> Gears in the Void
>  by Lab
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Breaking Science
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all, the best part of the end of the world was not having to pay rent, and not having to worry about noise complaints was a close second. 

I waited for the fuse to run down and shower the area in a rain of stone and metal.  A nagging inkling forced me to shuffle a short distance leftward, my fingers still stuffed in my ears to muffle the impending roar of explosives.

The familiar rumble filled my body, and the urge to peek out of cover and watch almost got my head taken off. My chuckles grew into full-fledged laughter as tiny stones pelted the sturdy yellow plastic of my construction cap, most of the larger rocks smashing against the already ruined car. The large piece of asphalt my gut predicted finally crashed and shattered, most of the tiny needles peppering my weathered jacket and jeans, though a few found unprotected skin.

Once the last bits of downpour petered out like the final kernels in a bag of microwaveable popcorn, it was finally safe enough to glance over the top of the rusty vehicle at the settling dust and beyond that, the newly cleared entrance to the electronics store. The ambient moaning of the city's residents gradually returned—there was no time to spare for appreciation. Judging by the sounds, it'd be a half hour before they showed up. I still couldn't believe we'd lost to walk-at-a-leisurely-pace-for-your-life zombies.

Disappointingly, a van that had been forcefully evicted from a No-Parking zone only made it half as far I’d expected. It would have been nice to at least come close to my record.

“We should have been further away from that one,” my companion said as he dug his pinky finger into his ear, frowning at me from under his small, dark eyes.

“What do you care? You could have danced a jig right next to it and been perfectly fine.” The uneven terrain hardly slowed me down as I placed down a lunchbox and entered the store.

The wall of stale, rank air was like an odorous slap to the face, and no amount of pine-tree air fresheners would make a stank that bad disappear.

“Just because I’m in your head doesn’t mean I’ll disregard my own safety. If you bite it, so do I,” Dave growled as he fell in behind me and noisily brushed off his tweed jacket.

Considering my choices, Dave was the best company anyone could have possibly asked for. Sports equipment just hadn’t cut it. Sure, Dave may have been more than a bit rough around the edges, annoyed the hell out of me, appeared only when he wanted to, poked holes in any fun I wanted to have, and… where was I going with this? Oh, right. Dave’s okay to have following you, and he did have that awesome bowler hat. Not to mention there was zero chance of him getting his ass chomped, and that was always a plus.

“Aww, so good to know you care.” My volume dropped to a hushed whisper perfect for anything that involved tiptoeing through a darkened building.

“Right then, we need to move fast. There’s no way the zeds didn’t hear that explosion. Keep your eyes open for any that may have been trapped in here when the entrance caved,” cautioned Dave. Naturally, he didn't have to worry about his noise giving our location away.

The meager sunlight touching the store's lobby for the first time in whoever-knows how long shied away from the darkness like a terrified child. It barely reached to entrance of the shelving labyrinth sporting relics of an age gone by, making me glad the flashlight hadn’t been forgotten this time.

“Yeah yeah, this ain’t my first rodeo.” I rolled my eyes and pushed onwards, flashlight slightly shaking in my left hand and crowbar in the right. Unlike Dave, the crowbar never talked back or forgot to change the toilet paper roll.

The darkened crevasses at the edge of my vision teemed with the flickering movements of wraiths and spectres, and my knuckles turned white from gripping the tools even harder. Why couldn't these places ever be well-lit? Having to rely on Dave to point out which threats weren’t imagined was always a nuisance.

Dave glanced around the darkened store, although it was a mystery if he was looking for anything specific. “Doesn’t look to be too looted. What were you looking for again? Three o’clock, crawler.” He pointed out the rotting beast with a near-bored tone in his voice.

It took a harder yank than usual to free my crowbar best friend forever from the ex-human's cranium. “A continuum transfunctioner and a flux capacitor.”

Dave and the crowbar would keep me safe if they were trusted to do their jobs. All I needed to do was not get bit, grab what we came for, and make it home to see what the scavenging teams brought back.

He rolled his eyes. “Can you try to be serious? I’m sure you don’t want a repeat of the shopping mall.”

“How was I supposed to know that door was going to lock behind me? Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”

“You lost two fingers,” he deadpanned.

“I never liked those two anyway, what with the hangnails and always getting pinched in doors. You have to agree the fireball afterwards was epic.” My footsteps echoed in the still air as my path led around a toppled, thoroughly ransacked battery display and wandered into the appliances section.

Dave let out a noisy sigh, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd shaken his head as well. “Never mind. Shambler getting up on your right.”

The red mess that splattered onto the face-shield only smeared further when wiping it off with my sleeve failed. Reluctantly, I tilted it up and snorted with disgust. “Hate it when that happens. Nothing here, let’s head on back to where they keep the TV’s.”

“Just take the damn thing off. It’s not like there aren’t forty more back at base. Why do you think it will be back there anyway?” It baffled me how he could still mock my little missions. Things were hard enough with the other survivors always whining about how nobody should be going off alone. They just couldn’t understand getting these parts was far more important than searching for the few overlooked cans of green beans or spinach, especially the spinach.

The plastic safety mask glanced off an open washing machine, and I grumbled at both the missed shot and Dave's mood. “I don’t. I don’t know what or where it is, just that I need it and it’s in this store.”

“The voice in your head?” he inquired.

“Not a voice.”

“And you’re still listening to it? How are we still alive?”

“Of course! It’s a chance at getting off this rock. Ooooh, I’ve got to grab one of these.” One of the few remaining DVD players found itself crammed in my backpack. It wasn’t looting, it was treasure hunting.

“Please tell me that’s it.”

“Nah, I just wanted to give us something different to do tonight other than play ping pong with the wall. You know, since someone doesn’t actually exist,” I snarked, sticking my tongue out at him. 

A figure limped toward us out of the corner of my eye, but it disappeared when it noticed me turning.  Dave drew my attention with an irritated huff before I could spot anything. Dave didn't see anything. Just had to trust him.

“How is it my fault I’m incorporeal? And why a DVD player? I suppose there’s that television in the conference room, but we don’t have anything to watch on it.” He grimaced as his mistake slowly dawned on him.

“Good point, let’s make a detour. Right turn!” The sturdy piece of steel lazily twirled in my hand as we strode through the chest-high shelves of poorly sorted media.

The romance flicks and the new releases went ignored since there was no interest in the first and I’d already seen everything interesting out of the latter five years prior. A motley assortment of pretty much every other genre ended up in my bag. Dave was getting anxious and jittery by the time we reached the boxed sets for television series.

“Will you hurry it up? It’s a wonder they aren’t here already!” He angrily gestured towards the gaping hole on the other side of the cash registers.

As if on cue, the moaning from outside grew in volume and separated itself from the city’s background noise. At least zombies, unlike relatives, were polite enough to let me know when they were dropping by for a meal.

“That one’s your fault.” A sigh escaped while I judged my time. “Just let me find the MLP boxed set and we can go look for the doodad again.” Five years was too long to go without the colorful equine shenanigans, and it was a better choice than the various sitcoms.

“Are you serious? Just get going! There’s no time to look for anything like that.”

His blasphemy earned him a dagger-throwing glare. “There is always time for ponies.” A brief reprieve from a post-apocalyptic wasteland infested with undead? Yes please. The fact that it was cartoon ponies was just a bonus.

“I hate you so much.” He didn't mean that… probably.

“Found it!” The backpack bulged dangerously as the boxed set was forced in with a cheer. I might have needed to get rid of some of the other DVD’s depending on what I was there to grab. Claire was going to be so excited when she saw it. Granted, we were all eager to get our filthy mitts on any scrap of entertainment, but she'd been a fan before things went to hell.

“That’s nice. Go go go.” He rudely shooed me away from the DVD’s before there was a chance to think of anything else worth taking.

“Will you relax? You know I have a surprise waiting for the crowd. After everything they’ve helped me make, how can you still not trust my hunches?” The zombies weren’t too worrying, but my feet quickly carried me through the over-priced television section anyway.

“The way you describe it, they aren’t your hunches." His face paled and he stammered, "You didn't..."

It was much easier to nod without the headgear in the way. “Aww yeah, packed that box full of C5.” Deadlier than the news's opinion of cellphone radiation and tasty with a side of potatoes, C5 was one of my better inventions.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Not only did you place it in our exit, but you’re going to bring the rest of the store down on our heads!” He was absolutely furious, which in turn made me laugh at the bright shade of red he was turning.

“We’ll be fine, I—hold that thought, I think I found it.” A large pegboard of various electronic components stood in front of me. A quick glance at any flicker of movement was all that interrupted my hasty scanning. When a single bite was all it took, nobody could afford to miss anything.

My attention hung on a quartz crystal resonator, a popular component in radios and other devices. Specifically, the third one in was what caught my eye. The hunches were pickier than a spoiled third-grader, but if they wanted that specific one, they got that specific one. That was not a fun lesson to learn.

“We’ve seen those all over the place! Why couldn’t you have gotten a ‘hunch’ to get one then?”

“I was supposed to get this one, I guess. Oh look, just in time too.” A horde had shuffled through the entrance, their slow pace—and the time of year—the only thing differentiating them from Black Friday shoppers. Neither of those flesh-stripping crowds would have been a welcome sight.

The shiny yellow detonator felt familiar, even through the callouses and torn, fingerless gloves, and it practically begged me to press the button. Dave was all that stopped me from making soup. 

“Back up towards that employee door, we need to time this right.” I knew that tone. Dave may have been frustrating, but he thought things through, and when his words rang with a tone usually reserved for speaking one’s full name, ignoring him would have been a poor choice. “Wait… wait… get your damn finger off that button!”

“Jerk.”

The undead were about halfway to us when he said, “Alright, through the door and out the loading docks; hopefully we can get some decent distance before we need to detonate.”

The door flew open with much less resistance than expected, but my balance somehow kept me upright while bolting down the revealed hallway and nearly choking on the surprisingly staler air. A managerial zombie lunged from an open office, and his rotting fingers brushed against my clothes as I ducked under his grasp.

“Now!” Dave shouted as we clumsily rounded a corner, following the arrow labelled “Loading Dock.”

With nearly everybody undead and most of the world a lost cause, there were few things to look forward to. Luckily for me, pressing the button labelled “showtime” on the detonator always brought a smile to my face and a messy end to several unlucky zombies.

The building shook and groaned, drywall falling from the walls and tiles plummeting from the ceiling in a glorious and familiar cascade. A shock wave knocked me to the dirty carpeting but failed to remove my silly grin. How many ended up re-dead that time?

“Get up and go already!” Dave's words were barely noticeable above the ringing in my ears. It was a wonder there was no hearing damage after three years of demolitions work. In all honesty, I was more curious how I'd made it through the first two years without reducing anything that moaned in my general direction to a fine paste.

“That was awesome! We need to go see how much damage it did.” With a quick shake, most of the dust and debris clinging to me fell to the ground, but the small cloud that had made it into my throat took a hearty coughing fit to clear. “Bleh, hate the taste of drywall.”

“Circle around if you’re that set on it, but we need to get out before the building comes down. It’s going to be close if you need to use a mini.” Dave sighed, moving past me and motioning for me to follow.

“But I hate using minis!” Dave was easy to pass and beat into the loading bay. Minis were like baby's first grenade.

“And I hate getting eaten. Open one of the doors up and let’s see what we need to do.”

The door only rose a couple feet off the ground before it caught on something. A mini, which was like a bangsnap compared to what devastated the storefront, was unceremoniously lit and tossed under. Hopefully, me scampering behind a forklift and covering my ears was enough cover.

The home-brewed explosive ripped the door off its track and rattled the weakened building further. When the dust cleared, it revealed…more rubble.

“This is why I hate minis,” I grumbled loudly, lighting and nonchalantly tossing another. “Never gets the job done in one.”

A second explosion cleared enough rubble for us to climb up and over the pile, emerging into the overcast outdoors once more. After a hard-earned breather, we set off towards the parking lot. More precisely, it was what had once been the parking lot: half the store had collapsed and a sizable crater was all that remained of the unfortunate lunchbox.

A dopey grin crossed my face. “Hey Dave, do you see the van anywhere?”

“No, but I do see a lot of zeds piling in.” Even gruff ol' Dave couldn't stifle a smirk as the mindless forms tumbled into the crater, rolling down the sides like ragdolls. The sides weren’t steep, but they had worse balance than me the morning after New Year’s.

“We’ll be fine, I still have the crowbar. I’m going to say I beat my record though.”

“Whatever, let’s just get out of here.”


——


The stronghold was not a pretty building nor was it a spacious building. What it was, though, was a sturdy building, which was surprising for a two-story office building. Surrounded by parked cars and “strategically placed” rubble, it hadn’t been breached since we'd moved in a couple years ago.

Only two zombies needed to be dealt with this time, so no horde nipped at my heels and made climbing over the entry barricade difficult. The lock on the jury-rigged, plate-metal gate was as difficult as always to operate, and the whole thing just barely slid open enough to let me squirm through. After some habitual locking on the other side, I was home.

“Guys, I'm back!” Nobody replied, so another shout went out, louder this time and with a hint of worry. Again, nothing but silence returned my call. My grip tightened as I crept forward.

”Expecting company?” Dave looked at me, both concerned and confused.

Where were they? Claire, Jordan, Alex; any of them should have been able to hear me. We did keep quiet to avoid drawing attention, but something wasn't right. There weren’t any signs of a struggle, so chances were slim a zed had gotten in. Banditos perhaps? Sadly, that was an actual problem I'd turned to giblets before. Well, sad for them, not me.

”No, seriously, who are you looking for?”

“You're the thinker between the two of us,” I hissed quietly, scanning every nook and cranny for the slightest hint of peril. “Something must have happened to the sentries.”

Dave massaged his eyes and sighed in exasperation. ”Not this again. Who do you think is supposed to be on watch?” Almost inaudibly, he added, ”I hate this shit.”

“I think it should be Jordan's shift, but at least Claire and Alex should have been able to hear me.” There were a few other survivors who were out and about on their own scavenging teams, but those three always stayed at base for one reason or another.

“They're gone and have been for a while. They haven't ever met each other either. In fact, you never knew all three of them alive at the same time.”

Clutching at my poorly cut, filthy, short hair, I sagged against the wall and tried to process what Dave had just said. A small headache was forming, despite the desperate massage I gave my temples. They couldn't be dead, I'd spoken to all three of this morning right before my trip to the electronics store.

Alex had been sharpening any edged tool he could get his calloused hands on, his past as a mechanic proving to be quite helpful in maintaining anything more complex than a fork. A giant of a man, he would have towered over any other person I'd ever met. He was, without a doubt, laconic, rarely speaking more than a single sentence or two. He had a tattered mechanic's jumpsuit he wore whenever he worked, with a faded patch bearing his name sitting over his heart.

The nauseating smell of cooked flesh had attacked my nose when I'd found him after the fire. Somehow, he had survived, but between the quality of medical care available and Alex looking like he'd brought a knife to a flamethrower fight, there was only one option. No, that couldn't be right. Claire and Jordan would have told me.

Claire's svelte form had been as dirty and battered as everybody else’s, but her beautiful, hazel eyes stood out in the crowd of haggard survivors. She'd been a grocer trying to get into the field of nature photography, and often whined about the loss of her favorite camera during the initial panic. No matter what bland, canned item we brought her, she was somehow able to transform it into a meal that could almost take your mind off what you had to wash off your hands before eating.

Like a pendulum in a grisly clock, she swung to and fro from the orange extension cord wrapped around her neck. Clean clothes were a rarity, but she’d somehow managed to save a set for a “special” occasion. Her manilla dress hung as limply as she did, and one of the matching heels rested where it had fallen from a dainty foot. Her dead eyes refused to let mine go. It had snowed that day. Monty had needed to help me bury her, except he'd slipped on the ice, and I'd found myself with two bodies to dispose of. But that didn't make sense. Monty was supposed to be out with one of the scavenging teams.

My palms pressed into my eyes, trying to rid me of the lies. The unbidden images hurt to see, and it felt like a UFC fighter was using my head as a boxing bag.

Jordan couldn't be dead. If I could survive off little more than luck and tenacity, the highly trained, ex-military survivalist would have thrived in this environment. He never showed the faintest shred of emotion, approaching each hurdle with the same cold stare. The rare few nights he actually succumbed to exhaustion and slept, Jordan would cry until he awoke.

What was left of his hand still clutched the engraved Bowie knife he never let out of his sight. I wouldn't have known the pile of offal was him if it weren't for the distinctive tattoo spotted on a different scrap of flesh. There's a reason they call them final stands.

The back of my head thumped against the wall in protest of the false memories. I couldn't have been alone. I'd watched out for each of them at least as much as they looked after me. There had to be someone I hadn’t failed.

“How long?” The delusion still hanging heavy on my mind, hampering my words. My mind travelled toward places marked with ‘trespassers will be shot’ signs; I needed to keep things together. “How long has it just been you and me?” Dave would help me sort the mess out. He’d never had a reason to lie to me.

Dave sat next to me, wringing his dark brown hat as he stared across the hall. “At least two years.” Noisily, he cleared his throat. “It's been a while since you last…forgot, but it looks like this will be one of the easy times.”

I couldn't help but flinch at that. Between my aching psyche and the failures staring me in the face, things weren’t looking too cheery. Just how bad had the other times been? How many other times were there?

Alone. That's how it was, and that's how it had been. Anyone who remained was supposed to escape perdition with me, so all we had to do was keep each other alive. It was my fault there'd only be one person leaving. I'd failed them.

My limbs felt worse than a canary in a coal mine, and I sighed, leaning against the wall as the day's trials caught up to me. The unavoidable scrapes and bruises tingled like they were trying to remind me of their existence. The energy to stand and go about the day was gone. No, that wasn't right. It was the will to keep going that was missing. It was my fault I was alone. My emotions and body urged me to just give up, slather myself in steak sauce, and wait outside until something noticed dinner was served.

Dave’s words were unclear, concern showing on his face as he tried again and again to snap me out of my funk. Everything seemed distant, like that dingy hall and the imaginary man trying to comfort me were miles away. Indecipherable whispers filled my ears with static as I clutched at the spiral everything slid down. It took a rotting hand, macabre streamers of skin dangling from its wounds like faulty paper mâché, reaching from my left to bring me back to reality.

Without hesitation, my trusty crowbar swung at my foe, but instead of a walking corpse eager to find its next meal, the wall took the brunt of my swing. With a grunt, the tool tore from the wall, scattering drywall across the floor, yet nothing took advantage of the delay. It was still just Dave and me.

“We need to get out of here.” My joints protested the movement, creaking loudly as I rose to my feet, wanting only to sit down and watch something. Ponies sounded like a pretty good idea right about then. Poking science in the eye could wait.

A pang of hunger pushed something else to the top of my list, only to be shunted to second place when scratching an innocent itch led to sticking a finger in an open wound and swearing loudly.

A stale granola bar snagged from the break room—just something to take the edge off the hunger while patching things up—kept me from gnawing my legs off while meandering over to where the pile of first aid supplies waited patiently.

There was nothing too serious to patch up this time, but being caught in so many explosions tended to leave a few wounds. The injury I'd inadvertently fingered wasn't as bad as it felt, but the scratches ended up requiring the last of the gauze and most of the remaining stock of adhesive sutures, two things which absolutely sucked to scavenge for. After that, all that remained was tweezering out a couple slivers of rock from my cheek, the future scars an eventual part of my ever-growing collection. Thankfully, Dave kept his snark to himself during my time playing medic.

With that out of the way, my stomach told me a granola bar was a terrible dinner, and I should be ashamed for not eating an actual meal first.

When it comes to food, the apocalypse sucks. Make a list of all your favorite foods. If any of them need to be refrigerated, cross them off unless you have a generator, a refrigerator, and the means to maintain both of them. In fact, you might as well cross them out anyway, because the universe is a bitch.

Most shelf foods have fairly short lifespans as well, even tasty little snack cakes. Unless you have the good fortune to not be in a city when shit hits the fan, forget about growing a garden to feed you: it may help a bit, but you’re still going to need to scavenge a lot. Even if you aren’t in the city, good luck maintaining the perimeter on a plot of land large enough to feed you and everyone who is with you.

Not that the bit about other people mattered anymore. Everyone else was… gone, but that just meant more “delicious and nutritious” Spam for me. And Spam was that night’s supper, washed down with room temperature bottled water.

“You going to get building?” Dave inquired, gesturing towards my workshop.

“Screw that, it’s pony time.” With a laugh, I skipped to the conference room.

"I still don't get why you almost got yourself killed because of My Little Pony." He sighed, hanging his head in shame.

"Because ponies." As if there would be any other reason.

The DVD player worked beautifully, and better yet, nothing had been damaged when I fell from setting off the C5. Only made it through four episodes before Dave’s angry glaring got under my skin. On my way out, a drained remote control hurtled through him. It couldn't actually hurt him, but it's the thought that counts.

No matter the unholy amount of potpourri, the room always smelled like oil and burnt electronics—an odor that added a homey feel. There were enough jagged scorch marks and gouges marring the walls to slay an interior designer at fifteen paces. In one wall, a melon-sized hole, the result of a hilariously failed experiment with office chair propulsion, provided a glimpse of the office floor and its sea of cubicles.

The hunches that had led me to the electronics store in the first place had been helping me build a machine which could have never been conceived in normal circumstances. Fluorescent lights lit the workshop well enough, yet the corner with the device had grown steadily darker as more of it came together, making part of the room feel like somebody had said, “We need to talk.” The fact that it only took up a single corner offset the ominous feeling.

There were so many parts it was impossible to remember everything included. What mattered, though, was that my hunches told me this was our—my ticket out of here; this pile of crap would hand me a one-way ticket to another universe. For some reason, Dave thought it was completely ludicrous.

“So, what exactly are you going to do with that quartz?” I could feel him looking over my shoulder as the resonator worked out of its package.

“No clue.” The component refused to give up its secrets. “Give me some time to figure it out.”

Circling the machine at a snail’s pace, I took in every detail as the task presented itself. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from several different boxes. Precariously leaning to one side, it was held together by little more than duct tape, hope, and cartons of chewing gum. No doubt my old shop teacher was thrashing in his grave. Come to think of it, if he were a zombie, was there some zed just spinning in circles somewhere?

“Here we go.” Smirking, I grabbed the soldering iron and attached the resonator to the microwave’s circuit board. That would have allowed… something. Who cared how it worked? Whether or not it worked was the real question.

A feeling of accomplishment struck, and it was no mystery what it meant. The machine was finally finished, and the realization struck me like a hammer to the kneecap. After all this time, after far too many excursions for random junk, this was it. There was plenty of excited shaking, and there may have also been some gleeful squealing. I regretted nothing.

“I take it that means you’re actually done? Like, done done?” Dave stepped to my side and tried to figure out what the addition had done.

Unable to talk, I nodded fervently and began the last bit of tweaking. It may have been complete, but these things always needed a little bit of extra love.

“Hey hey, not so fast. You’re travelling between universes, you know, if you don’t get disintegrated or meet some other unpleasant fate. Go pack some supplies, and I mean more than just food and whiskey.” While he may have always insisted the entire concept was impossible, he was still smiling as he gestured toward the door.

“I don’t have a problem. It’s for anesthetic. You can’t judge me.” Delicious, delicious anesthetic.

“Where are we headed anyways?”

Another wide grin cracked my lips. Dave knew we were going somewhere, but he'd never gotten a straight answer when he'd asked me where. “Equestria.”

Dashing throughout the building, I was able to pack food, explosives, water, party water, explosives, and most of a tool kit, and I was still back before he could respond with a quiet “What?”

“I know, right? Isn’t it great? We get to see ponies!” My laughter would have probably earned me a tight white jacket, but to hell with it. They wouldn’t stifle my excitement.

Dave looked at me like I’d just voted Libertarian. “I’ll ask again. What!?”

“Hey, no need to shout.” Wincing at his volume,  I set the pack down and resumed the last minute tweaking.

“But Equestria is fictional. You know, like the television show that it is.” He facepalmed so hard, he would have broken something if he were real. “You built this abomination to go to a place that doesn’t exist.”

“Well, it obviously exists if we’re going to it.” Dave frowned harder as I rolled my eyes and adjusted the knob on the samophlange to calibrate the relativity angle. “Beats going to Narnia at least. Or the Imperium. I want a better life, not more hopelessness.”

You could bring up any theory you wanted on alternate universes, and there'd always be someone with a counter-argument. Good thing there weren’t any actual people left to argue with. This would work; I could feel it alongside the unfamiliar taste of hope. Together, they kind of tasted like snozzberries.

“How can you be so sure? This is our lives you’re gambling with here. And you’re a terrible gambler!” That much was true at least: a bet on both heads and tails on a coin-flip would just end up in the coin landing on its side.

“I have a hunch. Shit, what are the coordinates?” One hand covered my eyes while the other pushed "random" buttons. The microwave was ready to go, its display brightly showing a sequence of numbers and symbols the appliance had no business knowing.

“Again with the hunches. I’ll give the credit for the C5 to 'em; that stuff works great, and there was no way you would have figured out how to make a deadly explosive with tapioca pudding powder otherwise. But this is far beyond that. You’re actually trying to leave reality. If I’d known this is what you had planned, I’d have tried harder to stop you. This delusion of yours is so completely off-the-wall crazy, bonkers, ludicrous. Whatever you want to call it, how can this possibly work?”

“Says the imaginary acquaintance following me through a zombie apocalypse.” I snorted. “I’ll take oblivion over this any day. Well, unless I have to buy horse armor.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Frustrated, he ineffectually punched the wall. “Fine, either way, we need to get out of here. You've held on this long, but we both know your luck can't last forever. Best case scenario: it works like you expect it to. Worst case scenario: it doesn’t work and lights you on fire.”

“That’s the spirit. Now shut up and let me work.” A smirk inched across my face as I cracked my knuckles and opened the toolbox. My instruments stared back at me, eager to play their mechanical melody. There wasn’t much left to do, but it needed to all be done with utmost precision:

Oil the hinges.

Recalculate exit distance and vertices.

Tighten all the things.

Debate going to find a hula girl doll. Nothing says 'please don't explode' like a plastic dancer.

Turn the relativity angle knob half a degree counterclockwise.

Push start on the stereo and the microwave simultaneously.

It was go time.

The music player filled the air with an appropriate tune while the microwave—the expedition to retrieve that son-of-a-toaster-oven was barely worth it—sparked over the tinfoil origami crane within. A few pregnant moments passed with crushing gravitas; the tension was so thick I could have almost reached out and slapped it for being so dramatic.

“It didn’t explode, which is a plus. I really didn’t expect that microwave to work after how much you gutted it.” Dave shrugged. “What a tremendous waste of time and effort.” His eye twitched as he glared at the cancelled escape.

“One moment.” After a swift kick to the easy-bake oven, the device surged with renewed vigor. “It was loose.” Even a trans-dimensional transporter followed the first rule of tinker troubleshooting: sometimes all it needs is a good smack. Rule two: jiggle the cord.

Arcs of electricity ran up and down every bit of the machine, the paper components evaporating in little puffs of flame. Various diodes blinked on and off, and one flashed plaid instead of the usual bright green. Fluorescent bulbs throughout the stronghold shattered, and an unearthly hum filled the air as the music distorted.

The Slinky matrix began to spin, my decision to grab the metal ones proving better and better. They each glowed a radiant blue or red as mysterious energy coursed through them, simultaneously disintegrating and reinforcing them. The plasma Slinkies increased in speed, the red and blue combining into a shining purple as they began to cut through the fabric of space and time. The whole room had become strangely dark, and the only light came from the machine.

Space-time doesn’t cut gracefully; with a tearing sound heard in my bones instead of my ears, the portal opened, consuming the quartet of previously metal springs instantly. The room may have gone dark when all the lights blew out, but it was still brighter than the abyss before me, its edges redefining what was previously black.

“What the shit? How the hell did that actually work? I-I think you just broke science.”

“I told you it’d work. Let’s go, we don’t have much time before it closes, and we don’t want to get stuck halfway through when it does.” That was a mess no creepy janitor deserved.

Even though it had been me to stress urgency, I took a moment to gaze at the open doorway, almost hoping one of the many survivors from the past would come stumbling through and tell me they only faked their death to escape a tax collector. This was it. This was the end of my life on that decaying rock.

How many other humans were still alive anyway? Two years without a single trace didn't leave my hopes very high. I'd tried to keep them from dying. I'd tried to find more. But only a figment of my imagination and I stood in the darkened room. Despite my best efforts, I was alone, and the guilt was like a knife. If my regrets fought any dirtier, they would have kicked me in the groin while shielding themselves with an orphan.

“I’m sorry, everyone.”

My pack hung heavy on my shoulders while heavy steps marched me toward my last hope. Suddenly, I tripped over what must have been missed clutter, falling into the portal with the grace of an upside-down blimp and flailing boldly where no man has flailed before.

> Through the Void
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Through the blackened abyss I floated, surrounded by an oppressive nothingness beyond anything my wildest nightmares could have conjured. I couldn't breathe, but it mattered not. Whatever this place was, it had its own rules. Every benign sensation I'd taken for granted—temperature, light, even the general feeling of having an area around me—was absent, like existence itself took a sick day to sit on the couch and play video games.

Describing that bleak plane as completely empty would have been a lie. While there was nothing in the environment for my body to interact with, I was far from alone. Alien thoughts crowded my mind, spilling over into the rest of my body like a fire hose filling a thimble. Hundreds of thousands of millions of words, sounds, and emotions—most of which made as much sense as a dog trying to talk while gargling mouthwash—formed ideas, opinions, facts, and every other manner of information.

Only the …

The few scraps in a recognizable language burned brightly in my mind like the business end of a white-hot brand. Screaming or thrashing would have been a slight reprieve, but my body couldn’t respond. Every cell in my body wailed in agony, vast quantities of data forced into things not meant to store knowledge. It threatened to overwhelm and wash me away like a sand castle before a tsunami.

... harmony … 

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was worried building that device had been a mistake. If there was no escape, how long would it take me to perish? Would this place even let me die? Which of the thoughts running through my head were my own?

... a god.

Something was tearing, but it was unknown whether it was me or something in the environment. I just needed to hold on and keep it together. My head bobbed in the waves of eternity, struggling to stay afloat for just a few more moments. It was like taking on Godzilla with a pocket knife, and I could feel myself fading as I lost the fight. And then I fell.

Whatever force had assaulted me now tenuously clung like a film, slowly weakening as the void grew distant behind me. You never realize how much you enjoy gravity until you don’t have it, then you remember how much it sucks when you fall thirty feet onto a steep hill.

Oh shit! Rocks! As far as first thoughts in a new universe go, it could have used some work.

The steep slope my body tumbled down was rockier than the Rockies and so tall that other hills asked if it played basketball. Each impact forced the invading thoughts further from my mind, like beating a rug with a switch to cleanse it of dust. It was only trading one pain for another, but the thorough bashing was like a trip to the sauna compared to wherever I'd just been.

Fortunately, the thorny underbrush had grown tired of amateur gymnastics and sacrificed a few brave bushes to slow me down. At long last the ground levelled out, and it wasn’t going to be long before I could curl up in a ball and swallow enough aspirin to revive the pharmaceutical industry. A very solid tree rudely interrupted what was supposed to be a gradual stop.

Quietly groaning in agony, I planned on lying there until I didn’t feel like someone who’d forgotten to bring a parachute while skydiving and insisted they’d just roll when they hit the ground. Slowly, the throbbing degraded into a moderate ache, allowing me to feel the weirdness behind the pain. And I'd been blinded! No, wait, eyes were still closed, my bad.

After remembering how eyelids worked, they were forced open, and the freakish brightness of everything punched me in the face. It was like a tactical nuke hit a Crayola factory. Yep, I certainly wasn’t in Kansas. What did Kansas look like anyway?

I puffed a lock of hair out of my face and peered around. A near-straight line of disturbed terrain marred the hillside, leading to a large hole in some brush and then to my position. After seeing the size of the hill, it was mentally reclassified as a midget mountain.

Venerable oak trees surrounded me like a crowd of confused passerby although I hadn’t made it very far past the tree line. At least I thought they were oak; willow, birch, and pine looked different enough, but everything else was just oak to me. At any rate, they could break a tumble like a champ. The dark, errant lock returned with a vengeance only to be met with another puff of air.

It took a few moments more than it should have to realize black was not the same color as the filthy brown that should have been bothering me. Not that being unhygienic was my preference, but that’s what happens when water is saved for drinking. 

Reaching for the hair, the not-as-surprising-as-it-should-have-been hoof and muzzle, which should have been noticed much sooner, came to my attention at the same time. My brain should have pointed out the muzzle sooner. It was like I'd needed to see my body before I could realize something felt off.

My first reaction was to chuckle and shake my head. Of course I was a pony—that's just how the universe gets its kicks, right? Oh look, another human, better flip a coin… yep, make him a pony. This wouldn’t stop me—I refused to let it get the best of me. I could handle this.

Maybe the whole transformation should have freaked me out a bit more, but my likely concussion probably had a concussion itself, and punching myself didn’t help. Godammit, I couldn’t even pick my nose.

It was more upsetting that my first action in this new body was face-checking an entire hillside. My old body was battered, bruised, and scarred; this was like driving a new car off the lot and over a cliff. Maybe before the day was out, I’d come down with fifty different flus and give my new immune system a stress test. Maybe it was some sort of quarantine.

“I-I’ve gotten used to worse.” My voice sounded a little more feminine than it should have. Had I seriously been sixty-three'd? Was there some tollbooth I’d missed where fifty cents would have let me keep my species and gender? Maybe the universe was upset losing my hands didn't freak me out more and decided to kick the discomfort up a notch.

An awkward act of contortion allowed me to get a good view of just how much had been changed. “Yeah, that is definitely a—big fucking spider!”

Creepy crawlies in general don't give me the heebie-jeebies, however, an arachnid with the same size and number of limbs as a tabby taped to a calico scuttling an arm—er, foreleg's length away from my brand-spanking-new rear end did not fall into this category.

I didn't know how to move on four legs or move as a quadruped in general, but that didn't stop me from clumsily launching myself into another tree. The squeal accompanying said jump wouldn't have sounded much different if my gender hadn’t been flipped like a spring mattress.

The BFS stared back at me, matching my glare murderous thought for murderous thought. Or was that confusion in its beady eyes? No, it was obviously trying to lure me into a false sense of security. It was definitely standing like it was going to pounce. That scuttling demon wouldn’t be the one to slay me.

“What now, Shelob?” The first dull thump of a descending hoof was accompanied by the faint crackle of the spider's exoskeleton. Stomping would have taken too much coordination, but flailing limbs after a return leap proved rather effective.

“Is that all? Just a species and gender swap and an oversized tarantula? You think I’d let something as pointless as this bother me?” Challenging the universe wasn't a good idea, but my visitor had left me unamused. “Not to mention you’re screwing up your clichés. You're supposed to send timberwolves or a manticore, not a spider.” Never would have guessed Equestria had giant spiders. Then again, what self-respecting fantasy world didn't?

“Nothing to say? I thought so. Give me a moment to rest and I'll get out of this forest. Throw what you want at me—I can take it—but I swear, if I detect any contrived shipping, I will gut you with a spork.” No refusal came. “And no musical numbers.”

The entire body swap was just another thing to deal with, and a fair, if unusual, trade for not having to deal with zombies anymore. I could handle it. Just had to keep moving forward and not think about it too much. As soon as the shaking stopped, I could get going.

While trying to straighten my thoughts, I looked over my new body. My barrel, covered in light steel-grey fur with a dusting of blue, rose and fell steadily as I caught my breath. Four trusty spider-stompers colored the same as my coat wiped leftover ichor on the grass. Behind me swished a tail so deep a blue it was almost black, like what I first thought my mane to be. My hair—or mane as I might have needed to start calling it—wasn't done up in any particular style unless you count the leaves and twigs ensnared within as some sort of natural-chic style.

“Joke's on you, universe. You made me adorable!” To be fair, most ponies needed to be hugged until they exploded in a shower of d'aww. I would have preferred an orangish coat though. I didn’t even like blue that much—ugh, I looked like a bruised baby seal.

No elegant wings adorned my back, and no spiraled horn jutted from my forehead, meaning my species was stuck on the earth-pony setting. Instead of disappointment over the lack of superpowers, there was only a drunk giddiness.

Here I was, as a pony in the pony motherland—at least, I really hoped it was Equestria. The discussion with Dave came to mind.Then again, the universe did see fit to change me in the first place, so it either had a twisted sense of humor or was more malicious than I’d thought.

The forest chirped and buzzed around me, welcome sounds of nature making my new ears twitch to and fro reflexively. There was no control over which way they turned, and it was driving me nuts. It was a sensation so alien that Mulder couldn’t have dealt with it.

Something was missing though. No, something other than my manhood. Everywhere I looked, there was an absence that left me confused—Dave wasn’t around to shoot down my excitement with his pesky logic and reason. I was looking forward to seeing how he would react. After futily pondering how one could misplace an imaginary acquaintance, I relaxed into the grass with a sigh and shrug. Note to self: shrugging feels weird as a pony.

My first guess was the exit portal had dropped me into the infamous Everfree Forest, because how many other forests do dimensional travelers find themselves in? However, nothing about the trees and bushes radiated malice, and no beastie had seen fit to chase me off a cliff, nor had I stumbled across a wayward Crusader or foraging zebra. Maybe that was putting a little too much faith into knowledge built entirely off a television show and enough fan-written material to rival the Ancient Library of Alexandria, but it beat being completely clueless.

No sense worrying about things though. Nope, plenty of worse things than having your body replaced. After all, becoming a pony was far better than staying on Earth or dying. If some cosmic force was trying to punish me, they were doing a terrible job of it aside from my recent tumble.

It just didn’t make sense; was there supposed to be a lesson to learn about the opposite sex? Was there some sort of special rock I’d hit during my fall? I couldn’t even be sure of when it happened either. It would have been so much easier to think if most of my body wasn’t demanding a change in leadership.

At that point, a wonderful idea of how to dull the last vestiges of pain popped up. It was an ancient method my people had used for hundreds of years: drink half a bottle of whiskey. All I had to do was find that pesky backpack and kill a few brain cells. I wasn’t wearing it. Wait. Nope, definitely wasn’t wearing it, so where could it have fallen? The bag wasn’t anywhere nearby, and it wasn’t anywhere on the hillside that would have twirled its dastardly mustache if it had one.

I sighed, guessing it ended up in the same place as my clothes. The nudity didn’t even phase me; I was well past the realization life had just become clothing optional. I never liked pants that much anyway, and I was far more concerned about the lack of booze. No supplies, no Dave, and no convenient mp3 player that had never been packed but should have ended up here anyway.

There was no point in worrying about Dave; after all, it wasn't like there was anything that could hurt him, but that crowbar was defenseless! It was no doubt floating in that—a pained and all-too-clear memory of the void set me shuddering. Wasn’t thinking about that anytime soon if I could help it. Why did I become—no, didn’t want to think about that either.

My aching limbs cried out in protest as I tried to get comfortable, nipping that idea in the bud. I needed a damage report. Scanning. System diagnostic complete. Results: Shit hurts, take some pills! Oh good, I’d been worried it was serious. It was time to limp aimlessly in hopes of finding a place to recuperate. Probably Ponyville, as was customary in these situations. If my shivering stopped, it’d be much easier to teach myself how to walk so I could get out of the woods.

Turned out standing up while sober did not involve flopping onto your side while swearing. It also does not involve faceplanting, which hurts far more when you have a muzzle.

“Come on, legs, why don’t you work?” Four failed attempts would make anyone cranky.

A little bit of pain wouldn’t deter me; there was no shortage of perseverance. Once my balance got its act together, I charged headlong into the trees with a cry of “Onwards!” It wasn't a matter of figuring out a pattern and sticking to it; I just flailed randomly until the falling and swaying stopped

Forests had been boring back on Earth. Here, the forests were still boring, but at least they were colorful. It was strange hearing the sounds of life again. Even the spiders and flies had been absent back home, but I knew they were here, waiting to drop into my mane. My hearing was noticeably better; it was like swiveling spy equipment atop my head twitched to every snapping twig or singing bird. Everything had a smell so fresh that any laundry detergent would be jealous.

Hot damn did I feel good. I couldn’t help but smile at everything around me, and I’m not certain, but I think I caught myself waving at a confused squirrel.

I hopped over a small creek, exhilarated at the lack of stumbling and how great I had been feeling ever since the pain faded to even more ignorable levels. I eagerly quickened my pace to a brisk trot. A beat of hooves crushing dry leaves accompanied me, drawing forth some humming. I lost myself in it as the forest stretched on.

“Hello, Tom.” I nodded to a boulder with a stony expression.

