in the future if you don't stop talking to me."

"Gosh, that doesn't sound like it'd lend itself to any kind of rhythm at all. But I do appreciate a challenge!" And then she started singing the sentence I'd just said to her, varying her pitch and tone in an effort to turn it into a musical piece.

I started wishing I'd died back in the castle.

"I'll be honest, Applejack," I said, "I know she's your friend, but I really do not see the appeal in—" I felt something dig into the sole of my boot, and stopped in my tracks.

Applejack, who outpaced me for a moment when I'd stopped, came back to me with a look of concern. "Everythin' okay?"

A blur of pink in the corner of my eye made my head throb. "What'cha stoppin' for, slowpoke?"

Ignoring her, I knelt, retrieved what had stuck in my foot, and held it up to my eye for inspection. I recognized it immediately. ".45 ACP," I muttered.

"What was that?" Twilight came to my other side and inspected the shell casing with a frown. "I don't understand."

I held it up so that she could see it better. "Spent cartridge for a pistol bullet." I looked closer at the dirt and saw a tiny tuft of red. A tranquilizer dart. I dropped the cartridge into the dirt and climbed back to my feet. "This is where we met Trenton."

"Which means we're close to town," said Rarity. "We hadn't gotten very far into the woods when we encountered you."

Twilight, still frowning, looked around the clearing. "Are you sure, Snake?" she asked. "I mean, there are bullets in the ground, sure—"

"Not bullets," I interrupted. "Cartridges."

Twilight crushed her lips together tightly and narrowed her eyes at me. "Cartridges," she said tersely. "But there's no sign of any of the soldiers' bodies."

The ones Trenton had killed. I still wanted an explanation for that.

"Well, the answer to THAT is pretty obvious," Pinkie chirped.

Glancing at her, I asked "And that is?"

"We're in the Everfree Forest, right? All kinds of nasty critters make this place their home." Nodding to herself, she added "They must've come along and gobbled their bodies all up."

The others glanced nervously from side-to-side. Rarity bit her lip; Twilight's tail swished. Applejack kept her eye on the wall of trees just off the path. Pinkie just stood there whistling.

"So," said Twilight, smiling nervously. "I think we should probably pick up the pace. All who oppose?"

None of them opposed.

It wasn't long before we emerged from the treeline, the ponies in front, myself taking up the rear. I inhaled, and for once, the air wasn't stale, the atmosphere not oppressive. The Equestrian countryside stretched out before me, its colors vibrant even in the dark. In the distance was the town I'd crept through before, Ponyville.

Ponyville. That was a name I'd never get used to saying. The ponies themselves? I'd acclimated well enough to them in small doses. But a whole city full of them? Insanity had been pretty well redefined for me by that point in my journey, but there was still that requisite skeptical part of me that maintained the impossibility of a metropolitan region packed with talking, sapient ponies. That said, when we were greeted at the exit of the Everfree Forest by a mob of said ponies, the skeptic in me fell quiet.

There were twenty of them, maybe, a full representation of the three races that Twilight and her friends belonged to. There were few unicorns in the crowd, even fewer pegasi – three in the air that I could see, though there may have been more on the ground – with the earth ponies, like Applejack, making up the bulk of the crowd. Many of them had black bags beneath red eyes, as if they'd been roused in the middle of their sleep. Many looked hesitant, frightened; that'd be that taboo surrounding the forest, I'll bet.

One, in particular, looked uncomfortably familiar.

"Applejack!" A muscular red stallion pushed through the crowd to the front. His eyes widened at the sight of the partially cooked and very exhausted orange mare. "Y'dang fool, what's got into you?!"

Applejack sighed tiredly as the stallion approached her, panting with – what, relief? Worry? Possibly anger, judging by his choice of words. "Oh, I'm jus' fine, Big McIntosh, thank you for askin'. An' how are you tonight?"

"Don't sass me," said the stallion. "I wake up to find Apple Bloom missin', then I find out that you an' your friends wandered off into the Everfree, Fluttershy shows up in the dead of night with Spike half-dead an' Apple Bloom scared outta her wits, an' all I can wonder is what in the hay—" He chanced to look past Applejack, caught sight of me. His eyes focused on my own and widened. "You!" He jabbed a hoof accusingly in my direction.

As someone who spends much of his time trying to avoid being seen, having so many pairs of eyes on me is never very comfortable, especially when dealing with someone who you shot in recent memory. The pony posse looked at me, Twilight and her friends looked at me – Applejack with considerably more interest than the others – all of them stared, bewildered.

Not knowing what else to do, I lifted my good hand slightly and offered a small, stiff wave.

Applejack raised her eyebrow at me, then turned to Big McIntosh again. "You two've met?"

Big McIntosh spat out the piece of straw in his mouth and glared at me. "This snake was hidin' in our barn las' night. Shot me up fulla somethin' that knocked me out 'til the afternoon!"

Applejack's posture suddenly went rigid, in a way that was undoubtedly very painful, given the amount of physical abuse she'd sustained. Slowly, almost menacingly, she rotated her head to look at me over her shoulder. "You shot my brother?"

Audible gasps and murmurs sounded throughout the crowd.

Brother? I thought. Then I remembered the events that took place in the barn that night – the barrels full of apples, the green apple mark on Big McIntosh's ass. And Applejack, well, her name was Applejack. Of course they were related. Why didn't I realize it sooner?

"Not lethally," I mumbled lamely, turning my head to avoid her gaze.

"You shot my brother?!" Applejack repeated. I heard her punctuate her question with a slam of her hoof against the ground.

"Duh-raaaamaaaaa," sang Pinkie Pie, a mischievous smile on her face. "So this is what it takes to get more than two words out of Big Mac!"

"It's not like I knew at the time," I said.

"Not helpin', Snake!" Applejack growled.

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "Fine. I shot your brother. Now, remind me what I spent the better part of the past day doing?"

Applejack recoiled a little. Her posture softened, though a frown still remained on her face.

Her brother, confused, looked between the two of us, giving me the stink-eye when he looked at me. "What's he mean by that?"

Applejack closed her eyes and sighed. She turned back to Big McIntosh. "Y'all said Apple Bloom was alright?"

"Jus' fine, back at the farm with Granny."

"He's the reason why." She jerked her head in my direction. "Or at least a big part'a it."

Big McIntosh started to respond to that, raising his hoof and opening his mouth, his eyes on me. But his brain hiccuped, or something, because he just stood there, stuck in that pose for a few seconds, before he lowered his hoof and shut his mouth. He closed his eyes, silently working his jaw, then called to the assembled ponies behind him "Alright, show's over. Nothin' else to see."

There was some disappointed mumbling from the crowd, but they did as they were told, turning and trotting back down the road to town in a multicolored blob of pony.

"'Splain," said Bic McIntosh quietly.

"Apple Bloom snuck outta her room las' night an' wandered off into the Everfree," said Applejack. "Somethin' took her, somethin' Snake here jus' happened to 'be huntin'. He helped us track it an' snatch Apple Bloom back."

