The gas giant Kronos spun in muddy, green-tinged bliss, as it had done for gigaannum. From seventy to a hundred and forty thousand kilometres out, countless tumbling motes of dust and ice reflected sunlight, broken only by the gaps forged in the unceasing orbits of those of the hundred and fifty three satellites that happened to intersect the plain of the ring system. Thaumic forces barely counted in this interplay, for carbon, hydrogen and silicon, the primary constituents of that dispersed dust and ice, hardly interacted with the universal standing magical field at all. Even if they had, they were too spread out to generate a single spark of magic. This was a domain of purely mundane physics.
X-band microwave photons, crawling their way across space at merely the speed of light, washed through the planet and the ring system. Their point of origin had been down-well, from the direction of the distant star. They carried parts of a message spoken in a tongue that the universe had not heard for over a billion years. One hundred and fifty two natural satellites ignored the sound, uncomprehending. The hundred and fifty-third heard, processed, obeyed and proved that it was anything but natural. Drive systems warmed and spun up, digging claws into spacetime.
Thirty minutes later, Kronos had lost a satellite, which was now accelerating at ten thousand gravities toward the signal that had called it.
*
Princess Celestia watched from a cloud as the biological recovery capsule exploded over Ponyville, shedding its cargo of various small biting lizards, stinging butterflies, ninety-nine bee Queens and half a ton of assorted bacteria, viruses, algae and archaea, contained in the same amount of water. The ponies of DRAMA began to evacuate at the same time as Luna’s nottlygna trotlites started to take cover within the conical hull of Mytheme. Fires, unattended, were drenched, and some local flooding took place. Celestia fed more energy to the spells keeping her selectively visible, just in case anyone on the ground had a spare moment for stargazing.
There were no emotions coursing around in Celestia’s skull. She was broadly aware of the fact that, at some point, she might well have felt some anger, terror, sadness, or a mix of these now vague notions, at any one of the events playing out in front of her. That her plans were coming a little unstuck, that her ponies were in jeopardy, that her sister was so afraid. Now, her mind could best be represented by the gears and cogs of a vast and incredibly efficient machine. Sometimes the mechanism would jam, but other systems would step in, switching over until the obstruction was resolved.
“Look, I really think you should know, I might have gone too far,” said Discord, as he slithered gaseously into the cloud.
“That we are so close to the ground, where my retribution would certainly be seen, is the only thing saving you from your just punishment,” said Celestia, turning to look at him. “I urge you to remain useful.”
“I broke the gate thingy,” Discord said. “Might have invited a few extra guests to the Party, too.”
“You’ve been meddling in Tartarus,” Celestia said. “It contains things neither of us understand. It may contain our deaths. I wonder if you can even conceive of death, as an ending, a finality, a counterpoint to life.”
“You meddled too! What are those pods, anyway? You put them there, didn’t you?”
“I gave the Pit instructions, the… mechanisms there did the hard part,” Celestia said, choosing her words carefully. “An extra safety, were it ever to be that one of your schemes was the undoing of the world. It was to be activated when the crust was cooler than the mantle, or whatever.”
“Oh, well, I’m glad to know you had so much faith in me. Twilight and her friends are out, and safely reunited with your sister,” said Discord, suddenly metamorphosing into a rough rendition of Luna, built out of melted, dripping wax, in which was embedded shards of glass, twigs and bits of rock. “But it doesn’t seem like they’re going to make the Nectars after all. Why did you think Twilight still would, after finding out the truth?”
“There was a miscalculation,” Celestia said, scowling distastefully at him. “It was thought that Luna’s mindstate would be on a different vector than the one it is now. There was some interference from the Thiasus itself. It threw everything into question. She was supposed to lead Twilight into revenge against me. She should be in the Hidden Delight by now.”
“Major props there, o Marechiavellian Goddess,” said Discord, sardonically. “Our favourite purple Princess pony is currently gathering the Elements together, and Luna is dodging lizards beneath our hooves. I hate to ask, but what’s next?”
“Does Twilight still trust you?” said Celestia, looking back down toward Ponyville.
“More or less.” The Luna figment exploded pathetically, the wax melting down entirely into a black puddle, out of which Discord’s wyrm body oozed. “She may even be grateful.”
“Make yourself available to her,” Celestia said. “Guide her to the remaining ingredients. Make her forge the Nectars.” She sniffed the air wafting up from the stricken town. “Nothing else matters. I will deal with Luna.”