Resistance to the forest's beat was futile. The urge to sing was becoming impossible to ignore. It was like when you’re covered in mosquito bites and can’t find the calamine, but with music instead of scratching yourself bloody. The situation made it hard to think of lyrics to the music attacking my ears, forcing itself out of my mouth:

I’m siiiinging in a forest
Everything is so grand
Yes, I’m siiiinging in a forest
Something something canned

I gallop along, singing this song
Marvelling in the wonder
Passing a road, not a care in the world
Not realizing my blunder

I’m siiiinging in a forest
Every—

“I said no musical numbers!” Succumbing to the music like that felt so… wrong. It sounded cheery, and it felt like I’d actually been in a mood appropriate for singing, but getting swept up in the music and having it just drop you when it was done made me cringe.

Walking backwards in a daring feat of coordination, I found myself on a wide dirt road that stretched in both directions to a leafy singularity. Here and there it curved slightly to dodge the odd tree. Many hoofprints and wheel ruts marred the surface, yet they weren’t fresh. I was earnestly surprised to find myself alone on an apparently busy road.

In one direction, the sky was clear save a lone cloud. It was so fluffy! If my brain would focus, we needed to figure out where we were going… but yes, it was the fluffiest cloud ever. A large mountain claimed the other horizon, and a grand castle sparkled from its side.

“Canterlot!” There was a gleeful squeal as I merrily trotted in place. “I can't believe I actually made it to Equestria.”

I was more than ready to see other ponies and hopefully not get arrested for hugging a few. I wondered if “They were too adorable” was a viable defense. Excitement filled me as I imagined eating at Donut Joe’s and seeing the princesses. Princessi? No, definitely the first one. I’d visit the library and spend hours in there brushing up on things, and maybe they wouldn’t even notice me crash there. That brought up some troubling thoughts.

What would I do? How easy would it be to get a job in a city like Canterlot? Not to mention all the snobby nobility that I’d never met, but apparently knew how uptight they were anyway. They’d throw me in a padded room for sure. Throw in the tendency of ponies to perform musicals at the drop of a hat and the changeling invasion from the end of season two, and you had many good reasons to vacation elsewhere.

Maybe it was better to slowly ease back into contact with society. I gruffly nodded and about-faced. Just in time too; all that reasoning was making me uncomfortable.

“On second thought, let’s not go to Canterlot. It is a silly place.”


> A Ridiculous Road
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dense forest turned to light forest, which then turned into hilly plains dotted with an artist’s palette of wildflowers. I had covered a great amount of distance easier than I would have with two legs used to sprints instead of marathons, yet the day was starting to take its toll. A large tree was the perfect spot to lay down and stretch; after all, I didn’t want to cramp up from galloping.

“Why are you a pony?” a familiar, rough voice asked, his tone weary.

After a startled yelp on my part, I realized who’d snuck up on me. “No clue, any ideas? Good to see you again though, Dave.”

“And female? This is a bit too much for me to handle.” He threw himself onto the grass and sighed. “What did you get us into this time? And why are you being so pleasant? Honestly, it’s kind of creeping me out.”

“Not what, where. I’m pretty sure we actually made it to Equestria! Isn’t that exciting?” My grin wasn’t as infectious as I’d hoped, and I figured it had something to do with the bags under his eyes. “You’re not acting entirely like yourself either, though. Are you alright?”

“I’m just stunned at how calm you are.”

“Bull.” I snorted before eating a flower. “Om nom nom.”

It tasted like, well, a flower. The stem had a bit of a snap to it—halfway between celery and crisp lettuce—and the yellow petals were delicate, soft things I wouldn't have noticed if they didn't give the whole thing a slightly sweet, bitter flavor. There was no strange, mysterious flavor only us leaf-munchers were privy to, just what a flower should have tasted like. My tastebuds bickered between each other like school-children. Part of me thought it should have been disgusting and questioned why I'd put such a thing in my stomach, but another whispered, “Hey, that was kinda good.” Either the flowers sucked or salad dressing was huge.

“This is what I’m talking about. For someone who lost their species and gender, you’re disturbingly calm. Hell, you just ate a flower.” Dave rested his head on his hands, yawning loudly. “This is messed up.”

“He started it. I am a herbivore now, you know. Great, I just realized that means no more bacon. Oh! Maybe there’s a veggie version. Haycon or something.” My mind wandered back to memories of sizzling bacon, only the moment I remembered the heavenly aroma or taste, I had to fight to keep my stomach down. The memory still insisted it tasted phenomenal, but it was like something had connected it to a recollection of the sickest I’d ever been. That’s a low blow, universe. This wasn’t over. “Eh, I’ll just skip the bacon.”

“Maybe it was magic? Would have to be something pretty powerful to make someone hate bacon, and that excuse would probably work here.”

“Could be, but I get the feeling it isn’t. Know what I mean?”

“I’m the only one who can. But no, not really.” His chuckles abruptly turned to harsh coughs.

“You’re roughed up pretty bad. How did you even manage that?” Figuring it was time to get back on the road, I pulled my hooves under me. “Think you can walk? I’ll keep it slow for you.”

He nodded and followed alongside me. My legs ached to run again, but I was genuinely worried about Dave; it was a feeling more bizarre than being a pony. He limped slightly, and I noticed him rub the back of his neck a couple times, wincing each time he did so.

Curious about the time, I looked up at the sun. Surprisingly, I could actually look at this sun without frying my retinas. Maybe it was the same reason as why it needed to be raised by Celestia in the first place. Never really trusted our sun anyway; a giant ball of gas in space that someone flicked a match at just didn’t sit well with me. And don’t even get me started on black holes.

“You’re taking a lot of this for granted. How do you even know that was Camelot? There could be any number of pony universes out there, if that’s even why you’re a pony now. And let’s say we are in Equestria; how much of it is going to be what you know? I doubt the show got every last detail correct.” He tripped over a particularly deep hoofprint but managed to keep upright.

“I don’t, but Canterlot sounds better than ‘Giant, Sparkly City on the Side of a Mountain.’ Stop avoiding my question though: why do you look like you’ve been wrestling bears?” I stopped and arched an eyebrow at him.

He struggled not to laugh. “That is hilarious. You have no idea how adorable it is when a pony makes a facial expression.”

“Dave...”

An exasperated sigh escaped his lips as he stopped and leaned on me for support, throwing an arm across my withers. Just as I was about to ask again, he spoke weakly. “The Void was … terrible. I don’t know how you did so well, but it was far less kind to me. Maybe it’s because of all that information zipping around in there mixed with being just a figment, but I don't know; I don’t want to know. It hurts just to think about it.” 

Then came the most shocking thing I’d ever seen: Dave began to cry. “We weren’t supposed to see that place. Nothing was.”

Digesting what I had just heard kept me silent. Dave had remained stone-faced through all sorts of horrors back on Earth. He hadn’t shed a tear at the planned suicides we’d found the aftermath of several times. His mouth had been a straight line as I executed, as an act of mercy for a bitten friend, the last human I would ever see. Yet, here he was, sobbing like someone who’d noticed he was out of toilet paper after he’d finished his business.

“Climb on.” I kept my voice gentle. “You could use the rest, and I don’t know how much further this road goes on.” 

The path was as long as a freeway and nearly as straight. I could only imagine how the planning went:

“Right, we need to build a road to Canterlot. We can see it over there, so let’s get to work everypony.”

“But, sir! Shouldn’t we map the area and design a route?”

“No, curvy roads are stupid, so we’re cutting through everything.”

“But—”

“Two hours dungeon! Who else wants to think this through?”

And then they would have a song number and everyone would learn a valuable lesson about questioning their crazy boss.

“So, are you going to just stand here?” Dave asked, his legs kicking in the edge of my view. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like camping out here. It’s too open.”

“Didn’t even notice you climb on. You don’t weigh anything, after all.” My hooves moved at a pace just shy of a gallop. “This alright?”

“I’ll manage. Giddyup, girl.”

“Don’t push it.”

”I don’t know how you deal with it. Shouldn’t you be freaking out over everything that’s changed?”

“We’ve been through worse. What, am I supposed to break down into a sobbing mess because the universe stole my penis and turned me into a herd animal?”

”I wouldn’t judge you for it, and I’m certainly glad I didn’t get the same treatment.”

“Not dead, will manage. Wait, wouldn’t it be borderline sexist to care about a gender flip?”

”Of course not. That’s ridiculous. Being concerned about a drastic change to your identity has nothing to do with prejudice.”

“Uh huh, sure. If it makes you feel better, I’m sure you’d be a very pretty pony.” If Dave could have seen the accompanying smirk, I’m certain he would have done more than grumble incoherently and fall quiet.

Our amicable silence didn't last long before he asked, “So, you're a female pony now. Did you have any idea this would happen when you were putting that machine together?”

“Nope. The device wasn't the cause though, I know that much. I have no idea how much longer it would have taken to gather everything if I had to factor that in as well.”

”I see.” Dave's fingers scratched against his eternal stubble as he mulled over the possibilities. “How different does everything feel?”

My hooves tangled momentarily as I considered his question, but remaining upright was a matter of reflex by now. His question made me realize how alien my own body felt. The feeling of my missing fingers was almost present from the memory of them alone, but no phantom sensation actually plagued me. It was as if what I remembered of them was nothing but a fanciful dream.

Locomotion was easy once you found the rhythm, and it felt like I was moving on four legs instead of two legs and arms. That's not to say my arms had gone the way of my absent digits; it was more like they'd been repurposed. The dirt and small rocks crunched beneath my hooves, but other than the barest hint of tactile information, it was muted like they’d been covered by a pair of thin mittens. If I really wanted to feel the texture of something, I’d probably have to use my muzzle.

The most off-putting parts of the transformation would either have to be the weight hanging off the end of my spine or the constantly twitching and highly emotive ears. Those things were going to drive me insane if they kept swivelling towards every chirp and rustle. The bronze medal went to the new parts rubbing against each other with every movement.

Having a fur coat should have been more obtrusive, but aside from a general feeling of fuzziness and feeling slightly warmer, it wasn’t anything too bizarre. In a way, it was like the hair atop my head as a human: you just got used to it and didn’t pay any mind. Static might end up being a problem though, especially if wool was a popular textile.

Dave listened as I gave him the best explanation I could: a shrug and an “I dunno. Different, I guess.” Maybe not the best way to describe it, but it's what he was getting.

He grumbled to himself over my lackluster answer, massaging his eyes with a shaky hand. “Fine. Those voices tell you what to do next? Still don't trust them, but look around. They produce results.”

A correction against the hunches being called voices almost snapped at him, but was cut off with a snort. My words died at the realization of how relatively quiet things had been inside my head.

At first, the trip and the body switch were the only factors contributing to the myriad of awkward sensations. The more the quiet plagued me, the more obvious it became something was missing. That enigmatic guardian I'd grown used to trusting was nowhere to be found. There would be no more last-second impulses to pull me out of the fire.

“I—I can't feel anything. I think they're gone.” Admitting it left a feeling of dread inside my mouth.

“Just like that? Enjoy the ponies, but I'm out of here? That's… suspicious, to say the least.” All I could do was nod and continue to poke at the vacant part of my mind. It was like running a tongue over the spot a stubborn piece of food used to claim. “Why here though? And don't you dare say 'because ponies.' Why would those hunches direct you here of all places, instead of the realm of endless nachos or something?”

“Maybe they're lactose-intolerant?”

”And aren't you forgetting something about back home?”

I actually needed to stop walking to ponder what he meant by that. A hornet's nest of thoughts buzzed around my skull, each piece of information struggling to find a parking spot only to have it snatched away by a raging soccer mom in a crowded minivan. Suddenly, it dawned on me. “I left the stove on!”

The sound of a hand meeting a face came from my rider. ”I meant the other people you planned on bringing. If any had made it, I mean. Do you really think most of them would be okay with showing up here even if they didn't get smacked with the change-stick as much as you?”

“They could have built their own device to tear open the fabric of space and time.” My machine, my choice of destination, and so help me, if anyone touches the radio... “Besides, Equestria is the only place I knew how to reach. Somehow. Either way, I like it here, even if you're the only one to share it with me.” A desolate chill scuttled across my nape. “Let’s not talk about the others. We escaped, and that's what we’re dealing with.”

”I suppose you have. It just feels like there's more to it. Can’t quite shake the feeling we were played for fools.” Dave begrudgingly relented and sighed. ”I need to rest for a moment, but just keep going.”

Pondering everything Dave had said earlier kept me occupied as I plodded on. I was going to be pissed if I had to learn new names for everything. A new language? Forget it.

“Hey, Dave, you doing alright ba—” I glanced back to find myself short a passenger. “Oh. Bye then, I guess.”

A rumbling stomach told me it was food o’clock, which meant more roughage. Thoughts of an actual meal prevented it from being anywhere close to filling.

A soft “plip” struck the ground beside me. After a totally-and-completely-justified shout of panic, I frowned at the little speck of damp earth and its brethren that soon followed. Towering storm clouds were rolling in from my left, bringing a veritable curtain of water with them. It was going to get dark early.

The rain came in hard and fast, soaking my coat and mane within moments. Soggy clothing may be as uncomfortable as hearing your parents talk dirty, but it's still nothing compared to the misery a water-laden coat of fur brings to the table. My mane had been so thoroughly drenched it remained plastered to me at all times like a bad toupée.

A muddying road and endless onslaught of droplets were all I could see in my narrowing field of vision. If I'd risked leaving the road to find shelter in the countryside, there was a good chance my path would vanish in moments.

Banshees howled into my sensitive ears, bringing dismal portents of suffering, death, and the score of the next Cubs game. Twitchy twitc—knock it off. A small part of me revelled in the company the storm brought, although I would have baked a casserole if they’d bothered to call ahead of time.

“This isn’t fair! I didn’t even say it couldn’t possibly get any wor—horseapples.” 

On cue, the torrent doubled.

“Well played, Equestria, well played,” I conceded.

The downpour was so strong each individual drop stung as it struck from the heavens. I tripped more than a few times, becoming more earth than pony with each fresh coat of mud. Even when lightning lit up the sky, I could barely see more than a couple steps to either side. Judging by the lack of lightning rods, I wasn't running near fast enough.

Shadowy figures appeared with each flash, but they'd always vanished by the time the next arc snaked across the crackling sky. Energy saturated the clouds, looking very much like tin foil in a microwave. The raw power overhead worried me, but not as much as the figures I kept catching glances of. I couldn't even tell if they were humanoid, equine, or something else entirely. One thing was certain, though: they were there, watching and waiting.

The flickering flames of a burning tree danced on the horizon, and all I could think of was the fleeting warmth the fire would bring when I passed it. Another flash of lightning revealed the far better truth: a small building standing stubbornly against a storm George Clooney wouldn't have risked. I felt like singing, but in a holy-shit-it’s-shelter way, not an inappropriately-timed-musical way; not to mention the lack of catchy music.

Lightning struck again. Yet, this time, it was uncomfortably close and sent me stumbling out of surprise at the figures revealed within touching distance. Mud and hooves tumbled through the air as I fell off the road. I hadn't even noticed nearing the edge.

If you've ever gone tromping through a marsh, you know full well boots are a likely casualty if you haven't prepared. Hooves may not get as cemented into muck as footwear, but they're also unremovable, unless there's an entry in the instruction manual I never received. Cold mud claimed all four of my legs, and a layer of rank water on top meant only my head was still getting pelted by malicious raindrops.

“Help!” I screamed after spitting out a mouthful of swamp water. I doubted anypony would hear me over the storm, but the house was so close. I called out again. And again.

Apparently, the storm thought I was asking it for help and replied, "I got this, bro, I'll just wash that mud away," and the rain increased further. Oh good, I’d always been a fan of pneumonia. I wasn't sure whether it would be the filthy water or beings in my peripheral claiming their prize, but this pony wouldn't make it easy.

I tried again to free myself, grunting and straining against the almighty suction, but my efforts were in vain. Something slapped me in the muzzle painfully, and my struggles to escape increased as whatever I’d seen made its move.

It took a muffled shout to stop my frenzied thrashing. “Grab it!” It sounded like a whisper, but had an intensity to it that could only belong to someone using all the volume they could muster.

I bit down on the rope as hard as possible while squinting to make out the shape of my rescuer. The rope went taut. Honestly, they weren’t exaggerating about how sturdy a pony jaw was. Squelching noises came from beneath me as we made the smallest amount of progress. A flash revealed a pony not five feet away from me, straining against the rope with all their strength. 

Another flash revealed a pegasus backing into the air, a thick rope leading from their mouth to mine. Suddenly, with the sound of a cork flying from a bottle, I popped free of the mire and clambered up the small embankment. Rest would have to wait just a little bit longer.

Hesitation was left in the mud as I scrambled after the figure, who retreated toward a rectangle of light, frantically motioning for me to follow. Oh, no thanks, I thought I’d just stay out there in the rain and mud—it was quite nice once you got used to it.

With a sodden thump, I collapsed onto the wooden floor, gasping for air as the door slammed shut behind me. Hoofsteps hurried away from me and up some stairs. My breath still hadn’t returned by the time I felt a pile of cloth drop onto me.

“Here,” the stallion said. “Let’s get some of that mud off you before you get in the bath.”

“Th-thanks,” I chattered, realizing only then how frozen I felt.

“Save it for later. You look soaked to the bone and then some, and you’re going to get sick if we don’t get you warmed up and cleaned off.” He hastily wiped at my rear legs, and I heard the soft sound of mud hitting the floor.

Grabbing the towel between my hooves, I vigorously cleaned my head. The thick towels muted the feeling of hooves against my skull, though I did clock my muzzle a couple times before getting used to working around it. The pegasus trotted around me and wiped off my back with a few quick strokes.

“Rest is all you, ma’am. I’m going to go get that bath started for you. Just leave the towels on the floor, and I’ll get them later.” Back up the stairs he went.

“Ma’am?” I muttered confusedly. “Oh, right. That’s still going to take some getting used to.”

He had left my hindquarters and belly untouched, and I guessed those were slightly more intimate places. My stomach was somewhat easy to reach with my hooves, but I needed to grip a towel in my teeth to clean off my flank. Turns out ponies are crazy flexible.

“There.” The muddy towel fell to the ground as I stood, rolling my neck as I did so, and surveyed the room.

The room was larger than I would have expected a home’s foyer to be, but a counter to my right suggested it was a lobby of sorts. To my left sat a dining area whose boundaries were marked only by carpeting, and four large tables surrounded by cushions rested within. An archway with saloon doors sat in the back, behind the stairs, and an “Employees Only” sign hung next to it.
What occupied my attention the most was the lighting: small wrought-iron lanterns. However, they didn’t have candles in them, nor did they have the lightbulbs I was used to. A small orb took up most of the space within the glass, shedding a bright, but not blinding, light over the area. There was something about them that enthralled me. No matter what, I had to figure out how those things worked.

The stallion still hadn’t returned, but the sound of him working upstairs hadn’t stopped. His timely save left me feeling grateful, and I wondered if he needed any help around the inn. It didn’t look like anypony else was staying there. Maybe there was a ritzier hotel all the other ponies—holy shit, I’d just been rescued by a pegasus. I found a pony! My train of thought didn’t just derail—it turned sideways, flipped upside-down, and crammed itself into a narrow tunnel.

That pretty much clinched it: I had to be in Equestria. When it became obvious the portal hadn’t dumped me anywhere close to civilization, my hopes of meeting a pony so soon went right out the window.

It didn’t take long to remember he wasn’t just a pony; he was also the first sapient I’d seen in years. Was I more excited for meeting a pony, being rescued, or having someone to talk to? What was I even supposed to do in this situation?

My hooves obnoxiously clacked against the wooden floorboards as my nervous dance continued. I didn’t remember doing that before, but hopefully I was just noticing it because of the noise. Not wanting to look like a bathroom was necessary, I forced myself to stop fidgeting, but my new-fangled legs refused to stop twitching. When was the pegasus going to get back? He was going to be on the receiving end of one hell of a hug.

“You should be good to go,” the tan pegasus said as he returned. “Bath’s the first door on the left, can’t miss it. I’m going to go put the kettle on to boil and start up some soup, if that’s alright.”

He stepped back warily when he noticed me moving toward him instead of the freshly prepared bath. “Erm, Miss? What are you doing? You’re tracking mud everywhere.”

His common sense had unwittingly postponed my ambush. “My bad.”

The pegasus trotted into the back while the stairs failed to stop me from reaching the bathroom. My expectations were of a bathroom similar to one on Earth, except, you know, with a pony in mind. However, this room was only for bathing, and as such lacked a sink or toilet. It was going to be fun to learn.

There were two large, empty tubs that could comfortably fit five ponies at least, and they occupied most of the room’s left half. The right was delegated to five, much smaller stalls, one of which had wisps of steam lazily drifting from under the curtains serving as its door.

I tentatively tested the sudsy water with a hoof, and then the rest of the leg when said hoof proved to be a terrible thermometer. Confident I wouldn’t be flash-cooked, I eagerly climbed down the steps and enjoyed my first warm bath in years, praising whatever pony had invented plumbing in this world.

Holding the supplied brushes in my mouth—and ignoring the other bite marks on the handle—to scrub all the grime off, I smiled as my fur returned to a less brown color. Not that there’s anything wrong with brown; it just isn’t my color. I swear to Celestia I’m not a colorist.

Much to my surprise, Equestria had a plastics industry, if the bottles of Connemaran Font shampoo—that had to be a horse pun, I just knew it—were anything to go by. Thankfully, everything had pump heads, so it was only a little awkward to get it on the brush. Equestrian shampoo still burns like hellfire the second it gets in your eyes, though.

It took a while to get to the point where I could consider myself clean and another while to dry myself off, but it would have taken much longer if it’d been a bubble bath. Pony hair is decent enough at repelling mud, but gets a zero out of five when it comes to water. I’d met sponges less absorbent than me. One half-assed brushing of mostly-dried mane later, I had a suitable bedhead my mother would have disapproved of had she not been zombie chow.

The smell of a hearty meal led me down the stairs before I had a chance to overanalyze it and end up breaking my neck.

“This smells great and looks better,” I said, taking a seat in front of the bowl and end of bread. It was somewhat graceful until my rump settled into the cushion, and I couldn’t help but call out, “By Celestia’s beard! This is one soft cushion.” I wasn't kidding either. It was like sitting on a bunny made of clouds.

He looked at me until the kettle whistled somewhere in back, and he stood up eagerly. “I need to get that.”

The soup didn’t smell like he’d done anything to it, but it was hard to focus on anything over the savory aroma caressing my nose. Surely he wouldn’t mind if I started without him; my stomach felt like it was about to pull itself out of my throat if it didn’t get some of that stew.

The delicious flavor almost sent me into a coma. The stallion was a fantastic cook. It was difficult to hold the bread between my forehooves without squashing it, but I needed to learn how to feed myself eventually. That thought made me pause: walking and eating were just the first two things I’d need to relearn. There was an entire societal structure waiting for me to bumble through it.

A steaming cup of tea was placed in front of me, and I quickly swallowed what was in my mouth so I could say, “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Now that everything’s out of the way, I’ll gladly accept it.” He chuckled a bit at his own joke. “I’m Soft Down, it’s been… interesting to meet you.”

My eyes widened and my pupils shrunk to pinpricks. I barely managed to stuff another chunk of bread into my muzzle to buy some time. I’d known I was forgetting something! Crap, think of a good earth pony name! Flower Pants? No. Garden Party? No. Clever Pun? Tempting, but no. How about Ano—don’t even finish that thought.

Time ticked on, and just as it was about to be awkward… I still had nothing to say and the situation valiantly stepped into awkward silence.

Soft raised an eyebrow. “Is everything alright? Is something wrong with the bread?”

I shook my head, the gears still turning within. That was it! I swallowed and spoke what I knew would be my name for the rest of my stay:

“Gears.”

No wait, shit, that felt too short. I needed a first name. Go go gadget random word.

“Sterling Gears.” Eh, good enough.


> Scaring Soft
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and necessity wanted me to invent a name fit for a pony. From then on, I was Sterling Gears, for better or worse, although I wished there’d been more time to come up with a name. All things considered, it was lucky pony names are mostly gender neutral.

With the awkward silence out of the way and introductions completed, my assault on dinner continued. Warm meals were a sorely missed luxury. Was it just desperation, or was Soft Down, the pegasus who owned the tiny hotel, actually a great cook? The flavor was rich, the vegetables were cooked properly, and it went great with the bread and tea. Campbell’s had nothing on this guy.

“Don’t get many folk wandering down that road since they finished the new one between Ponyville and Canterlot,” Soft said, serving himself a small bowl of soup. “Just felt like taking the scenic route?”

I winced, remembering the incredibly arduous day I’d had. You couldn’t see the bruises very well through my grey-blue coat, but they were there. “Something like that.”

“Long story?”

“Big time.” I chuckled.

He nodded sagely. “Get plenty of those around here. I won’t pry if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s your story to tell.”

“I mean for everything. Can’t tell you how long it has been since I ate a meal like this. Between getting stuck in the mud and those creepy things out there, I wasn't sure I was going to make it.”

“Creepy things? I didn't see anything. What were they like?”

How could he not have seen them? He spotted me in that tempest when my head was all he could have seen, and I could hardly make him out. Soft had to have ran right past them. “They were shadowy… thingies.”

“Can't say there was anypony but the two of us. Even the animals know better than to go outside in this mess. Is it possible that with everything going on you only thought you saw something?”

If Dave had been around, I’d know for certain. “I guess. Anyway, I'm glad you found me when you did.”

“Couldn’t exactly leave you out in that Everfree storm now, could I? Shoot, I bet you lost your saddlebags out there too, but hopefully it clears up by morning, so we can go searching. Point is, you’re down on your luck, and what kind of pony would I be if I didn’t lend a hoof? More tea?”

“Nah, this will be my last cup. You mentioned it was an Everfree storm. Are we by the forest? ” Tea had never been my drink of choice, but this stuff wasn’t half bad. I was already almost done with my second cup.

“No, that’s way over on the other side of Ponyville. You know how the Everfree Forest follows its own rules?” At my nod, he continued, “That means the weather too. Sometimes the storms spill over, and if they’re too big, the weather teams can’t break them up. They need to divert them.”

“And I just had the good fortune to get caught in it?” This universe couldn’t have been trying that hard to get rid of me. Right? If that were the case, it could have at least sent a memo.

“I guess so.” He tried to say more but was interrupted by a tremendous yawn. “Sorry about that. I’m an early riser, and it’s been a long day.”

“You sure? I’m not that tired, so you don’t need to head to bed just so I have an excuse. See? I have plenty of energy.”

“That’s not what I was getting at. You can stay up if you want, but with how you were walking earlier, I think you could use the rest. Just don’t make a mess and please stay out of the back.” Soft wandered behind the counter and used his mouth to pluck a key off the peg board. “Room number one is yours if you want it, free of charge of course.”

If that pegasus left my sight, he might not make it to morning. “Please?”

“I’m sorry. I have a business to run.” With a curt nod, he wandered into the back. His pillow cutie mark was the last I saw of him before he completely vanished. If Softie was going to be like that, I’d just have to stay up all night and make sure nothing happened.

When the saloon doors finally stopped their distracting swinging, I grabbed the key, or at least tried to: they ended up getting brushed off the counter. 

The key was mocking me. “Of course. Couldn’t opt for the premium package and get magnet hooves.”

“I swear, if you weren’t a loaner, I’d find a way to send you to the moon.” The taste of metal had always bothered me, but with the key held as far forward as possible, it wasn’t too irksome. “To the ‘ucking ‘oon.” The same technique wouldn’t work on anything too heavy or rough with how sensitive pony lips were.

“Alright, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you, but let’s put aside our differences until later.” Well, that’s what I tried to say, but talking with items in your mouth is a hard skill to master, so I ended up sounding like I was trying to answer a dentist’s question while they stabbed my gums under the guise of cleaning them.

A cozy room awaited me. No, not a room full of cozies—that would just be silly. It didn’t look much different than a rustic hotel room. There was a dresser, a table with a low stool, and a desk—all hoof-made from what could very well have been the same tree, but I doubted Soft Down did this as well.

The only thing noticeably different from the furniture I was used to was the bed: it rested on the ground itself, and was more like a large cushion than a mattress. It would definitely be much easier than if I’d had to jump on it. I’m not clumsy, my body just likes to prank itself.

If somepony would have warned me the toilet was a bidet, I could have avoided crashing into the opposite wall trying to get away from the wet surprise. It was awkward enough dealing with the different shape.

Curious of how my face looked to others, I looked up from washing my hooves—little more than getting them sudsy and fumbling them about each other—and at my reflection. It was strange knowing that the foreign face in the mirror belonged to me. The pony in the mirror made faces at me during my examination. I’d already known my coat and mane color, so other than the teal eyes, nothing stood out.

“I have no idea how a pony’s supposed to look.” Still, it was strange to look at that face and know it was mine.

My reflection’s expression twisted into a sneer. “It’s your fault, you know. You had the only way out and—hey! Get back here!”

“Nope. When the mirror starts talking, it’s time to go to bed.”

“You can’t run away from all—” The taunting vanished behind a closed door.

Now all I needed was a way to keep occupied for the entire night. Well, the bed looked plush, and there’s no reason I couldn’t be comfortable while keeping watch. Should be easy enough if the light remained unshuttered.


——


My eyes snapped open, only to be promptly shut with a hiss as I rolled over and snuggled deeper into the blankets. The blanket felt fuzzier than what I remembered. The cot wasn’t that comfy either. Scrambling to my feet, I promptly fell over and remembered my feet were playing hooky and standing on only two legs wouldn’t cut it anymore. Right, pony. A second reminder of having hooves came when one of them clocked me when I tried to rub out shards of eye crust.

The storm was gone, if the sunlight peeking in between the curtains was any indicator. Normally I wasn’t a morning person, er, pony, but my body felt revitalized and ready to bumble its way through the day without fifteen cups of coffee. I hadn’t slept that well in a while. Didn’t really remember going to bed though… Oh, shit! Soft!

Hooves flailing every which way, I scrambled into the hall and bolted toward the stairs. At the last moment, it occurred to me the stairs wouldn’t appreciate my pace, and my hooves skidded to a stop.

Or they would have if I’d tried stopping a couple meters further back.

“Sweet Celestia!” Soft’s gasp was incredibly faint compared to the expletives spewing from my mouth. Hooves beat a rapid pace toward where I’d landed in a crumpled heap. “Can you hear me, miss? Are you alright?” Well, it sounded like Softie was okay, but why did he call me—oh right.

“Just… just give me a moment.”

“Do you need medical help? It’s not much, but I do have a first aid kit nearby.”

“I’ve had worse.” Standing wasn’t too difficult, but everything that was already bruised from yesterday hadn’t appreciated the impromptu stress test. “See, I’m fine.” My teeth were grit so hard they should have started popping out like rivets from a bursting boiler.

He sighed and shook his head. “What possessed you to come flying down the stairs like a foal on their first flight?”

Soft had to have been growing tired of my semi-clingy behavior. It wasn’t like he could understand. “I forgot where I was and kinda panicked.”

“Well, I’m glad you weren’t seriously injured.” The pegasus retreated toward the counter but stopped halfway. “Would you like some breakfast?”

He was cooking again? Count me in. “What’s on the menu?”

“Haycakes. What kind of tea would you like with your meal?”

“The… tea kind?”

“Chamomile it is.”

The smell of haycakes wafted through the air, and I grew curious about their taste. If the smell was any hint, it’d be like pancakes with hay in the batter. The room was temperate thanks to a small breeze, and the lights had been shuttered in favor of open curtains and windows. Between the haycakes and the breeze, the inn felt cozy.

I felt calmer than yesterday, probably since the bizarreness of being a mare was wearing off as it felt more and more natural. Don’t get me wrong, I was still floored from everything that’d happened, but I was nearing ‘Pony Zen,’ as it were. It was more than likely, though, that I had just had a great night’s sleep and was being introspective for no reason other than having nothing to do.

My reverie shattered when a steaming pile of haycakes slid in front of me along with a small syrup container, shaped to be easy to pour with hooves. A tiny pad of butter adorned the two haycakes, and the texture was visibly different: you could make out the pieces of hay. How’d he carry that tray? I thanked Softie and awkwardly wielded the silverware. If ponies could grip things properly, I hadn’t figured out how.

The assumption I’d had about haycakes was correct, but they were still scrumptious. And the blueberry syrup? To die for. I wanted to frame the taste so I could look back on it years from now, pine for the good old days, and then complain about current music.

“Maybe your tastes changed to match your diet.”

“You alright?” Soft, back behind the counter, asked warily.

“I’m fine,” My voice came out hoarsely as my hoof dully thumped against my chest. “Just went down the wrong pipe is all.”

Dave chuckled. “Look at you, reintegrating into society like a champ. Still need to work on the eating though.”

I shot him the largest glare that was possible without Soft Down seeing it.

Soft started humming a lively tune shortly after the incident, and it felt like I had theme music. My mouth opened to sing a few times, but I quashed each attempt with another bit of food. Luckily, I made it through the rest of the meal without dying, truly a feat for the ages.

Dave laughed as breakfast finished. “I have to admit the almost-singing was one of the stranger things I’ve seen.”

He had to be talking to me like that on purpose, knowing any response would risk me looking crazy. My eye twitched in frustration as I thanked Soft for the meal and asked if the dishes should be left on the table.

“Certainly,” he replied. “Wouldn’t be much of an inn if my guests did any of the work.”

“Well, I’m more like a refugee than a guest. You sure there isn’t anything I can help out with?” Dave stood behind Soft and made rude gestures.

He looked away in thought. “Don’t think so. Oh, unless you want to bring a lamp out to the scrap heap for me. Always meant to do it at the end of the day, but never got around to it.”

“One of the magic ones, right?”

“Only kind I have around here. You sure you’re alright? You’re shaking.” He looked like he was unsure if he should be concerned or confused. Probably confused, if he figured out it was excitement.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.” I may have said it more than a bit quickly, but I think it had at least been understandable. “Could I maybe poke around there a bit? Please?”

“Why would you want to do that? It’s just trash.” He shrunk away from me, cowering behind the counter I’d somehow climbed halfway over. He quietly added, “Lady, you’re scaring me.”

“Heh, sorry about that. I like to fiddle with stuff like that and haven’t had a chance to get a close up look at one of those yet,” I said sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head. My mane was so soft! No, I needed to stay focused—there was science to do.

“Sure, I guess. It’s out back a ways, just don’t injure yourself. Here’s the lamp.” He picked up the lamp from behind the counter and pushed it towards me before retreating once more.

“I promise nothing!” The front door didn’t even slow me down as I galloped with the lamp in my mouth. There was a strange flavor to it I couldn’t quite put a hoof on.

“Slow down already!” Dave shouted, holding his hat on as I whipped past him. Despite me passing him, he was waiting for me at the junk pile, shaking his head slowly. ”Only you would be so excited to play in the trash.”

The pile consisted almost entirely of broken lamps, although I wasn’t sure what “broken” meant in this case. A couple were still fully lit and others flickered occasionally, but most were dead and lifeless. Luckily, there were also a few bent, rusty tools and shards of scrap metal scattered about, so I wasn’t completely unprepared for a tinkering session.

The lamp in my mouth was lobbed onto the pile. “Ready, Dave?”

“I thought you’d be chewing me out for my fun earlier.” He chuckled. “Did you enjoy that, by the way?”

“Nope to both. Doing science.”

“You don’t even have fingers.”

“Doesn’t matter.” A screwdriver with a cracked wooden handle had a crossbar attached to it for much-needed leverage. Maybe one hoof was supposed to hold it in place while the other turned it.

“I suppose things would be designed with the dominant species in mind. I take it pony mouths are durable?”

“Very.” I experimented with one of the lights that remained off, closing and opening the shutter. That part, at least, was entirely mechanical.

“You were about to sing a few times when Softie was humming back there. Never knew you to be the musical type.” He was used to me being laconic when I worked, but that never stopped him from flapping his gob.

“Pony thing I guess. Sang before you showed up on road.” I poked at the lamp with the screwdriver, trying to figure out the best way to dismantle it.

“Really?” He scoffed, “What song did you sing?”

“Made one up.”

“Hmm. That's rather odd. Maybe there was more to the song numbers in the show than just having a song. So figure anything out yet?”

“Might be magic. Nifty, right?” I removed two screws and gently removed the top like it was made of glass. No sense in breaking it further yet.

“It’s possible I guess. I’d assume different reality means different rules. But don’t just resort to ‘because magic’ just yet.” Peering over my shoulder, he examined the inside of the lamp. “What kind of metal is that?”

He had been referring to the dull, brass-like metal worked into a complex pattern on the inside. Sections of it looked to have corroded, however, becoming brittle and darkened. The bottom of the lid showed traces of the same deterioration.

“Outside looks like iron, maybe wrought-iron. Hoof-shaped, judging by the subtle differences between pieces. Not sure about inside. Probably meant to contain the light source.” With the screwdriver and a surprising amount of force, some of the pattern dislodged and sparked like a firework.

“That was a violent reaction for something we thought was inert. I don’t think it would be to keep the light inside. I think some sort of energy runs through it like electricity through wires. Is it ductile?”

I flexed the metal with little difficulty, but it didn’t look to be stressing at all and retained its shape when I let go. “It bends easily enough. I’m not sure how strong I am now, but it’s like working with copper wire.” When it came in contact with itself, there was a faint sizzling and the tiniest spray of sparks. “Ooh, got some juice still.”

“Let’s compare it to one of the lit ones. I have to admit, you’ve got me interested now.”

Grabbing one with its bright light still bobbing up and down inside, I noticed its shutter was jammed. Hopefully, that was its only issue.

Before me hovered the ball of light, and my hoof neared it despite Dave’s completely unreasonable, in my opinion, concern for my safety. It moved at my touch, but there wasn’t anything other than some tingling, like my leg had mostly recovered from falling asleep. When I removed my hoof, it slowly drifted back to its original position. A few more pokes, more for amusement than research, produced no result. Turning it upside down didn’t cause it to fall either. “Neat.”

“The metal looks shinier also. Indicator of condition, perhaps?”

I nodded. “Seems so. I’m going to get some of it.” Dave’s eyes widened as I positioned the screwdriver, using a hoof to keep it in place. One of my eyes closed to better my aim.

“Don’t you dare. Remember how the unpowered one reacted? You’re playing with something new and potentially dangerous here.”

“Yeah, like that’s ever stopped me before. This is what I do.” I chewed on a chapped lip while lining up the hit. No idea what would happen, but that question would be answered soon enough. Who knows what I’d find out and what uses it could have?

My throat tingled as I let loose a roar of “Science!” and forced the screwdriver down, separating the iron and mystery metal. Sparks slowed to a stop mid-air, and a bright flash blinded me.

Turns out you don’t need to be a pegasus to fly.
> A Peculiar Mode of Transport
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Land and sky blurred as I tumbled through the air, head over hoof, after being launched by the mystic explosion I’d somewhat-inadvertently caused. Not going to lie—it hurt, but you should have seen how much airtime I got. This record was one that would remain uncontested for a long time. The ground smashed into me once, twice, two-and-a-half times, each impact accentuated with a grunt of pain. 

When my trip finally slid to a stop, my ears were ringing and every part of me ached like I’d gone hoof-to-toe with a heavyweight boxing champion. Even with the pain, I felt more alive than ever before. However, I still couldn’t bring myself to move, let alone stand up, so I laid there trying to catch my breath until a familiar tan pegasus wandered into my vision, worried about something. His mouth flapped like he was trying to talk, but I heard nothing. Figuring he was looking for some sign of life, I gave a small smile. He relaxed.

“Can’t hear you right now, please come back later,” I said weakly.

He rolled his eyes and mumbled something I wouldn’t have been able to hear even if I wasn’t deaf. He held a hoof to his chin until an idea flashed across his face. Softie laid down haphazardly. No, he must have been imitating how I was positioned. Then he stood up and gave me a questioning look.

“Yeah yeah, I gotcha. Give me a bit, I’m a little sore.” My words were almost audible that time, so my hearing must have been returning.

Pain coursed through me as I rolled onto my belly and got my legs underneath me. Shaky legs slowly pushed me up and made me wince. Softie dashed toward me as everything tilted to the right. His touch still surprised me, and I pulled away from the contact and ended up falling over the other way.

The second attempt was far more successful, and Softie wasn’t even necessary this time. Not wanting to lose my balance once more, I flexed my joints carefully. Nothing seemed broken, luckily, making that the second time Equestria missed an easy chance to seriously injure me. Not bad for under a day’s worth of accidents.

I laughed at the sight to my right. You could see each spot where I bounced, even the particularly rough half-bounce. Where I started my slide, some of the grass had been torn away. As for the junk heap, it wasn’t really a heap any more: it was more like a crater with metallic confetti scattered over a wide area.

“—alright?” Softie spoke slowly, but his words were coming in clearly.

“There we go. Uh, sorry about the mess.” A sigh of relief escaped my lungs.

“No wonder you didn’t make any promises. Didn’t think I would have to be serious about telling somepony not to blow themselves up.” He shook his head and sighed. “Easily the most painful way I’ve seen to earn your cutie mark.”

