Our Equestria

by Nonagon


Battle 6: Fireball (with Braininthejar)

The next morning started with a small drizzle. It was a cool, gloomy morning and anypony who could afford to sleep in opted to stay in bed. However, the peace was not destined to last. Just before noon, a bright flash illuminated the sky over Ponyville.

---

The Rich manor, dominating the wealthier part of Ponyville, had stood abandoned since its owner moved out following his daughter’s death. Since then it had been commandeered as the temporary headquarters of the Ponyville Emergency Response.

Right now, the corridors were filled with the sound of running hooves. Shining Armour and Twilight Sparkle nearly collided as they ran in from opposite directions, both trying to get to their destinations while dodging the running adjutants.

“As we feared, it’s here again,” stated Shining, stopping to look at his sister’s face. There were hairs out of place in her mane and she looked as if she had missed a couple hours of sleep. “I wish it had appeared somewhere in the wastelands instead… I hope this doesn’t mean it follows the pilots...”

“Evacuation?” asked Twilight.

“Progressing,” responded Shining. “It’s fewer and fewer ponies each time. Many have abandoned their houses and moved to families in the country. The ones that stayed know the drill already. But there are some sick and wounded we need to move and some hospital patients shouldn’t be moved at all.”

As they talked, the two walked onto a small balcony that offered a good view of the situation. Both war machines were already half materialized, their shapes looming over opposite sides of the town. The enemy robot was a huge dome, ribbed and spiked like a giant, dark temple.

Twilight groaned in frustration. “If only Discord was here, we could get everypony out. We could… fold the houses and pack them away for the battle, or something.”

Shining sighed. “Still no sign of him?”

“Nothing,” responded Twilight. “I examined the last place he was seen. Red Cross found some strange energy readings. I mean strange even for him. And then nothing.”

“Figures he would abandon us. We free him from the stone, endure his craziness, and the one time he could finally be useful, he turns tail and runs,” said Shining, staring into the distance at the slowly appearing machines.

“You know,” answered Twilight. “We don’t know what happened to him. Perhaps he really did run away, and that’s a really bad sign. But it might be that it wasn’t his choice… and that’s much, much worse.”

---

recommended soundtrack

The cockpit slowly came to life, the chairs filling one by one as the pilots were pulled in from all over Ponyville. Cicada floated over the central chair, turning from one kid to another.

“Hmpf… where is she this time…” he murmured. “Give me a moment.”

The ponies looked at each other, then to the conspicuously empty cloud stool.

“How does she do it?” whispered Apple Bloom.

“Doesn’t matter,” grumbled Silver Spoon. “She can’t avoid her turn anyway.”

“Quite right,” said Cicada, bobbing slightly. “Aaaaaand… there she is.”

With a sound of ripping paper, Dinky appeared on her stool. She was dirty and unkept and her bags, noticeably less full, were still on her sides.

“So…” started Cicada. “We’re ready. You have the right to choose two spectators. Who will it be this time?”

Archer scrunched her face, thinking. “Shining Armor,” she said. Immediately, the white stallion appeared by her side, already clad in armor and fully prepared, as it had been the last time.

The filly hesitated. She was silent for a few seconds before finally saying the second name. “Miss Cheerilee.”

There was a murmur of surprise inside the cockpit. Then a fuchsia mare appeared on the other side of Archer. She screamed in surprise and flailed comically for a second before looking around in confusion. “Am… I where I think I am?”

“I’m afraid so, miss,” said Shining Armor.

The rest of the ponies gave Archer some odd looks. “Why… Miss Cheerilee?” asked Rumble eventually.

Archer shrugged. “Who else was I supposed to bring? You guys are all here already. And she’s our teacher.”

The mare processed the situation. “If I’m here, does that mean…”

“On the contrary,” answered Cicada. “It’s the most impenetrable place in the world right now. And if she loses the battle, the whole world will go anyway. There is nowhere you’d be safer.”

