A Sky-Shattering Dawn
"Let me go!" Starlight tried again to assault the screen she was trapped inside, to no avail. "Chrysalis!"
Chrysalis was already leaving. A hoof settled on Starlight's shoulder, and she turned to see Valey wink. Starlight frowned. "What?"
"Nah. Let her go. She's all hot air." Valey kicked back and lay down. "Trust me."
"How do you know?" Starlight pressed. "She was talking about trapping me here while she tried to take my body!"
Valey glanced out at the pedestal. "Last I checked, she just turned that to dust. Listen, I couldn't follow ninety percent of what she was talking about, but I can tell the difference between someone who knows how something works and someone who has a vague idea of how it works and really wants to be right. Sounded to me like she was just trying to get your goat. So chillax! It'll be a lot better in here now that I'm not stuck forever watching the world go by."
"She's right," Lyn called quietly, crawling out from behind a screen after Chrysalis had wandered away. "I can tell when ponies are lying."
Valey and Starlight both perked. "Really?" Valey squinted at her.
"Yes!" Lyn called up, still rubbing her head like she had the beginning of a migraine. "She wasn't telling deliberate falsehoods, but she was guessing about things she wasn't sure of. She was probably trying to make you furious."
Starlight pressed her ears back. "Well, it worked. We need to find a way out of here."
"Easy." Valey shrugged. "All we gotta do is wait."
"What?" Starlight took a step back, too frightened and upset to properly rejoice at finding Valey. "What do you mean?"
"Beats me." Valey shrugged. "I just asked this machine thing. Yo! Thingamajig! How long until I can ditch this place!?"
Please be patient, the Nightmare Module voice urged. Your voyage will be completed soon.
"Voyage?" Starlight blinked and tilted her head. "What? Does it think we're... still in a meteor, traveling through space?"
Valey looked blankly at her. "Buh?"
"Hey!" Starlight shouted, willing the voice to respond. "We're already right where we want to be! Let us out! Back to the real world! Let us go!"
"Nahhh." Valey put a hoof on Starlight's shoulder, pulling her back. "It gets huffy if you spend too long bossing it around. Try this. Hey, machine! Show me that place you showed me before!"
Initiating physical plane view, Starlight's Nightmare Module voice said, seemingly heard by Valey as well, but not Lyn. A part of her view disappeared, replaced by a blindingly bright window into...
"Maple!" Starlight jumped toward the portal, failing again to reach the abstract visualization. But it was there, in her vision: a window out to the engine room of the Immortal Dream, its viewpoint coming from what she knew to be her obsidian sword. It swiveled at her command, focusing on a bed with a familiar mare.
"Yep." Valey sidled up beside her. "Like I said, watching the world go by. Speaking of which, wanna tell me who you are? Because I'm used to seeing you in there, and now you're somehow in here. Maybe you can explain some stuff to me."
Starlight just stared, a hoof reaching desperately for a window she couldn't touch. "That's the real world. How long have you been able to see it? Do you recognize anyone?"
Valey scratched an ear. "I dunno. You guys all look kinda familiar now that I've been watching for a while. But yeah, it showed me this after I made a big enough fuss about being bored the first time. Better entertainment than staring at an empty room all day, let me tell you." She turned to face Starlight again. "So seriously, who are you? Because I've been watching and listening, and it's seriously hard to figure you out."
Starlight took a deep breath. "We're stuck inside a thing called moon glass and I have no idea how it works, but that's the real world and I want to get all of us out there and back home. You don't remember us, but me and everyone out there are your best friends. Do you believe me?"
Valey shrugged. "Well, it would explain why everyone there knows my name, I guess. Hey machine, turn up the volume...!"
Gerardo entered the engine room in a huff, looking slightly bedraggled. "Gerardo?" Maple asked, looking up.
"Not to worry you," Gerardo began, "but have you any knowledge on the whereabouts of that sword Starlight let me borrow in Ironridge? The black one? We may have found ourselves in a slightly dangerous situation and as long as the Equestrian guards are on our side I'd like to arm them as well as possible."
Maple's eyes widened. "What's going on?"
"Merely precautionary actions," Gerardo assured, holding up a talon with certainty. "As I said, not to fret..."
The shipdeck was a different story. "Divisions one through three," the acting pegasus captain instructed, "create a diversion and attempt to draw the beasts off to the east. According to intel, they track by hearing and smell. Four through seven, remain here and defend this airship. Eight through ten, we hide and mount an ambush on the smaller group if they split. We have numbers, but they have strength. We have to whittle them down before we can afford meeting them head-on."
"And what about us?" Shinespark asked, a stiff sea wind ruffling her mane and blowing in from the water. "With this wind, they're going to smell us from miles away. You can't expect us to sit back without a plan."
Howe whistled innocently. "Not that that's what you just spent the past few weeks-"
Shinespark punched him. "Not the time for mutiny, pegasus! Captain?"
The guards were already splitting into small squadrons and soaring about, and the acting captain looked at her with a sigh. "The Princess has ordered us to defend you, but this battle may be difficult. What do you have to contribute?"
"This unusually-powerful magic sword, for one," Gerardo offered, stumbling out from the stairwell and holding out the black sword. "Though I'm afraid I've... been on my feet far too long today to..." He pitched forward and collapsed, utterly exhausted.
Shinespark stared around. "Harshwater!" she snapped. "What's the state of my crew?"
Harshwater's eyes shifted. "Dead, injured, exhausted or useless. I'm the only one who knows how to fight who isn't incapacitated, and I'm not a zealot who goes blindly charging in."
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "Gerardo and Starlight, no... Felicity? Saffron? Anyone? I'd have you in the backline defending the ship if it comes to it. None of you are going out there tonight."