My face screwed up in pain from it, but I couldn’t help bouncing up and down in glee. “Are you serious? That’s awesome!” I turned and looked at it, grinning all the while. Three linked, grey gears rested on a stylized, steel-blue burst shape. I didn’t remember the show perfectly, but shouldn’t there have been some profound revelation on what I wanted to do with my life? Shit, did I have that thought while impersonating a skipping stone?

“I’m glad you finally got your cutie mark, Miss, but you’re awfully beat up. Why don’t you come inside and get some rest? I’ll bring you to Ponyville later to see a doctor.”

“I’ll be fine, I’m just a little sore. ” He didn’t look too amused at my attempts to wave him off. “Nothing is broken or bleeding. I think. Certainly no need to see a doc. Nope, not necessary at all.”

“You were launched what must have been twenty meters! How can you be fine?” Oh good, ponies used metric. My hearing must not have fully returned, because no sound came from Softie’s stamp.

“Earth pony vitality?” I shrugged.

“Earth ponies may be sturdy, but that only goes so far. Don’t think it covers being caught in a blast that big.”

“You make it sound like I haven’t been in an explosion before.” The confused expression on his face sent me into a giggling fit. “How big did it end up being?”

“Didn’t see it, exactly, but I’m sure they heard it over in Ponyville. Maybe even Canterlot. What did you even do?”

“I was trying to take apart a lamp to see how it worked. It may have still had light in it.”

He sat down hard, a small ring of dust flowing outwards. “You purposely broke a spell pattern to see how it worked?”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“And you don’t even know what they’re called, that’s just perfect.” Soft struggled to stay calm. “To think I left a pile of those things sitting so close to my hotel. First chance I get, I’m getting rid of them.”

“I’ll take them off your hooves.” Hopefully, my grin didn’t make me look too excited..

“No!” he shouted. Soft exhaled slowly and shook his head. “I mean, no. I’m sorry but I can’t risk that happening again. I’m not going to be responsible for any more self-injury you cause.”

“Pfft. I know what I did wrong now. I promise there won’t be any more exploding.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Probably.”

His expression changed to exasperation, but he remained silent.

“At any rate it won’t be as big as the last one, and you won’t have to worry about that eyesore of a junk heap anymore.” Seeing no change in Soft, I tried my best to make a face adorable enough for pleading. “Pleeeease.”

“I’ll be back with the cart. I’m going to regret this...” Wait, that worked? Grumbling to himself, Softie turned and left. Good call on his part, my victory dance wasn’t graceful nor was it a dance by any definition.

When Soft returned with the cart, its large size surprised me. A cart half that size would have still had room for me after loading up all the scrap. Any larger and it would have taken two ponies to pull. Or just Big Macintosh. Resting on four solid wheels, the cart was made entirely of wood and nails—not one other bit of metal was in sight.

“You sure you’ll be fine pulling something this big with your injuries?” He pointed at the simple harness.

“I said was fine. Looks easy enough. I’ll be sure to bring it back when I’m done.” I gave the yoke a quick once over and nodded, satisfied.

He hesitated, shuffling his hooves and doing his damndest not to look me in the eye. “Here’s the thing. You’re already taking the trash away, so I figured I’d let you use the cart I was trying to get rid of. I wanted to sell it, but I think this would be a far better use. That way you don’t have to come back when you’re done. Just head down that road over there, and you’ll be in Ponyville shortly after nightfall.” Pow, right in the self-confidence.

“Don’t worry, I got the message. You won’t see me around here again.” My sagging shoulders made dragging the cart slightly more difficult. It wasn’t that unbearable to be around me, was it?

He called after me, “I’m sorry, it’s just, well, I haven’t known you for a day and I already need a break.” Two-hit combo!

“Alright, you can go now.” He didn’t need to be told twice and he flew back to his hotel. I muttered, “Why not go in for the knockout and say I won’t find anypony who’ll tolerate me?”

“You won’t find anybody who will tolerate you. Seriously, what’s with the ‘anypony-somepony’ nonsense?”

“Thanks Dave, I can always count you. Where’d you disappear to anyways?”

“I was more than a little stunned thanks to what you consider science. You got lucky. Good distance, by the way.” He climbed onto the cart as he spoke, hoisting himself over the side with ease.

“I know, right? It was fun though. I’d say earning my cutie mark was a fair tradeoff.” I removed the yoke and tossed the first lamp into the cart, earning a startled “Watch it!” from Dave.

“Nice ass emblem. Fits you, I guess. Did you happen to see where the pieces of that one lamp went?”

“Well, judging by the velocity I traveled at and the far smaller mass of the object… why would I have any clue?” The second lamp hadn’t fared so well, it was little more than a sparking lump. “Not that I won’t be looking for it. If it’s intact, I might be able to learn a bit more about it, and I think I can safely remove a pattern if I work slower.”

“A lot slower.”

“We’ll see how long it takes me to get bored at that speed. It’s not going to be just a five-minute trip to Ponyville.”

”Such a stupid name.”

“Figured you’d say something about it eventually. I don’t know why they named all the towns like that, but I’m just going to ignore it while I’m here.”

“I can’t even think of what ‘Ponyville’ might be a play on.” Dave chuckled. “Can you imagine a town named Humanville or Manville?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not the first to mention Humanville, though I don’t think I’ve seen the other one anywhere. Manville almost sounds plausible. Oh! What about Manhattan? That starts with ‘man’.”

”That doesn’t count and you know it.”

Soft Down didn’t reappear for the two or three hours it took to locate all the scrap. My hopes were he’d at least come out to apologize, but he was probably still a bit wary of the still-smoking crater I had left. Note to self: ponies don’t like other ponies blowing up their land. In hindsight, I probably should have found a way to write those notes down.

I found the pattern from the detonated lamp several paces away from where I had ended up. It was mostly undamaged—a small section of the pattern had taken on the corroded appearance some of the other devices had.

Dave tilted his head to the side as he examined the metal. After a moment, he said, “Looks like it deteriorates when it uses up enough energy. That would explain why some of them didn’t work at all, you know, before you launched them into the stratosphere.”

“I would be glad to know if any made it that high. Whatever metal this is, it’s sturdy. The explosion barely did anything to it.” I flexed it, surprised that much more force was needed than earlier. “The fresh stuff is stiffer, but I think I can still work with it.”

“Just don’t blow us up again. I felt that last one a bit.” He shuddered and ducked behind the wall of the cart. “I don’t like feeling things. Maybe anger at your shenanigans and amazement when you make it to the next day, but nothing physical.”

“You get used to it.” 

My tongue stuck out the side of my mouth as the metal twisted in my hooves. White energy sparked up the tools and my legs, leaving behind small, tingling sensations that rapidly faded. Occasionally, a surge would burst outward in a faint sphere and disappear into the air, leaving a funny taste in my mouth each time. Shnozberries perhaps?

“Hey, check it out, Dave. I made a dinosaur!” I chuckled as I held my mangled creation up to him. It wasn’t what I had been trying for, but it really did look like a brontosaurus if you squinted, had the sun in your eyes, and had your head at just the right angle.

“I’ve seen socks that look more like a dinosaur than whatever that is. Maybe you should start with a fresh one and actually try to do something productive. Hey, we could even head out like we were supposed to.”

I sighed in defeat and bowed my head. “Yeah, you’re right. Soft really doesn’t want me around, so why wait?”

“There, there.” Dave patted me. Even though I couldn’t feel it, knowing he was doing so was still reassuring. “You’re getting back into this whole, crazy, social thing. Even I would be a bit rusty if I were stuck in your shoes. Well, nowhere near as rusty as you, but still a little.”

“I just didn’t think it’d go this badly. Sure, he didn’t try to shoot me or anything. I doubt he had a gun, but that’s besides the point. I couldn’t even stay up the entire night to make sure nothing happened to him. Passed right out.”

”To... whatever the pony hell is with him! He made it just fine without your help. This world hasn’t gone to shit. You can take it easy. It’s not like you can even explain why you’re so intent on keeping them safe. I’m the only one would believe you, and I already know.”

Running down the street telling my life’s story to each pony that looked my direction hadn’t been in my plans in the first place, but Dave’s words really drove it home. Other than him, there was nobody to confide in. “Tartarus. I think they use Tartarus as a hell.”

”Really? How much else do they have from Greek myth? Never mind, I don’t want to know if there’s a chance we have to deal with Cerberus or hydras.”

“Well, we could always swing by Froggy—”

”What did I just say? Enough of that, though, we’re talking about you creeping out the ponies. Knock it off, and leave that to their law enforcement.”

“Alright, fine. But if—gah!” My forelegs spasmed as energy surged through them, and my work ended up a small distance away. It felt like an electrical shock, but with more of a lingering sensation.

”Maybe you shouldn’t have been fidgeting with it instead of focusing on our conversation. You know, I didn’t think it was possible for it to look less like a dinosaur.” 

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up, asshole. I’m still trying to get used to not having a steady supply of hints.”

“Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? They still haven’t shown up again?”

“Not a one. Wherever they came from, they’re almost definitely done with me." It was still weird not feeling nagging suspicions to go someplace to find stuff. "Let me toss this in back and we’ll shove off.”

The mess of tangled metal was casually tossed into the cart, and I took up the yoke. Before I could start moving, the harness nudged me forward, and a faint shimmering surrounded the entire cart. Its contents shifted slightly and the movement stopped, the glow vanishing as well.

“Well, that’s interesting.” Dave looked down at something I couldn’t see. “I think there might be more to your ‘dinosaur’ than we thought. Let’s check it out.”

My jump didn’t entirely clear the side of the cart, and no amount of flailing kept me from falling. Dave facepalmed. “Open the tailgate, genius.”

Despite the dull ache from landing on my back, I laughed at my slip-up. “My bad.”

Opening the rear gate caused the cart to move slightly, and the motion was enough that whatever made it move earlier reoccured. It stopped again when I jumped into the rolling cart.

With a poke, the sculpture rolled onto its side, and it sparked violently before enveloping the cart with magic and easing it forward. The empty yoke lifted up as if it were being used by an invisible pony.

“Isn’t this what the snowplow did when Twilight hit it with the 'Come to Life' spell in ‘Winter Wrap Up’?” Dave observed before noticing the incredulous look I was giving him. “What? I haven’t watched all of them, but that was one of the ones you put on yesterday. This thing is moving much slower though, so I don’t think we have enough power.”

I nodded in agreement. “I can fix that. Time to test my theories on removing the patterns.”

Four minor accidents later, I had gotten down the technique for not injuring myself and now had a sizeable stack of resources to work with. The replicas were far from identical, and some of them had vastly different effects, but I learned most of the outcome came from what was in contact with the cart. Some minor adjustments later, I had ten chunks of metal that could push the cart.

After testing, I found two of them worked better than the original for some reason. I also figured out linking two together was as simple as binding them with a loop, and the cart rolled forward at a noticeably higher speed than when two patterns were used when not attached. What would happen with all of them tied together?

The tailgate slammed into my spine, and I almost toppled over the back as the cart lurched to an insane speed. Luckily, the rough terrain bounced the cart enough that it disrupted the spell. It almost went really bad, but I figured I could make it work.

Slowing down was as easy as lifting the group up one cluster at a time, and when the final one was removed, the yoke would drop and abruptly brake the cart. The difficulty of rocking turned out to be an advantage I could exploit to steer clumsily. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it would do what I needed it to: hurtle recklessly down a dirt road at breakneck speeds.

“We should make it orange again. That was a pretty neat discovery.”

“But then we won’t go as fast.” It would be more difficult to learn if the magic wasn’t pushed to its limit. Or maybe it was the lack of danger, and therefore fun, irking me. “And I don’t remember the orange one. Should we go show Soft what we did with his cart?”

“It’s yours now. He all but said he was giving it to you. That doesn’t mean I don’t  want to see the look on his face, though.”

The rattling of my cart must have drawn Softie’s attention away from the counter. He wandered through the front door and just about tripped over his open jaw as I rolled past.

“See, told you I wouldn’t kill myself!”

Instead of waving back, he promptly retreated inside, muttering something I couldn’t hear.

“Almost perfect. I think I would have rather had the jerk faint.” He pointed down the road we needed to use. “Chauffeur, Ponyville please.”

“At once, sir.” The two of us chuckled as the cart turned around and zoomed off down the road, my inexperience with the throttle causing the speed to erratically jump around like a teen learning how to drive stick. “I just hope Ponyville is ready for this thing.”
> The 'Rescue'
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the magic-enhanced cart bounced down the road, I found myself wishing it had suspension or, at the very least, a padded seat. Six of the patterns were active—any higher was nearly impossible to control on such a rough path, and the jostling was usually enough to disrupt my hold on the throttle anyway. Trees whipped past me as I cheered wildly and sped through what I later learned was the Whitetail Woods.

I muttered, “Wonder if there’s some way to find out how fast—”

“Hold on! I’m on my way!”

The voice was familiar, but I just couldn’t put a finger on it. Even if I still had all eight, I’d be at a loss. And then it hit me. Well, she hit me, hard, as she yanked me from the cart as she zipped by. 

Luckily, the impact made me drop the throttle and it fell to the side instead of letting more of the pattern connect. Unluckily, with the magic broken the yoke ceased to float and slammed into the ground, catapulting the cart into the air and scattering the scrap once more. The wood that attached the yoke to the cart snapped loudly, and the rest of the cart landed a ways down the road, upside down, with Dave screaming expletives the entire time. Admittedly, it was a rather spectacular crash.

When we landed, I looked back at my would-be rescuer, a cyan sky-blue pegasus with a mane that looked like she lost a fight with not only a pair of scissors, but the paint section at the hardware store as well. Yet, the vibrant mess suited her. She smirked at me, one eyebrow arched over a magenta eye.

“Good thing I was around to save you,” she said. “I was na—scouting, yeah that’s it, scouting when I heard the screams, so I swooped in and grabbed you before it crashed. Was it some sort of spell gone wrong? I saw some weird magic glow around the whole thing.” Her speech was nearly as fast as she was, and I barely understood her. Plus, it didn’t help how distracting all the gesturing was.

I sighed heavily and shook my head, grunting as my traitorous mane slapped my eye. “Rainbow Dash...” How could I forget that voice? Stranger than that, it was nearly identical to the show’s rendition.

“Yep, that’s me!” She preened, puffing out her chest as she hovered a small distance from the ground. “I’m not surprised you’ve heard of me—I am the fastest pegasus in Equestria and the Element of Loyalty.”

Dave crawled out from the wreckage, dusted himself off, and shouted, “What an egotistical dumbass!”

I rolled my eyes, hoping her ego was mostly tied to the introduction. Still, this was probably the Rainbow Dash from the show, so I couldn’t help but assume that was the truth. “Dash, I’m sorry I woke you up with my cheering, but I didn’t really need to be saved. I was driving that thing.” I could hardly believe I was talking to one of the characters from the show, not to mention one of the Mane Six. Wasn’t about to go all fangirl—or maybe fanfilly or fanmare—on her, but come on.

“Yeah, like that makes sense: an earth pony doing magic.” She scoffed. “You were going really fast though. At least thirty-five knots, I’d have to say. Wait wait, did you push it from behind and jump in?” She burst out laughing.

“I swear, if I could actually hurt her...”

“That slow? I could have probably pushed it to fifty if the road was smooth enough.” I figured it’d be wise to wait for her to calm down. “I wasn’t using magic. I was using science… that had magic involved. Magi-science. No, wait, I like magitech better.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” She fiercely shook her head. “Show me.”

“Hopefully it still works, I don’t know how much damage it took in the crash. We need to find a brass-looking chain thingie.”

“Sounds plenty scientific to me.” I didn’t even need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes.

“—and then I’d get the cricket bat just so I could—” Dave was in the middle of the most violent game of charades in existence, although he had no chance of winning with all the talking he was doing.

“Would you have understood me if I called it a makeshift spell-pattern throttle?” I couldn’t resist smirking.

“Fine, you made your point. Five bits says I’ll find it before you, though.” She pawed at the ground, and her wings twitched in preparation to bolt.

“Why would I take that bet? I have no wings or money,” I grumbled, frustrated, and went towards the overturned wagon. “Let’s just get looking so you can conk out.”

“Hey, I was not... Alright, I was. Sorry.” She rubbed the back of her head. “About the whole cart thing. If what you say is true, I guess I kind of made a mess.”

“—and if she thinks this is a mess, just wait until we get to part two—” Dave really needed to give it a rest. He most likely couldn’t hear my thoughts, but he didn’t exactly hand out a pamphlet titled “Imaginary People and You: We’re In Your Head.”

Expecting large cracks and a mostly unusable vehicle, I was glad to find the front was the only part that took noticeable damage. The rest was just miscellaneous wear and tear from before Softie pushed it off on me. He missed out for sure—this was one sturdy chunk of wood, safe from being chucked by even the most surly of woodchucks. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Not enough.

“I got lucky. Nothing major’s wrong with it, and it’s not like I really need to pull it anywhere. Remember what we’re looking for?” The side barely lifted as I heaved against it. However, I didn’t even need to ask for help as Dash was over in an instant, using her momentum to fully tilt the cart back onto its wheels.

“Dang, I’ve met rocks less solid than that.”

Conveniently, Dave had finished his rant in time to caution me. “Don’t mention that rock Rarity had a crush on. I don’t remember the name, but I’m sure you do. Even if this numbskull doesn’t have any idea what you’re talking about, that’s bound to raise questions.” He knew me so well—I had been about to mention passing Tom on my way here.

“Hey, ground to Gearflank, do you read me?” A hoof waved in front of my face and I reared up in surprise. “I said ‘brass thingy, right?’ You spaced out for a bit there.”

I nodded to both of them before turning to Dash. “It’s Sterling Gears. And yes. The item is about this long.” Distancing hooves to show size was much more awkward than using hands to do the same. “It’ll look like a jumbled mess, but that’s normal.”

“We passed normal a long time ago,” Rainbow Dash muttered as she took off. Surprisingly, she actually does leave behind a rainbow contrail when she’s really booking it.

She hovered a long ways from the ground as she scanned the area. I set off in a different direction, only to have her land in front of me, the throttle in her mouth.

“This it?” I had to read her face to get what she was saying, and at my nod, she spat it out. “Blech, what is that stuff? Tastes like… like weird.” Her face scrunched up in confusion.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s the downside of needing hooves to walk, I only really have one way to carry things. Why didn’t you just use your hooves to hold it while you were flying?”

“I get less drag if I carry it in my mouth. But you didn’t answer, what is that stuff?”

“Sucks to be you two. I get to enjoy these lovely hands and fingers.” He flamboyantly flexed his phalanges at me.

“Do they have any magic lights in Ponyville or Cloudsdale?” Dash nodded like I’d asked if the feathery lumps on her back were wings. “It’s the stuff on the inside that makes the light. I think the metal has the magic in it, so that might be the taste.”

“Magic tastes weird then. But what does a light have in common with pushing a cart?”

“More than a raven has in common with a writing desk, that’s for sure. If it’s shaped different, it does different stuff, but it’s fairly picky.” I climbed into the empty cart and motioned for her to toss up the throttle. She was busy trying to wrap her head around the raven comment, and it took a stamp of my hoof to get Dash’s attention and have her toss what I wanted. “Each of these is from one lamp. I had to reshape them myself. Even though they are linked together, I only go faster if more are touching the cart. Watch.” Her eyes widened as the cart rolled forward slowly. “One.” I increased the speed. “Two.”

Before I knew it, she was next to me in the cart, her head tilted to the side as she closely watched what I was doing. “Now I’m interested. Let’s see how fast we can get this thing going.”

“I’m not about to leave my stuff here.”

She sighed impatiently. “Fine. Just wait here—I’d be done before you did anything anyways.” Rainbow Dash was probably correct, as she darted back and forth at a speed that convinced me pegasi were immune to whiplash.

Ouch, Dash, that was rude. I could probably rig something to get me going faster than her. Perhaps something with a rocket. Or five. The cart rocked as she landed with the last of the lamps and the yoke, urging me to get going like I was a getaway driver for a bank heist.

The path through the woods was far smoother than the road leading here, so I was able to get eight of the patterns on without ending up in another accident. I preferred to sit in the vehicle, but when I glanced at Dash, she was calmly standing to let the wind run through her outstretched wings.

As the Whitetail Woods faded, I slowed to a stop, and we found ourselves on the hills just outside Ponyville. I cracked my neck and ask my passenger if she’d enjoyed the trip.

“Not as much as flying, but it’s different. Where did you learn how to do this?”

“Taught myself. Plenty of explosions—I bet you’d have a blast.”

She groaned. “No puns. I get enough of those from my friend, Pinkie. You’ll probably meet her if you’re going into town, whether you want to or not. Speaking of town, why are you visiting Ponyville anyway?” She paused in thought. “Let me guess, you’re here to gawk at the new princess.”

My mouth flapped open and closed as my brain went into overdrive to process this tidbit. Was she talking about Twilight? But the third season had ended years ago… oh my glob, I was a time traveller! My resumé was going to be so badass.

Still, if it was Twilight, what else was the same from the show? And what about fanfics? Wait, I needed to get my priorities straight. First things first, I needed to figure out if it was Derpy Hooves or Ditzy Doo then food—I hadn’t eaten for hours. My stomach protested about me wanting to play with the ponies, but being around ponies counted as sustenance in my book, so take that, stomach.

Rainbow Dash had tried everything in the book to get my attention, from poking to shouting and back again with a stop for ice cream on the way. Metaphorical ice cream, sorry. It’s the thirty-second flavor. “I’m going to have to fly you to Ponyville General, aren’t I?”

“Huh? No, sorry.” Time to gather some information. “Did you say new princess?”

Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me in disbelief, “What rock have you been living under? It’s only been a week, but still, how do you miss news like that?”

“Travelling.” I shrugged. “Who is it?”

She shook her head to clear it. “Twilight Sparkle. She finished some spell and boom, instant princess. She’s a good friend of mine, but it’s been hard to hang out with her with all the people trying to suck up to royalty getting in the way.”

Seemed on track with the show so far. “I just wanted to read some stuff in the library, kick my hooves up, and earn a few bits, nothing more, nothing less.”

Her cheeks puffed up as she struggled to contain another laughing fit. She was failing, of course. “Twilight, sorry, Princess Twilight lives at and runs the library. She’s out now though, something came up in Canterlot.”

“Again?”

“I know the feeling, but Ponyville’s had its fair share of excitement since me and the other Elements beat Nightmare Moon.” She glanced up at the sun, which was barely into its descent. “I need to get going. I’m on the evening shift for weather patrol today and somepony interrupted my sleep.” I wasn’t about to take the last part seriously with the smirk she was wearing, though.

“I said I was sorry. Thanks for the info though, I won’t keep you if you need to rest.”

“It was no problem. You’re pretty cool, Gears. For an egghead that is. When you check out the library, tell Spike I said ‘hey’.” One blink later, she was gone and I was enjoying a small snack of trail dust.

“Could use some ketchup,” I muttered and hopped back into the cart. Why did I feel like I’d forgotten something? Oh shit, maybe I really did leave the stove on before I’d left my universe. Dave had never answered when I’d asked.

“Wait! Wait for me you… you… give me a moment.” Dave wheezed as he rested his hands on his knees.

“Oh, hey Dave, where’ve you been?”

He held up a finger to tell me to wait, and then he held up a different finger to show his current opinion of me. “You left me behind when you took off with that blue disaster. What the hell?”

“Why would that matter? Don’t you just poof in whenever you feel like it?” Dave tried to explain imaginary physics to me once and only once.

“Usually, but only when it’s convenient or amusing for me.” He climbed into the cart and laid down. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“I’ve known you for three years. So, you’re three.” Snickering, I urged the cart down the hill. Oddly enough, my speed remained uniform, so I increased the speed to a more acceptable pace.

“Most outgrow their imaginary friends before three... Long. Torturous. Years.” Each word dripped with more venom than the last.

“I got upgraded to friend? Sweet!” Though I was more excited Ponyville would be visible from the top of the next hill.

“Probationary friend, and that’s only because I can’t make you an intern.”

I crested the hill only to run straight into a cliffhanger.
> Meeting the Locals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At last, I had reached the veritable promised land for many pony fans, and it wouldn’t be long before I’d be in Ponyville, if the cheery welcome sign was correct. Judging by the look of the picturesque, familiar town before me, it was an honest sign.

How many dreams and wishes were about reaching this place despite it being considered fictional? It felt… wrong walking dreams and wishes that weren’t mine, but I was the only one who made it. Sure, visiting Ponyville had been in my hopes since I’d learned of my destination, but to actually be there? My eyes burned with tears as I sat in the stopped cart, and no amount of sniffling cleared it.

“Sorry,” said a faded-yellow unicorn standing in a neatly trimmed lawn. “My wife doesn’t let me cut onions in the house.” He clumsily levitated a cutting board, knife, and ludicrously strong vegetables. I wondered if he’d tell me where I can buy my own weapons-grade produce.

“Salutations, background pony! I have some scrap metal here, and I was hoping there was a place in town where I could sell or just get rid of it.”

”I doubt that’s his name.” Dave’s palm came close to breaking the sound barrier as he brought it to his face.

“What?” His magic faltered, and he almost lost everything when he jumped back to avoid the falling knife. “Bah, look what you made me do. Just head to the recycling center. Find Mane Street and look for a sign pointing you down a different road. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash this knife.” He stormed into his house, where I promptly heard a mare shouting.

“How about a simple hello next time? I doubt anyone here will answer to ‘background pony’ or know what you’re talking about.” Dave’s sigh could barely be heard over the rolling cart.

“Still gonna blame it on being rusty.”

“Better clean it up then. Doubt you’ll get along well with the locals if you greet them all like that. Is Ponyville everything you thought it would be so far?”

Each building varied significantly from the others in shape and material. Some roofs were thatched, while others were tiles or even shingles. Each house reflected its owner to an extent, and the personal touch in every building was a welcome sight. Behind me, Dave muttered something about ponies being Bavarian. Silly Dave, that wasn’t a horse pun.

The residents of the town were out and about, although the thoroughfare in front of me remained mostly empty. Many did double-takes when they realized it wasn’t a unicorn driving, but they all merely shrugged and carried on. Like their homes, the ponies were all different—I’d expected to see more than a few near-identical ponies but was relieved to find that wasn’t the case.

Mane Street was like the previous road except with many more ponies, and I could recognize a few of the buildings: Sugarcube Corner in the distance, and the tree library some distance beyond that, to name a couple. A happy town surrounded me, and my mood followed suit. Not that I wasn’t happy before, but come on, it’s Ponyville.

It was the same as my memories of the show. The same lovely buildings. The same joyful ponies conversing, playing, or just interacting in general. The same relaxed atmosphere. The same pegasi flying through the air. The same occasional changeling thrown into the mix. The same market, although it was in the other direction, with its many stands and shops. Wait, changelings?

“Well, that’s different,” I whispered to Dave, slightly nodding my head towards one who sat at a table with two earth ponies.

“The pony bug thing? Isn’t that a changeling?” At my nod, he observed the group while I kept them in the corner of my vision. “The ponies it’s talking to don’t seem to be under duress, and it’s not in disguise obviously. Looks like they’re accepted here, but I don’t see many. You should figure out if they moved in before or after that whole wedding fiasco. Are you keeping an eye on the signs or just gawking at the local flavor?”

“I’m starting to think we turned the wrong way. Not like Mr. Onions gave concise directions,” I grumbled. We passed a mare with a two-tone mane and her seafoam companion, and the cart swerved with my double take. “Holy exclamation! Is that Lyra and Bon Bon?”

“Holy… What the hell is wrong with you? And maybe?” Dave shrugged. “I don’t know your pony pals, and I don’t really care to.”

They looked almost exactly like I had expected. Lyra, the unicorn, had her lyre cutie mark and a coat just a shade darker than her mane, the signature white stripe running through it and her tail. 

Bon Bon’s navy and pink mane curled epically. Yes, epically, and I’m sorry to say it, but she’s more of a lemon chiffon color than a cream one. Looking at the three wrapped candies on her flank made my stomach rumble. I was going to headbutt her mother if her name turned out to be Sweetie Drops.

I waved at them like I was trying to shake off my foreleg. Bon Bon looked baffled while Lyra waved back with matched gusto. Her eyes lit up in wonder when I moved on.

Eventually, Mane Street came to an end and the recycling center still eluded me. A well-travelled dirt road stretched on into the distance, and a sprawling apple orchard occupied the land to the left of it as far I could see. To my right sat empty railroad tracks. A nearby wooden signpost informed me this was the way to Aaaaaappleloosa. The sign only had two A's, but one does not simply just say Appleloosa. That and I was afraid Braeburn would pop up and say it if I didn’t.

My path went north then east, and I hoped rest of my first day here wouldn’t be spent searching for my destination. The signs told me how to get to a variety of places, but none of them mentioned a recycling center, so I definitely hadn’t just overlooked it.

Lyra and Bon Bon were much closer to the market the second time I passed them. Lyra recognized me and waved once more while her friend facehoofed.

“Hello again!” she chirped in a voice laced with energy.

“Hey there.” My foreleg was aching from the all the waving. “Would either of you mind pointing me to the recycling center?”

”Oh sure, now you act normal.”

“What’s that?” Lyra asked inquisitively.

“He means the scrap shack, Lyra.” Bon Bon sighed, turned to me, and spoke with a kind voice not unlike a favorite aunt’s. “If you’re watching the signs, it’s just after the market.”

“Oh, so I was going the wrong way.” I let out a sheepish chuckle. “If you two need to go that way, I could give you a lift. There should be enough room.”

“No thank you, we were just—”

“Yes!” exclaimed Lyra. She made it almost entirely over the side of the cart in a single leap, but her rear legs caught it, and she crashed inside the cart with a loud thump. “Ooh, what’s all this stuff?”

“Bon Bon seems to have her hands full.” Dave laughed. “I think I can handle these two.”

“Lyra Heartstrings! Get down from there!” Bon Bon called as she stamped her hoof. The use of a full name sent shivers down my spine. “It’s not much of a walk if we hitch a ride.”

“But Bon Bon,” she whined. There was barely any time to avert my gaze before she gave Bon Bon well-practiced puppy-dog eyes. “She offered, and it’s so cool!” She grabbed a random light. “See? Look at this, who knows what this does?”

“That’s a lamp, dear. We have at least one in every room of the house.”

“Oh. Well, I still need to know how she’s moving the wagon.”

“With magic. You’re a unicorn, Lyra, you know these things.” Bon Bon’s patience was the stuff of legends. Bards belted out epic tales of it in feast halls everywhere.

“But she isn’t.” A minty hoof dramatically pointed in my direction.

“It’s probably just under her mane.” She turned to me. “You do have a lovely, voluminous mane after all.”

My traitorous cheeks grew warm at the half-truthful compliment. Voluminous? Sure, but “lovely” is definitely not a word one should use to describe slightly singed bedhead. “Lyra’s right though, I’m not a unicorn, unless my horn fell off. Just an earth pony.” Somehow, I avoided punching myself when trying to pull back my mane.

“See?” Lyra’s grin came close to making the top half of her head fall off. “Like you said, I know these things.”

“Alright, you win, but only because you got me curious. And only if we take the long route home. Walking.”

“Fine fine, just get in.” She bucked open the back gate, which drew looks from all around with the resulting clamor.

“I’m sorry about Lyra. She’s a little excitable.” Bon Bon’s well-used sigh accompanied her as she climbed in.

“And the understatement of the year award goes to...” Dave squeezed himself into a corner near me.

“Infinite energy?” My two new passengers jumped as the cart moved.

“Exactly. Hey, we’re moving! Lyra stop bouncing—you’ll hurt yourself.” Bon Bon pulled her friend down and forced her to sit. “You wouldn’t want to do that to poor, oh, forgive me, I never got your name, although I’m sure you heard ours earlier.”

I nodded. “Sterling Gears, at your service.”

“Don’t hear names like that often, but it suits you.”

“I know it’s magic, but how?” Lyra poked at the throttle and caused the cart to lurch forwards. At my worried glare, she laughed weakly and scooted away. “Sorry. So, how does it work?”

My explanation to them was nearly identical to the one Rainbow Dash received, although insisted I give more detail on how I’d figured out the shape. The cart didn’t seem to mind the extra passengers, and Dave had even stopped grumbling. Bon Bon was relieved I refused Lyra’s request to go faster. The mare’s sharp jab to the unicorn’s ribs interrupted the doleful eyes boring into my soul. How wasn’t that illegal?

“Alright, here’s the market. I think. Is there anywhere specific you two wanted to go?”

Bon Bon quickly replied while clamping a hoof over Lyra’s mouth, “No, but thank you for the trip. It was fascinating.” They climbed down from the cart. Well, Bon Bon climbed down. Lyra wiggled her rump in preparation for setting a record for the long jump.

The resulting collision between Lyra and a teal pegasus made me wince but Dave guffawed. “Now that’s entertainment. Are they like that in the show? I don’t remember seeing them much.”

“They’re just in the background in the show. I think they might have had one or two lines over the entire series if any. I have read a lot of fanfics about those two though, and they way they acted seems kinda close to the popular portrayal.” Dave didn’t need to know the rumored romance between the two—he was a dirty, dirty man. “Lyra’s usually written as human-obsessed, especially with hands, but she didn’t mention anything about it.”

“A pony obsessed with humans? Weird.” A changeling buzzed by, chatting with an airborne pegasus. “Do changelings have more of a friendly appearance in many fanfictions?” 

I shook my head and slowed my cart behind a trailer stacked with bales of hay. “Well, not in a lot of them, but there are some. With how many different ones there are, we’re pretty much just throwing darts.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking. This isn’t the exact Equestria you know from just the show. But, we’ve seen the changelings and two extra’s personalities, so that’s a ‘could be’ and a ‘probably’ respectively.”

“So what you’re saying is this place was created from an amalgam of the show and the fanbase’s contributions? That doesn’t sit right in my gut.”

“It’s a possibility, but I’m inclined to agree with your gut for once because that sounds stupid. What I was really getting at was to keep an eye out for stuff that wasn’t in the show, but usually happens in fanfics. Definitely still a crapshoot at figuring it out for sure though. Whoa, she actually wears a cowboy hat?”

Following his eyes, I saw a creamy-orange mare with a blonde mane, whom I instantly recognized as Applejack, and she was giving me an evil eye that could strip paint. When she noticed me looking at her, she curtly made an I’ve-got-my-eye-on-you gesture.

My response was appropriate: I floored it and passed the inching trailer amid startled shouts and screams. I expertly (read ‘luckily’) dodged all the pedestrians on my way out of the market and didn’t slow down until my turn sped past.

The Scrap Shack was a better moniker for the building than recycling center. I didn’t know where ponies got sheet metal, but the place was covered by, if not made from, it. A sneeze would have knocked the whole place over. No windows marred its rust-stained sides and a lone pristine door sat in front of me, not caring how out of place it was.

A hollow sound rang out as I knocked on the door. “Hello? Anypony in there?”

“What you want?” snapped a gruff voice to my left.

A crazy-eyed unicorn stood nearby. His rust-colored coat was the perfect camouflage for this place, and I was unsure if he had spots of grease in his bone-white mane or if his old hair color was still fighting its losing war. A few tools hung from a belt fixed around his waist. He fixed that one maddening eye on me and asked again.

“I have scrap.” Each word stuck in my throat and had to be forced out.

He looked at the wagon and shook his head. “I don’t take wood, only metal.”

“Inside the cart.”

He grunted and flicked his head towards the cart. I opened the tailgate and silently motioned towards the metal. While he skimmed over my supply, I noticed his cutie mark was an ingot. “Looks good, but more than a little damaged. Is that a chunk of thaumite over there?”

It took me a few moments to figure out he was referring to my throttle. “Yeah, but I’m not trying to get rid of that, just the other stuff.”

“You twist it up like that?” He asked. I nodded, smiling with a hint of pride. He levitated one of the lamps over, inspecting it closely. Then he licked it. “Too much peppermint. You caused some hefty thaumic feedback, didn’t you?” He sighed at my baffled expression and spoke slowly. “You blew yourself up, didn’t ya?”

“Oh! Yeah, I did. It was fun.”

The roaring, hearty laughter was the last sound I’d expected from the aged stallion. “I like you, kid. It’s good to meet another pony with an appreciation for not letting things like caution and safety get in the way of good mechanics. Folks around here call me Metalhead.” He waited for my introduction before continuing. “Word of advice though: ponies around here get angsty if you wake them up with an accident, so try explode outside of town.”

“Sound advice. So, what’ll you give me for the other metal?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. You fried them pretty good. Twenty bits for the whole lot.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty, and I don’t give you a hoof upside the head.”

“Twenty it is.” I needed to level my bartering skill.

Metalhead levitated a small, bulging cloth bag over to me and emptied the cart with his magic. As he trotted back behind the shack, he turned his head and said, “You look like a gal who could swing a pick. If you don’t mind diamond dogs, do some digging over in the Gem Hills. They mostly leave the metal alone, and nopony wants to tango with them. Blow them up enough and they should leave you be.” His voice slowly tapered off as he disappeared from sight.

I shouted my thanks after him, hoping he’d hear. It was time to leave, but Dave was nowhere to be found. Not wanting to get chewed out for leaving him behind again, I briefly surveyed the area.

Nothing stuck out. There were a few houses unlucky enough to be situated so close to the scrap shack, and I hoped they at least had thick walls. The road had more than a few scorch marks on it, and they all radiated outwards from the building behind me. A few ponies hurried by, trying not to look in my direction or glimpsing behind themselves.

They were taking peeks at a bubblegum earth pony talking to a very bewildered Dave, who begged with his eyes for me to save him. I knew better than to ask why. There was no questioning the Pie. Sorry Dave, you’re on your own. Before she could drag me into a musical number or party,  I fled and left Dave at the mercy of Pinkie Pie.

With my paltry stock of bits, I wandered into the market, intent on buying some supplies and a meal, if I could afford it. Oddly enough, I found a store across from Sofas and Quills that was aptly named Cups and Picks.

The shop’s owner was surprised to see a pony that hadn’t come in for dishware, and she gladly sold me a heavy pick at a discount. At the hardware store, I picked up a pair of heavy-duty saddlebags, a tool belt, and some unbent tools to go in them.

The daisy sandwich I ordered at some random café tasted somewhat like a soggy BLT, minus the B. The sauce was doing all the flavor work, but the daisies gave it the ol’ college try.

The sky had just turned slightly orange, and reminded me that I’d wanted to visit the library. I would make it before it closed. I had to. I needed to read up as soon as possible so the most basic questions wouldn’t stump me. I wanted to—what was that store over there?

It turned out to be a shop that sold clothing and equipment suited for pegasi. The pegasus clerk behind the register groaned at the thought of another customer right before closing. Surely he would have to stay for an extra hour, and what’s an earth pony even doing in a pegasus shop?

Buying goggles, that’s what. You can’t properly tinker without a good pair of goggles. I could say it was for protecting my eyeholes, but that wouldn’t be the entire truth. You need goggles to tinker effectively. Plus they looked stylish and it’s fun to say goggle. They rested atop my forehead, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.

Right, the library. My speed was even faster than before, earning several dirty looks from ponies walking home from work. I wanted to powerslide into a stop, but it proved to be too difficult without actual brakes. The wagon was parked on what I thought was Twilight’s lawn. Pony towns have a lot of lawn, and it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

A young voice grumbled from behind the closed door. “Just a minute!” He continued louder than he meant to. “Not again.”

Several concerning noises echoed behind the door, and finally I heard him again. He started talking before opening the door. “For the last time, Princess Twilight Sparkle is on royal business and I don’t know when she’ll be back.” Exactly two uncomfortable moments passed before he spoke again. “You’re not Filthy Rich. I mean, I’m glad you aren’t, but the point still stands. She’s not in.”

The door closed on my hoof. “Did she take all the books with her? I’m just here for the library part of Ponyville’s Royal Palace.” A gentle smile snuck onto my face. There was something about Spike that made him endearing, and I had to resist ruffling the spines on his head.

He tiredly chortled. “If we were talking about any other pony that could only be a joke. Come on in. I’m Spike. Dig the swell goggles.” The dragon opened the door and offered a claw.

“Sterling Gears. I’m not keeping you open, am I?” The sound and feel of claws on hoof made my eye twitch.

“Don’t worry about it.” Slitted eyes glanced around for any eavesdroppers, and he whispered, “I’ll deny it if you mention it to anypony else, but the library doesn’t really have an exact closing time. Twilight just uses it to kick out ponies so she can get back to her research projects.” He returned to a more audible volume. “I’m just glad to talk to somepony who isn’t here for the princess part of Princess Twilight.”

“Filthy Rich?”

“I think it’s for something about opening a new store. He doesn’t understand that he still needs to go through Mayor Mare’s office.” He rolled his eyes. “Do you know what you’re looking for? I’m sure I can find whatever you need.”