"Mmhm." Big McIntosh nodded, looking almost sagely with his closed eyes and tightly clenched jaw. "An' he was in our barn because...?" He opened his eyes at me, quite obviously leveling his question my way.

Truth be told, I had just as much of an idea as he did. With everything that had happened during the past day, I'd put that question on the back burner. It seemed like I had some time to chew it over, though, before we made our next move.

"I woke up there."

Big McIntosh looked skeptical at that. But rescuing his sister must've won me some points in his book, because he dropped the matter and went back to addressing Applejack. "Fluttershy stirred things up in town, flyin' in with the kids, all panicked 'n breathless. I sussed out from 'er that y'all were out here, 'fore the mayor had 'er hauled off to city hall, an' I got together a posse t'come in after you."

"Well, that explains the crowd," said Rarity, craning her neck to watch said posse leave. "But why would the mayor take Fluttershy to city hall? She isn't in any trouble, is she?"

"Wish I could tell ya," said Big McIntosh. "I was a li'l too busy to follow up on that. I made sure Apple Bloom was safe at home, then got to work roundin' up ponies to chase y'all down."

So Apple Bloom was safe after all. I suppose that was a relief. Though he hadn't said anything about—

"Big Mac?" said Twilight, heretofore silent. She was biting her lip, looking nervous. "You've said a lot about Apple Bloom; not too much about Spike. Is he...?" She swallowed the rest of the sentence.

"In the hospital," said Big McIntosh. "Last I heard, anyhow."

"Do you know how his condition is?" Twilight asked.

Big McIntosh curled his lips into his mouth, biting them gently before answering. He spoke with a careful, deliberate pace, choosing his words carefully, the same way I'd seen Applejack do before. "He weren't conscious, but he was alive. Wish I knew more."

If anything, that just seemed to put Twilight more on edge. She nodded at Big McIntosh and then looked away, off into the distance, at nothing in particular. Applejack looked at her brother, pleadingly, and he hastily continued. "Uh, y'know, since my word prob'ly ain't so good here, you might wanna look in on him yourself."

He was throwing her a life preserver, and a flimsy one at that. Twilight probably knew significantly more about Spike's condition than Big McIntosh, having been there when he'd suffered his injuries. His earlier assessment – "half dead" – was no doubt right, in a best case scenario.

But she accepted his offer of hope with a smile and a nod. She turned to the others. "Does anypony want to come with me? I know we're all tired, so if you'd rather go home and rest..."

Her words weren't sincere. It was all over her face, her stance. The nervous shudders that ran down her spine. The almost imperceptible shaking of her knees. Twilight may have been the most physically unscathed of the group, but despite the front of strength she put on, she'd never looked more fragile than she did at that moment.

"I'm a little far from home, myself," I said. "May as well go with you, seeing as I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Wouldn't mind puttin' you up at the ol' homestead, Snake," said Applejack. Big McIntosh's aghast expression told me that he would, in fact, mind puttin' me up at the ol' homestead. "'Course," she added, "it'll have to be later, since I'll be goin' with Twilight too."

A twinge of a smile played across Twilight's face, though she still avoided looking at Applejack.

"Well, I, for one, am shocked at you, Twilight," said Rarity, with false sternness. "Implying that we'd rather sleep than visit with a poor, stricken friend. I'd never forgive myself!"

"Ditto," said Pinkie brightly. "You're not the only one here who loves Spike, y'know." She grinned, with a hint of lasciviousness, at Rarity, whose luminescent, red blush set a new standard in my mind for peculiar pony pigmentation.

Twilight's tiny smile grew, and for a second, I thought I saw a crack in her facade – a tiny glistening in the corner of her eye, an encore of the tears she'd nearly spilled in the forest. She blinked them away, and they were gone as quickly as they'd appeared. "Thanks, everypony," she said. Then she glanced at me, and flushed. "Or, uh. Every... one."

I sighed, tolerating once again the amused snickering at my expense. "Let's just go."

So we fell into step once again, a little closer to civilization (or what passed for it around here). It wasn't long before the furtive whispering of a hushed conversation chimed in from the back of our little procession. "'Put 'im up in the farmhouse,'" said Big McIntosh. "Sure, I think we got a spare bale of hay that's only sorta covered in lice."

"You hush," hissed Applejack. "Where's that Apple family hospitality, huh?"

Big McIntosh snorted. "Think I left it in the box I got stuffed into after he shot me."

Baby.

Spike's room was in the hospital's trauma ward. The room was decently sized, and divided in two by a teal privacy curtain. The bed behind it was unoccupied, so Spike had the entire place to himself. Pity he wasn't awake to enjoy it.

Twilight was on one side of the cot, with a grey-coated, white-maned unicorn standing over her, rattling off a list of maladies and injuries. She didn't look like she was listening. Her face and posture had reverted to the empty, robotic shell that I'd seen in the castle, when she'd first laid eyes on the broken body of the little dragon. Pinkie, Applejack and I stood a respectful distance away. Rarity was opposite Twilight, on Spike's bedside. Her hooves intermittently ran over his blanket, smoothing out its wrinkles and creating more with every pass.

The doctor finished his long recitation with a sigh. "Overall, it's lucky that your friend got him to us when she did. If he pulls through, you'll have her to thank for it."

"'If?'" Twilight repeated, monotone.

The doctor sighed again. "He's stable for now. But we've done all that we can do for him. Spike needs more advanced treatment than we're prepared to give him." He looked at Spike with an expression of resignation and pity. "We just don't have the facilities to care for a baby dragon. Even if we did, I wouldn't know where to start. My knowledge of dragon physiology is extremely limited."

"There's nothing else you can do for him?" asked Twilight.

"Ms. Sparkle," said the doctor, "I can't even figure out how to penetrate his scales to give him an I.V. I'm sorry, but..."

Someone stifled a sob; I belatedly realized it as Rarity. A transparent blue shimmer wrapped around the top of Spike's blanket and tugged it up to his neck. It folded smoothly around his body before the glow faded away. "He looked cold," said Rarity, her voice a faint, high whisper.

Pinkie Pie moved to Rarity's side, wordlessly placing a hoof around her shoulders. The doctor turned his head away from them and coughed politely into his elbow. "I think it's best that we give these two some privacy," he said, crossing around the cot to Pinkie and Rarity. "If you'd be so kind?"

Pinkie disengaged from Rarity, giving Twilight a little nuzzle as she passed. The others filed past me, out the door and into the corridor. I gave Spike one last look before following.

"The mare who brought in Spike also filled out some paperwork," the doctor said as he magicked the door shut behind us. "She did it in a bit of a rush, as the mayor's goon squad was already trying to drag her off to the town hall, so I'm going to need to get some confirmation from Ms. Sparkle on one or two things." He paused. "It seemed tasteless to ask her just then, so if any of you could tell me who his next of kin is..."

The others looked at one another, and one after another, they shrugged. Rarity spoke up: "I suppose his legal guardian would be Twilight, as he doesn't really have any blood relations that we know of."

"Hmm." The doctor pondered that for a moment. "Ms. Fluttershy listed her as the boy's mother." He coughed into his hoof, which struck me as an inappropriately unsanitary habit for a doctor to have. "No matter. I should add, however, that the rest of you are in need of some medical attention as well. You're a veritable breakfast buffet of wounds."