"I may be a good shot with certain types of firearms, darling," Felicity volunteered, "but there's absolutely no way I'll be swinging a sword."
An explosion sounded several hills away, along with another roar.
"...Fine." Shinespark strapped the sword to her own side, fumbling slightly from the lack of her usual telekinesis. "Fine."
"Were those things always that massive!?" one pegasus exclaimed to another, the squadron wheeling around a valley containing a creature that might once have been imagined as a goat. It was reddish-purple and massive, big enough to take up the entire deck of the Immortal Dream, and was currently reeling from a barrel of explosives three pegasi had dropped to capture its attention.
The ploy succeeded, and the beast lunged upward in a corkscrew motion, trying to impale the guards on its smoking horns. With expert coordination, the Equestrian guards soared out of the way, not breaking formation, wheeling and carrying on to the east. "Find more of them and draw them too!" one barked, voice carrying over the stiff sea winds. "Leaving four is leaving too many!"
The pegasi split, the rest of the beasts visible a shadows between the hills on the horizon. "Roger!" Leaving trails of unsubtle yellow, half of the squadron continued to the north, two more explosive barrels carried between them.
"Locking targets," a pegasus with enchanted goggles reported. "We've found one that's injured. Leave it for the strike team. We don't want it joining the decoy chase and falling behind."
A yellow eye stared back at him, its slitted pupil thinner in the center than at the ends. "ROOOOOOOAAAAAHHHH..."
The creature flung itself into a maelstrom, rearing up on its hind legs and spinning. One of its front arms was entirely missing, the stump glowing and flickering with an unearthly blue light, but it used the remaining arm like a sawblade, shredding the air with the edge of its arm and forcing the pegasi to take evasive action. "Watch your flanks!" a scout called from above. "They can jump higher than they look!"
As if on cue, a third beast flung itself upward from a valley a hill away, its trajectory perfectly calculated to intercept any pegasi that were dodging upward from the first. Two were perfectly in the way, flapping frantically as they realized the monsters' tactics... and then another squad of three flew in from the side, diving like lightning, ramming it hard with another barrel and splitting and soaring as the explosion knocked it off-course.
With a roar, the jumping beast crashed onto the injured one in the valley. "Attack now!" one pegasus hollered, and a forest of spears and javelins soared for the monsters, some sticking amid their woolen coats.
"No!" another pegasus cried. "We have to lead them away! If we pick a fight here, we'll-!"
"BRAAAAAAAHH!" A fourth abomination bounded over the horizon like a gorilla, leaping from hilltop to hilltop and walking on its knuckles, pulling back an arm as it flew for a deadly punch.
"We can't take three of them!" a third pegasus screamed, the first two beginning to angrily blink and recover. "Fall back to the east! Retreeeeeat!"
The beast that had been knocked from the sky leered up at the pegasi, then dug its limbs into the ground, pulling up a giant clod of earth and grass... then threw it like a deadly missile, the loose ground shattering mid-flight into an enormous cloud of dirt clods and boulders. It was too wide for all the pegasi to escape, and three were caught fully in the blast, taken to the ground along with it.
"You and you, search and rescue! Save the third barrel! We have to split these three as well!"
Yellow streaks blazed through the sky in chaotic directions as the pegasus formation shattered, the groups shifting as tactics changed. The newcomer beast grinned, following its companion's lead and hefting a colossal chunk of land...
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed through the air, embedding itself in the clump of dirt. Half a second later, it exploded in a fiery salvo, breaking the projectile and showering the creature with earth. The pegasi glanced around wildly.
"This doesn't make us friends," Gunther grunted, flying lamely over a nearby hill with his bow drawn and a quiver of exploding arrows pulled from his ruined, bloodied suit. "But between me and them, it's personal."
Shinespark stepped onto the bridge, her captain's chair as vacant as it had been since the ship landed weeks ago.
"Don't you have a battle to fight?" Jamjars frowned, stepping out of the darkness. "Friends to defend? All that stuff?"
"I can't fly anymore," Shinespark replied, voice tight and level. "The only way I'll be fighting is if they come to me. And I haven't been willing to do it lately, so... if the guards are overwhelmed and that was our last flight, I have a ship and need to say goodbye."
She slowly sat down, running a hoof over the ship's dim, pristine control console, and closed her eyes and sighed.
"Or you could do something useful with yourself," Jamjars muttered. "I'm still waiting on the plans for that pendant so I can try to bring Valey back."
"That won't work," Shinespark said, her voice quiet. "If this is the end, I'll face it with dignity, but do you honestly believe there's anything we can do to make a difference?"
"Isn't there?" Jamjars shrugged. "You still have your unusually-harmonic cutie mark, don't you?"
"No." The chair didn't hide Shinespark's flanks, still clearly adorned with her brand. "I don't. Without my horn, it doesn't work."
"You really need to listen more," Jamjars sighed. "I have a friend who's been explaining harmony extensively to me. The stuff you make your ship run by? She says it's a power that can shape the world around you based on your emotions and desires."
Shinespark refused to look back, the ship's meters and dials dim before her. "That means nothing. If I could have saved Ironridge just by wanting to, Sosa would still be standing."
"Don't look at me." Jamjars shrugged. "But even if you lost, everyone thinks you put up a pretty good fight. Look." She trotted forward and glared up at Shinespark. "I don't really care about your personal crises and how good you are at saving cities. I'm mostly interested in keeping my body in one piece. And right now, you should be doing your part toward that instead of sulking and waiting."
Shinespark's eyes bored into her. "And what part are you playing to save yourself? Aren't you waiting just as much as I am?"
"Yes." Jamjars shrugged.
"You're a hypocrite. This isn't even your ship."