“It’s my first time here, so I’m clueless. I figured something about geology and mechanics, so if you have anything like those, I’d be happy.” History and culture could wait. I had rocks to smack and thingamajiggers to build.

“You got it.” Spike scampered off behind a stack, and I soon heard the sound of a rolling ladder.

Finally alone, I was able to take a look around but not before silently screaming with glee that I was in Twilight’s library. And suddenly books, thousands of them.

Eeyup, that’s all there really is to know about the main room of the library. There were more books here than there were ponies in Equestria. Books lined carefully shaped shelves that fit with the round nature of the tree, which was much larger than I expected. It looked bigger on the inside.

There were a couple small tables, a leafy pot resting on each one, and the cushions on the floor around them, but seriously, books. Books everywhere. Buried behind the stacks like an afterthought were the stairs going up and the entrance to what I figured was the kitchen.

Spike returned with four books, each tome full of pages faintly yellowed with age. He pushed them up onto a table taller than he was with practiced ease. Only one was on mechanics, and compared to the others it was like a pamphlet pretending to be paperback.

Kudos to him for carrying those, they had to be at least half his weight. “Sorry there isn’t much on machines. It’s just not a well-known subject I guess. We could probably put in a request to Canterlot’s library though. I know Twilight would be excited for, well, anything she hadn’t read yet.”

“That’s alright. Thanks for grabbing them.” I took a seat and opened An Introduction to Geology: Equestria’s Rocks. At first glance, I could already tell this was going to be a long read. “If you want to talk, I can handle both.”

“Cool, I’m going to go put a teapot on then. Jasmine alright?”

“Sure? I’m not exactly a connoisseur.”

Getting past the first paragraph took many tries. It wasn’t because it was too hard to understand. It was because I kept nodding off over how boring it was. There had been glaciers that moved faster than this book. Just as I was about to start my tenth attempt, the sound of an opening door interrupted me, and my attention span cheered.

“Spike! I’m home!” the lavender alicorn Twilight called. Her wings flared when she noticed me tiredly looking up from the book. “Oh, hello there. You startled me.”

I couldn’t forget she was royalty. She needed to be greeted properly and shown manners and blah blah blah—there was no need to fret. I had this. “Hey there, Princess Purple. What’s up?”
> Tea with Princess Purple
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many moments passed before Twilight was able to speak. “Did you just call me Princess Purple?”

“Well, your title isn’t ‘Lady’ so I couldn’t rightly call you ‘Lady Lavender’ now could I? Oh, right, forgot to bow or whatever.” How was I supposed to do that anyway? Couldn’t exactly bend half my body forward anymore.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so now you want to be formal?”

Spike returned with the tea at that moment. “It’s not like you mind.”

“Spike!” Twilight’s glare was more nervous than angry.

“What? You said yourself that you were already tired of all the fancy frou-frou stuff.” He climbed onto a chair at my table.

“I also said nopony else needs to hear about it.” She sighed and took some time to relax. Sniffing at the air, she asked, “Is that the jasmine?”

The dragon nodded proudly. “I made extra in case you returned tonight. I figured you would want something to wind down from whatever it is Princess Celestia had you look into.”

“And that’s why you’re my number one assistant. Are you sure you’re not developing a Spike Sense?” She chuckled, joining us. She glanced at the books’ titles while pouring herself a cup of tea and smiled. “Good to see those dusted off, especially The Comprehensive History of Equestrian Mechanics. Just be careful around them with the tea. Oh, I almost forgot to introduce myself. Can’t have you calling me Princess Purple.” I still would. “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“Sporkle?”

“Sparkle.”

“Spackle?” Spike understood what was going on, if the smile he was fighting was any indicator.

“Sparkle”

“Smith?”

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Definitely. Sterling Gears.” This was the perfect opportunity to find out if they shook hooves or simply bumped them.

Her hoofshake felt practiced, but green. “As in sterling silver?” I nodded. “It’s nice. And with a name like Gears, it’s no surprise you’d be interested in mechanics. Why the geology though?”

“It rocks.” Twilight’s groan made me grin, while Spike chuckled at the pun. “I’m going to be doing some digging over in the Gem Hills, so I figured it’d be a good idea to brush up.”

“Aren’t you worried about the diamond dogs?”

“I can handle them.” They both cringed at my smile. “How’d the official business go?”

“Ugh, it was a complete waste of time. If there had been any evidence of a disturbance, the storm washed it away entirely.” She sighed. “It’s why I’m back so early.”

“I’m glad you didn’t find anything then. Filthy Rich came by three times today to ask when you were going to be back. I thought I was going to lose it before Gears came along and actually just wanted to read.”

“Again with the shop thing? Mayor Mare already told him no, so I don’t know why he keeps bothering me about it.”

“Like a—” a gulp of tea stopped me from saying ‘child’ and confusing my hosts “—foal whose father told him no, so he went to ask his mother?” The tea was actually pretty good and left me smacking my lips a couple times. Spike brews tea that would put Soft Down out of business.

“That fits all too well. Anyway, I take it that was your cart outside?”

“Yep. I’m not blocking anything, am I?”

“No, but it looks like somepony stole your yoke. If you still have it around, I could see about fixing it for you. Should just take an easy, quick spell.” Excitement flickered in her eyes at the mention of magic.

As curious as I was as to what unicorn magic looked like, I had to refuse. “Already sold it to Metalhead. Don’t really need it with the thaumite throttle I rigged up.”

Twilight’s spit-take covered Spike in an herbal deluge. “You understand how to work with thaumite?” Her assistant grimaced and stomped off to clean himself.

“Saying I know how to work with it might be exaggerating. More like I’ve blown myself up a couple times and am learning how not to.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re experimenting with?” Her voice rose slightly. “You’re lucky you haven’t been injured or worse! Thaumite is full of raw magic, you can’t just hit hit with a hammer and expect results.”

Recalling the explosion preceding my cutie mark, I burst out laughing. She stared at me with a mix of anger and confusion. “Sorry, sorry. I totally did hit it with a hammer. Actually I used a screwdriver, but I hit the screwdriver with the hammer to knock the thaumite out of a lamp.”

For a moment, it looked like she was going to burst into flames. Instead, she reared up and placed her forelegs on the table. The wings on her back twitched in agitation. “How did you not cause any thaumic feedback?”

I couldn’t help but laugh again, but part of it was how hilarious Twilight looked when she turned red with rage. In retrospect, the laughing probably didn’t help her mood. “I did. That’s how I ended up with my cutie mark, after all.”

She deflated slightly and rubbed her muzzle. “You have a cutie mark in blowing yourself up?”

I stood and proudly displayed my involuntary thigh tattoo, a small part of my mind informing me I was shaking my ass at royalty. “Maybe? I like to think it has more to do with tinkering.”

“How can you not be sure what your cutie mark means?”

“I was a little dazed.” At least I didn’t turn my parents into potted plants.

Twilight sat back down just as Spike returned from the bathroom. “I’m sorry I snapped at you like that, but this is serious. You can’t just experiment in an underdeveloped field of study without the proper precautions.”

“The only pony I’ll endanger is myself. You don’t have to agree with my methods, but you can’t deny the results.” Spike decided it was the perfect time to clean up the leftover tea.

“And what would those be? A throttle wouldn’t be of any use on anything that lacks an engine,” she stated plainly through her frown.

“If you want to be all technical about it, just call it an accelerator. It moves the cart, that’s what matters.”

“Wait, you, an earth pony, successfully designed a new spell pattern by accident?” The anger dropped like a stone, replaced by pure curiosity.

“I guess? I don’t know if somepony else already did it, but what does being an earth pony have to do with it? Way to be racist, Twilight.” Wait, it should have been “tribist” or something like that, right? “Metal comes from the earth, after all, so maybe I’m better at using what’s below ground than above it.” It would have been easier to grasp at straws with hands.

Twilight stumbled over her words, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that.” After taking a deep breath and regaining her composure, she continued. “All I meant was you can’t direct magic like a unicorn can. You were working with charged thaumite, so you couldn’t have relocated it temporarily while you shaped the metal. I need to see this. Please. We could be looking at a tremendous technological advancement.”

“Alright, grab your notes. I’ll be outside.”

“Just how much did you say about me, Spike?”

His voice called out from the kitchen, barely audible over the sound of clinking dishes and sloshing water. “I didn’t say that.”

“Twilight, everypony knows about your note-taking.” The night air was crisp, and my chuckles sent out faint puffs of mist.

Taking a deep breath of the crisp, oddly tasty, and not-full-of-insane-storms air felt great. Thinking back to the storm made me wonder if I wouldn’t get in too much trouble for turning the Everfree Forest into the Everfree Crater, now with extra smoldering. Couldn’t solve everything by blowing it up, but I could try. Wait, what about Zecora? I couldn’t blow up best zebra.

“I know that look,” Dave said grimly as he sat on the wagon. “Don’t do it. Oh, and thanks for ditching me.”

“You looked like you were having a good conversation.” I giggled. “How did that even work anyway?”

“Hell if I know. All she said was something about being imaginary doesn’t make me nonexistent, and then she dragged me off to a bakery and we spent three hours trying to make imaginary cupcakes.”

“You went to Sugarcube Corner? Lucky!” I was earnestly green with envy.

“Maybe to you, but I think I have imaginary diabetes just from walking in there. Oh, and she says you’re invited to the imaginary party when she figures out how to throw one.” He visibly shuddered. “Do you have any idea how much that girl can talk and eat? It’s like she breathes sugar instead of air.”

“I’m glad you had a wonderful time.”

“You’re dead to me.”

“Who are you talking to?” A very confused Twilight asked from the open doorway. Several scrolls poked out the top of her bulging saddlebags.

“Nopony in particular, don’t worry about it.”

“Nopony indeed. If you need me, I’ll be relaxing in the wagon.” He unceremoniously dropped out of view.

“Are you sure? If you’re hallucinating, you should be checked by a doctor. I’ve read of several things that could cause a pony to see things.” Twilight’s voice held an honest concern for my well-being, odd for a pony she’d known ten minutes.

“I have a firm grasp on what exists and what doesn’t. I’ve been through far worse.” I frowned at her. Never again with the hospital. Never. Again. “We didn’t have very far to go. I don’t see why you needed the entire library.”

She let out an exasperated huff, clearly aware of, but not wanting to confront, the attempt to change the subject. “Well, some ponies prefer to document their research.” She lit up her horn to illuminate the area. “Alright, let’s get started. Can I examine the object before the demonstration?”

“Be my guest.”

Twilight levitated the accelerator out of the cart and mumbled the words she was writing down. I could catch bits and pieces when her volume spiked out of excitement, and every time she caught herself doing it, she would clear her throat and nervously laugh. I was certain many of her words and phrases were made up on the spot—words like ‘thaumawatt,’ ‘thaumic polar resonance capacity,’ and ‘magic prachoo.’ I realized the last one was probably a sneeze, but you never know when you might need to know what a magic prachoo is.

“Positively astonishing.” She breathed as she sketched an uncanny resemblance of the thaumite. She set the item down inside the cart, careful not to trigger it, though I found myself curious as to how she’d learned, just by looking at it, which side would set it off. “Sterling, you’re a genius! A completely irresponsible danger to yourself, but a genius nonetheless.” She bounced about, her wings fluttering to give her an extra bit of height with every bound.

“I’m flattered, but what, exactly, did I do?”

“You established a connection between a spell and this pattern! It’s an effective, stable, three-dimensional representation of the elementary animation enchantment developed by Clover the Clever.” I found myself less than an inch away from Twilight’s drawing.  “See? The interaction equation that allows the thaumite to effectively cast the spell is possible because of the bridging you have here and here between the thaumic foci. How did you come up with something this complex? There’s even evidence in the device itself of further trials to reach a near-optimal performance!”

“Damn, girl!” Dave exclaimed, sitting up to watch the show.

“Twilight, breathe.” I peeked around the scroll at the manic alicorn.

She looked at me and then at the paper she had forced on me. She hadn’t even used her magic to float it, opting for just using a hoof to hold it in my face. “Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away.” A lavender glow surrounded it as she pulled it back and inspected it, frowning at the wet spot she found. “Did you lick my notes?”

“Indubitably.”

“Why would you do that?” She blanched as she wiped off the mark.

“It smelled like ice cream?” I shrugged.

Tentatively, Twilight smelled her notes. “How does that even remotely smell like ice cream?”

“It doesn’t, but I did just get you to sniff your notes. That’s a rather silly thing for a princess to do, don’t you think?” I had no idea where my mouth was trying to bring the conversation.

Twilight facehoofed while I giggled. “I don’t understand you, but I do understand your work. The connection between this and the spell’s instructions seems so simple after seeing this.”

“You haven’t even seen it move yet.”

“Oh! How could I forget?” She rifled through her notes. “It’s not in here at all. Would you mind possibly moving it now?”

Her excitement stayed level as I moved the cart aimlessly. I changed speeds a couple times but she urged me to stop when I nearly crashed into her tree. “Spoilsport. I didn’t even get it going that fast.”

“I don’t need you waking up Spike or spooking Owloysius.” She stifled a yawn. “How long have we been out here? The moon’s position suggests it isn’t that late, but it’s really dark. Maybe Princess Luna isn’t feeling well.” Another yawn: this one so large her jaw audibly popped. “Sorry, the tests I conducted earlier must have taken more out of me than I thought.”

“I should probably get going anyways.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. We still have so much to figure out about this new pattern. It’d be a shame to stop now when we’re so close.”

“Close to what, another all-nighter spent looking over your notes? I can show up again tomorrow and you’ll be nice and rested. And no, Spike didn’t tell me that.” I hopped into my cart, taking care not to tread on Dave’s napping form.

“Good to know I still have some habits that aren’t public knowledge,” Twilight said sarcastically. She deftly packed up her supplies and smiled. “Good night, Sterling.”

“Mmhmm,” I nodded. “See you tomorrow, Princess Twilight.”

She mock-gasped and then chuckled, “No alliteration this time? And please, just call me Twilight if it’s an informal occasion. It’s only been nine days, and I can already see why Princess Celestia insists on the same thing with her name.”

“Couldn’t think of another one to use.” I grinned.

She stood in the open doorway, the light creating a definitive zone in the darkness. “Be careful out there.”

“No.” I almost tumbled out of the back as I sped away from the dumbfounded pony, hoping the ghostly aura emanating from the wagon would be enough light.

Crickets serenaded her stunned silence.

“What kind of response was that?” Twilight’s shout was the last I heard from her.


——


The aura my cart gave off was barely enough to navigate by, and I was glad the streets were devoid of life. I was headed towards the Gem Hills, which if I remembered correctly, were the foothills at the base of Mt. Dragonshy—that was actually its name, much to my surprise. My plan was to set up a small camp and see what I could do about staking my claim there if Equestria was as unsettled as it looked.

“It really is dark out here.” Dave’s snoring drowned out my mumbles.

Shadows writhed around me like ephemeral tentacles, ready to pull me in before they disappeared. I found myself wishing I had the forethought to purchase a light source. A fire was close to being a necessity this night.

Instinctual panic gripped me—the typical result of being alone in the dark of unfamiliar territory. I barely wrestled it down, burying it under years of practice. Although I wasn’t feeling fear anymore, adrenaline still pumped through me, and I jumped at everything that looked out of place. I could almost hear the moans, the long, rattling sound amplified by the thousands of mouths screeching it over one potential meal.

But I would be fine outside of Ponyville. I had to be. Once you get away from the city, there aren’t as many to pursue you. I wouldn’t be trapped again.
> I Found a Pie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just like the previous morning, the sun woke me up. The tree my cart had been parked under turned out to be nothing more than a dead trunk, its appearance the previous night masked by the oppressive dark.

Sleeping in the wooden cart was uncomfortable and it would take all day to work out that kink, but I couldn’t bring myself to rest on the cold ground. It was hard enough falling asleep with how terrifying everything felt. Looking back on my jumpiness the previous night, I couldn’t help but laugh. I shouldn’t have been spooked or surrendered to my paranoia that easily.

Around my tree—I’d called dibs—the ground was cracked and dry, and the few plants in sight were scruffy, stiff-leaved things. Large rocks dotted the terrain, jutting out of the ground like crooked teeth, and one incisor dominated the mouth: Mt. Dragonshy was far larger up close, and it towered menacingly. Rocks aside, the area would have been relatively smooth if it weren’t for the craters and dirt piles reminiscent of Camp Green Lake.

If my mental map was correct, Ponyville was to the southeast, and a quick glance at the sun revealed which direction I needed to travel. The town would have been visible if it weren’t for the hilly terrain blocking my view of the low-lying flat land.

“At least I know where the storm didn’t hit that night,” I grumbled, jumping down and stretching my sore limbs.

My chapped lips and rumbling stomach suggested I make another trip into town. There were only a few bits left inside the little coin pouch, but it would at least be enough to purchase a meal. If I was lucky, there’d be enough left over to afford some flint and steel, though it was probably a bad idea to start a fire in such a dry place. I could handle blowing up quite well. Burning? Not so well.

The ruts the heavy wheels left in the dirt were simple to follow, and I quickly found myself just outside of town. A couple of the ponies who had recognized me nervously drifted to the side of the road. After a brief argument with my sense of humor, I resolved not to scare them further and left the cart in a grassy field, although I did take the accelerator with me.

As full as Mane Street was yesterday, it was nearly barren today, although the market stalls were still staffed by vendors. As I walked through the market, taking great pains to avoid Applejack’s stall, it turned out to be the better choice to just walk. Ponyville was even more pleasant when you simply walked through it, and the other ponies greeted me more often than yesterday.

The last of my bits went towards a simple salad, which I guzzled a complimentary, thankfully, pitcher of water with as well as purchasing a moth-eaten tent that was on clearance for only two bits. Surely such a fine piece of work should be worth far more than a paltry two bits! The stains and obvious inability to keep the rain out add character, after all. My excursion was ultimately peaceful and therefore so boring I almost cried.

My plans were to do some heavy digging once I returned to my camp, in order to fund a more hospitable means of shelter. Idly, I recalled the uneven terrain and wondered if it had been the work of diamond dogs, and for a moment I thought about dragging Rarity along, as extra insurance, with the promise of digging up some gems for her.

When I returned to the cart, I found it the same as I had left it save for a lone apple that lay in the center. It looked like somepony had decided the stink eye wasn’t enough. For a calling card, it tasted pretty good.

Sighing, I looked between the distant mountain and the road behind me. With a curt nod I trotted back to the market quickly and found the orange pony, Applejack, peddling her apples to any pony that would listen. Any pony who stopped at her stall—either because she called them over or they headed there in the first place—walked away with a purchase.

“Howdy!” She greeted me with a smile her Stetson couldn’t entirely shade. “Say, I don’t think we’ve met before.”

I extended a hoof, knowing full well what I was about to get. “We haven’t. I’m Sterling Gears.”

“Applejack.” She replied simply as she attempted to pull my foreleg off. “Well, Ms. Gears, what can I do ya for today?” When she finished, she retamed some of her hair that had come loose from the vicious hoofshake.

“About five bi—no, wait, sorry. You did walk right into that one though,” I said, flinching slightly. I gathered my courage and added, “I’m here about the message you left me.”

She looked away, muttering under her breath as she mulled over my words. With a gasp and a small blush, her eyes narrowed and she growled. “That’s mighty inappropriate of you.”

“Did you not want to talk about it here? Oh, you meant what I almost finished saying. I apologized though, didn’t I?”

Applejack sighed, “I suppose you did.” After a moment, she chuckled. “Did Rainbow put ya up to it?”

“Nope. Seriously though, you gave me the stink eye yesterday and the message today. I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to cause any property damage, so mind filling me in?”

“Stink eye? What are you talking about?” Her confusion looked earnest enough to make me hesitate.

“When I saw you yesterday, you looked like you were ready to truss me up and toss me into the Everfree.”

“You were that mare in the cart.” Recognition dawned on her face, but her smile quickly turned to a frown. “Was wondering what spooked you enough to turn tail like that. You weren’t getting any mean looks from me. I swear it.”

”What are you talking about, kid?” Dave yawned and scratched himself. ”All I pointed out yesterday was she actually wears a Stetson… If there’s a horse pun for that, you won’t hear me saying it.”

“What’s the apple you left on my cart for then?”

Applejack smirked as she gestured at her stand. “Brought you here, didn’t it?”

“It wasn’t a warning for me to watch my back?”

”Godammit.”

“Oh for— There is no bad blood between us. Shoot, this is only the second time I’ve seen you, and the first left me more mixed up than an apple in an orange tree.”

“Must have been a trick of the light then.”

”Or you putting enemies where there aren’t any.”

“I reckon you might be right. As long as you’re here though, would you be interested in purchasing some of these fine Apple Acres Apples? I’ll even give you a first-time customer discount.” The ease at which she switched from confused pony to savvy businessmare tempted me to reconsider what she’d said about not holding a grudge.

“Sorry, spent the last of my bits. Was going to break in the pickaxe today and see if I could find anything worth selling to Metalhead.”

“Now that’s some honest labor. Take an apple for the road, I insist. Think of it as an apology and a sample.” With her teeth, Applejack gently plucked an apple from one of the many baskets. After she had polished it and set it down in a practiced flourish, I noticed she hadn’t broken the skin. “If you enjoy it, and I reckon you will, come on back, you hear?”

“Thanks Applejack. It was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise.” She nodded.

”Tell me if something spooks you like that, kid,” Dave said once we’d returned to the cart. “I helped you figure out what was real back home, and that won’t stop just because we’re in Ponyland. We’re stuck with each other, remember?”

“Yeah, I know. There are worse people to have following you.”

The landscape rolled by as we travelled on. ”How’re you holding up?”

“I’m fine.”

”That doesn’t sound like fine to me. Is it the whole ‘becoming a pony’ thing?”

“Why would I care? I’m pretty much used to it by now.”

”You’ve become more stable on your hooves, that’s true, but I was more concerned about the transition from bipedal tool-user to handless quadruped.”

“I’m handling it just fine. I miss my hands, but I’m dealing with it.”

”Dealing with it isn’t the same as being comfortable with it! If you’re stuck in this body, you’re can’t just deal with it.” He took a moment to calm himself. ”What about becoming a mare instead of a stallion? How’s that working for you?”

“What do you want me to say? We went over this earlier. I’m not going to blubber about it. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but it happened. I have more important things to think about.”

”Are you just dealing with that too?”

“Dammit, Dave! I don’t even know where to start!” Noticing the cart was powered by three more patterns than usual, I let up. “Combined with the pony thing, it’s just so far out there. What am I supposed to do, let it consume all my thoughts? I don’t even know what the gender roles in Equestria are or how important they are. Maybe I’ll figure out how I feel eventually, but for now, I’m just going to ignore it.”

”You can’t ru—”

“Run away from my problems forever, yeah yeah, I’ve heard it before.”

”Don’t be a smartass. Leave that to me. You know this isn’t something that will just fade away, and I expect you to actually try and figure it out, instead of continuing to ignore it. I’ll help, but you need to do this.”

“Oh look, we’re home. I need to figure out how it’s going to work living out here.” If Dave said anything else, I didn’t hear it.

Like a tower guard, I stood in the cart, glaring out over the dust and dirt. It wasn’t much, but this chunk of land was mine to improve. Who knows how long I’d be living out of that tent, saving up the bits to have a house built out here. Fortifying an already existing building was easy, provided the resources weren’t too far away, but constructing one from the ground up was a whole different challenge.

“Hmm, I’ve talked to half the Mane Six already, and Pinkie wasn’t one of them. She should have been the first pony to show up. Feel free to chip in anytime, Dave.”

”Hell no, I had to listen to her for hours yesterday, and if one thing’s clear, it’s how little you can predict about her.”

Then I had an idea of how to find Pinkie. After all, there was one surefire way to summon a being of untold power. I cleared my throat and said, “Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie!” If that didn’t work, I could always try “Marco.”

“You rang?” Pinkie leaned out from behind the tree like she was just walking by a room when she heard her name. “I was wondering when you’d figure it out, Gears. Also, Polo! And it’s Mareco.”

“Right, pony puns. What’s there to figure out though? You’re Pinkie Pie. Pinkie’s gonna Pinkie.”

“It’s about time somepony understood that.” She rolled her eyes and glanced at Dave, who was leaning against a rock while eating a slice of cake.

“Well, excuse me for trying to be reasonable,” he said through a mouthful of food. “By the way, this is great cake.  I’m glad you cobbled the recipe together. As far as first meals go, I’m glad it was this.”

“It was no trouble at all, Davey! You’d be surprised how easy imaginary ingredients are to come by once you know where to look. But more importantly...” She bounced up to me and introduced herself. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, what’s your name?”

“Roll with it. It’s less of a headache that way.” Dave sighed, massaging his temples. “Trust me.”

“It’s a shame you and Twilight can’t meet. You two are like two peas in a pod. Wait, the peas grow in there, but how would you two get into the pod? You’re much too big, especially with the peas already taking up all the space, but there’s much more important things to find out.” She fell silent and expectantly stared up at me with piercing azure eyes.

What was she waiting for? Oh, right. “I’m Sterling Gears.” Something about her stance told me she would stand there all day if she had to.

“And welcome to Ponyville!” She posed dramatically, standing on her back legs with her front ones splayed out to the side. “Well, we’re not in Ponyville right now, but I’m the officially unofficial Ponyville welcoming committee, not the Gem Hills welcoming committee. I wonder if I can put in an application. There shouldn’t be too much trouble expanding out here. Anyway, you’re new to Ponyville slash Gem Hills, so that means I get to give you the welcome if you want!” Her mood fell slightly, as did her hair, and she quietly added, “Mayor Mare said I now have to ask before I give anypony a welcome, so no more surprise introductions.”

“I can pretend to be surprised if you want.”

“Perfect!” she squealed before pulling the bizarre welcoming machine out from behind the tree. It looked like a mechanical brass section and a kitchen had a baby. She took a breath so deep she should have puffed up like a balloon and floated off. “Wel—”

“Wait!” I interrupted. She pouted at me, her eyes watering as her piefro drooped again. “Are the confetti and batter in the correct places this time?”

“Good call. She nailed Berry Punch with the cake gunk when she sang it to me,” Dave laughed.

Pinkie narrowed her eyes at me and inspected the device. “Ooh, you’re good.” Her hooves were a blur as she corrected the ‘mistake.’ Then she began her song once more, and this time I kept my snout shut. At the finale, a burst of confetti shot from the instruments while the timer on the oven went off and a ballistic cake hurtled at me. On the plus side, I didn’t have to pretend to be surprised.

I don’t know how she baked it with the frosting and candles on it, but it tasted too good for me to really care. That is, the amount that actually made it in my mouth tasted awesome.

“Tadaa! So, what’d you think? Was it everything you expected from the show back on your world?”

I took my time finishing the mouthful of frosting, whose color matched my coat’s,. “Old world. We live in Equestria now. Dave, how much did you tell Pinkie?”

“Mostly just that she was a cartoon. Oh, and that home sucked. A lot. No details though, since I didn’t want to depress the poor girl. I spent most of the time telling her she didn’t make any sense and she also made science cry.”Pinkie must have made a good impression if that was all he said.

Pinkie took this as her cue. “Which made me upset that I made something else upset, so I had to find a way to make science smile again before it stopped working and then everything that used science stopped working. And Twilight would have been very upset that she couldn’t be a scientist anymore and then I would have had even more upsetness to fight.”

“She used frosting to write physics equations on cookies shaped like Erlenmeyer flasks.” Dave groaned. “But she insisted it worked. And that purple one you were chatting up last night, Sparklebutt or whatever her name was, bought them all today.”

“So close. It's Twilight Sparkle, silly. I didn’t know science’s address, and it didn’t stop by Sugarcube Corner, and I couldn’t just let them go to waste so the Cakes had me put them out today with the rest of the baked goods. Oh! Dave also said that you weren’t a pony or a mare, which sounds weird to me, but then again, I don’t know anything about interdimensional travel. Come to think of it, I don’t know much about regular travel either, but that’s why I’m a baker and not a travel agent. You look like you’re having fun at least, and that’s what really matters.”

It wasn’t just the Pinkie’s exuberance giving me a smile. Aside from the nights and the unavoidable fear they brought, my stay in Equestria had been a blast. “Being a pony is all sorts of excitement. Just a little over two days, and I don’t regret a minute of it, except maybe that storm I got stuck in. The exploding the following day was fun, but I don’t think I’ll purposely seek it out again.”

“What did you look like?” Pinkie gasped. “Did you have superpowers? Or were you a giant? Most importantly, did you have a bushy mustache?”

“Doesn’t really matter now, does it? You already know I was a human, like Dave is... somewhat, and male. I was taller than him—”

“And uglier.”

“It’s the hat.” I shrugged. “Either way, I’m not trying to hide it—it’s just not me anymore. I’m Sterling Gears now. A new life calls for a new name. I hate to ask, Pinkie, but you mind keeping this whole shebang a secret? Not exactly the kind of thing you want going around if you just want to live a normal life.”

“Relatively,” Dave added. “Don’t give me that look. Normal life doesn’t involve anywhere near as much as you put yourself through.”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she solemnly stated. My response was to shake with glee over hearing a Pinkie Promise from Pinkie herself.

“Thanks, Pinkie. I get the feeling it’s one of those secrets it’s better to keep. No offense, but I don’t think you would have found out if you couldn’t have talked to Dave. You’re not part imaginary, are you?”

“That would make more sense than anything else I’ve seen,” Dave grumbled as he kicked at the ground.

“I don’t think so, but I’d have to check my family tree to see if I have any imaginary ancestors.”

Sitting in the corner of my eye, my pick glinted in the noon sun, and I remembered the reason we were having this meeting in the Gem Hills instead of a place that didn’t look like someone had forgotten to pay the water bill. “Hey, you grew up on a rock farm, didn’t you? I don’t know what you have to do on a rock farm, but do you have any tips for mining?”

“Just swing the pick, silly. We never broke any rocks—we just grew them, you know, because it’s a farm.”

“That’s it, I'm done. Nap time.” Dave sighed and hopped into the cart.

“Poor thing. Must have tired himself out eating all that cake.” She shook her head slowly.

“I can’t take it anymore! Shoo, ponies! Shoo!” A gravelly voice shouted as the ground began to shake.

I frowned. “Now that’s just rude.”
> Gruberman
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The interruption came from a distinctly canine biped, who stomped out from behind a boulder, clutching his ears and howling, “All you ponies do is talk, talk, talk. Just go away!”

“Are you the Gem Hills welcoming committee?” Pinkie asked, bouncing up to him despite the resulting growls. "I didn’t mean to step on your paws."

Around me, the ground erupted in a fountain of dirt as several more diamond dogs appeared, grinning wickedly. The one Pinkie was harassing had an air of superiority around him only a leader could have, not to mention his red vest stuck out amongst the crude armor and gray vests.

“You’re Rover, aren’t you?” My legs twitched as I looked for a way out, but the diamond dogs had us completely surrounded. At least none of them were armed with anything other than their tree-trunk limbs.

Rover stepped back like he’d been struck and sputtered, “What? How? Never mind. Leave now, ponies.”

“Orrrrr?” Pinkie asked, grinning.

“We make you leave.” It was Rover’s turn to grin, and his companions chuckled in approval.

“This isn’t looking so good, you two. They have more than just the terrain working for them.” Dave cautioned from the cart.

I sighed and started forward, only to be blocked by a behemoth clad in a grimy breastplate. He cracked his knuckles and crossed his long, trunk-like arms while shaking his head. “Excuse me, I’d like to speak with your manager.” Snorting in amusement, he shook his head again. “Right. There doesn’t need to be any trouble, you know. Just leave us be and let me stay in peace. In return, I’ll do my best to return the favor.”

Rover waved me off, laughing derisively. “Ponies are weak. Go play with your weak pony friends, not on our land.”

Pinkie bounced around him, giggling. “This is a weird welcome.”

“It’s not a welcome! You aren’t welcome!” he shouted, covering his ears again.

“Pinkie, maybe you should go get some help,” Dave suggested nervously. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“Maybe you can get Rarity to come back.” That name made every last one of them wince.

A diminutive dog to my right growled, “No! You wouldn’t dare. Don’t speak of her!”

“Last chance, ponies. Leave. You’re lucky we don’t want any more po—workers down in the mines. This diamond dog land.”

He was correct, that was the last chance, but not for me. Stomping my hoof and glaring at them, I said, “What is a diamond dog? A miserable little pile of bad breath?” My eyes narrowed, and I revelled in their wary expressions. “But enough talk. Have at you!”

I launched myself at the huge dog in front of me, headbutting him in his unprotected face and laughing as he crumpled and whimpered while holding his bleeding nose. My head ached fiercely as I smirked at the gaping faces.

“No! Don’t fight them, you dumbass!” Dave screamed. “Strength in numbers. And in case you forgot, ten is more than two.”

“You a crazy pony!” The third and final vested diamond dog gasped.

My head swiveled and locked eyes with him. Still smiling, I calmly said, “Hoof to the head.”

Spittle flew from his mouth as my hoof made contact, spinning him into a pile of gravel, where he lay sprawled and making pitiful whining noises.

“What you lot doing? Get her!” Rover ordered, gesturing angrily at me and shoving Pinkie aside as he charged at me.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. Amusingly, she squeaked like a toy when she hit the ground. “You spilled my popcorn, you meanie!” Her eyes watered and she bawled literal streams of tears.

The leader flinched and turned back to her, apologizing profusely. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean you.”

Fake tears stopped instantly and she beamed. “Really?” In reply, Rover hurriedly nodded, ready to try anything to avoid another experience with a crying pony. “I know just how to celebrate!”

“Huh?” His confusion was palpable.

“A party!” Pinkie squealed as she unleashed the party cannon and sent Rover flying into my tree. More accurately, she sent him through it and splinters of withered wood rained upon the battlefield.

“The pink one got the boss!” one of them shouted moments before I drop-kicked him, which is far easier, and probably funnier to spectators, as a pony.

“Why do I even bother,” Dave grumbled as he sat on a rock to watch. He tried really hard not to laugh at watching ponies in a brawl.

Each of the dogs had to be at least two meters tall, but hulking upper bodies perched on hilariously tiny legs meant they toppled easily. Clumsy blows swung out at me, and I ducked under them, though I could have taken the time to read a book before I was in any actual danger. My movements weren’t the definition of agile, nor did I have any idea what I was doing, but these dogs couldn’t fight their way out of a soggy paper bag.

“Ack!” My tail was yanked into the air, and I dangled in front of an otherwise nondescript grunt with wet blood under his nose. The pulling sensation on my spine was definitely not something I‘d want to experience twice.

“Hello again!” I smirked.

The grunt grunted and bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. His breath should have been declared a war crime since it made me retch.

“Dude, don’t make me sic Colgate on you.” I covered my nose and squirmed, though it did little more than make me swing back and forth.

He chuckled and leaned forward to blow a noxious cloud at me. I continued to swing.

“Headbutt!” My forehead smashed into his nose once more, and I giggled as the hold on my tail vanished. I didn’t find it funny when I landed on my head as he roared in pain. Personal safety, shmersonal shmafety.

The few hits they’d landed were starting to catch up to me, and the world tilted as I pushed myself to my hooves and scanned the battlefield for Pinkie in case she needed help. She had somehow procured a lawn chair and was watching me while messily eating popcorn.

Noting my incredulous look, she giggled, spewing hulls. “What? You looked like you were having a lot of fun, and I’m on a union-mandated break.”

Around me stood several diamond dogs, though they looked less battle-crazed and more terrified with each passing second. One turned tail from just a feint, using his long arms to run much like a gorilla would. I glared at the others and targeted one who was ready to strike. Bellowing my war cry, I charged him. “Hoof to the heeeeeaaad!”

The dog seized up and fell over before I even touched him. I blew a raspberry and mumbled, “Spoilsport.”

“Boss? What do we do?” the tiny, bulldog-like one I recognized as Spot cried. Hearing no answer, he looked around nervously and wailed when he spotted their leader slumped upside-down against a rock, “No more! No more! Just take our gems and go! We surrender!” He threw himself prone and covered his head with his paws.

My hoof barely stopped before it connected with a shin, and the owner of said shin halted his haymaker as well. “Gems? Why would I want your gems? If I wanted gems, I’d dig them up myself.” The other diamond dogs looked at me with befuddled expressions.

“Not want gems?” Spot looked up slowly. “Then why come and attack us?”

“You threatened me, and I totally called dibs on that tree and the area around it. There was nothing else to do other than declare hooficuffs.”

He wiped the tears and sniffling from his face and approached me. “Crazy pony is crazy.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Me too!” called Pinkie. She looked at her watch and proudly exclaimed, “Woo, break is over!” Guzzling the remaining popcorn like it was a drink, she kicked the chair out of sight and sat down to play tic-tac-toe with Dave, who had all but given up hope of making sense of the day.

All of them shifted uneasily, and I realized I was still standing like I was ready to knock some skulls together. I relaxed and they did as well, but only momentarily before they went to nurse wounds and check on those knocked out. “I really didn’t feel like fighting.” Or expected to win, for that matter. Huzzah for pony-fu, but I would feel it in the morning.

“Why come out here though? No ponies around, just diamond dogs.”

I chuckled. “I tend to get a bit messy with my tinkering. And loud. And explodey.” I extended a hoof and introduced myself.

Hesitantly, he returned the alien—to diamond dogs—gesture. “Spot.” The armored ones looked at him expectantly, and he added, “Guess you can stay then. Just no more hoof to the head.”

“Absolutely not! No ponies!” Rover growled as he painfully stood up and supported himself on what was left of my poor tree, refusing to put any weight on his right leg. “Not now, not ever!”

“But boss, we lost,” Spot whined, his ears drooping, “What about Pack Law?”

A bloodthirsty snarl erupted from the former leader. “And? Pack Law doesn’t say anything about losing to ponies.”

“It doesn’t say ‘no ponies’ either.”

“Ponies are weak, dogs are strong.” A couple of the armor-clad dogs nodded in agreement while the rest weren’t so sure anymore.

Pinkie leaned towards me, startling me with her sudden movement. “Psst, what’s Pack Law?” I had to shrug.

The vested one I had knocked down early in the brawl pulled himself into a sitting position and wheezed, “Pack Law is Pack Law. Law say alpha or beta lead until beat by new alpha or beta.” He clutched his ribs as he limped over to Spot.

“What the what?” Dave gasped. “You two shouldn’t be allowed to have leadership of anything.”

“Ponies can’t lead a pack! What will everydog say?” Rover shook his head in rage, “No! I will not be in a pack with ponies. I will leave! Who with me? Fido?” A few dogs warily joined him while he smiled smugly. When no others moved, even Fido, the previous beta, he growled again. “You lot don’t deserve to call yourselves diamond dogs. More like mud dogs. The ponies will ruin the pack and you will have nothing! To Tartarus with all of you!”

“You mean I get a recurring villain?” Equestria was proving itself to be quite awesome.

“You’re supposed to wait for him to say he’ll be back.” Pinkie giggled, loudly whispering behind her hoof..

“She’s right.” Dave shrugged. “Not exactly recurring if you never see him again.”

Rolling my eyes, I looked back at Rover. After a few moments of silence I impatiently demanded, “Well, get on with it!”

“I’ll… be back?”

“Close enough, now say ‘you will rue the day you crossed Rover,’ and then you can leave if you really want to.”

“Shut up, pony.” The disgraced diamond dog and his depressed dissenters deftly dug down into the dirt. After a few tense minutes, it was clear they weren’t going to return for an ambush.

Out of my peripheral, I saw pink movement and turned to see Pinkie in the middle of what could only be a combo. She nodded, looking in the direction of Ponyville. “Floppy ears, tail twitch. I must go, my people need me.” And with that she bounced off.

“Boss! What do we do now?” Fido called after her.

“Just listen to Gears!” she shouted back. “She knows what she’s doing. I promise I’ll try to be back tonight for the New-Alpha-And-Beta-Party.”

Concerned, Dave shouted, “She most certainly does not know what she’s doing!”

All of the diamond dogs turned to me, waiting for orders. It took me a bit to figure out what’d just happened, and my mind raced to come up with something decent enough for a first order. “So. Uh, how bout a tour?”

Half an hour later I found myself far below ground in a dank cavern. The pungent stench of mildew emanated from the walls.

“And this is the dungeon. Nodog has been sent here in a while though. We’re very nice.” Spot nervously explained. “We use just for storage now. Plenty of room for rock ale now.”

“You brew ale from rocks?" Ale? Diamond dogs must have been Equestria’s stinky dwarves, which would probably mean they had a smithy, which meant I had a smithy, which meant I had loot. Also, supplies.

“No no no. Rocks are just for flavor.” He tapped a keg and passed me a slightly dirty stone mug. “We use cave mushrooms.”

I downed the mug and coughed violently. Rock ale was strong. And gritty. And I should have probably gone to a hospital. On the other hoof, it was fairly flavorful, though I hoped the coppery taste was from the rock they seasoned it with.

