Timelapse

by Stik

Chapter 14

Riley’s heart lurched when Twilight’s spell freed Discord instead of Celestia. He had been convinced she would release her mentor, she had precious few reasons to do otherwise. Yet here they were, the peculiar creature standing before them, looking around with an almost equally surprised look on his face, as though he hadn’t really expected it to work, either.

Riley swallowed nervously, a strong sensation of guilt worming its way up his chest, threatening to crush his heart and overcome him. This was what he wanted, after all, his mission was to return the warp core and get the hell away from this forsaken planet before something even worse turned up to try and eat them.

Manipulating Twilight’s emotions to achieve his goals, however, and outright lying at times – that felt extremely wrong.

He forced himself to focus, pushing through the pain and feverish heat that seemed to cover every inch of his body. Discord was speaking melodramatically again, almost gloating by the sounds of it. The creature really was a complete jerk, Riley decided. There were few other words to describe him.

His body jumped in surprise as a medical stretcher suddenly appeared under him, jolting him painfully. He found himself floating, and then the inert form of Derpy was draped over him unceremoniously, knocking what remaining breath he had from his lungs. He tried to hold onto her as they lurched through the air after Discord’s departing tail, the gurney swinging wildly from side to side and threatening to dislodge them both.

They were floating through a strange landscape, hovering above an endless green meadow speckled with daisies in the most picturesque way imaginable. Far in the distance snowcapped mountains twinkled in the bright sunshine, and the sky above was a deep blue, small wisps of cloud way up high. Everything seemed too bright, the colours too much. The air was cool and refreshing and impossibly pure. Riley was certain it was not real.

Suddenly Discord was floating next to him, smaller now, closer to his own size. His horsey face was awfully close, inspecting him from all angles with an unreadable expression.

“My, my,” he drawled. “You are a peculiar looking thing, aren’t you? So… fleshy. How do you keep warm? So little fur! What does Twilight Sparkle see in you, hmm?”

“I thought you said this would be immediate? Was Twilight correct? Are you a liar?”

Discord narrowed his eyes and leant forwards with a sneer. “It will be. I am a creature of my word. Although, if I may say so, is this not a case of pot and kettle? I may be as honest as a looking-glass myself, but I can tell a good lie when I hear one.”

Riley squirmed slightly.

“As much as I approve of your trying to confuse these little ponies, pretending you have a child is quite a leap to take. And kidnapping her townsfolk? I would certainly like to be around when she finds that one out. Even I can’t create that sort of mayhem lightly.”

He mumbled something about it being necessary, but Discord didn’t seem to be paying much attention, content to dance around in the air instead. Riley felt wretched for lying, but the situation had been looking increasingly dire at the time and getting Twilight emotionally involved in retrieving Derpy (and therefore the warp core) had seemed the be best course of action. In hindsight he was genuinely regretful of what he had done, but what was done was done, and if all went to plan then they would be leaving for good soon anyhow.

“Get a move on,” he said flatly. “I have no interest in having you lay bare my sins. You promised to get me back.”

“But we are going back.” Discord spiralled around him, his snakelike body coiling in the air like a piece of trailing thread. “No time has passed in the real world. This is one of my planes, although it’s really been let go since I’ve been away, chatting with dear Celestia for three hundred years. Just look at this grass!”

In the distance a small army of antique green lawnmowers had appeared, clipping along at a fair pace, seemingly under their own power. As they passed beneath him the ground changed from lush green to dusty yellow sand, and still unbearably brightly coloured. A few cacti had sprung up nearby with their sharp spines glittering, and a heat haze shimmered across the dunes.

“Get on with it,” he muttered. As interesting as this new character was the absurdity of the situation and his sickness were combining to make the whole experience feel rather more like an uncomfortable dream than any sort of reality.

“Hasty, aren’t we? I was going to talk to you for a bit, try to get to know you. I’ve only seen you through a hazy window from my miserable cell, and I have so many questions, you wouldn’t believe it! I was, I admit, also going to try to explain myself to you.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle and I have something of a feud, you see. She doesn’t like me very much at all, mostly because of a few small, unfortunate misunderstandings we shared in the past. But I’m really not such a bad guy, once you get to know me.

“She’s doubtless told you how I’m the ‘Scourge of Equestria’, or some such waffle. Twilight, that is, princess Twilight Sparkle, has always been a little bit of a loose cannon, so to speak. I know she’s told you about some of her… incidents over the years. Humorous as they may be, she is hardly the picture of stability, and I for one am very puzzled as to why dear Celestia thinks she’s a good choice for the future ruler of Equestria.”

Riley snorted, thinking back over the few days he had known Twilight, and her adorable but at times somewhat peculiar approach to life. Discord certainly made a point, but then at the same time it was hard to believe that he would get a truly balanced opinion from either of them and reminded himself to take Discord’s words with a liberal pinch of salt.

Discord continued eloquently. “I would feel terribly hard done-by if you were to leave this lovely world of ours without at least a little bit more of a balanced view, and who better than to give it than yours truly?”

Riley rolled his eyes, he felt as if this could go on for a long time. “Look, I really couldn’t care less. I just want to complete my mission and get off this planet before I go completely insane. I’m a little worried that might already have happened.”

“Oh, fine,” Discord said flippantly, performing a few more aerobatics. Derpy was stirring on Riley’s chest and he squeezed her gently, more for his own comfort than anything else. He was feeling unnervingly detached from the situation to the point where an impossibly cute flying pony could actually help to reassure him that he wasn’t dreaming.

“I understand some of your plight, that your whole species is fighting for its survival, and, by the looks of you lot, it isn’t doing very well. I’m not heartless, you know, and I would give you a gift, a trinket that might help you.”