Without waiting for a reply, she dropped from the cloud and fell away into the night.
*
The madness, it seemed, was never ending. From her position atop the farm’s haybarn, Applejack had an excellent view of Ponyville in the cleft of the landscape’s subtle roll, but she barely bothered to watch as yet another unidentified flying object arced in from the east and exploded at cloud height over the town. Some haze spilled from the scant puff of debris, quickly becoming bigger than its progenitor. There were sprays and puffs of white, which caught the light from the earlier blazes below, sparkling and flashing. With a deft movement of her head and lips, Applejack grasped the neck of the bottle she’d been drinking from and balanced it upright, allowing the contents to fall down her throat and join their friends in her stomach.
They were down to the forbidden, vintage stuff now. It burned, glutinously protesting its entombment. Usually, the farm never produced anything fiercer than a ten-percent cider, and even that was only on special occasions. The market wanted session ciders, something you could drink pints of all night and not end up having to glue your liver back together the next morning. The part of the market that wanted a harder drink didn’t want it at the prices a small, artisan cidery could offer products. They bought their cheap, industrial-grade vodkas and gins from Berry Punch and, for certain definitions of the word, were happy. That was to say nothing of the wine, but Applejack held no truck with grapes.
She let the empty bottle fall onto the roof. It rolled down the gentle slope, encountered the not-so-gentle slope, and eventually landed with a dull thud in the grass below. It hadn’t even had a label. There was a certain professional unquantifiable in the putting on of labels, dressing and preparing the stock, a right that had to be given up in the case of such outrageous spirits. There had been a still involved, for the love of all that was proper. She might as well don a pair of mirrored sunglasses and slut about with the bats.
This was all too much for a normal mare to be expected to deal with, she thought. After Rarity had appeared back in the town, raving and delusional, and Princess Luna had said the things she had, everything had fallen apart. Twilight, their usual commandant, had apparently been responsible and, in her absence and presumed guilt, their friends had wandered off. At first, Applejack had done right by the only things more important in her life than her friends and the defense of Equestria, her family and business, but then hours had turned into days, and what little news there was that filtered in, or could be inferred, was all bad.
Lights in the sky. Pillars of smoke stretching up and over their heads, sometimes bringing squally little showers filthy with soot, or apparently unshepherded breezes filled with the stink of burning. She’d let the worry and anxiety overcome her, she’d started drinking through some of the stock to help with the fear and to still her heart. There were some blurry patches. Missing memories. The distinct impression of having had a long rant at Spike, of all people, about something she didn’t recall. Lately, she’d just been perched on top of the barn, drinking, sleeping fitfully or watching for some symbol that she might act upon, a sign that there was something she could do. Even the earthquake storm had only strengthened her resolve to shelter in place.
There was movement in the corn stalks that occupied one of the fields directly adjoining the farm’s yard. She lifted herself up and peered across the flat, grass-edged pan, currently full of empty carts, crates and mounds of hauling tack. The shock of orange mane that presaged her brother appeared out of the corn. It was difficult to focus on him, through the alcohol.
“Twilight’s back!” he bellowed.
*
“I can’t believe you think that this is a good idea too, your Majesty,” said Doctor Lux, snorting, ears back, face wrinkled up in disgust. “I discharge this patient to you, then. May Celestia have mercy on you.”
“We need Rainbow Dash, Doctor,” Twilight said, sighing. “I trust Fluttershy, if she says that this will be safe.”
Lux looked as though she was about to storm out, then stopped.
“None of you are really medics, are you?” she said. “I’ll have to stay. If her cardiac function collapses, I’m the only one who even stands a chance of saving her.”
“I’ve done, um, animal trials,” Fluttershy said, looking sheepish. “Accidentally! The needle slipped. Mr Beary was okay, in the end.”
“Why do you even need her so badly?” Lux snapped. “Can it not wait a day? Twenty-four hours, I guarantee it, the barbiturate will have worn off. Anyway, even if you wake her up now, she’ll still be injured!”
“Friendship is magic, Doctor Lux,” said Twilight.
“Don’t you quote propaganda at me!”
“I’m certain we need her, but I can’t tell you more than that,” Twilight said, shaking her head.
“She doesn’t really understand herself,” said Whom. “Can’t tell you if she doesn’t know, can she?”
