As quickly as they'd vanished, ten teary-eyed foals reappeared in the middle of the street, in almost the same place that they'd left. They immediately drew together, holding and comforting one another. The two guards rushed towards them from their station by their chariot, hurriedly brushing cake crumbs off their lips, and came to a halt in front of the group. "Tiny citizens!" one of them barked. "We have orders to collect..." He checked a note pinned to the inside of his barding and looked between it and the foals several times. "...all of you, by order of-"
"Shut up!" one of the foals yelled. She was the one who'd been carting the cake, a loud filly with a bow in her mane. She was currently holding on to a white unicorn, who was clinging to her and sobbing loudly. "This ain't the best time!" she continued, throwing glares in the guards' directions. "Can't ya just leave us alone?"
The first guard cleared his throat uncomfortably and glanced towards his partner. The second was counting the colts and fillies in front of him, moving his lips silently. "Where is Peachy Pie?" he asked.
This prompted a low growl from the filly with the bow, and a tear welled up in the corner of her eye. A grey pegasus colt near the edge of the edge of the group answered for her. "She's dead." He looked up at them morosely. "And we're all gonna die, too."
Both guards stared. Eventually, the first one shuffled and cleared his throat again. "I'm afraid we do have our orders," he stated. "In the name of the Princesses, I'm going to have to ask you all to come with us."
"Oh yeah?" the one with the bow countered. She helped her friend straighten up, looked her in the eye for a second, and then turned and glared at the guards again. "Sure, we'll come with you... if you can catch us!"
That was the cue for the group to scatter. Acting on youthful impulses even under the circumstances, nearly all of them bolted in all directions, leaving just a couple sprawled on the street. The guards sprang forward with equal initiative, the first of them managing to scoop up the ringleader and her unicorn friend under each foreleg. Looking back, he saw that his partner had only managed to collect one, a pudgy unicorn who squirmed uselessly in his grasp.
They reconvened back at the chariot, easily herding the prone pair who had remained behind. "Sledge, what the hay is going on here?" the first of them whispered as he dropped his prisoners off, dropping his needlessly deep guard voice.
"I don't know," Sledge whispered back. He tried to avoid looking at the foals; something about their faces made his stomach drop. "Look, you go on ahead with these ones. I'll get help and start tracking the others. And..." He hesitated. "Be careful with them. Something's not right here."
---
Twist stopped and panted for breath as she reached her home. She leaned against the wall, trying to make herself smaller, and listened. She hadn't been followed.
It's my fault.
The weight of it was impossibly heavy. Peachy Pie was dead. It had been one thing when Diamond Tiara had died; no one had seen it coming, and it was over so fast that no one had had time to think about it. But Peachy...
The thought pulsed inside her like a second, jagged heart. One minute she'd been alive, and so full of happiness and energy, and the next... nothing. And Apple Bloom was going to die too, and Sweetie Belle, and Snips and Snails, and Dinky Doo, and all the others, and herself too, and for what? All because she'd wanted to play a stupid game.
Peachy was dead because of her.
She bit her lip, holding in further sobs. She was glad Apple Bloom had given the order to run; she couldn't handle guards right now. She couldn't handle anything right now. All she wanted was to curl up into a little ball in a corner somewhere and never, ever come out. Even so, once she'd caught her breath she forced herself to keep putting one hoof in front of the next and walked herself up to the front door.
The house was quiet. The flowers out front hadn't been watered in awhile; the pipes for their neighborhood had gotten crunched during Diamond Tiara's fight, but she was sure that at least their taps were working now. Most of the curtains were drawn, too, casting thin shadows over the inside. "Momma?" she called weakly, sticking her head inside. There was no answer.
Things brightened up a little as Twist made her way inside. A window at the back of the house was open, and she crept towards the light, making as little noise as possible. "Momma?" she called again, plaintively. Still nothing. It wasn't until she rounded the corner and entered the kitchen that she saw her mother on the floor.
