Pinkie Pie was worried. That twitchy feeling of something terrible about to happen had been getting worse and worse as the day progressed, and even a free chocolate egg hadn’t made it go away. She chewed her bottom lip as she waited. In all honesty, Pinkie found her touch of prophecy more annoying than helpful in many cases; it was all well and good to know that something was wrong, but that could be anything from Lyra losing her lyre again, to Twilight setting herself on fire, or somepony being replaced by a changeling.
She drummed her hooves on the town hall steps, keeping a welcoming grin fixed on her face as the few Club late-comers filtered in. Pinkie paid them the bare minimum attention, before turning back to scan the skies.
Alex was late. Not that that was usually a problem. Alex worked on her own internal clock, which seemed to vary based on how bad her day was going, and how much paperwork had ended up on her desk; those two overlapped an awful lot. For their Canterlot trip she’d almost given Twilight an aneurysm by missing the train, then catching up on the wing twenty minutes later.
Shuffling her hindhooves, Pinkie peered down all the streets again; still no sign of the cream pegasus. Soon, Alexis would arrive, she was sure of it. It was the Club’s biweekly meeting. Alex had never missed a Club meeting. She’d never been this late for a Club meeting, either, but Pinkie assured herself that Alex would make it. Pissed off and at a gallop, but she’d be there.
She had three minutes to spare.
“Dash!” she called out, as a rainbow contrail streaked through the sky above her head. Rainbow Dash skidded to a stop before dropping like a cannonball into the square.
“No, she’s nowhere in town,” Dash grumbled, as Pinkie opened her mouth to speak.
“What about Fluttershy’s?” Pinkie pressed. “Did you check there? Oh, what if she never made it out of the Everfree?” She grabbed Rainbow Dash by the shoulders and shook. “What if she got eaten by a cockatrice?”
Dash shoved Pinkie back, letting the hyperactive mare fall back onto all fours. “Look, I just talked to Fluttershy. Alex was fine three hours ago. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Fine? Fine!” Pinkie exclaimed, starting to hyperventilate. “Alex has been dead for three hours and-- oh wait, no, there she is.”
As if someone had flipped a switch Pinkie was, once again, all smiles and sunshine. “Hi Alex!” she called, leaning around Dash and waving.
“Urgh, I’d better be going then,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, hunkering down as she got ready to fly.
Alex closed at a dead gallop, wings spread for balance as she thundered down the street.
“...I thought she broke her wings,” Dash said, frozen.
“She did,” Pinkie confirmed.
Dash took off like a rocket, while Pinkie reared up on her hind legs, pulling a quarterstaff from her somewhere space. ‘Alex’ skidded to a stop before her. Even at a glance Pinkie could tell it’s wasn’t her friend. Alex wasn’t that skinny, nor did the disguise have any of her wing speckles, and the mystery mare had a faint smile on her muzzle which was more out of place than anything else.
“Hold it right there,” Pinkie snapped, leveling her staff at the imposter.
The mare skidded to a stop just a few paces away, before dropping it’s disguise in a puff of rose red magic. Pinkie blinked as she saw the speckles around it’s muzzle. “Spots?”
“Chrysalis. Queen. Alex. Gone,” it choked out, panting heavily.
Rainbow Dash landed behind it like a ton of bricks, snorting thunderbolts. “Alright bug, what are you talking about?” she demanded, wings held out wide with lightning playing around her primaries.
The drone leapt in surprise, quailing back from the angry pegasus. “Chrysalis. Queen. Alex. Gone,” it repeated, a quaver in it’s voice.
Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I got all that. What do you mean?”
“Chrysali-”
“Rose is gone,” Pinkie cut in, before they wasted any more time.
The drone nodded empathically in agreement.
“And Alex?” Pinkie continued. The drone bared it’s fangs in a loose approximation of a smile and nodded even harder.
“We need to tell Twilight,” she said, then accelerated away, leaving a Pinkie shaped cloud of dust in her wake.
Twilight hummed the scales to herself as she worked, sipping from a slim coffee mug. She found it helped her to relax; always a necessary consideration when dealing the the barrier. The unholy mishmash of aether, alicorn and arcana magics, with enough chaos thrown in to make up for the rest of the spell casting alphabet, the barrier spell was fiendishly complicated on its good days. Not to mention temperamental, unpredictable, and prone to wild mood swings, often for reasons Twilight couldn’t begin to figure out.
