//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11: Helpless 
// Story: My Little Apprentice: Apogee 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Apple Bloom had never worked so hard in her life. No harvest had ever motivated her to such violent action, not even the contest over cider-making when her farm had been in jeopardy. True, every passing hour made it more likely her friend would be taken too far to easily follow, and what she had seen happen just outside the lab all but proved the guards had been impostors. 

Every ounce of her concentration was devoted to engineering her way out. The magical glass proved resistant to drilling and heat, and she had managed nothing more than to score a few deep gashes. The concrete might be reinforced with thick rebar, but it was the only way she knew that promised even a faint chance of actually succeeding.

There were chemicals and dangerous machines galore; and with Chance's tablet she had a good chance of putting them together in such a way that she could blow her way out. Only; any solution she tried would have to be damaging enough to get through the door without turning her and everything else in the room into a fine paste.

That meant explosives were right out, even though she knew from experience that plenty of the bottles and jars along the far wall could be combined in several different destructive ways.

Naturally she had opened up the blinds, hoping that somepony would wander past and she could shout and gesture for them to let her out. But hopes of that were slim; the event was over for the night, and anypony who visited would've technically been breaking the rules to be here. Waiting until morning was safe enough for her, but that would've left her friend completely on her own with ponies she had seen commit acts of violence with her own eyes.

In the end, Apple Bloom had put together a contraption that would use her own earth pony strength (such as it was) along with levers and pulleys and an electrical heating coil. She strapped into the contraption, cinching the straps of what had been her saddle-bags until she had mutilated them beyond recognition. Braces attached to each leg and wrapped around her chest. The faux-leather kept the better part of the heat from her skin, or at least it should so long as she didn't wear it for too long. Apple Bloom secured the tablet in a clip she had installed, so she could look down and follow it with ease. She was pleased to see that, even after the many hours she must have already spent working, her friend hadn't ever traveled outside the range of the tablet's searching. Whatever the evil guards had done, they hadn't taken her too far to find. Perfect.

"Well, here goes nothin'." Apple Bloom spread her legs, then flicked a lever on the side of the machine. Heavy spikes swung outward with almost magical force, anchoring her to the floor. Another flick and the coil began to heat. A high pitched ringing sound echoed from behind her even as a roughly rounded section of heavy steel clicked into place against the door. Apple Bloom waited the few seconds it took to build the required tension, then closed her eyes behind the safety goggles and slammed her hoof sideways against the activation lever.

The force of the impact shot through her body with a surge of brief agony, though the greater part went through the metal exoskeleton. Were that not so, it was likely the force of the impact would've shattered many of her bones, earth pony magic notwithstanding. The pain wasn't nearly intense enough to blot out the avalanche of sound as the door was torn from its hinges and flung to the ground, bits of jagged steel poking through where the force had shattered much of the concrete.

Apple Bloom stepped out into the hallway, illuminated only by the glow of Chance's tablet. Those humans were so clever; they'd even put a light in the front in case somepony wanted to use it to see. She didn't remove her contraption even though the warmth was beginning to grow uncomfortable on her back. She was up against ponies able and willing to use violence; she might as well keep whatever advantage she could. Maybe a bit of steel and wire could make up for her considerable size disadvantage. 

Before making her way out of the lab, Apple Bloom took a detour down the other hallway, the one that ended in a storage closet. It was locked, but it was just a door of flimsy board, not even solid planks. A single buck freed the doorknob from the door and let it sag open.

There was a body on the floor, tightly bound with strong cord. Apple Bloom didn't have a knife, but the edge of one of her anchoring spikes worked well enough. Confident Theory was conscious, though not coherent. She staggered and barely seemed able to rise to her hooves. Apple Bloom explained her plan to rescue her friend, and asked the pony bring help as soon as she could. She could afford to wait no longer, so that was where the filly left her behind, hurrying out of the lab and trusting to the tablet's feeble light to help her find her way.

She made it out onto the street and wheeled sideways, ignoring the few ponies sitting outside the hotel staring at her. Her sister's voice sounded silently in her mind, urging she abandon the rescue and get help instead. Applejack never thought she could take care of herself. Apple Bloom would show her, and she'd rescue her friend while she was at it.