Mom was lying flat-out in the middle of the room, her long, orange mane splayed out around her and covering her face. Twist froze until she saw her breathing faintly, her sides rising and falling in what looked like slow motion. A couple of bottles lay empty beside her, which Twist recognized as having once been full of milk. She moved forward hesitantly, afraid to wake her, but also afraid of being alone. “Momma?” she called a third time, almost too quietly to be heard, and reached out to touch out to touch her mother’s hoof.
The mare stirred. She didn’t open her eyes, but she spoke, her voice icy, crystal clear, with no trace of sleep in it. “Where were you?”
Twist didn’t answer. She moved closer, trying to nestle herself against her mother’s side, only for a hoof to gently push her away. “I said, where were you?” she repeated.
Twist gulped. “I wath... at a party,” she half-lied in a half-whisper. “We were trying to cheer thomepony up.”
“A party,” the mare said flatly. “Your father’s dead... and you were out... partying.”
Twist shrank against the ground. That was another thing that she’d been trying and failing to forget. “It wathn’t like that,” she mumbled. “Momma, pleathe...” She tried to move in for a hug again, but again got pushed away.
“I see.” The mare rolled partway over, slumping against a cabinet. “And when Ponyville was being crushed by that black monster... were you partying then, too?”
“No!” Twist protested. “I wath... I wath with my... friendth...”
“Were you.” The flatness continued. “We made it to safety, your father and I. We both made it to the field by the time the fighting started. But you weren’t with us.” She coughed and licked her lips. “I told him you weren’t in your room. I told him I called you a dozen times. But that wasn’t enough. He went charging back into Ponyville, looking for you. He went in. And he never came out.”
Twist’s legs shook. “I’m thorry,” she croaked out.
“Are you.” She finally creaked open one amber, bloodshot eye. “No lies,” she said. “I’ve seen you sneaking about when you think I’m not looking. I know you’re not just off playing with your little friends. So tell me the truth. Where were you?”
Shakily, the same answer came out. “I wath with my frien-”
“I said no lies!” she screeched, abruptly slamming a hoof onto the floor. She jolted upright, one foreleg reaching out to grab Twist roughly by her mane, the other encircling one of the bottles beside her. “What was so important your father had to die for it?” she yelled into Twist’s ear, yanking on her mane and knocking her glasses askew. “Where were you?”
“I wath... I really wath...” She was struggling to form words. “You’re hurting me...”
“Liar!” She pulled on her daughter’s mane again, lifting her off her front hooves. She began to raise the bottle as well. “You’re a filthy little-”
The window behind her crashed open, and a gold-plated pegasus burst through in a shower of glass. Before the shards had even stopped falling, Twist found herself rolling away in somepony else’s grasp while her mother was shoved to the side, bouncing heavily against the cabinets. When the world stopped spinning, Twist’s glasses were no longer on her nose, but she could still see the distinct white shape of a foreleg jutting out accusingly towards the pale shape in the corner. “If you ever lay a hoof on her again,” an implausibly deep voice growled, “it will be the last thing that hoof ever does. Do you understand?”
The shape didn’t move. The hoof descended, and Twist felt her glasses being gently placed back on her. The last she saw of her mother was her face staring at them in numb shock before she was lifted over the guard’s back and carried outside.
“Hold on tight,” the guard ordered once they were in the middle of the street. “We’re not flying far.” Twist obediently straightened out and held on, but the guard hesitated before taking off. “I’m sorry,” the same gravelly voice said, then dissipated and was replaced by a much softer one. “I’m so sorry.”
It was only then that she realised that the guard carrying her was a lady.
