"Why can't you do it?" Jacob asked, glancing worriedly down at the little pot with its sprig of oregano. He had his wand back too, though he was fairly sure it wouldn't do anything.
"I told you already." Harley nudged him forward. "Just because I can do some magic doesn't mean I can do all of it. I'm not a pony."
"But I've seen you teleport!" Jacob set the plant down at one corner of the diagram they had chalked on the concrete, the last of the raw ingredients he would need. The book was still open—one of a handful of titles on unicorn medicine found in the safehouse library, and it seemed to know how to treat almost anything.
Allie was at the center of the diagram, resting on a pile of blankets and still unconcious. Of the safehouse's other occupants, only Katie seemed to be watching, though she was also playing something on her 3DS.
Harley loomed over him. "I'm a damn changeling, kid. Soulsucking, lifebreathing, parasitic horror. We can't give a fucking thing, only take."
"Bullshit."
She folded her arms. "Excuse me?"
He did the courtesy of responding in the same whisper, so the whole room wouldn't hear. "Not… about you being a changeling, that makes sense. The other thing…" He whimpered, something he never would've done three months ago. It was all he could do to suppress his tears. "You saved our lives multiple times. You could've left us and ran yourself, you could've left us to fend for ourselves, could've left us at the safehouse even. You didn't. You're always telling us that moping and self-pity aren't allowed, well you shouldn't break your own rules."
Harley didn't answer. Jacob watched her, not breaking eye contact. A few tears made it down her face before she could wipe them away with the back of her arm. Jacob reached out and rested a hand on her arm. All the while they were quiet enough that only Katie was watching.
"We didn't choose to get our lives stolen. You didn't choose how you were born."
"I know." She squeezed his hand, unmoving for another minute. He didn't rush her. Eventually she cleared her throat, and seemed to brighten. "Anyway, it's true we can't do healing magic. And many other kinds. That means healing is on you."
Whatever else he might think about Harley, Jacob trusted her. Even if it meant he would have to take Allie's life into his hands again. Healing magic probably doesn't kill by accident, right? It would be pretty bad at healing if it did.
"Alright." He sat down a foot away from the resting pony, on the other patch of bare floor, holding the book in his lap. "You ready?"
In answer, Harley drew back the hammer of her revolver, and pointed it at the pony on the other side.
"Try not to actually use it." He glared. "Last time I had to save someone, it gave me a damn horn. If I lose my feet because of you, I'll kick you with the stupid stubs."
"They aren't stupid!" Katie's voice came from behind him. "It's easier to balance with hooves than you think!"
He winced, remembering she had been listening. "I didn't mean it! Or, I did mean it, but not about you…" He groaned. "Sorry." He didn't trust himself to say anything else, or to look back at what she might be doing. At least she didn't get up to leave.
"Just remember your classes," Harley said. "It'll be easy."
"Oh, sure." He ran his finger down the page again. "Unicorn doctors train for six years, but three months is fine."
She bared her sharp teeth at him. "Putting it off won't make it easier."
Jacob groaned, then started to read. The words came easily to him, and so did the sensation of magic. Pressure started just behind his forehead, accompanied by a faintly yellow glow from his horn. The sound of video games faded into background static, and light from outside the circle became mere shadow.
There were many reasons someone might not wake up. According to the books, the most likely cause for Allie was backlash from the powerful spell she had experienced. It also happened to be the easiest potential cause to fix, since it didn't represent real damage to her body. She kept breathing, so her brain can't be that damaged, right?
"Three gifts for the suffering soul," he said, then gestured to them in turn. Though Jacob had serious trouble with levitation, it came easy enough this time. "Water from the sky, life from the soil, and fire from the ether. Remember the harmony that was." They turned to ash before his eyes. The water clouded, the candle charred rapidly down, and the oregano shriveled to black stubble. "Unseal the lock, break the secret seal, and let me in."
The appartment was gone, with its concrete floors and the sound of video games. Harley's gun, Katie's smell, all of it.
For the second time in his life, Jacob was a pony, fully and completely. His coat was brown, with cream color on his muzzle and near his hooves. He was naked, though just now it seemed not to matter.
Concrete walls rose high around him, a hallway in a giant's house. There were steel doors here and there, and sometimes water or worse liquids seeped out from under them. The lights above were flickering and inadequate, driven by gas generators and thick cables.
