Part 2: Unwilling Partners
Sarah had taken many an awkward elevator ride. She’d infiltrated secure facilities, posing as various staff, then stood in the elevator with the person whose identification she’d stolen. She’d been dragged back down some of the same elevators, her face pressed to the ground and a security detail filling the entire area.
And she’d been standing next to someone when they let off an unfortunately loud and foul-smelling fart. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
Apparently, the secret facility under Canterlot had more than one path to the surface, and no one in their group liked the idea of walking out a closet into the castle. Even with Celestia dead, getting anywhere near that place with what amounted to a party of spies was just too dangerous.
So, they rode an elevator, their group packed in so tightly that Sarah could barely even see the ground. But for as little space as there was, the changelings riding with her never let themselves touch her, and kept glancing at her horn like she might use it to poke their eyes out.
Except for James, who stood uncomfortably close as ever. I’m never going to date you. Even though you weren’t as much of a loser as I thought. Sarah might’ve shoved him away with the others before, bitter as she was over the way Ocellus was acting now. But James had been through hell with her, and they’d come out of it together. She couldn’t lash out the same way.
They finally stopped, and the doors opened into an ancient stone building filled with the smell of loam and mildew. And something deeper, older.
It was death, but death so ancient that it no longer stank. They were standing in a crypt. Before them were three stone beds, and each one had a pony corpse on it. They’d been wearing armor when they were buried, but now the armor had turned to rust, and the cloth underneath was fraying.
The bodies were mostly bone now, though there were little scraps of skin hanging on here and there. Sarah found herself grateful that she couldn’t see the bodies any better. It could’ve been so much worse.
And just like that, it was. Pharynx’s horn glowed, illuminating the entire chamber in sickly green. Seeing the skeletons of another creature seemed almost worse than a human body would’ve been, huge empty sockets too far apart and staring at her as they moved.
“These ponies might’ve killed us on sight,” Pharynx began. “But they don’t mind our visits now. Follow me and don’t touch anything. This temple is seldom visited, but we wouldn’t want to leave anything behind that would make the keepers suspect.”
They stepped out into the crypt, Sarah and James letting the changelings pass them on their way out. The changelings didn’t seem to mind the dead, either the three honored heroes in their places or the skulls in stone cubbies on the walls. The empty eyes watched them make their way to a chunk of recessed wall, which Pharynx pressed just right. It swung out, and as it did the elevator doors ground closed. Though they’d been plain white metal inside, out here they looked like another stone wall. If I needed to find my way back here, I probably couldn’t.
Then they emerged into an internal courtyard, surrounded by fallen tiles, tumbled graves, and weeds. Even so, it was the most beautiful thing Sarah had ever seen.
She shielded her eyes as she looked up, head suddenly throbbing with the intensity of it. The sun was shining up there, for the first time in… it felt like years. How long has it been, anyway?
It had been so long since she’d had a regular cycle. The changelings slept far less than she did, and even before that the absence of the sun had left her floating.
But she could see it now—fracturing into rainbows in bits of broken window, spreading a soft emerald carpet of moss and wildflowers in the forgotten temple. I lied to Discord when I said I didn’t mind living underground. I don’t want to go back ever again. The clumsy stolen coat she wore to hide her wings no longer bothered her, even if it meant she wouldn’t be allowed to see Irkalla again. She didn’t want to.
Sarah was standing still, almost overwhelmed with the sight. But then something passed overhead, something massive and metal and ridged at the bottom. The changelings squeaked in fear, and a few of them darted back inside, cowering. Sarah didn’t run, but she did freeze still, like a dangerous animal had landed on her hand.
The shadow swept briefly across the temple, returning her to night for a second. But then it was gone, though she could see the incredibly huge airship moving away. It was more than an aircraft, larger even than the Imperial Class AMDAVs like the Emperor’s Soul. It was an entire city, gliding smoothly through the sky.
“What the hell is that?” Sarah found herself asking, her coat twitching as she tried to use her wings. But she couldn’t fly away, not without making her presence obvious.
“A terraforming subunit,” Pharynx said from behind her, sounding awed. “They’re for when you don’t want to wait for erosion and the water cycle to… but what is it doing so near Equestria? Doesn’t Harmony care that the primitives will see?”
“It might’ve cared more if we were still in Quarantine,” said Ocellus, stopping beside Sarah and staring right along with her. At least she wasn’t as frightened as the other natives. “But that doesn’t explain… what it could be doing here. You can’t terraform somewhere people are living.”
“You can’t.” Pharynx turned slowly, his eyes hardening. “When you say you killed Celestia. Is this how? I’m no… I’m no friend to the Equestrians. But if you think we’re going to partner with a society that would massacre civilians...”
“No!” Sarah cut him off, shoving right up into his face. “Absolutely not. We have some pretty cool airships, but nothing like this. I don’t even know what it fucking is, idiot!”
“I think we might’ve been under that thing…” James muttered, his ears flat to his head. “When we left our home in Othar, it sounded like the whole world was chewing itself to pieces. Kinda like how a terraforming machine would sound.”