---
The long room had once been ugly. Even looking at it now, it was easy to imagine a cold, sterile environment of nothing but two rows of beds against windowless walls, separated by curtains the same nausea-green colour that pervaded the rest of the hospital. Time, however, had been kind to this place. Although there were still beds and curtains, they were decked out in every colour of the rainbow, and paintings yet more vibrant looked out over bright and cheery landscapes. At the far end of the room, a play area had been set up for the more mobile foals, with a range of toys from varnished blocks to adventure books. It was there on the plastic-covered rug, rather than their individual cots, that the group had reassembled.
They didn’t speak much. Sweetie Belle still occasionally broke into sniffles, but she and Apple Bloom had begun humming out a tune together, which at least filled the room with something soothing. Snips and Snails juggled some of the blocks between them, throwing nervous grins towards a totally unimpressed Archer. Silver Spoon sat by herself in the corner, dressing a doll in all the pink and purple she could find.
At the end of the room, a decorative cuckoo clock chimed the hour. As she’d been doing every fifteen minutes since her arrival, Pina Colada let out a loud sigh. “And that’s two hours now,” she groaned, lifting up her head and leaving a brush stuck in her niece’s mane. “What are they doing out there?”
Tornado Bolt, who’d been here even longer, shrugged. She was lying on her back with a book open over her face, sometimes flapping her wings against the rug. “They’re guards,” she answered. “They do what they want.”
Pina sneered at her. “That’s not true. This is illegal.”
“Guards do what they want!” Tornado snapped back. That put an end to it.
It was only a few minutes more before they could hear hoofsteps outside. The doors at the far end of the room opened and Twist walked in, led by a plump unicorn in a nurse’s bonnet. “There you go, sweetheart,” the nurse said, pointing towards the others. “And if you ever need to talk, don’t ever hesitate to come see me, okay?”
“Thank you,” Twist mumbled. She started to walk away, then turned around and gave the nurse a hug, sinking a little into her warm coat. This lasted a few seconds before she broke away, walking towards her friends and speeding up a little as some of them waved her over while the nurse retreated and locked the door behind her. “Hey guyth,” she said hesitantly as she came to a stop.
This was met with smiles, mostly. Snails looked up for just a second, then quickly turned back to Snips when a block bumped against his cheek. “So, how much did you tell her?” Pina Colada asked matter-of-factly, ceasing her brushing and nudging Berry Pinch off to the side.
Twist’s face fell. “N-nothing,” she answered. “Thhe thaid I didn’t have to thay anything.” She looked like she’d been crying recently, and was glad to see she wasn’t the only one.
“She said the same thing to all of us,” Apple Bloom confirmed. “But Ah couldn’t say anything unless we all agreed. It just didn’t feel right.”
Tornado Bolt sighed from under her book. “What’s even the point? They know it’s us, and I bet Spike’s told them everything already. They’re just gonna keep us locked in here forever.”
During this, Twist had been looking around at the others, counting. “There’th only nine of you,” she said. “Where’th everypony elthe?”
“We... we dunno,” Apple Bloom answered with a shrug. “We were startin’ to think you weren’t comin’, neither.”
“Spike’s probably with whoever brought us here,” Archer said. “So that just leaves Dinky and Rumble. Probably hiding somewhere. They seem like they’d be good at it.”
Silver Spoon felt a smile coming to her lips. “Hey,” she said in a familiar gossipy tone, “do you think they’re...” She blushed and giggled, but when she looked up at the others she saw only blank stares pointed back. “Never mind,” she said quietly, turning back to the corner.
“Why are we here, anyway?” Snips asked, distractedly floating a cube towards Snails. “Why a hospital? I thought we’d be going to some super-cool military base or something.”
“The usual reason, I guess,” Pina Colada said. By this point she was lying down while Berry Pinch brushed her mane in turn. “They probably just wanna cut you open.”
A rain of blocks hit the floor. “What?” Snips gasped, echoed by a chorus of others.
“You know, like they do.” She shrugged. “Whenever somepony gets super sick or finds a weird animal or any other stuff the government doesn’t understand, they bring them to some hospital in the middle of nowhere and take their insides out to see what’s going on.”