Seaddle was not like Ponyville, and the city didn't just go to sleep when night came. Yet as she turned down a side street into an industrial sector, she found there were no longer any ponies to stare at her strange costume, and most of the windows were dark. At least the streetlights were kept lit, so she didn't have to rely on the feeble glow of the tablet to light her way. Her hooves pounded on the pavement beneath her, ignoring the weight of her contraption and the tiredness that came of many hours of work. There would be time for rest when her friend was safe again. It was no less than any of her friends would've done for her.

Eventually she reached the building that the tablet seemed to be leading her towards; a massive water treatment plant. Even in darkness, faint lights glowed from inside and a billowing cloud of steam rose from cooling towers. Apple Bloom probably should've gone to the front doors, yet she knew the office would be closed this late at night. It would not be taking visitors, certainly not unsupervised fillies wearing dangerous contraptions in the middle of the night.

Instead, Apple Bloom chose to follow one of the unspoken but most frequently followed doctrines of the Cutie Mark Crusaders: It was easier to say sorry afterwards than ask permission before. The gate to a flimsy chain-link fence did far worse under the pressure of her harness than the blast door had, screaming faintly as several posts were torn clean from the asphalt. The service door wasn't even locked, so she didn't rip it from its hinges as she had many of the other obstacles she had encountered so far. She was close now; had to be. She would find Second Chance no matter what tried to stand in her way.


* * *


"These came from the castle library?" Bree lifted one of them, careful not to put too much pressure on what was clearly an ancient cover. Whatever the ponies had used to make their paper, it was hardier stuff than what humans used on Earth.

The rough group of dogs all nodded together. Bree was thankful she could selectively disable the senses on this body; they smelled quite repulsive after their trip through the forest ponies called the Everfree. Yet regardless of the state they had returned in, she could not begin to fault their results.

"Yes," Spot eventually answered more definitively for the squad he had led. "Found all the books Simon told us to get. Had to look at his drawings; none of us can read pony."

Bree set the spine down against the table, opening the covers simultaneously and ruffling through the pages, loosening them before she dared attempt to open and read. She opened the book wide in one arm, then began to flick the pages at a rate of about five a second, just slow enough for her eyes to capture a clear image of the text on each page.

"But you can?" Simon rested in a nearby chair, both forepaws on his walking stick and inspecting the books.

Bree waved dismissively to Spot. "Your dogs did good work, Spot. Talk to the alpha down the hall, she'll give you your reward. Then... take the opportunity to bathe. I believe you could all use the- the rest." None of the dogs saluted, but they all lowered their heads with respect and hastened to obey. Only when they had all gone back into the brightness of Bree's central chamber did she speak. 

Of all the diamond dogs she knew in the dark, only Simon had earned the privilege of her frank honesty. Bree began flipping through the pages again, though it was trivial for her to keep talking. "I don't, no."

"I could help you translate, Builder. All the old writings are in written Equestrian just like this, before we came up with our own written form."

Bree shook her head, and took a seat across the table from Simon. She pushed one book away and began flipping through the next one in a similar way, giving her eyes clear vision of each page in its turn. "I appreciate your willingness to help, but it won't be necessary. I have diverted the processing power of all my drones to the translation. By the time you had started reading, I wouldn't need your help any longer."

Simon considered that a moment. "You learn that quickly?"

"The advantage of a mechanical mind." She tapped the side of her head for emphasis. "It's the next stage in evolution, Simon. Your dogs will be as capable as I am when they reach it."

He chuckled. "Maybe. In the meantime, do you mind if I read these with you? It isn't every day I get the chance to read books this ancient. There are probably fascinating stories in these."

"I thought the alphas didn't like it when you told stories that weren't about dogs."

Simon's smile widened. "I change the characters around a little, and he won't know any different. Might be all I'm doing is putting the story back to how it was." At Bree's nod, he slid the book towards him, even as she picked up a third and began scanning it as she had the other two.

"How's that?"