"I'm also not the one with an unusually-harmonic cutie mark," Jamjars countered, rolling her eyes. "You want to make yourself useful, go use what you have. Who cares if it's not strong enough? Go hook yourself up to your harmony extractor and do everything you can anyway. Isn't it what your friends would do?"
Shinespark gritted her teeth. "I told you that if we're going to die, I'm going to face my death with dignity. Not clinging and scrabbling to schemes with no chance of success."
Jamjars stared at her, with no words necessary.
Shinespark hit her head against the control panel. "Even though there was no chance of success when Starlight stopped the windigoes in Ironridge. But I'm not her and don't know why she can do the things she can!"
"She sure wouldn't have been able to if you didn't leave this ship there waiting for her." Jamjars shrugged. "You can mope around if you want. I always figured you'd go down fighting."
Hissing, Shinespark sucked in a breath, got up and stomped away.
"Shinespark?" Maple looked up as her friend entered the engine room, worry on her face. "Gerardo was just here. What's going on?"
Shinespark just sighed. "Some monsters the Equestrians were keeping sealed in their border fortress escaped, and Celestia is gone, and the guard she left are trying to protect them from us. There's a battle happening and there's nothing any of us can do."
"Oh." Maple's face fell. "I suppose that's... how it is for me when we get in a lot of battles. Trying to stand up to Chrysalis, I just got knocked to the side."
"I know." Shinespark sat down beside the bed, gently touching Maple's shoulder. "Me too."
"You haven't been feeling well," Maple whispered. "About... everything. Are you...?"
"If you're going to say okay, think about how likely that might be," Shinespark whispered back. "But I'm better than I could be. There's just nothing else to be done."
Amber appeared in the doorway, Valey's body at her side. "Shinespark? I've been trying to see if Valey thinks she can fight for us, and..."
"Come." Shinespark motioned her over. "That's just a husk. Either the guards will win, or they won't. But if they don't, I... shouldn't be alone."
The door had been left open above, shouts filtering down from the deck. "One monster inbound!" a guard cried in the distance. "Fire!"
There was an explosion and a crunch. "None of us are up there this time, are we?" Amber asked, trotting closer and sitting with Maple and Shinespark. Valey's body joined them.
"No," Shinespark answered, the black sword still clasped at her side. "Not this time."
"So we could die, and there's nothing we'd be able to do about it?" Amber looked up. "Well, I suppose we survived Chrysalis by coincidence already. I guess these are the dangers of adventuring, huh?" Her eyes watered slightly. "You think it was worth it, Maple? Instead of staying home in Riverfall?"
"Don't talk like that," Maple gently reprimanded. "Maybe we should have died to Chrysalis, but we didn't. Starlight saved us."
"You talk about her more like she's your hero than your daughter," Shinespark softly replied. "She's not here this time, though, and even if she was, how many times can one pony do something like that?"
Suddenly, something sparked, and the lights went out.
"What the...?" Shinespark struggled, trying to force magic into her broken horn. It sparked fitfully, but still enough for the mares to see by. In the center of the room, Valey's body had somehow tugged the moon glass sword free from its power cage, before wandering it over and placing it by the group.
"Heh... see?" Amber patted its chitinous back, nudging the sword into the center of the circle. "She's still got brains. She knows Starlight and Valey would want to be here too."
Starlight stared at the viewport to the outside world, ears folded back in disbelief.
"This has been surreal enough already, but who are we?" Valey asked, staring along with her.
"It doesn't matter." Starlight straightened up. "Our friends are in trouble and we have to get out of here, right now. I don't care how possible it is. We've both done things that should have been impossible. Hey! Lyn!" She looked back out into the pedestal room. "Are you still there!?"
"Yes," Gwendolyn squeaked. "Starlight, were am I?"
"It doesn't matter!" Starlight shouted back. "Just stay here! I'm going to get us out... somehow! Machine! Nightmare Modules! Tell me exactly where we are, right now!"
Nowhere in particular, the voice replied. A blank canvas, if you will. You know how this world works, Starlight Glimmer. Drawing from the memories of the souls within it, it conforms itself to their consciousness. We are in the same place where you go to dream, only tethered there by a power you yourself created, using Crystal's aid.
Starlight winced at the use of her full name, right there while Valey was listening.
This is merely a section of the world with no soul to paint it. It is controlled by those who have kept their memories, such as Crystal and yourself. Crystal desired a place where she might act upon her jealousy and resentment of you, and so that is what it has presently become.
"Who are you and why do you know this!?" Starlight called back. "And what can I do about it!?"
I am an interface within each of Princess Luna's creations. It is my purpose to guide and regulate administrative access between their magic and the world around them. In simpler terms, I am a machine, and I was created to know this. At the moment, you could think of me as Valey's version of the instance of me you regularly communicate with, which is restricted here. As for your second question, this area is currently being shaped by Crystal. You could change it, if you could put more power behind your desires than she can. You know, however, who and what she is.
"Stanza," Starlight whispered. "You mean the kind of power she used to drain all the cutie marks from Garsheeva and every batpony in Mistvale?"
Yes.
Starlight looked at her hooves. "But I'm just one filly..." She gritted her teeth.
"You also don't look like someone who gives up easily." Valey patted her on the shoulder. "Yo, machine thing. Think you can make this place play rude noises at this Crystal or Chrysalis or whatever to get her attention? I think it sounds like we've got a fight to pick with her."
"You're right," Starlight said, glancing back at the window to her friends, still huddled around the sword as shouts filtered down from the deck in the distance. "Nothing will stop me from trying. But... we?"
"Yep." Valey winked. "I'm super fuzzy on how this place works, but she said it does what we want if we want it harder than that other punk, right? So if we challenge her together, think we'll be twice as effective?"
Starlight blinked.