A flurry of nervous looks were passed around. Sweetie Belle whimpered and clutched her stomach. “But this isn’t the middle of nowhere,” Apple Bloom argued, putting on a brave face for her. “This is Ponyville General.”
Pina shrugged again. “Same diff.”
This time without warning, the doors at the far end of the room opened. Spike stuck his head through, watching for the reactions of the others. When he saw questioning and accusing looks but nothing openly hostile, he stepped fully into the room.
A procession of adult ponies followed. A lanky albino in a lab coat was the first, trotting ahead with a stand and several covered placards slung across his back. Right behind him was the more recognizable figure of Shining Armour, decked out in his full formal gear. More guards of almost uniform size and shape could be seen moving outside, forming ranks in the far hallway. “I’m sorry, guys,” Spike said when he was near enough to be heard. “I had to.”
“We understand,” Apple Bloom answered gently.
She was interrupted by a set of gasps. Entering at the far end of the room was Her Radiance, Princess Celestia herself, strolling between the beds with as much elegance as if it was the Grand Hall. This stunned the group into silence, and with good reason; most of them had never seen her close up before. Tornado Bolt snapped upright with enough force to send her book hurtling against the wall and snapped off a salute. Snips and Archer haltingly copied her.
Instead of stopping a regal distance away, Princess Celestia stepped onto the mat and settled down amongst them, looking around as they shuffled to accommodate her. Apple Bloom remembered her manners and started to bow, but Celestia reached out and lifted up her chin. “Good afternoon, my little ponies,” she said, calmly and kindly. “How are you feeling?”
“Are you gonna cut us open?” Sweetie Belle blurted, far too loudly.
Celestia blinked. After a moment of hesitation, she put on a smile and looked towards the earth pony who’d entered first, who was setting up his stand beside the nearest bed. “Red Cross, you weren’t planning on cutting anypony open today, were you?” she said in a joking tone.
“Hm?” Red Cross glanced back at her. “No, I shouldn’t think so. One specimen was enough.”
Judging from her expression, this was not the answer that the Princess had been looking for. Behind her, Shining Armour facehoofed. “What he means is no,” Celestia said quickly before any of the foals could register his meaning. “We have brought you here because we would like to run some simple tests, but you do not have to participate if you don’t wish to. You have my solemn promise that nopony under my command will ever do anything to hurt you.”
This provided some relief. Archer spoke next, in a much less formal tone than the situation seemed to call for. “How much do you know?”
“More than you might think. We’ve been following you for some time.” She nodded to Red Cross, who unveiled the board on his stand with a flourish. The foals stared. A precise timeline had been drawn out across the top of it, with photographs and notes pinned underneath. While the first marker only sported a rough sketch of a spider, and the second only a single picture of Scootaloo’s battle, the third node carried enough detailed, aerial photographs of both the robots who’d appeared over Ponyville to cover half the board.
“We first started tracking you here,” Red Cross explained, gesturing to the first node on the board with a flexible pointer, “when our sensors began to pick up traces of what we call Identity Thirty-Three in the atmosphere. As near as we can tell, based on what your reptilian companion has told us, this is a disruptive energy that’s released when the robot activates its unique form of teleportation. Harmless, but it shows up as empty waves on our scans. For our files, based on scattered eyewitness descriptions, we named the first of these invaders Arachnid.”
He paused for a second, perhaps to see if there would be any objections, but then shortly continued. “The second and third instances followed the same pattern. Due to its tail, we named the second invader Bullwhip, after the ancient instrument of tor...” A nuanced look from Celestia cut him short. “...ment,” he concluded, only slightly improving the meaning. “The third, for obvious reasons, we named Cricket.”
“They’re in alphabetical order!” Berry Pinch gasped.