“We need a better view.” Pharynx took to the air, and several of the other changelings did as well. They were still disguised as ponies, and all of them but James had the wings to fly.
“Don’t go over the roof,” Pharynx called over his shoulder, lifting up and out of the courtyard. Sarah groaned, tearing at her collar with her teeth. But the robes were tough, and on much too tight to come off by accident. They didn’t budge.
She hissed and stomped, taking off at a gallop towards an open doorway. She passed into an empty museum, the torches and lanterns long since burned down to nothing. She ignored them all, galloping to the stairs and storming up.
She could hear James following her, less coordinated despite having so much more time as a pony. And not getting stretched into these stupidly long legs.
Sarah could hear the openings in the building, and after less than a minute of running, she made her way up onto the roof. The little gathering of changelings was already there, looking up and out.
Sarah saw Canterlot for the first time, highlighted against the morning sun. They were up high, almost as high as the incredible palace, and so she had an easy view down into most of the buildings and homes.
The air was broken with thin lines of smoke, rising from a little way down the hill along with the smell of cooking meat. Her brain remembered that smell well, associated with delicious barbeques and all kinds of stolen food. But now—now she almost retched. Something got crossed when they made me into a horse. I’m not a vegetarian.
She might’ve had to wonder about where the smell was coming from, if it weren’t for the charred corpses on the palace walls. Spears had been driven in periodically, stretching every ten feet or so above them. A body had been strung up to each one, with far less dignity and respect than anything in the crypt below. Not all of them were burned, or even dead. The palace had acquired its own flock of carrion birds, which passed overhead in slow arcs, occasionally descending on one of the bodies and covering it with dark feathers.
Somewhere below, soldiers marched along the street, soldiers with two legs and covered in white fur. She could hear their grunted orders as they pulled carts or led chain-gangs of ponies up and down the streets.
“God in heaven,” James whispered, seeming to shrink into his robe. It wasn’t just appearances—the shock had made him change, and he’d melted back into the much smaller changeling shape. Not even Pharynx reproached him. “This is Canterlot, isn’t it? I’ve seen pictures before, I recognize the mountains. Why is it so…”
“You didn’t mention this little detail,” Pharynx said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “When you said we were free from the Quarantine… you didn’t say the surface had already been conquered by monsters.”
A dangerous silence settled onto the rooftop. Changelings circled up around them, closing off the way back to the stairs. Sarah twitched once in her robe, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get it free. Not before the changelings shot her. Ocellus didn’t draw a weapon like the others did, but she did seem terrified by everything. She kept glancing back between Sarah and the castle walls, as though one of them might be an illusion that would melt under her attention.
“Because we didn’t know,” Sarah said, speaking each word very carefully. She stepped in front of James, trying to shield him with her body. It wasn’t hard, now that she was so much larger. She wasn’t sure what instinct prompted her to do that—maybe it was something about being an Alicorn. “Think back. We told you that we got attacked when we left. Now we can guess what that attack was. I bet if you go into the city, you’ll find out that our city got this before Equestria did. We told you everything we knew at the time.”
Ocellus nodded along with her. “She did,” the bright changeling said, and as she did half the soldiers lowered their weapons. “They weren’t lying to us. It’s just… they came down in the middle of a war, instead of before one like we thought.”
“That’s timing we can verify,” Pharynx said, his tone still dark. “You know when they came in, don’t you? I could send someone into the city, see what we can find out. No way an attack like that wouldn’t be known to the rest of Equestria.” He gestured forcefully at Sarah with the rifle. “But I’m guessing she won’t want us to check. Because this is all a lie, and now she’s exposed. They’ve probably been working with the Unraveled this whole time!”
Before he could rile up the changelings any further, Sarah cut him off. “No, you can check.” She sat down on her haunches, doing her very best impression of confidence and unconcern. “Go right ahead! So long as you send one drone from both factions. I know we told the truth, but I don’t know that you won’t lie.”
“That seems like an acceptable compromise,” said the other soldier among the black changelings. “I could go with one of them, king. You could hold them hostage against our return.”
“Which means I’m going,” said Ileum, the colorful soldier opposite the black one. “If that’s acceptable to you, Ocellus. I was personally trained by our late queen. I’ll make you proud.”
Weapons started going down, the anger diffusing just a little.
Sarah could practically taste Pharynx’s displeasure, as just a little bit of his mask slipped. He didn’t know about this, but he sure as hell wanted to use it to get rid of us. Sarah knew a con when she saw one—and she could see those wheels spinning now. What he might do when they stopped…
“We have no choice,” Pharynx grunted. “We will wait for more information. But you two are going to be restrained until we find out more. Until we learn otherwise, you’re now captured enemy combatants. If you move, we shoot.”
“We didn’t do anything!” James called, his voice overflowing with fear and frustration. “We only told you the truth, idiots! Can’t you see they’re fighting us too?” That’s right, he didn’t understand any of that. He just saw the guns.