Applejack fidgeted. "Hope it's nothin' you'll need to keep us overnight for, doc. I, uh, got some unfinished business at home." She rubbed the back of her head nervously.

The doctor chuckled. "Oh, if it were up to me, you wouldn't walk out of here for a month. But I suppose I can't force you to stay for treatment. I will want to see to those burns, however." The doctor looked over the rest of our motley crew. "The rest of your injuries could do with dressing, but in an accident-prone burg like ours, they're not so far out of the ordinary." He paused and glanced my way, raising an eyebrow. "You, on the other hoof..."

I lifted my left hand and made a show of inspecting it. "Don't have one of those, doc. Sorry."

His eyes widened and he chuckled again. "A smart-ass, eh? That, I can work with."

"Is a sense of humor that important to fix a dislocated shoulder?" I asked.

"It doesn't hurt." He began trotting in a circle around me, gently nudging past Applejack as he looked me over, head-to-toe. "Hmm... bipedal, no tail for support. Reliance on pelvic tilt to keep balance? Interesting, very interesting..."

"Having fun, doc?" I asked, annoyed. Being stared at was bad enough. Being examined like a piece of meat was just aggravating.

"Physical anatomy suggests... ape ancestry?" the doctor continued, ignoring me. "Distinct differences, though, in appearance, stature, locomotion..." He stopped in front of me and looked at my abdomen, frowning, then lifted a hoof to poke me in the stomach.

I pulled away, covering my stomach defensively with a hand. "The hell is wrong with you?!" I snapped, flushing. Behind me, I heard snickering.

"Anatomically identical to a minotaur, but only between the neck and waist," said the doctor. "How... curious." He looked back at me. "Luckily for you, I know enough about minotaur anatomy to treat your shoulder. Pending an official examination, I'd estimate a total recovery time of, oh... two to three weeks?"

My heart thudded into my stomach. "Two to three weeks?! I don't have that kind of time!"

"Oh, well. Excuse me," said the doctor, rolling his eyes. "I didn't realize you had a timetable. By all means, let me just fetch my robe and wizard hat, and I'll magic your shoulder back into perfect condition."

I seethed at the doctor's sarcasm – as if ponies hadn't been throwing around their "magic" all day. "You don't need to be a dick about it."

"I also don't need you questioning my medical practices," the doctor fired back. "Look, I can put you in a proper sling. I can prescribe you pain killers. But I can't accelerate the healing process in your shoulder when I know next to nothing about your anatomy!"

Rarity looked askance at the doctor. "I thought you said you knew enough about minotaur anatomy to treat him?"

"Yes, with traditional medicine," said the doctor, patronizingly drawing out his syllables. "Accelerated healing on a pony is one thing – a dislocated shoulder, a fractured horn, a broken wing? No problem, because pony anatomy is an area of expertise for me. But you, my friend, are not a pony!"

And thank God for that.

"The only reason I have the slightest measure of confidence in your treatment is that your upper body, by whatever astounding trick of evolution, is apparently identical to that of a minotaur. That, I can handle. But it'll have to be the old-fashioned, non-magical way, and you are going to have to accept that."

That wasn't an option, unfortunately. Fighting through an injury's possible, depending on the severity. But a dislocated shoulder was too crippling an injury to ignore long-term. Such a thing necessitated treatment, which meant taking me out of the action indefinitely. If I had to fight a war with one arm in a sling... I didn't like my odds.

The door to Spike's room opened a crack, and Twilight poked her head out from it. "Excuse me." Her face still looked blank; no trace of emotion, no sign that she'd been crying. Was she still in shock? "I couldn't help overhearing, what with you being so loud and all."

The doctor blushed and shuffled his hooves a bit. I didn't, because I really didn't care all that much.

Twilight stepped fully out of the room and gently shut the door behind her. "Doctor," she said, taking his gaze and holding it. "Do you trust me?"

"I—" Flustered, the doctor fumbled for an answer, taking several seconds to find one. "Well... your reputation being what it is, I see no reason not to."

"Then you would take my advice very, very seriously, if I were to give it to you."

The doctor's expression turned wary. "Yes," he said, speaking cautiously. "I suppose I would."

"Then if I were to tell you that it was absolutely, utterly essential that this..." Here she gestured at me. "This person be healed as expediently as possible, that the fate of Equestria hinged on that shoulder being repaired... you would take it seriously, and you would get it done, regardless of the risk, regardless of your personal discomfort." She paused. "Hypothetically, of course."

"It's not that—" The doctor had to stop for a breath again, and when he spoke, it was in a much more controlled voice. "I don't have the anatomical knowledge necessary to do it," he said. He did an admirable job containing himself, but his tone was practically bursting at the seams with barely contained irritation. "Performing the procedure without knowing enough about his anatomy runs a risk of—"

"But it could be done."

"Not without—"

"But it could. Be done." Twilight's expression intensified; her eyes narrowed, her head lowered.

The doctor bit his lip hard enough for a trickle of blood to leak down his chin. I took a moment to look around, and saw that the others had backed away considerably. Twilight, the doctor and I were at the center of a semicircle, between a cluster of ponies and the door to Spike's room.

At length, the doctor sighed and slumped, defeated. "I'll need to pull every file and text regarding minotaur anatomy in the hospital just to prepare. If I work through the night, I should be able to perform the procedure on your friend tomorrow morning."

Twilight, satisfied, nodded. "Thank you, doctor."

"Wasn't planning on sleeping, anyway," the doctor muttered. He turned away from her and looked at me. "And you need to understand just how much risk is involved with this procedure. One false move, and I could sever a nerve, paralyze that entire arm of yours for the rest of your life!" He sighed. "If I'm going to do this, I need your consent."

Admittedly, losing all function in my right arm wasn't a prospect that I particularly enjoyed. But this was a desperate situation, and it was a gamble I'd have to make. "I'll do it."

The doctor sagged further. "I was hoping you'd refuse." He turned again to Twilight and pointed rather emphatically at her. "And you, you owe me for this."

"Hypothetically, doctor, all of Equestria might just owe you for this." Another pause. "Hypothetically."

"Uh-huh." The doctor peeked through the thin pane of glass in the door to Spike's room, then headed off down the hall, passing between Pinkie and Rarity. "I'd like the rest of you, excepting Ms. Sparkle and my newest, largest patient, to stay a while. I haven't forgotten that you all require treatment, after all. But for now, if you'll excuse me, I have some files to pull... and six or seven pots of coffee to put on."

We watched him 'til he'd moved out of sight. "You really went to bat for me," I remarked, glancing at Twilight. "I appreciate it."

Twilight tilted her head a bit, a dismissive gesture. "It's what friends do."

"We're friends?"

She smiled joylessly at me.

The others – Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack – were led away by a nurse shortly thereafter. There were hugs, some promises to meet again in the morning, and then we parted. "Guess I'm stuck with this bandanna for a sling, after all," I said, when Twilight and I were alone outside of Spike's room.