"Things weren't so stable back then. Lots of wars; dogs and ponies and griffons. Whenever one group came up with a good story, it wasn't long before everybody rewrote it to make it about them. Lots of our oldest stories are that way; we don't know for sure if they're really about dogs, or if they aren't about someone else." He held up the book. "Though, unless I've forgotten how to read the pony language, this one is about the succession wars of the Unicorn Kingdom. Probably not what you were looking for." He kept reading anyway, though at a pace more reasonable for an organic that had to actually use their eyes to examine each word and reconstruct sound based on the patterns of symbols there.

They worked in silence for a time, so that the sounds of working dogs and machinery in the large cavern nearby echoed in again. It took the combined processing power of all Bree's resources about fifteen minutes to work out a translation with any degree of certainty; a task made more difficult by the clearly dated language present in the book, not entirely consistent with the language files on Equestrian. If she had the resources to produce exotic matter here in Equestria, she could've had a non-deterministic processor and the solution in linear time.

That done, processing the books she had read so far was almost an instantaneous operation, and she knew that none of them contained further information on Leonidas or anything even remotely resembling him.

"What did you say the stories called him again?"

Simon looked up. "Leo the bold, the ponies call him. They speak about all the dogs in those battles like they were ponies too. I would fault them for it, except to listen to the stories of the First Invasion in our ballads would have you think the pony princesses never left their castle and that none of the ponies lifted a hoof to fight." He shook his head. "Pity."

"First Invasion." Bree flipped through the first few pages of each of the remaining books. Now that she could read them, it made sense not to read tomes whose titles were on obviously unrelated subjects. "What was it like?" She found three books in the dozen with titles promising military history of one kind or another, and resumed flipping through them as she had the others.

Simon's face darkened. "Wish I could. There are lots of stories; actually, most of our really good stories are about the Invasion somehow. Problem is, almost all of them disagree. I don't know which side the dogs fought. There are hero dogs like Beowulf, who killed a dragon with just his paws, or Azeban, who tricked the princesses into signing the treaty that let dogs dig in Equestria ever after. I could tell them to you, if you wish."

Bree nodded. "Another time, perhaps." The book in her hands nearly slipped from her fingers, and she hastily flipped to the indicated page. "This is it." She pushed the other books aside. "The dogs can return these, this is the only one I need."

"You know already? You've just been flipping pages."

"I've been memorizing." That wasn't exactly true, but it was the closest parallel in meaning they would understand. To demonstrate, she closed the book again, and read out loud from the image her eyes had captured. 

"‘The great hero's love for his princesses protected him from the flames. At the arrival of Princess Luna, the army halted for eleven days as a great feast and funeral games were...’" she trailed off. "Then lots of stuff about the contests and who won, then: ‘His body blackened, but intact, the procession carried him into the castle catacombs, where he was interred with honor beside the noble heroes already resting there.’"

"Why did you want to know where he was buried? He's been dead for over a millennia... Do you intend to send his remains back to his family?"

"If that were possible, I would prefer to send him back." She rose to her feet. "Travel moves only in one direction. Stabilizing the door requires a machine I can't presently construct. She shook her head. "When my king learns Leonidas is intact, his first command will be to abandon all else and recover him at once." She shook her head, biting back the words she wanted to say. That Richard would've been a better king if he left fools like Leonidas dead. So all she did was groan. "I suppose I'll have to bring him back from the dead."

Simon nearly choked, his eyes widening in surprise. "F-Forgive me, Builder... but he's been rotting for more than a thousand years. The pony princesses loved him dearly, and even their magic couldn't revive him. Is your magic mightier than the power that raises the sun and keeps the moon in its course?"

Bree shook her head, fighting to keep the scorn from her voice. Simon came from a primitive society, it was no fault of his he had absorbed their misconceptions. Yet, she also knew the natives called ponies did have some kind of power that humans did not. She had seen images of the native called Clover, and the flash of light and power that had eventually returned her to her world.

"I cannot move the stars," she admitted. "And I couldn't bring back any other dead creature, let alone one dead that long." Indeed, the Steel Tower had, even after many years, failed to discover the way for two minds to reproduce. This was a serious concern, since until it was solved their numbers could only diminish over time. It was why, even the most anti-biological of their number agreed, that primitive humans would have to be allowed to survive. They would need a stock to recruit the best and brightest from in the endless future that waited.