“Thank you, Whom,” said Twilight, frowning at her.
“No problem!”
Attention span apparently expended, Whom flounced off to talk to the other patients in the ward. Twilight briefly wondered whether acute exposure to so much bizarre pinkness would be a detriment or a boon to the recovery of the injured, though she suspected that most would likely write it off as some sort of blood-loss induced hallucination. She very much wished that she could, too.
“This is your decision,” said Lux, staring at Whom for a moment before returning her glare to Twilight. “You’ll give her the drug.”
“I’d have it no other way,” said Twilight.
Lux tugged a brown glass bottle from her panniers, which looked more like the ammunition belt of a specialist grenadier or archer than anything to do with a medical trade, and held it in the air over Dash’s supine form.
“Saline and cocaine hydrochloride, compounded as per your instructions, Fluttershy” said Lux, firmly. “That our dental clinic had it in stock is worrying, I think.” She managed to put more venom into the sentence than Twilight had seen in awhile. “I’ll draw it up and position it, but you’ll do the plunging. This dose is very approximate, so who knows what might happen.”
The syringe was a big glass and steel thing, which Lux bathed in the purple glow of a sterilizing spell before filling with drugs. The compound was completely transparent, and there didn’t seem to be a great deal of of it. Lux moved the syringe around to the same side of Dash’s neck that Twilight was on, then conjured another field of telekinesis that swept up the muscle there. Twilight could just see where it deformed the tissue, occluding the jugular vein. Vague memories of having read about venipuncture techniques resurfaced.
Lux found the site she was looking for and the needle went in. She drew back on the plunger. Blood filled the chamber. Twilight was surprised at how red it was. Her eyes widened involuntarily, and she immediately felt stupid for having reacted like that. Lux glanced at her and opened gaps in her telekinetic field projection. Twilight took the cue and depressed the syringe. The blood and clear fluid vanished.
Nothing happened immediately. Lux drew out the needle and quickly placed a cotton wool pad over the site, securing it with tape that looked like something you might weatherproof sheds with. There was the tingle of magic being done nearby, but Twilight suppressed the slightly itchy feeling in the base of her horn as she realised that Lux was running some kind of scan. Faint impressions of the thaumic complexity flittered into her awareness.
“Her heart rate and blood pressure are rising,” said Lux, capping the syringe and replacing it in her arsenal. “She--”
Rainbow Dash neighed loudly and her head came up. Her wings jerked, bashing Twilight. She stepped back, and Dash began to kick out, struggling, suddenly breathing heavily. Lux didn’t miss a beat, feeding energy into her telekinesis and bracing Dash, keeping her on the bed and preventing her from making her injuries worse.
“Dash?” said Twilight, the icy fear that she might have made some terrible mistake gripping her as tightly as Lux now held Dash. “Are you alright?”
“Twilight?” she said, turning to look at her, eyes blinking rapidly. “You nag! Where have you been? Where in Tartarus have you been?” She snorted, as if trying to clear something out of her nose. “Equestria’s gone down the tubes!”
“Yes,” said Twilight, terror ebbing. “So I’ve been finding out.”
*
“I can’t believe she just left me here,” said Spike, peering out of Mytheme’s bow passenger door at the swarms of fanged insects buzzing angrily and confusedly around outside. “Again. That’s the thing that hurts the most. I don’t even get thought about. I’m just forgotten.” He spat a jet of green fire at a swan-sized butterfly that had fluttered too close, which squealed briefly before flying off. “It’d have been better if she’d just told me why I had to stay here, spent a few minutes considering my feelings, you know?”
“I too have had issues with my siblings,” said Princess Luna, amiably. “What have you to say, Berry Punch?”
“B-Brothers and sisters fight,” said Berry Punch, quickly, followed by a bout of coughing. “Only natural, very natural, natural-est thing in the world, yes--”
“Most excellent contribution,” Luna said, placing a wing over Punch, who tensed up and began whimpering. “Did you know that your foal, being an outbreed, is considered a brother by my nottlygna?”
“I did not know that!” Punch said, in a high pitched, wavering voice. “That’s brilliant! Really great, I’m so pleased.”
“Have you helped yourself to the refreshments?” Luna said, withdrawing the wing. “There is a non-alcoholic blackcurrant cordial in the back of the silver and onyx drinks cabinet that I think you will find most pleasant.” She smiled politely and turned to Spike. “Miss Punch here has just very recently gotten on the wagon.”