Twilight responded with her first show of emotion since she'd first laid eyes on the comatose dragon: exasperation. "I'd say getting your shoulder fixed up, good as new, outweighs that inconvenience."

I conceded the point to her.

She spoke up again a little later, as we made our way back to the hospital's entrance. "Something just occurred to me. You didn't take Applejack up on her offer to stay at the farm."

Well, now. I suppose I hadn't. "I don't think her big brother would appreciate my company."

"Applejack would. I'm sure Apple Bloom would." She gave me an expression of curiosity. "What, exactly, happened between you and Big Mac?"

I thought back to my initial awakening in Equestria. "After I went through the gateway, the one back in my world, I lost consciousness for a while. When I woke up, I was in his barn."

"And he was in there?" She raised an eyebrow. "And you just decided to shoot him?"

"No, I – it's a little more complicated than—"

"Snake. I'm teasing you." Her expression had morphed into a narrow-eyed smile.

Peculiar. Minutes ago, she'd been blank, practically emotionless, yet there she was ribbing me and throwing me shit-eating grins. Maybe proximity to Spike just drained her emotionally. Or maybe she was putting on a front again. "Ha ha," I grumbled, feigning more annoyance than I actually felt.

Twilight aura'd open the door to the waiting room for us, and I followed her past the receptionist's desk, toward the hospital's exit. "The point I'm trying to make," she said, as she pushed the next set of doors open, "is that I'd be happy to let you stay—" She froze suddenly, halfway out the door and holding it open with a hoof. "Oh dear."

"What? What's the—" Then I saw what had frozen her: four ponies, gathered in front of the hospital's steps. One, I recognized as Fluttershy; she looked downcast, glancing bashfully at Twilight, avoiding me altogether. The others, I didn't recognize, though I could guess what the two blue-uniformed ponies with the brass badges on their shirts were supposed to be. They flanked the fourth pony, an older, bespectacled gray mare with a cravat around her neck.

"Ms. Sparkle!" she said cheerfully. "What a surprise, running into you out here. Would you and your..." She looked at me, apparently at a loss. "Would you and your friend care to join us for a walk?"

The mayor's office was spacious, verging on luxurious, by pony standards. But to me, it was just another tiny-ass, cramped pony room, with not enough space for me to stand at my full height. So I knelt beside Twilight, instead, the two of us in front of the mayor's desk.

Twilight was positioned between, and just in front of, Fluttershy and I. The pegasus looked rather dejected, and I caught her sneaking furtive glances at me once or twice. Behind us, the two ponies dressed up as police stood guard at the door.

The mayor leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her desk and pressing her hooves together. "Let me start by saying that you have my utmost and sincerest condolences. Fluttershy told me about what happened to Spike. And to Rainbow Dash. "

Twilight maintained a stony expression, something which impressed me, since Fluttershy most assuredly did not. She sniffled, and her shoulders shook. Twilight just nodded stiffly and mumbled some words of gratitude.

"Indeed," said the mayor, leaning forward against her desk, "Fluttershy told me a great many things. Something about an army from outside of Equestria, holed up in the Everfree Forest, led by a revolutionary who wants to launch a coup against the Princess?"

Again, Twilight nodded. "Something like that, ma'am."

The mayor clicked her tongue and folded her forelegs on her desk. "And how many ponies are aware of this fact?"

"Not many," said Twilight. "Myself, my friends. Applejack's sister. Maybe her brother. And him." She jerked her head in my direction.

"Not a pony, Twilight," I interjected.

Twilight shushed me.

"Well," said the mayor. She pulled away from her desk and trotted around to stand at the front, facing Twilight directly. "Let's just keep it that way, shall we?"

Twilight, looking very much taken aback, said "Ma'am?"

The mayor sighed. She reached a hoof to her face and adjusted the glasses on her nose. "Ms. Sparkle, as you're aware, Ponyville has been subject to a great many disturbances and ordeals in the past two years. Stampedes, dragon rampages, parasprite infestations, even assaults by creatures straight out of mythology. The town's sense of security is severely undermined, hanging by a thread. Frankly..." Another sigh. "Frankly, I'm surprised that anypony still lives here."

Twilight tried to reply, but she was at a complete loss for words.

The mayor took up the slack. "If news got out of another problem on the horizon, how do you think the town would react? With discipline and confidence?" She scoffed. "No. There'd be panic. Chaos. Just like there is every time something like this happens."

"I don't understand," said Twilight. "You won't do anything?"

"Make no mistake, it isn't a matter of whether or not I want to do anything, Twilight," said the mayor. "To do nothing in the face of a crisis would be irresponsible. It's that I can't do anything, save give you and yours my blessing." The mayor looked suddenly uncomfortable, with a long, thin frown across her face and a furrowed brow. "Excepting your friends, what I'm about to say must stay between us." With a sideways glance at me, she added "This means you, too. Are we clear?"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that – did I look like the type to spread around sensitive information? – but Twilight answered for me with a short, jerky nod of the head.

"A number of things happened while you were gone this afternoon," said the mayor, moving back behind her desk. She reached into a drawer with her mouth and pulled out a manilla file folder, setting it on the desk. Twilight's horn flashed, and her aura wrapped around the folder, levitating it back to her face and opening it. Her eyes scanned the folders' contents rapidly.

"First," said the mayor, "we received a telegram from the Fillydelphia transportation hub, advising us that a fire had broken out at the mountain junction connecting the rail between Ponyville and Canterlot, and that all trains passing through that junction were canceled until further notice. We tried sending a response, only to discover that the lines had been cut." She glared at Twilight. "All of them."

Twilight sifted through the folders' contents, her expression growing more and more distressed as she read, and as the mayor kept talking. "So I sent out pegasi to relay messages to the hub in Fillydelphia. Guess what? They were intercepted and sent back." The mayor snorted. "They returned with a mouthwritten message: As of noon today, flight control in Cloudsdale has declared Ponyville a no-fly zone. The communique is in the folder."

"Yeah, I'm reading..." Twilight scanned a page in the folder, mouthing words on the page, then looked back up at the mayor. "It doesn't say why."

"No. It doesn't." The mayor pounded her desk with a hoof. "And the only places that can provide me with the answers are too far to reach by hoof. The only other line we had to the outside world..." She let out a slow, deep breath. "Was your assistant."

Twilight's eyes widened. "Spike..."

I looked between the two of them, puzzled. "How is Spike significant to all of this?"

"Spike can send messages to the Princess," said the mayor tersely. "Something involving burning them with his breath. I don't know how it works, just that it does. It's the fastest, most reliable means to get a message to Princess Celestia, one that we can always rely on in an emergency." She narrowed her eyes at Twilight. "Except for now, because he's in a coma."

Twilight closed the folder and dropped it back onto the mayor's desk. Her eyes were wild, unfocused, shifting her gaze from one part of the office to another. "This is too much," she said. "How can all of this happen at the same time? With Pegasus Wings on our doorstep no less!" She groaned. "This can't be a coincidence."