Currently it was sulking. An all too familiar state of affairs.
Twilight sighed, applying her magic in an attempt to sooth the roiling mass of spellwork. The barrier rarely sulked for long, it was just trying to get back at her for her rather aggressive suppression of complaints after the jet incident, but if she ignored it, Twilight had learned from experience that the barrier tended to drop random humans into Equestria just to get her attention. Or to get its own back as the case may be.
“Twilight!” Pinkie screamed, leaping out of a nearby storage closet, dragging a very disorientated looking changeling drone with with.
“Wargh!” Twilight leapt into the air, the alicorn and her coffee going flying across the lab. Drawing on long practice she managed to snatch both out of the air with her magic, and lowered herself to the floor.
“Pinkie!” she roared, rounding on the intruding mare. “How many have I told you not to create spatial disturbances in my lab?”
“Twenty three,” Pinkie replied, instantaneously, bounding over. “But that’s not important. Spots told me that Alex and Rose got foalnapped by Chrysalis.”
Twilight looked blank for a moment. “Spots?” she said at last.
“I named the drones,” Pinkie clipped, shaking her head, frantically. “That’s not important either. Didn’t you hear, Chrysalis is back!”
“Oh! Right.” Twilight’s horn kindled, as she pulled out changeling contingency plan A.
Step one was alway check for changelings in the immediate vicinity. A pulse of magic swept away from the mare, bouncing off the drone, but passing through Pinkie without incident. After making sure that the single drone she’d detected within the castle was indeed the one before her Twilight took a deep steadying breath.
Step two was to clear the local area. Her magic roared, blowing back Pinkie’s mane as a pink bubble expanded away at the speed of sound to envelop the town before stopping just beyond the train station. Twilight frowned as she failed to pick up any additional changelings at all. That was unexpected given the circumstances.
Step three was to clear Ponyville. Gritting her teeth Twilight dipped into her considerable reserves, and the final pulse exploded outwards, rattling all the glass in her lab and roiling up the barrier spell. The spell turned heads across town, as the wave of pinkish energy swept through, but detected not a single changeling in Ponyville. At the edge of the Everfree the spell began to falter, as was expected while near that much wild vita magic, but not before returning extreme levels of prime energy. No changelings, but something big had gone down in that forest.
Twilight groaned and shook her head as a headache began to build behind her horn, snapping out of the casting trance just a Rainbow Dash arrived.
“Hey, I gave the rest of the girls the changeling warning,” the pegasus snapped, landing heavily next to Twilight. “Did anypony else just taste pink?”
Twilight decided to ignore that, she had tried and failed to teach Dash the changeling detection spell too many times to count.
“The town is clear,” Twilight explained, then narrowed her eyes at Spots who looked blank. “Suspiciously so. Where’s the Human Hive gone?”
“Hiding,” it replied, staring at it’s hooves.
Twilight tisked. “Yes, I guessed that. Where?”
The drone looked up, and in a mournful tone it repeated. “Hiding.”
“Urgh.” Twilight rubbed her temple with a hoof. “Okay, so what happened? Alex and Rose were foalnapped by Chrysalis, right?”
Spot shook it’s head frantically. “Chrysalis take. Alex take. Rose gone,” it babbled.
“And where did they get take?” Twilight frowned for a moment. “Taken!” she amended.
“Forrest. Gone,” Spot sighed.
Twilight grumbled. There were times when she was glad that changeling drones were only passingly sapient, but this was not one of them. It looked like it was time for her to save the day. Again. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep, calming, breath, then began.
“Right. Dash.” She jabbed a hoof at the hovering pregasus. “I’m going to need a sympathetic connection to Alex.”
Dash crossed her forelegs. “Urgh, I don’t know why you’d think I have any sympathy for her,” she grumbled, tossing her head.
“Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie exclaimed, rounding on the mare.
The pegasus rolled her eyes and gave a dramatic sigh. “Fine, I’ll be sympathetic. Don’t know why it would help.”
“Ah hem,” Twilight interjected. “What I meant is that, I need an item that belongs to Alex, something as dear as possible. Find that mare she lives with-”
“Swiftwing,” Pinkie supplied, making Dash’s face fall further.
“-and get me something to build a spell around.” Dash rolled her eyes, then shot off, trailing her trademark contrail. Twilight turned back to Pinkie. “Pinkie Pie, grab the girls and get to the Parlor. We’re going changeling hunting.”