“We’re hostages,” Sarah whispered to him, but not quiet enough that it would look like she was trying to do anything clandestine. “He said not to move, or they shoot. They’re going to go into Canterlot to try and confirm our story.”
“Confirm what about our story?” James asked, his ears flattened and voice timid. Poor idiot. You’re just a translator. “What do they think we have to do with this?”
“Use Eoch,” Pharynx commanded. “Whatever language that is, don’t use it again or we shoot. No secret communication from hostages.”
A changeling emerged from the ruined temple below with a coil of rope. Sarah knew where things would go from here.
“Isn’t this maybe a bad idea?” she heard Ocellus whisper to her father, apparently trying to keep her voice down but not doing a very good job. Unless she wants me to overhear. Good girl. “Sarah’s an Alicorn now. Even if you shoot her, all you’ll do is piss her off. Maybe we shouldn’t anger the only Alicorn we know about who might be friendly?”
“Friendly,” Pharynx repeated, his voice just as low.
Sarah listened, even as they started getting orders to put out their legs one at a time. One of the scientists started hobbling them, forelegs connected and then bound between the two of them. They wrapped a length of cord around their backs as well, holding Sarah in the stupid damn coat. I was so close to getting this thing off.
“You’ve been twisted too far by the ponies, daughter. You shouldn’t let yourself be convinced that their views are the only correct path. Friendship does not matter. What matters is action, and she will not be able to act against us. You might remember that better if you hadn’t followed my brother.”
But Ocellus didn’t reply to that, at least not that Sarah heard. She couldn’t really walk so much as hop each step, and so she was led hopping down the stair, hearing James’s pitiful squeaks of protest all the way down.
Olivia had been one of the first to arrive, and bit down the temptation to run from the conference room and never look back.
It wasn’t much nicer than any of the other rooms in their new Motherlode base, though instead of stone floor Forerunner had sprung for some modular foam tiles, which made less noise when they rolled their chairs around. The center of the room was a large round holoprojector—not built into a table, just sitting naked on the floor with cables strung to the ceiling bundle near the wall.
Their headquarters looked far less like the shelter of an advanced society against the chaos on a primitive world, and more like an underground Earth startup company. She stood by a standard coffee machine, and pretended she cared about small talk with the various ponies who wandered in.
Lightning Dust was one of the first to follow her in, wearing the tight blue jumpsuits their scouts wore while patrolling the skies above Motherlode.
“Not on duty today?” Olivia asked.
“Nope.” Lightning Dust poured some of the steaming, mediocre liquid into a foam cup, then drained it in one go. “Lucky wanted me here for this. Can’t imagine why… I know who’s coming.”
“Honesty, probably.” Olivia didn’t exactly understand why Lightning Dust had been nervous about the arrival of the Elements, other than some historical slight between them. But the pegasus hadn’t volunteered what that had been, and Olivia didn’t ask. She had a dark enough past on her own without digging too deep into the ponies around her. “Doesn’t want some awkward surprise when you meet them in the hall. If they’re living here, if they’re fighting on our side… we’ve got to know each other. You don’t have to like the people fighting with you, you just have to respect them.”
Lightning Dust drained another cup, then tossed the empty foam into a bin. She nailed it with perfect precision, just like every physical task Olivia saw her attempt. The natives’ coordination with just hooves was downright unreal sometimes. To her knowledge, only Lucky could get anywhere close. Something to do with neuroplasticity and being taught personally by the natives, probably.
“I’m not sure I can do that,” Lightning Dust muttered. “I want Equestria to survive, but I can’t imagine they’re fighting for the same Equestria I am. They want one where the ponies on top can do whatever they want, and the instant anypony down below speaks out, they get crushed.”
Olivia nodded. “That’s… I know what you mean. Officers sending grunts to die. Counting casualties like numbers, because they’ve got people under them to write the letters to next of kin. All they have to do is sign.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. There were voices coming from down the hall. “But as shit as that is, what we’re fighting against is worse. Slavers like the Storm King don’t let society exist at all. They eat everything around them, they tear things down.
“Don’t think of it as becoming their friends. It’s more like… put aside your argument until we deal with someone who wants to kill you. Unless you think they want that.”
Lightning Dust looked like she might answer in the affirmative—then Lucky wandered in, and her ears flattened with guilt. “Probably not.” She waved one wing. “Hey squirt.”
“I’m almost as tall as you,” Lucky muttered. But she didn’t argue. “Thanks for coming, Mom.”
“I know I should be here,” she said, though she didn’t sound like she wanted to admit it. “Deadlight’s a weirdo from the past and Flurry Heart is biased. Someone has to represent the regular Equestrian perspective.”
“Yeah,” Lucky said. Then she hurried to the table, beside where Forerunner was sitting, and entered into silent conversation with him. Silent, because she was using the strange contacts she wore, along with motion sensitive controllers like mittens over her hooves. Like the subvocalizing they’d taught Olivia to do in training, but faster and more sophisticated.