Dave scoffed. “Teetotaler.”

Fido clapped me on the back, broadly grinning, “Good to see you like. You first pony to try. Spot is good brewmaster.” Watching a diamond dog blush still wasn’t the strangest part of my day.

Unable to talk and unsure if I was bleeding internally, I merely nodded and motioned for us to continue onwards to the next room.

The next cavern was beyond humongous, with a ceiling shrouded in darkness despite the soft light of the crystals and sporadic bioluminescent fungi. Natural pillars of stone wider around than a house stretched upwards, and several stalagmites vainly struggled not to appear miniscule near them. A waterfall from an underground river splashed down into a small lake, and a small, sparkling mist constantly billowed outwards. Minecart rails that looked to be a mere afterthought snaked along the outer edge, darting in and out of the many other tunnels.

“This main cave!” Spot shouted, laughing at his booming echo. “Right under the mountain.”

“Looks natural and stable. The tunnels look sturdy too, so maybe these guys aren’t as dumb as they look. Or sound.”

We approached several small huts, crudely built from stacked rocks. A couple diamond dogs growled at my approach until Fido stared them down and explained the situation. Nodding, they saluted me and returned to their tasks.

“This where dogs live. It not much, but it home. This was Rover’s, so this Pink One’s now.” He gestured towards the largest of the huts, which, impressively, had more than one room and a makeshift door made of iron.

As we came to a smaller hut not far from Rover’s, Fido quietly whimpered. He stepped ahead of the pack and said, “Let me get stuff out and you can have place.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, you can stay there,” I said nonchalantly, waving it off.

“But this beta house.”

“That rock over there says Fido on it. I think.” The small stone had some scribbles on it, though it might have just been a weird mineral vein. “I’m not about to kick any of you out of your homes, so that’s not the beta’s house, it’s Fido’s.”

Fido’s tail wagged as he hugged me in a bone-crushing hug. Oh yeah, was definitely going to the hospital soon. He grinned as he loudly replied, “Thanks! But where you going to stay?”

“I’ll build a place on the surface by the tree.”

“You not want to live down with us?” The collective mood dropped a couple notches.

“More like it’d be dangerous to all of you with my experiments. I wasn’t joking when I mentioned exploding.”

“That explains singed fur.” The one I had headbutted twice, amusingly named Sunshine, nodded.

“Right. Last thing we need is a cave in. Don’t worry, I’ll still be nearby.” I smiled. These guys weren’t so bad when they weren’t trying to toss you off their land.

“I guess that alright.” Spot shrugged thoughtfully. “Nothing in Pack Law about that. And we can help build!” The rest excitedly murmured their consent.

”They’re certainly quick to change their loyalties. Watch your back, kid.”

“Do you guys make your own tools and armor?” I asked, inspecting a yellowish deposit of hematite. It wasn’t far from the huts and was mostly untouched.

“Of course! We on own out here. No other dogs to take from. I do most forge work.” Fido grinned, proudly pointing at himself.

“Mind showing me? I might have a few requests to make.” I returned his grin, hoping they wouldn’t notice the glint in my eye.
> Pack Law
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sweltering. If I could only choose one word to describe the forge, it would definitely be sweltering. The main cavern had been pleasantly cool and a little damp from the misty waterfall, but here, cold was an unknown word, and sweat dripped into my eyes constantly. Most of the pack remained at the entrance, panting and fanning themselves. Only Fido and I stood in the room, yet he seemed to be unaffected by the heat. In fact, he looked almost comfortable.

“This forge. This my forge,” he said with gusto as he bounded over to a large anvil with a jagged beak and tail.

At a second glance, I noticed it wasn’t jagged by accident—it was shaped to crudely resemble a canine or lupine, but the decorations wouldn’t impede a smith who knew how to hammer upon it. There was a similar, but more elaborate, decoration of a snarling wolf attached to the wall above the forge and another like it over a tub of water. Tools hung in a surprisingly organized fashion, and every blackened chisel or pair of tongs almost hummed with promise at the return of their master.

Unaffected by the heat, Dave poked around the forge, looking for something. After a short time, he let out an impressed whistle. “The only casts around here are for things like nails. Unless they’re hidden away, Vulcan over there shapes everything by hand, er paw.”

While the smithy was well-decorated and used, the rest of the relatively small cavern had been ignored for ages. A thick patina of dust rested everywhere except for the clearly well-travelled path, and the urge to kick it up like a flock of birds grew strong.

I noticed a small, lopsided sign nearby. Crude, runic letters were engraved onto its surface. “Fido, what does this say?”

He looked up from his reverie and winced. “No drinking. Put it there after we lost two dogs to accident.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Fido waved me off. “Their fault. Covered in booze and entering forge not smart.”

Instead of being offended at my snort, he chuckled. A couple steps later, I found my limit. The ever-increasing heat was too much and I was forced to retreat to my former position.

“A bit balmy, is it?” Dave smirked.

“How deep underground are we? I could cook on the floor down here.” The moment the sweat was wiped from my brow, it was instantly replaced.

“Very deep.” He chuckled. “And it not warm here. It just cold everywhere else.”

“You’re at home here, aren’t you?” The forge fit around him perfectly, as if he were a fixture as much as anything else.

He nodded vigorously. “Yes. I like metalwork more than rest of pack. Is why I smith. You say earlier you have request?”

Rubbing my snout in thought, I replied, “What metal can you work with?”

Fido laughed as if he had just heard the most hilarious joke in all of existence, which was probably something involving a group walking into a bar. “Any of them.”

“What do you have a good supply of?”

“What do we have good supply of,” he corrected, broadly gesturing towards the rest of the pack and I. “You pack beta. Metal, stone, and gem are yours as much as ours. Let’s see. Iron and copper of course. Also tin and little aluminium.” He looked to be checking a mental list. “Ponies like gold and silver, yes? We have lot of that, it just too soft for tool or armor.”

“I take it the equipment the rest of the pack uses was made by you?”

He frowned heavily. “Yes, but it not best work. Rover not want good work. He want lot of work.”

“If you want to take your time, I’m not going to be the one to stop you. I’d rather have one strong tool than two weak ones.”

Carefully checking his tools for weaknesses, Fido replied, “Good thought. I agree. In way, glad you beat me. Not because of pain—hoof to head hurt.” Fido massaged his temple and winced. “I glad I get to be here more.”  He grunted as he snapped a chisel in half before snorting and tossing the pieces into a bin.

“What do you heat your forge with?” I had an idea of what it was, but thought it was too epic to actually be true.

“Mountainblood.” He pulled a thick chain and the wolf above the forge opened its maw to pour forth vibrant magma. I had to take several steps back as the temperature spiked and my fur felt like it was going to combust. Fido did little more than slightly flinch.

He glanced over at me and a wry smile crossed his face. “Your pick, it weak.” He scoffed, like the presence of an inferior tool offended him. “You not make request so I make request for you. Mountain give blood and I would be fool to waste.”

“Aww, I didn’t even get to use the poor guy.”

Fido shrugged, smiling. “Will take time to make right. When done you can see true work. Not scrap. I even make fresh ingot for this.”

The lumps of ore he casually tossed into the crucible were massive, and I shuddered, imagining what would have happened if he had managed to strike me during the scrape. Come to think of it, if any of them except Spot had hit me with more than a glancing blow, I probably wouldn’t have kept everything intact, and I like my body parts intact.

“I fine. Go finish tour. You tough to stand heat for this long but not want new beta to pass out on first day.” Fido chuckled as he pumped the bellows. I thanked him and trotted towards the vacant exit. He called after me, “Main cave have good water.”

Apparently, I had taken so long in the forge the rest of the pack had given up on enduring and retreated to the main cave. I giggled as two who saw me stood at attention. I nodded at them and they returned to their conversation.

“It’s so weird that they’d accept you, an unstable pony, as co-leader of the pack so readily. Either that Rover fellow was really incompetent, or they strictly adhere to this Pack Law thing. Sounds like it’s dogma to them.” Dave grinned at me expectantly.

I groaned. “That pun was bad, and you should feel bad.” Hurriedly, I made my way over to the lake and plunged my head into water that was cool, refreshing, and hopefully not full of toxic waste. Disgruntled, blind cave fish fled from the pony thirstily draining their home.

“What usual material?”

Breathing heavily after a lengthy drink, I replied, “Exactly my point. This water is so good after standing in that inferno.”

Dave frowned, “I’d like to know how Fido stands it. His coat is thicker than yours and these guys don’t sweat, just like the dogs we’re used to. You know, I bet one of the dogs is named Rex. As far as stereotypical dog names go, they have to have one of those if they already have Fido, Rover, and Spot.”

“You liking caves so far?” Spot asked, causing me to choke.

I nodded and waved off his profuse apologizing. “Don’t worry about me. And yes, the caves are awesome, though it does make me a bit sad to realize how little I know about you guys. Especially this Pack Law you keep mentioning.”

Spot’s eyes widened in shock momentarily before he caught himself. “Yes. It never told to pony before.”

“Mind filling me in? I get the feeling it’s something I should probably know.” I shook the water off my head, trying my best not to splash him and failing miserably.

“Yes! Yes! Every beta should know Pack Law. Come quickly.” He suddenly scampered off, and I found myself following him through twisting passages that were in desperate need of a map with ‘You Are Here’ written on it.

Not noticing he had stopped, I inadvertently tackled Spot into a long room more akin to a hallway than another cavern. Several bright murals adorned the walls, depicting a wide variety of images with a surprising amount of detail.

“Looks like they dug this out. Everything is too smooth to be natural,” Dave muttered as he scratched himself inappropriately. He enjoyed that I was the only one who could see him a bit much at times.

“Hall of Memories,” Spot breathed reverently as he dusted himself off. “Pack Law more than law. Is also history of diamond dogs.”

“Is there going to be a test at the end?” I was semi-earnestly worried about an exam, to be honest. After all, I never had a history lesson that didn’t end in one.

He blinked at me and then shrugged. “No?”

“Excellent. Where do we start?”

“Beginning. Where else?”

I rolled my eyes and followed him to the first mural, which showed a flat world floating in space. I could almost see the water rolling off the edge. Spot cleared his throat and began, “Land around for long time. Very long time. Longer than your pony princesses and even the dragons. Nothing know how it there, but all know it is.” 

We slowly moved down the wall as he continued. “Then came the First Alphas. They rise from ground. They mightiest of all, and made of beautiful gems. They see land filled by others, but they sad they only live aboveground and only go under to take. After time of sadness they create the first dogs from the earth and rocks, using their power to make us flesh and blood.

“They say they made us to be guardian of the underland. To keep it safe for those above and from those further below. Ponies know of place below, where evil is chained forever, but forever never is. Chaos thing you know as Discord escape from there. He only one to make it past dogs but that long time ahead of now.

“Alphas see us and are happy of their pups. They tell us rules all dogs must follow. Anydog who not follow is no dog. First they say we belong in pack and in underland, not on own. We are from stone and dirt, but we are not master, just shaper and shield. They say to live from ground, and it love us as long as we love it.

“A pack need strength and strongest lead pack to glory. The one at the top and the one below him, the alpha and the beta. Two leaders to follow. If one who lead is weak, then pack weak and need new leader. Respect packmates. Without pack, you are nothing but grain of sand. With pack you are strong mountain among other strong mountain.

“Then they say we must follow these after they leave. This make first dogs confused. Why leave? Were first dogs bad? First Alphas see confusion and say they not mad. They did what they needed to and this mean they are finished here and must find new land to help.

“With grand flash of light, First Alphas shatter, and bodies scattered in many many pieces all over land. Yet they still speak to first dogs. They say old bodies bring dogs strength and life and we must find them or starve. With that they vanish and we mourn.

“First dogs become first pack and call itself diamond dogs in honor of First Alphas. Strongest of dogs becomes the alpha. Land good around dogs, but outside of dog land, things not so good. Alpha not only strongest, but also wisest. He wait on tallest mountain, far away from here and he stay for many year to search for answer. Beta meet him once a year to see if he find answer.

“One year, Beta climb mountain just as any other year and he find Alpha in same spot he always in. Beta expect to be told nothing once more, but Alpha speaks with sadness. He say one pack can not protect all of land and pack must break to honor First Alphas. Beta sees the wisdom Alpha has learned and asks what he should do. Alpha tells him to send the pack off in every way. Whole land must be safe and can’t do that if all in one place.

“This make part of Beta happy since that mean Alpha is done and can return to the rest of pack before they leave. He tell Alpha he is ready to go and is waiting for him. Alpha shakes his head and says he can not leave mountain and must stay to watch over the first land. There he stay as Beta turn and go down to tell pack.

“Pack split as Alpha say. It sad but it needed. Many packs spread out all over land, and fight with tooth and claw to make land good as they remember from home. Time go on and old speak become hazy until it gone forever. Pony speak hard for everydog, but we still hold letters from old speak and put pony speak to them. Dog history end here, and every pack keep this history to remember it.” Finished, he cracked his neck and smacked his lips. “I starving. We go get food.”

“My language hurts.” Dave moaned. “Good story, but that was a nightmare to listen to.”

I giggled at his abrupt change of subject. “Thanks for the lowdown, Spot. You go ahead, but I can’t eat gems. I’m not really hungry anyways.” I had lied about not being hungry, and thanked my stomach for not giving me away this time. I’d have to get it a treat for behaving so well.

Spot shrugged and bolted down the tunnels, quickly disappearing from sight.

“How much of that do you think is truth, Dave?”

“I know you’re hungry, so that’s not the truth. You’re always hungry.”

“Hey, my gut is just remembering what an actual meal is. I’d forgotten how nice not having to scavenge for everything is. Speaking of the past makes me think, though. This place will be a nightmare to defend from anything. We need barricades, fallbacks, the works.”

“I thought your pony-topia was all sunshine and rainbow farts. It’s even bright down here in the caves.” Dave snickered. “If it’s that nice, what use is there heavily fortifying everything. I understand a bit of defense, but you’re talking overkill. You could do with less paranoia.”

“Says the figment of my imagination. Besides, it’s only paranoia if I’m wrong, and I’m not going to lose any dog, pony, etcetera etcetera. Never again and most certainly not because of trying to rationalize the situation. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Sure I did.” He smirked.

“Alright, you didn’t answer the question I intended.”

“Fine fine. Some of the stuff in there made sense, I guess, and did explain things, but that’s what they always do. Problem is we don’t know what is actually possible here. For all we know, crystalline demigods creating new races might happen every Saturday. Seeing if the world is flat might be as easy as asking Rainbow if the horizon is straight no matter how high she gets.” Dave caught me chuckling and rolled his eyes. “Grow up. I doubt you’ll find many drugs here. Definitely nothing synthetic at any rate.”

With a mischievous grin, I said, “For now.”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “I know you’re joking, but still, you shouldn't go drugging the locals. But, don’t you still have to meet that one unicorn?”

“Alicorn.” I corrected, earning a curt “whatever” from Dave. “And thanks for reminding me. Hopefully she won’t be too mad if I show up late.”

Trotting out into the tunnel, I wandered down the way I had come from with my head held high.

“You actually paid attention to how you got here?” Dave asked incredulously.

“Of course not. That’s half the fun.”
> Something Witty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of hoofsteps echoed through the halls, and every tunnel looked the same as the last. No rhyme or reason governed their direction, and I often found myself at the same cavern I had just left, frustrated. It even took me ages to find a diamond dog, who I sheepishly asked for directions. He laughed and pointed to a tunnel just to my left, from which drifted the faintest hint of fresh air. I asked him to tell the rest of the pack I was headed out, and I was off once more.

My eyes were quick to adjust as I wandered out of the caves and tried to find the sun. While the day was still ongoing, the sun had recently ducked behind the mountain, casting a long shadow. 

Outside of the caves, it was easier to get my bearings, so only a brief hike me from my cart, and I made a mental note to see if it was possible for the pack to dig a new tunnel. Sure, there were other spots I could have set up camp, but I liked that barren patch with the now-broken tree.

My hurrying only caused bumbling, but I couldn’t help trying to get it done as quickly as possible—I didn’t want to get stuck outside in the eerie night once again. In my haste, I used the wrong side of the accelerator and only succeeded in embarrassing myself. Pulling the goggles away a bit further than necessary, I winced when they smacked me in the face. That would leave a mark.

After almost toppling the vehicle when it caught some air, I reluctantly slowed down, though the speed was now less out of feeling late and more out of enjoying my recklessness.

Singing ponies scattered as my cart rolled into town, shooting me an angry glare for interrupting their musical number. I took the back roads, hoping I hadn’t lost my mental map of the town, and was relieved when the Golden Oaks Library loomed ahead of me, doing what trees do best: boring tree things. My cart slid to a stop more dramatically than last time, cutting short marks into the well-maintained lawn.

“Now that has to be a record!” I cheered, pushing my goggles back up with a with a grey hoof. Pegasus goggles or not, they worked wonders for hurtling down dusty roads, and the scant few splattered gnats on them further testified their utility. Also, goggle, goggle, goggle.

Spike answered the door cautiously after the excited beating I gave it and was unsure if he should relax when he saw it was me.

“Sterling Gears, right?” I nodded at the dragon, stepping past him as he moved aside. “Twilight asked me to tell you she won’t be present for more research on your work tonight. She got called off to the Crystal Empire with the rest of the girls. By the way, dig the swell goggles.”

“You said that yesterday.” I chuckled at the expression Spike made as he tried to recall that tidbit. “So that’s why Pinkie had to go,” I muttered. “Did they bring the elements with them?”

“Why do you ask?” the dragon’s slitted eyes narrowed, his tone growing wary.

I rolled my eyes and replied, “Duh, because I want to know if there’s something I should be preparing to blow up.”

Doubled over laughing, Spike replied, “Right right, forgot who I was talking to for a moment.” He wiped a tear from his eye as he finished and shrugged. “No need to worry though, they always take them with if it’s royal business, whether there’s a new bad guy or not.”

“I think I’ll prepare anyways. Getting antsy because it’s been too long since I last blew something up.”

“If I correctly overheard you and Twilight talking, hasn’t it only been a day or so?”

“Like I said, too long.” I smirked.

“You might be crazier than Pinkie. Different kind of crazy at any rate. She’s socially crazy, but meeting other ponies doesn’t seem to be high on your list.” His stomach rumbled loudly and he blushed. “Sorry, was about to make myself dinner. Can I make you a daisy sandwich?”

“Knock yourself out. I’ll bring you a gem next time I visit if you tell me what kind you want.”

Spike mulled it over. “I have had a hankering for topazes lately, but I can’t find any in town and Rarity’s fresh out. Are you good enough with that pick that you can dig one up or something?”

“Or I’ll just see if the diamond dogs can find one for me.”

He snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that one. They have a pretty strict ‘No Trespassing’ policy. It’s a bummer too, the gems there are so tasty. I’ve tangled with them before though, so I could give you a few pointers if you want.”

“I thought Pinkie would have mentioned that me and her are in charge of the pack now.”

You could hear the sound of Spike’s jaw hitting the wooden floor. After an awkward silence, his words were little more than a whisper. “What?”

“Yeah, it was awesome. I was chatting with Pinkie and they showed up to kick us out. I wasn’t really in the mood for their shenanigans and they refused to acknowledge that I had called dibs on that spot. The nerve. Anywho, there was a little brawl and Pinkie blasted the leader through my tree while I took on the rest of the pack. Except that little runty one of course. Eager to please, that guy, but quite the coward.”

”They were also unarmed, trying to drive you off rather than kill you, and terrible at fighting.” Try as he might, Dave wasn’t going to take that victory away from me.

Spike still hadn’t recovered from his shock, and he asked, “What?”

I sighed. “What do you mean what? That’s what happened.”

“But how?” he asked. “You took on a diamond dog pack and won. And how did Pinkie blast him through your tree? And when did you get a tree?”

“When I called dibs, of course.”

“And Pinkie?”

“Party cannon.” I laughed. "You should have seen how fast he went."

He faceclawed—they were close to hands, but not close enough—and muttered, “Of course. But why did they put you in charge? You’re a pony.”

“Since when?” My feigned surprise earned a chuckle. “And Pinkie’s the one who is really in charge. She replaced the alpha, and I took out the second-in-command.”

He shook his head in exasperation and sighed. “I’m going to go get you the books you were reading yesterday and then I’ll get cooking. I need to process what you just told me.”

“Thanks, dude. Mind if you toss in a chemistry book this time as well?”

“Chemistry?” Spike scratched his head in befuddlement.

“Er, alchemy? I guess Zebrican magic might also cover it, but I’ll understand if I have to pay Zecora a visit for that one.”

“We have alchemy for sure. I don’t think we have much for that other one though. Twilight told me once that zebras prefer to pass on knowledge by mouth instead of by book. Or maybe that was griffons. Minotaurs?” He trailed off, tapping a claw against his chin as he stared vacantly into the distance.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been looking forward to having her bust out some sick rhymes.”

“...Right. I’ll get moving now.”

“No chemistry?” Dave snorted, “What a bunch of luddites. Well, unless alchemy is far more significant here, but by our definition, it refers to paradoxical results.”

“Yeah yeah.”

“Did you say something?” Spike called, peeking his head out from the stacks.

“Nothing special. Just talking to myself.” I could hear the tiny dragon’s baffled grumbling as he resumed his search.

As it turned out, equestrian alchemy was a highly developed science involving all sorts of mixtures and their results. Dave felt the need to point out the lack of knowledge on the composition of the various items described, and he scowled at me when I rolled my eyes and told him to shut it.

“Ah, here we go,” I said excitedly, pointing at a recipe made of simple minerals. “I knew one of these had to have something that exploded.”

“You and your explosions.” Dave frowned. “You could do something constructive for once.”

“I’m constructing destructive things. The description doesn’t say much about it, except that the result is fairly weak. I’ll have to improve it a bit. And by a bit, I mean a lot. Maybe I can grind up some thaumite and see what happens.”

“Because separating it from that iron worked so well.”

“Exactly!” Beaming, I continued skimming the book. Some of the things might have practical applications somewhere, but I didn’t have the patience for creating many of the things described.

I called out, “Hey Spike, you have any idea where I could learn what thaumite is made of?”

The sound of rattling pots and pans echoed through the library. “Ponyfeathers!” He poked his blushing face out of the kitchen. “Please don’t tell Twi I said that.”

”What kind of expletive is that?”

“Make a batch of cookies for us to share and you have a deal.”

He suavely inspected his claws. “You drive a hard bargain. I’ll see what I can do. No gemstones in yours, I take it?”

“Not this time. And the thaumite?”

“Check the geology books. One of them has a great metallurgy section if I remember correctly.”

A quick check of the tables of contents led me to the appropriate chapter, and the pages quickly flipped by in my search for any mention of thaumite.

“Don’t you need to charge it with magic for it to be of any good?” Dave asked, intensely reading over my shoulder.

“Right. I guess I could ask around town. No idea how hard it is to charge the stuff. Maybe Metalhead would do it if I paid him. All I have to do is figure out how to get the uncharged stuff.”

Thaumite didn’t have much of a description compared to the other entries in the book. All I found was a few lines stating the process to create it was incredibly strenuous and required extreme heats.

“Looks like it’s refined bauxite and wolf ore. What the hay is that?” I muttered, tapping the book with a hoof.

“You can say hell—you’re not going to offend me. The first one is probably talking about aluminium, see if the second one is mentioned elsewhere.”

“You wouldn’t understand, it’s a pony thing, I think. Way ahead of you on looking for wolf ore though.”

“It is not a pony thing, you’re just a nutcase who watches that show too much.”

“It’s a good show!”

“But there are other ones.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I ended up on a world other than the one filled with ponies.” Rolling my eyes, I almost missed the entry I had been looking for. “Found it. Now stop being such an asshat.”

“Just tell me what it says.”

“Blah blah blah impossible to melt without magic. Blah blah blah found near quartz. And it’s apparently really heavy to boot.” I read, instinctively skipping over the history. I’d had enough of a history lesson that day, thank you very much.

Dave groaned loudly, tilting his head back and barely catching his hat. “Tungsten. How can ponies smelt tungsten?”

“How do you come up with tungsten from something called wolf’s ore.”

“Maybe if you ever read the books you opened, you’d know. It matches the description and tungsten was originally called wolframite. How do they make an alloy of that and aluminium?”

“That might be a bit of a stretch, and if I’m saying it, it really must be. But, Fido did mention aluminium, so if we can find some of this stuff and figure out a way to smelt it, I’ll have a steady source of thaumite. If it takes so much heat, we might have to find a different method than dumping lava on it.”

“I have no idea how you can hold a conversation with yourself.” Spike sighed as he put a tray of cookies on the table. They were plainly divided into two piles: one of chocolate chips and the other of ruby chips. “This is our secret too. Twilight would kill me if she knew I ate this many at once.”

“I remember growing up, don’t worry. What does a ruby taste like anyway?”

“Oh, these aren’t rubies, they’re spinels. Rubies don’t taste so good if they’re baked in anything with sugar.”

Chowing down on the incredibly delicious cookies, I sprayed crumbs everywhere as I spoke. “These are awesome, thanks. Where did you learn how to cook stuff with gems in it anyways? I don’t suspect there to be much of a market for it.” A dragon had just made cookies for me. Life was good.

“You and Twilight aren’t the only ones who do experiments around here.” Spike grinned proudly. “I wouldn’t mind finding a cookbook, but I’m the only lithovore around.” His tone saddened as he finished the sentence.

“Actually, the diamond dogs share your diet. Maybe you could trade some recipes with them.”

“We didn’t exactly meet on the best of terms.” Spike chuckled nervously.

“They’re nice enough once you get to know them. Not to excuse what they might have done, but most of them aren’t so keen on coming up with their own opinions. At least that’s what I’ve gathered.”

“Still, I don’t know. They were awfully mean to Rarity.”

“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure. I’m not asking you to come alone if you don’t want to. You can bring Twilight if you’d like. She could pretend it’s a diplomatic thing.”

“You demonstrated your idea of diplomacy earlier.” Dave pawed at the cookies, wincing as he realized he couldn’t eat them. He sighed, “I guess Pinkie can’t make every dessert.”

Spike’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll talk to her, but I’m not promising anything.”

“The fire-breathing dragon is terrified of a bunch of mutts. A bunch of mutts that you took down almost entirely on your own.” Dave frowned and hung his head. “I’ll never understand this place.”

An owl fluttered down from upstairs and perched on a wooden stand tailored for him. He tilted his head and stared at me, hooting softly.

“And a good evening to you as well, Owloysius.” A quick glance out the window showed an inky night had fallen. I knew I wasn’t in there that long. The sun was barely gone when I’d arrived.

“Already awake, buddy?” Spike followed my gaze and added, “I didn’t realize it was that late already. No wonder I’m so tired.”

“It got dark awfully fast, didn’t it?”

“Maybe you were just in here for that long. I should really get to bed though, and Owloysius hasn’t passed Twilight’s librarian course yet, so...” Another yawn stretched his jaw.

“I don’t think I’m getting what you’re hinting at.” Closing the books, I giggled and stuffed one last cookie in my mouth. “Thanks for making the cookies though.”

“I wasn’t kidding about being tired, it’s been interesting whenever you’ve shown up, so it’s not like I specifically want you gone. Take the rest of the cookies though, I don’t want to throw them away and risk Twilight finding out.” He noticed I’d only taken the chocolate ones and coughed to get my attention. “These too. My eyes are bigger than my stomach. Just give them to the diamond dogs or something.”

Finding room for the treats was difficult with how full of junk my saddlebags were, but I managed to make room in a side pouch. I thanked Spike and bid the two of them farewell before leaving.

“It doesn’t feel that late.” My coat barely stopped the biting cold. “A lot colder than last night too. That’s a bit too much of an omen, in my opinion.”

“What’s your plan then?”

“Well, it’s kind of late and I’m cold. So I’m going to find booze.” With a smile, I pantomimed drinking from a bottle.

Dave chuckled and dug a finger in his ear. “That’s no surprise. I meant in general. What are you going to do about the imminent doom?”

Only a few stars shone overhead, and even those were little more than flecks. “Drink booze, prepare for zombies, find tungsten, make thaumite, charge thaumite, prepare for zombies, blow stuff up,  make epic things out of thaumite, and lastly, prepare for zombies.”

“Equestria is not going to get attacked by zombies,” Dave mumbled through the palm pressed against his face.

“That’s what they all say. Like I said before, it won’t be so crazy if I’m ready for it.” I growled through gritted teeth. “I lost everyone and everything before. I’m not going to let it happen here.”

“Now you got me depressed. Let’s get you drunk so I can be drunk vicariously.”

> Nightlife
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Semi-cautiously driving through a dark Ponyville, I kept my eyes peeled for a place to get drunk. You know, one of the simple pleasures. Not a soul besides me wandered the streets, and our only company was the small haven of light each street lamp created. It may have been an unnatural darkness, but magical light did have its advantages. When I wandered past town hall, I had tried to check the clock tower, but it was hidden from view.

“And how are you expecting to find a bar?” Dave asked as he sat at the rear of the magic-propelled cart.

“Or a club, whatever. I’m not picky, they just need something to drink. I know the idea is there, after all, the pack drinks that ale of theirs.”

“How strong was that swill anyway? You looked like you were about to keel over.”

“Battery acid would have been more mild. Not made for ponies, that’s for sure, but it’d probably be the sort of drink Spike would go for if he were older.”

He winced sympathetically and shook his head. “Yikes. I don’t think you’d want to give alcohol to anything that breathes fire though. Remember when Fido mentioned the accident in the forge?”

“I doubt it’s the same, but in the show he only really blew fire when he was sending letters for Twilight. He probably has different methods of breathing it, but could you imagine if he burped and just sent booze to Celestia?” I laughed at the admittedly stupid thought. Squinting didn’t help my sight, and I checked to make sure my goggles weren’t over my eyes. They didn’t hamper my vision, but I needed all the help I could get in this gloom.

Still chuckling, Dave answered, “Doubt you’ll be able to find a bar in this junk. I don’t think ponies have invented neon lighting yet.”

“That’s why I mentioned the club idea. All I have to do is listen for dance music or whatever as it should be the only place playing music that loudly this late.”

“And how are you going to pay for these drinks of yours?” he wryly smirked at me, raising an eyebrow.

I groaned at the obvious flaw. After a few moments, I sighed. “Maybe they’ll take some of these cookies as payment.”

“If they can be used in cooking, I doubt gems are as valuable here.”

“I don’t just have gem cookies—I didn’t eat all of them. I wanted to, but Spike kicked me out.”

Dave barely choked out his words between guffaws. “Yeah, maybe the bartender will have a sweet tooth and have missed dinner. Anyway, maybe you should stop the cart once in a while to listen for music. The wheels do make noise.”

Something gave me the feeling stopping the cart would be a bad idea, but Dave had a point. Each subtle twitch still made me flinch, but I was slowly getting used to it. Ever so faintly, a low thumping came from the darkness, and Dave made sure I saw his shit-eating grin. He didn’t even have to say ‘I told you so,’ but he did anyways. Thrice.

“Laugh it up. At the end of the night I’ll either be drinking alcohol or eating cookies.” That quickly turned his face to a deep scowl, and he turned away from me to grumble.

I only ran into five or six mailboxes, as the last might have just been a fence post, and blundered towards the noise. Ponyville wasn’t a large town, and the word ‘city’ could only be used to describe it sparingly, so I soon found myself in the countryside. With no street lights to guide me, I was enveloped by the cold black, and strayed from the road often in my blindness. Each time the wheels caught the grass, the cart jerked and shuddered like it was coming apart at the seams. My only solace was the music’s ever-increasing volume, and eventually it became more than just bass.

A small building stood half-shrouded in shadows, and the lights over the entrance beckoned to me warmly, encouraging me to spend the bits it assumed lined my saddlebags. As I watched, I could occasionally spot flickers of other colors that no doubt came from inside. ‘The Seed’ was stylishly painted on a giant sign above the front doors, and various posters lined the front walls to advertise the joint and display their promotional events. Unfortunately, my luck probably wouldn’t allow me to take advantage of mares’ night, since I still had no idea what day it was.

“Swanky.” Dave snorted as we strolled up to the thick, wooden doors. “This is certainly a high class establishment.”

Raw sound bowled me over as I opened the doors, and I stumbled backwards, half-surprised and half-overpowered by the force of it. The doors swung shut, quickly muting the music.

From my position on the ground, I gasped. “Those are some thick walls.”

“No kidding. How are your eardrums still intact?”

“Pony powers.”

“Stop using that as an excuse.” He rolled his eyes as I got to my hooves and staggered back to the door.

It was like fighting against a comically strong gust of wind. Pausing to pull my goggles enough gave the sound enough of an advantage to push me back to the door. Once I fought past the small entryway, the sound abruptly died down and I stumbled forward, crashing into a table. It was like believing there were still more stairs to climb and having a hoof/foot, depending on who was listening to me ramble, fall upon nothing. The music still blared loudly, but it didn’t feel like I was going to be literally blown away anymore.

“Sweet Celestia!” I faintly heard someone exclaim over the din. I think it was a stallion. “Hey DJ, somepony made it past the bass barrier.”

“No kidding? Get them a drink on me, they definitely earned it.” The reply was also barely audible, but I could tell the shouting had been honed with many nights of having to communicate over the noise.

I couldn’t hear the hoofsteps until they were right next to me. “You alright, lady?”

It dawned on me that I was still laying there and using a chair incorrectly. I dopily grinned at the two periwinkle ponies standing over me. My eyes focused, and I grinned at the one periwinkle pony standing over me and wondered why he was wearing a sleeved vest. And then I wondered why I was seeing so many vests that day. Vestapalooza! Why wasn’t there a holiday for vests? “I am since hearing I get a free drink.”

The earth pony chuckled as he lent me a hoof in untangling myself from the furniture and limping over to the bar. Even though everything still had the rustic feel indicative of Ponyville buildings, there was still a modern, sleek air over everything. Decisive, minimalist architecture and furniture dominated the club, and the sitting areas flowed in an elegant curve around a checkered, faintly glowing dance floor. There were only a few other patrons, and each one tried their damndest to brood in a darkened corner.

Two behemoth speakers flanked a turntable emblazoned with an electric-blue musical note that seemed familiar, but music was definitely not one of my talents. Bright beams of light flashed down from overhead, creating scintillating patterns that were expertly maneuvered to stay within the empty dance floor. A hoof tapping the bar caught my attention before I could see who I owed my drink to.

“I asked what you wanted for a drink, but I understand you probably couldn’t hear me. It definitely takes some practice here,” he said, chuckling again while he polished a glass like a stereotypical bartender.

“Oh.” I hemmed and hawed before shrugging, defeated. “House special if you have one?”

“A newbie, eh?” A wicked smile spread on his face. “One house special coming right up. If you’re sure that is.”

Remembering my previous experience with Equestrian alcohol, I laughed at the challenge. “Absolutely.”

“I admire your confidence.” He nodded and set about preparing the drink, carefully positioning each bottle he used so the labels were out of sight. “Why did you come through the front and not take the side door anyway?”

“There’s a side door?” I deadpanned. Next to me, Dave fell off his stool in laughter.

He sighed and shouted at the DJ. “You forgot to turn on the side-entrance light again, and you forgot to put up the sign mentioning said side entrance. Again. Is there anything you remember to do?”

“I remembered I worked tonight.”

“Small victories,” he muttered, hanging his head in mock shame as he continued mixing the drink. An insane amount of ingredients went into it, I noticed, and he did cackle occasionally.

A small shot glass appeared in front of me, filled with a drink that looked like neon orange juice. Small wisps of vapor wafted up from it, making my eyes water. “Smells strong. That’s it though? You used way too much to fit in a shot glass.”

“Yep, that’s the bass cannon. Don’t let the size fool you. I had to mix up a fresh batch of a couple of the ingredients. It wastes too much if I only make enough for this drink.” His mischievous grin egged me on as he spoke. “All at once now, don’t nurse it.”

Without a second thought I snatched up the glass and downed the contents, wincing as it scalded my tongue despite being frigid in temperature. The telltale burn of alcohol raced down my throat, and it kicked hard, but at least it didn’t feel like it caused internal bleeding. Behind the burn, there was a subtle yet delicious taste that might have tasted like berries if my tongue still worked. The bartender eyed me expectantly.

“Delicious.” I smirked, eyes stinging from the vapor still drifting from my mouth.

His face fell. “That’s it?” He turned away from me, muttering to himself, “I know I mixed it right, and nothing’s expired.”

“Nice!” cheered the DJ, who had came to the bar and sat down next to me unnoticed. “I helped Tall come up with that one. Named it myself actually.”

“And that’s all you did for it.” He scoffed.

I turned to the DJ and gasped, barely managing to get out the words “Vinyl. Bucking. Scratch.”

The white, unicorn mare wore an expression of mild surprise that was mostly hidden by her signature violet shades. She turned to Tall and grinned broadly. “See, told you they don’t just know me by DJ PON-3.” As she returned her attention to me, she casually extended a hoof. “Always good to meet a fan.”

“Of course I’m a fan. You’re best pony.” I rolled my eyes and shook her hoof. I mentally slapped myself for not recognizing the emblem on the turntable as her cutie mark. “Sterling Gears.”

“Hey, don’t stroke her already gigantic ego.” He laughed, relaxedly leaning against the bar. His hoof reached over and he introduced himself as Tall Order.

“Too late.” Vinyl chuckled.

I looked from her and back to the bartender, noticing the stallion’s periwinkle coat and ultramarine mane matched the two-tone color of Vinyl’s mane.

“Hey, you two match. Kind of.” It wasn’t as funny as I thought it was. I may have been feeling a bit tipsy. My face was already warm. What had been in that thing?

“Comes from being bro and sis,” Vinyl replied. “Can I get the usual, baby bro?”

“One loogie or two.” He glared, but the brotherly smile betrayed his amusement, and he set about making the new drink. He easily talked without being distracted from his work. “What’s your liver made of, Sterling? That drink has knocked stallions twice your size on their flanks.”

“Liver meat?” I shrugged. Okay, more than a bit tipsy.

“Good to see you can actually get drunk.” He chuckled as he set down an amber beverage in front of his sister and cracked open a rootbeer for himself.

Vinyl levitated the cup to her mouth and sighed in satisfaction after the first sip. “I love me some Stalliongrad golden vodka. Potatoes have to be good for something, after all. Hey, did you enjoy your bass cannon?”

I lifted my saddlebags from the floor and placed them on Dave’s vacant chair. He was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t concern me. “It was delicious. Much better than the rock ale I drank earlier today.”

Tall roared with laughter. “I was afraid I was losing my touch. Good to know you were just pre-numbed. What’s it taste like? I haven’t had the opportunity to try it myself.”

“Fire and metal with a hint of alcohol.” Everypony laughed heartily. "They use rocks for flavoring, so I think there was some copper in the batch I had.”

“Rocks? I guess that makes sense, but I never would have thought of that. What about the base?”

“Mushrooms of some kind, I can ask next time I see the pack.”

“Mushrooms? Interesting,” he muttered thoughtfully. “I’ll have to mention that to Berry next time I see her. Not much of a drinker, but you won’t find a better brewer from here to the Griffon Kingdom. Wait a minute, did you say ‘pack?’ As in diamond dog pack?”

“Yep, I’m their new beta.” I slurred the story to them, trying my best not to exaggerate too much since I wouldn’t remember what I’d made up. At the end, I pulled out a stack of cookies, and after remembering at the last minute to check if they were the gem ones, sheepishly switched them out with the ones still in the saddlebags. “Can I pay for another drink with cookies? They’re like tasty bits, right?”

Vinyl and Tall struggled to keep a straight face as they shared an amused look. Yeah, nobody expected that to last long. Between gasping for air and laughing, Tall still managed to ask what I wanted.

“I guess I’ll try what Vinyl’s having.”

“Paying with cookies, that’s gold.” She clutched her side and let her laughter fade into sporadic chuckling.

“Consider yourself lucky I would have spent the bits you gave me on cookies anyway.”

Blurry time trailed on as the three of us chatted and drank. Vinyl and I were slowly knocking back fairly strong drinks, but Tall insisted he didn’t drink while working, despite his sister’s slightly slurred pleading. The other patrons in the club had left since then, smartly leaving out the side door since music still played even without Vinyl at the turntable.

My mind wandered back to my entry, and I asked, “Wh-what was... that I had to fight through?” It would have been easier to talk if I hadn’t realized my pony tongue was much bigger than my old one.

“Twilight tried telling me once. Something something acoustic reso-reso—buck it—vibrating stuff.”

“We need to make a real bass cannon. It’ll be awesome.” My hiccup at the end caused the other mare and me to fall into a giggling fit.

“Yes! Tall... Tall… This pony is fun. Where’d you find her?”

“I think I’m going to cut you two off. I don’t think you have a chance in Tartarus at carrying through with it, but you shouldn’t get plastered enough to try.” Tall sighed and stole our glasses.