The small band made their way through the Everfree, Twilight’s horn rising and falling in brightness at they picked their way over fallen trees and around the many dangers the forest had to offer. The Elements had convened near the edge of the wood and, with more resignation than trepidation, made their preparations and dove once more into the untamed depths of the Everfree forest.
Despite many attempts, they had not managed to dislodge Swiftwing, who’d tagged along with Rainbow Dash, and was wearing the rather starstruck look that most of the town more often associated with Scootaloo. Twilight had considered it cute on the young filly; on Swiftwing, a mare not more than five years her junior, it was frankly disturbing.
“We seem to be getting close,” Twilight called over her shoulder, checking her spell’s focus. When they found Alex she was going to have to ask why the pegasus owned a small plastic figurine of herself. It was a very strange object altogether, clearly from Earth, but it also had an incredible connection to the missing Club leader. Her inner scholar was bouncing up and down with excitement, and rather keen on tearing the sculpture apart down to the last materia bond, but the rather more worldly adventurer was firmly in the driving seat.
“So, you girls go this deep into the Everfree all the time, right?” Swiftwing continued, her low babble proceeding unabated by the grim silence that covered the rest of the herd. “Of course you do, you’re the Element bearers. I bet isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as some of the places you’ve been. Is it true that you ponies once battled Cerberus? Heck, I can see that; a quick one-two and, then three-four, five-six and wham, it’s all over. Nothing in here’s going to stand up to that. So I guess, that’s why you’re not scared. Not that I’m scared, but you know, you guys aren’t either, and that’s awesome. I’ve-”
“Shhh,” Pinkie cut in, holding a hoof up to her lips. “It’ll hear you.”
Swiftwing looked around, eyes wide. “What... the forest?” she said, after a few moment of seeing nothing but trees.
Pinkie just gave a knowing smile.
At long last the mare shut up and, subtly, the mane six breathed a sigh of relief.
“Was I like this with Daring?” Dash muttered, trotting alongside Twilight for a moment.
Twilight glanced over her shoulder at Swiftwing, who was simultaneously trying to: not appear scared, keep a close eye on the trees, and see if Dash was looking her way. “Yep,” Twilight concluded.
“Urgh. Shoot me now.”
They arrived at a small clearing and Twilight blanched as her spell sparked off the magical residue hanging heavy in the air.
“Well, this looks like the place,” she confirmed, taking a few tentative steps into the empty grove, probing for traps, arcana or otherwise, but without luck.
“Something bad happened here,” Pinkie said, with a full body shudder.
“No kiddin’” Applejack added, eyes on the disturbed dirt beneath their hooves. “Somepony fought somthin’ here.”
“Okay, stand back girls.” Twilight drew herself up to her full height, spreading her wings and once again delving into her reserves. Usually she would have drawn on the ambient energies of the location, but disrupting those would have rather defeated her aim. “I’m going to try a new spell.”
Far more experienced with ‘new spells’ than they would have liked, the crowd cleared out of the way as quick as their hooves could carry them. Twilight’s horn shone like the sun for a moment as a pulse of arcana raced through the clearing, disappearing into the trees with nary a ripple. After a few moments of tense anticipation, three shapes began to coalesce in the clearing.
Alex lay on the floor, unconscious or nearly so; it was hard to tell, her form was an insubstantial mist, obscured by the low lying haze of the Everfree. Rose stood a few feet away from her, also less than distinct, though with far more colour than the pegasus mare. Finally, and to the surprise of the gathered mares, the stallion Amelia materialised, perfectly formed down to the individual hairs on his chest.
Twilight frowned. Her spell was only supposed to pick up echoes of minds, not create full simacular. Cocking her head to one side she examined the stallion then, grinning at her own intelligence, dispelled the lingering illusion.
Chrysalis appeared, her pitted form more eery under the half light of the Everfree than the Queen had ever managed in Canterlot.
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy murmured, peaking out from behind Applejack.
“Is that bad?” Swiftwing interjected, peaking out from behind Fluttershy.
“Yes,” Twilight agreed. “This is very, very bad.”
Star Charge waited for the penny to drop.
Lyra had been doing her best to chair the meeting, but it was clear that she hadn’t prepared anything more than a few perfunctory statements and platitudes. Something had clearly gone very wrong in the hierarchy of the Club, and Star Charge was far too savvy a politician not to take notice. What he couldn’t figure out was what had gone wrong.