The Equestrians weren’t far behind. Olivia had heard them, which was why she’d remained close to Lightning Dust. She needed to be within reach to stop a fight before it started.
Most of them filed in without more than glancing at them. The princess did a little double-take on her way by but didn’t watch for much longer than that. But the blue pegasus was at the back of the group, with a mane like she’d just been dragged out of bed. She stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly going wide awake. “Hang on here a minute,” she said—or Forerunner said into Olivia’s ear with the translator a second later. Everything they said was always a few moments behind.
“Lightning Dust?”
“Yeah.” Lightning Dust stepped slightly to one side. “Was I in the way of the coffee? Sorry, you can go.” She made for the table, straight for the chair beside Lucky. But Rainbow Dash blocked her path with a wing.
“What the hay are you doing here? This isn’t for ponies like you. We’re all heroes here. Self-sacrifice, loyalty, friendship… you wouldn’t know anything about that.” She glanced to the side. “Why is she here, Twilight?”
The whole room was staring. General Qingzhi stopped in the doorway, staying back far enough that he wouldn’t pass into their field of view. Lucky Break stopped whatever she was talking to Forerunner about and rose to her hooves. Olivia could see the silent conversation between her and Lightning Dust in a series of quick glances. Nothing supernatural about it, or even technological. But after a few quick seconds, she sat back down.
Twilight opened her mouth like she was going to answer, but then Lightning Dust went on and spoke anyway. “I gave everything for Equestria,” she said. “I killed the—” Her voice cracked, and she started coughing. Olivia reached out with concern, offering her own glass of coffee to help the struggling pegasus. Lightning Dust took it, gulped down the whole thing, and never took her eyes from Twilight.
If the silence had been tense before... Twilight’s friends made a few uncomfortable noises, all focusing back on the nexus that was Twilight. But far from being angered, the Alicorn looked like she’d just been attacked.
“The princess,” Twilight finished for her. “Is what she can’t say. Lightning Dust was banished from Equestria forever. I notice she has returned.”
“We’ve heard enough.” Rainbow Dash shoved past her, stopping so close to Lightning Dust her breath moved the feathers of her wings. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to do this. You were so eager to let other ponies deal with the consequences of your mistakes. It makes sense you would’ve escalated to hurting as many ponies as possible.”
“I would love for you to try,” Lightning Dust whispered. “I’ve been living with humans for a long time, Rainbow Dash. I’ve been getting ready for this moment—learning how to fight. Go ahead. See what happens.”
Olivia stepped in, pushing Lightning Dust gently back and to the side. She didn’t resist, which was good since even a little violence now would probably have provoked her well past the point of standing down.
“We all hate each other,” Olivia said, without any hate in her voice. She didn’t hate Twilight, though she wasn’t sure it would be quite the same from the other side. She hadn’t lost any men in that engagement, but Twilight had. “But that doesn’t matter. We aren’t here to be friends. We’re here to kill a monster. Can we focus on that, please?”
“Yes,” Twilight Sparkle said, from just behind her friend. “Not now, Rainbow. We’ll have time for this after we beat the Storm King.”
Rainbow pawed angrily at the ground for a few more seconds—but then she backed away. “Whatever.” She made for the far end of the room, as far away from Lightning Dust’s chair as possible.
“Thank you,” Lucky said, rising again. “Welcome to our newest members, the Elements of Harmony. Glad to have you here. And I see General Qingzhi standing just behind you. Forerunner, if you could get the doors? I think we’re ready to start.”
They sat down then, and Olivia let herself drift. She wasn’t closely involved with this part and didn’t plan to be the one leading the charge. Qingzhi and Forerunner took turns explaining everything they currently knew about the Storm King, then led into the missing pieces.
“So, this is our chief concern,” Qingzhi explained, gesturing at the aerial map of Equestria. Compared to the holographic projections from inside the Equus stations it was probably crude and ugly. But it was more than detailed enough to include every city worth noting in Equestria. “There are forces in Canterlot, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Trottingham, Appleloosa, and Seaddle. There are likely far more that we haven’t observed.”
“There are… numbers here,” Twilight said, pointing at the glowing text just above the city’s icon. “How do you know he has… five hundred soldiers in Seaddle?”
“We know,” Qingzhi said, eyeing Lucky Break across the room. “The text in black is certain. The lighter the text is printed, the less certain we are of the intel. You can see we’re confident on the totals in—”
“No, I don’t get it either.” Rainbow Dash didn’t sit in her chair so much as drift around her side of the room. The conference room had been built in a natural cavern, with huge stalactites and plenty of space for a flyer to move. That meant her voice phased in and out, at least when she was bored. But now that she was paying attention, she flew right back, landing on the table. “I don’t care about what you do to the Storm King and his loser patrol. But… you ponies only live here, and those numbers all around are pretty big. Have you been spying?”
Qingzhi remained silent. He didn’t seem embarrassed, or even flustered by the question. He just met Rainbow Dash’s eyes, unblinking.