Cheerilee gave him a stare that could wilt flowers. “That’s not what I was about to say! How can you…”

“Enough,” said Cicada, and in an instant, the walls disappeared. Cheerilee was once again startled as the floor disappeared from under her hooves. “The enemy is ready,” finished the voice bug.

Everypony turned away from the pilot’s chair and towards the bird’s eye view of Ponyville. Equus had appeared on the outskirts of town, but the other robot was sitting dead in the center of it, covering a large space of nothing but rubble where Diamond Tiara had fought days before.

“So, this is our enemy?” asked Snips, turning towards the monster in the distance. His eyes widened. “If it starts rolling at us... the whole town will be flattened…”

Everypony stared at the alien robot with worried expressions, except for Cicada, who was unreadable, and Archer, who was calmly focused. “It won’t roll,” she said. “That’s not a shell.”

Her friends turned to look at her in surprise. In response, she shifted on her stool, pulling away a part of her cape, and pointed at the lines over her cutie mark. “See those ribs on the outside? It’ll fly.”

Now that she'd pointed it out, the details of the shape became obvious. There were soft gasps of understanding. Right then, the giant dome twitched and started unfolding.

“Wings,” whispered Tornado Bolt.

Everypony watched the robot come to life, except Cheerilee, who choose that moment to rush towards Dinky’s seat, trying to check if the little girl was ok.

With the membranous wings opened, the enemy robot resembled a dragon, although one with no legs, only a long neck ending in a fanged maw and an even longer, coiled tail it was sitting on. It opened its jaws and roared, a horrible low screech, like tearing metal, so loud it left the ponies in the town beneath diving for cover. Then the tail uncoiled rapidly, launching the mechanical monster into the air.

“Here it comes!” shouted Snips, shrinking as if he wanted to hide under his seat.

“It’s barely armored,” noticed Shining Armor. “Shoot its wings.”

“Not here,” responded Archer. Equus moved backwards, stepping into the fields surrounding the town. “It would drop on the town.”

The monster didn’t seem to have any qualms about that. The maw opened again and a bright ball of energy was launched at Equus. Those in the cockpit found themselves instinctively shifting their weight to move out of the way, all except for Archer, who didn’t even twitch, her face showing nothing but tense focus.

Equus sidestepped to the left, its hooves throwing up huge mounds of soft earth as it pushed against the ground. The projectile flew past it, striking the field behind it and exploding in bright flame.

“Huh?” said Piña Colada, looking at the effect of the shot. “It makes a bigger boom when we do it…”

“No, look!” yelled Twist, pointing.

Around the point of impact, there was an expanding ring of a shockwave, the crops in the field disintegrating into cinders under its touch. When it washed over Equus’ legs, its pasterns briefly turned red hot.

“It doesn’t blow things up, it burns them,” said Shining Armor, looking towards the monster, only to see its head pull back again. “Another one!” he shouted, but Archer was already on the move, shifting Equus’ aside to avoid the blast.

Beneath them, the farmland turned ablaze, the wave setting things on fire as it lost its initial, incinerating heat. Apple Bloom looked down and paled as a large farmhouse on a hill beside the field exploded into a conflagration.

“Wasn’t that…” said Snails hesitantly, pointing at the giant bonfire the house had turned into.

Apple Bloom looked around in panic, then at Archer. “That was the Carrots’ home! You can’t fight it here! Our orchard is on the next hill! My family is there!”

“Don’t distract me,” growled Archer, but she turned Equus slightly, now moving away from the treeline. Equus bowed its head and a beam of light erupted from its horn, towards the flying robot. It went above its shoulders and disappeared in the clouds.

Archer grunted as several pairs of eyes looked to her in surprise. As far as anyone knew, this was the first time she had missed anything in years. “This magic is weird," she grunted defensively. "Give me a second to get it.” She then turned entirely away from the mechanical dragon and took a deep breath. “Foal Form!” she shouted, raising one hoof.