“Where is she?” he muttered to himself, as Lyra fumbled through another set of notes, turning her head ninety degrees to read her own hornwriting.
“Say something, boss?” Ivory Wing whispered, leaning over.
“Just wondering what happened to our erstwhile leader,” Star Charge admitted, shrugging.
Ivory Wing snorted. “Bet she finally snapped.”
As much as he would have been a delighted by that turn of events, Star Charge doubted dislodging Alex would ever be that simple. “I think we would have heard that,” he observed, getting a chuckle from Ivory Wing. Alex was many things, but shy about her feelings was not one of them. If Alex had finally thrown in the towel, she would have been ranting and raving at the podium Lyra had managed to knock over and was now desperately trying to right.
“No kidding, I heard her laying into Cog from the market. So where is she; eaten by the changelings?”
Star Charge rolled his eyes. “We should be so lucky. Though I suppose if Queen Rose had just eaten her it would solve a lot of our problems.”
“Heh, Amelia would be beside himself with glee,” Ivory agreed. “Good luck that--”
Twilight Sparkle appeared on the stage with a crack of displaced aether.
“Everypony -- or otherwise -- listen up,” she called out. “Alex and Rose have been foalnapped.” Star Charge felt a smile bloom on his face; that opened so many possibilities. “By Queen Chrysalis--” The smile vanished, just the thought of that monstrous perversion of harmony was enough to send shivers down Star Charge’s spine. “--who was disguised as Amelia. We suspect that Amelia’s entire identity may have been a complete fabrication to allow Chrysalis to infiltrate the town.”
The bottom dropped out of Star Charge’s stomach.
He stared open mouthed at the dais. Twilight continued speaking, something about searching the town for Changelings and a trip to the Badlands, but the words didn’t penetrate. Already ponies were looking at his little group askance, shifting away from the clique that had backed Amelia to the hilt, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. All those back-room conversations, all those whispers that somepony should do something about the changelings among them suddenly took on a sinister turn. A ruinous turn.
Twilight vanished, and pandemonium erupted. Star Charge found himself lost in the storm, as ponies hurried this way and that; some running for the hills, others gathering in worried clumps. Only one group seemed to keep any cohesion; Crystal Cog and the Barn ponies were headed for the door within moments, looks of grim determination on their faces.
Star Charge blinked and shook himself. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Ivory Wing snapped, “what do we do now?”
It took just a moment to realise what he had to do. “Follow Cog!” he barked, setting off at a gallop.
“Why?”
“Because he has a plan. And if we don’t save Alex we’re going to get run out of town on a rail!”
Twilight Sparkle was busy with a checklist, so didn’t notice immediately when the airship landed outside her castle. The cannon fire soon caught her attention, though.
“Avast Twilight!” Pinkie roared, tumbling through a nearby window. She wore an eyepatch and bandana and had a rubber cutlas clutched between her teeth, all of which were details Twilight missed as Pinkie’s tail was on fire.
One supercharged fire suppression spell later, Pinkie picked herself out of the sea of foam and shook herself off. “Urgh, this stuff tastes nothing like whipped cream,” she exclaimed, affronted.
Twilight sighed. “Why would it taste like cream?”
“It’s what I’d use,” Pinkie admitted, shrugging. She began to lick her foreleg clean, before catching Twilight’s horror-struck look. “What? I didn’t say it tasted bad.”
A flare of magic later Pinkie was left, sans costume, in the now foamless room. “Aww...”
“Pinkie,” Twilight snarled. “I am trying to plan an expedition to the Badlands. An expedition that holds the life of a dear friend in the balance--”
“Yes, and I found a super speedy way to get there,” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing up and down. “At first I was like, ‘no way that works’, but then Cog was ‘yes way’ and Gummy and Dashie and Starie all said it was an awesome idea and I should tell you right away. Well, Gummy didn’t say it in that many words, but I know what he means; I tell you that gator gets pretty picky when it comes to traveling. You’d think he’d be relaxed but no, it’s cushion this, and pretzels that, and--”
Twilight zipped Pinkie’s mouth shut with a spell, one that was rapidly becoming a trademark of hers. It did not stop Pinkie talking, but it at least made it easier for Twilight to interrupt. “Okay, let’s take a moment to breathe.” She took a deep breath, while Pinkie looked on indignantly. “What is this transport?”
Pinkie unzipped her mouth. “Airship,” she squeed, beaming.