A quick pinch from her aunt silenced her, but she couldn’t help but grin shyly when Celestia smiled down at her. “That’s right,” the Princess confirmed. “We felt that they would be easier to remember than boring technical names. I’ve heard that you call your own robot Equus. It is a good name; I think that it will serve you well.” She looked back towards the board as Berry blushed and beamed. “We have heard tales of your fourth battle,” Celestia continued, “but it took place far beyond the reach of our sensors. Because the Guard have been unable to confirm its existence, we named the fourth invader Dream.”
She looked back towards the foals, her expression becoming more solemn. “That is what we know of your adventures so far,” she said. “And if what we have heard is true, then all of Equestria is already in your debt. Although it was not your intent, thanks to you we have already been saved several times over, and for that you have my deepest gratitude.”
“Are you gonna tell our families?” Tornado Bolt interrupted. She seemed to wince at her own rudeness, but her eyes were wide and her still-raised foreleg was visibly trembling.
Celestia looked at her calmly. “No,” she answered after a longer pause than usual. “We do not wish to force any of you into that situation. Some of your friends and family,” she looked at Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle in turn, “may have already been informed that there are foals connected to the battles, but that is the limit of what they have been told. The decision of what to or not to reveal is up to you.” Her gaze dimmed. “However...”
She looked towards Spike, who had been fidgeting beside her throughout this. “While Spike has told me almost all of your story,” she continued, “he has not told us everything. I believe he meant no harm by this, and was simply protecting his friends. Even so... we must know for sure.” Celestia sighed deeply. “I do not ask this of you lightly,” she said. “My nurse tells me that each of you has recently experienced trauma, and it pains me to ask you to speak of it so soon. But we have already begun putting the pieces together, and there are absences in this gathering that cannot be overlooked any longer. To prevent this tragedy from striking again, we must know.” She looked around, and at no pony in particular. “What, exactly, happens to a pilot after they fight?”
For a short time there was silence, filled only by small, staggered breaths. Eventually, it was Silver Spoon who spoke. “We’re its power source,” she said quietly. “Equus uses our energy to move. When the battle’s over, nothing’s left.”
“...I see.” It would have taken somepony very close to Celestia to see the changes that came over her; the faint shadows under her eyes, the slight resettling of her wings, the tension that rippled along her back like a wave. The foals were, however, able to hear a new, subtle hardness in her voice when she spoke again. “Then as well as my thanks, you also have my apologies. This should never have been allowed to happen. I promise, we will do everything in our power to remove the curse that Pollinia has placed upon you and prevent this tragedy from ever taking place again.”
This provoked a few hopeful gasps, and brief smiles of relief were passed around. “But then who’s gonna save Equestria?” Pina Colada asked with a frown.
“That can be decided later,” Celestia answered her. “What’s important is that they be allowed to choose.”
It was at that moment that a new set of loud hoofsteps could be heard outside, as well as muffled shouting. The doors opened and a new royal guard strode in carrying a squirming Rumble by the scruff of his neck, who stopped struggling as soon as he saw who was waiting. The guard passed through the rows of beds uninterrupted and put the colt down beside his friends, then stepped back and smartly saluted Celestia. Twist recognized her as the one who’d delivered her to the hospital, although it was only the faintest curve of her muzzle that gave this away. “We found this colt attempting to sneak in through the back entrance, your Highness,” the guard said in her deep, formal voice. “We believe he may have been attempting a rescue operation.”
This earned a chuckle from Celestia. “That was very brave of you, little one,” she said to Rumble, “but there was no need. Your friends are safe.” The colt merely kicked at the ground, looking at no one. Celestia turned back to the guard. “Thank you, Watchtower. You may return to your duties.”
Watchtower remained where she was. “Your Highness,” she continued, more slowly, “I should also inform you that... we have been unable to locate Dinky Doo.”
“Keep searching,” Celestia replied briskly. “I’m certain that she will turn up.”
“Um... no, your Majesty.” Watchtower coughed, reddening. “What I mean to say is... no one has been able to locate Dinky Doo. She’s on the list of those missing after the attack on Ponyville.”
