Hours later, into the foggy gold haze of early morning, Rainbow Dash's head still hung in the same lethargic slump. Bard and Wildcard flew ahead of her, carefully surveying the rippling seas beneath them. The mare didn't look up much; she simply kept the Desperadoes residually in her peripheral vision.
To Rainbow's right, Twilight Sparkle hovered at an even pace. The unicorn kept a solid gaze on Rainbow Dash, her ears folded back as her eyes glistened with curious sympathy. Rainbow said nothing, so neither did Twilight.
All around them, low-hanging clouds parted ways, revealing a listless fog that hung over the slate gray waters. The group threaded the needle between two layers of mist, progressing eastward at a lazy glide.
At one point, a pale and a pink shape darted up towards Rainbow, antsy and breathless.
“Woohoo!” Pinkie Pie pumped a hoof. “We found the bouncy-bouncy!”
“As best as I can judge, the barrier stopped us at one hundred feet to Rainbow's left,” Rarity said. “Same as to her right.”
“So that means one hundred round feet of flip-flopples for us ghostie besties!” Pinkie exclaimed.
“Actually, no, Pinkie.” Rarity showed her head. “One hundred feet appears to be the radius, so to find the volume you must multiply one hundred by four and pi and then divide by three—”
“Come on! Let's round up more radii!” Pinkie dove straight down. “Weeeee!”
Rarity rolled her eyes, then smiled at Twilight. “Whatever the case, it would appear as though the three of us now have greater mobility since finding Pinkie Pie. Considering how much more distance you had to move before and after I showed up, it would seem to indicate a pattern.”
“As I suspected.” Twilight nodded, then glanced at Rainbow. Fidgeting, she looked back at Rarity and said, “Thanks for investigating, Rarity. Best to double-check, though.”
“You mean best to keep a leash on Pinkie Pie.” Rarity saluted and dropped down after the pink shape. “Read you loud and clear, Captain, my Captain!”
Rarity descended, leaving the other two mares alone.
Rainbow exhaled out her nostrils.
Twilight flew in a bit closer, clearing her throat. “So... uh... you're rather quiet today.”
“Hmmmm...” Rainbow's eyes searched the rippling waters below.
Twilight bit her lip. “Are... are you feeling dizzy at all?”
Rainbow said nothing.
“Because, if you are, then maybe you should be flying ahead of Bard and Wildcard so that they could spot and grab you in case you collapse again—”
“I'm fine,” Rainbow Dash muttered.
Twilight folded her forelimbs. “I'm just concerned for you, Rainbow. That's all.” She gazed ahead. “It's only been... what? Two days since we found Pinkie Pie? And already you're having dizzy spells?”
Rainbow's brow furrowed.
“I don't know about you, but that alarms me,” Twilight said. “It... it just doesn't seem to fit the pattern of things. I mean, from what you've related to us before, it should be a good long while until you suffer more collapses. But for them to be happening already?”
“I'm not the expert.”
“You're the closest thing there'll ever be to one, though!” Twilight exclaimed. “Who besides you has ever experienced what it means to be 'the Austraeoh?'”
“Commander Hurricane, supposedly.”
“And just how far did she make it?”
“That...” Rainbow blurted—but didn't quite know how to continue. So she cleared her throat, avoiding Twilight's gaze with a grimacing expression. “That was different. She ran into undead pegasi in Stratopolis.”
“So is that what killed her?”
“Uhhh... pretty sure.”
Twilight sighed. “I suppose you are fortunate—at least—to have had such a strong mare share some of the same flight paths as you.” She gazed east through the mists. “You have something to learn from.”
“I dunno if Hurricane ever had the same dizzy spells as I did, though,” Rainbow muttered.
“Because she never found the beacons like you did?”
''Cuz she never got filled to the brim with chaos after watching her friends die.”
“Erm... right...” Twilight shuddered. “That.”
“She never had to... to...” Rainbow's brow furrowed. She swallowed a lump down her throat. Her eyes lifted, finally looking at Twilight. “Say, Twilight?”
The unicorn jolted in mid-air, glancing back with bright eyes. “Yes?” she responded, a bit too enthusiastic for her own good. “What is it, Rainbow?”
Rainbow squirmed slightly, but kept flapping her wings. “Do you ever wonder... what would have happened if Discord was never defeated?”
Twilight blinked. “Uhhhh...”