“We don’t have an airship,” Twilight pointed out. “Not to mention that they’re far slower than the train lines, even without requisitioning an express which the Princesses were more than happy to--”
Pinkie groaned. “Twilight, stop being a super smarty pants for a moment and look out the window.” She dragged the bemused alicorn over to the window. After a few moments of stunned silence the pair disappeared in a flash of pink light.
The airship was alien thing to pony eyes. It had started life has a pleasure yacht of some rich scion, a hair over forty feet in length, and possessing just a main deck, a cramped cabin beneath the aftcastle and a narrow storage hold towards the prow. Crystal Cog and his Barn ponies had gutted the ship, losing both the original envelope of lighter than air gas and all of the luxury fittings. Thick luftwood cladding had been added along the length of the ship, giving it a bulky, military appearance, but far more surprising was the addition of large brass and crystal arcana engines at the four corners of the vessel. A unicorn above each device kept the levitation spell active, holding the ship an unwavering a meter above the grass, and a team of three pegasi were attached to a complicated harness at the prow, resting for now but clearly ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Twilight and Pinkie appeared a short distance away.
“Ahoy!” Crystal Cog called, waving from his position behind the wheel. “Are you joining us abroad, Princess?”
With a few flaps Twilight dropped onto the deck. Two dozen Club ponies and a few gryphons awaited there, and Twilight trotted the length of the impossibly steady deck to where Cog waited. The young pegasus was unable to hide his wild grin.
Twilight stood next to him and looked down the length of the ship, then over the rail at the ground below, then back down the ship. “Okay, how is this even flying?” she demanded at last.
“Well, she still has her all luftwood hull,” Cog began, rapping a hoof on the deck. “Unladen she’s more or less neutral, buoyancy wise, to counteract everything else though, we have the four lifting engines, arcana powered; they’re just simple levitators, with some power shunts and batteries so nopony burns out their horns.”
Twilight shook her head, struggling to believe what she was seeing. “You can’t use arcana magic on luftwood, it breaks down the gravity-sans effect.”
“Ah, but we’re not levitating the ship,” Crystal Cog pointed out, with a smug toss of the head. “No no, we turned them upside down, disabled the reaction dampening sections of the spell and--”
“Neightonian reaction!” Twilight exclaimed, her wings flaring out as the mental puzzle pieces slotted into place. “You levitate the earth, pushing the spellwork back and transferring that material energy into the ship to keep it up. That’s genius!”
Cog’s grin got even wider. “It’s stealing the idea of a maglev, but complement accepted. Now the pegasi--”
“Don’t have to divert any of their efforts to counteract the gravitational pull on the load,” Twilight continued, failing to notice she was stealing Cog’s thunder. “That leads to higher speeds with far less energy expended. With a couple of teams rotating on both the spellwork and wingpower you could keep up maybe twenty, thirty, miles per hour for long periods.”
“Based on the dry run, we reckon forty for fifteen hours a day,” Cog supplied. “Rotating between three ponies for each post.”
“Isn’t this awesome, Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed, right behind the geeky pair, making both Cog and Twilight jump. “It’s a proper flying skypirate ship!”
“Pinkie, there’s no such thing as skypirates,” Twilight corrected, sighing. “And technically we’re levitating.”
“Pssh.” Pinkie waved a dismissive hoof. “Don’t try and fool me silly, I know levitating, with it’s swoosh, swoosh, swoosh and sparkle, sparkle, sparkle. This is flying!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “On that note, what’s the flight ceiling?” she asked Crystal Cog.
“Umm... about here fully laden,” he admitted, holding a hoof about knee high above the deck. “But there’s nothing that can get you to the Badlands faster than the Thunderchild.”
Twilight nodded. “Okay, this is fantastic. With some guardspony pegasi and unicorns we should--”
“Absolutely not!”
The trio started, as Star Charge made his way up the aftercastle stairs. “The Club crews this ship.”
“Sorry, Princess,” Cog added, stepping to stand beside the unicorn. “But what he says is true. We’re not turning Thunderchild over to the guard. If anyone is going to rescue Alex and Rose, we are going to be there.”
Twilight stared for a moment. The idea of Crystal Cog and Star Charge standing side by side on any issue was more surprising than the levitating boat. “Okay,” she began, adopting her best, 'I’m a Princess and you’re going to do what I say' smile. “While I’m sure Alex would be very glad for your help, we are headed deep into the Badlands, to a completely unknown hive, filled to the brim with changelings, and all we have is Alex's plastic miniature to guide us. It’s almost certainly a trap and there is no way of saying whether anypony is going to come back alive. So I’m going to ask again. Do you really want to come?”