"Hey, maybe if I really want us fighting her to look like a cool laser battle, it'll let us out of this machine so I can stretch my legs and finally-"
Chrysalis arrived, glancing in mild annoyance up at the screen. "What? I'm too busy figuring out how this place works to spend time playing with you."
"Let us go," Starlight threatened.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "No."
"Yeah! Let us out, you punk!" Valey made a rude gesture, but Chrysalis merely rolled her eyes and started walking back away.
Starlight hissed, glancing around and wishing the Nightmare Module voice would return. What was she supposed to do?
I told you that your odds of success would be low.
The battle cries above had grown more and more desperate as seconds passed, but Maple, Amber, Shinespark and Valey's body stayed huddled together, sitting in the engine room around Starlight's moon glass sword. Suddenly, screams sounded from above, and the ship rocked hard.
"That can't be good," Amber whispered, shaking.
"Something big is out there." Maple hugged her despite the pain in her ribs. "Sorry, girls. Sorry, Willow. Sorry, Starlight. I guess the soldiers couldn't do enough. I never thought the guards would lose when I finally wanted them to win. I wish I could have seen you one more time..."
Amber squeezed her eyes shut. "At least it will be quick, right? Or do these things take captives and...?"
"It won't be quick, but not because of that." Shinespark shook her head, a dark smile growing on her muzzle, her sparking, broken horn the only source of light in the room. "This ship was made with an experimental hull prototype my biological father, Mobius, spent ten years developing in an effort to make a new generation of water travel and compete with the airships. It wasn't enough for him, but there was nothing his tests could do to damage it. I wouldn't be surprised if it could survive a mile-high drop, nose first. As long as they're too big to fit inside, they can't just break through and grab us. We might starve while they wait for us to come out, but we can die on our own terms."
Amber looked up. "You could have mentioned that earlier..."
"Or maybe it's not as strong as we thought it was." Shinespark shrugged. "Now that we're here, I just... feel like I have more I should have..."
"Should still," Maple corrected. "We're not gone yet, right? Maybe the soldiers are doing a maneuver, and-"
With an almighty clang, the ship was lifted a foot in the air, landing slightly at an angle. Amber latched onto Shinespark and started crying.
Maple's smile cracked too, and she turned to the sword. "Starlight, I love you..."
Starlight stared frantically between Chrysalis's retreating form and the window to her friends, their voices all filtering down from above. Whether or not there was anything she could do, they had no one left to protect them. This is how it would have been without her. It was how it was without her, and it was how it was always going to be. Maple had left Riverfall because of her. If it wasn't for her, they would never have been here... but now they were, and she wasn't there to protect them.
She wasn't where she needed to be.
"Chrysalis!" Starlight screamed, trying to rush the screen again.
Chrysalis looked over her shoulder and curled her lip.
"My friends are going to die out there!" Starlight roared. "I need to find a way to help them! Let me out and stand aside, or help me! Don't stick me in here!"
"You're stuck in this world whether I have you in there or not," Chrysalis drawled. "Don't be a sore loser. I told you, once I find a way to make this place switch us, they won't even be your friends anymore anyway."
"And they're going to die!" Starlight cried, her hooves finally, somehow making physical contact with the screen window she was looking out of. "Even if you do get this place to work for you, you won't even have friends waiting for you on the outside!"
Chrysalis sneered. "A clever ploy, but I can tell a lie when I hear it."
"Chrysalis...!"
Starlight's friends were waiting for her. They were gathered around the sword, waiting for death or salvation. They wanted to see her again, too. Maybe she couldn't do it on her own, but... she swung a hoof and hit the display, and felt the glass crack.
Chrysalis's eyes bulged in surprise, and she frowned. With a flicker of green from where her horn should have been, the monitor repaired itself.
"I'm coming for you!" Starlight howled, pummeling the screen again.
Chrysalis sighed and sat down, repairing the damage effortlessly. "However you're doing that, are you really going to make me sit here and foalsit you?"
"I'll never stop," Starlight warned, a vein twitching around her eyes. "I'll fight you for the rest of eternity here if you cost me my friends!"
"Bananas, girl, you're scary," Valey remarked. "Hey, meathead! Do what she says or else I'll beat you up too!"
"Give up," Chrysalis complained, tossing her limbs in exasperation. "Whatever you're doing is weak, and I have things to do!"
"Should have thought about that before becoming my enemy again," Starlight snarled, glancing around. Chrysalis was right, unfortunately. She needed more power... "Valey, where's Garsheeva?"
Valey blinked. "Gar-who?"
Starlight pointed down at the pedestal, where red and blue cutie mark stones were inserted in two of the slots. "You're tied to the red one, I think. The blue one belonged to someone called Garsheeva! They're called artifices, and they're strong. If Garsheeva is here and could help us..."
"Uhhh... I don't think so?" Valey tilted her head. "I definitely do have something going on with the red one. Feels almost like a rope tying us together, now that you make me think about it. But I've never seen anyone else in here?"
Starlight's vision panned, and she searched the room for anything that would help. Lyn, hiding under a side screen with perked ears. Chrysalis, staring at them and daring her to try punching the screen again. The two artifices. Hadn't Garsheeva's been given to her by Luna as a gift, in the memory Nightmare Module? Maybe it wasn't attached to her soul. Maybe it was just a single brand, floating there with no one to use it?
"Valey," she whispered. "I got stuck in here after she tried shoving me in that slot. And if you feel tethered to your cutie mark, which is in there... if it was removed, would you be free?"
Chrysalis scoffed. "As if there's any way for you to remove them from in¬-"
Gwendolyn dashed out into the center, jumped, grabbed onto the red artifice, and yanked it free.
Red light blazed around the pedestal, and Chrysalis stepped back in surprise and anger. When it finished, only the blue artifice remained, and Valey stood where the red one had been. Scowling, she rubbed her head and glared at Chrysalis. "Ow, bananas, this feels weird... I've got a good feeling you're about to get a whupping."