The next fireball struck where Equus had stood a moment before, but only burned the empty leg armor standing there. The rest of the machine was moving forward, much faster after losing a large part of its weight. The ponies watched as it ran, a trail of fire spreading behind it as more and more energy blasts landed in its wake. Their dragonlike foe kept a steady distance behind them, coiling and flapping irregularly, looking more like a kite in a strong breeze than a living creature.

Shining Armor looked at the fire with worry. There were already pegasi swarming above it, trying to push together some clouds to quickly bring in water. “If it spreads to the Everfree, we won’t be able to put it out. Everything from Ponyville to Appleloosa will burn.”

“I’ll pull the enemy to the mountains,” said Archer, without turning her head. “Tiara fought there. Nothing’s left there anypony would care about.”

Shining Armor nodded. “Good idea. There are fewer trees there too. Could you send me back for a moment, so I can explain the situation to the rescue teams? They’ll need to relocate to cut the fire off prope…”

“There,” responded Cicada as the stallion disappeared.

Equus took a sharp turn to the right, another blast detonating right where it would have been standing if it had kept going straight. It charged another horn blast, but the shot went way below the target, merely grazing its tail and doing no actual harm.

“You need to aim higher,” said Snips.

Archer actually paused and turned to give the pudgy unicorn a dirty look. “I’ve never had a horn before, ok? I can’t get how far I’m supposed to lean to point it on target.”

“Isn’t your special talent supposed to be great aim?” scolded Piña Colada from her seat.

Cheerilee left Dinky’s side to stand next to the pilot. She looked around at her students. “Please don’t distract her. You’re doing fine, Archer.”

“I’m not,” responded the filly. “That thing just has bad aim too. It can spit fire all day, but if I don’t slip…” she paused to dodge another explosion. “It won’t burn me enough to slow me down for a killing blow.”

Equus turned around and stepped over the top on another hill, walking into a rocky canyon that extended into mountain slopes on both sides. Archer looked around and when she was satisfied that the rocks would leave her enough space not to slow her movement, she turned Equus around.

“Okay, show me what you’ve got,” she said with a smirk.

She shot another blast. And another. She missed both times. The enemy robot returned fire, its neck swinging back and forth as it launched two energy balls for each shot from Equus. Archer made her machine jump and dodge, dancing between the explosions, the rock beginning to glow like lava around it.

“We won’t beat it like this,” whispered Tornado Bolt.

Rumble shot her a dirty look. “Like you’d do better. I’ve never seen anypony make Equus dodge like that. If it weren’t Archer, we’d all be…”

“I can’t use this darned horn!” hissed Archer through clenched teeth. “I need something else to hit it with.”

“Archer, language!” said Cheerilee before catching herself. She looked around the battlefield. “Would a rock do?”

Archer looked aside towards a pile of rubble, where Tiara’s fight with Cricket had collapsed a mountain slope. She made Equus run in that direction and as it got close, kick into the pile, pulling out a boulder the size of a small house and balancing it on its foreleg.

“Let’s see how you like this,” she said as Equus reared up, a fiery blast exploding right in front of it. The robot swung its foreleg above the fiery haze, throwing the boulder forward. The eyes of the entire crew followed the piece of rock as it sailed through the air, through the sky, further than any of them had thought it could have been thrown, before colliding with the mechanical dragon’s face plate.

“Ha!” shouted Spike, rising from his seat. “Direct hit!” More cheers followed.

“You do know it did absolutely nothing?” said Cicada. Silence fell in the cockpit as all saw that he was correct; the falling cloud of rubble dissipated as the mechanical dragon blasted another ball through it, utterly unfazed.

“Rocks can’t hurt it,” said Berry Pinch silently. “Only the robot can…”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” asked Archer. She was about to say something more, but instead she looked up. “It’s flying away.”