The mayor nodded. "My thoughts exactly. I've had an inkling of a conspiracy. The news that Fluttershy brought me has confirmed it. Someone is trying to isolate Ponyville, and they're doing a damned good job of it. But why, though – that's the question."

I pressed my hand to my chin and ran my finger over my lips, parting them slightly to bite down on my knuckle. Why, indeed. What possible reason could they have to isolate Ponyville from the rest of the world? "In your opinion," I said to Twilight, my words garbled from speaking around the knuckle between my teeth. "What, if anything, is there in Ponyville with any tactical significance?"

Twilight frowned. "Honestly? You were right back in the forest," she said. "We're not an industrial center, a transportation hub, or a government seat, and our chief export is apples." She snorted. "Unless they're planning on killing the country with malnutrition, there's no reason to strangle Ponyville."

"No reason? I can think of six," said the mayor in a calm, cool voice. "Two of which are in this room right now."

And there it was. Ponyville was, by my observations, a backwater burg, hardly noteworthy or unique – except as the residence of the six most dangerous threats to Macbeth's plans. Twilight had lectured me during our stroll home about the Elements of who-gives-a-damn, and their significance to Equestrian lore. If I hadn't seen the six of them in action first-hand, I'd have dismissed it as pointless grand-standing, or exaggeration. My mind still reeled at Twilight's display of power outside of the castle. If there was anything to Twilight's story about the Elements, removing them from play would be vital to the enemy's plans.

But then I recalled Trenton's behavior in the courtyard, and his late-game rescue of myself and the others from being gunned down by Cain. "Hold on," I said. "Something doesn't add up here." The mayor's curious expression bade me to go on. "They had us dead to rights back in the castle, but Trenton let us escape – helped us escape, in fact. Why go through all the effort of isolating the town to keep you out of the game, when he could have just killed us in the castle and been done with it?"

"Maybe killing us was never part of the plan," said Twilight. "Trenton said that he had to improvise when he ran into us in the forest. Up until that point, they were probably planning on cutting off Ponyville and leaving us in the dark about the whole invasion, right up until the moment it actually happened." She frowned. "But then, what would be the point of that...?"

"Macbeth." The timid, breathy voice of Fluttershy startled me, timidity and breathiness notwithstanding. She'd been silent and nondescript, practically a ghost, all during the discussion. She looked at Twilight, her eyes red and beady beneath her curtain of pink hair. Here's someone who needed as much sleep as any of us. "Remember what he said in the castle? He wanted to convince us that he was right, to get us on his side."

"He said that?" I huffed a sarcastic laugh. "Well, if there were any doubts that he was delusional..."

"The point stands," said Twilight. "They wanted us out of the picture, not dead. And when presented with the opportunity to kill us, they let us get away."

"Trenton let us get away," I corrected. "He could have been acting on his own. Don't forget that he had to intervene just to keep Cain from gunning us down. Question is—"

"Further speculation is pointless at this juncture," said the mayor. "The why of it matters less than the fact that it's happening." She rapped her hooves together sharply. "There's an army sitting on our doorstep, ready to invade us at a moment's notice. I'd like to avoid that, if possible, and I'd like for you, your friends, and your..." She waved a hoof at me. "Whatever that is to spearhead the that-avoidance initiative." She paused for breath. "I want this done with subtlety, Ms. Sparkle – off the books, and off the record. If word of this gets out—"

"If it does," I interrupted, "your constituents might stand a chance of survival." Twilight elbowed me sharply in the thigh. I decided to ignore her. "Conditions aren't favorable, but even so, you're sitting on intel that most in your position would kill to have. Do something with it."

The mayor flushed, indignant. "I was going to say that it would do little more than create a panic. If there's no other way, then of course I'll make this public. But if there's a chance to beat this threat without the town ever knowing about it, I'll gladly take that route."

Twilight elbowed me again – much harder this time – and shouldered her way past me. "Mayor Mare," she said pleadingly, drawing the mayor's gaze, "Snake might not be putting it in the most..." She glared at me. "Tactful of manners, but he does have a point. There must be something you can do to help secure the town."

Leaning back into her chair, the mayor blew out a long, thoughtful sigh. "I could order a series of disaster drills. Expand our stockpile of emergency supplies." Her eyes lit up. "The town's treasury is actually experiencing a surplus, at the moment. It wouldn't be much against a full-scale invasion, but—"

"Better to have it and not need it. Thank you, Ms. Mayor." Twilight smiled. "We'll do our part to keep this from escalating past a drill."

The mayor nodded. "To that end, I'm authorizing you to use whatever resources you need. If it's owned by the city, it's at your disposal. Dip into the treasury if you have to." The spark in her eyes dimmed a bit, and she chewed her lip. "Just don't dip very deeply. Surplus or no, we're not exactly made of money."

Twilight bowed her head, grateful. "We'll be as frugal as possible, under these circumstances." Peeking up, she added "If there's nothing else, may we be on our way?"

"By all means. You must be exhausted." She shot a glare my way. "A warning though, Mr. Snake. You might not agree with my approach in this matter, but you will abide by the rules I've set forth. If you cause any trouble, you and I will have to have words. Am I clear?"

I wanted to reply with something suitably dismissive, but Twilight decided to rescue me from myself again. Thoughtful of her, really, speaking for me when I hadn't even asked her to. "I'll vouch for Snake personally, Ms. Mayor," she said. "You won't have any problems from him, on my honor."

The mayor maintained a skeptical disposition, but Twilight's word must've counted for something, because she let it go with a wave of the hoof. Without another word, the three of us slinked out, Twilight maintaining a bright facade until we'd exited the town hall, at which point she turned on me with a frown and a glare. "Do they have that saying about honey and vinegar and flies where you come from? Because it's advice you might consider taking."

I snorted. "Where I come from, we don't bother with either. We just swat the damn things."

Fluttershy squeaked.

Over and over again, I swore to myself that I would stop being surprised by Equestria, and over and over again, I had to break my vow. When Twilight Sparkle told me that I could crash at her place – "the library," she said, "which so happens to be a treehouse" – I was dismayed at the prospect of living in a tiny, above-ground cabin crammed in an oak tree somewhere (and confused at how a library of any import could fit in such a place). But, no, she meant a literal tree house, that is to say, a tree hollowed out to serve as a house. Come to think of it, Zecora lived in one of those too, didn't she? Equestria has a funny notion of real estate.

Still, it beat Applejack's barn by a mile and change.

Fluttershy accompanied us back to the place, babbling an explanation for our audience with the mayor all the while. In a nutshell, she emerged from the forest with Spike and Apple Bloom in hand – so to speak – just as a search party was on its way in there, not unlike we did, actually. This caused a stir, Ponyville not being the kind of town where that sort of thing happens... or at least, where that sort of thing happens often enough for the townspeople to be too jaded to react to it. After dropping Spike off at the hospital and seeing Apple Bloom home, the mayor brought her in. "She had so many questions," the yellow pegasus babbled, "and I just, I couldn't tell a lie to my own mother, much less the mayor of Ponyville, so I had no choice, I just—"

"You've done nothing wrong, Fluttershy," said Twilight tiredly. I suspected she had to deal with this sort of thing on a regular basis. "And nothing worth apologizing for in the least. Telling Mayor Mare about the situation was half the reason you went on ahead, remember?"