"See if you can try!" Chrysalis snarled back, readying her green spear. "What's that whelp doing, helping you? She should go back to her memories where she belongs!"
She flung it straight at Lyn, who screamed and covered her head. Valey effortlessly knocked the weapon off course.
"Maybe you should be more worried about me," Valey warned, stepping down the pedestal and towards her.
"Go back where you belong." Chrysalis's eyes burned. "You were compassionate enough to stand up for me when we were alive. My quarrel isn't with you."
"Too bad. I fight for my friends!"
As Valey took off and Chrysalis was forced to react, Lyn stared up at the screen, Starlight stuck inside alone. "If I take the other one out, will that free you, too?"
Starlight's ears fell. "I don't think so... That one was tied to Garsheeva, but I think it's just on its own now. And I don't have a cutie mark. That's why I left nothing behind when she put me in..."
Her friends stayed constant in the background, their conversation weighing on her like an anvil. As she stared at the pedestal, a lonely realization hit her: she had always known that she would be willing to get a cutie mark if it meant saving her friends, but had never considered she might find herself in a place where she was stuck because she hadn't had one already.
Unless...
Starlight stared intently at the artifice. Garsheeva's was based on the virtue of hope, right? She didn't know her special talent, but she was stubborn and never gave up in impossible scenarios. It couldn't be that poor of a match. And it was a mark without a pony, and she was a pony without a cutie mark... and it was an artifice, to boot. Designed to mirror an intensely harmonic artifact. Starlight swallowed. If there was any way it could help her help her friends...
Her Nightmare Module voice rose beside her. It is as you will it.
With a soft flare of blue light, the nebulous spots on Starlight's flanks resolved, becoming the triangles she had once seen on the Night Mother with far less fanfare than she had expected. A faint sensation of a cord like Valey had talked about tugged on her mind, but otherwise she felt utterly unchanged. For all her worries months ago about getting a cutie mark, here she was with one that wasn't even hers and it hadn't done a thing to her. If it weren't for the tension, she could almost have sighed in relief.
"Lyn!" Starlight called. "It's different now! Pull the blue one free!"
"Not so fast!" Chrysalis hissed, soaring over as Valey was slammed against a wall by a field of telekinesis that covered the entire breadth of the room, leaving her nowhere to dodge. Her forehooves slammed down on Lyn before she could reach for the pedestal again, crushing the filly against the floor. "I'm not falling for that again. Stop fighting me and hold still!"
Starlight stared intently down from her perch in the central screen. "Never."
The boat rocked and clunked again, tossed a foot or more in the air. Maple cried out from the jostling to her wounded ribcage, and Amber and Shinespark fought to keep their balance.
On the surface, two of the brood had reached the ship, and were largely ignoring the pegasi swarming around them as they investigated their catch. Sniffing and nudging it, they stood taller than it was when they reared fully up, and one was on the deck, poking around. The other shoulder-checked it experimentally. "GRWAAAAA?"
"Sir, none of our attacks are working!" a frantic pegasus reported. "They're too large, and we're out of explosives! They're not even interested in us!"
"Tell me something I don't know, private," the captain growled, loading a crossbow and firing it at one creature's eye. It turned its head and blocked the shot effortlessly with a massive horn. "We must trust the diversion team and do our part regardless!"
With a roar, a third beast bounded over the horizon, this one very much interested in chasing pegasi. "There's a third!" several guards screamed, adjusting formation and focusing fire on the newcomer.
The battle continued to rage, with Jamjars hunkered on the bridge, unable to get below if she wanted to. Hairy arms pounded the deck like it was a drum, and horns rammed the side, rolling the boat and trying to tip it over.
"...This can't happen," Glimmer whispered from the landing outside the engine room.
Shinespark's ears snapped up. "Well, it's happening whether you like it or not!"
Glimmer turned and stepped inside the room. "You don't understand. It mustn't."
Nobody had an answer for her, all still huddled by the sword.
"Listen to you all," Glimmer said. "When you need someone to save you, you put all your faith in Starlight, and she knows it. I was supposed to prevent her from growing up with that kind of a burden on her shoulders, but how can she ignore the cries of her best friends? But now I've failed. You're going to die, and when she someday escapes from that obsidian, she's going to have nobody waiting for her. That will end her."
"What do you want us to do about it!?" Amber choked, eyes streaming. "Shut up! Up until minutes ago, I thought we were going to be safe with Princess Celestia, and she just left because of your dragon! You're right that it shouldn't be on Starlight to fix, just because she's usually able! It should be on you!"
"Amber is right." Shinespark got up, her horn sparking painfully to keep the lights on. "I was there. Do you really intend to lecture us about who we want to spend our last minutes thinking of when it's your fault they're our last in the first place? We know nothing about who you are or even what your name is. You showed up one day and saved Valey, and that's why we let you travel with us, but you've never made friends with us and always done your own thing and now we get to find out you had something you didn't tell us about that caused the princess of the Plains of Harmony to abandon us at the worst possible time!"
Maple just sniffed.
"You owe us an explanation," Shinespark demanded. "If you're going to treat us like this right when our chance has been snatched out from under us by something you brought here, we deserve to know." She flung a hoof at Glimmer. "Who are you and what was your machine and why was it worth Celestia leaving us right before this happened!?"
Glimmer closed her eyes. "I... I'm sorry. I know you want an explanation, but I don't owe you that. I owe you your lives."
Maple blinked. "That would be welcome too, but what...?"
Glimmer picked up one of the empty helmets for the harmony extractor.
All three mares reacted at once, Maple reaching a hoof with wide eyes. "What are you-? No, don't! No!"