Vinyl whined, “Aww, why me too? You’re killing me. And Gears. Blargh. Gears, die with me.”

“Bla—oh shit.” Dramatically falling backward didn’t work so well on a barstool. “I’m okay.”

“Because your marefriend will kill me.” He chuckled.

“Not my sweetheart, she’s a Tavi. Wait...” She hiccuped, causing another gigglefest.

“A sweetheart who will tan my hide if I let you get that drunk again. I don’t want to rebuild this place again.” Tall shot her a stern look.

She waved her hooves defensively. “That was one time!.”

“Still, no.”

“Aww, well talking ‘bout Tavi reminds me I should get home.”

“She’s still in Canterlot for that symphony performance, Vinyl. Still, it is about closing time. You two go get some fresh air, and I’ll finish cleaning up in here. Hit the music on your way out, Vinyl. I’ll walk you two home when I’m done.” We stared at him, unwilling to get off the barstools. “Get going.”Tall gestured towards the door.

He watched his sister and new friend leave, and was impressed he didn’t have to remind the latter about her saddlebags. Before the door closed, he poured himself a stiff drink and grumbled, “Confound these ponies—they drive me to drink.”
> Making Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well that's sobering." Vinyl and I shivered outside the nightclub while Tall took his sweet time closing shop. It felt like winter had forgotten its wallet and was back in Ponyville because it didn't realize the thing was in its back pocket. The two of us had been feeling pretty wobbly, but stepping outside felt like an involuntary cold shower.The alcohol still tugged at me, but I was more or less alert, if a little slow on the draw.

"Seriously." Her teeth chattered louder than she spoke. "Totally going to suck walking back to town. Did Princess Luna get drunk too and just didn't feel like doing the whole shebang tonight?"

"It was creepy dark last night too, but nowhere close to this." I tried motioning with a hoof and almost fell from the loss of support. Outside the small circle of light in front of the building, there was a wall of darkness. You could see nothing beyond it, and the light didn't lessen as it travelled further from the lamps. It simply cut off—one side was lit and safe, the other dark and foreboding. Luckily, my cart rested on the very edge of the circle.

"Wouldn't know, I stopped partying when the sun came up." She chuckled, her breath puffing out in little clouds.

"Alright, ladies, sorry 'bou—sweet Celestia it's cold out here!" Tall gasped as he opened the door. After locking it behind him, he squinted into the pall and asked, "Are my eyes still adjusting or is it just that dark?"

"Number two," Vinyl answered, resulting in a number of immature giggles between the two of us. "Definitely going to remember that scarf tomorrow night."

"Well, best we get started before we freeze then. The walk should warm us up a bit."

"So would some rum."

"You know better than that, Vi. Besides, we're out."

"But, why's the rum gone?" she pouted. Two confused faces turned towards me as I nearly busted a lung.

This attempt at lifting a hoof and waving fared much better than the last, and I grinned. "Don't mind me. Just remembering something. I do have an idea though. Tall, how would you like to learn how to drive?"

"Drive what? And sure, if it gets us out of this mess faster."

After getting over the initial confusion when, Tall Order took to driving like a fish to water—after a couple celebratory circles, we were ready to leave. That is, until he pointed out one of the more obvious problems.

"How are we going to see the road?"

Vinyl snorted as she shot a small spark from her horn. "Gee, I dunno. If only we had a totally awesome unicorn with us."

Tall rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but I guess we'll have to make do with you."

"Vinyl with your horn so bright, won't you guide my cart tonight?" I clambered into the cart and (not so) gracefully sat down.

"Aww yeah, gonna be a lighthouse." Her horn lit up like a beacon and pierced the darkness with a ray of light just wide enough to cover the road. She and Tall sat at the front of the cart, him driving and her guiding, while I sat behind them quietly. The silence was short-lived as Vinyl began to hum a tune to occupy herself.

As my thoughts slowly defogged, I began to shiver less out of cold and more out of trepidation over how little was visible of our surroundings. Anything might be hiding mere feet from us, and we wouldn't know its presence until it bit into us with cold, decaying teeth. Shadows wriggled at the edge of the light. Dark whispers my companions couldn’t hear shattered the silence, and I jumped at every bump in the road. Knowing your mind was messing with you didn't take enough of the edge off to make a difference.

"Chill out, Sterling," Tall said. "This thing, while awesome, is hard enough to drive without you knocking it all over the place."

Vinyl shushed us and asked, "Did you two hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"There it is again. Listen." Her ears swiveled towards a sound I couldn't hear.

The cart gradually stopped and all of us listened for it. This time I could hear a faint sound further down the road and maybe off to the side. It was so faint, all I could identify was its direction. I'd heard mimes fart louder than that.

"How far is the Everfree from here?" I whispered, not feeling up to finding a manticore or cockatrice.

Tall shook his head. "Far enough it shouldn't be anything from there."

We slowly inched the cart forward, holding our breaths. Our guide swept her horn back and forth, trying to find the source of the sound, but all it revealed was grass and dirt.

A gust of wind rattled a bush somewhere to my left and I darted to the other side of the wagon, rocking it wildly.

"Cool it, Sterling," snapped Tall. "It's probably just a deer or something. You're a really jumpy drunk, you know."

I snorted. "No, I'm a paranoid survivor who likes to know what's around him—I mean her."

He rolled his eyes and nudged Vinyl. "Hey, mind doing a quick circle sweep? Maybe that'll calm her down."

She nodded and shakily stood. She slowly rotated, struggling to keep her balance and chuckling at her own unsteadiness. Nothing stood out when the light crossed over it, except I thought I spied something off in the distance.

"Right over there." Any buzz from before was completely gone, hidden by adrenaline. "I think there's something over there."

"...rsty."

All of us froze and shared worried glances while the faint noise slowly became discernible speech.

"So dark… can't see."

Vinyl tried to find whatever was speaking, but it wasn't where I had previously thought it was.

"So cold… Like ice in my veins."

A pony-shaped figure gradually came into view against the darkness, its outline vague and shimmering. Vinyl's magic revealed no detail when she swept over it.

Tall called out, "Hello? Is somepony there?"

He moved to get out of the cart and I stopped him with a firm hoof pushing down on his withers. I glared at him and hissed. "No."

I didn't know if it was the eeriness of the situation or my tone, but he nodded and obliged. All of us could feel something was obviously off here, and we didn't want to end up becoming horror story clichés.

"To the right!" gasped Vinyl, locking onto her target.

A pony-shaped blotch stood out, its body darker than what we had previously thought to be possible. Around it, the night almost glowed in contrast. It was definitely not where I had previously seen it, if it was what I had seen before Tall tried to talk to it. The magic light shining on it did nothing to illuminate it.

"Kill it! Kill it with fire!" I growled as I searched for a weapon. "Nuke it from orbit! Just do something!"

"Sterling! Enough!" Tall shot me an annoyed glare.

The figure turned towards us, I think. It's hard to tell when you're looking at something whose presence clouds your senses and clutches your heart with icy talons. It was like something had taken a picture with a pony in it and then removed the pony only to find there wasn't  a picture behind it anymore. All we had to stare at was an outline of a being. A being that radiated darkness like a mist and dredged forward our deepest nightmares as we gazed fearfully at it.

"Warmth… life…"

It flowed towards us.

"Sweet Celestia! Kill it with fire and that other thing she said!" Tall screeched. He shook his sister out of her daze. "Horn front! We're leaving!"

Tall urged the cart forward before Vinyl had fully rotated, regretting the decision with a startled yelp—it was in front of us now.

Shouldering aside our frozen driver, I mashed the accelerator into the cart. "Ramming speed!"

The thing made no move as we neared and inevitably collided with it, where it dissipated like it was made of dust. If I had thought the night was cold before, tearing through that thing felt like… like something really freaking cold. I was so cold I couldn't even come up with an amusing analogy.

"Please… I'm so cold..."

"Ha! We are leaving that thing in the dust!" Vinyl cheered, scanning the road behind us.

"Vinyl, I can't see in the dark." A jab to her ribs turned her back around.

"Right, sorry. What was that thing? I don't think I've ever been so freaked out." She paused and quietly asked herself, "Wait, I'm not tripping, am I?"

"Nope."

"Welp, I'm out of ideas." She shrugged before returning to the tune she had been working on.

"You alright there?" Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted Tall curled up into a ball, shaking.

Vinyl grinned and chuckled. "He's always been a bit of a chicken about the spooky stuff. You should have seen him on Nightmare Night when we were foals. This takes the cake though. Hey, you think we can get some cake this late? I'm starving."

"That’d be great, but I don't think the bakeries are open," I replied. Some good cake would definitely make me feel better about the current situation. Not to mention cake's evil-repelling properties.

"Cake?" muttered the stallion behind us. "How can you two be thinking of cake at a time like this?"

"Left turn!" Everypony launched themselves to the left side. Thankfully, the cart was heavy enough it didn't just topple over, but we did get it up on two wheels as we rounded a turn we definitely shouldn't have taken at even a quarter of our speed.

"And will you slow down? I don't want to escape just to get killed by your insane invention."

"...Come back… Please."

With eyes wide as saucers, Tall grabbed my shoulders and shook furiously. "Go faster!"

"I'm giving her all she's got!"

"What's with the accent?" Vinyl sniggered. "Oh wait, what if I try to juice it up? You said it uses magic, so what if I gave it more? What's the worst that could happen?"

"I'm certainly not going to try since you said that. That's some bad juju, Vinyl." I shook my head at her, although it might have been from Tall quaking like a leaf while still holding onto my shoulders. "You can sit down now."

Surprise Ponyville!

"Gah!" We were this close to painting the side of Roseluck's shop. I was near enough to notice it needed a fresh coat, but not one made of wood and ponies. Oh, right, you can't see how far apart I'm holding my hooves, uh, it was really close, alright?

Our reaction was to jump away, but with our speed the sudden movement threw us off balance and my control went right out the window. Amidst some very inventive swearing, we clipped a rain barrel and shattered it, showering us in water. The cart recoiled to the right, but too much of our momentum was still headed forwards. You didn't need to be a physicist to know what was coming.

On the plus side, our indignant screaming wasn't audible over the sound of a cart rolling through four market stands while scattering us like an overclocked tilt-a-whirl. On the down side, everything else.

There wasn’t too much debris covering me, and I groaned while freeing myself. I cried out and crumpled as soon as I put weight on my left rear leg. A quick glance told me I wouldn't be tap dancing anytime soon, if the bone sticking out of my hide was any indicator.

It wasn't too painful, much to my relieved astonishment. It certainly wouldn’t stay that way once the adrenaline wore off, though. A few lights popped up in surrounding windows, which wasn't surprising considering the carnage.

Balancing uneasily on three legs, I called out to see if Vinyl and Tall were alright before collapsing again.

"Buck, that hurt," Tall muttered, shaking off what was left of my unfortunate cart.

"Yo, I'm over here. Just gimme a sec." Vinyl continued to retch from the other side of the road.

"...I need your light..." pleaded the terrifying apparition while it rudely did nothing entertaining.

Vinyl whimpered as she dashed to my side. "I'll finish puking later." She helped me up and guided me while supporting my broken leg with a healthy dose of telekinesis. "Shit, you got messed up. How you doing, bro?"

He laughed only to have it cut off as he winced in pain. "Like when we partied in Alpacapulco. I'll live. We need to get somewhere safe though."

Behind us, illuminated by the glowing windows of woken ponies, it glided towards us while slowly looking to any face that dare investigate. We limped away as fast as we could, which turned out to be surprisingly fast when you have four legs. Many lights winked out as their owners gasped in terror and slammed their shutters or curtains shut, and the ruckus caused lights to turn on in different homes, creating a bizarre light show in the marketplace.

The air grew colder as it neared us, and tendrils of dark frost snaked under us, trying to ensnare us. I could almost feel the same tendrils tearing at the back of my mind, a place usually reserved for that one celebrity's name I'm trying to remember.

"Quick! In here!" A changeling fiercely beckoned us to him, his blue, segmented eyes wide with terror. "Don't look back, just hurry up!"

Tall trotted over to us, wincing with every other hoofstep. He looked down at me and then up at the creature. "This is going to hurt, Sterling. Vinyl, get ready. We need to carry her if we're going to make it."

Pain lanced through me as the siblings wedged me between them and lifted. I wanted to tell them it was unnecessary, but all my thoughts turned towards trying to cope with the alarming amount of fire searing through me.

Vinyl grunted and strained to get a slight smile out. "Is that a bone sticking out of your leg or are you just happy to see me?" To her credit, I would have been dying with laughter if I hadn't felt like I was dying from something else.

We collapsed into the changeling's home, sprawling over a previously valuable rug. The door slammed shut and he threw the locking bar into place. As an afterthought, he turned the usual lock as well.

"Woo, you're a lifesaver." Vinyl hugged him and he blushed. Seeing something with chitin blush was almost creepy. "Good. Now that we're safe. I can finish." Then she puked in the corner.
> First Aid
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The terrifying creature continued its pleading on the other side of the thick door. It softly tapped at an even rate, and each hollow sound sent chills up our spines. All four of us wondered how we would escape this mess, and the changeling also wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Well, most of my thoughts were on how to best set my shattered hind leg. They weren’t taking me to the hospital anytime soon if I could help it.

This wasn't the first time I'd had to set a broken bone, but all the other times had been as a human. When I'd lost those two fingers, the other three on that hand had broke, and I'd treated that well enough on the fly. Technically, I'd lost all my fingers and toes recently, but that didn’t count.

Every second I spent looking at the wound reminded me how little I knew of pony anatomy. It didn’t look like the technique would differ too much, but the near future was still not something to look forward to. How did I break something from crashing the cart, but not from falling down that asinine hill?

"How—How much do you even have in your stomach?" The changeling looked very close to joining Vinyl Scratch in her tummy turbulence. His words had an insectoid quality to them, like I had half-expected a changeling's would, but it was only a very slight influence on an otherwise normal voice. When Vinyl didn't answer, he rushed off to his kitchen, muttering about a bucket.

I wasn't sure if I were making more of a mess or if she was, and if there was a decent way to measure, it would have been a close contest. I really needed to stop procrastinating about my leg. I wondered if there were refrigeration in Equestria. I wanted a place to store ice cream. No, bad mind, fix leg then acquire ice cream.

Tall Order looked back and forth between his sister and me until I shooed him away. "Go help her, I'll be fine."

I received an incredulous look, and he admonished me for what he assumed to be bravado. "Are you kidding me? Your leg is broken! We need to get you to a doctor."

My glare made him slightly wilt, but he tried to keep the same face. I sighed at him and rolled my eyes. "She's your sister. I've fixed stuff like this before, and it's just the lower leg. Besides, it's not like we're going anywhere with Mr. Darknesspants out there."

"Mr. Darknesspants?"

"I have to call him something." I shrugged and gave him a half-hearted grin. It was foolish to try fixing such a dangerous injury on my own, but better safe than trapped in a hospital for two months because you went in for an ear infection just before the zombie apocalypse went full swing and ended up locking yourself in a break room after fleeing your doctor-turned-zombie who then proceeded to moan and beat on the door for half your stay. Then you also find out listening to people getting eaten alive is almost worse than pop music.

"Woo, that was a lot of puke," Vinyl choked out. She tried chuckling at the situation, but all it did was make her gag and almost begin again.

"And I just found the bucket. Perfect." The changeling hung his head, tossing the bucket aside.

Vinyl sheepishly grinned at him and ran a hoof through her mane. "Right, sorry 'bout the mess. Went for a wild ride trying to get away from that thing."

"What was that anyway?"

"Not a clue. Thanks for opening that door by the way, I don't want to find out what would have happened if it had caught up to us. And sorry to be a bother, but do you have some spare rags I could use to clean this up?" There was quite a bit of blood, and maybe, just maybe, drinking that much alcohol was a poor idea.

"Clean what up? Oh! Oh wow..." he trailed off as he scampered into the kitchen and returned with plain linens. "Why were you being so quiet about it?"

"I'm not too worried about it." Gingerly cleaning the area and applying pressure was a test of resolve in and of itself. I was going to have to get it over with eventually.

"I think she's going into shock." Tall looked at my leg with nothing but dread. "Don't worry, Sterling. We'll get you out of this."

"I'm not in shock. No numbness, no excess swelling, no cold skin, blah blah blah. I'm fine, just a little injured. You guys might want to look away for the next part though."

"What do you mean?" His eyes widened in shock as it dawned on him. "Absolutely not. You're not doing this yourself. When that thing leaves, we're taking you straight to the hospital."

"And what if it doesn't leave?"

"That would be unfortunate for you three. I don't have much for pony food around here. I have to agree with your friend, though. Setting a bone yourself isn't a good idea." He glanced around the room as he tried to come up with a solution. His eyes settled on Vinyl. "Miss, is there any chance some unicorn magic will heal her? I'm afraid I don't know much about it, and there isn't anything I can do with mine." A chitinous hoof tapped against his horn.

"No dice. That's some heavy duty spellcraft you're asking for there. You'd have to specifically find a doctor to cast it. Or Princess Twilight for that matter. I don't think there's anything she can't cast."

"See, there's not another option. I have to do this."

"As a friend, I can't let you do this. If it weren't for you, we would have had to walk back to town and there's no way we could have escaped without your cart." Genuine concern showed in his eyes, and I felt a twinge of guilt for what I was planning.

"Why must you do this to me?" The soft pleading from the creature had suddenly escalated into a scream akin to a howling tornado. "I suffer and you do nothing!"

The building shook with the fury of the voice, toppling items on shelves and freeing pictures from the walls. Darkness swirled around the edges of the door, and the wood creaked dangerously, buckling inward. All other eyes were fearfully locked on the door, so it was then or never.

Aching muscles made just the act of bending into an appropriate position excruciating, but seizing the injured leg and forcing the bone back into its proper place was something else entirely. I tensed and screamed through gritted teeth, drawing their attention back to me and somehow quieting the creature. After an eerie silence, it resumed its pre-outburst tapping and begging. A small part of my mind noted the interesting behavior but was quickly buried.

"Sterling! What the hay!" Tall stomped a hoof. He started towards my leg, but froze. "Splint. We need a splint."

"Yep." One of the clean linens tightly bound my leg. "I would have found one before I set it, but I needed to do it before you three could stop me." I would not have anypony—no, I needed to start using “anybody” now that I was looking after a bunch of diamond dogs—risk their lives for me.

Vinyl's horn sparked as she magically flicked my ear and shouted, "Not cool. Are you trying to act tough or something?"

She averted her gaze from the harshness of my stare. "I don't do hospitals. Nothing but misery every time I visit one, and I don't expect that to change just because I'm in Ponyville. It's better for everybody if I don't visit one."

"You're afraid of hospitals?"

"It's not fear!" Pain from securing the binding fueled my shout. My breath almost burned my mouth as I quietly sighed. "I'm not afraid. I just try to avoid reliving my mistakes."

Snapping wood startled us and we looked to the door, expecting it to shatter inwards. Instead, we saw the changeling breaking the legs off a small table and levitating them over to my leg. "Sorry, didn't mean to make so much noise. Like this, right?"

Twirling a hoof, I explained, "No, it needs to be on the sides." While he repositioned the sticks, I bit a notch into the cloth. Using my forehooves and mouth, I tore it into two strips and mentally swore when I realized I had to tie knots down there.

"Will you let me do this at least?" Vinyl scowled as she sensed my irritation and picked up one of the strips. "Or is that another mistake you don't want to relive?"

"Don't give me that tone. I'm certain I have more experience with emergency first aid or I would have gladly let one of you take care of it."

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "What could have possibly happened that you'd rather do it yourself than see a trained doctor." She pulled the cloth a bit tighter than she needed to, and I doubted it was accidental.

"Maybe another time." They weren’t going to find out either.  Whatever was going on had to be just the start of something worse. It may not have been a zombie, but I would find a way to stop it.

"Not like we're going anywhere until somepony else gets rid of that thing." She sat near me in a way that said she wouldn't move until I told her everything.

"No." I drew myself into an awkward half-standing position so I wouldn't have to look up at her. I knew the expression meant she was pissed, but pissed ponies are still ponies and therefore adorable.

"Leave her be, Vinyl, It's obviously a sore spot. I'm as ticked as you are about this, but she hurt herself far more than she hurt you or me. Sterling, you obviously know what you're doing, but wouldn't it have been better to walk one of us through it?" He looked hurt, and I couldn't bear to meet his eyes. A knot formed in my throat.

"I've always treated my own injuries. Comes from spending so much time alone." My leg ached fiercely under the bandages, but it was little more than an itch compared to the surge of pain earlier, but I would have gladly taken some painkillers if they were offered.

"But you aren't alone around here. If a pony, or changeling, sorry—" the changeling silently dismissed his worries "—wants to help, why don't you just let them?" Tall's caring tone was at odds with his clearly irritated face.

My eyes stung from memories dredged up by his words. What was wrong with me? This wasn’t the first time I’d thought about them, but here I was, crying like a baby. Actually, it’d be “filly” in this case, wouldn’t it? Was that this was all about? I was going to need Dave’s help if I wanted to figure out anything. "Because it gets them killed! If they take care of me, they aren't taking care of themselves, and I'm tired of losing others." I hung my head. "So tired."

Nopony spoke while I quietly sobbed, and even the creature let off the door as if it were stunned by my pathetic crying. A couple tears dripped off my snout and soaked into the carpet. Bleeding on it made me feel guilty—it looked really nice for something designed to be walked on. Why couldn't I stop? I was going to get all of us killed.

Two forelegs wrapped around my neck as Vinyl hugged me. She uneasily whispered into my ear, "Uh, I'm sorry?"

Tall joined her, and after I felt the slightest movement on his part, so did the confused changeling he had beckoned over.

"No, I'm sorry." I sniffled and wiped my eyes. "This isn't the best time for me to act like this. And I'm sorry I bled over your carpet before I even knew your name. That sounds like bad manners to me."

He snorted and excused himself from the hug Tall had roped him into. "It's Star Poem, if it helps. And before you try to apologize for the table—don't worry about it, that thing was so ugly this was a mercy."

"Thanks though, all of you. Except you, Mr. Darknesspants. I-I should be fine now."

Star Poem spoke like the words tasted funny. "Mr. Darknesspants?"

"Don't ask." Tall shook his head at the changeling.

"What is with that thing though? Freaks out, calms down. It's mood is all over the place."

"Just like yours?" Tall smirked, receiving a hoof to the shoulder for his troubles. "Lay off, sis. I was in that crash too, remember?"

Another twinge of sadness coursed through me at the reminder that Tall still had his sister. "We need to figure out a way to defend ourselves. That door won't hold forever."

Star's wings twitched restlessly as he looked to the front. "We'll be fine, right? The rest of Ponyville won't just leave us in here. Right?"

"I don't—" I started to tell him we couldn't rely on the other townsfolk as much as ourselves, but Tall cut me off with a gentle nudge of his hoof.

"No, they won't. Whether they deal with it themselves or call in help from Canterlot, we have nothing to worry about as long as we stay safe." While his reply had been directed at the changeling, his attention was focused on me, his azure eyes conveying how poor of an idea upsetting our rescuer would be.

Curtly nodding, I added, "At the very least, let me prepare for the worst case scenario." I moved to get up and found myself held in place by the siblings. I sheepishly smiled. "Please?"

"You aren't going anywhere yet."

"I agree with them." I just barely caught Star’s extra mutter "And they scare me."

"It's been a little quiet, hasn't it?" Vinyl stared at the door so fiercely I thought it would catch aflame. I found myself relieved, yet disappointed, when it didn't. "Maybe it got bored. I know I would have."

"Or it's a trap." I rolled my eyes and tried to get up again. "Seriously? Come on, you two.”

"Gears, we’re going to let you go now, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you to make sure you don’t do anything like that again,” Tall said.

"Whatever, just let me go so we can get back to doing nothing.” The creature’s thumping began anew, and while the door didn’t shudder like it was about to break, there would be some sizeable dents when this was all over. “Look who’s back.”

“Your attitude is not helping.”

My retort almost came out automatically, but telling him his face wasn't helping would just further cement his point. “I know, it’s just… never mind. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. We’re all stressed. We’ll get through this.”

“Oh, I know that. Do I look like the type who’ll give up before every last option is exhausted?”

Vinyl smirked. “Not even then. Take it easy for now though. After this is all over, I want to hear your story.”

It felt like I could trust her, but it wasn’t entirely a matter of trust. She wouldn’t believe me. Who would? Did I even want to tell any of them? “We’ll see.”

Tall cut off his sister before she could say anything. “She can wait.” The siblings glared at each other for a moment, then Vinyl harrumphed and looked away.

A long time passed where the only sound was the banging from outside. None of us spoke, opting to wait the night out quietly. I didn’t know how long it felt to them, but my leg made it feel like weeks were passing without us doing anything. Dave was still AWOL, much to my chagrin. Vinyl sat beside me, Tall stood off to the side and constantly looked between all of us, and Star paced in a circle like he was trying to cut a hole into the floor.

It felt like I should have said something, either to reaffirm I was fine or just to apologize again for earlier, but no words came whenever my mouth opened. Waiting until it got bored was a terrible idea, but what other choice did we have? We couldn’t straight up fight it, but I itched to do anything other than sit there and be watched like a hawk.

A bright light flashed behind the curtains, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. An inhuman inpony unearthly screech filled the air, and with my forelegs clamped over my ears instead of supporting my weight, I made friends with the floor again. Silence fell as the scream died out, and nobody dared breathe.

Two sharp knocks struck the door, and a muffled voice called out, "Canterlot Royal Guard. The creature has been dealt with. Please open the door."

Star Poem was at the door in an instant and heaved the bar aside with surprising strength. He tugged at the handle eagerly, but the door refused to budge until a faint glow surrounded the lock and Vinyl suggested he try again.

The kitchen was the best bet for a back exit, but if Star hadn’t already brought it up, there was a fair chance there wasn’t a back door we could use to escape. It had to be a trick. The whatever-it-was being dealt with so easily couldn’t be anything else. It was waiting for us right outside that door, and as soon as Star opened it, the night would start all over again.

“Gears, relax. We were waiting for the Guard, remember?” Even though she misunderstood my anxiety, the hoof she placed on my shoulder was calming.

Two identical, grey unicorns equipped with golden armor stood beyond the open doorway, stern yet concerned looks attached to their faces. The first rays of a new day brightened the sky behind them. "It's alright. You're safe now."

"I'm grateful you're here, but sheesh, deus ex machina much?" I couldn't help but chuckle at the situation. Switching to a more comfortable position failed as the motion tweaked my injury, making me cringe.

"Technically, this wouldn't be a case of deus ex machina. The Royal Guard showing up was expected to some capacity." Starry was unperturbed by my incredulous glance. "Sorry, I'm a stickler for literary terms."

The two guards shared a look and rolled their eyes. The one on the left scoffed. "So, would you like us to finish the rescue or leave you two to bicker about semantics?"

"Whatever's fine with you guys. I'm just going to head out since the beastie is gone. Thanks for that, by the way." Tall hurried over and pushed me back down. "And make him stop that."

The guard on the right sighed and rubbed his temple. He muttered to his companion, "I'm going to get us coffee. This is going to take a while." He paused and looked over all of us, his gaze settling on me the longest. "And keep an eye on the one with the injured leg. She seems a little… difficult."

"You don't know the half of it." Tall sighed and shook his head.
> More Like Deadheart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fire poorly disguised as sunlight blazed between beige curtains, igniting my eyes in a flurry of pain and rousing me from a slumber I didn't realize I’d fallen into. With a raspy grown, I weakly rolled away and moved a pillow to block out the intruding day. Slowly, my mind attained a more coherent state, and I peeked out from under my pillow shield.

Medical equipment sat to the right of the bed, and although I couldn't identify most of it, I did recognize an IV bag. I struggled to put the pieces together through the pounding fog encasing my brain like an ever-constricting snake, but I couldn't string a thought along for long enough. My eyes lazily traced the cord attached to the bottom of the bag and followed it down to my right foreleg, where an IV stuck out. Oh no.

I scrambled to a sitting position and nervously scanned the hospital room. It looked like nearly any other hospital room: neutral colors and bland decorations abound, and I would have mistaken it for a hotel room if it weren't for the invasive needle in my leg. The bed under me was about twice the height of the pony beds I was used to, presumably to make it easier for the medical staff.

A plaster cast encased my broken leg and immobilized the joints above and below. While it covered the fetlock extensively, it did leave a reasonable amount of hoof exposed, to distance the calf from the ground as much as possible. A casual sniff and a distinct lack of blood and grime determined someone had washed me at some point.

The equipment mocked me, and I glared daggers at it despite my wonderment at the surprisingly advanced machines. From what I had seen of Equestria so far, I almost expected medical technology to be little more than leeches and trepanning tools, but the devices almost looked  modern. The part of me that wasn't panicking about being in a hospital was already puzzling over how the machines worked and how I could take them apart. I’d find out later. I needed to get out of there!

The IV in my leg needed to go—my first instinct was to just grab the tube in my teeth and rip it out, but that wasn't something you should really do with things hooked up to your veins. I liked my blood the best when it stayed on the inside. I scooted out of bed and a sudden bout of vertigo nearly made me stumble into the IV stand, but was alright, since I'd wanted to go that direction anyway.

"At least it's a better plan than just yanking the needle out of my leg," I mumbled as I stared at the tube leading up to the IV bag. A few yanks later, I was free and wondering what to do with the length of tube in my mouth. I couldn't just leave it dangle behind me—I'd probably step on it. Eh, just add it to the list of things I could have thought through more thoroughly. Tying knots with hooves is difficult, but I managed a crude one that didn't pull on the needle too much. 

That done, it was time for me to return to my grand escape, and with a smile on my face, I made my way to the door. A private bathroom passed on my right, and I reflexively licked my lips at the thought of water. After gorging myself on the delicious, frigid water, I quietly opened the door to resume my escape.

"And just where do you think you're going?" An alabaster earth pony with a pastel-pink mane tied in a bun stood before me. Two fierce but matronly eyes glared out from under her mane and nurse's cap, demanding that I get back in bed.

"Helloooooooo, nurse!" Grinning, I broke eye contact and added, "Redheart."

Unperturbed, she flicked her head towards the bed and ordered me back into it with a frustrated grunt. She strolled into the room after me, tsking at the IV bag dripping onto the ground.

"Your friends warned me about you," she said while replacing everything I'd messed up. "You know I'm just going to have to redo all of that, right?"

"What for? I don't plan on sticking around long."

"Phooey to your plans. You're dehydrated, malnourished, sleep-deprived, and hungover, not to mention the more obvious injuries. Whether you have a problem with hospitals or not, you're remaining in that bed until you're cleared." If I didn't know better, I would have assumed she purposely inserted the new IV that hard. She locked eyes with me and practically growled. "Don't remove it again." Dear Princess Celestia, Nurse Redheart is absolutely terrifying. Seriously, I would have rather been set up with a pony Kevorkian.

I dumbly blinked at her and struggled to find some way to barter for an escape. I couldn't stay there. I had to leave. I wouldn't get stuck again.

She rolled her eyes as she performed a check up. "Save it, I've been a nurse long enough to know when a pony's going to try anything to get out earlier than possible. Say 'ah,' please." Pony tongue depressors are freakishly huge compared to human ones and could probably be used to paddle a boat.

"When did I get here?" If I couldn't leave, I might as well learn who to blame.

"This morning. You collapsed when the Royal Guard was asking questions about the attack last night." I hazily recalled that much at least. They drank a lot of coffee, and one of them had a flask he poured into his mug whenever he thought he wasn't being watched. "Your friends weren't in the best condition either, but it was nowhere as serious as yours. Miss Scratch had a small concussion, Mr. Order had a cracked rib and a sprained ankle, and both of them had a medley of scrapes and bruises."

"I'm glad I'm worst off then." Small victories are still a victory.

"You're lucky is what you are. I saw the aftermath—the market is half-wrecked from your crash. I heard rumors of your cart being powered with magic, but I didn't believe anything on land could move as fast as you had to be going."

"Can't let the pegasi and unicorns have all the fun." My chuckles pounded another nail into my skull.

"I understand you were being chased by some creature, but it's a miracle you're the only one who ended up here." Her eyes narrowed and her frown nearly punched through the floor. "I heard you set your own leg. What on Equestria possessed you to do such a foalish thing?"

"I knew what I was doing." I shrank away from her, retreating into the mattress as far as I could.

"You obviously didn't know what you were doing if you tried it in the first place." Redheart snorted derisively. "Compound fractures are a serious matter to be handled by trained medical ponies only."

"I didn't intend on visiting a hospital, so there were no medical ponies as far as I was concerned. You know full well I did it well enough. Otherwise I'd have more than just a simple IV drip."

She sighed, casting the heavy bags under her eyes into relief. "I treat physical injuries, not mental or emotional ones, so I can't justify or even pretend to understand what you have against hospitals. But, I will admit you could have done far worse. Don't take that as acceptance for it. If you do it again, well, I'll just leave that to your imagination." Redheart’s smirk could have given a penguin hypothermia. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." I’d do fine if she would have just stopped looking at me. I'd have rather been back with the zombies than stuck in a room with her.

"Good. I'll have some lunch sent up to you shortly. You will eat it."

"Bloody hell, just make her shut up already," Dave moaned from the corner. He cowered as far away from the sunlight as possible and had his bowler hat clamped over most of his face.

Redheart followed my gaze, using her freaky nurse mumbo jumbo to discern I wasn't just looking off into the distance. "Hallucinations too?" she tutted. "I'll order a head scan."

"I'm fine, they're old hat. And I'm pretty sure you need my permission for tests now that I'm conscious." It was a shot in the dark about Equestria's medical laws, but there was a good chance I had a choice in this matter. couldn't smirk, couldn't smirk, couldn't smirk. Ah crap.

"My hat is not old."

Somewhere, something inexplicably burst into flames from the ferocity of the stare Redheart shot me. I hadn't experienced the Stare from Fluttershy (or even met her for that matter), but I couldn't fathom it being worse than this. Compared to this, the Penance Stare was a come-hither look.

"Head injuries are no joking matter. I strongly recommend you have a scan spell done."

"It's nothing physical. I'm not getting any more tests done." My instincts screamed at me to break eye contact, but I had to stand strong or I would give in to her demands and be stuck in this sterile death trap for even longer.

For an eternity, we glared at each other, neither giving the other an inch of purchase. If Nurse Redheart was surprised at my resistance, she didn't show it. The hospital room shattered around us, leaving two wills to battle in a sea of white.

"Nurse Redheart, the, um, visitors are wondering if you've finished the checkup. They would really like to make sure Sterling Gears is alright." The room reformed as a worried voice spoke from the doorway. Leaning to look at the speaker, I saw a faded-magenta mare with a purple and white striped mane tied in the same fashion as Redheart's. The cross on her nurse's cap was white, surrounded by four pink hearts, and set on a red circle. It contrasted sharply with Redheart's, whose was identical except for being red and lacking a circle.

Redheart's expression instantaneously changed as she faced her coworker. "Sure, Sweetheart, I was just about finished. I'll head down the cafeteria and have them send some food up. Go ahead and tell her friends they can see her now." After a final, quick glare at me, she left the room and her hoofsteps faded down the hallway.

Nurse Sweetheart made sure the disturbingly intimidating nurse was out of earshot and relaxed. She turned to me, gently smiling, and asked, "She didn't give you too much trouble, did she?"

"This Sweetheart gal is a saint. Why are we in a hospital though? What happened to your leg? How drunk did you get last night?" Dave tapped his foot as he waited for an answer. Grumbling, he added, "Whatever, just tell me when you're alone."

I hadn’t realized my breath had been held since the battle of wills began. "Not too much. Thanks for the save."

She nodded while double-checking the machinery. "She means well. She just wants to make sure ponies get the help they need."

"She could stare down Celestia with those eyes."

"You got the Redheart Eyes? She must like you." Sweetheart chuckled. "Refuse a test?"

"Yep, didn't want a head scan. I wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible before Redheart found me."

"Well, Nurse Redheart does know her medicine, so it would probably be in your best interests, but if you refuse it, we can't give it to you. I'm going to go fetch your visitors, though I should warn you, one of them is a diamond dog." She whispered the last words fearfully, as if they might be listening from around the corner.

"Oh? Which one?" I was earnestly impressed one of them entered town.

"He said his name was Spot. Short fellow, likes to talk a lot, ring any bells?"

"Yeah, I know him. Don't worry about him though, he's a friend. Send them in. If we can fit all the visitors in here, that is. How many are there?"

"Just him and Vinyl Scratch. Mayor Mare also wanted to speak with you about the diamond dogs once you were conscious, but I have to send a messenger first. After all, she can't afford to sit around in the waiting room when she has a town to manage." After apologizing for Redheart again, she left, and a short while later I heard eager hoofsteps and the telltale clickety-clack of claws.

"What do you mean you guys don't have any music down there?" Vinyl asked her companion.

Familiar, broken Equestrian replied, "We howl. Not have pony instruments to play."

Vinyl entered first, her hooves sliding on the smooth, tiled floor. "Hey, Gears, what's up?" If she were hungover as well, she was handling it like a champ.

"Not much, just trying to come up with an escape plan. I heard you got a concussion. How are you feeling?"

"I've got a headache, but I'm sure that's just the alcohol. Wouldn't be the first time I've had my head messed with, although I usually prefer it to be my choice." She flashed an award-winning grin as she stood by the bed.

Spot grunted as he came into the room, scratching around the face mask he wore. It bulged comically as it tried to contain his mustache. "Why pony stuff so itchy?" His coat was oddly clean and could almost be considered lustrous.

"Hey, Spot. I didn't miss anything interesting did I?"

"Weird noises from deeper tunnels. Scouts find nothing. Beta okay?"

"I'll live. I'm glad to see you two are getting along. And, Spot, I'm happy one of the pack visited me in town."

"Don't worry about it, Spot's pretty cool. We've had plenty of time to chat while we waited for you to wake up." Vinyl shrugged. I could barely make out the squinting behind her signature shades. "Though I am going to have to introduce some music to these guys. Sick beats for sick dogs."

"You can close the curtains if you want. I know nobody here is a fan of sunlight at the moment." I snorted as Vinyl dashed to the curtains and hastily slammed them together. "No magic while hungover?"

"Not if you dislike headaches." She and Dave sighed in relief at the welcome shade. "So much better."

"How did you find out I was here?"

"Blue pony say you here." Spot eagerly nodded. Vinyl clarified that he was speaking about her brother. He uncomfortably shifted his weight to his other arm. "He not say pony floor so flat and smooth though. Or that dog need bath and still need stupid hair mask. Had to go to pony bath place."

"I think that's more for his breath than his hair." Dave snorted. "At least I can handle these two. Well, as long as Spot doesn't talk too much."

"You went to the spa?" Vinyl's mouth dropped open and she laughed. "How much did Aloe and Vera like that?

Spot uneasily shrugged. "They say they like challenge and new experience. They very nice and smell pretty. They also glad to only take a sapphire for whole thing."

"Nothing too big I hope. Last I heard, sapphires went up in demand," Vinyl said.

"Sapphire common. Also diamond dog always dirty from digging." He shrugged again. His eyes lit up as he spotted the chairs and cushions.

"Well, if it's any consolation, you clean up great, Spot." I wasn't lying either. He really did look much better when he wasn't encrusted with dirt, and I absently mused about how the rest of the pack would look if they got cleaned up. I got the feeling that if they started going into town more often with Pinkie and I in charge,  Aloe and Vera would become very wealthy.

"I don't think I've seen you before, but I'm going to agree with Gears anyway." Vinyl nodded and patted Spot on the shoulder as he finished moving one of the chairs. He smiled uneasily from the compliments as he sat down and stammered his thanks.

“Did they figure out what attacked us last night?”

Vinyl rubbed the side of her head. “No, but it sounds like there’s more than one out there. A few ponies have gone missing.”

That’s not what I wanted to hear. A few disappearances is how it starts—next thing you know, you’re beating zombies off with a stick that has a machete tied to it. “Shit.”

“You said that a couple times last night. What’s it mean?”

I’d almost forgotten ponies had expletives, considering I only used them to bother Dave. “Same thing as horseapples, I think.”

”I’m getting tired of these ponies and their elementary school expletives. Are any of them still worth using?”

Dave had a point—in the future, I would have to cuss out a pony in the name of science. For now, I needed to figure out how much trouble we needed to prep for. “How many?”

“Three? I didn’t get any names. Me and Tall would have been on that list if it weren’t for you and your wagon, so really, thanks.”

“No problem. Just wish I’d installed airbags and seatbelts.” More confused looks. “Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Somebody knocked on the door and called out, "Lunch delivery for Sterling Gears."

"Got it." Eager to do something other than just listen, Spot scrambled to open the door and received a startled gasp for his kindness. His ears flattened slightly while the mystery pony apologized profusely and pushed the cart into the room. 