"But Leonidas is like me," she gestured at her body. "We are a greater form of life than mortal creatures. So long as fragments of his body survived, I can use them to bring him back."

There was a long silence, as Simon considered those words. When he spoke, it was more cautiously, as though he was afraid that his words might offend her. "Are you not... Even if you have this power, wouldn't it be cruel to bring him back now? He's been dead many years – surely his loved ones are with him there. Maybe you should let him remain with them in peace."

So the dogs believed in an afterlife? That was cute, but it hardly served her purpose to correct him now. "His family lives still in the Tower. He will return to them in time, when his duty here is done."

"The catacombs." Simon rose beside her. "It would take months to tunnel that far. Even if we did, our rights to Equestrian minerals don't extend to their cities. Protection spells would find the burrows. If we sent dogs on the surface, they would be noticed. The ponies wouldn't be happy if we went into their tombs and desecrated the graves of their heroes."

Bree nodded. "I won't send dogs. As you say, the danger is too great." She gestured at an apparently empty patch of air in front of them, and out from active camouflage appeared the first of her stealth drones, its skin returning to the white-plastic look that was the standard for drones. It wasn't truly what their surfaces looked like, but Simon didn't have to know that. "I will send these."

She reached out, putting gentle pressure on the top of the quadcopter. It resisted at first, tilting and gyrating to compensate. Eventually it gave up, and the rotors stopped spinning. She caught it, taking it up into her arms.

"Your insects are silent and invisible?"

"A few of them are. They were too delicate to send ahead of me, but thanks to the pack's hard work, I've had more than enough resources." She grinned. "Let's bring back the dead."


* * *


Twilight awoke with a violent start, her horn coming to life almost of its own accord as she felt the pressure of another's hooves on her shoulders. She stared around for the source of the disturbance, only relaxing when she saw the pony responsible: Rainbow Dash.

The mare put her hooves up defensively. "Jeez, egghead. If I'd known you were going to freak out so much, I would've let you sleep."

She didn't answer at first, using her magic to straighten out the mane that had gone completely askew during her involuntary nap. "At least you didn't knock a hole in the wall this time. It took weeks to coax the tree to grow over the opening last time."

As she had done hundreds of times before, Twilight had fallen asleep while reading, face pressing into whatever book she happened to be reading beyond her capacity to stay awake. Unlike every previous instance, this "book" was a single flat slab of thin plastic, the device Second Chance had referred to as a tablet. She searched its surface for damage, but found not only was it intact but the machine still displayed the text it had been showing when she dozed.

The sunlight glowing its way down from the open stairwell indicated it was already daylight outside. Fantastic.

"Yeah, whatever. You know I only do that when I have a really good reason." She shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Besides; you're in the basement this time. I'm not sure I'd win in a contest with the sides of the tree and tons of dirt." Her friend cast her eyes around the room, lingering on the tablet. "What the heck kinda book is that?" Without a word, she squeezed past Twilight to the edge of the desk, looking it over. Granted, Rainbow had very little patience for machines, and her interest lasted only a few seconds. To her great surprise, Rainbow began reading from the top of the page, her pace halting but far better than it'd been a few years ago.

"...show deference to the gods and pity for myself, remembering your own father. Of the two old men, I'm more pitiful, because I have endured what no living mortal on this earth has borne – I've lifted up to my own lips and kissed the hands of the man who killed my son."

She took a deep breath, pushing the tablet away from the edge of the desk and turning away. "Woah, Twi. What kind'a depressing stuff are you reading?"

"Tablet, clear," Twilight said. The screen flashed white, then blanked. She levitated it onto the nearby shelf, concealing it between two large books before turning back to Rainbow Dash. "Remember the night Second Chance arrived?"

Rainbow Dash shivered, then nodded. "When the magic went all funny and you used Celestia's spell thing, yeah. What does a magic depressing book have to do with that?"

The words were out before Twilight knew what she was doing. "It's part of my new mission from Princess Celestia. She wants me to-" That was when she realized what she was doing, and she stopped abruptly, ears flattening on her head.

Her prismatic friend watched, eyes intent. "Wanted you to what?"