Riley felt affronted. “We don’t need help,” he said hotly.

“Well, think of these as a mere curiosity, then,” Discord said, materialising an ornate carved wooden box in front of them. In the distance a second window had appeared and they were approaching it quickly. “They are, after all, part of the reason you are with us today. These are some of the very things that drew your marvellous flying machines here in the first place. Magic.”

“What are they?” Riley asked suspiciously. Derpy had her eyes open and was watching Discord cautiously. Riley gently scratched his fingers through the fur on the back of her neck and she wriggled against him with a very quiet giggle, relaxing a little. It was, he thought, very much like having a large, flying dog that could talk to you, unquestioningly friendly.

“They’re magic crystals,” Discord told him, as if that explained everything. He opened the box before Riley’s eyes. Six large, beautifully cut crystals glittered inside, nestled amongst some expensive looking cloth, reflecting the light into many angular patterns. “Pretty little things, aren’t they? They form a complete set with some very interesting magical properties. I think you would find some of their capabilities very useful, or at least of considerable academic interest, if you’d rather fight your own battles without them.”

Riley narrowed his eyes, peering past them at Discord. They were very tempting, the same instinct that Spike’s hoard had awoken in him certainly seemed to have taken notice again.

“Equestria is full of crystals like this,” Discord continued by way of explanation, snapping the box shut again with a wave of a taloned claw. “Over the centuries the ponies have invested a considerable amount of effort in digging them up out of the ground. Many of them get enchanted with various mundane spells, often by students of the magical arts, I am led to understand. All seems rather pointless to me, but there you go; ponies in a nutshell. Lovely to look at, a little pointless when you get into the detail.”

Riley stifled a grin despite his determination to remain apart. The guy was good fun, even if he was a little unhinged, but then everyone on this planet had come across as a bit strange in some way or other.

“Ah, it looks like we’ve arrived!” Discord sang brightly as they approached the gaping window. Riley found the box laid on his chest, lid sealed shut. “Please, take them, a parting gift from me to you. If you hadn’t convinced Twilight Sparkle of the wisdom of freeing me then I would likely be stuck in that dreary place for another three hundred years, and this time I wouldn’t even have had the questionable pleasure of Celestia’s fascinating company.

“So, good luck, Riley the Human. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, and I hope you have a smooth journey home. If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of herding to do!”

Discord vanished with a cheery wave and a popping sound, and Riley found himself lying in the centre of Ponyville, on his back on a stretcher with Derpy just climbing to her hooves, standing guard over him.

“Are you okay, mister Riley?” she asked, looking down at him. He smiled up at her and nodded.

“I’ll be fine, Derpy. Thankyou for sticking by me. I couldn’t have done it without you. Go see to your kid.”

“Thankyou!” she chirped. She deposited his backpack on the ground next to him and bent down to nuzzle his neck affectionately. He tensed, caught off-guard, and then with a rush of air she was gone, weaving off through the early morning darkness. He watched her go before letting his head fall back to the hard ground under the stretcher. His neck tingled pleasantly.

He could hear booted feet running his way and the shouting of commands, and suddenly hands were around him, pulling at his clothes and lifting him swiftly. He finally let himself fall into oblivion, the darkness overtaking him.

Sometime later he awoke, surrounded by black. He blinked in the gloom, unable to see anything. Around him was the steady drip, drip, drip of something, and he imagined for a horrifying moment that he was back in the cave, water rushing in from somewhere, but then he realised he was lying on a firm hospital bed, clean white sheets around him. A wavering light came towards him, a feeble torch, barely bright enough to light the way.

“Hello?” he called out. The steady drip continued and the light turned to him, seeking him out. He had a terrible sinking feeling in his soul, just when it seemed his journey had come to an end he found that something new had gone wrong.

Very, very wrong.

“What’s happening?”

His mouth felt dry and talking was hard. The words didn’t seem to come out properly, slurring around his thick tongue. The light drew closer, and he could detect the sound of footsteps.

No, not footsteps, hoofsteps. Three, to be precise, and a marked limping sound. “Derpy?” he hazarded hopefully.

The light flared and Twilight burst into view, her horn aglow. He tried not to scream, she was only a foot from his face, having covered the distance far too quickly. One eye bored into him, the other gummed shut, her fur burnt and horn cracked, bloodstained fur as black as soot.

He scrabbled backwards, desperately trying to get away from her but the bedclothes were tangled tightly around him and he couldn’t move. In the sickly flickering light from her shattered horn he could see more of the ward around him, a hospital bigger than he remembered, far too big to see all of, rows and rows of beds as far as he could see. The bed next to him was occupied and had a dead man in it, lifeless eyes staring straight ahead. With a shock he realised it was Williams, still in full dress uniform, as torn and bloody as it was.

He looked up, and regretted it immediately. A familiar pony hung from the ceiling above him, her twisted, broken body dripping a pool on the floor, a steady sound, impossibly loud. Her beautiful grey feathers were torn and missing, wings bent and snapped at awful angles.

Riley screamed, although very little sound came out. Twilight had hopped up on the bed, one lame leg dragging uselessly behind her, and as she crawled towards him she mouthed a word over and over, silent except for the hiss of her laboured breathing.

“Liar.”

“Collins!” shouted a voice and he jolted properly awake, sitting up in the infirmary ward and pulling painfully at the intravenous line in his arm. Strong hands pushed him back down and fiddled with his connections. His frantic breathing slowed, his heart hammering in his chest. Nearby a machine was beeping an alarm, his sudden rise in pulse rate had triggered something.