He knew where to go, if only because the hallway faded to blackness behind him but seemed to continue as he went forward. He couldn't reach the knobs on doors that had them, and wasn't strong enough to push them open besides.
He passed through a massive door left open, bigger than he would've expected on a bank's safe. On the other side the dirt and fluids were clean, the floors polished and the lights bright. Not much further and he reached an empty waiting room, as he would've expected to find in a hospital. There were no people, only the sounds of distant screams.
There were lots of locked doors and one that was open. He picked that one, and followed it until the floor changed to rough stone. Cells rose around him on both sides, cells too small to house a human prisoner. But perfect for a pony. The fronts were acrylic, and each one was cloaked in shadow. Occasionally he saw a vague outline shrunk into a corner, but tapping on the glass produced only agonized screaming.
He nearly wet himself the first time it happened, and so he didn't repeat the experiment. If this was real I'd have to get these ponies out. There were more sealed doors, and a few open ones. He took ramps between levels, past tens of thousands of cells.
Eventually he saw his first human figure, pushing a cart down the hall. "Hello!" he shouted, waving with one hoof. With a jolt of terror, Jacob realized he recognized this woman. She was the same one who had nearly arrested him, the one who had perpetrated the end of his normal life. Had she made his target suffer too?
The woman didn't so much as look back at him, continuing forward. She was pushing some kind of wheeled cart, which banged and creaked as it went.
"Hey!" Jacob started into a trot, not having any trouble with the movement despite having never done it before. It was still hard to catch up—human legs were long! "What are you doing down here?"
This time the woman answered, though she continued forward at a meaningful trot. "Put her away."
Her. He looked down, and sure enough the crate she was pushing did look big enough to hold a pony, even an adult stallion like himself. They weren't exactly giants. If I'm a pony, Allie must be too.
"Where are we?" he asked, managing to keep pace even though he was getting winded.
"Containment."
"Why are you putting her into containment?"
"Protect the world," she answered. "If the infection spreads, the whole world could end."
He gritted his teeth. "You aren't real." No answer. "Alright then." Jacob blasted her. Unlike the real world, he didn't actually need to know a fighting spell. He just willed a blast of energy from his horn, with all the confidence he had ever used when healing. It came, and pierced the woman like she was a hologram. She screamed, but there was no blood. Cracks spread down her human shape, and she exploded into mist.
The cart didn't fall over with her gone—there were tracks set into the floor. It creaked to a stop along the ramp, and then the sound stopped.
Jacob walked up to the edge of the cart, inspecting it. A crate was clipped to it, made of sturdy metal and pierced with air holes. He couldn't actually see in, though. "Are you in there, Allie?"
There was a muffled noise from inside, and a little motion. If it was words, he couldn't understand them.
"Don't worry Allie, I'm a boss at lucid dreaming. I've got a dream journal and everything."
He searched for some kind of locking mechanism, but found none. Only a control panel, one stationed too high up on the box to reach. This might've been a serious obstacle, if he were really here. Fortunately, none of this was real.
Jacob imagined a knife he had read about once, one Subtle enough to slice through bone, steel, and universe alike. It clattered to the ground in front of him, its metal blade shimmering like oil on water. He didn't touch it, but instead drew on magic again. What he couldn't control in real life was easy here in imagination, and it levitated into the air with ease. He moved it slowly towards the cart, then cut through the boxy frame. It split without resistance, and the whole thing banged to the ground.
"Get down on the bottom!" he shouted. "I'll cut you out!" What would happen if he used an imagined knife on a real mind? He didn't want to find out.
There was no response. He moved the knife up to the edge of the crate, and as before it cut without the slightest resistance. Sparks emerged from a few of the crate's air holes, none of which could touch him. He cut only along the top, opening a pony-sized hole in the top of the crate.
He caught the free section in more magic, then tossed the lot to the ground far out of reach. "Alright Allie, you're free."
There was a long silence. "My name's not Allie, it's Elise."
"Okay Elise." He didn't know what the one inside the cage might mean, but it didn't really matter. The book had been very clear that only the real person would be able to argue with him. Figments, like the scary woman, could only answer basic questions and keep doing what they were doing. "You're free."
There was a sniff, and the sound of muted tears. "I don't… don't deserve your help."