Fluttershy mumbled for a bit before managing a coherent sentence. "She didn't have to be so rude with you..."

I grunted. "She didn't use an electrical current. And I got to keep my shirt on. By my standards, this interrogation was pretty tame."

"Do you practice being this jaded?" Twilight asked.

"In front of the mirror. Every morning."

Then I saw the treehouse. You're all caught up now.

Twilight put a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder and patted her. "Please don't think you have anything worth apologizing for. You got Spike to the hospital; you probably saved his life. That's twice in one day you've come through for him." She smiled gently. "Not that anypony's keeping score, but I'd say that more than makes up for whatever you might've done wrong."

Fluttershy didn't look convinced, but she nodded. Twilight patted her again. "Get some rest. We'll talk again tomorrow, alright? The hospital, in the morning?" Fluttershy nodded again. Twilight squeezed her in a half-hug, and sent her on her way. The look on her face as she passed me, though... what the hell, I figured, she could use some cheering up.

"Fluttershy." She looked at me over her shoulder. "Don't you have some questions for me? We should probably make some time to get that out of the way."

Her eyes widened, her cheeks blushed, and her face lit up with the closest thing to a smile she could probably have mustered under the circumstances. "M-maybe tomorrow," she blurted, sounding nervous. The hell was that about? It's not like I asked her on a date...

...unless I did. Ugh. I made a note to ask Twilight about that later. I waved her away, and she skedaddled. Twilight opened the door with a quick flash of her horn, and stepped inside, beckoning me after her. "That was sweet of you," she said. "See? Honey, instead of vinegar? There's something to that, I think."

"Only if we're classifying Fluttershy as a fly," I said. "Doubt she'd appreciate that. Girl like her needs every ounce of self-confidence she can get." I ducked under the threshold (practically had to crawl inside) and followed my host into her home.

With a flourish of purple light, Twilight magicked light into the room, from a number of lamps placed here and there upon the walls. The library was decently sized by pony standards, but wasn't much bigger than a modest apartment by mine. Shelves were carved into the interior, with books arranged neatly upon each of them – arranged by color, I should add, and, I noted, alphabetically as well. Someone sure had a complex...

"Hmm. That's odd." Twilight stopped in the middle of the room, where a smallish cardboard box the size of a baguette sat. "I was expecting a package, but there wasn't anypony here to sign for..." There was a note attached to the box; she tugged it off, scanned it quickly, and sighed. "Derpy signed for it."

"Who's Derpy?"

"The mailmare." She dropped the note and clicked her tongue.

"The mail..." I frowned, trying to process this. "She delivered a package, which she also signed for, and left it inside of the..."

"Derpy's unconventional," said Twilight. She levitated the box and sent it off to a table next to the stairs. "She marches to the beat of her own drum. The only reason I knew I had a package coming was because she sent me a letter saying that I had a package coming."

"She sent you a letter to tell you—"

"Derpy's unconventional." Twilight's tone brokered no response, so I let go of this new, perplexing Ponyville mystery.

"You'll have to sleep in the stacks," she went on, nodding in the direction of a door across the room from where I stood. "Sorry, but I don't have a guest bed anymore. There was a storm, and a tree fell – it's a long story. I never got around to replacing it."

Must not get a lot of house guests.

"The floor's fine. A pillow would be nice though." I cracked my neck to the right, and winced as a fresh jolt of pain shot through it. That was a mistake. Must've winced louder than I'd intended, though, because when next I looked at Twilight, she had an expression of concern on her face.

"It isn't too late to go back to the hospital, you know," she said. "Get that dressed properly."

"Thanks, but no. Hospitals make me edgy. I try to avoid them."

Naomi with a needle, smiling sweetly, hatred masked by flawless bedside manner...

"You know, I'm not too sanguine about this procedure you wheedled out of that doctor. 'Accelerated healing', wasn't it? What's that all about?"

"Accelerated healing?" Twilight sounded surprised at my skepticism. "You don't have – oh, but of course you don't; no magic." She cleared her throat unnecessarily. "Well, the name's a bit of a misnomer, for one. Rather than accelerate the natural healing process, the doctor repairs the damage done on a molecular level. If you'd severed a ligament, for instance, the doctor would reconnect the torn parts and fuse them back together, reattaching nerves, even growing new tissue, if necessary. That's just one example." She paused to catch her breath. "The science behind it is pretty complex. I don't even fully understand it. But basically, it's surgery without the mess. Nifty, but it takes a heck of a lot of focus and training to pull off correctly. Not many doctors in Equestria can do it."

"But this one can?"

"He's an expert," she assured me. After a lengthy pause, she added, quietly, "He fixed up Rainbow Dash, once, when she broke her wing."

I thought about the conversation I'd had with the others in the forest. Dwelling on the possibility that Dash might've survived the castle wasn't healthy, and Twilight was a bit more grounded than her friends, and therefore less likely to take stock in Pinkie Pie's superstitions. Still... even I was starting to feel a bit of what the others had going on. I didn't like it. And Twilight needed some cheering up, anyhow.

"Pinkie Pie thinks Rainbow Dash is still alive," I said.

She didn't seem fazed. "Is that right?" she asked, in the same quiet, even voice.

I frowned. "No, not thinks. Knows."

Twilight was still and silent for another long moment. "Pinkie Pie has a big heart," she said at last, and started up the stairs leading to the library's upper level. I heard the windchimey noise of her aura starting up, and a pillow and blanket launched themselves toward me from the loft; I caught them in the crook of my good arm. The pillow was nice – plush, comfy – but I wasn't sold on the blanket. "Let's be out the door by nine, okay?" said Twilight. "Think you can manage that?"

"No problem. I'm an early riser," I said. Her voice sounded a little off – warbly and unsteady. She was either too tired to hold a conversation anymore, or she was just eager to drop the subject of Rainbow Dash. Hell, lady, you brought her up. Probably both, though.

I headed for the door that led to the stacks, silently wondering to myself how a tree of this size could hold so many adjacent rooms in its trunk. "See you in the morning."

As I pulled the door shut behind me, I heard what sounded like sniffling coming from the floor above me.

The eldest Apple family siblings sat on opposite ends of the dining room table, a mug in front of both of them and a half-empty bottle of cider between. Big McIntosh had yet to say a word in response to Applejack's long recitation of the day's events, and the only sound in the room was the steady ticking of a novelty clock that Granny Smith had won in a bingo game.

Big Mac watched his sister take the bottle in her mouth and pour herself another cupful. "You oughta be back at the hospital."

Applejack set the bottle down and hooked her hoof around the mug. "I don't like—"

"I know you don't," her brother interrupted. "But you oughta be."

Applejack took a long drink, downing her cup entirely, and set it back down. "You remember the night Ma an' Pa died?"

Big McIntosh said nothing.

"I don' like hospitals." She slid the bottle across the table for him to catch, and nodded in the direction of the stairs. "How was she, when Fluttershy brought her in?"