“That’s not happened in years,” he murmured, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of the hospital gown. He knocked the cluster of wires that were attached to the transceiver pad on his head, sending a spasm of electrical pain through his nerves. He winced and the hands were there again, fussing over him and trying to stop him poking at things.

He still felt very disorientated. Unwelcome dreams had been extremely common in the early days when he had first undergone the surgery to have his cybernetics linked up, the confusion the brain experienced for the first year or so had all sorts of unpleasant manifestations. Some people developed uncontrollable tics, some lost acuity in one or more natural senses, some simply went insane. For him he had been cursed with horribly graphic nightmares whenever he slept deeply. Over time he had learnt to control them, but from time to time one still snuck through.

“I’m alright,” he said a little irritably as the nurse continued poking and prodding, peering in his eyes with a torch and sticking a cold thing in his ear. “Bad dream.”

They finally stood back and left him alone, and he lay staring at the ceiling, letting his breathing finally calm to a resting rate. He tried to blank the images from his dream but they lingered in his minds’ eye; Twilight, betrayed, accusing, hurt.

He blinked hard a few times and shook his head fiercely. It annoyed him that she had managed to have such an impact on his psyche to be able to break into his dreams in such a dramatic manner. There was no reason for him to feel so much guilt, no reason to have such an attachment to her, and plenty of reasons not to.

He focused his attention on his surroundings, a welcome distraction. The ward was lit with the harsh light of a field hospital, minimal but effective. The thick canvas overhead undulated very slightly in the breeze outside, the striplight swinging gently. He was hooked up to a large bank of machines, and his entire midriff was bandaged properly and cleanly. A thick bundle of cables ran to a transponder strapped to the side of his head, and he could feel the interface talking to his implants, monitoring his body from the inside. Maybe that intrusion was partly responsible for letting the gremlins past his mental defences.

Nothing seemed to hurt much, thankfully, and from what he could see of the displays around him he was recovering well, the damage had evidently been simple to repair. He looked around hopefully, wondering when someone would come to see him. The two male nurses who had restrained him initially had shuffled back off to deal with some other patient.

A third nurse came to poke her head through the curtain. On seeing he was awake she drew them back, and Riley saw he was in a larger ward. There were twelve beds, occupied by another four humans and seven ponies in various states of recovery. He was pleased to see they were still helping the natives, despite the mandate that required them to avoid getting involved in an alien species’ affairs. He supposed it had been waived in this case, since there were so many other parts of that rule they had inadvertently broken.

“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked primly, propping the head of the bed up and inspecting some of the machinery.

“Better,” he replied, looking around some more. He tensed his stomach experimentally and could at least feel some pain there, so it wasn’t completely healed. “How long have I been out?”

“About six hours. You’ve taken to the treatment well, you had an infection that the antibiotics and your own nanites have largely cured. You also had some strange compounds in your blood, some of which are still there.”

“Ponies,” he said by way of explanation. “They tried some of their medicine on me.”

“We suspected as much.” She consulted some charts. “It doesn’t appear to be doing you any harm, fortunately, and in fact may actually be helping you. Your recovery has been remarkably swift, lieutenant-commander Collins. You were lucky that the trauma missed any organs. About a centimetre further would’ve lost you a kidney, and we’re all out of spares.”

“Lucky me,” he said with a grim smile. It felt strange to be speaking common English again. He realised it had only been a few Earth-days since they landed, but it felt as if an age had passed. So much had happened. “Do you know where my belongings ended up?”

“Yes, Admiral Williams has taken custody. He asked to be informed when you awoke, so I would imagine someone’ll be along shortly to debrief you.”

“Very good,” he said. A small amount of pride rose in his chest and blossomed into an overwhelming surge of emotion. He had completed his mission, against almost insurmountable odds. He had battled several kinds of monsters and survived, met a dragon and been transported into the depths of an ancient mountain where he’d met two rival gods. Things had looked bleak, but he’d pulled through, despite the cost. This was what he lived for, the reason he fought so hard.

Riley was getting restless by the time the admiral himself turned up. While his injuries didn’t hurt as such they did itch terribly and the damage internally would take weeks to clear up properly so he could feel a strange sort of pressure, almost an ache, deep in his gut. With nothing to do to distract him it was difficult to ignore it.

He saluted Williams, and the older man sat next to him, checking over his charts with a detached sort of interest. Riley knew he probably didn’t understand most of it, and anything he did need to know he would have been told already, so it was all for something to do.

“Good to see you, Riley,” he said warmly, setting the tablet down. “You had me worried for a while. The techs kept getting tiny squirts of data from your implants while you were out in the field, the weakest signal imaginable. That you were injured was apparent, but they couldn’t work out the details. Then you went completely dark, and the next we heard of you was when everything lit up again, and you turned up slap bang in the middle of the camp.”

“It’s been an interesting few days, sir,” he said. “Has the core been tested? Is it viable?”

“We think so, the engineering team from Alpha One has given it a precursory inspection, but I’d rather you be personally involved in its final re-commissioning. We can’t afford to mess this up.”

Riley sat up a little further, preparing to get out of the bed. “How long’s the window?”

“We’ve got five hours to get off the ground. We’re aiming to transfer to satellite orbit, the moon is going to be behind the planet for another day at least so that gives us some time to prepare. The techs seem to think the sun might be calming, as well.”

“What about these attacks I heard about?”

“They ceased, almost the exact moment you returned, in fact.” Williams raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

Riley sighed and shook his head, a silly, tired grin on his face. “Where to start…”

He recounted the major events of the excursion from leaving the camp to his capture by the roc, and from there back to the camp, trying to be as specific as possible without lapsing into what would undoubtedly sound like a rambling fairy tale. That ended up being quite tricky to avoid.