He wore a forced smile as he set a tray on the bed and listed the contents. He nervously looked around before adding that Redheart demanded I eat every last bite. Rumor has it if you say her name three times in front of a mirror in a dark room, Nurse Redheart will show up and give you medical aid.

"Can I get anypony anything else? Or, anydog? Sorry if that's not the right term." The mauve, lanky stallion spoke in hushed tones, like even his most enthusiastic greeting would come out as apologetic.

"No, you right. Anydog. Everydog. Somedog." Spot counted off the words on his claws.

"I think we had it right with tacking body on the end of everything. Would definitely work here since they all have bodies." Dave scowled from his dark corner.

"I would kill for a daffodil sandwich." Vinyl pushed her face closed to his, chuckling as he yelped and backed away. "Relax, it's just a figure of speech. Probably. I’m starving."

"And you, sir? I don't know if we will have anything though. We mostly just have pony food, and I don't know if diamond dogs eat, you know..." He refused to make eye contact with anything but his own hooves.

"Meat?" He gave me a meek nod. "They're lithovores. You know, gems and rocks?"

Letting out the largest sigh of relief in history, he replied, "Oh, of course. We actually do have some in storage for when Princess Twilight Sparkle's assistant visits. They have an incredibly long shelf life, as you can imagine. I'm sorry I assumed you ate meat. I mean, we're prepared for treating griffons, but we haven't had one as a patient as long as I've worked here. I just don't think I'd be able to handle serving dead animals on a plate."

"I never would have guessed." At least the stallion was warming up ever so slightly. "Did you want anything, Spot?"

"Have topaz?"

"Sorry, there's a topaz shortage. You probably won't find one in all of Ponyville."

"Shortage? We have lots, it just tasty gem. Emerald?"

"Certainly, I'll bring one up. I'll also put in a suggestion for increasing the gem stocks if there’s a chance we’ll be getting more diamond dog visitors. Be right back." He was definitely more relaxed as he left.

"No need to be polite and wait for us, Gears, I can hear your stomach rumbling. Dig in." Vinyl turned her attention from my food to Spot. "Sorry he was so scared around you. Diamond dogs get a bad rap."

He waved her off. "No. It our fault. We not always been nice to ponies." Spot scratched his ear and shrugged. "Rover not like ponies. New alpha and beta much nicer."

"Honestly, I didn't entirely believe you when you told us you were in charge of a pack last night. But then these guys are all 'sure, we know Gears, she kicked our butts to Trottingham and back'." Her mouth watered as she sniffed at the air. "If you don't eat that, I'm going to steal it."

A few bites of the garlicky pasta reminded me of the food Spike had cooked. "Spot, take a look in my saddlebags over there. See if you can find some cookies with gems in them. Hopefully they didn't get too messed up in the crash."

Watching a diamond dog try to delicately search through a saddlebag is surprisingly entertaining, and Vinyl and I struggled to keep a straight face. If I could just get my hands—hooves  dammit—on some peanut butter, I could probably sell tickets.

He cried out with excitement as he held up a mostly intact cookie speckled with pinkish-red gems. "Rest is crumbs." His eyes widened the moment it touched his tongue. "This good food. You call it cookie?"

"Yep, Spike made them."

"Who Spike? He good cook. Pack would love recipe."

"Small purple dragon. I think you've met him before." This was going to be awkward.

Spot's shoulders sagged and every ounce of posture shifted from relaxed to submissive. He whispered, "Oh. He not want talk to us certainly. Not after making Miss Rarity work." At the dramatic fashionista’s name, he winced.

"He told me he was in the mood for some topazes last time I spoke to him. If you brought him some and apologized, I'm sure you two could resolve the issue. Not to mention you could probably teach him a few diamond dog recipes. Ethnic food always has a certain appeal, after all." I spoke between bites of the pasta. While bland compared to other food I'd had in Ponyville, it was still a step above hospital cuisine back on the old world.

"Will try, I guess. Cookie is worth it."

The modest stallion returned with another cart and hoofed the food items to my visitors. He apologized to Spot again for his rude behavior before leaving. Vinyl's sandwich was gone before I even realized she took the lid off the tray. Spot loudly crunched on the gem, a sound not unlike glass being crushed, and was satisfied with the taste.

"Ms. Gears?" a wisened voice called out after a terse knocking. "May I enter?"

"Of course, Mayor Mare." She sounded exactly like she had in the show, so chances are it was the correct pony. I didn’t know what I’d do if I found a character who spoke radically different from what I was used to.

A tan pony elegantly strolled into the hospital room with her head held high, her wavy, grey mane and tail styled professionally. She wore a collar with teal ruffles poking out of the front, like she had just forgotten where the rest of the suit was. Gold-rimmed glasses remained perched on her snout as she calmly nodded towards everybody present. Vinyl scrambled to inconspicuously wipe the grisly sandwich remains off her face.

"I'm glad to see you are conscious. I hope you were informed of my wishes, as we have much to discuss." Was that a hint of worry in her eyes?

I nodded in understanding. "Spot, I'll need you here to make sure I don't get anything wrong about diamond dogs. Vinyl, you can stay if you'd like, but I'd understand if you want to go do something entertaining—it's about to get diplomatic in here."

"You and diplomacy mixing usually results in someone shooting at you."
> Meeting the Mayor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door slowly swung shut behind Vinyl Scratch as she fled in a well-advised attempt to avoid the upcoming political discussion between Spot, Mayor Mare, and yours truly. If I weren't a necessary component, I would have been hobbling right behind her, Redheart be damned. With the three of us exchanging uneasy glances and remaining quiet, the air quickly grew stuffy.

Mayor Mare cleared her throat and spoke first. "Sterling Gears, I hope you'll excuse the informality of our first meeting.  I wish we could have met under more auspicious circumstances, but recent events had other things in mind. And, Spot, was it?" Her voice wavered as she spoke to Spot, and her eyes flashed back to an unwelcome memory. The short diamond dog quickly nodded, his ears flopping up and down hilariously. "I'm glad to finally have a civil discussion with one of your kind. I trust both of you are well, all things considered?"

Looking at my leg and the hospital room, I felt the corners of my mouth tug down. "I've been better. Is this about arranging payment for the crash in the market?"

Surprisingly, she chuckled. "Of course not. You can't manage a town like Ponyville without an emergency fund to cover anything from monster attacks to haywire spells. Admittedly, it would be a lie if I didn't want to discuss the creature, but I understand if you aren't ready to talk about such a difficult event."

A larger part of me than I was willing to admit was relieved to see Ponyville was a magnet for trouble. After all, can't have myself getting bored from lack of action, right? "You're kidding, right? I don't need to be coddled. You wouldn't even be meeting me here if I wasn't sure Nurse Redheart was watching the door like a hawk. What do you want to know about the beastie?"

Mayor Mare quickly summarized the information the guards had delivered to her, but I didn't have anything to add and told her as much. Sighing, she asked, "Well, with that business out of the way, what are you planning to do now? You've been seen in town the last few days, but from what ponies have been saying, you don't have a place to stay."

Spot puffed up, offended, and glared at the mayor. "She has pack. She good beta."

"There's also that matter to deal with. It has come to my attention that you and one Pinkamena Diane Pie now lead the Gem Hills diamond dogs. Is this true?" She returned Spot's glare with equal malice, violent sparks sizzling between the two.

"Yep. Pinkie's the alpha, but if I heard correctly, I'm in charge if she's not available. Is that right, Spot?" Another floppy-eared nod was his response.

"The Elements of Harmony are very busy most of the time." She huffed.

"Wasn't complaining, just stating that I actually have authority currently and am therefore worth listening to." My leg twinged as I grew more exasperated with Mayor Mare after each sentence she spoke. "Why don't you speak your concerns about the diamond dogs before we continue. You obviously have some laundry that needs to be aired."

Surprised, she took a small step back. "I'm just concerned for the residents of Ponyville. Diamond dogs aren't known for the hospitality they show their visitors."

"Trespassers," corrected Spot.

"What they should be known for is their loyalty. They're loyal to a fault, and the last alpha, Rover, was not a friendly pup."

"And where is this Rover now?"

I looked questioningly at Spot and received a shrug. "I have no clue. Haven't seen a hair of him since me and Pinkie stepped in. I don't want to speak for Pinkie, but I'm sure she would also agree with friendlier relations between Ponyville and the pack."

"I don't believe there could be friendly relations between honest ponies and slavers."

"What?" roared Spot, pounding the floor with a fist and cracking a tile. "Dogs better than that! We make work for day so pony not trespass again. No slaves."

To Mayor Mare's credit, she kept her stoic visage through his outburst. Calmly, if a bit curtly, she replied, "That is still deplorable. You force them to work as beasts of burden and only release them when you are satisfied. Your pack is better than its brethren, but not by much."

"Hey, check it out, she's not angry at you. Maybe you got better at this whole diplomacy thing. You might want to step in before we have a cage match on our hands. See if the boundaries of Ponyville extend over the Gem Hills," Dave said with a smirk.

"Enough! Honestly, it's a sad day when I have to be the one to keep civility present." My voice didn't rise much, but it was enough to be effective, and it was satisfying to see the room fall silent. "Mayor Mare, do Ponyville's laws have jurisdiction over the Gem Hills?"

"Well, no, but—"

I raised a hoof to cut her off. "No buts. It's a different culture with a different set of laws. Forced work for a day is a punishment just as much as imprisonment, isn't it?"

"They're hardly the same."

"I never said they were equal. Calling them slavers is excessive and quite rude for a mayor, isn't it?" I stared at her, boring deep into her eyes as she fidgeted.

"Look at her squirm!" Dave chuckled. "Nice work, kid. I don't think you'll be shot at today. This whole 'slaver' thing seems to go back a ways though. We might want to dig at that a bit more. You also might want to do away with the forced labor in general."

"She isn't wrong though. Foalnapping and forced labor aren't viewed well by anypony. I'm trying to forge an alliance here, and that's one thing that will certainly have to stop on our end. What started that in the first place?"

Spot shied away from me and muttered, "Rover say to stop pony thieves that way."

"Rover again? He has a larger chip on his shoulder than you, Mayor Mare." I groaned while rubbing my temple. "What about the other packs? Didn't they have anything to say about it?"

"Not talk to. All pack too far."

"Figures." I snorted. "Are you two ready to talk to each other now? Being the voice of reason gives me the biggest headache."

"Because you never use the damn thing."

"I apologize for my comment, but I hope you'll understand if I remain wary of our discussion."

"Of course. Can't have a successful negotiation without every party walking away feeling screwed. First things first, is there anything stopping a diamond dog from entering town?" It was too late to stop the headache, but I was relieved it wasn't growing any larger.

Mayor Mare cracked one of the faintest smiles I’d ever seen. "I see you're familiar with politics and law, Miss Gears. No, there isn't anything in place restricting diamond dogs from entering Ponyville."

"Familiar is such a strong word. I prefer 'know enough to make bad jokes,' so don't expect miracles. I would like you to stop Ponyvillians from digging in the Gem Hills. In return, we'll open trade. Spot, is that something we can do?"

"Trade?" He fumbled over the word and shrugged.

"Oh boy, this is going to be a long day."

"Like if we gave them some stuff we have too much of and they gave us some stuff we didn't have."

"Might work. Pack always make own stuff so some things we not have."

"How much trading are you thinking?" the mayor asked, the glint of gold in her eye suggesting prosperity instead of greed.

"Have you seen a diamond dog dig? You're the one with the limits. Let's just say there certainly won't be less gems coming into Ponyville." Judging from the prideful grin on Spot's face and what I had already seen during my tour, I wasn't exaggerating.

Mayor Mare smiled deviously. "Oh, I'm sure we could think of something. This will be a welcome boost to our economy. Is there anything else you wish to discuss? I'll admit, this is going far better than I had presumed."

"I wish to discuss ice cream."

"Excuse me?"

"Ice cream. You know, cold stuff with lots of flavors?"

She rolled her eyes. "I know what ice cream is. What would we need to talk about ice cream for?"

"How good it is? Let's go get some. It'll be far easier to discuss with physical examples." Don't judge me, I haven't had actual ice cream in years.

"Is there anything important you'd like to discuss?"

"Ice cream is important."

"What ice cream?" Spot's question drew a mock-gasp from me.

"See? Poor Spot has never even had ice cream. It's a travesty!"

Mayor Mare frowned at me with evident displeasure. "I believe I'll be going then. I will begin drafting the law to keep ponies out of the Gem Hills on your word that you'll contact the treasurer about a trade route."

"Why do you hate ice cream?" When she was almost to the door, I called after her, "Wait! Fine, there is a bit more I wanted to discuss."

She looked back over her shoulder at me. "I'm listening."

"Does Ponyville have an evacuation plan?"

"Several for covering many types of emergencies. What are you getting at?"

"Whatever that critter was last night, it was quick and stubborn. Problems never come alone, and I have no doubt last night was just the tip of the iceberg. I don't know anything about what it was, and from the sounds of things, nopony does. My cart at top speed just barely kept away from it on a flat road, so there's no chance of an evacuation to a different town if there turns out to be more of them. I propose we work together to build a shelter underneath Ponyville with a tunnel leading over to the Gem Hills.and a secondary bunker. This should allow an extra shelter in case of other disasters as well as provide a nice, easy route for trading. Maybe we could even set up a trade hub of sorts." And there would be a food court, and we’d have those awesome soft pretzels. No chocolate pretzels though.

"Do you have any idea what you just suggested?" Mayor Mare stared at me, dumbfounded.

"The plan B to end all plan B's."

"More like a tremendous investment for something that will likely never be used. Not to mention all the zoning issues for digging an underground base, and all the work involved, even with the help of your pack." She shook her head so fiercely some of the grey flew off. "And the maintenance and inspections to make sure there won't be a cave in. I appreciate your concern, but this is beyond excessive."

"It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Isn't the safety of Ponyville's citizens important to you?"

"How dare you!? Ponyville is my foremost concern—that's why I cannot waste its time on such a frivolous bout of paranoia." Her eyes narrowed as she furiously stared me down. "I could tolerate the lack of seriousness you approached these matters with, but I draw the line at insinuating I don't care about my citizens. This meeting is over. Do not bother me about this ridiculous plan again."

The door slammed against the wall as she stormed away without another word. I spotted a couple ponies curiously peeking through the doorway as it shut, but none of them intruded further. Spot looked to me and whimpered.

"She not happy."

I slumped down onto the bed, not moving to brush the midnight blue strands out of my face. Had I just ruined everything? Things had been going so well, but maybe I was just being para—nope, nope. That's when the universe kicks you in the junk. I sighed and asked, "Spot, what do you think about that bunker?"

He uneasily shifted in his seat and focused on the floor. "It not bad idea..."

"But?"

"But it does seem too much." He nervously added, "Little too much. Not lot. Sorry"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want your opinion, don't worry about it." I lazily lifted my head just enough to look around the room, lingering for a few moments extra on a nonplussed Dave. I arched an eyebrow at him, and he merely shrugged. What a big help he was.

"What we do now, Beta?"

"You can call me Gears, Sterling, or Sterling Gears if you want, you know."

He laughed while he shook his head. "No. I call beta, beta."

It was weird, but amusing and nothing I couldn’t get used to. "Can you check if there's anypony right outside the door?"

Spot padded to the door and quietly opened it. "I see nothing, why?"

"We need to plan an escape so we can get started on the bunker."

"But mayor pony say no."

Dave groaned and slapped a palm to his forehead. "I don't know which is a worse idea: trying to sneak out of here or building that shelter under the mayor's nose. You really should just stay here and get better, whether you hate hospitals or not."

"I was only asking for her permission and help earlier. I'm not going to let that stubborn nag get in the way of actually protecting Ponyville. It won't be as refined or orderly with just us working though. I'll even lend a hoof if I make it back before nightfall."

"You staying out again?" His ears fell flat, and he whined.

"Sorry, Spot. I need to visit the library again and try to find something with a bit more kick, if you catch my drift."

"You have plenty of kick. Hoof to head lot of kick."

I yanked out the IV tube and tied it off again, then got up to place a hoof on his shoulder. "Hey, I'll be fine. I really will try to get back before dark. Besides, we don't know if it will be out there again tonight anyway. For all we know, those guards could have blasted it to wherever King Sombra ended up. New Jersey, probably." Before he could ask, I motioned towards the door and trotted past him. "We'll even try to get a hold of some ice cream once we get out of here. If you brought any more gems for trade, that is."

"And I'm ignored again, perfect. Just perfect." Dave solemnly followed after me, grumbling and shaking his head.

With as much as the cast restricted my movement, I was more or less screwed if spotted. We moved through the halls and tried to act as unassuming as possible, but it was still likely a diamond dog and a crippled pony would catch their eye. Fortunately, Ponyville General Hospital was small and surprisingly easy to navigate for a hospital, and soon the exit came into view. I was getting that nasty, universe-is-bored feeling in my gut.

"Sterling Gears, what are you doing out of your room?" Nurse Redheart growled behind me. I didn't turn to face her, but I envisioned her scraping at the ground like a bull seeing red, ready to charge at the slightest provocation.

"Run, Spot! Run!" My limbs flailed in a manner only vaguely resembling coordinated movement. "You'll never take me alive, Redheart!"

"Security!" She called and distant sets of hoofsteps joined her rapid ones.

"This is exactly why you should listen to me, you pony-addled freak!" Dave huffed as he jogged alongside me, keeping one hand on his bowler hat at all times.

Bewildered ponies stared at me from the waiting area and behind the reception desk as I blundered past with Redheart hot on my tail. The thick wooden doors were shouldered aside with little trouble, although I wish I'd known how thick they were ahead of time. I was going to feel that later.

As I burst into the fresh, early-afternoon air, I giddily shouted, "Freedom!"

"Ice cream!" Spot cheered, almost stumbling as he pumped a fist.

"Remind me later that we need to work on your rallying cry."
> Ice Cream?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two canine eyes peered out from the thick bushes across the narrow street. Foliage rimmed my vision as well, and the two of us exchanged nervous looks before scanning up and down the road once more. I still wasn't sure how we'd made it this far with my leg, but the hospital, and hopefully Nurse Redheart as well, were several blocks and random turns behind us.

"How long we hide for?" Spot called out, poking his head out the top of the bush like a groundhog out of its hole. Wincing, he pulled a leaf out of his ear.

"Get down! You're going to get us caught." It was difficult making my voice barely loud enough for him to hear but not loud enough for it to carry far.

"But she not leave hospital."

"Come again?" I deadpanned as I poked my face out the front of the bushes.

"She stay at hospital. She look angry though." Spot shrugged. More accurately, the bush wobbled and I assumed it was from his shrugging.

I flopped out of the bush and onto the road, taking great care not to fall on my injury. Too exhausted to stand, I opted to lay on the packed soil and catch my breath. While the road was merely a wide, dirt path, it was still smooth and nothing poked at my back. With a hoof on my face, I asked, "And why didn't you bring this up earlier?"

"Thought you hurry to get ice cream." He stepped out onto the road and shook to dislodge the leaves clinging to his fur. He paused, musing while a small cloud of dust settled around him. "Still not sure what ice cream is."

Dave chuckled as he sat next to me. "This is just priceless. She probably doesn't have any authority outside of that place, you know. You ran all this way for nothing. Well, I wouldn't have called that running."

Feeling half-frustrated and half-exhausted, I continued to rest on the road until Spot padded over and prodded me in the ribs, accidentally putting far more force into it than necessary. "Beta okay?"

His poke hit a sweet spot, and I jumped and scrambled to my hooves, my eyes wide with surprise at the surge that ran through my nerves. I barely calmed myself before resignedly suggesting, "Let's just go get that ice cream." There was another bruise to feel in the morning. I’d never expected Spot to be that strong.

Early afternoon Ponyville was delightful to aimlessly stroll through. The sun pleasantly shone down, casting distinct silhouettes that danced with each gust. The weather was mildly windy yet still slightly warmer than what I would consider brisk—there were significant advantages to weather control. I yearned to speed down the road in my cart, but the walk was a pleasant substitute, and I reasoned I'd have to get used to being on my hooves more often with my vehicle out of commission. Idly, I wondered if the accelerator had survived the crash and asked Spot if he'd heard of its whereabouts.

"Scratch have, I think. Say she keep safe." Him using a pony's name was more impressive than Vinyl keeping my stuff company. Spot quickly glanced around the quiet park we'd found ourselves in and asked, "Where ice cream at anyway?"

"No idea." It was like half of Ponyville was just parks.

"Could ask other ponies." He looked around again, confused. "Not see any though. Where ponies at?"

"Probably at work. Hold up." My head snapped towards a flicker of movement in my peripheral. There was only one object in that direction, a tree with leafy boughs, and I internally argued over how concerned I should be. A small breeze rolled through the area as it had for most of the day, and the rustling leaves obscured any noise something following me could be making.

"I know you're there. Come on out." My muscles tensed as I hunkered down to face my stalker.

"Nothing there, beta." He scampered over to the trunk and looked upwards. "I see nothing."

"Are you seeing things other than me again?"

Remaining resolute, I snorted. "Wouldn't be the first time my eyes played tricks on me, but I'm not about to turn my back until I'm certain it really is nothing. Do you think you could climb the tree?"

Spot nervously looked upwards and then back to me, gulping. "Y-you mean up there?"

"No, climb down the tree. Of course I mean up there. Are you afraid of heights or something?" 

"Heights fine. Not like trees." He backed away from the apparently terrifying oak and hid behind me.

I facehoofed and groaned. "Why would you be afraid of a tree?"

"Trees unfriendly. Always sticking nasty roots in home."

While Dave was incapacitated with laughter, I resisted the urge to join him and instead opted to give Spot a sympathetic smile and nod. "Alright, we'll keep going then. Just keep an eye on it." It was probably just the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I was surprised I’d made it that long without running into them or them into me.

Spot made the gesture for letting the tree know he was keeping his eyes on it, and he walked backwards after me, his brow furrowed in concentration until he tripped over his own feet. He was making it very difficult not to giggle at his expense.

To distract myself, I asked, "Did Vinyl mention where we could find her?"

He casually dusted himself off as he resumed walking. This time, he intelligently chose to look forwards, albeit with the addition of an apologetic grimace. "No. Sorry. She say she visit you again, right?"

"Oh, right. Well, won't that be a surprise if she checks at the hospital?" Spot chuckled with me.

Soon, we wandered into a small neighborhood and, ahead of us, a dingy building I recognized came into view. "There's Metalhead's place, so I think I know where we are now.  Let's see if we can find somepony to give us directions to an ice cream place."

The Scrap Shack's door sounded the same as it did before, and I called out for Metalhead when he didn’t appear behind me. A few minutes passed, and I tried again but continued to receive no answer.

"Beta, is this metal pony?" Spot tore a flyer off a fencepost and handed it to me.

My mouth dropped open in shock as I read the missing pony flyer for the rust-colored unicorn who owned the building behind me. "Last seen two days ago," I mumbled as I gave the area a quick once-over. "Spot, is that flyer over there also for him?"

"No. Says Berry Icicle. Who she?" He asked as he held up the second flyer so I could compare.

I frowned and shook my head at the smiling picture of a fuchsia earth pony with a creamy silver mane. "Never heard of her, but it says she was last seen two days ago as well." It actually said 'two days ago.' Did they have somepony whose job is replacing the flyers every day?

"Same thing happen to both?"

"Probably. I'm sure these weren't up yesterday. Vinyl said a few ponies had gone missing, but I didn’t expect him to be one of them." The flyers had to have some extra information. The short descriptions of the appearances did little more than inform me of their size and coloration, but there was a detailed drawing of their cutie marks at the bottom of each. Metalhead's ingot looked like what I remembered, and Berry Icicle's trio of carrots wouldn’t be hard to remember.

"Oooooh, the plot thickens." Dave cackled. "Ask Spot if any of the diamond dogs are Great Danes or whatever the appropriate pun is. That way we can get to the bottom of this mystery that much faster. Sucks Metalhead is gone—I liked him."

I wasn't sure how long I spent examining the papers, silently fuming at Dave, but Spot pulled my attention away with a sharp cough. "What we do now?"

"Sorry about that. Unfortunately, I think we'll have to reschedule the ice cream. I shouldn’t even have suggested it yet. Ponies are missing, we need to get busy sooner. We don't know what it is or how to fight it, but that's why I'm headed to the library. If we throw enough of a variety at it, something's bound to hurt it."

"Those unicorn guards got rid of it, so something with magic does the trick. Maybe you could tinker with some thaumite to make a new pattern." Dave looked at the posters over my shoulder. “Purple ‘n Nerdy mentioned something about your other pattern being a 3D model of an already existing spell.”

"Spot, I need you to hurry back home and have them increase night patrols. We need to get that escape tunnel done as well, but we're going to have to move a lot faster on it. Let's shrink the size of the tunnels a bit, so maybe just wide enough for three ponies or two diamond dogs to walk comfortably. And nodog goes anywhere alone. Got it?" At least it wouldn't be as hard to keep these guys safe, since they didn't think I was just crazy. Well, maybe they did, but at least they’d listen while they did so.

He straightened his posture and nodded firmly. "Yes, Beta. What else?"

"Have Fido make a list of everything he'd need to smelt wolf's ore. Then I want a small stockpile of the raw ore very close to the forge as well as some aluminium. Oh, and we might need to trade for some of the supplies, so see if he can refine some of the gold or silver. Things are going to get busy around here, and we need to be prepared." I nervously paced as I gave the orders, constantly glancing to Dave in hopes of additional ideas.

"Will get done."

"One last thing. I was only able to become beta because you guys are terrible fighters. We need to start sparring. You know, practice fights. You told me diamond dogs are supposed to be protectors from Tartarus's demons. I don't know if this is in that category, but we will protect the land from this creature. Alright, that should be it. Off you go." In retrospect, I probably damaged the grand impact of my short speech by losing my balance while waving him off, but Spot did look incredibly determined as he bolted to the northwest. He didn't even trip this time.

"You know, it probably wasn't smart to tell them to get better at fighting when the leaders are determined by strength." Dave removed his hat and wiped the sweat off his forehead before continuing. "I think you covered the necessary bases though, so good job, I guess."

"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm more worried about losing any of them than I am about my authority." My expression remained grim as I limped further into town.

"If it's any consolation, you're off to a better start than last time you led people. Maybe more than we thought changed when you got dumped into a mare’s body."

"Or maybe diamond dogs and ponies are less interested in their own agendas than humans were."

Dave curtly corrected me, "Are. You're just a human mind in a pony body, remember? And aren't you just pushing your own agenda there, hypocrite?"

"Pony, Human, whatever. I'm me. I'm Sterling Gears. Sterling Gears is a pony. Therefore, I'm a pony." As I turned towards the library, I growled at him. "It's different when my agenda is about keeping others safe."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is!" It was a relief nopony was present to see me berate the air. "All I've had for so long is you, but you don't exist. You're a figment of my imagination and a constant reminder of everything I've been dragged through. I'm just starting to claw my way back from having nothing, and now that I'm in a paradise like this, you have no idea what I'll do to keep the past from repeating and having Equestria live through it as well."

"I'm more than just a reminder and a figment and you know it. All those times I've tried to point you in the right direction only to have you wander into the woods on the side of the path and blow it up."

"Because I'm good at blowing stuff up. Got the cutie mark doing it, remember?" I smirked smugly at him. "I got us here despite your pointing."

"I don’t care about your ass emblem. Your hunches got us here. Neither of us know what those were, but it's a complete fluke things worked out like this. You should have blown yourself up with that machine."

"And it still would have been better than scavenging to prolong that pathetic life. I would rather be dead than try to survive with only you to keep me company."

"Too bad we're stuck with each other, eh?" He snidely chortled while glaring daggers at me. I'm pretty sure those daggers were enchanted up to plus five as well. And on fire. With lasers.

"Too bad indeed. But we already knew that. No need to rub it in further."

"What do you think is going to happen when the ponies find out your origins? It'll just be me and you again. Think before you burn your bridges."

"They're better than that. Besides, it's such a cliché event in fiction everywhere I've seen it play out hundreds of times. I should have little trouble fixing that issue."

"Fiction is fiction for a reason. You can't just apply it to real life."

"Can't I? Equestria was supposed to be fictitious, yet if I recall, this certainly looks like Ponyville."

"Or you finally snapped and roped me into your delusions."

"Tough talk for someone who already is a delusion. I can't help but wonder if everything would just be easier if I didn't know you were a hallucination. After all, you not appearing in the first place would just be too much to ask for."

"Keep running your mouth. You're lucky we need each other or I would have left you to rot ages ago. Hunches or not, I've saved your ass more than you’d want to remember."

"As if." Chuckling, I rolled my eyes. "You saved yourself. I just happened to be there. Cold, hard, logical Dave doesn't show concern for Sterling Gears or anypony other than himself." I relished him cringing at my decisive choice of words.

"Poke fun all you want. I'm not the one lying by omission to the first living beings she has seen in years. Have fun at the library." He gave a final smirk and with a tip of his hat, he walked off, ignoring everything shouted after him.

I growled in frustration and punted a small rock unfortunate enough to be near my hoof. "Arrogant bastard." I could take care of myself just fine. I'd never needed him, right? He did have a point, but it wasn’t like I could come out and say 'hey, I'm from another world where everything else died and still kept trying to eat me. Oh, and by the way, I wasn't a pony or even a mare back then.' Bah, Dave sucked. I was content with my indifference, but he loved stirring up a mess.

Brooding and entrapped by my worries, I continued towards the library. Another flicker of movement distracted me momentarily, but my frantic searching proved fruitless once again. Maybe it was nothing for once, but I still couldn't let my guard down.

The Golden Oaks Library stood regal as ever, overlooking the road like an arboreal sentry. Its leaves rustled in the delicate wind to create an ambient symphony sharply contrasting my mood so much it made me feel vulnerable. My presence drew the attention of the shorter of two figures chatting in the open doorway: a small, purple dragon I felt I had the beginnings of a friendship with. As he looked around the taller figure, his action caught the white mare's attention and she casually glanced over her shoulder to view the newcomer. She recognized and then heartily greeted me, turning around to enthusiastically wave much like I remembered Lyra doing.

"I've been looking all over for you, Gears." Vinyl Scratch laughed as she trotted to my side and supported me. "I never guessed you would have wound up finding me instead. Let me give you a hoof getting inside before I grill you for busting out of the hospital."

"Gee, I can't wait."

"Hey, Gears. Heard what happened. Good to see you didn't get too roughed up yesterday." Spike smiled warmly as he held the door open.

"Takes more than that to keep me down." It was not lost on me that the mere presence of these two was rapidly changing my disposition for the better. Screw Dave. I had these guys and the pack.

As she helped me to a cushion, she sasked, "Like being less than a week away from dwindling down to nothing? You look like crap." Her tone and goofy smirk refused to let me take it as anything but the playful jest it was.

I stuck my tongue out at her. "Missed you too, Vinyl."

"Takes guts to book it away from Red, but you really should have stayed. They told me and Tall why you collapsed, you know."

"I'll try to take better care of myself now that I know I was doing it wrong. What brings you to the library anyways?" I inquired. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I didn't peg Vinyl Scratch as the type to have reading for a hobby.

"You kidding me? It's pretty much the only place in Ponyville you've gone."

"You have been here every night," Spike said while he straightened a pile of books on a cart.

Vinyl nodded. "After they told me you left the hospital, I looked for you at the meeting at town hall. Then I came right here."

"What meeting?" How much time had I wasted in fleeing with Spot?

"I only caught a bit of it and didn't pay much attention, but that thing last night has everypony scared senseless and now the whole town thinks it's behind the disappearances. Those two guards that saved us are organizing a militia and night watch." She noticeably shivered as she mentioned the creature, like the room's temperature dropped at the mere thought of it. "There's a stupid curfew now too."

"Sounds like they don't think they got rid of it or there really are more out there."

Spike, who had spent most of the conversation fearfully looking around, gasped. "It's still out there?"

Gently, I patted his back. "As if it could get in here. You'll be fine. Vinyl, how did they drive it off the first time?"

She looked upwards in thought, idly tapping her chin with a hoof. "I think they said it was a stunning spell of some sort. It didn't stun it, but it apparently left in a hurry." She shrugged. "Sorry I don't have more. You ever tried talking to anypony in the Royal Guard? I've had more productive talks with walls."

The bookcases towering around me offered a smidgen of clarity I viciously pounced upon. I remembered what Dave had mentioned about Twilight saying the spell pattern I had invented matched the matrix for an already existing spell. "I think I might be able to rig something to blast it with if I can find the right books. Vinyl, Spot mentioned you had my accelerator. Any chance it's nearby?"

Excitement flared within her and radiated outwards from a confident grin. "Taking the fight to it? Count me in. Your doohickey is back at my place, I'll go grab it quick and—" my stomach cut her off with a violent rumble "—I'll bring you dinner as well."

"Mooching really isn't my style. I'll scrounge something up later." Frowning intensely at her did nothing to dissuade her. In fact, it provoked a mischievous smirk to play across her face momentarily.

"Dinner or I drag you back to the hospital by your tail."

"You crafty b—" I bit my tongue as I remembered Spike was a baby dragon. It didn’t matter if I figured he could handle it. Being protected by an alicorn powerful enough to turn me inside out on my way to the moon may have also influenced me to cut off my playful expletive. "Dinner it is."

"You sure? I know you like to make things difficult."

"No no, I insist."

Her mock-disappointment forced Spike and me to snort. "Aw, ruining all my fun."

"Save that kind of fun for when Octavia gets back from Canterlot." I waggled my eyebrows and playfully stuck my tongue out again. Were they even called eyebrows if my face was covered in matching fur? Eyeridge?

If she were surprised, she didn't show it and instead returned a wink. "I just might have to."

"Why would being yanked around by your tail be any fun?" Spike confusedly asked.

"Depends on what you’re into." It didn't dawn on me what I had said until I caught the confusion in Spike's eyes. Oops.

"I'llbebacksoonbye." Vinyl dashed out of the library quick enough to leave a dust cloud trailing behind her.

“I don’t get it.” Ignoring Spike, I slowly ducked behind the cart he had tended to earlier. "I can still see you, Gears."

"No, you can't. I'm invisible back here." My plan was foolproof!
> Raspberries
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Really, I shouldn’t have said anything." My first sip of the tea Spike brewed to lure me out of hiding had scalded my tongue, and it hurt to talk.

He kept trying to convince me he was mature enough to know what I’d meant. Mentioning how much I doubted Twilight would want me to explain it did nothing to dissuade him. Part of me wanted to damn the consequences and just tell him, but it still wasn’t clear how mature Spike was.

The purple dragon smirked. "I’m tired of being treated like a whelp."

"I bet. I'm sorry Spike, but Twilight would be pissed." I smiled and casually glanced towards the book cart I'd ducked behind in a half-hearted attempt to avoid the situation. It was probably only three-quarters my size and not even completely full, so it was akin to using a single twig as camouflage.

"You didn't actually believe that would work, did you?" He cocked an eyebrow at me as he drank from his own cup without injuring himself like I had. Stupid fireproof dragons.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Any word on when the girls are coming back?"

Mentioning the Mane Six perked his mood right up. "Yeah, they'll be back tomorrow. Princess Celestia taught Twilight the royal messaging spell, and she just sent her first letter today. She was pretty excited about it, I think. I can usually tell from the number of words I can't understand."

"Why does that always go through you anyway? I never figured that out."

He tapped his claw against his chin a couple times before shrugging. "Dragon stuff."

"Fair enough." The pillow underneath me shifted as I fidgeted. It was strange being comfortable for so long on just a cushion. It was almost bothering me that I wasn't uncomfortable from the lack of back support. "Did they finish whatever they needed to in the Crystal Empire?"

"I would think so, but the letter didn't mention anything specific.Twilight did tell me to keep an eye on you though. She seemed to think you'd get yourself into trouble." The two of us shared a look at my leg and burst out laughing.

"That's rich." Having learned to use the leg above the hoof, I wiped away a laughter-induced tear. "I feel special for getting specific mention though."

"Yeah, it's not like there aren't any other ponies who have a tendency to cause property damage everywhere they go. Or break out of hospitals on a broken leg. Or—"

A hoof shoved in his mouth, preemptively finishing his sentence. "I get it."

Spike spat my hoof out and chuckled sheepishly. "My bad. You’re almost as much of a trouble magnet as Ponyville is though."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Oh, I do have a tiny favor to ask."

He groaned and faceclawed. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I just want access to the secret section of the library with all the really potent stuff."

Almost an entire minute of awkward silence passed before Spike answered, "What?"

"You know, the big stuff that let's a unicorn become a pony-sized Death Star."

"Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and repeat myself. What?"

"Please?" Just like I practiced, my lower lip stuck out and trembled.

He averted his eyes and shielded them. Damn, he was clever. "There isn't a secret part of the library. What gave you that insane idea?"

Giggling, I rolled my eyes. "Come on. There's always a secret section in a library. Every last one."

"There isn't one in the Canterlot Archives."

"Well, duh, they're archives, not a library."

"Touché."

"But I'm sure there is one there anyway. Have you or Twilight ever asked if there was one?"

"Well, no, but that doesn't mean there is one there or here."

"Spike, this is a library in a tree that is tended by you, who I shouldn't have to clarify is a freaking dragon, and Princess Twilight Sparkle, who is also the Element of Magic and a billion other titles. There's got to be some pretty rare tomes tucked away in a secret room somewhere."

He scratched his chin in thought, slightly smiling from my incidental flattering. "You have a point, but there really is no secret library section."

Screw it, it was time to go for the throat. "Spike, I’m going to pull every book in the library. It’s probably in the basement behind some book Twilight thinks nopony will ever read."

He grumbled, his shoulders sagging, "How did you know? Twilight's going to be so freaked out."

I drew him into a small hug. "Don't worry, it wasn't anything you did. It's just really cliché. I was just guessing for most of it."

"Dude, that's creepy."

"Sorry. I won't tell anypony else if it's any consolation."

"Well, that's a start, but I still can't let you in there. Not only am I not allowed to, Twilight actually has a horn lock on it. You'll have to talk to her, but I'd wait until she has some tea. Less freakout that way. Why do you want to get in there so bad?"

"Either I have a bit of guidance figuring out the good stuff or I wing it and try to teach myself." I grinned at him as I pointed at my cutie mark.

Spike's mouth dropped open as he stared blankly at the wall. One could almost see the carnage lurking in the scenarios playing out in his mind's eye. He wildly shook his head to clear it and sternly pointed at me.  "No." His voice rang with more authority than I could have ever expected from such a tiny creature. With that tone, he could have demanded to get Firefly back on the air.

Sharp pounding at the door pulled his attention away, and he opened it for Vinyl Scratch, who was slightly straining to levitate three plate-sized boxes, one of which dripped occasionally. She unceremoniously dumped them on the nearest table and took a moment to catch her breath.

"I am way too out of practice." Vinyl huffed and she wiped the sweat from her brow, then fixed her shades, which the motion had set askew.

"Why didn't you just stack them up and lift one thing instead of three? I know from Twilight it’s a matter of surface area."

She could only groan. "Because that would have been the smart thing to do."

"Welcome back." I smiled sincerely at her and glanced at the boxes. "I take it that's our dinner?"

”You are a lie, even to your two closest friends.”

That was probably just Dave being an asshole. Deep down, I doubted that was the case, but any of the alternatives spooked me.

"Yep. Spike, I asked Ray for your usual, and he whipped something up for you, so I hope that's okay."

"You went to Ray's? Awesome!" He dashed to the boxes and hastily opened them. He pushed the first aside and drooled while mumbling incoherently as his widened eyes sparkled at the contents of the second.

The third box wobbled as Vinyl floated it over to me, and I relieved her of it the moment it came within reach. "Thanks," she said. "Sorry it's dripping though."

"You brought me food. You don't get to thank me or apologize for anything." I licked at the leak and my mouth exploded with the strongest raspberry flavor I'd ever eaten.

In the past, I hadn't liked raspberries that much. In fact, I despised their flavor, but that was alright since they made me swell up like a fugu fish with gas. Some faint part of my mind guessed it wouldn't have been an issue with a new body, but I couldn't hear it over the delicious euphoria fogging my brain.

I barely forced my tongue to help with speech again. "This is good!"

"That's a relief. I had no idea what you would want, so I kind of closed my eyes and pointed randomly." She laughed nervously as she picked the remaining box up with her mouth and sat next to me with it. "Spike, are you going to eat it or frame it?"

"Uh, what?" His slitted eyes unglazed, and he blinked as if looking at us and the library for the first time. "Why are you two laughing so hard? What'd I miss?" Vinyl and I roared with laughter even more. He rolled his eyes as he joined us at the table, grumbling, "Mares."

I apologized for laughing and asked, "I know you just sat down, but can I get a towel or a plate?" I pointed the leaking corner of the box towards him.

"At least you didn't ask when I was already eating." Spike sighed and promptly padded off into the kitchen. When he returned, he tossed a white towel with a brown, checkered border in my direction and scrutinized his meal for the best starting point.