“Lemme rephrase that,” Rainbow said. She cleared her throat and said, “What would have happened if I hadn't... y'know... killed Discord?”
“Oh. Uhm...” Twilight blinked into the gray mists. “Well... even though I've never been quite that fond of... how Discord was d-dispensed with...”
Rainbow clenched her teeth.
“I must admit that if he was allowed to continue existing, he surely would just keep running amok.” Twilight gulped. “And with the rest of us Elements gone, that would definitely not be a good thing. His powers of chaos would have continued, unchecked. He'd be in control of Ponyville... Equestria...” The spectral unicorn shrugged. “For all we know, his reach may have stretched as far as the rest of the world! Even here!”
“Because only the Elements of Harmony would be able to stop him.”
“Precisely. The sheer power of Harmony—so capably harnessed—was all that could put that beast to rest!”
“So how come I was able to defeat him, huh?” Rainbow blinked. “I only had one Element.”
“Err...”
“The rest were destroyed, remember?”
“Yes, but you said it yourself, Rainbow.” Twilight smiled awkwardly. “When you came upon the scene of our... well... deaths... you put the Element on and used it to harness the residual energies of the other Elements.”
“All by myself.”
“Apparently.”
“Do you realize just how... cruddy that theory sounds?” Rainbow gestured at the unicorn. “I mean, you're a scientist, right? Would you feel right putting something like that down on paper and using it to officially explain what's happened?”
“I... would need the proper research materials and time to—”
“Well?!”
Twilight sighed, shaking her head. “No, Rainbow. I suppose it... doesn't sound very concrete. Truth is, there's just so much that I don't understand about what happened.”
“Harmony functions by certain rules, right?”
“Well... yes! It's the key central point to Alicorn magic! And Alicorns are the most structured, harmonious creatures in the known universe!”
“So... like...” Rainbow waved in the air. “How many rules were broken to let what happened... happen?” She winced. “Why is it that all but one Element vanished... but the big bad monster of chaos was still eliminated anyways? Because—no matter how we shake it, Twilight—it all came down to me. Me and one Element. Loyalty.” She brushed her hoof past the pendant in question. “Would it have worked with Nightmare Moon?”
“Princess Celestia banished Nightmare Moon over a thousand years ago,” Twilight said. “And she was on her own.”
“Yeah, but she had all six Elements though.”
Twilight sighed. “You're right, Rainbow. You're right.”
“So... like... when was there ever another moment in history when the Elements of Harmony... and the Rules of Harmony made an exception?” Rainbow gulped. “Like they apparently did with me.”
“Rainbow, what...?” Twilight took a deep breath, then murmured: “What precisely are you trying to convey with all of this?”
“Was there ever really another way that Discord was going to be defeated?” Rainbow Dash remarked. “Something alternative to what actually happened?” She bit her lip. “Some way that involved all six elements and all six of us?”
“What are you talking about, Rainbow?” Twilight arched an eyebrow. “Are you making an implication about fate?”
“Just think about it, Twilight,” Rainbow said. “Imagine we had defeated Discord. All six of us. Imagine that nopony died... got blown up along with their Element... whatever.” She shuddered. “Imagine we just... got done what needed to get done, hung up the Elements of Harmony, and lived on with our happy horse lives doing happy horse things. What then?”
Twilight stared at Rainbow. Her eyes glanced off to one side, then the other. “I... suppose...” She swallowed. “...we would have been at peace in Ponyville.” A pause. “And you would never have started your journey.”
“Right.” Rainbow nodded. “And if I had never started flying east—”
“—then all this business with the beacons and Urohringr would have stayed buried as they have been for thousands upon thousands of years.”
“And what about fate then, huh?” Rainbow cocked her head to the side. “The fate of both sides of the plane, that is? Would everything just... die out as they are destined to without the Spark?”
“Are you saying that it was actually a good thing that all five of us died and left you on your own to make a dangerous journey?”
“No, Twilight, what I'm saying is... maybe it was the only thing that could have happened.”
“Huh?”
“Just how exactly did you and the other girls get blown up?”
Twilight blinked. “Well, Rainbow, we... I-I mean I made us use the Elements without you—”
“Dang it, girl, I'm not trying to play the blame game. We've been over this.”
Twilight winced. “I'm s-sorry...”