“I was able to convince Twilight Sparkle of our pressing need to return,” he said simply, a bitter taste on his tongue. Twilight was unbearably trusting, which just made his treachery feel all the worse. There was no real reason for her to find out, but he knew what he had done, and even that was enough.

“Discord returned me here. He is deeply peculiar, and clearly very powerful in ways we don’t yet comprehend, but in my opinion he seemed genuine enough. He kept his word to me, and the attacks have certainly stopped. I suspect the ponies’ view of him is somewhat skewed.”

Williams tapped his chin thoughtfully.

“Did you also inspect the crystals in the wooden box, admiral?”

“Yes,” he replied, looking up. “Again, the techs have only had a very precursory look at them, but I hear they are extremely interesting.”

Riley nodded. “Discord said they would be of interest to us. Do you know their findings?”

“I gather they possess some qualities not unlike the warp core you went to retrieve, in fact. Some sort of quantum coherence engine, they think, encoded into the crystal structure. Excite them with particular frequencies of light and they come alive. The science bods are certainly very excited about them.”

Riley nodded, he was curious to get to look at them as well, his implant had felt very peculiar when Discord had dropped them on his chest. Whatever they were, they were a lot more than just pretty glass, that much was clear. “I look forward to being able to study them on the return journey,” he said.

“Are you well enough to begin work?”

“Absolutely,” he said, swinging his legs out of the side of the bed and carefully disconnecting some of the sensors on his head. His nurse re-appeared and looked like she was about to object before noticing the admiral still sitting there and snapping her mouth shut quickly.

Riley clenched his jaw tightly, his abdomen felt very uncomfortable when he moved, a deep pressure in his core that made him feel sick. He tried to focus on other things to distract himself, in particular he felt calm enough after his little dream to allow his thoughts to return to Twilight, and he wondered how she was doing. He had ditched her there, he realised guiltily, just another mean thing he had done to add to the list. If she couldn’t cast her spell again, or Celestia wasn’t able to teleport her out, then she was going to be in trouble.

He hastily pulled his new clothes on, shrugging out of the medical gown and leaving it crumpled on the bed. Williams would be strongly against the idea of helping her, he knew, and of course he had no idea how they could assist in any case. Short of drilling into the mountain there was little they could do, and they certainly didn’t have the equipment, nor the manpower or time, for such a task.

The only other option seemed to involve asking Discord to help. He at least had demonstrated the ability to move them around seemingly arbitrarily, using a much stronger version of the ‘spell’ Twilight used to teleport herself, or some variant thereof. Riley suspected, however, that he wouldn’t be particularly helpful. Although he had been perfectly civil to Riley (in his own strange way) it seemed like his relationship with Twilight was rocky at the best of times.

In the end there was nothing for it but to trust in Twilight’s ability to release Celestia successfully, and for her in turn to transport them both here. It didn’t give him cause to feel any better. At least mounting a rescue mission might have helped earn him some redemption points back. Once the adrenaline had worn off from the near constant fight for survival he was feeling a lot more human and his poor treatment of Twilight suddenly seemed a lot less forgivable. At the time the mission had seemed like the most important thing in the world, and simply using those around him as a means to an end and as tools had seemed justifiable.

“I’ve got a team of three men for you,” Williams was saying as they walked out of the infirmary, Riley trying to find the right awkward gait that didn’t bother his injury too much. “I believe you’ve worked with two of them before, the third is a young fellow straight out of the academy. A bit like you, by all reports, top grades in everything. I’m sure you’ll get along well.”

“I’m grateful for the extra help,” he said. “Have preparations been made for departure once we’ve returned warp capability?”

“Yes. Crews and resources have already been reassigned to the remaining functional vehicles, it’s not going to be comfortable, but we can get everyone out safely. We should be ready to dust off approximately forty minutes after we get the go-ahead from your team.”

“Great, we’ll have the fleet off the ground in a couple of…”

They were interrupted by a young sergeant running up to them and whispering urgently in William’s ear. Riley took the opportunity to look around. The camp seemed much the same as before, albeit with a few more scorch marks and signs of fighting. It was difficult to tell if the town itself had sustained much more damage, their own camp had expanded slightly and the rest of the town was mostly out of view in the darkness. There was the smell of fresh woodsmoke in the air, however.

Williams nodded to the sergeant who saluted and sprinted off. All around them men had started running, unpacking weapons from the cargo bays of ships and redeploying defences.

“Sir?” Riley questioned, looking around. He could hear some of the radio chatter in the air but he hadn’t got his radio on him yet.

“They’re back,” Williams said gruffly.

“Discord?”

“Unknown. You’re the only one to have a positive ID on him yet.”

“You’d know,” Riley said. “He’s pretty distinctive.”

“Head of a horse, body of everything else, yes. They’ve been decoding some of the books from their library while you’ve been away. I’ve seen some of the reports.”

Riley nodded. They’d spot him. “Orders, admiral?”

“They seem disinclined to engage us directly, it’s only through trying to assist the natives that we’ve taken any real casualties. God damn it, we need to get out of here as soon as possible, before this gets any worse. Head over to Alpha Three, get the warp core up and working, get us off this rock.”

“Yessir,” he said with a sloppy salute. It was good to have something familiar to do, a more mundane task for which he was well-trained. Running around the countryside being kidnapped by demonic birds and tricked by imps was certainly not one of his key strengths. Getting the fleet back in the air was his real job and he was already thinking through the logistics. No doubt others would have drawn up the flight plans by now and signed off the risk assessments, but it didn’t hurt to exercise his brain a little.