"Starlight needs friends," Glimmer said, placing the bowl on her head. "Take good care of her for me. More depends on it than you think."
An unearthly hum rolled through the Immortal Dream, one it had only traversed once before. Every light in the ship reignited, blazing blue, and the two beasts that were currently assaulting it looked up, glancing at each other in confusion.
"What the...?" The guards flocking around the ship looked up from the third beast as well.
"That doesn't look good!" the captain warned. "Stay back and take cover!"
A pool of brightness blazed, visible through the hull from the engine room. With crackles of lightning, energy arced all across the hull, sparking where the wooden coating was damaged and making the beasts wince in pain. "What's going on!?" more pegasi cried, the air where the harmony comet had once been shimmering and distorting.
With a conical explosion of blue, the comet reformed, instantly decapitating the head and upper body of the beast standing on the deck. It roared at its constraints with the force of a hurricane, a single-shot overload of energy, waiting for direction from the one who commanded it.
"Jamjars!" Glimmer cried, reduced to a fading specter in the engine room beneath a storm of harmony raging above. The helmet was destroyed, the equipment faring little better than when Starlight had done the same, blue fire pouring from exploded meters and dials and reflecting in Shinespark's stupefied eyes. "She's on the bridge! Someone use the intercom...!"
On the bridge, Jamjars had gotten her hooves beneath her, the ship console alive with unearthly energy. She had heard the stories. She had been in Ironridge. But this burst of harmony was destined for something far different than exploding windigoes. With her trademark, shark-like grin on her face, she punched the dashboard, pushing the ship's acceleration all the way forward.
One moment, the ship was there. The next, it was gone, a fading afterimage in the guards' eyes and a furrow carved in the ground in the direction it had been facing.
Shinespark's hull melted through hills without resistance, the ship flying forward through the ground at miles per second. Its nose was angled down, but the ground gave way without resistance, blown away by the sheer power of the ship's construction and the jolt of harmony, carving a wide trench and annihilating Celestia's railroad as it barreled toward the sea. Everyone on it was buoyed by blue, cushions of energy extending from the comet and fighting inertia so that the crew wouldn't be reduced to just as much paste as the hills. Finally, they burst from a bank and plowed into the water, the ship landing in the sea with colossal force.
"Starlight!" Maple screamed in the engine room, somehow on her hooves. "What are you doing!? Don't do this again to me!"
"I'm not your Starlight," Glimmer apologized, already growing faint, the cloud of blue beginning to dissipate overhead. "She'll be safe if you keep her safe. I'm sorry. Good-"
Maple charged through her, and her cutie mark flashed, doing once again what she had used it for in Ironridge. Glimmer was gone.
Gasping, Amber struggled to her hooves. "What...?"
Shinespark's eyes flickered between the ruined engine room, the dregs of Glimmer's harmony cloud, and the obsidian sword, which was looking slightly melted from the explosion. Grabbing it in her teeth, she flung it up into the energy still coursing through the rails.
"Leave me alone to pursue my goal in peace!" Chrysalis hissed. "Stop fighting and stay put!"
"No!" Starlight continued struggling to break the screen, and Chrysalis actually had to spend effort stopping her this time. "I would have helped you! I would have let you come and be friends with my friends if you would have just been nicer and trusted me! But I'm never going to stop as long as you keep doing this to me and my friends!"
Suddenly, the ceiling crackled with force.
"Hmmm...?" Chrysalis glanced up and gasped, barely jumping out of the way in time to avoid incineration by a continuous lightning bolt of blue that struck the pedestal, causing every screen in the room to blaze with light. She cried out in pain, her fetlocks singed where she had been slightly too slow.
Starlight's eyes reflected the energy, and the cutie mark she had a new attachment to no longer felt so normal. It was overloaded with everything she had been missing since falling into this place... or everything since using the Nightmare Modules against Chrysalis. Or maybe even further back. But it was a wellspring of power, and she grabbed onto it, attacking the screen with everything she had.
There was no way Chrysalis could stop her. Starlight exploded out into the room, gently gliding to the ground, feeling even more overloaded than when the Trees of Harmony were lending her their power. Her horn pulsed, right on her forehead where it belonged, and she seized Lyn and Valey, dragging them over to her in front of the pedestal.
"I would have helped you," Starlight warned, pointing a hoof at Chrysalis and hovering in place, pointedly aware of where this burst of energy had come from. "I would have! But it's too late for that now, Chrysalis. Maybe someday, I'll be back for you and try again, but I'm not staying here any longer. You hear me, world? Let! Us! Out!"
She flew for the ceiling, Lyn and Valey held with her, the feeling of wings working at her sides even though she was a unicorn again. Her horn blazed with borrowed power, and she slashed at the ceiling, pouring herself into the desire to be free and save her friends. Even Glimmer believed in her, at last. This was a gift to help her escape...
The ceiling cracked, stars visible beyond. Chrysalis tried to lunge, but an invisible wall of force blocked her way, and Starlight dragged her friends up and into the chaos, leaving the world behind.
The sword landed on the floor of the engine room point to the sky, balanced perfectly on its half-melted handle. It shimmered and glowed, the reflections in its facets distorting with sparkles of stars... and then it exploded, its tip shattering into several shards. The ground beneath it melted into a circle, absorbing the last of the light from the extractor rails, and a faint outline of a filly rose up, landing in front of the sword. Her cutie mark pulsed, and she grew slightly more corporeal.
"Starlight!" Maple gasped, staggered against the wall of the room. Amber gaped as well, and Shinespark reluctantly smiled.
Starlight flailed, realizing her hooves passed straight through the floor... but her new artifice mark flickered again, and she faded slightly further into existence. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Valey! Lyn! Where...?" She glanced at the two shards that had broken off from the sword tip. "They're in these," she knew, her horn glowing and lighting the engine room. A sinking feeling filled her as she realized just how far her friends still were from the living world. "This one is Valey, and this one is Lyn. They're in here..."