“Good for you,” said Spike, grumpily.
“My throat is so parched, going to see about that drink,” squeaked Punch, practically fleeing down the corridor toward the lounge.
“You did something to her, didn’t you?” Spike said, after she’d left. “What, did you put her in a space warp too?”
“I did nothing of the sort,” said Luna, suddenly unable to make eye contact. “In any case, your temporary confinement was accomplished primarily by means of a curvature, a gradient, not anything that could be described as a warp.”
“It was so cold in there, Luna,” he said, permitting her an acidic glance before going back to watching the insects. “I couldn’t see anything, or hear anything. It was like being dead, or something.”
“I had not realised that you had spent so much time dead, so as to know what the feeling is like and thus make a useful comparison,” said Luna, without a detectable trace of sarcasm. “Tell me, what was it like, being dead? By what means did you make such a bounding return to life?”
“Ugh! You are impossible to talk to,” Spike said.
Luna merely offered what she hoped was an impenetrable smile, then left the dragon, trailing languidly into the lounge like a wave moving through water. Riesling was half-way through being groomed and nuzzled into fluffy oblivion by half of the nottlygna foal population. When they weren’t chewing or making syrupy nickering sounds, they were chattering on about this, that and the other. Luna lost herself briefly in it as they jumped back and forth between topics at lightning speed, in that foalish way that she found infinitely endearing. Nottlygna society could sometimes be incredibly isolated, the youngsters especially, so they leapt on novel new ponies. Often literally.
Little snaps and jerks of adrenaline-rush fear kept intruding on her thoughts as she made casual conversation, as far as that was possible for her, with the nottlynga mares and stallions. Most were dressed in various types of armour, plundered out of the gloriously antique armouries of Mytheme, as well as those previously drawn from modern stores. Morningstars, pikes, halberds and vicious looking pepperbox springbows were littered everywhere. Foals stepped over them as they played.
The complete lack of power, the absence of any controls that she could exercise over the situation. That was what ground most against her. The nation was in the wind now, and Twilight might doom it or save it. That just wasn’t fair or proper. Worse, she was beginning to suspect that her judgement might have been impacted somehow. Berry Punch was shooting her nervous glances from behind a glass of cordial, and freezing like a statue every time Luna got closer to Riesling.
Mytheme shuddered from above. Silence fell. A bottle of wine dropped from the edge of a low table and proceeded to empty its contents quietly on the shag. The cluttered, anxious and multifarious thought processes rattling through Luna’s mind coalesced suddenly into a single luminous strand. There was not a biological thing in Ponyville’s current local inventory that could, at any plausible speed, cause the kilotonnes of the yacht to shake. Mytheme could have run down a mature Very High Dragon at Mach five and not caused drinks to spill in the general lounge. It once had. Only something obscenely, unnaturally, heavy coming into contact with the yacht could have caused that shudder. The list of potential candidates boiled down to one.
The nottlygna around her were quickly approaching the same conclusion. Helmets were being donned, armour strapped up, foals corralled. Someone loudly cocked their crossbow. More and more faces were looking at her.
“Evacuate the yacht,” she said, quickly. “Take only yourselves. Make for your assigned fallbacks. Under no circumstances engage any supermagical targets.”
“Majesty--” a stallion began.
“It is Celestia, and no quarter will be given,” she said.
“None asked,” someone else mumbled, to a chorus of ayes and general agreement.
“This is not a fight for you,” said Luna, shaking her head. “Evacuate.”
There was a tremendous bang, and a sound like a million panes of glass breaking at once, which echoed and reverberated inside the hull itself.
“Go!” Luna bellowed.
She witnessed a brief moment of confused but decidedly organized movement toward the exits, then metamorphosed into shadowy smoke, lancing ahead of them. Curving around Spike, who was running down one of the lateral corridors as fast his stubby legs would carry him, she burst through the bow door and into the night. The darkness did not last for long. As though sunrise had come hours early, pure, white light burst from a point above the yacht, casting hard shadows around what buildings yet stood. She shifted forms again, feeling that familiar bizarre dislocation as imitations of central and peripheral nervous systems began feeding her data about limbs that hadn’t existed moments before.