They’d have to take the lead warp ship, Alpha Three, up into orbit as soon as possible so that it could begin the tedious process of fixing its location. No doubt Williams would want to send at least another two craft up with it, one supply and one defence, the skies seemed clear but after their brief stay in Equestria they had learnt not to take anything the planet showed at face value. The remainder of the fleet would follow shortly after, ascending in measured intervals, always leaving a safe haven at either end until the very last possible moment that the final ship dusted off.

A few of their ships were never going to fly again, he knew. They had been damaged too badly to be viable, their crews and cargo had been rearranged to fit amongst the others, and many spare parts had been scavenged for repairs. He could see a few technicians finishing the decommissioning, stripping out anything that could make them functional and attempting to permanently destroy that which was to be left behind. That the native population had even seen their technology was unfortunate, leaving it around in a working state would only make things worse. It was a shame they would have to leave the hulking carcasses slowly sinking into the ground, especially in the centre of what was clearly a very picturesque town during more peaceful days, but they hadn’t the time to move them.

The engineering bay of the third ship in their fleet had been cleaned up significantly since he was there last. The propulsion units had been repaired and serviced and all the clutter and junk cleared away. The warp computer he had worked so painfully hard to acquire was sitting on the worktop with various monitoring tools and pieces of diagnostic equipment laid about, and three technicians huddled around them, working at the consoles.

He greeted them, recognising two as the admiral had promised, and sat down at the spare stool to see what they had discovered so far. The core had suffered a fair bit of water damage and some fairly severe knocks and scrapes, but was in serviceable condition. The other three had already begun carefully stripping away the outer casing and draining the insides. Fortunately the thing was designed to be airtight and so the water had not penetrated into the very delicate innards or they really would have been in trouble.

Most of the diagnostics they had been able to run so far had come up clear, and all that was really left for him to do was double-check their workings and run some of the more delicate routines himself, relying heavily on his implants to give him the lightning reactions he needed to be able to rattle through them at a colossal rate.

They reassembled it and gave it a final round of functional trials. It would be their only functioning warp drive, a risky situation to be in, particularly if its stability had reason to be doubted, caused by, for example, being dragged through a flooded mine. If it failed to calculate the exact impulses they needed then they could find themselves re-materialising almost anywhere in the universe, or even becoming stuck in hyperspace forever. Neither situation left them in a good position.

Fitting it in place of the damaged core in their own ship was simple enough, the service engineers had done an excellent job of clearing out the remains of the damaged one and everything was ready to drop straight in. Nearly four hours had passed since they started, and Riley was very pleased with their progress. It left them with a window of just over an hour to get the fleet airborne, ample time assuming nothing unexpected happened.

He flicked through the radio channels, trying to get a sense for what was happening. Chatter was low.

“Enemy is simply waiting, sir,” the officer he spoke to said. “We’ve deployed defences around the perimeter, the locals have done the same, as much as you can call it a ‘defence’. They’re holding about two hundred metres out. Seem uninterested in us.”

Riley frowned and ducked out of the ship, minding his head on the low hatchway to the engineering levels. He peered into the darkness, trying to see what was happening, looking for the distinctive shape of Discord. He was a little worried for the ponies; it seemed obvious what Discord was doing. He was waiting. Waiting for the humans to get out of the way, as he had promised. What he intended to do once they were gone… Well, you didn’t need an army for a welcome-home party, that was certain. He set his jaw and tried to ignore his guilt.

The sky was beginning to brighten off to one side, heralding the slow approach of dawn. Behind him the crews of Alpha Three and two other ships were beginning pre-flight checks, running the engines through their warm-up procedures and checking life support systems.

“Mister Riley!” wailed a familiar voice in the distance. He looked up into the sky and spotted a grey pegasus coming in fast. Too fast.

He ducked as Derpy pulled up sharply in front of him, bracing her legs against the hull of the ship with a loud clang. She half slithered, half flew down the remaining few metres. Riley helped her to her hooves and she fluttered her wings in frustration.

“Twilight Sparkle’s back!” she announced excitedly, tugging on his hand to pull him along after her. He tried to protest but she had already taken off and wasn’t letting go.

“Whoa, remember what happened last time!” he called, but thankfully she didn’t actually try to get him airborne, content to just drag him along at an uncomfortable pace, hopping and skipping after her like a child on his mother’s arm.

She led him back to the library, that great oak tree in the centre of the town with the quaint house inside. It always looked much smaller from the outside than it really was, the lush green boughs disguising its true dimensions. Derpy rushed him through the door so quickly he barely had the time to duck to avoid bumping his head.

Rarity was standing at the top of the stairs and beckoned to him. He hurried up them three at a time, finding Twilight lying on her bed, a pillow over her head.

“What’s the matter?” he asked Rarity, worried.

“She’s exhausted herself,” Rarity told him softly. Riley studied the white unicorn’s face, she didn’t look much less exhausted herself. Her sleek white fur was matted and stained with all sorts of things, and her red, tired eyes suggested it had been at least a day since she had last slept.

“It is possible for a skilled unicorn to cast spells, even when one may no longer have the energy to do so. Poor Twilight has rather overdone it, I’m afraid.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled from under her pillow. “I just need to sleep!”

“Are you okay?” He spoke quietly, kneeling beside the bed and trying to peer up under the pillow. Rarity was gently combing her mane with a large brush, trying to soothe her.

“No,” she whined, peeking out at him. He gave her a warm smile and he was sure she returned it. “I’ve got such a migraine.”