She sighed, plopping onto her rump and glaring down at her hooves. "I hadn't actually planned on... on telling anypony about it." As Rainbow's expression darkened, she continued. "Not that I don't trust you! Or the others, for that matter. It's just-"

"You didn't want us to worry?" Rainbow Dash finished, her tone skeptical. "You think I can't handle it?" She puffed out her chest, brushing a wing against Twilight in the process. "I can read depressing books as fast as anypony! Faster! You know I'm the fastest in Equestria!"

Rainbow Dash certainly was not the fastest reader in Equestria, but Twilight wasn't about to say so. Her friend was so proud of her (admittedly substantial) gains over the last few years that she failed to realize she'd done little more than make up for the improvements she would've been making automatically if she'd kept reading as a part of her life. "It's not that I didn't think anypony could handle it. I just thought since taking care of the filly was my responsibility, this would be too." She glanced briefly over her shoulder at the bookshelf where she had hidden the tablet. "All this research does help me understand her better."

Her friend's eyes grew annoyed. "Don't try to change the subject, Twi." She nudged Twilight with her chest. Twilight couldn't tell if the gesture was meant to be affectionate or belligerent. Just as a great deal was with her cyan friend. "Are you gonna tell me what this mission is, or aren't you? I don't see how any book assignment you got from Celestia could be that big a deal. Haven't you been doing those like, since forever?"

"Yeah, but..." She took a deep breath. "You promise not to tell anypony? Pinkie Promise?"

The pegasus rolled her eyes, then repeated the familiar mantra: "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She stopped, looking Twilight up and down with an expression of growing concern. "You look terrible, Twi. This thing's been hard on you."

"Yes." It was now or never. "What if you had to judge a whole species? What if the decision you make would decide the future of billions of ponies? And... and, if you made a wrong choice, everypony you knew might suffer because of it?"

Rainbow Dash whistled. "Woah. That all?" She sat down beside Twilight, close enough that Twilight could feel the heat of her. 

Before she even knew what she was doing, Twilight leaned against her friend, biting back tears and reveling in the comfort of physical touch. It was a simple, animal feeling, one becoming an Alicorn hadn't entirely strangled. She half expected her friend, perhaps the least comfortable with physical contact of all her close friends, to stiffen or even pull away. Rainbow did the opposite, draping her wing across Twilight's back and providing a firm support for the fearful princess.

"It's okay, egghead. I'm here." 

Twilight cried. She wasn't sure how much, or for how long. It felt like hours, though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Eventually she found her self control returning, and she wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of one foreleg. "It's not... I probably shouldn't be freaking out this much about it. You know me; I tend to get worked up over the littlest things." She took another steadying breath. "Chance came from somewhere else, you already knew that. There are two things you didn't know, though. First; she's an ambassador from another world. She hasn't always been a pony." Twilight concentrated and lifted the cloth concealing Truth not ten feet away. The human device was presently in some sort of power-saving mode, but Twilight didn't want to talk to him.

Merely revealing the artifact had the desired effect, if the shocked expression on Rainbow Dash's face was any guide. She went on without giving the pegasus a chance to recover and interrupt. "The other thing you don't know is a little more complicated. Clover the Clever, she saw this vision the princesses both think is at least mostly true, about the end of Equestria." She shivered, meeting Dash's eyes. "It's scary, Dash. I'm in it. A thousand years, and she saw me." She couldn't restrain a shiver.

"I don't see what those have to do with one another. Some stuffy old pony gets a vision, and apparently your filly's an important alien. So what?"

"The end of Equestria," Twilight repeated. "The end of the world. She saw it. That's why Ce-"

"Wait a minute." Rainbow rose to her hooves again, pacing away a pace or two. "Princess Celestia and Luna saw this vision too, right?" She nodded, and her friend continued. "So what are they doing to stop it? If they saw it all those years ago..."

That was an interesting question. Twilight didn't have an answer beyond her own experience, so that was what she used. Anything more would have to wait until she saw Celestia or Luna in person again. "Remember that time I saw myself from the future, and I was convinced there was going to be some sort of horrible disaster?" Rainbow nodded. "I ended up causing the trouble I thought I was preventing. Trying to prevent the future when you think you know it might be the thing that makes it happen in the first place."