"Out cold. I carried her back. She didn't wake 'til I had 'er tucked in."

Applejack smiled faintly.

Big Mac didn't bother pouring a cup, and took a swig directly from the bottle, setting it down when he was done and smacking his lips. "She asked about you, firs' thing, y'know. Didn't know what to tell 'er."

"Yeah, well..." Applejack pushed away from the table and gingerly stepped onto her hooves. "S'pose I oughta go up there."

Big Mac said nothing as she limped toward the stairs, nor did he look at her. Seeing somepony so strong and vital being reduced to a shambling, limping, bandage-covered mess twisted him up inside. His flesh and blood went off and almost died, and where was he? Unconscious in a barn all damn day.

"You want I should carry you up there?" he asked.

"You want I should tell Cheerilee who's been leavin' her all them sappy love letters?"

Big Mac flushed a brighter shade of red and reached for the bottle again, but an orange foreleg intercepted the bottle and set it back down on the table. He felt Applejack's lips peck him on the cheek and her face nuzzle against his. "I love ya, big brother."

A lump formed in Big Mac's throat, preventing him from replying, so he settled for nuzzling his sister back. She disengaged a moment later; he heard her hoofbeats grow fainter as she ascended the stairs, and the creaking of a bedroom door opening and shutting. He reached for the bottle again, hesitated, then snorted and pushed it away.

Apple Bloom lay on her side with her back facing the bedroom door, wrapped snugly up to her neck in her covers. She stiffened a bit when she heard the door opening. Either she woke the girl, Applejack thought, or she'd been awake the whole time.

"How much didja hear?" Applejack asked.

Apple Bloom shifted slightly under the covers. "Mos' all of it."

"From all the way up here?" Applejack was genuinely impressed. Her sister's hearing was amazingly acute. The elder Apple trotted in an uneven, unsteady gait to the younger's bedside, leaning against it for support. The bed looked awfully inviting, she had to admit; it took all her willpower not to flop down on that comfy mattress and fall asleep then and there.

Apple Bloom clutched the covers closer to her body. "Fluttershy told me about Zecora. You didn't see her, didja?"

Applejack reached slowly for her sister and stroked the ribbon tied in her mane. "No."

"You know where she went? You think she's alright?"

"I don't." She paused. "I mean, I don't know where she went. But wherever it is, she's probably alright." She doubted Apple Bloom believed her – she didn't even believe herself, really – but the zebra had given her sister safe harbor, and for that, she wished her well. "Zecora can take care of herself. Don't you worry 'bout her."

"But I gotta." Apple Bloom buried her face in her blanket, muffling her words. "It's all my fault."

Applejack, surprised, asked "What is?"

"Everythin'. You, Spike, Rainbow Dash. Snake's shoulder. Zecora, if somethin' happens to her." Her body shook. "I ran away, an' y'all came after me, an' everythin' that's happened since then, it's all my—"

"Sweetiebutter, no. Hey, c'mere." She put a hoof on Apple Bloom's head and turned her over. The filly's eyes were red and her face was wet and crusted with snot. Apple Bloom rolled into Applejack's embrace and buried her face in her shoulder. It hurt, but Applejack tried not to let that show. "Darlin', if anypony should apologize, it's me. Flyin' off the handle like I did, at you, at Fluttershy..."

"I told you I wished you was dead. An' you..." Sobs wracked Apple Bloom, and fresh tears flowed onto Applejack's coat. "An' you went off an' almost died, an' I thought..." She lost what composure she had at that, and bawled, cradled like a baby in her big sister's embrace.

"You thought your wish came true?" Applejack stroked her sister's mane, kissed the top of her head. "I ain't dead, though. I'm right here, with you. See?" She chuckled. "Pinch me if ya don' believe it."

"But you almost did..." She sniffed and pulled away from Applejack's shoulder, daintily brushing the spot on her coat she'd stained with snot and tears. "When I was watchin' you, back in the forest, fightin' that blue guy, when I saw you take that hit for Fluttershy... I thought it killed you, an' then I thought 'it's 'cuz of me, it's 'cuz I wished for this to happen.'"

"Honey, that... that ain't how it works."

"I know that. I mean it, I really do. But that's how it felt, AJ." When she pulled her hoof away from Applejack's shoulder, she took with it a long, drooping strand of mucous that connected her hoof with the spot she'd been crying on, and despite everything, she giggled wetly at it. "Gross."

"Ain't nothin', sweetheart; don't think twice." She gently pushed Apple Bloom back into the mattress, who watched with childish amusement as the strand broke in two and dangled from her hoof. "Heck, I... I should apologize too, y'know. Last night, when I got mad at you an' Fluttershy for that thing with the cockatrice—"

"I'm sorry for that too," Applebloom blurted.

"Not where I was takin' that, but – dangit, now I'm all shook up. Can't really find the words to..." Applejack sighed. "Li'l sister, we got us the biggest, bestest family anypony could ever dream of havin'. Apples on ev'ry branch in Equestria, an' even one or two elsewheres. But ever since Ma an' Pa, I..."

Apple Bloom scooted out of the covers and sat up, resting her back against the headboard.

"...I feel alone sometimes. Not... not 'all by myself' alone, but like... like you an' Mac, Granny an' me, we're all we got in the world. I know that ain't so; I got the best friends a gal could want, an' I know you feel the same way about Scoots an' Sweetie. But y'all are my kin, an' when Ma an' Pa passed, I learned jus' how quick somepony you love can be there one minute, an' gone the next.

"Y'all are the most precious thing in th'whole dang world t'me, little sister. Losin' you, or Mac, or Granny, would be worse than if they lopped a leg offa me. I coulda lost you that night, an' never even known about it, couldn'ta done anythin' t'save you. Just like I couldn't do nothin' to save Ma an' Pa. Thinkin' like that, it kinda set me off. Fluttershy got the worst of it, but I still—"

"AJ. Sis, yer cryin'."

"What? I am not—" Applejack's sentence ended in a hiccup. Something dripped down her cheek and splattered against the bedspread. "Well, dang. I s'pose I am."

Apple Bloom grinned. "Crybaby."

"Ne'erdowell."

They laughed together, through the tears and the pain of loss. In that moment, whatever wall existed between them had vanished, whatever feud they'd had was forgotten. After a long day of struggle, of fearing for their lives, this moment of peace between the two sisters was well deserved.

"You wanna know the truth?" Apple Bloom asked, once their laughter had died down.

"What's that?"

"I don' even remember Ma an' Pa that well." Apple Bloom leaned against the headboard, turning her gaze to the ceiling. "I was so li'l when they died."

"Ain't surprisin'." Applejack stroked her sister's mane. "What DO you remember?"

"Hmm..." Apple Bloom frowned. "Smells. I remember Pa smelled like... sweat. An' apples."

"Sweaty apples?"

"Not even." Another giggle. "Ma, though, she smelled diff'rent. Kinda like flowers."

"Lilac," said Applejack softly.

Apple Bloom looked quizzically at her.

"Ma had some hoity-toity perfume. Baby shower gift, y'know, when she was pregnant with you – designer perfume from some label in Manehattan. Ma loved wearin' it, an' it clung to her wherever she went. Clung t'you to, y'know."