How are you going to answer that? Olivia thought, looking to the head of the table where Lucky sat. Forerunner stood beside her, as a robotic pony. The chair on her other side, Melody’s, was empty. Deadlight should’ve been here, but he hadn’t managed to pull himself away from his newborn quite yet.
She knew how she would’ve answered it—she would’ve lied. And quickly. But Qingzhi was too honorable for that, and so he said nothing, revealed nothing.
Lucky nodded. “We started spying when Celestia was trying to kill us. We needed to make sure she didn’t find us. We switched all that stuff back on once the Storm King… did kill us.”
“You ponies are looking great for being dead,” Pinkie Pie said, as cheerfully as if she’d just been offering them a cake. “There are some ponies in Ponyville who died. Or who… used to be dead? I’m not really sure how that works.”
Applejack shifted uncomfortably in her rolling chair, drifting a little bit away from her friend. Just a bit. “They’re not dead anymore,” she muttered, quietly. “I think they know about that more than we do, Pinkie. That’s the one who did it.”
“Really? That’s really cool. I think I’d like to learn how to do that, then nopony would be late to my parties.”
Olivia suppressed a laugh. Not at the native’s awful joke but seeing Qingzhi and his officers shift and squirm in the presence of something completely absurd—that was almost worth the pain of coming to this meeting by itself.
“We can be positive about where the Stormbreaker is moving,” Lucky continued, as though there hadn’t been an interruption. She pointed to it on the map. “We also know about a minute after it fires its main weapon, but that’s obviously too late to really do anything about it. The pony numbers are all uncertain. Most of them come from the various factions of the resistance we’ve been in touch with.”
“They don’t trust us,” Qingzhi said, his voice flat and humorless. “It’s easy enough to find them, and they’ll take our help. But working together…”
“Gee, I wonder why,” Rainbow Dash said, exasperated. “It’s almost like you’re spying on them or somethin’.” She looked across the room at Lightning Dust, and Olivia tensed, preparing for some other cruel remark. But then Twilight glared, and Rainbow Dash just fell silent.
“We’re preparing to move on the mothership,” Lucky said. “We still need more if we’re going to stand a chance of getting in and killing the Storm King. But when we do… even if we succeed, his troops are going to do what he says.”
Qingzhi pointed to the illusion. The airship crashed in a dynamically rendered explosion. But then the Equestrian cities started burning. “Equestria has to be ready for the Storm King’s answer. No tyrant will relinquish control painlessly. They’re like all animals, most determined to survive when backed into the tightest corners.”
“This is where you come in,” Lucky said. “Equestria has its own forces to defend itself, but they’re starved for resources and separated. The six of you will coordinate with ponies in as many cities as possible—you’ll get them weapons, bring their leaders here for training… so that when we move against the Storm King, you still have a country left.”
Silence. The ponies seemed to glance between each other, though mostly at Twilight. Only Flurry Heart was nodding, as though what they were saying was obvious. But she’d been trapped in an occupied castle, giving rehearsed speeches for the Storm King.
“It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” said the white unicorn—Rarity, Olivia was certain. “The Storm King hasn’t given us a terrible overabundance of options, has he? Those uniforms never get easier to look at.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but there’s just one thing I don’t like.” Applejack pointed at the burned wreckage of the Storm King’s capital ship. “You didn’t make no mention of what we would be doin’ when it came time to fight this guy. Or how you’re gonna do it. The way I heard it, the princesses did everything they could to stop it. Twilight’s a pretty smart pony, and she couldn’t get in. What have you got that she hasn’t got?”
“Me,” Forerunner answered, rising from his sitting position and walking over to the edge of the table. He’d remained so still for all this time that Olivia thought the drone was asleep. There was no simulated breathing, no heartbeat, no little motions that came from a living body. “I know your friend is intelligent. I am moreso.”
“I doubt it,” Rarity said, though her laughter had nothing but good humor in it. “I don’t think you know our friend very well. She was at the castle for hours before the attack, beside Princess Luna and Cadance. But they… didn’t succeed.”
“It’s not impossible, Applejack,” Twilight said. As she spoke, Olivia couldn’t help but think of Flurry Heart. It was a similar crushed, helpless tone to her voice. “I didn’t figure out what the humans really were, even when Starlight did. I couldn’t stop the… I couldn’t stop what happened outside Ponyville. All the princesses in Equestria couldn’t convince Celestia to end the Quarantine.”
“Well, that’s not my main point,” Applejack said. “It’s more that I wanna be a part of it. The Storm King has made more of a mess of my home than even Tirek did. I want to be there to make sure he gets what’s comin’ to ‘im.”
“Not impossible,” Forerunner answered, cutting off whatever Qingzhi was saying. “It would depend on the nature of the mission. If I can only get one agent inside, it won’t be you. But if we can break a few dozen ponies in, every one of you would be given a spot if necessary. And it’s also possible that I’ll discover some weapon and just destroy the carrier directly. I suppose you could pull the trigger.”