“I'm asking how it happened,” Rainbow said. “How is it that five ponies and one baby dragon attempting to use the Elements of Harmony would cause something so terrible and violent to happen?”
“I... I-I don't know...”
“Does it... even make sense?” Rainbow grimaced. “Harmony is all about structure, order, and integrity. It's chaos that likes crud getting all blown up. So—like—did harmony become chaos for a second there? Why would something built out of Alicorn magic backfire like a poorly maintained shotgun or something?”
“Right...” Twilight nodded, thinking out loud: “If anything, the spell should have just canceled itself without all of the key components present. Nothing would have happened... nothing good or bad.”
“Then how would Discord be defeated?”
“I... don't know...” Twilight shrugged. “Maybe the way it ended up happening?”
“One thing we know, Twilight, is that this whole stinkin' world is old. Super old. Older than you and me. Older than the Divines. Older than the Alicorns—”
“Uhhhhhhhhhh...”
“Okay, maybe not older than the Alicorns, but it was here long... long before Celestia and Luna's relatives touched down here.”
“Right...”
“And the ponies who built Urohringr... all of Urohringr must have had some pretty super magic to make it all work, y'know. I mean, to construct something so friggin' huge... something that could sustain so many different walks of life—all of which were also super old civilizations... stuff you and I can't even begin to imagine.”
Twilight merely nodded.
At this point, Rainbow winced. “Twilight, what if...?” She hugged herself in mid-flight, staring at the waters below. “What if... there is something at work here that is so old... so important... so strong that it sorta... trumps anything else that enters the playing field? The Alicorns bring their magic, but that magic ends up being controlled, dominated. And then—like—when you think the magic is playing by the Alicorns' rules, it's actually playing by Urohringr's.”
“Just what are you trying to say, Rainbow?”
“What I'm trying to say is... what if Harmony meant for all five of you to 'die?'” Rainbow looked aside at the mare. “What if it broke its own rules and gave you and the other girls the zap... so that I could give Discord the zap. And then this whole eastward slog could get started?”
“And you would go the way of Hurricane and other candidates of Austraeoh ahead of you...?”
“Right. Only, I'd go further. Cuz I'm awesome.” Rainbow took a breath. “And I have an Element on my side.”
“And—after two more Seeds—all of the Elements by your side.”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah...”
Silence.
“I just... c-can't imagine pure Harmony being reduced to such a lowly mechanism,” Twilight rambled. “I'm not capable of fathoming anything that can be that powerful.”
“But it would make some sense, right?” Rainbow said. “If there's something controlling Harmony, then it could control chaos as well. Then all of the weird, nonsensical things that would happen wouldn't be so strange anymore... cuz it just goes to show that all of the magic above ground is acting just as fluidly as all the weird contraptions that make Urohringr tick. There's not just one Machine World. There are two. One below and one above.”
“I... I...” Twilight ran a jittery hoof through her mane. “My head hurts.”
“I wonder if this is the sort of stuff that Verlax has figured out,” Rainbow muttered to herself. “Also... kind of makes you wonder if... y'know...” She fidgeted. “...if the rules of harmony had to be broken for Austraeoh to begin her journey... then j-just how many other rules also had to be broken?” She exhaled. “...and would all of those broken rules be okay, all things considered?”
“What kind of broken rules are we talking about?”
Rainbow paled instantly. She flew forward in nervous silence.
“Rainbow...?”
The mare breathed faster and faster. As sweat started to form along her brow, she forced her jaw muscles to move, opening her muzzle as if to reply—
“Hey girls!” Pinkie flew up, buzzing in their face. “Look what we found!” She pointed straight at the foamy waters below. “Things are getting super choppy! Like a Jacuzzi!”
“Huh?” Twilight snapped out of it, squinting down at the waters. “What on earth...?”
“For once, Pinkie isn't rambling nonsense,” Rarity said, floating back up. “There's a reason for all of this turbulent water. Things are starting to get dramatically shallow.”
“Wait... do you mean...?” Twilight blinked.
Rarity nodded with a smile.
Squinting, Rainbow looked up at Bard and Wildcard. “Hey guys!”
“She speaks!” Bard glanced back at her. “What is it, darlin'?”
“Look below!” Rainbow pointed, her voice cracking, “Sea seems different! What's up with that?”
Bard stared and stared. He shared amused grins with Wildcard, then looked back at the mare. “More like 'what's down with that!'” He and the other Desperado descended. “This is it!”