And indeed, the enemy robot was moving away from the canyon, quickly gaining altitude until it disappeared into the clouds. Then another fireball fell down towards Equus.

Cheerilee looked up with worry. “It can still shoot at us from afar. You didn’t hurt it, but now it knows you could.”

“And now I can’t see it in those clouds,” said Archer. “It looks like a storm’s coming." Above them, the clouds were only getting thicker and darker. All around, the drizzling rain was turning into plumes of steam on patches of superheated stone, reducing visibility on the battlefield even further. "This is bad. Cicada, is Shining Armour done talking to the rescue teams? Perhaps there’s somepony up there who knows what’s going on with those clouds?”

The voice bug wobbled, which might have been a substitute for rolling its eyes. “So, I allow you spectators and you turn me into a liftboy? Some gratitude that is. Why don’t you do it yourself?”

The filly raised her eyes to look at Cicada. “I can do that?”

“Now you can,” answered the voice bug. “I’ve unlocked your privileges. You can teleport ponies in or out, including yourself. And you can even do it without sitting in your chair.”

"You're trusting us with that?" Archer said, raising an eyebrow.

"Sure, why not? Unlike those grown-ups, I can trust you not to misuse it." Cicada flew closer. "Just be sure that you've got a clear focus on the target and the destination at the same time. You'll get the hang of it quickly. Oh, and whatever you do, make sure that you keep their entire body within the bubble, okay? You’ll make a horrible mess if you bring only half of it in."

The room full of horrified stares spoke louder than any words. "Alright, fine," he groaned. "Teleportation privileges reactivated in safe mode. Happy now?"

"All right." Archer looked around. She was still dodging the dragon's fireballs every few seconds, but seemed to be doing this on autopilot, without really needing to look at what she was doing. “How do I find Shining Armor?”

Cicada turned in the direction of Ponyville. “The same way I locate you before the fights. Just get a mental image of him and think in that general direction. The robot’s systems will home in on his life force automatically.”

The dragon’s head poked out of the clouds above them, spitting down again. Archer responded by shooting with Equus’ horn. It once again missed, but the enemy went into hiding for a moment.

Archer used the short break to close her eyes and focus. “I see him,” she said. Then she looked at Cicada in surprise. “I see everypony. They’re like little stars. Could I always do that?”

“Yes,” answered Cicada.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

“It would distract you.”

“But I could have had some ponies right under my hooves and not seen them!” shouted the filly.

Cicada lowered himself towards her face. “Exactly. If you tip-toe, trying not to step on anypony, you’re an easy target. If you crush somepony and break down crying in the middle of the fight, you lose. And if you lose, they die, all of them. It was better that you didn’t see too much.”

“Well, thanks very much,” said Archer, glaring at the voice bug. She squinted and Shining Armor appeared next to her seat.

“What’s the situation?” asked Archer. Shining Armor looked around, his gaze slipping over the blazing hot landscape.

“The Canterlot Weather Team has been mobilized, and we’ve stopped the fire from spreading towards Ponyville. Emergency clouds have been pulled in from nearby regions, which should be enough to-"

"It backfired," Archer interrupted. "The enemy is using our own clouds as cover. That might have been its plan from the beginning." As if to demonstrate, another fireball came hurtling down from above, coming dangerously close to hitting Equus' flank. "We can't flight like this. We need to disperse those clouds, at least for long enough for us to bring that thing down."

Apple Bloom stomped. "If you take those clouds away, Ponyville's gonna burn!"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Archer snapped.

Shining Armour coughed. "That's not happening. Because of the heat, these clouds have become too dangerous to handle. There's nothing we can do but wait for it to burn out."

"Rrg..." Archer looked up, biting her lip. The sky was now completely black and bolts of lightning could be seen snaking through it. "Fine. I can work with this. For now... I think I have an idea."