Beating her wings, she sailed upwards, feeling a terrible case of sunburn blister her back. Momentary episodes of sizzling were interrupted by the restorative process, fighting the damage. She turned toward the light and saw a black, rearing figure in the heart of the glare. It had wings, a horn. The last shreds of doubt fell away. It was Celestia, and she was the dawn. She began to rise to meet Luna’s altitude.
“It ends,” Luna shouted, having to turn away so that her eyes would not boil out of their sockets and deprive her of sight for an inopportune few moments. “I have remembered, and your compact will end!”
Nottlygna were coursing away out of sight below, flying, bounding and galloping, keeping some semblance of military order in their formations despite what must have been a terror of eschatological proportions. She could not imagine what must have been running through their minds as they dutifully abandoned their Princess. She even spotted the unmistakable form of Spike, hitching a lift on someone’s back. Fires were breaking out everywhere. Wood steamed and smoked, bricks exploded, and what grass remained was lost in cauls of slate smoke.
The dazzling light gave out at once, and that was when Celestia chose to attack.
*
The hills around Ponyville were rife with a slow progression of fearful, tired souls. Few dared look back at the flares of brilliance and the sucking absences, and shielded their eyes and ears from the rolling slaps of explosions and overpressure waves. Inevitably, a chorus of nottlygna broke out into song. At first, only a few, but then it spread through the ranks. Even the dragon and the pony, trembling foal at foot, sang in the end.
Hill your ho, colts, let Her go, colts,
Bring your head round, now all together,
Hill your ho, colts, let Her go, colts,
Trotting homeward to Canterlot.
What care we how dark our foe is,
What care we for wind or weather?
Trot on home, colts, every inch is,
Trotting homeward to Canterlot.
Mares are waiting in the doors there,
Or looking fearful from the windows,
Pull together, colts, and we’ll arrive there,
Before the sun sets on Canterlot.
*
Several miles outside Ponyville, in a densely arranged woodland of oaks and yews, the displaced citizens of the battered and beleaguered town were hunkered down in what they hoped was suitable camouflage. Their indomitable spirit had been badly battered by recent events, but they were bloodied, not bowed. Family groups sat around meagre camp fires, kept to little more than deep pits filled with embers. Mayor Mare drifted between them, taking the temperature of the herd and dishing out meagre platitudes. The Cakes, still with their foals too young to do much else than chase their dam and squeal at things, offered provisions and generally catered, though good food was scarce, and many were rediscovering the lost of art of foraging.
Nurse Redheart tended the wounded, though they were the minor injuries incurred when hundreds flee at once and in poor order. Bruises, cuts, grazes, the occasionally capped hock. Her work was little more than offering ice packs, thaumic suturing and sympathy. Only one of her cases had something worse; a broken leg, incurred after a bad fall in mud. She’d splinted it and accelerated the knitting of the bone, but it was painful, and her analgesic magic could only do so much in isolation.
Light penetrated the forest from the south, bright enough that it could be seen through miles of trees. Loud neighs rang about the boughs and a stampede nearly took place. Mostly it was hushed whispers, trembling dams and foals behind the bulk of stallions, the mutual-herd decision to run, immediately and without further delay, hanging on a knife-edge in the group-think nightmare of a hundred fearful equines. The blunt slap of overpressure smashed into the treeline and rolled perceptibly through it toward them some seconds later. Tree trunks shattered in places, splintering bark and bending the younger specimens. Terrible rending noises, as if of a thousand tons of paper shredding at once, turned up after the blasts.
Shouting, neighing and a confusion of voices melded with the ringing, echoing noises as they petered out. Cheerilee, with her herd of school foals, played the role of in loco lead mare and corralled her infant charges, keeping them from some stupid, fleeing gallop into parts unknown. Rarity, strapped to a gurney taken from the hospital before their exit into the wilderness, thrashed and writhed and was given the last of a sedative tincture by a harried Redheart.
They all saw it. The piercing glare that ascended in the sky, obviously miles above them and gaining speed. The absence of colour, a bullet of pure darkness somehow blacker than the night’s sky against which it was moving, fleeing from it. The forest floor was lit up in hard shades of near ultraviolet and impenetrable shadow where trees obscured it. The water in their green underlayers steamed out, bubbling and fracturing the tortured things even more. Unicorns in the herd began to scream, falling to the floor and writhing in fits of agony or ecstasy. Their skin rippled as muscles contracted spastically. Some fitted or became paralyzed, limbs palsying.