“We can probably find you some painkillers. I think the infirmary has been learning a lot about your kind while we’ve been gone.”

She dropped the pillow over her head again. “Thankyou, but I just need a few hours’ sleep, this has happened before. Celestia always said I didn’t know when to stop. Besides, I’ve already asked too much from you. You must go and help your people now, Riley.”

“I already have.” He paused, suddenly feeling lost for words. This was likely the last time he would see her, or any of them. There was a strange silence and he tried to think how to phrase the next sentence. “I’m leaving in twenty minutes.”

As if to punctuate his words Alpha Three started its main burn outside, the howl of the engines at full throttle audible across the whole town. The treehouse trembled slightly as the other two ships added their deafening accompaniments, a low bass rumble felt through their surroundings.

Twilight tore the pillow away from her head and pushed her head up, startling Rarity. After so long he had come to recognise the emotions on their faces very well, and Twilight’s was a picture of dismay and sadness. “So soon… but… I thought. Oh dear, I thought we’d have more time together!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, truthfully. It did hurt, very much, in fact. He had grown far more attached to her than he had intended to. She was a lovely person… mare. This was exactly the reason why he had been so determined to keep his distance, but she had blown that all away. His heart ached, chest tight around it.

Twilight watched him morosely, bloodshot eyes glittering wetly and the most adorable pout on her lips. He swallowed the lump in his own throat and looked away, suddenly afraid of his own emotions. It did seem very unfair.

“I’m going to miss you,” he told her once he felt he was in control again. He looked back up. Rarity had respectfully moved away and he heard her descending the stairs softly and the sound of muted conversation with Derpy below.

“Oh, Riley,” she sobbed, pulling herself across the bed and wrapping her hooves around his neck, the side of her face pressed against his. He got to his feet awkwardly and perched on the side of the bed, embracing her fondly. “I feel like I’ve hardly had any time to get to know you. It’s been all running and screaming and terror.”

“That’s often when you learn who a man really is,” he murmured, trying to keep the guilt from his voice. “But I know what you mean.”

“There’s so much we could have learnt from one another.”

He chuckled lightly, she was always the academic at heart. “I think you’ve already taught me a few things.”

Twilight pushed herself back, her hooves still resting on his shoulders, now facing him, her face inches from his, large, beautiful eyes seemingly depthless. He found himself resisting a very real, and slightly frightening, desire to kiss her that crept up from somewhere inside. “Will you ever come back to visit? Once your war is over?”

He turned his head away, not wanting to see the renewed sadness in her eyes, nor let her see his. “No. We can’t. We don’t know where we are. We can’t ever return, once we leave.”

“Oh, Riley,” she said again, beginning to cry and leaning into him once more.

“This is very sweet,” said a smooth voice from behind, interrupting them. “Does this mean I can have the other cutesy little pony, after all?”

Twilight hissed and jumped back to stand on her bed on all fours, glaring at Discord. She had lowered her head, pointing her horn at him threateningly. Riley narrowed his eyes and climbed to his feet in a flash. Rarity was halfway up the stairs and Derpy was cowering behind a bookshelf.

“You.”

“Indeed. Me.”

“You liar!” Twilight yelled angrily, her voice shaking. “As I thought, your promise is worth nothing.”

“Twilight, Twilight,” Discord said, slinking closer and picking up Rarity’s hairbrush. Twilight stood frozen in outrage as he started to brush her mane. With a snarl she broke out of it and snapped at him, stealing the brush away. He leapt nimbly back, avoiding her angry swipe. “Lie? To you? I would never! Tartarus is sealed. It has been for hours.”

“Then how have you laid siege to the town?” Riley growled. He was angry at being interrupted, he had precious little time left now, and he didn’t intend to spend it with this lunatic. “We had a deal. Take them away and piss off.”

“I will be out of your hair the moment you leave,” Discord said. “Why not just go? I won’t stop you. You don’t belong here.”

“I’m not budging until you take your monsters away.”

“Monsters is a very harsh word, Riley,” he said, leaning forwards and glaring. “These are my friends. My pets. My children. Most of them are back where they usually live. I suppose I just happened to miss a few, on the way. It’s difficult, you know, rounding them up after three hundred years. There’s a lot of new ones I don’t remember, and they’re so terribly unruly after so long. Is it that surprising I missed a couple?”

“You’re up to something,” Riley accused, pointing a trembling finger. His core felt hot and he had to fight hard to stop from grinding his teeth in rage.

Discord managed to look extremely innocent all of a sudden, his eyes growing in size dramatically. “Moi?”

Another roar began to shake the ground as the next ship began its launch sequence. Discord watched him with a smug expression. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Not for another ten minutes, no. And there’s still enough firepower in those ships left out there to tear every one of your ‘pets’ to shreds, so I suggest you leave.”

Discord laughed in glee. “Fighting words! Fancy yourself a duel, little man, hmm?”

Suddenly he was in front of Riley, and before he had chance to properly react he’d punched him with a comically large red boxing glove, snapping his head back. On instinct he lunged out with a balled fist, missing completely. Another punch hit the back of his head and he stumbled sideways, trying to dodge. Discord was flitting about, never in the same place twice. Fortunately the ridiculous boxing glove was as soft as a sponge and absorbed any real impact the blows would have had, but it was demeaning and intensely irritating at the same time.

Discord seemed to tire of his game very quickly and stood back, laughing heartily to himself. “Ah, fun times. But I didn’t come here to spar with you. I came to make Princess Twilight Sparkle an offer.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped, muscles straining in her neck.

“Oh, you will,” he said with glee. “It’s very simple. It has to do with retribution.”

“What?”