“Don’t forget—” Perez said, from where he sat with boots propped up on a rolling chair, leaned back all the way. That’s fine, show off why don’t you. We know how happy you are to be a biped again. “Once we start fighting, the troops can come back. I dunno how he does it… maybe the same as you did, princesa. But they remember what happened to them right up until you shoot. Even the best team won’t work if they have to kill on their way in. They know where everyone is on duty—if someone dies, that’s a sign of danger. If they die and saw our incredible new weapon, it’s no longer secret. Make sure that’s in your plans.”
“It will be,” Forerunner said, sounding annoyed. “I have read your reports, Perez. I suspect the others will soon as well.”
“Fine, fine.” He put up his claws defensively. “Since we’re passing intel around and all…”
Lucky sighed. “Look, Princess. I know it’s not perfect. And it’s got a few big holes in it right now—there’s no point fighting to take back any other cities if he can just turn them to rubble whenever he wants. We know that better than anyone.”
There was silence, a few solemn nods.
Then Twilight extended a hoof. “Then if it’s alright with my friends…” She trailed off for a second. There were no objections. “We’ll help.”
“Welcome to the team,” Lucky said, taking the offered hoof.
“You mean welcome to our team,” Rainbow Dash added. “The winning team. You know, because we’re on it.”
Sarah longed for an Alliance holding cell. There were laws about the treatment of prisoners in civilized space, laws that mandated a clean cell, blankets, two square meals a day, and at least two hours of time to exercise. Most corporate prisons would let her use her expense account to upgrade her cell, and she typically didn’t stay long enough for them to discover that her credentials were stolen too. She’d stayed in corporate prisons that were nicer than vacation resorts.
But the changelings didn’t follow the Ceres Proclamation, or the Enceladus Accord that had standardized extrasolar law. Though, if they had, they might’ve needed to transport the two of them back into the bowels of Sanctuary, from which she might never return. So maybe she ought to be grateful. At least this way she had a chance to escape. But Ocellus was right, they won’t kill us. They come from a world where they think we’ll just come back to life if they do. That probably meant they were going to do something worse.
Sarah hadn’t believed in any fates worse than death back when she was still living on Earth. Once she died, that would be the end of everything, so even pain would be preferable to what came next. She’d been willing to go to any possible lengths to postpone that day as far as possible. But now… what would Pharynx do to them once he had the other changelings in the group convinced that they’d been deceived?
He’s been planning something like this from the moment he found me digging through their files. Sarah had recognized a fellow manipulator. She should’ve done something to soften this blow before it landed.
As it was, Pharynx had tied them up so tight Sarah knew it would be leaving some serious welts, then tossed them into a windowless crypt full of sightless pony skulls. There was only a single door, made of stone so heavy it had taken two changelings and their magic to lift it. They had magic too—but James alone probably couldn’t get them out. Changeling magic was weaker than the pony equivalent as it turned out, just as their physical size was smaller.
“And if that door so much as jiggles, we’re going to treat that as an admission of guilt,” Pharynx had explained. “Do not attempt to escape. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.”
The biggest lie in the universe, and Sarah had seen it on his face when he said it. He might be clever, but he wasn’t a nearly good enough liar to trick her into believing.
“I hate this fucking ring,” James muttered, startling Sarah from her reverie. He wasn’t far away—their forelegs were tied together, so she didn’t really have a choice about hearing him. “It took me long enough to make up my mind, but I’m positive about it now. Everything we try to help tries to murder us. Every time I try to do something nice, it’s like bending over and spreading my legs. It all fucks me.”
Sarah opened her mouth to argue out of habit, but found she didn’t have any arguments. James had things even worse than she did, after all. He’d missed the chance to become a Citizen too, thanks to the social pressure of the changelings. Probably Pharynx saw this moment coming. He didn’t want to give us even more power we could’ve used against them. Two alicorns instead of one. But she hadn’t seen it then—she’d been taken in by the appearance of fairness in their mission. Of course, nothing bad would happen, because they had the facts on their side.
“It’s my fault,” she found herself saying. “I was the one who made us a mark. I should’ve predicted this.”
“It’s not my—” James stopped. “Oh. Really? You’re not blaming me for something for once?”
“No.” Sarah lowered her voice. She wasn’t sure they’d be overheard through the thick walls, but they were using English again. But then again, maybe baiting them into shooting us wouldn’t be a bad idea. At least that would be quick.
The old Sarah never would’ve imagined any path that involved death as a step instead of the end. She’d taken deadly risk before, but never tried to die. But after stepping briefly inside Sanctuary, she had seen and felt things that confirmed beyond any doubt that physical death was now overcome. The mind survived here, not the pseudo-immortality she had used to escape the reaper the first time. A bullet wouldn’t be so bad.
“Why?” James was saying. If he’d asked her anything else, she hadn’t heard. “Why would this be your fault? Isn’t it just the ring screwing us? Everyone we run into is just another part of this system. Another cog grinding us to dust. That changeling… I thought Ocellus was our friend. But she didn’t save us. She’s no different than the rest of them.”