“This is what?”
“What else?” Bard pointed forward. “The Quade!”
Rainbow and Twilight stared. Pinkie Pie and Rarity leaned forward for a better look.
Below them, the mists parted ways. It was just enough to reveal several gray shapes looming immediately beneath the ocean's watery surface. Very narrow, dome-topped spires of chalk-colored earth rose from the depths. At first, they scarcely grazed the surface, with water lapping up and around their barnacle-encrusted summits. Then—one by one, in sporadic formation—the narrow stalks broke the water. They grew thicker and more erratic, forming a veritable forest of jagged stone structures forking towards the sky.
Curiously, the water was very calm around these spires. Rainbow imagined that there was a lot more happening underwater than there was above. There was virtually no current, and aside from a gentle ripple here or there, the Quade was mostly devoid of crashing waves.
Rainbow was so involved in observing this that she didn't notice the first wooden structure until its crooked mast nearly grazed her body. She lifted up with a gasp, looking back behind her.
The forward half of a crumbled, dilapidated sailing ship loomed below—impaled by at least two of the jutting spires.
“Oh my goodness!” Rarity squeaked, clasping a pair of hooves to her muzzle. “That's so terrible! Head back, Rainbow! There could be survivors in there!”
“Uhhh...” Rainbow looked up and pointed back at the wreck. “Guys?”
Wildcard gestured.
“Relaxed,” Bard said. “That thing's supremely outdated. It very likely ran aground several hundred years ago.”
“But...”
“Even if the survivors had grandfoals, they'd all be dead by now—or else likely rescued by denizens of the Luminards.” Bard smirked. “Besides... that's just the first one.”
“The... first... one?” Rainbow stared ahead. The ghost mares at her side had their breaths taken away.
As the fog finally dissipated, the immensity of the Quade opened up to the fliers. Rocky formations jutted up out of the ocean like a sea of granite needles. Every so often, the crumpled remnants of a seaship could be seen, its wooden flesh peeling off the hooked rocks one decade at a time. Rainbow counted one... two... four... eight... sixteen seaship corpses until there were too many for her to count—or at least at the speed with which she was flying over them. Soon—if she squinted—the blue waters, the gray stone, and the brown driftwood formed a hazy malaise in her eyes.
“Why are there so many of 'em?” Rainbow asked.
“For an age, it became the bright idea to turn this side of the Quade into a graveyard for out of commission frigates,” Bard explained. “The Luminards didn't mind, and the Six Tribes thought it was a healthy warnin' to all Colonialists tryin' to eke a livin' elsewhere. 'This is what's in store for you, ya heretical varmints!' Or somethin' like that. I dunno.”
Wildcard's talons swam through the air.
“Hmmph!” Bard's nostrils flared. “Well, if you tried to explain it, you'd make it all melodramatic-like, ya turkey!” Bard cleared his throat and glanced at Rainbow. “What was I talkin' about?”
“Naval graveyard.”
“Right. But then half of the ships draggin' in the decommissioned vessels started getting wrecked themselves. And by then even the Continentalists were makin' homes and ports out west beyond the Quade, so it all started to get really ridiculous. Reckon they just left the wrecks out here cuz this place is too perilous to build a lighthouse to give a more proper warnin' anyways.”
“Didn't stop the Alafreons.”
“Who?”
Rainbow sighed, shaking her head. “Never mind.” As she flew over the immense acreage of increasingly taller spikes, her eyes spotted a bright dot on the horizon. “Wait... I see something.”
“Yuffie Dum, right?”
“No, I see that too. I'm talking about something else.” As Rainbow cleared another spire, she saw the lit structure in even greater clarity. “There!” She pointed. “A light! Like a lantern! You see it?”
“My word!” Rarity exclaimed.
Wildcard gestured.
Bard nodded. “Eeyup. Reckon it's good timin' too.”
“I don't get it,” Rainbow stammered. “Just what is that thing? Do monks live there?”
“Nope. Not quite.” Bard smirked at Rainbow. “But it's a good sign nonetheless.”
“A sign of what?”
“That we done found ourselves a place to check in.” The stallion motioned as he and Wildcard dove down towards the structure. “Come on. And remember to lemme do the talkin'.”
“Uhhhh... sure, okay.” With a slight shudder, Rainbow and her friends followed suit.