“Look out!” shouted Spike, breaking her train of thought. The next fireball missed Equus wildly, so far away that Archer didn’t even bother to dodge it, embedding itself in the mountain slope. When it exploded, the slope burst with streams of lava, the suddenly liquified stone giving way to tons of rock above it. With a low rumble, the whole side of the mountain slid down towards the spot where Equus was standing.

“That was on purpose,” said Shining Armor, as Archer did her best to evade the rockslide. “It’s trying to trip us.”

“It worked, too,” said Archer through clenched teeth. Equus jumped up before the rolling mass could knock the legs from underneath it, but for a moment, it had no stable ground to land on. It swayed as the legs repositioned, trying to maintain balance on uneven terrain.

That’s when another shot came. This one was aimed straight at Equus. The machine couldn’t fight to keep balance and move away at the same time. Everypony instinctively braced for impact, with Cheerilee, who had never been in a robot fight before, dropping behind the pilot’s chair.

“Disengage!” shouted Archer, just as the fireball collided with Equus’ chest. The robot stepped back, the heavy chest plate dropping off and falling to the ground even as the explosion turned it from black to red, to white, to a shapeless mass that hit the ground in a shower of sparks.

Cicada looked down on the prone teacher. “I told you, this is unnecessary.”

“That was close,” said Shining Armor, as Equus regained its balance at last. “If it hits us again…”

“We can still afford to lose the head,” Archer cut him off. “And I’m lighter now. I’ll be faster. Perfect for what I have in mind.” She then took a deep breath and smiled. Equus turned to the right, extending one foreleg. A giant armored hoof flew towards it, fitting itself on like a long glove.

All gasped. "Is that our hoof?" Snips exclaimed.

"It worked!" Archer finally let her composure break, grinning and almost dancing on her stool. This vanished instantly as another fireball came and she was forced to do a three-legged hop backwards to avoid it. "I felt them while I was reaching out to Shining Armour. It looks like they're still part of my body even when they're detached, and I can sort of control them as long as I concentrate. Now these should pack more of a punch."

“You're going to throw your own hooves? Can you even balance like this?” asked Shining incredulously.

Archer did not respond, staring at the clouds above. As soon as the dragon’s head poked through the clouds, Equus reared and then turned, swinging its leg as it fell forward, the heavy metal hoof flying off into the sky. It pierced the storm cloud and then fell back out, causing a small landslide as it landed.

Archer sent her machine leaping forward, the enemy fireball exploding behind it. It dodged another one, then turned around, catching her second front hoof as it flew towards across the battlefield and reattached. This time, the whole group was staring upward, waiting for the enemy to appear. Lightning struck, illuminating the battlefield. The Sun was high in the sky, but you couldn’t tell from looking into the canyon; the sky above was filled with black clouds, the air full of black smoke from the sparse trees burning around the mountain tops and the steam from the rain now falling onto the red hot rock below. Shining Armor pointed at the sky and Archer had Equus swing again, sending another hoof flying towards her airborne foe. Once again, the throw missed and once more, Equus was forced to dodge the fiery bombardment.

“Come on!” whispered Spike, clenching his fists. “Just one good hit.”

“I’m not missing,” said Archer. “I’m too slow. It’s not there when I reach it and I can’t see it sooner. I need to see it before it attacks.” She chewed her lip. "Maybe magic could blast those clouds away..."

Piña Colada groaned dramatically. "That wouldn't work anyway, dummy," she explained. "If you can see it better, then it can see you better. Can't you just, like, magic your eyes up to where it is? It's not like they're attached to your head."

"You think I didn't think of that?" Archer snapped, starting to lose her tempter. In a disconcerting blur, the circle of chairs soared skyward, piercing through the clouds. The view from here was entirely opposed to the chaotic battlefield below; the mechanical dragon lazily circled over an unbroken platform of fluffy clouds, the Sun glinting majestically on its grey scales. "Now I can't see where it is relative to me, and I can't see myself to be able to dodge. It's not enough to know where it is, I have to be able to look straight at it. That's how aiming works."