The pegasus shrugged. "Celestia wouldn't just let it happen." There was absolute certainty in her voice. It was the same certainty that many ponies had, a faith in the princesses that bordered on the religious. Of all the ponies of Equestria, her friends had seen more of the weaker side of the princesses than anypony else. That hadn't been enough to make her lose faith.

"No, she wouldn't... and I don't really know what Celestia and Luna did about it." She looked down at her own hooves. "Except for one thing. Chance's people might be the way out. Accepting their help might be the only way to save Equestria."

Rainbow fidgeted on her hooves, taking another long look at the cube. "Okay. So what's the problem? Equestria makes new friends, the day is saved, everypony's happy."

"They might not be the way out." She looked up, towards where light came cascading down from the open stairwell. "That's what Celestia wants me to find out. If I decide they're safe, they'll help save us and we'll have to save them. But I might be wrong, and they might destroy Equestria instead of helping us. Clover's vision doesn't say."

"And the depressing books-"

"Chance's species made them. Not just books, music and plays and movies too." Twilight struck the ground with one of her hooves in frustration. "I don't know what to do, Rainbow! I thought it'd be obvious one way or another, that all this reading was mostly academic. It's not like we haven't always been able to tell the difference between a good pony and a bad pony before." She glared at Truth. "It's not that simple with aliens. They've got stories about the most horrible things, stories about things nopony would ever dream of." 

She shivered involuntarily, remembering one of the books she had only recently finished. "Poverty, hatred, violence. Revolutions so bloody they had to invent special machines with no purpose other than to execute a pony. Evil, indifference, disharmony."

Her friend stiffened a little, and she too glanced towards the stairs. "You mean we've been letting some sort of awful monster spend time with the town's fillies and colts? Where she could..." She scratched angrily at the floor with her hoof.

"No!" Twilight continued with hesitation. "They're not all like that! It would be easy to judge them if they were. They're just stories, not actual history. The stories aren't about that kind of thing... they're stories about condemning evil, about protecting the weak and caring for friends. Just... in the face of evil as bad as anything Equestria has ever seen."

Rainbow Dash seemed to relax, though she still looked uneasy. Twilight couldn't blame her for that. "So what are you gonna tell the princess?"

It took her more than a moment to answer. "They're... very like us. They care about all the same things ponies do. But they're also... more colorful than we are. Not physically... it seems more like they reach greater depths than we do. If there are humans anything like the ones in the story, than they've been more evil than any pony ever dreamed, even tyrants like Sombra. But for every one of those, there's been somepony just as good. Somepony like the princesses, who sacrifices everything for their friends. Who doesn't care what happens to them so long as their friends are okay."

"An accurate assessment, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Your research confirms what we have previously suspected."

Twilight blinked, turning to stare dumbfounded at Princess Luna, as she glided down the staircase into her basement.

Rainbow blushed, ears flattening as she shuffled on her hooves. "Oh yeah. I guess I kinda forgot that Luna sent me to get you." She dropped into a sloppy bow for the princess. "Sorry about that."

Twilight glared at her friend, before lowering her head in a nod of respect to the Night Princess. Like Celestia, Luna refused to tolerate anything more since Twilight's ascension. Not that Twilight understood why, it wasn't as though she was even princess of anything. Luna ruled over all the night and saw the dreams of all ponies. There wasn't really much of a comparison there.

"No apology is necessary, Rainbow Dash. You would have remembered eventually, I am certain of it."

"Why did you suspect that?" Twilight asked. This more casual relationship with the princesses did make things easier on her.

"Because Leo was that way. Passionate as few ponies are. He inspired courage in his stallions. When Equestria was in danger, he sacrificed his immortal life to protect it." She shook her head. "We have no time to speak of this now, Twilight Sparkle. That is not why I have come; we are urgently needed elsewhere."

"What's wrong?"

Luna's eyes darkened. "There's been some sort of attack in Seaddle. Details are presently difficult to secure, but what little I know indicates the filly's laboratory was attacked and destroyed and the two of them are presently missing. Whatever did this tore right through the building." 