With a last almighty crack, which was felt in the teeth and bones and testicles of the herd, the bullet of pure darkness fled across the sky, jetting north, glowing rents of tortured atmosphere the only other sign of the surely monumental speed at which it was moving. The piercing glare lazily moved to pursue, but broke off, and vanished into the east, silent and ethereal, a vision of a star in miniature moving across the ancient, imagined dome of the heavens.
Dawn occurred some minutes later. Though it was summer, it felt more like autumn, as if the sun itself was ashamed to show its face. Faint tendrils of a wan and hazy light, so cool and gentle compared to the awful heat that had preceded it, appeared from over the horizon and began to bring the forest’s normal inhabitants to life.
*
“Well,” said Satan, as he extricated himself from beneath charred timbers and a crumbling mess of singed brick. “That was impressive.”
“I didn’t see anything,” said Death, petulantly. “Unfair, if you ask me. I got hit by a crossbeam and my eyes fell out. Couldn’t find them anywhere.”
“That’s what you get for stealing eyeballs from unsuspecting tavern mares,” said Satan, pulling a long piece of rusted metal rebar from his side with a quick jerk of his head. “And not bringing any of your own in the first place.”
“Hindsight is twenty/twenty, Satan,” he grumbled.
“Or, entirely the opposite, in your case,” Satan said, grinning.
*
“Majesty, look at it,” said Afore, standing between the statue and his charge. “Just look!”
It had taken them several minutes to get the palace doors closed again. They’d been dented by the heavy impact of the bronze, but were no worse for wear. Outside, fires raged, engulfing the city, blotting it out. The howl was deafening, and the radiated heat had started rugs smouldering. It wasn’t until the locks were once again holding back the ferocious inferno that they’d heard the protracted keening and seen the glow.
“I’m perfectly fine looking in the other direction, thank you,” said Armour, gaze resolutely fixed down the darkened hall toward the palace’s receiving rooms and lounges. “This sort of thing is neither big nor funny, and I’ll really have no truck with it.” He snorted and shrugged, as if ridding himself of an irritating tick. “Whoever came up with must be a foal, suffering from some delayed development, obsessed with the phallic and nothing else. He must have thought himself funny. I feel sorry for him.”
“Something is happening to an item of the statue’s anatomy, sire, see for yourself,” said Afore. “Respectfully, we are all stallions here, aren’t we?”
Shining Armour turned around and tried to find a direction to look in that didn’t encompass the statue, but was still in Afore’s direction. This was an impossible task. He glanced, peered, stared and was transfixed. The rearing form was twice life-size, proportions skewed in favour of the salsician. The creator had done an incredible job of capturing Celestia, at least what could be seen of her. There were details there that Shining Armour himself recognized; the lines of muscle, the particular way she set her fur.
Long bangs of mane flowed down one side, curving under the belly, as though their inertia had been distilled into the shaping of the thing. The bronze showed no colour, only its own dull sheen, but had been differentiated somehow, and he could see where the tricolour of the real hair would have been. He suddenly understood why, despite the obscenity of it, the statue had been kept. It was magnificent. The obscenity itself, perfect, entire and anatomical, was as big as a foreleg and perfectly parallel to the belly. Into the tip was set a stone, sufficiently clear and cut with enough facets to suggest a diamond. Dried blood and hair marred it, but only slightly.
It was glowing. In the base of his horn he felt a sudden tingle, one that all unicorns knew. There was the sound as well, of a bow being drawn softly over strings. The level of the light coming from the diamond fluctuated at random, but he felt like there was meaning there, a signal being sent, if only one could understand it.
“What do you think it means, sire?” Afore said, after a while.
“I wish that I knew, Afore,” said Shining Armour, mouth dry. “By someone other than Celestia, I wish I knew.”
*
“Do you think love conquers all, Twilight?” said Rainbow Dash, snorting, gazing purposefully up at the bright new star in Equestria’s night and then back down at her, wriggling and writhing worm-like in her horse shoes. “Understand? Your brother, love conquering all, what did that really mean? It was what they said, right? But how do hormones and animal rut-lust destroy an invading army?”