“She did what she could,” Sarah found herself saying, a little defensively. “She got us thrown in here. At least there’s going to be an investigation. I guess you didn’t understand that…”
“Well, I guess lying in bones and rotten aliens isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me on this trip,” James muttered. “The guns were worse. It’s too dark to see anything, so… so long as I don’t use any magic, we can pretend we’re anywhere else.”
“It isn’t going to work. The investigation, I mean. They won’t let us go.”
“Why the hell not?” James asked, raising his voice a little. “We are innocent. I might not like my clone, but she’s not the reincarnation of bloody Vlad the Impaler. She didn’t do any of that shit.”
“No,” Sarah cut him off. “She didn’t. But it doesn’t matter, the truth is meaningless. Those two soldiers… probably the one who volunteered from our side is a spy. Ileum volunteered so fast, and he’s been working with the other soldier this whole time. They normally hate each other. They’re going to go out, not search for the answers, then come back and report that we lied. Then we get fucked.”
James twitched, his body shifting in his agitation. Or trying too—he’d already reverted back to a changeling before they tied him up, so he wasn’t escaping now. The green fire illuminated the rocky ground around them, along with the bits of bone and rotten fabric, then went out. James whimpered in pain, rolling jerkily to one side and pulling Sarah with him. “Why the hell didn’t you say something? You could’ve demanded they send someone else!”
“Because…” Sarah said. “That would be even stupider. And don’t pull on the rope.” She waited until James stopped twitching to go on. “Think about it for a second—if I did that, their play would be to shoot us right away. Both sides are evenly matched, or close. We’d have sided with the chromatics, but if we’re dead, then they get their goal before the chromatics can react. Simple game theory.”
“Oh.” The anger faded from James’s voice, and he only sounded bitter. “Weren’t you a soldier? How the hell do you know so much about this? They don’t train soldiers to… I don’t even know what I’d call what just happened to us.”
“A con,” Sarah answered. The words were out before she knew what she was saying. And once she’d started, it was so easy to keep going. “And I know because I used to run them all the time. Not… not getting people killed, I’d never do that. But life wasn’t fair. There were rich assholes… people like you… who had more than they needed. I borrowed it, didn’t give it back. Took some stuff you hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve.”
“I don’t think you know who you’re talking about.” James jerked again, and she could see a brief flicker of magic from his horn. “I lived in a van for most of my life. I couldn’t afford those Pioneering boot camps people go to—remember the ads? We’ll get you to space in two years or less…” he sang the jingle for a few seconds, trailing off only once she pulled on the rope. “Well, I couldn’t do that. So, all I could do was get more degrees than literally anyone else in the world. Learn everything I could about a subject no one cared about anymore. I wasn’t rich either. I had so much student debt back home… I must’ve died with like a billion dollars, maybe more. But they kept giving me loans, so…”
Sarah actually laughed. There was no bitterness in it anymore, all her anger at him dissolved. “Well, maybe you can appreciate how hard it is to get in. I didn’t have an Ident, so I couldn’t get loans. I… might not really be a munitions engineer.”
The glow from his horn went out, but she didn’t need to see his shock to hear it. “You… you faked your way into the program? How the hell did you do that? Those tests… locked in the McMurdo base for six months, no implants, no internet, no… no way you found a way to cheat the screenings.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. I just took someone’s place the day before scanning. We’d… been planning it for a few months. Every system has a weakness, and that was theirs. You carry your own data with you to the station, see. There’s about an hour window between graduation and the ship up. Turns out that’s just enough time to get a fucking fantastic hacker to doctor the chip and… well, the rest is history.”
Shouldn’t I be more worried about telling him this? Even if they torture us for years, we’ll still survive. Everyone survives. But no… Sarah had been itching to tell someone since the moment she’d first woken up. What was the point of an excellent con if she was the only one in the world who knew what she’d achieved? She wanted to brag—and now she was finally far enough from Forerunner’s reach that she could afford a little.
“Fuck me,” James muttered. “That’s magnificent. Wish I’d thought of that. Maybe I wouldn’t have been fifty when they scanned me. I could’ve moved on with my life a lot sooner. This way… I probably never did. I hope I didn’t die passed out in a gutter somewhere.”
“Well, I told you. It’s our secret. People who go through hell together don’t spill their secrets.”
“Yeah,” James answered, and he sounded sincere. “I won’t tell anyone. But… you might want to talk to Lucky about it when we get back. She’s my clone. She grew up in foster homes too… she spent her time in the same van. I guess we were the same person when we did it? Or… honestly, I don’t wanna think about the continuity. Point is, she’s not going to be mad either. You should come clean while there’s still someone in charge who can officially pardon you. Fast forward a few decades to when we’ve got a real government, and whoever gets elected might not think the same way we do.”
“There probably won’t be an election,” Sarah found herself saying. Despite the tightness of the ropes, despite being locked into a crypt—she found herself feeling more relaxed than the moment she’d been thawed. James was right, his clone would pardon her. She didn’t have to run away and hide in an alien society. Unless she wanted to go live there.