Twilight was on her hooves again and hurrying after the princess before she even knew what she was doing. "I can round up the girls!" Rainbow called after, hovering in the air behind her. "Just give me a few seconds to round everypony up!"

"No time." Twilight found herself possessed of sudden, irrational fury. Celestia help them if they had hurt the filly. Her filly. Maybe she'd been premature when she said ponies couldn't reach the emotional heights humans could. "I'll be back." The shadows gathered around them, the earth itself seeming to shake as stars twinkled under Luna's magic. The usual implosion of a teleport sounded more like a thunderclap, leaving a dumbfounded Rainbow behind.


* * *


Apple Bloom was afraid, much more afraid than she ever would've admitted. Trapped within the darkness of the water-purification plant, she was reminded more and more of the absolute foolishness of this plan. She should've gone for the city guards, should've at least brought whatever adults she could find along for the rescue. Why hadn't she? She couldn't have taken the risk that she would be ignored (or worse). Tearing apart the laboratory's expensive equipment for parts and using them to blow a hole in the wall might be against a few laws too, when she thought about it.

The air was damp with moisture, and her sensitive hearing was made almost useless by the constant roar of water rushing and machines grinding away. Her sense of the earth beneath her hooves was even somewhat confounded, her connection to the magic of her race far weaker through concrete than it was through dirt or true stone. "Approaching target." The device sounded like shouting in the quiet of the factory, and Apple Bloom winced. She struggled with it for a few seconds, but of course she knew nothing about how to fine-tune its operation. "Fifty meters and closing. Medical sensors within range. Target is unconscious, heart rate of 45 beats per minute and stable. Blood pressure-"

"Please be quiet!" Apple Bloom whispered, furious anger in her tone. Whatever secrecy she had maintained on her approach was surely gone now. Miraculously, the request was sufficient to silence Chance's tablet.

"Well, wouldn't you call that interesting?" The voice came from ahead, far enough ahead that Apple Bloom's eyes failed to pierce the darkness even with the tablet's aid.

"A voice synthesizer." Pause. "And fear. Delicious fear." Hoofsteps sounded ahead, echoing closer.

Apple Bloom kicked the stabilizer, gritting her teeth as spikes drove themselves into the concrete. She switched on the coil, and braced herself for a fight. What would happen to a pony struck by a machine she had built to tear down reinforced concrete?

The guards came into view ahead of her, standing abreast in the hallway. They seemed to have no trouble finding their way, though neither had bat-wings. "Stay back!" Apple Bloom called, when they were perhaps ten meters away. Even that close, they were at best vague outlines in the gloom. "'Ah just came for my friend! I don't wanna hurt nopony!"

The ponies didn't stop, not until they had closed the distance to perhaps two strides. "Why, that was a synthesized voice!" The first of the speakers gestured at the tablet mounted to her harness.

"Civilian ruggedized datapad, if I'm not mistaken." The second of the not-guards had a mare's voice instead of a stallion's, but almost the exact inflections of her twin. "Where would the child have found one, do you think?"

"Well, it obviously works." He glanced briefly over his shoulder. "The doctor must have made more progress in her mission than we suspected." She felt a brief, magical tug on the tablet, an aura of green trying to pull it away from her. Unfortunately for her enemy, Apple Bloom was thoroughly and completely grounded.

Magic, like electricity, had rules governing its behavior. Like electricity, it interacted with metals in different ways. She had learned this lesson during her many hours of potion making, observing the interactions of the various catalysts with the innate magic of the plants Zecora used. In this case, Apple Bloom's body was wrapped all over with metal, including the little bars and clips holding the tablet to her. All of that, connected to steel spikes driven into the earth.

The stallion grunted, and his horn glowed briefly bright enough to light the chamber behind him. The vast majority of the levitation dissipated harmlessly into the earth. Of course, only a shield spell could ground a spell out completely, but the effect was enough that her greater physical strength could more than compensate. That was, of course, the other reason for the spikes. Just as unicorn magic could be grounded out via a strong connection to the earth, her own strength and resilience would only be increased. Such was the blessing of the earth.

"Clever filly." The stallion's eyes turned dark, and for the first time he looked at her instead of the machine. "Did you escape with that contraption?"