The dragon's head dipped through the clouds, so Archer pulled her field of view back down to be able to move herself aside. She winced as the fireball blew up another hill and edged closer to the treeline, trying to find another spot where the ground wasn't melting. Piña Colada huffed. "So you can pinpoint Shining Armour from all the way in Ponyville, but you can't lock on to a freaking huge robot?"

"No, because the robot doesn't have any life force!"

Hesitantly, Rumble raised his hoof. "But what if..." he said carefully. "What if it did have a life force?"

All eyes turned to him. "What are you suggesting?" Archer said.

Rumble gestured to Shining Armour. "The weather team is still on standby, right? They could fly up to the dragon and hold onto it. Then we'd always know where it is."

Shining armor looked pensively at the sky. Another fireball was falling from it, but all Equus could do was get out of the way; it didn’t yet have a hoof ready to throw. “You can sense them up there?” he asked. “They’re fast fliers. If they can keep up with this thing, they could outline it for us. But…”

“They'll get crushed, won’t they?” asked Tornado Bolt, growing slightly pale.

Cheerilee stared at Rumble, then Shining, then Tornado Bolt, and finally Archer. It was obvious she was about to say something, but couldn’t quite find the words. Her face expressed mostly shock at seeing what her students were going through.

“They’ll all die anyway if we can’t beat it,” said Piña Colada.

“We only need one good hit,” said Apple Bloom, glaring at her. “We just need to keep throwing till we get lucky.”

“It will get lucky first,” said Snails with a sigh. “It fires more shots than we do.”

“You can’t just…” started Dinky, but Shining Armor silenced her by stomping his hoof.

“Enough,” he said. “This is our best shot at saving Equestria and those pegasi are already risking their lives fighting for it. Send me to the headquarters. I’ll ask for volunteers.”

Archer looked at him and he disappeared, gone with a sound of tearing paper. Cicada looked at her from above. “Now this is unorthodox. Let’s see if it works… if you can keep dodging 'til then.”

Archer didn’t answer. Closing her eyes, she tuned out the cockpit. It was no time for doubts. No time for deliberation. Just the giant enemy war machine hiding high among the clouds and the constant rain of fire. Left, forward, grab a hoof, wait, throw, dodge.

The enemy tried to hit her with another rockslide, but without her armor, she could get away from it without breaking pace. Then it shot at one of the discarded hooves, melting it to slag. There were shouts in the cockpit, but Archer let them fade into the background. She wasn’t one of the kids now; she was Equus, and the battle was all that mattered. The enemy melted another hoof, but once she was left with just two, she could keep them safe, launching one and pulling the other to herself, moving it before it could get shot.

There!

Her enhanced senses found something alive high in the sky, a small group of pegasi flying towards the storm clouds above. There were others there already, struggling against the storm winds, while trying to move the giant mass of water. As she was forced to dodge another fireball, she saw the two groups gather together inside the storm. She heard some questions around her and realized that Cicada must have done something again, or perhaps she had done it herself, without realizing; the lives she could see were now visible to everypony in the cockpit, a cluster of shining points resembling twinkling stars.

Maybe these were professionals, the Canterlot Weather Team Shining Armour had mentioned. Maybe they were just volunteers, ponies she passed on the street every day. Maybe they were Wonderbolts. If she looked just a little bit closer, she would be able to see.

She did not look any closer.

It took them another minute to start moving and spread out, many of them flying away. About a dozen were left, flying away further and further. Without warning, three of the lights went out. The remaining nine changed their flight patterns rapidly; they weren’t just fighting against the wind now, but trying to move around an obstacle. Archer summoned a hoof to her right front leg and held her breath.

There wasn’t much she could see; four lights far on both sides, the rest forming a suggestion of chest and shoulders, with one light some distance in front of the others, hinting at the position of the head. The points moved fast, the sides getting closer to the middle and the head shifting slightly back…

Got you!