“What?” Shining Armour cut in. He broke formation and rushed up to Watchtower’s side. “This must be a mistake,” he said.
“No mistake, sir,” Watchtower answered, putting slightly too much emphasis on the last word. “We’ve asked around, and she hasn’t been seen in days. Her mother is near hysterics. She’s gone.”
“That... that can’t be right,” Snips said, standing up. “I saw her in the field, after the fight. I saw her!”
“We all saw her,” Apple Bloom added. “She was with us with Peachy Pie just a few hours ago!”
Rumble felt several sets of eyes on him. “What are you all looking at me for?” he snapped. “I haven’t seen her. I just ran, like everyone else.”
There was a pause while the group mulled this over. “In other words, she’s skipped town,” Shining Armour concluded. He sighed, rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “Great. Just what we don’t need right now.”
“Aw come on, guys,” Pina Colada said. “Why don’t we just ask Cicada where she is?”
A few of the foals paled. Seeing this, Celestia was careful with her response. “The creature from the robot?” she asked. “Would he know such a thing?”
“We can meet him?” Red Cross interjected, leaning forward with interest.
“Sure, I guess.” Pina shrugged. “He said he’d keep an eye on us, and he comes when we call him. Sometimes, anyway.”
“Please don’t,” Sweetie Belle whimpered, shrinking against the floor.
Snails put on a puzzled look. “Wait a minute. I thought only us could hear him?”
“What? That’s dumb,” Pina chided. She took a deep breath, hesitating when Berry Pinch flinched away from her. “Oh, don’t be such babies,” she said. “He’s just a mouse.” Then she turned her face upwards and shouted. “Cicada!”
The word echoed across the high ceiling. Red Cross put on an excited grin, and the two guards tensed up in unison. Celestia simply watched, holding her breath. Five, ten, fifteen seconds passed in silence. The mouse failed to appear.
Tornado Bolt sighed with relief. “No offense,” she said, tapping Pina on the shoulder, “but I think the one who calls him has to be one of... you know, us.”
“Hey, shut up!” Pina Colada pushed Tornado’s hoof away and shouted at the ceiling again. “Hey, Cicada! Cicada! Cic-”
Cicada materialized overhead, at a sharp angle and facing the wrong way. “All right, all right!” he yelled, not turning around. “I’m busy, okay? Call me back in like, thirty seconds.” Then he vanished.
Shining Armour blinked at the empty space, a reflexive spell dying inside his horn. “Well, that was... informative,” he muttered.
Sweetie Belle raised herself up from the floor. “Maybe he’s talking to his friend?” she suggested.
“What friend?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Um... I don’t know,” Sweetie admitted. “But one time in the cockpit, I caught him talking to someone I couldn’t...” She stiffened.
Cicada appeared again, this time facing the right way and with an unnecessary sparkle of light. “All right, done. Now let’s get this over with,” he said. “Good afternoon, your highness.” He rotated into what may or may not have been a sincere bow and then held that angle as he zipped over to the middle of the group. “Tough luck, kiddo,” he said in a quieter tone.
One by one, all sets of eyes were drawn to Sweetie Belle. The filly sat still, her eyes focused on a point just next to Celestia’s hoof. Bit by bit, she started to shiver. “No,” Twist moaned, staggering back. “No!”
Red Cross whipped out a notepad and began scribbling furiously. Shining Armour’s horn glowed; Watchtower spread her wings. “What’s happened?” the captain demanded, stepping forward. “What have you done to her?”
Celestia examined the filly closely, trying to remain calm, but even she let out a gasp when she saw the critical change. “Your cutie mark!-”
Sweetie Belle let out small whimper. Cicada drifted back. “You might want to cover your ears for this part,” he remarked.
But Sweetie Belle didn’t cry. She just stayed still, making tiny, kittenlike noises, feeling the eyes of her friends burn her new cutie mark into her sides.