"That's the second time you've told me that." Jacob advanced, his horn glowing again. He lifted the whole crate off its broken cart, with strength he suspected he would never have as a real unicorn. He set the box down on its side, so that the window was facing him. "I still think it's wrong."
Sure enough, it was Allie inside, curled up against the back of the padded crate. Intricate circuitry and engineering were evident in the design, but just now he didn't care. Allie was his only mission. She looked pathetic, her mane matted as though she had been crying for a long time. She was crying now, though there were traces of annoyance in her.
"You wouldn't have saved me if you knew," she said, looking up at him through the opening. She didn't actually move. "So many lies… but it was too late, couldn't take it back…" She shivered, burying her face in her forehooves. "Just let me die. You shouldn't have stopped it before."
"I didn't know." Jacob walked to the edge of the crate, but he didn't actually try to climb in or pull her out. There wasn't really enough space for two adult ponies in there, at least not without getting quite intimate. "But I think I know now. Somehow you knew coming to us was going to lead the army too. Maybe this is the place they brought you, to put the tracking device under your coat where we wouldn't find it."
She jerked, looking up again with shock. "How do you know?"
The truth was that they hadn't been sure before exactly what the thing was. Allie's reaction seemed like strong confirmation, though. He acted as though it was. "It came out when you, uh… landed." He winced. "We were attacked the day after you got there. We didn't have to be geniuses to suspect you."
She was crying openly now. "You were supposed to be horrible people! Cutting the infected apart, selling their organs to finance your expansion! Slaves to the world's first intelligent virus. Monsters living in your own filth, mutating into those horrible things that kill in so many horrible ways…"
"Is that how they got you to betray us, Allie? Feed you all those lies about what ponies were like? You were so in tune with the magic the show gave you that you changed entirely on your own, and you still believed ponies were capable of that?"
"My name isn't Allie!" she shouted, a little anger making its way into her tone. "I am Special Agent Elise Avery, member of the FBI's recently established Extranormal Containment Task Force. I've been trying to protect the world from you since the first infections started over a year ago."
Avery. The name matched a face, a face he had very recently blown away with magic. It had been a little strange that in a place that looked like its people were missing, one human would have stuck around when all the others vanished. But if that human was the dreamer too…
The same human that had tried to arrest him. She had taken his life away, then destroyed his new one too. For a moment, Jacob thought about turning his back on her and leaving her to her fate. His spell would only work if he could convince the sleeping soul to come with him willingly, after all. If he walked away, she might stay in a backlash-induced coma until she withered away. "You're right, Elise. Maybe you do deserve to die."
Then he looked in on her again, and saw how awful she looked. Saw the regret in her eyes strong enough that she had crawled into her own mind and prayed for death. Jacob didn't know if what he felt was something human, or some new aspect of himself imposed by the transformation.
Either way, compassion conquered anger. His stiff posture relaxed, and the glow growing at his horn faded. Was this how Celestia felt before she sent her sister to the moon? Only Jacob wasn't here to punish. "But punishing you wouldn't help the ponies who died. They gave you love and care, gave it to me and all my friends when all your goddamn people wanted to do was lock us away somewhere like this." He gestured over his shoulder at the cells.
"Maybe one day, Celestia will judge you. But not today. Today it's time to start repairing the damage. You aren't just some helpless victim, who maybe saw a few things as she was doped and operated on. You're one of them. You know how the ones hunting us operate. You know their goals, and maybe you know where they take our friends who they steal away." Again he gestured around them, at the endless cells.
"Of fucking course you feel bad about what you did. I think that's because you actually wanted to protect people, but you found out too late you were on the wrong side. Well if there's anything left of whatever nobility made you want to protect people in the first place, listen up." He reached in with his magic, lifting her out through the hole and dumping her out on the ground in front of him. Elise didn't resist, but instead held still, her whole body shivering. She wasn't that heavy.
"Maybe if you'd done something that wasn't as bad you could just die and be done with it. But you've done too much harm for that. Now 'Special Agent,' it's time to fix some of the harm you caused. You can't bring back the dead, but maybe you can do good by them and prevent more deaths. So get off your ass and help us save some people."
She whimpered, struggling to wipe away her tears. Jacob offered no comfort to her, as he had done to Harley only a little earlier. Unlike the changeling, Elise's pain was deserved.
Then she straightened, rising to her hooves. "Okay."