“I can’t even begin to express in words just how torturous three hundred years in that ghastly prison were. The first few decades, not so bad, a bit dull, but dear old Celly can be quite the conversationalist when she wants to be. But she also suffers terribly from being very uninteresting, and once you’ve heard her stories once you’ve heard them a hundred thousand dreary times.

“After the first century had passed I think I had discovered at least eighteen new, previously unknown, types of boredom. After the second century I had almost gone mad. The third, however, was the worst, when I discovered despair. I knew what you had done, you see, and I also knew that if nobody had worked out how to fix it by then, it was never going to get fixed. You would be trapped in time for eternity, and I would be trapped with her for another one. That sort of crushing despair can really upset a fellow, let me tell you.

“So, my offer is this. I won’t crush your pithy little town, and all those you hold dear, if you banish yourself. Deal?”

Twilight spluttered, shaking her head hard in case she was dreaming. “Ridiculous!”

“She’ll do no such thing,” Riley said. “You have no right to demand anything of these poor people. They’ve suffered enough, suffering brought about by your doing. If you have a shred of honour or decency you’ll leave and stop tormenting them.”

“Honour, you say?” Discord glared malevolently and Riley suddenly saw the trap he was wandering into. “I suppose, if I want to be decent and honourable, I should model myself on someone. Say, how about you? An upstanding pillar of ethical behaviour. You’d make an excellent father one day, I would imagine. Have you ever considered tying the knot? Buying the cow? Getting hitched? No? What. A. Shame.”

There was an awkward silence in which Discord simply smirked, the most evil smile on his lips. He was enjoying this far too much. Riley clenched and unclenched his fists by his side, trembling with anger. Twilight was looking between them, a distressed and confused look on her face.

“This wonderful, honest, caring man used you, Twilight,” he said gleefully, disappearing and popping up beside Riley, one thick, hairy lion paw around his shoulders. He shrugged him off angrily. “This whole time. ‘Oh, I’m dying, but don’t worry about me! Do it for my people!’ He knew exactly how to play you, dear Twilight. So desperate to make friends with everything under the sun, and then some. Trying so terribly hard to atone for that period of crushing loneliness you called a childhood.

“He wrapped your heart around his fleshy fingers, even persuaded you to free me instead of your beloved princess. I couldn’t have hoped for a better saviour. Did you know he lied about your precious ponies, too? They’ve got several of them, alive and dead, up in their marvellous spaceships, right this very moment. He knows this.”

Twilight was looking at Riley, but he couldn’t find the strength to return it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I had a job to do.”

The unicorn sat down on her haunches, fidgeting with her hooves in front of her. Her mouth worked a few times, but no words came out. “…everything?”

“No,” he said hastily. “Just… some of it. I wasn’t married. I’ve never had any children. When you asked me about the kidnappings, I didn’t know, I swear. I found out soon after, but I’m bound to keep it silent. I’m sorry.”

She looked even more distraught, and he wished she would say something, even if it was just to shout at him.

“I’m so sorry, Twilight! I know it’s wrong, and I knew it was wrong at the time, too, but I had my orders.”

“This is marvellous,” gloated Discord, sailing around them in tight circles, whipping up a breeze. “The one thing he really didn’t lie about was when he said ‘I’ll only end up hurting you’. That was classic, and so very apt. You really should have listened, but I’ve very glad you didn’t.”

Riley turned on him furiously, lashing out and swearing angrily in English, but the creature dodged him easily, still chuckling as though it were all a game. “Don’t hate me, I’ve only revealed the facts! You two have made all the mistakes.”

“So, what do you say, little Twilight? Banishment? It’s really not that bad. It’ll give you some time to reflect upon all these things that have happened lately. Who knows, perhaps in a few thousand years somebody will stumble across you, and you can come out to play for a bit. It wouldn’t be so bad. I’ll even put old Celestia and Luna back in there with you too, if you’d like. You can pretend to have a tea party, for as long as they last.

“Maybe you can bend that academic mind to finding some more types of boredom, while you’re there. Once you’ve got them all you can look for the elements of despair, and work out the intricacies in the theory of ‘I’m never going to see the sun again’.”

Twilight remained silent, and Riley wasn’t even sure she was listening to her tormentor any longer. She looked spent, her head was hung at an angle that suggested she had finally lost the will to care. His heart ached and he felt more deeply ashamed than he had ever felt in his life.

“I think I have learnt another friendship lesson, today,” she eventually said, voice unbearably sad.

Discord jumped up into the ceiling space. “Perhaps you need some time to decide, princess. I’ll leave you two alone, I believe you still have a few minutes to spare, human. Enjoy your last chat. Goodbye! And thankyou, so very, very much. Thankyou.”

He bowed theatrically in the air, and with a wink of light he was gone.

Riley hesitantly reached a hand out to Twilight but drew it back again, unsure of what to do. Outside another frigate was running pre-flight checks, the familiar pitched tones of the engines in final check stage just audible. As an engineer he wasn’t used to situations that couldn’t be repaired, but this one felt unsolvable.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated helplessly. Twilight sagged further. “I can’t do anything to make this right. I’m sorry. But please, don’t give in to his demands. Fight him.”

“I don’t think we can,” she said with a sigh, forcing herself shakily to her hooves again and fixing him with a calm, businesslike stare. “So I’ll ask you one last time. Will you, the humans, help us?”

His stomach twisted again and he wanted to scream in frustration. “You know that’s not my decision. And you know the answer. We really do have a war to fight elsewhere.”

She sighed, as if she had already known the answer. When she spoke again it was quiet and slow, and she avoided his gaze. “You should go now. Before you miss your opportunity. I hope you one day find your peace amongst the stars.”