There was a brief moment, halfway through the swing, when she remembered the blinking points of light were ponies. She pushed the thought away, all her focus on one light at the front, where a living creature’s sternum would be. Just a target she had to hit, a weak spot. The hoof left her front leg and flew, Equus’ body falling sideways with the force of its own throw before rolling over to get up.

The clouds opened as the dragon poked its head through them, a blazing ball of energy ready in its maw. It had enough time to see the flying mass of metal, but not enough to move away. It spat straight at it, but the fiery blast didn’t have enough force to stop it. All it achieved was turning the hoof white hot as it struck through the dragon’s chest, breaking through the thin black armor, into the mass of cables underneath, the heat only increasing the damage as everything fused together in a shower of molten metal. The monster leaned backwards, letting out another earth-shaking screech as its innards collapsed. It flared out its wings and tail, scattering the boiling clouds in a final, majestic inferno. Then it went still and fell like a stone.

Archer looked at the damage she had done. The dragon was falling, the torso too broken to move the titanic wings. Around it, seven points of light remained, flying off in all directions, some in a controlled manner, others clearly thrown with great force. One point of light, which had until now been sitting on the dragon’s head, now flew down with astounding speed, turning just above the raging inferno below to catch a falling comrade.

As the enemy machine hit the ground with a mighty crash, the lights of its faceplate fading before the whole thing started to disintegrate, there was a feeling of something switching off and suddenly Archer was once again just a pony, the images of the battlefield fading into the walls of the cockpit. Around her, she saw the faces of the other pilots, their expressions a blurred mix of sadness, relief and pride.

Tornado Bolt stood first, already walking forward, her eyes filled with pride and awe. "You did it," she said.

"No." Archer clutched at her pounding chest, waving the others off as they tried to draw near. "Stay back. Don't come near me."

Tornado Bolt planted her hooves squarely. "Archer-"

"No! Listen to me. You have to understand. This isn't my choice." Her breath was becoming harsh. "I'm not sacrificing my life for you like those guys out there. My life is being taken. That's what I want you to remember. Maybe some of you can find it in you to make that choice, but I can't, and I won't. I won't let that thing turn me into something I'm not. I'm not going out a hero. I'm going out as me."

Cicada drifted closer. "Kid, you're already a hero, whether you accept it or-"

"Shut up!" Archer snapped. "None of that means anything when it comes from you. You think I haven't noticed you're only nice to us when we're about to die?" She glared fiercely. "Just go away and let me burn out in peace."

With barely a pause, Cicada blipped away. Archer steadied herself against her stool. The others had risen as well to surround her, but were at least keeping their distance. She stared hard at a spot on the floor right in front of Tornado Bolt's hoof. "This is all wrong," she muttered. "All of it. I don't want to die. And I don't want to die for nothing. But I think we all know by now that we're not just fighting against someone who wants to play a game. But... but I don't want to be the one to say it."

Her breath grew shallower. She could feel her heartbeat slowing. Anything that might have been able to create a feeling of dread had already faded. "Just..." She breathed in one last time.

"Just count the number of lights."

Silence fell in the cockpit, interrupted only by Miss Cheerilee choking back a sob. She was shaking, staring in utter terror as one of her students grew still before her eyes. The others just looked on as the body swayed slightly and faded out, the empty cape sliding off the chair and onto the floor.

Then, without warning, the floor lit up and the seats started spinning. Cheerilee looked around in confusion before noticing the pilots’ reaction, gasps, and screams of fear, then horrible silence, the tension in the small chamber too thick to put into words. When the seats finally stopped, all eyes met in one spot...

...on a small metal stool, disguised as a cloud.

Slowly, one after another, everypony turned to look at Dinky. The filly just sighed sadly and closed her eyes, disappearing a split second before her teacher could catch her in a hug.