Cog and Star Charge shared a look. “Yes,” they chorused.
The Princess sighed; she really needed to finish that book on having a commanding presence.
“Would you be able to keep Alex home if either of us had been taken?” Crystal Cog added.
Twilight scowled at them both. Looked down the length of the boat for a moment, and did a few mental sums. “Okay, you can come, and bring a crew. But I don’t want anypony throwing themselves into danger, though.”
Cog smiled; it was a vicious thing, almost predatory. “Trust me, Princess, we’ll be fine. I’ve got a couple of little surprises for Queen Chrysalis.”
Lieutenant Karen Maynard watched with some bemusement as a unicorn walked past her, levitating a tray of coffee mugs. Ten days on the job and she was still waiting for the penny to drop, or the animatronics to fail, or the wires to slip. However, none of those comforting events had happened and, reluctantly, she had been forced to accept that the ponies were both real and operating off of a radically different set of physics than those she was used to. With over five hundred otherwise perfectly respectable physicists, mathematicians and engineers taking the ponies with deadly seriousness, there was little else she could do.
“Sure you don’t want anything?” Louis asked her as he passed, slightly muffled by the bulky breathing apparatus around his muzzle.
“Not this round,” Maynard replied, forcing herself to smile at the cobalt coloured unicorn. “Can’t say I need quite the amount caffeine everyone else seems to go through.”
“Don’t blame you.” He shook his head. “Never thought I’d find anyone able to drink more coffee than our flight engineer, but apparently physicists have him beat.”
He trotted off towards the occupied corner of the command center. Though that was a rather grandiose word for a moderately sized room, filled with randomly placed workstations, most of which was empty during the graveyard shift. A few dozen diehard researchers, or perhaps just those that had drawn the short straw, were still hard at work, though what they were doing was beyond the lieutenant. She hadn’t asked, and they hadn’t told her, but there was an experimental fusion reactor down the hall and Maynard had been tasked to protect the JET (Joint European Torus) at all costs; it didn’t take a genius to know something big was up.
“Beginning the next set,” one of the researchers announced, massaging his temples. “Wish me luck, guys.”
A few moments, and a lot of keyboard tapping, later Maynard looked away, suppressing a yawn. Physics was not a spectator sport by nature.
“Urgh, how much longer is this going to take?” the other pony, Tony Acey, grumbled from his seat, laid down on an office chair.
Maynard checked her watch. One A.M. “As long as it takes, I guess. Whatever that is...”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Typical army attitude,” he muttered, almost inaudible. “They’re trying to open a hole to Equestria,” he explained, as Maynard scowled.
Her only response was to cock an eyebrow at him.
“What? I didn’t name it.”
Maynard shook her head. “I have no idea how you convinced anyone to go along with this.”
The pegasus shrugged, rustling his wings. “Well, we did have video evidence of a portal to nowhere, and brought back a suitcase full of letters from missing persons, and all of Cog’s research notes, and coming out in front of an AWCS doing a full spectrum test was a plus.” He shuddered. “Even if that did almost get us shot down.”
Maynard held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, you don’t need to convince me. I’m just the security guard.”
“Yeah I know,” Tony muttered, resting his head between his hooves. “I’m just sick of waiting.”
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. It was almost half an hour before--
“Hang on, I got something,” one of the researchers called out. “Anyone else see that on run 7-21?”
Tony’s head came up. “Did you hear something?” he asked, flicking his ears.
“The geek squad getting excited again?” Maynard enquired, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the scientists.
“No, there was a... crack of some kind.”
“Yes! There! We’ve definitely got a blip. Run it again!”
Tony spread his wings. “There’s something...”
“That’s it! We’ve lost a whole megajoule somewhere.”
The world seemed to shift, and Maynard had to grab a desk to stop herself falling out of her chair, a number of the scientists weren’t so lucky and ended up sprawled on the floor. Moments later the lights failed, plunging them into darkness.
A light blossomed at the tip of Louis’ horn.
“That was it,” Tony whispered, staring into the distance. “We found Equestria!”
The room erupted into cheers. Maynard really wished she could get excited along with them, but then again, they had just confirmed the world was going to end.