"Well, obviously. Look at the dust in her mane. We should've bound her."

Apple Bloom glared between them. "Give me my friend back. I'm not leaving without her."

The ponies paused, glancing at each other. A silent conversation passed rapidly between them, before they turned back to face Apple Bloom without any obvious signals they had finished. "She isn't here," the mare supplied. “A colleague of ours is already on the way back to the hotel with her. She might already be in your room waiting for you."

Apple Bloom didn't need her sister's natural talent for sniffing out falsehood to know she was being lied to now. "Liar!" She looked down at the computer. "Tablet, who are you looking for?"

As before, the machine responded to her commands. "User Kimberly Colven, local designation 'Second Chance.' Subject has been located via nanophage radio response ping. Accuracy: 1 meter. Subject appears to be waking. Return to consciousness estimated at forty-five seconds."

The ponies in front of her shared a worried glance. "No choice," the mare said.

"Have to kill her. Quickly." The stallion agreed, without a sign of remorse. 

They charged. Bolts of sizzling magic flew. Most went wild, splattering onto the concrete, though a few struck the metal supports of her device and were channeled downward into the earth. Apple Bloom whimpered, but she did not falter under what looked like two royal guards bearing down on her with murder in their eyes. She braced her hind-legs, preparing her small body for the impact. She waited until the enemy had closed to within a meter, close enough that they drew their weapons and prepared to strike her.

With a great roar, the contraption released enough force to tear through concrete, mechanism slamming forward into the bodies of her assailants. It didn't have the piercing power to breach their breastplates, but it didn't need to. With a sickening crunch like breaking twigs and a splattering of green fluid, the ponies jolted suddenly forward. Green ichor sprayed her face and splattered on the screen. A second later, guardspony's armor clanked noisily to the ground at the edge of the hall. 

Only by drawing on the strength the earth gave her did Apple Bloom keep herself from vomiting right then. She wiped the strange, putrescent fluid from her face on the edge of the mechanism, listening for the sound of her enemies rising for another assault. None came. So she wiped off the edge of the tablet, enough that she could move forward again in its feeble light and investigate whatever carnage she had caused.

There was only one relief in the scene that waited for her; the bodies were clearly not ponies. The sudden concussive force had squished her attackers like insects. Now, that was very much how they looked. Black, chitinous bodies. Translucent, multifaceted eyes, and green ichor instead of blood. Changelings. The monsters that had attacked Equestria during the wedding, killed hundreds of ponies during their assault on Canterlot. Her own sister had dispatched more than a few of the vile creatures...

She was getting distracted. If the stories she had heard about the wedding were true, where there were a few changelings there were always more. She had to get out of this building and back to the hotel with Chance before more of them came to investigate the noise of battle.

As Apple Bloom moved past the fallen insects, she felt something strange brush past her, and she froze suddenly in her tracks. It was no physical object, but a... presence. She looked around wildly for the source of whatever magic assaulted her, but found nopony. "W-Who's-" the sound died stillborn in her throat as something surged at her from the fallen changelings, straining against her consciousness. She found her hooves moving again of their own accord, back towards the bodies.

Apple Bloom wasn't about to give up that easily. She might not be a unicorn, with memorized charms and counterspells to fall back on, but she wasn't about to let herself get stopped by anything this close to success, no matter how powerful it might be. "NO!" She dug in her heels, and came to a skidding stop. Her body responded sluggishly, and she nearly fell over in the struggle.

You will obey us. It was not one voice in her mind but two, a male and a female that sounded almost exactly like the changelings she had just slain in self-defense. How was that possible?

"I won't!" She felt the strange presence pulling at her hooves, trying to make her move again. Not to step, not this time. Instead, they forced one of her hooves up, angling the mechanism still damp with changeling slime. With shaking hooves, she lifted the machine, pointing it upward at her own neck. It was all she could do to slow them, as their combined will battered at her mind. They were so strong! Whatever minor relief she might feel to know she hadn't really killed them, even monsters as evil as changelings, was swallowed in the terror of what they were trying to do. "You can't... make me!"

Even in "death", they still intended to kill her. No matter what she said, there was nothing she could do about it.