"I smelled like lilacs?" Apple Bloom stuck her tongue out. "I'd prefer smellin' like apples."

Applejack grinned. "Funny you should mention that, li'l sister. One time, Pa was holdin' you, an' he said 'Buttercup, we got us an Apple baby that smells like flowers.' An' I said – I weren't much older than you – I said 'that's 'cuz she's a li'l baby Apple, Pa. Apples are flowers 'fore they're apples, an' this li'l Apple's just startin' to bloom.'"

I dreamed something unsettling that I couldn't quite recall – a phantasmal black shape with a Cheshire cat grin – and awoke in a state of panic. And even though that subsided, I found that I couldn't get back to sleep – and, moreover, that I didn't want to go back to sleep. So I got up. I stretched, I paced, I stepped outside my tiny room into a slightly less tiny room. The library was too small, too cramped, too stuffy. I needed air.

No, dammit, what I needed was a smoke.

There was a balcony in the loft, where Twilight slept. I climbed the steps and passed her empty bed; she was sleeping on the floor, curled around a basket stuffed with bedding, which I realized with a sinking feeling belonged to Spike. I stepped over her, gingerly opened the balcony doors, and ducked under the threshold into the cool night air. That sky, that violet night sky with the unfamiliar stars and the unnaturally large and bright moon... it was all perfectly alien, and yet, I took a strange sort of comfort from it. When I looked up, I didn't see the dark, harrowing canopy of the Everfree Forest. I saw a great expanse of sky, and alien as it was, I didn't feel stifled and tense when I saw it.

What's the opposite of agoraphobia? Agoraphilia, let's say.

I lit a cigarette and took in the smoke slowly, savoring it, letting the tension in my body ease. Questions, unasked and unanswered, ran rampant in my mind – questions about Trenton, about Cain and Macbeth, about the whole damn situation. I tried to make sense of what had happened in the castle. Cain had wanted us – or me, at least – dead. Trenton, apparently, didn't, and not only did he openly defy Cain to protect us, he put himself in harm's way to do so.

Trenton. He was a wild card, one with an agenda which, I suspected, ran differently from his superiors'. He'd brought Case into the forest intent on killing him, n doubt about it. The one competent member of the PW army we'd encountered, and Trenton wanted him dead. Between that, the poorly-trained replacements for Cain's departed veterans, and the shoddy, second-hand weaponry, it seemed that Trenton had a stake in reducing his army's operational effectiveness. And, it seemed, in keeping myself and the others alive.

"Our meeting in the forest was a further complication. I needed to play for time, to factor this new data into my simulation, so I lured you out here to keep you occupied while I devised a means to contain this development."

I was a wrench in whatever plan he was devising. He should have killed me when he had me dead to rights, but he didn't. Passed up opportunity after opportunity, in fact. No, he wanted to keep me alive; he was curious what I'd do. And at the same time, he wanted my presence kept secret, right up until the moment Cain and I met face-to-face. But why? He killed his own men to keep them from talking, lied to his commander to keep my presence a secret, all for what?

The answer seemed plain. Trenton was playing us against each other – myself and the others against Cain and Pegasus Wings. Macbeth's insistence on keeping Twilight and her friends alive gave him one set of weapons to work with; I had to assume that he – or they – had arranged to isolate Ponyville from the rest of the country before he knew about my presence in Equestria, so he probably had a plan to use them in his scheme already. But when we met in the forest, when he recognized me...

"I needed to play for time, to factor this new data into my simulation"

He saw another weapon he could use in his game. And he kept my presence a secret so that I'd have the element of surprise. All to level the playing field. The PW army was outnumbered, but they were facing a society that was at least a century behind them, technologically – and hell, I wasn't even sure that Equestria had an army to fight back against them. That alone gave them the upper hand, but with Metal Gear in Cain's back pocket, the odds were drastically against the ponies. So who better to even the odds than a laboratory freak with experience in precisely these kinds of situations?

That left the question of why – why the elaborate deceptions, the game of spy-vs.-spy; what the hell were we all even doing here in the first place?

"I needed to play for time, to factor this new data into my simulation"

Data and simulations. Trenton wasn't some independent contractor in Cain's employ. And he wasn't acting on his own; of that much, I was certain. All this plotting and scheming behind everybody's back, I couldn't figure what he stood to gain from it. Unless, of course, he was working for a third party, one that did stand to gain from all of this.

Who did I know of that habitually played people against one another, trying to fit them into paradigms derived from behavioral data? Who could have put Trenton – a technological wonder, and the successor to the project which perverted Gray Fox – together? Who would have the resources, the tech, the manpower, the know-how, to build yet another cyborg exoskeleton, and who would be amoral enough to force it on yet another poor conscript?

The answer was in his name. Trenton. As in Trenton, New Jersey, as in the battle of. As in Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve to surprise and defeat the Hessians.

Washington. The father of America. The quintessential patriot.

I flicked my cigarette to the floor and stamped it out with the heel of my boot. My plan had backfired; I was now tenser than I'd been when I first lit the thing. I was about to head inside and try my luck tossing and turning on the floor again, when I saw a shape silhouetted against the moon – round at the top, tapering off at the bottom, like a lightbulb in the night sky. That made no sense, of course, so I stared at it a little harder.

It was a balloon – a weather balloon, to be precise. And it was drifting toward the library. And, a few moments later, it was just in arm's reach. Watching it pass, I noted something attached to it – a shoebox, maybe – and, out of curiosity, I nabbed it out of the air to inspect.

Turned out to be a shoebox – or at least, a box the size of a shoebox. Open me, it said on the lid. I frowned. It felt empty – whatever was in there, I doubted it was a threat. Someone's idea of a practical joke, maybe. So I opened it.

It wasn't empty. There was a note, written in red. The moonlight was bright enough for me to discern what it said. Dodge Junction, by train. Nothing else; not even a signature. Of course, I didn't need one to know who'd sent it.

Beneath the note was a single blue feather, its tip stained the same shade of red as the writing on the paper.

A blue-clothed human lay amidst the rubble of the castle courtyard, his body a tangle of broken limbs. Over him stood an equine form: blue and stately, with a flowing, star-studded mane.

Luna studied the body, worry creeping up her spine. "Impossible," she muttered. "Impossible, impossible, impossible." Behind her, the fortress that had once stood watch over the capital of Equestria was no more than a pit of shattered stone, down to its most ancient foundations and catacombs.

And yet, across what little ground remained of the old courtyard, a featureless circle of black stood unscathed.

Fear seized Luna, and she swept toward it, galloping down the ancient slope that led to the great arch which now filled her heart with so much terror. She stopped in front of it, panting, and stretched out with her senses.

Something had come through. "Impossible."

She hadn't sensed it; her sister hadn't sensed it. "Impossible."

And yet, there the evidence was, plain as night. Something which didn't belong had come to Equestria. No... thought Luna, no, many somethings. Humans, yes, but something else, too. Something malevolent. Something inhuman.

Something, Luna realized, which wasn't even alive.