Which I probably don’t anymore. Fucking Sauron probably doesn’t have very lax immigration policies.
“Hey, Sarah.” The voice was so quiet, so distant, that she almost didn’t hear it. It wasn’t a sound at all really, but a thought. A thought that came into her head in Ocellus’s voice. She’d experienced the same sensation when Discord had communicated with her. But where that had often been a full-sensory simulation, this was only a whisper. Orders of magnitude less power. “Can you hear me Sarah? Don’t say anything, just think it at me.”
She might not have known what to do, except for her past experience with Discord. She knew what Ocellus was doing. “Yeah? You can do telepathy too?”
“For a little while,” came the response. Then something else, but she didn’t hear it over what James was saying. Something heartfelt and sincere, probably. Sappy.
“Hey, shut up a minute James. I think we’re getting rescued or something.”
James answered in a pained voice, but not nearly as whiny and childish as earlier. Sarah didn’t hear the words. “Say again, Ocellus. Didn’t hear that last bit.”
“Expedition just got back,” Ocellus said, without a hint of annoyance. “Ileum didn’t make it. Tarsus says there were soldiers waiting just down the road, and they were ambushed. My father is getting ready to come in and kill you.”
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Thats what I though would happen
I hope Pharynx dies a horrible, permanent death.
Sheesh the sooner Pharynx is taken out of the picture the better, the guy just wants things only for his own advantage and nothing else. If it doesn't put him in the lead, it doesn't matter how good it will turn out for his people he won't take it.
I’m not surprised at Pharynx’s paranoia.
It's surprising how insufferably vexing Rainbow Dash can be when she's presented as an antagonist.
Can't fault her for her ignorance, but damn if I don't feel like she needs to be smacked down a peg or two.
Internal conflicts in teams is how evil is supposed to destroy itself when the heros cant turtle up enough.
Surprise! People are terraforming cities out here on the service. It might be better to stay underground.
Pharynx is trying really hard to turn this potential alliance into another front in the war.
Lightning is so incredibly biased, I'm not sure I'd agree they're better with her in this meeting. It's just going to be a source of conflict present from the get go.
Yeah, yeah it was.
Hey, it could have gone worse.
Well, he wanted to anyway. And at least they're warned and can maybe prepare for the fight somehow.
Can we just... you know... Slowly torture Rainbow to death, bring her back, and repeat that for about a week? Nobody that stupid should be allowed to live for very long.
I want to see Lightning kick Rainbow Dash's ass.
I just want to say, as someone who has read over a couple hundred stories and novels on this website, I have never encountered a story this oddly captivating. Genuinely expected to be just another "human in equestria" type story, but I was seriously proven wrong. The way you build up conflict and don't instantly resolve it like most wanna be's, makes the story actually very interesting and often even really intense. When Olivia's pill didn't work, the my level of stress and "oh no's" went out of control to the point where I actually yelled in rage. The every character interaction was to a point flawlessly written (talking about the really major onse). Overall, thank you for writing this, and we need more authors like you👍
Y'know, there's a chance he's not actually lying. Could have run into the Storm King's soldiers. Either way, the end result is still the same as what Sarah thought: Phaynx is going to kill them.
9145902
I certainly can. She had more than enough time to realize how different are things now: Canterlot has fallen and is currently a gore fest, most Princesses are gone, the Elements don't work anymore, they have been on the run after months trying and failing to fix things on their own, to the point they are forced to work alongside the guys who killed their beloved Celestia...
Either Dash is boasting, or deeply in denial.
9147698
Fair point, though I'm wondering how much of their false confidence is due to Twilight keeping the finer details under wraps. She's seen the bigger picture, and it's not very flattering of Equestria as a nation.
If Equestria falls for good, it will be because of short-sighted fools who cannot comprehend that there are things in this world beyond their own petty concerns.
Mind you, that's as true in canon as it is here.
In any case, the thought occurs that if anyone has even a hope of matching the Storm King when it comes to rules lawyering, it's probably Pharynx. He's the one who best understands the situation... beyond the parts tinted by his paranoia to the point of opacity. If they can get him on board—and yes, that is an if so big it dwarfs the Stormbreaker—he'll be an invaluable asset.
Whatever happens next, it's going to take a minimum of three miracles for there to be anything worthwhile left when all's said and done.
Getting so tired of these changelings that try to find a reason to kill them every time someone sneezes.
It’s amazing how long Dash can hold a grudge. How many ponies has she put in danger for the sake of her ego? She’s an ultra-level hypocrite and I kinda hope she gets turned inside out.
Without the Harmony Deus Ex Machina needing to be a plot point, the elements just became a lot more expendable.
9820255
That's a little... extremely violent, and maybe you should consider toning down your fantasies of turning people inside out - but last she knew Lightning Dust had recklessly gotten several people almost killed. Picture it as like, someone who drifts a big truck into a crowded building doing a stupid stunt - even if they miraculously don't kill anyone, you're going to think that person is a scumbag for the rest of your life. That sticks with you.