“I’m so glad you asked!” said Twilight, smiling more genuinely than she had done in what felt like aeons. “You see, when a sapient organism feels the emotion of love, special particles captured their nervous system begin to drag more heavily against the universal standing magical field, which in turn triggers a love-intensity dependent high-order energy release from--”
“The rut-lust, Twilight!” Dash snapped, glaring intensely at her. “That mass of flesh and energy, it feels so alive!” She laughed, trotted a neat circle around on the roof of the makeshift hospital, then spent a few moments apparently savouring the action of breathing in and out. “Skies above, why aren’t we funding this? You get it? Understand? We should fund this, get those special discretionary Princess funds behind this, understand?”
“Snout in the game, Dash,” Twilight said, frowning. “We’ve only just begun putting the situation together. We have to gather more information. Rarity and Applejack are still in the wind, but we’ve got Fluttershy. There’s nothing we can’t overcome when we’re together.”
“You think he’s been in her?” Rainbow Dash said, smiling and licking her lips. “That kind don’t wait, he was probably nailing her before you were off your dam’s teat, wasn’t he?” She made a strange gurgling noise, which evolved into a filthy, blocked drain-like laugh. “You know the signs, you’ve seem them, probably just a matter of chance you’re not an aunt!”
“Dash! Inappropriate!” Twilight said, warmth filling her cheeks. “Pull yourself together!”
“We have to fund this stuff, whatever you gave me,” said Dash, trotting over to the ornately decorated edge of the roof, where she leant over the top of a gargoyle. “The applications are endless; athletes, late workers, lovers, soldiers, anyone who wants or needs this kind of power. It’s like I could fly faster than light!”
Twilight left her babbling on the roof and went to find Fluttershy. She found her helping with the wounded and trying to remain invisible. She was bussing a tray filled with blood plasmas and jars of saline when Twilight cornered her. There was a squeak and a flutter of wings as she resisted the urge to flee.
“Mr Beary was alright!” she gasped, high-pitched and tremulous. “He was, I swear!”
“She’s talking gibberish,” Twilight said. “Like she’s drunk, but far more worked up, almost psychotic.”
“But she’s awake though, right?” Fluttershy said, gulping. “It worked.”
“This cocaine is more psychoactive than you realised, isn’t it?”
“I only had an animal model! Their central nervous systems are less complex than ours, there were always bound to be additional psychological symptoms!”
“When did Mr Beary normalise?” Twilight said, glancing subconsciously toward the roof. “We may need to give her more.”
“F-four hours, more or less,” Fluttershy squeaked. “That’s when he let Angel Bunny go and came down out of the tree.”
“This was important information, you know. We could have done with it before we put the cocaine in her blood. Before I put the cocaine in her blood.”
“What do you want me to do, Twilight?” Fluttershy said, sitting down on her rump and nearly pouting. “Go back in time, change things? Should I go to the Starswirl section of the Canterlot Library, find a nice little scroll?”
“Don’t you start!”
*
Kronos’ missing moon, revealed in its true nature as an interplanetary vehicle, plunged downwards toward Equestria’s star, managing several one-in-a-million collisions with orbiting asteroid belt objects. Several of them were larger than a hundred metres. Tons of nickel and various differentiated ices of carbon dioxide and water vapourized as they came into contact with the spherical shell of the vehicle at insane velocities. The vehicle ignored them, shedding what kinetic energy it took from the transactions into thaumic fields that ran through its superstructure, in turn diverting them back into the universe.
The vehicle devoured clear space, and soon was intruding within the orbit of the moon. It passed that satellite at a distance of half a hundred thousand kilometres, autonomic subsystems throwing out wide-beam radio signals. They raked across the scarred and dusty Lunar regolith, bouncing off recent structures and briefly dazzling a lunar squid which had come up to emulate the act of taking a breath. There was no reply from any of the logged sites, though the onboard expert systems hadn’t expected there to be, given the protracted interval of time, not to mention the other, equine, factors that informed its convoluted decision trees.
With a final reverse pulse of its unreal thrust, it slowed and inserted itself into an orbit around the planet currently known as Equestria. It discarded the datasets that told it of the orbital information relating to artificial satellites. They had not spun about this world since before its present inhabitants had been tiny squirrel-like creatures stealing bites of ferns on the edges of swamps and scaring off predators with sparks of conjured light. There was no need to select a safe orbit. The skies were clear of influence. The vehicle settled in to wait, gently broadcasting radio signals downwards, telemetering compliance and completion to the orders that had summoned it.
Presently, silver spheres emerged from it, and began raking firey trails through the atmosphere.