He remained motionless, choking back some very unmanly tears that threatened to overcome him. At last he fished something out of his pocket and laid it on the bed, a small brown envelope.

“Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle,” he said, his voice breaking. He turned and left quickly, rushing down the stairs and out of the front door. Rarity watched him sullenly as he passed her, and Derpy looked unsure. She hopped after him and he forced himself to slow down before he injured himself.

“Are you leaving, mister Riley?”

“Yes,” he squeaked, wiping at his eyes. “Thankyou for everything, Derpy. You’re a very special pony.”

She looked tremendously sad and uncertain. She moved to hug him, but he ducked out of the way quickly and ran again, not trusting himself to maintain any sort of composure.

Running helped, and the sight of the brilliant specks of light high in the sky, trailing vapour, gave him strength. He was going home, back to the military life he was used to, back to order and structure and work. It was going to be okay. This was just a brief, tumultuous week that may as well have been a dream for all the sense it had made. In time the hurt would lessen, it always did, and the memories would fade, relegated to the occasional drunken tale in a bar somewhere, of importance only to the reminiscing of old, bitter men.

When he arrived at Alpha One he found the ship preparing for take off, one of the last two on the ground, and the other was beginning its main drive with thunderous enthusiasm. Williams gave him a disapproving look as he hurried into the bridge – he was late.

Their ship had lost its two pilots during the conflicts and he was the next qualified officer, so he strapped himself hastily into the main seat, clipping his safety harness in a hurry and trapping his skin painfully in the clasp. It had been a while since he’d flown anything other than a simulator, but it was very much a skill you practised so much that forgetting it was like forgetting how to walk.

“Sorry, admiral,” he said crisply, finally in control of his voice again, although it was going to take a long time before his tender emotional state would settle down, but he could hide that for now. His fingers flew over the controls. “Synched and board’s green.”

“You have control,” said the copilot, a woman he didn’t recognise. She was curt and efficient, smartly dressed and composed, a far cry from his red eyes and dishevelled appearance he realised. He reached for the joystick, but everybody was suddenly very distracted by the arrival of an enormous dragon outside, his great wings beating in the air as he lowered himself to the ground, somewhere further into the town.

Williams breathed something and immediately ordered them to lift off, Riley was the only one to have met Spike, the others incorrectly assuming he was just another new threat.

“I have control,” Riley acknowledged, snapping out of it. He was almost glad to obey, Spike was going to be very angry with him when he found Twilight, and he really didn’t want to be around for that. From her stories Spike was like a brother to her, and now he was a very large, very dangerous brother.

He pushed the throttles forward until the engines strained against gravity, the spaceframe shuddering around them like an animal tensed to leap. All systems were showing acceptable performance, the repairs had gone well, everything was running perfectly.

A flash of light outside caught his attention and he looked up. With a gasp he slammed the throttles back to rest and the whine of the engines dropped away with a crackle of discharged electricity.

“Lieutenant-commander Collins, I gave the order to take off immediately. What seems to be the problem?”

“Area not clear, sir,” he replied calmly, swallowing a nervous lump. Twilight Sparkle had appeared right in front of them, her eyes aflame and staring straight at him through the scratched screen. He swallowed nervously. She was shouting something but the sound all around them muffled everything. He flicked on the external microphones.

“…out here, right now, Riley!” she was shouting.

“Collins, lift off, now.”

“Sir,” he said hesitantly, unable to obey. Twilight marched forwards, coming right up to the nose of the ship. Automatically he shut the engines off entirely, attempting to dust off would kill her for sure, the heat at such a short distance would be tremendous. He wondered at her sanity, one look at the blackened, smoking craters under where the departed ships had been would have told her everything she needed to know.

Or, maybe that was her intention, he realised. She didn’t want them to leave, after all. She was putting her faith in him to disobey orders to save her life. With a sigh he unbuckled his restraint and made to leave, but Williams stuck his arm out, blocking his way. “Back to your post, Collins!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he squeaked. “I will not murder someone.”

“There’s no time. She’ll get out the way.” Riley did not sit back down and Williams’ expression turned harder. “If you leave this bridge you are not returning. We will leave you here.”

Riley paused and then gave a curt nod. “Understood.”

He took a deep breath, pressed past Williams’ arm and thumbed the door stud. It opened with a hiss and hit its stop with a clang. He rushed through, running entirely on autopilot now and barely aware of his own actions. He had just countermanded a direct order, and had been told he was going to be abandoned, but somehow none of that really seemed to matter.

Behind him he could hear Williams calling orders to the co-pilot, and with a mighty shudder the ship’s engines restarted. Assuming they meant to take off immediately he knew he had less than a minute to get clear.

The door in the cargo bay seemed to take forever to open, all the while the engines pulsated through the deck as they worked their way back up to operating levels. When the gap was wide enough he forced himself through it, falling gracelessly to the ground a couple of metres below. The wind was knocked from him but there was no time to rest, the exhaust vents above him were already glowing red and he could feel the intense heat from them.

With a clang the cargo door slammed shut again. Twilight was suddenly in front of him, right in his face and shouting something. He couldn’t hear a word over the roar of the ship and he grabbed the unicorn roughly around the barrel, picking her up bodily and part stumbling, part running as fast as he could.

Twilight struggled angrily, but he held fast. Behind them the heat had grown intense and the sound was so loud he was sure he could taste and see it. As the frigate began to rise into the air he gave one last lunge forward and stumbled to the ground, hunched over Twilight as best as he was able. The back of his neck stung from the excruciating heat and there was a horrible smell of burning hair in the air.