Amber stared at the shards with wide eyes... and took off Valey's beret, pulling out a golden pendant and offering it to Shinespark.
Shinespark blinked between them with stupefied disbelief and a slow, shocked smile. "I'm going to need a screwdriver."
"What was that!?" The pegasi struggled to regroup in the aftermath of the ship's departure. One beast had keeled over dead, and the other two took off, bounding toward the sea in pursuit of the quarry that had suddenly killed one of their own.
"Irrelevant! Protect the ship!" The captain flourished a trident in one hoof and a spear in the other. "Formation, ponies! Don't let the beasts catch up first!"
They streaked over the water after following the ship's furrow, several bisected rivers already draining into the unnaturally straight trench. The beasts were faster on land, but over water, the pegasi had the advantage. Both beasts growled threateningly as they were passed, the Immortal Dream floating damaged in the bay.
"Assemble! They're going to try to capsize the boat!" The pegasi swarmed again, reduced to less than half their original numbers by the fight, but too well-trained to give in. One beast leapt from the water as they hovered above the deck, landing on it and beating its chest with a roar.
"Aim... Fire!" Crossbolts streaked through the air, hammering against the first monstrosity.
The second one dove from the water like a fish, its brother catching it and hurling it into the sky like a barn-sized missile. Pegasi shrieked and dove to avoid it. "I've never seen them do that!" one panicked. "Are they learning, or do they know how to keep tricks up their sleeves!?"
"Rally and defend the boat!" the captain countered. "We're our charges' last line of defense! Princess Celestia herself tasked us with this! Don't be scattered!"
Black hooves pounded against the staircase.
"BWAAAAAOORRRRRR...!" The beast still on the deck leaned over and grabbed the starboard railing, snapping it off like a bar of candy. It reared up, holding the railing like a jagged sword, and began slicing through the air. One pegasus's wings were struck, and he plummeted with a scream.
"Don't let it use that as a weapon!"
"Rally! Attack its head...!"
A bolt of green skidded out from the door, sliding straight between the beast's feet with slashes of monochrome black. "Ha! Hyaa! Take that!"
The beast winced, suddenly standing straighter. "Who...?" The guards looked down in confusion.
A massive head rose from the waves, and the second beast grappled the edge, rolling the boat in the water as it tried to climb aboard. The far side of the deck rose with the motion, and a green-and-black blur used it to launch herself into the air, landing on the first beast's back between the shoulders. Four hooves planted themselves squarely against its hairy hide as a black metal sword stabbed deep into its spine, and the mare let herself slip, carving all the way from its neck to its waist as she slid down. At the end of the slide, the beast toppled, and she catapulted off, flying straight for the head of the one that was climbing aboard.
"GRRROOOOOO..." It opened its maw to catch her.
With a single beat of leathery wings and a dangling shimmer of gold, her trajectory changed, and the sword landed point-first in its massive, yellow eye. The beast moaned again, its pupil rolling back into its head, and it released the boat, falling back into the sea and taking its sibling with it.
Less than a dozen surviving guards hovered over the boat, staring with unreserved awe.
"Heh..." Touching down on the ruined deck and pushing back her mane, a golden pendant with a black stone clasped tightly around her neck, Valey adjusted her beret and whistled. "Bananas, you guys are hopeless without me."
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...were those Apex monsters? Has a Gore Magala been through the area?
And looks like I was half right once again, Starlight did take one of the Artifice's for herself, but not Valey's like I thought she would.
On that note, Welcome back, Valey. It has been a dreadfully fruit free ride without you.
I like to imagine that this started playing in Twilight's head as Starlight was telling her about how she escaped the sword.
You won't fool me! That's not Valey! That's Shinespark using the amulet.
Or is it.....
Say... you're not by any chance making up another story of a mare who can't take off her pendant, do you???
Huzzah! Our favorite fruit thief returns!
Turns out that my predictions were quite off the mark (again). I'm definitely not complaining, though. SO MANY QUESTIONS, though.
Interesting. Does this mean that Valey is capable of using Nightmare Modules in a more normal fashion, or would she just end up like the other Sarosians that used them? If the latter, would the Nightmare Modules respond to any Sarosian in the same way?
Is this based on an actual creature, either from real life, mythology, some other creative work, or some combination of those? Seems they have hourglass pupils, too?
I can see why the griffons were no match for the brood, if they're giving this many Equestrian soldiers trouble. I'm curious how the brood was fought off in the first place, and at what cost. Also wonder what happened to Gunther by the end of the chapter.
Jamjars trying the motivational speech and somewhat succeeding. Wonder if Shinespark is becoming a bit jealous of Starlight. She's been working towards saving Sosa most of her life and failed, and here comes a filly out of nowhere doing things that should be blatantly impossible in the face of ridiculous odds.
Interesting. Wonder what caused the body to do that. Some deep connection between Valey in the sword and her (admittedly borrowed) body?
Welp, there's one possible way Valey knows Starlight's full name. Now we just need to see whether Valey remembers her time in the sword, and if she does, whether she tells everyone else of Starlight's full name (or if she doesn't consciously remember, whether she unconsciously does).
And does the Nightmare Module voice thing actually know that what Starlight has observed about this world and is saying that any conclusions she has drawn are right, or is it assuming that she's been told all this stuff before?
So might it be possible for ponies who can dreamwalk (if such a thing exists in this universe) to communicate with ponies in obsidian?
Wait, when did Starlight get help from Crystal? Or might the voice be talking about the power/marks drawn from Chrysalis when Starlight stabbed her with the sword?
Wait, why Valey's version of the voice? Because Valey was absorbed first? And why is Starlight's instance of the voice restricted here?
Remind me, this power was the accumulated despair/jealousy/loneliness/etc. accumulated by Stanza, right?
We always knew Starlight was determined to find a safe place for her friends, but man she is getting intense.
I have to admit, this gave me a chuckle. Villains underestimating the sidekick once again. Also, what's with the "¬"? How'd you even type that, if that was unintentional?
i.ytimg.com/vi/sJYRv9IOjSk/maxresdefault.jpg
That's quite a twist. Now we have to see whether it's permanent, or whether it's an artifact of being able to manipulate the dream world. If she actually has it, does that mean she now has Garsheeva's wish-granting power, or at least some portion of it?
I wonder whether the divergence point between Starlight's and Glimmer's worlds was the rocket attack against Garsheeva. I'm not sure she knew exactly where Valey/Crystal were when the rocket impacted, and wouldn't have known until their bodies were unearthed. If that's the case, Glimmer could have been speaking from experience (albeit with a slightly less severe loss, not like that it would make a big difference), at which point the next question is at what point did Glimmer decide that she needed to go back in time to change things, and why make changes in this kind of roundabout way?
So Glimmer has a bit more control over when the harmony extractor does its thing? Wonder how that works. I'm also curious how they plan on reconstructing Glimmer; from what I remember, it took Maple sitting in the harmonic flame and some assistance from Glimmer, who presumably knew what she was doing.
They're lucky they weren't pointed towards the Aldenfold. That would make for a much more interesting journey.
I wonder what would happen if you melted the sword at a harmonic flame without first extracting the marks/Chrysalis. Or melted any obsidian that sill contained a mark, really.
If the other marks are going to be extracted in the same way, I hope that whoever does the extraction is ready to deal with positively microscopic pieces of obsidian.
Man, Valey knows how to make an entrance.
The aftermath is going to be quite interesting. Glimmer is conveniently gone, but something needs to happen so Celestia never sees Starlight, given that Celestia didn't seem to recognize Starlight in the present. We still have to see whether Valey's cutie mark returned to its boxing glove form, or whether it remains its triangle-shaped thing, because the latter is probably going to invite some awkward questions from Celestia. And don't we still have one or two more of the brood? And now that Chrysalis has no one to contest her control over the dream world, I'm curious to see what she'll come up with.
And chances are other thoughts are going to pop up, given everything that happened here. Hope I'm not overdoing it...
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Can Valey use Nightmare Modules in a Starlight-esque fashion? Sounds like something they'd have to test to find out. But they don't have any physical Nightmare Modules like the one Valey got from Puddles left, even if they decided to risk it for the knowledge.
The brood beasts here are from the Griffonstone episode in Season 5, actually. They were only shown in black and white, so I took a little liberty on the color. One feature of Equestria that isn't really present in the world to the north is monster-of-the-week attacks like the Mane Six regularly deal with in the show, and I wanted to use a less-known but still canon show monster to welcome Starlight and her friends back to Equestria.
The griffons initially had a fairly vicious war against the brood, but defended themselves by keeping their base on the other side of a ravine (the Abysmal Abyss, also from the show) which was easy to defend. Celestia talked about this earlier - the griffons eventually got enough of an upper hand that they could have eradicated the brood, but instead started keeping them alive to hunt them for sport, and only killing the strongest ones... which were usually the older ones. Here, five of them have been allowed to grow to adulthood, so they're both significantly stronger than the griffons were used to and the griffons are slightly out of practice.
As for the Nightmare Module voice stuff and Valey, that's all stuff that will either be explored next chapter or remain a mystery. It's certainly a reasonable assumption that dreamwalking and the function of moon glass are related somehow, given that they're both made by Luna. And Amber did keep saying she was sure Valey was still in there...
Everything else: stay tuned.
That was one hell of a chapter.
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I smell foreshadowing...
Guess that's what I get for not actually watching the show. And TIL they (and their conflict with griffons) are actually based on a real-life myth.
And thanks for reminding me how the griffons handled the brood at first. Seems like it'd have to be quite a large ravine to stop the brood given the acrobatics they are showing. In essence, the griffons camped the brood, so the number of adults originally there wouldn't have mattered much? Or would 5 adults have been too much even back then?
Has dreamwalking ever been discussed in-story? And seems Amber is hiding something...
This might have been as much of an impactful chapter as when they crossed the Aldenfold in the first place. Starlight finally got a mark. Valey is more or less rescued. Lyn kind of lives. Chryssy is still an empathy-less jerk. The ship was saved, perhaps through great sacrifice. And for once, a big chapter didn't leave me with a larger pile of questions!
She’s back!
In celebration of her triumphant return—this story is infinitely less stressful the second time, but it’s not not stressful—please enjoy this art of a napping Valey I commissioned from LiaAquila (on various platforms) 💚
media.discordapp.net/attachments/1119499101638242405/1213896691221012500/20240304_003556.jpg?ex=65f72464&is=65e4af64&hm=50339dea563103e48f4bc8efef298295f4e4b0c37501fa7fcbbc06b4828544ee&
I have a few more I plan on getting, but this was the first.
On a more substantive note, Glimmer’s temporary sacrifice here is very sad knowing her goals. She wanted so badly to help Starlight live a happy, normal life, and then after everything else we get this scene, where it’s laid bare that every single person in the ship relies on Starlight, and Starlight knows it and could never in a thousand years not do whatever it took to save them. Obviously Glimmer’s plan was doomed from the beginning, but she really tried.
It didn’t help that she clearly grew so attached to the crew herself. This choice feels like her concession—perhaps not the first or final concession, but a pivotal one—to Starlight’s way of thinking: The friends she has now are too important for her to second-guess the lengths she’ll go to to save them.