Inside my box was a salad within a bowl-shaped wicker frame lined with wax paper. Every ingredient looked fresh, from the lettuce to the raspberries I had tasted earlier, and I ravenously tore into it. As much as I wanted to throw caution to the wind and not care about making a mess, doing so would only mean less of the ambrosia would end up where it was supposed to. Even with the dressing, eating with just my mouth was far easier and less messy than I could have ever hoped. I’d figured I would still be having trouble eating, but I picked it up much quicker than I’d expected.

"A salad has no right tasting this good," I said, taking the chance to breathe before I could stuff even more food in my mouth.

Vinyl snorted, covering her mouth when she noticed she was spitting chunks of her sub everywhere. She choked down a mouthful of food larger than what should have been possible. "Whirly Ray knows his food. It's surprising for a pegasus with a twister cutie mark. In Canterlot, this is what food should taste like for how much it costs."

I recalled my earlier thoughts on avoiding the crowds of the Equestrian capitol and inwardly grimaced at how things would have went if I’d gone there instead. "Didn't plan on visiting anytime soon. I think I'd stick out more than I already do here."

"Ugh, I know the feeling. The nightlife isn't that bad though, you just have to know where to look." She might have winked, but it was hard to tell with her shades on. "I know a bunch of great clubs and bars."

An ear-splitting belch ripped through the air, accompanied by a raging torrent of emerald fire I lazily glanced up to. There was only a little heat behind it, like a steamy bathroom after a hot shower.  "Nice one."

”Your very presence is a blemish on this paradise. You don't belong here.” It was too loud for the others not to hear it, but they didn’t react at all.

Spike winced and groaned in discomfort as he rubbed his pudgy stomach. "Sorry. I guess I ate too fast."

Small sparks fluttered downwards, winking out one by one. Vinyl let out an impressed whistle. "I've never seen a dragon burp before. That was rad!"

"You didn't end up sending anything to Celestia, did you?"

He waved dismissively and chuckled. "Nah, that only happens when I get the hiccups. Burping is A-OK. Unless you're standing in front of it, then you might get a few scorch marks."

"What did you have anyway? I didn't get much of a chance to look at it before it vanished down your gullet."

"Carnelian calzone." He dreamily sighed and stared off into the distance for a few moments. "Twi likes to say it's the alliteration that makes it taste so good."

"Ruby ravioli? Sapphire spaghetti?" I grinned at him, ready to list off more.

"Tried making them both." Spike shuddered in disgust. "I don't want to talk about it, but there’s a reason I do all the cooking around here."

"Sounds like when Tavi cooks." Her smile drooped. "You didn't hear it from me, though. That mare can play cello better than anypony else, but I swear she can burn water while just pouring a cup to drink."

"When's she supposed to be back in Ponyville anyway?" I sincerely wanted to meet Octavia. After all, she was on my list of background ponies to meet, and with Vinyl, Lyra, and Bon Bon all acting strangely close to what I had expected, I was eager to see how others matched up to their fandom counterparts.

Vinyl mumbled to herself as she counted days in her head. "This week sometime. Hopefully we can blast that creature to Tartarus before she comes back." Her grin was nothing short of devilish, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for whatever lurked in the night.

"You remember to grab my accelerator?"

She nodded and dug it out of her saddlebags. An inch above the table, she stopped and made sure she wasn't about to empower it. "Sorry, this is all I could salvage."

"Thanks. I'm just glad some of it survived. Spike, can you get me a book with something like a beginner's motion enchantment? I think Twilight said Clover the Clever designed it, and I accidentally sculpted it. I don't know, she was doing the whole 'lots of words, little breathing' thing."

Spike quickly answered, "You mean the elementary animation enchantment?" I shrugged. "It’s all she talked about after you left. Most ponies just call it the come-to-life spell." Slowed by his meal, he waddled into the stacks.

"Oh, I remember that one! I used it this one time at band camp… they didn’t let me come back after that." Vinyl grimaced at the memories I was now very curious to hear and potentially use as blackmail. "What are you going to do with the book? Not like you can actually cast the spell."

"From what I can gather, spells have some sort of diagram that tells unicorns how to cast them." I waited for her nod before continuing. "So if I can figure out what Twilight saw as the connection between my spell pattern and the actual spell, I might be able to apply that to different spells. Namely that one the guards used last night."

”You don't deserve this.” Whatever that voice was, it was grating at my nerves. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but it was growing louder with each sentence. I just wanted it to leave me alone.

“You okay, Gears? You look upset.”

“Sorry, Vinyl. I’m fine. What were you saying?” There was no sense in concerning them with something stuck in my head.

"And with no cart to push, your accelerator is just spare materials now, right?"

"That's the plan. I'm going to miss that cart. Doubt it'll miss me though." I chuckled and turned to get my tools, only to find I hadn't taken the time to find my toolbelt before leaving the hospital. "Great. They still have my loot."

"Add another reason to the list of why you shouldn’t run out of the hospital. Least you snagged your goggles."

Reaching my hoof up to confirm her observation, I clocked myself in the cheek. The pain was nowhere near as full or sharp as it should have been, instead it was just a dull throbbing like I had been chewing a piece of gum for too long. Either I had superpowers from the crash or whatever painkillers they gave me for my leg were of the long-lasting variety. My hopeful money was on the first.

It was a relief to find the weather goggles atop my head. "I don't remember grabbing them. I think they might have just left them, although I don't know why they'd do something like that."

"Lucky for you then. Trust me, I can appreciate a good piece of eyewear." Vinyl grinned as she tapped her signature shades.

"Of course. You're by far the most stylish of ponies." Spike still hadn’t returned. "Did you get lost, Spike?"

"I wasn't napping!" replied a voice that was struggling not to yawn.

"No, it's not that. Bring back some sunglasses or something so you won't be left out."

"...Okay? Oh, here's the book." Spike couldn’t fool anybody.

I shovelled the rest of my salad into my mouth in an attempt to finish it before he got back. The tome Spike returned with was almost as large as he was, and he needed to hunch over just to carry it. Barely any wear marred its pale green, cloth binding and the pages were still crisp and almost white. I opened it without a glance at the embossed title and searched for a table of contents. "Thanks, Spike. This—" My voice morphed into a laugh when I noticed Spike's comically oversized sunglasses.

"What? It's the only thing I could find. Me and Twilight don't need glasses, so all I have are these. They're my party shades." He grinned proudly as he adjusted the white-rimmed behemoth perched on his nose.

"If I would have known we were going to have a party, I would have brought some equipment," said Vinyl. "Nice shades, dude."

The hoof-written script was nearly illegible, but it eventually directed me to a giant, messy scribble taking up nearly an entire page. Befuddled, I tilted my head, and when that didn't work, I rotated the book. My complex methods still didn't crack whatever code lay before me. "What is this?"

"That's the spell. I know it looks like a jumble of lines, but that's because it is a jumble of lines," Vinyl said. "I suck at explaining things in general, but I wouldn't even know where to begin telling somepony without a horn how this stuff works. All I can really say is what we do to cast the spell is there on the page, but it's also not there. Sorry, I really don't know what to tell you."

Nonchalantly, I shrugged and pulled my goggles down. "No worries. I'll just wing it."

A headache grew within my skull as I stared into the swirling tempest of ink, trying to find the smallest connection between it and my accelerator. The chicken-scratch information written on the opposite page was nowhere near instructive, and it mostly described various uses of the spell.

Unlinking the individual pieces I inspected the most powerful version of my pattern. It felt like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but not being told which haystack the needle was in, or even which field the correct haystack was in. Soft snoring caused me to look up at the dragon who had fallen asleep where he sat. Next to him, Vinyl was trying not to laugh too loudly. I muttered an apology under my breath. I was too close to stop my research.

As I looked back to the page, my eyes caught on a vaguely familiar chunk, though after comparing it with the pattern I had no clue why it seemed familiar. When I squinted my eyes in frustration, the blurry lines coalesced into something even more incoherent. But when I stood up to work a kink out of my neck, I noticed something just felt, well, better. I put more distance between myself and the book, trying to follow the mysterious clarity tantalizingly dangling in front of my snout.

"What are you doing?" Vinyl whispered.

"Hell if I know."

The lines bled together with just enough distance, something clicked in my mind, and I tied one cluster of lines to a curve in the shaped thaumite. With a wry grin, I worked outward from there, nodding in satisfaction as more and more of it fell into place until I knew exactly why my accelerator worked, down to every last bit of twisted metal.

"Score!" I pumped a hoof excitedly and cheered, startling the snoozing drake awake.

"What? What did you do?" He yawned and stretched.

"Science!" My insane grin provoked a nervous stare from him. "Do you know where I can find this kind of info, but for that stunning spell?"

He sleepily nodded. "Yeah. Sorry for dozing off. I got really bored watching you. If you’re looking for the stun the Royal Guard was using, I think it should be covered in most self-defense spellbooks."

"Stay awake this time. I hate keeping you up, but this is major stuff here."

"I could just get Owloysius. With Twilight not here to read all night, he's been getting a bit restless."

"Who," said the brown owl who had silently been watching us from atop a barren, scuffed hat rack.

Spike yelped in surprise and clutched at his heart while gasping for air. "Or you could just be there waiting to scare us."

"Who?" 

"You, that's who. Wait, I'm too tired for this. Just help Gears and Vinyl out. I need to go to bed. Don't forget to lock up after they leave. Would you two please just stay in here while you're around?" He looked directly at me as he motioned towards our general area, his eyes laying the limits his words didn't.

I gave him a mock salute and turned towards Owloysius. "Do you know what book Spike was talking about?"

"Who." He fluttered off.

"I didn't know Twilight trained an owl." Vinyl whispered in my ear like she was worried the stocky bird would take offense.

"Yeah, she needed a nocturnal assistant," I replied. "Why are we whispering?"

"I don't know."

"Who."

"Shh, we're trying to be quiet." I blindly waved towards the noise.

"Who," Owloysius apologized confusedly, his hoot much quieter this time. He gently dropped a book on a table and flew back to the hat rack.

"Oh, sorry, Owlo. Can I call you Owlo?"

He hooted indignantly.

"Spoilsport. Anyway, thanks for the book." I smiled at my companion. "Vinyl, now's when the fun starts. You may want to retreat to a safe distance." The owl hurriedly moved to a bookcase that was twice as far away. "See? He gets the idea."

"And miss the action? It's been dull watching you stare at the spell matrix, but now that you'll be doing something interesting, I'm all ears."

"That's the spirit!" With a grin, I flipped through the pages, mentally noting others I’d have to come back to when there was more time.

What I realized next disheartened me, fracturing my excitement. "I don't have any tools." Luckily, I quickly found some metaphorical duct tape for those equally metaphorical cracks. "Eh, a hoof’s like a hammer, right?"
> Groovy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a book on my face. It was strange reading about mushrooms from a book stuck to the wall of an inexplicably sideways library. Fog rolled through my head, and my body was unresponsive and exhausted.

"Gears!" The strange sound was slowly drawn out and continued to reverberate long after it should have ended. I could only imagine how far away the speaker must have been.

I recognized that word as a name for some reason, but that was silly. Why would somepony use Gears as a name? After all, gears were components, not ponies. Ponies. What's with ponies in my brain? I haven't seen ponies in ages, fictional or otherwise? Fictional? Of course I haven't seen fictional ponies, they're fictional.

A blurry shape appeared in front of me, its motions leaving trails in the air. The blob was made of more white than blue, and more blue than pink. The book was in focus, why wasn't the blob? Or maybe the blob was in focus and I was accidentally insulting its appearance.

Miles away, something prodded my hoof. Hoof? No, that doesn't sound right. Why would I have hooves? Hooves were for horses and ponies. I missed that show.

"Look at me." I think it was the blob that was speaking, and this voice was vaguely similar to the last one.

I needed to communicate with the swirling mass of white and blue and let it know I wasn't going to hurt it. There was only one thing I could say to convey my feelings.

"Bluh." Never before had a word been articulated so perfectly.

"Thank Celestia you're still awake. Stay with me, Gears." What a caring blob.

Gears. There was that word-name again. Was it mine? My name? Gears is my name. Yeah, that sounded right. My fur turned to pins and needles all over my body, and I involuntarily squirmed at the uncomfortable sensation. Feeling my body against the floor alerted me to its odd, equine shape. I was on the floor? I thought I was against the wall reading that wall-book on mushrooms.

"Come on, Gears. If you don't come around I'm dragging you to the hospital." That word filled me with icy terror and long-buried memories of constant screaming.

"Vinyl." I wasn't trying to say anything. Bad tongue.

"What? What is it?" The blob sounded worried. Was this blob named Vinyl? So many weird names in Equestria. Equestria. I know that place.

"Ouch."

The blob stifled a snicker. "You blast yourself across the room and all you have to say is ouch?"

Another memory flickered in front of my mind's eye. There was a book and me playing with some metal thing and then... mushrooms. My brain linked these two events together and things suddenly made much more sense. Why was I so confused? Of course I had hooves. Of course I had ponies on the brain, magic too. Did I get here with magic? No, my spell pattern blasted me here. I had been working on a pattern for a disabling spell, and my ability to do anything felt thoroughly dissed.

Shakily, I pulled my limbs under me and tried to sit up. The minuscule effort required for such a menial task further clarified things, and I looked at the slightly blurry unicorn in front of me.

"Vinyl, could you please get in focus? You're all smudgey."

"I think she's coming around Owloysius. You don't have to get Spike just yet."

A relieved hoot made me jump out of my skin. Or maybe not seeing as my skin was still where it should have been. "What did I do?"

A white foreleg rested on my shoulder as Vinyl chuckled. "I think you would describe it as science."

My balance was iffy at best on my way back to the table. It wasn't too far away, only a few meters, but it might as well have been thrice that with how long it took me to stagger there. On the floor nearby, the thaumite I had been shaping sparked and sputtered, tiny tendrils of smoke rising from it like steam over food fresh from the oven. Not wanting to risk poking the vaguely tube-shaped object yet, I circled the blackened metal and frowned.

"Looks like I burnt it out, but I'd say it did something, right?" My mind was still slightly hazy, but now it was like there was a fan blowing the fog away.

"That was a lot of magic you blasted yourself with, much more than any unicorn would ever release with that spell. Are you sure you're fine?"

Looking at the diagram refreshed my mind and pulled to the front what I’d learned. "Yeah, looks like I just don't have a way to limit the output on this spell, so it used every last drip of magic in that one burst. Oh, this must be where the spell gets released from." That end crumpled to ash at the slightest nudge. "I'll definitely have to remember not to point that end at myself again. Good thing it was just a stunning spell, eh?"

"I'll say. That could have gone far worse. Still, you had me worried when you launched yourself into that bookcase. How are you not hurting right now?"

"Sorry about that." I smiled sheepishly and lowered my head, my ears falling flat against my skull. "I am aching a bit, but it's nothing big at all."

Vinyl eyed me, suspicious. "Define big."

"No, really. I've been in more pain from walking into furniture in a dark room." Pulling the remaining thaumite towards me, it was a simple matter to reshape all of it into the new pattern.

"Why would you make it again if it just breaks the thaumite?"

"I won't completely finish it. Last thing I remember is bending these two pieces towards each other." I pointed at a particularly sparky section of the ruined pattern. "So if I keep them slightly separate, I can finish it the moment I need to pew pew something. May just be one use, but if the normal version only drove them away, this much power might completely obliterate it."

”You will fail.” It could talk all it wanted—it still had nothing but words.

"Clever. Where do you get all these ideas from anyway?"

"I used to work in housewares."

She opened her mouth, but instead sighed and shrugged. “Good enough. How's your leg feeling?"

"Like it's stuck in a cast. And itchy." It was true, there was a nasty itch just below the top of the cast, and it made me want to chew my leg off. "Alright, that's one. Five more to go."

While I bent the thaumite, eldritch sparks danced up my hooves in protest. The bizarre feeling was more prominent than before, with the raw comfort and warmth resting atop the jolts of energy. The amalgamation of the two sensations encouraged me to work fervently.

As expected, working the metal with just hooves was clumsy and slow, but it was currently a necessity. Even the moments where I had to bind smaller pieces together were not going to stop me. Besides, I wasn't sure if I would go back to using tools for all but the most delicate of tasks after this anyway. Doing it this way felt personal and had a certain beauty to it I refused to relinquish. That and I was cheap.

Recalling the work just before the impromptu test-firing, I couldn't help but grin at the memory of purposely building a new pattern for the very first time. That glorious feeling of creating something the world has never seen, beginning as a mere thought, but growing into something undoubtedly real. If there were any doubts of my calling after earning my cutie mark, returning to work chased them away and etched purpose into my core.

Triumphantly setting down the last pattern, I beamed at Vinyl. "I'm all set. Will you be able to cast this spell on your own at all or would you like to use a couple of these yourself?"

"I should be able to use it a couple times even if I have to be the light source." She posed dramatically and sparked her horn. "I am so stoked to get this show on the road after sitting in this stuffy library all day."

"We still have to wait for night, don't we?"

"You aren't as quick as you think. It's pitch black out there." She magically held the curtains open just enough for me to see the familiar, oppressive darkness. "We can go whenever you're ready."

I stacked the books my impact had knocked off the shelf, on the table to make it easier for the owl. "Thanks for the help, Owloysius. Wish us luck." I nodded at the after-dark, avian assistant.

He puffed out his chest feathers and deeply hooted, saluting Vinyl and I with a wing as we excitedly marched into the night to hunt. Some small part in the back of my mind tried to tell me I was going to get myself killed with my foolish bravado, but what did it know? The creature would get blasted, and the issue would be solved, not to mention we'd already discussed escape routes. You just can't do things like that without a way to get out in case Murphy steps in to fling his law around.

”Nothing will remain.”

Maybe it was Dave messing with me for our argument earlier. It would have made it easier to know it would have stopped the moment he calmed down, but when was it ever that simple? I didn't remember ever hearing Dave inside my head either. Maybe he’d finally picked up some new tricks. If I could hear it, maybe it could hear me mentally ask it to stop being a douche.

"Way creepy out here. Can't even see to the side of the road without magic," whispered Vinyl. Although her voice was hushed, it clashed with the eerie silence more than our cautious footsteps.

”She will abandon you.” I could almost hear a voice behind it.

"Yeah, good thing we have your headlamp." Vinyl was in front of me and slightly to the left so my blasting rods, as they’d recently been named, could be easily yanked from her saddlebags at the first sign of trouble.

”You will be alone for the rest of your meager life.” I looked at Vinyl and saw she was still concentrating on maintaining her spell and looking around. Even though it sounded like somepony was talking right in my ear, she couldn't have heard the sickly, bleak voice.

”Life will be a myth.” It was practically screaming in my head, and my skull throbbed angrily.

This was bad. It felt more foreboding than if somebody had said “We need to talk.” The dark seethed with malice.

”Snuff the flame!” The roaring noise bore down from all directions, staggering me. Vinyl turned back and said something, but I could only tell since her mouth moved. Her eyes frantically darted around and she motioned to me.

"—ed help!" The storm in my ears dwindled enough for me to catch the last of her sentence and a distant, piercing noise.

"What is that?" My own voice sounded muted.

"We need to help them. Come on!" She trotted forwards a couple paces, and when she noticed I was right behind her, she broke into a full gallop.

In an actual race, Vinyl would have mopped the track with me, but the weight of the saddlebags and the limited visibility did more than enough to let me match her pace. I followed her down the street towards the sound. What was that awful noise? Was that screaming?

A fountain appeared suddenly out of the darkness in front of us, and as we ducked around the obstacle, Vinyl's horn illuminated a terrifying sight. A member of the Royal Guard struggled against the creature trying to consume him, the darkness hungrily lapping at his armor and pulling him in like sentient quicksand. His horn flickered meekly as he continued to scream and flail.

Without another moment spent comprehending the scene, I snagged one of the blasting rods and awkwardly held one end between my two front hooves. I took aim and squeezed the unfinished part of the pattern. When the two ends met, a crack of thunder rumbled outwards and a lance of searing, white energy blazed out of the opposite end. The recoil was enough to knock me over, and the crumbling pieces of thaumite flew out of my grip. It was pretty sweet, and I was glad I wasn’t getting hit by it again.

The spell struck home, boiling away the creature's form in moments. It barely had time to release a moaning death rattle that would no doubt haunt us for weeks to come, the unholy noise lingering long after the beast was gone.

The stench of singed mane met me as I climbed back to my hooves and hoped the creature was the only thing I’d struck. Vinyl appeared unharmed as she checked on the guard, who wasn’t smoking either. Oh good, it was me. The guard shivered violently, like he’d just been medevaced from a mountain range.

"What—what was that?" he quietly sputtered through chattering teeth. Old instincts screamed at me to give him mercy before he could turn.

"This little thing? This… is my boomstick." I proudly grinned. "I'd call that a successful field test."

"Oh, I remember you two from yesterday. Thanks for returning the favor." He tried to chuckle but broke into a coughing fit.

Vinyl gasped. "Gears, this guy is an ice cube. Let's get him somewhere warm before he gets hypothermia or something."

"Stalwart Point. Where is he?" He anxiously looked around as much as he could from the ball he had curled up in. It was difficult to hear his frail voice over the sound of his teeth rapidly smashing together.

Magical light swept the area as Vinyl scanned the fountain plaza. A glimmer of gold shone back at us, and we found a battered set of Royal Guard armor with frost creeping up its edges like ivy. We exchanged looks and silently agreed on his fate. I shook my head at the disabled guard. I couldn’t go through it again. Not again. Not again. Not again.

"I'm too cold to cry," he replied grimly.

Apparently I was out of it again, and Vinyl punched me in the shoulder to get my attention. "Focus, Gears. We need to get him some medical attention."

"Do you know if any doctors or nurses live nearby?"

"I know where Red lives, but that's a little far away. We'll have to hope one of these houses will let us in." She cleared her throat and shouted, "Hello? Is anypony there? We need help!" Not even an echo disturbed the silence.

"I don't like this. Can you carry him or at least lift him onto my back?"

”The end is inevitable.” My head pounded from the headache that damned voice was causing. What did it want from me?

"Your leg is broken. You wouldn't be able to carry him even if I let you. I'll do what I can, but I don't think I can lift him and keep the lights on for too long." She cricked her neck and grumbled, "I'm going to need a drink after this mess."

A raspy voice slithered out of the darkness. "Warmth...good."

We spun to face another creature. It looked almost exactly like the one that had chased us and the one I had blasted, but it was just a hair smaller. Flickers of movement to its sides alerted us to the presence of another. And another. Eight beings surrounded us, their outlines rippling. The pessimistic gibbering degraded into a cacophony of horrid noises.

"This is bad," Vinyl whispered.

"Good. Bad. I'm the pony with the gun." Seven beings surrounded us as another blast tore through their ranks. Taking all the blasting rods from Vinyl's saddlebags, I stood over the fallen guard and took aim once more. Six.That one was loud.

A beam of blue magic tore a chunk off one of the creatures. Its screech of pain abruptly cut off as Vinyl's coup de grace found its mark. I risked a moment to take stock of the situation: five enemies against my three blasting rods and one winded, heavily sweating unicorn.

"Come get some!" I laughed and fired again. I missed, shattering a distant flowerpot.

My body ached from the punishing recoil, but I gritted my teeth and pushed on. I shivered and dropped the next rod, cursing the strength-sapping chill sneaking into my bones. Vinyl visibly vibrated from the cold, and the beacon shining from her horn flickered ominously, like the bathroom light in a horror movie—that must have been what they were waiting for.

"Vinyl, leave the fighting to me. You need to keep that light up or we're toast. Without butter." They tentatively pushed against the barrier between light and dark, lamenting their existences.

We were still against five enemies, and I only had two rods left. Math was a heartless jerk. Any escape route we had planned unravelled the moment they’d surrounded us—we’d only expected two or three creatures at most. My aim rapidly switched between them, but they were unfazed by the devastation I held. The dark din slowly rose in volume, approaching a crescendo we could not afford. Four.

"I'm sorry, Vinyl." I sighed, solemnly staring at the final rod. "I shouldn't have dragged you into this."

Her light blinked off as she slew another. The moment before her light came back on felt like an entire lifetime, but there were still three of us when it reappeared. Their numbers had closed half the distance, and the weakened sphere of light wouldn't hold for much longer.

"Not. Done. Yet." She could barely stand, and her face was scrunched up in determination and pain.

Numbness forced me to miss my final shot, and I invented four new expletives to commemorate the occasion. As the light of our final moments flickered, there was a rumbling beneath us. This was it—there was nothing I could do to pull us out of this one.

At least I would be going out alongside a friend. The rumbling grew as Vinyl sagged to her knees, every remaining ounce of her strength devoted to keeping the light up. The guard remained silent and stone-faced except for his constant shivering. The ground quaked beneath us, and we stumbled.

Fountains of dirt erupted from the ground as we fell. Shocked, Vinyl lost her connection to the spell and her light gave way to the comforting warmth and light of flames dancing on torches and in wrought-iron lanterns. Gently, we came to rest on a pile of earth at the bottom of a shaft extending a few stories above us. Four diamond dogs stood around us while two more worked to patch up the hole. Only my own thoughts filled my mind, and I almost smiled at the relative tranquility.

Spot patted my shoulder and smirked. "You late, Beta."
> Safety
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The smell of freshly turned dirt and stone grew on me with every moment spent in the company of my pack. It was hardly strange anymore to think of them as that. A pleasant little “paf” sounded as each paw and hoof met the loose earth covering the bottom of the tunnel. We walked double file, and though the smooth walls were close, we still had an acceptable amount of room on either side. Flickering torches cast warming light that met the occasional gemstone to create a twinkling corridor of stars.

Next to me, a haggard unicorn fought to stay awake as she plodded along, her head jerking upwards every minute or so as she asserted her consciousness. In front of us, two beefy, lightly armored diamond dogs cradled the shivering guard Vinyl and I had tried to rescue, only to require help ourselves. It had taken little to convince him, much to my relief, that we were among allies and hadn't simply traded one doom for another. I smiled at our rescuers, who carried blazing torches that were a surprisingly effective deterrent to the creatures.

"How did you guys know where to find me?" Apart from convincing the guard and telling the pack we needed to get him somewhere far warmer, there hadn't been much talk.

Spot grinned back. "We dig tunnel like you ask. Make it halfway before we decide that enough for day. Beta not back at night and Gruth and Sunshine report thing in tunnels. Gruth throw lantern in fear, but thing run into unlit caves. Everydog in pairs good idea. We know they not like fire now and think beta in trouble from them also. Balsa best digger in pack." He pointed behind him at a lanky diamond dog with a coloration much like a rottweiler's. Atop his head, a rusty, slightly too-large helmet shadowed two narrow eyes.

"Balsa like the tree?" I arched an eyebrow, wondering why a diamond dog would be named after a tree. They shrugged in reply.

"Not know of tree." Spot frowned and I remembered he strongly disliked trees. "But Balsa best digger so she lead. Once we get under town, it not hard to find beta." He chuckled, grinning again. "Not many pony make so much noise."

I looked at Balsa, trying not to appear like I was scrutinizing her. There had never been a female diamond dog pointed out to me before, and wanted I to learn any possible differences that could be used in the future to distinguish the genders. Aside from being slightly taller and having a faintly leaner build, there was nothing eye-catching. "Well, we owe you guys. Thanks again. It's a good thing Gruth found out about the fire, since I doubt things would have gone near as well if he hadn’t. Did you learn anything else about them?"

"They spooky."

"We knew that one already." My thoroughly sore muscles cried out in protest at my chuckles, slight as they were.

"They not like light."

"I've seen them tolerate light, so it must not be too bad. It would explain why we don't see them during the day though. Looks like it's the usual dark versus light fight then."

The tunnel considerably widened as we stepped into the passage we had actually planned for, and Spot took the opportunity to pull up alongside me. "What Beta think?"

"It's looking great so far." I beamed at him. "How sturdy is it?" It wasn’t even done and we needed to use it. It’s not so unnecessary now, Mayor Mare.

"Could hold big dragon napping on top."

"Excellent. I really am proud of you guys for making this much progress in a single day." I cleared my throat to draw attention and said, "When we finish here, take a break and get yourselves a mug of rock ale." As far as I knew, they didn't need my permission to drink, but their cheers echoed around us regardless.

"I think I'll just pass out." Vinyl chuckled as she looked at me. "My legs are pretty much on autopilot right now."

"Spot, is there a place where Vinyl can hit the hay?"

"Why hit hay?"

"It's an expression for falling asleep."

"Oh. Yes, have extra beds." He puzzled considered it for a few moments and added, "May not be good for ponies."

Fighting a monstrous yawn, Vinyl replied, "Dude, I could sleep on a rock I'm so tired."

"Good, it is rock."

Nonsensical chatter kept us occupied as we sloughed on towards the heart of the caves. The talk wasn’t enough to fully draw me in, but they didn't point out my lack of attention. My mind was too occupied with trying to force a puzzle together.

It was my fault, wasn't it? It was just too much of a coincidence for these guys to show up shortly after I got to Equestria, but why? Did they want to get rid of me or something? Where was Dave when you needed to bounce things off him? A sudden but gentle tug on my tail snapped me out of my thoughts, and Spot pointed down the tunnel the rest of the group had entered.

"You okay?"

They really should have given them more attention in the show. They were all awesome. I half-feigned a yawn and nodded. "Yeah, just tired and thinking about random stuff. Nothing important."

He obviously didn't believe me, as his unamused look told me. "If you say so. We almost back. You not have light so stay close." I shuddered at the thought of blindly wandering into the darkness. It was unknown if we’d been followed or if there were just more down here, but it was doubtful any dark areas were safe.

”How long can luck keep you alive?”

It took another tail tug to draw my attention away from the darkness obscuring the route behind us. "Can we use some of those glowing mushrooms to keep this place lit?"

Spot closely inspected the walls, caressing it with his paws like he was pleading it to give up its secrets. "Don't know. Lightcap picky. Will see, but let's go."

Soon, we entered the humongous cavern where the dogs' living quarters were loosely gathered in the center. Everydog, except for Spot and the two carrying the guard, immediately scampered off to get their promised drinks, running with their bizarre mixture of a gorilla and canine gaits. It was far different than when they walked.

"Bed. Now." Vinyl groaned.

I nodded and turned to Spot. "I'll have somedog show us to the beds. Spot, I need you to pick out who you think are the two best dogs, but not the ones who carried him back, to keep watch on our friend here. You two, put him a safe distance from the forge to warm him up and get him anything he needs until Spot arrives with your replacements, alright? After that, you can get to sleep or whatever." If there was any cave to warm a freezing guard, it was the one with molten rock being used.

"On it." Spot and the others promptly carried out their orders without so much as a grumble.

As we started towards the camp, Vinyl let out an impressed whistle. "You really aren't bad at this beta thing."

"Thanks."

"No, seriously. I expected everything to be on fire by now."

"I'm not that bad."

She pulled down her shades a bit and looked over the top of them with rich, red eyes. "Really..."

"Well, I don't leave things on fire at least." Inwardly, I was squealing with delight at learning she really did have eyes of that color. It’d always been odd to hear eyes described as intense, but Vinyl pulled it off easily.

The sienna-coated dog we approached casually saluted me the moment he noticed us. Two well-kept bracers adorned his wrists, and his pants were the cleanest thing in the entire caves. Heck, they were cleaner than I was, but then again, that didn't mean much.

"Greetings, Beta and Miss Scratch." He spoke in a voice that made me want to get him a top hat and monocle. When he noticed we were too busy gaping to reply, he chuckled. "Come now, you can't expect all of us to struggle with the pony tongue."

"No, I suppose not." He was adorable with that accent of his! I would call him Reginald. "Care to show us to a place where we can crash?"

With a genuine smile, he bowed. "It would be my pleasure. This way, please."

The journey wasn't long. In fact, we didn't need to set one hoof out of camp as Reginald lead us to a cluster of shanties on the edge. At first glance, I was a little worried to spend more than thirty seconds near them, let alone sleep inside one but quickly remembered the uncanny sturdiness of diamond dog structures. A simple curtain of patched cloth covered each entrance, and the cyan-tinted glow of lightcap radiated from within. "I'm sorry for the light, but the dark isn't safe anymore, as you two know so well."

Vinyl rubbed her eyes and started towards one. "Thanks… uh, sorry, I never got your name." His name’s Reginald, Vinyl.

"My apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. Western Agate, at your service. But please, call me West. It rolls off the tongue far easier." Dammit.

"Thanks, West. I'd love to chat, but I burned through a lot of magic earlier."

"No trouble at all, sleep well." He dismissively waved as she disappeared behind the cloth. "It's an honor to finally meet you, Beta. I always take the night shifts for guarding the camp, so regrettably, I've been resting the other times you've been around."

"Don't worry about it. I'm surprised at how well you speak Equestrian, though."

"Thank you. I owe my vernacular to being raised in Canterlot. I've tried to instruct my fellow packmates, but nothing I do sticks with them. As they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks." West chuckled.

"Oh? I didn't know there was a diamond dog pack near Canterlot."

"There isn't, but with all due respect, I'd rather not discuss it." Painful memories flashed through his eyes and his expression drooped.

I nodded sympathetically. "I know the feeling. Have a good night, West."

"And the same to you, Beta." He slightly bowed his farewell and departed.

I sleepily nudged the curtain aside with my head and strolled into a hut, where a clean-swept stone floor and a ratty blanket waited patiently. A loose chunk of rock in the corner played host to a trio of lightcap, which stood strong against the dangerous shadows. Soft rumbling, the sounds of a mountain's heartbeat, accompanied me as I curled up on the blanket, glad the trip back had warmed me sufficiently. Never mind, the rumbling was just Vinyl snoring.


——


My fur glistened with a cold sweat as I scrambled to my hooves and looked around frantically. With a few blinks, the hut came into focus, and I plopped back down, disgruntled and unable to get back to sleep.

Great, the nightmares were back again. Wait, what nightmares? And again? I didn't remember having nightmares at all. My stomach stated its desire for breakfast, but I pushed the hunger to the back of my mind—I would eat when I could. No sense focusing on being hungry when there was nothing that could be done about it.

Resting my head on the ground, I grunted in frustration and wondered how long I’d actually been out. I couldn't hear Vinyl's snoring, so she was either awake or just found a better position. My muscles dully ached, like the previous day had been spent running a marathon, and I cursed not having a medicine cabinet's pill medley to fall back upon. Small snippets of conversations drifted to my ears, which reflexively swiveled towards the noise but still failed to discern anything worth listening to.

"Well, let's see if Fido wrote up that list yet," I grumbled to myself and slowly stood back up to stretch, relishing each crack that answered.

Poking my head out the door, I found myself face to face with a smiling wall of pink.

"Good morning, Gears!" Pinkie chirped happily, paying no mind to my startled gasp or clumsy rearing.

As my brain registered her greeting, I replied, "Hello, Pinkie."

"Breakfast!" she announced as she forcibly shoved a cupcake in my mouth. It was tasty, so I didn't protest. Also, my mouth was too full of baked goods to say anything at all.

Sugar-encrusted frosting crunched under my teeth, its flavor playing harmoniously with the actual cupcake. I couldn't pin down what the exact flavor was, but it was delicious regardless.

"Thanks." I suddenly remembered she hadn't been present for a few days. "When did you get back?"

"Just now. We were on the train and Twilight said that if I saw you I was supposed to tell you that she wanted to speak with you about recent events or something. And I said, 'sure, Twilight. I know just where she is' and then I figured you hadn't eaten yet so I ran to Sugarcube Corner and whipped that up for you and you know the rest." Pinkie doesn't need to breath. It's a law of nature.

"Well, welcome back, then."

Pinkie gasped and hovered in the air for a couple moments. "I almost forgot to throw me and the girls a welcome back party! Shoot, the party cannon is in the shop so I'll have to do everything the old-fashioned way." She sat and muttered to herself before shooting right back to her hooves. "Figured it out, no problem. Now I just need to find enough sombreros for all of Ponyville."

I absently nodded at her as she held an entire conversation with herself. I wondered why I had not gotten a party yet.

"Because Dave said you wouldn't do well with that many ponies in one place."

Silently, I stared at her, vainly searching for answers in those expressive, blue eyes. Could Pinkie hear my thoughts?

"Nope." And then she just bounced away.

Trying to ignore what had just happened, I watched her until she was out of sight, and then snuck over to where Vinyl had slept only to find it empty. I looked around the camp, smiling at the occasional diamond dog who waved. I was going to have to make them wear nametags.

Sticking her head out of the shack I’d just searched, Pinkie cupped a hoof over her mouth. "Psst. Hey, Gears. Vinyl already went back to town to sleep in her actual bed." Then she retreated and I didn't need to check to know nopony was within.

The warm air and clanging forgemaster’s hammer greeted me in Fido's favorite cavern. The hulking, charcoal diamond dog smirked with determination as he brought the hammer down again and again, a fountain of sparks spraying from each impact. From my spot, I couldn't see what he was shaping, but it would be glorious when it was finished.

"Hello, Beta," he called, glancing in my direction only once.

"Hello, Fido." I gingerly took a step forward, trying to acclimate myself to the heat like a swimmer entering frigid waters. "Where is the pony that was resting here?"

"He ask to go to pony hospital when sun come up. I almost finished with pick. It very good work." Closely inspecting the glowing chunk of metal, he grunted in satisfaction and moved to a different part of the anvil.

"Is that what you're working on?" They’d both already left? How long had I slept?

"No. You want wolf ore. I need to shape few things to make forge stronger. I glad for chance to work with wolf ore. Very strong metal if pure enough."

"Did Spot have you make a list?"

Fido laughed as he dunked the metal in a basin of water, sending up a plume of steam. "Not need list. I shape almost all. Only need inferno crystal, but not know where to get."

"I'll see what I can do. I need to meet with Princess Twilight so I'll ask her where I can find one." Great, a fetch quest. The crystal was probably deep in a volcano or something stupid.

He selected another chunk of metal and began heating it. "Be careful. Pony princesses too strong for hoof to head."

With a laugh, I exited the forge. "We might just have to see about that."

After stopping for a much-needed draught at the spring, I headed topside and into town. I didn't even get lost this time. Much. At any rate I didn't need to ask for directions this time and was able to save all my breath for cursing at how much the cast slowed my pace.

There were more fliers for missing ponies in the marketplace. Suddenly, saving one seemed less of a big deal, and I took a break at the fountain to gather my thoughts and stamina. Small chunks of building or road were missing wherever my missed shots had landed the previous night, and a cadre of construction workers labored to mend them. Laying on one of the benches near the fountain, I pony-watched and quietly hummed the few songs I remembered from the show.

"Sterling? What a coincidence, I was just talking about you," Twilight said as she trotted towards me alongside a smiling, white pegasus. The two of them carried bulging bags, but where Twilight held them with her magic, the other carried them with a strap much like how saddlebags would be worn.

"I didn't think my exploits were that interesting." They didn’t sit down when room was made on the bench, so I stood up and joined them. The pegasus looked really familiar, and it was going to bother me if I didn’t ask. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Sunny Skies. She's a storyteller visiting from out of town." She nodded her head towards her companion, whose lightly styled, pink mane and tail I now saw as nothing more than a disguise.

"Hello." She smiled and extended a hoof that I nervously shook. Her gentle smile still betrayed some of the power and wisdom lurking behind her lilac eyes.

Sunny Skies. The name was still familiar even after all this time, even if I couldn't remember whether it was canon or not. Before me stood not one, but two princesses—Sunny Skies was merely Princess Celestia incognito. The sun floating overhead was her charge, and she lifted it every day on top of co-ruling the entire kingdom. Enough power to move a celestial body and she was talking to me.

Crap, crap, crap. Which Celestia was it? I already knew this wasn't the canon Equestria, what with the changelings and all, so what if Celestia wasn't as kind as she was in the show? What if I were two hoofsteps away from being sent to the moon? What if she also thought everything was my fault?

I trembled in the awkward silence as they waited for me to say something. There was only confusion and concern in their eyes, but I couldn't relax yet. I needed to be ready to flee, as galloping in fear was practically a Ponyville pastime and would work much better than headbutting Princess Celestia.

"So..." Sunny began, if only to break the silence. She smiled at me and dug through her bags. "Do you like bananas?"

"Smokebomb!" I shouted, wishing I’d actually had one to throw. Sprinting down the nearest alleyway, I knocked over a trashcan to delay my pursuers—not accidentally running into it as it may have appeared.

Twilight stared after me as I fled, open-mouthed and dumbfounded while Sunny Skies shrugged and munched on the banana she’d planned to offer. Through a mouthful of the yellow berry, she said, "That must be one bad allergy. Would you like one, Princess Twilight?"
> Outed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where had I hidden myself? I’d galloped as quickly as possible with a cast and taken refuge in the first hiding spot I could find, but I could not, for the life of me, remember what that place was. Much to my relief, there was just enough light to feel safe. Blundering from a new threat into the old one didn't seem like such a great idea.

Sunlight streamed through cracks in the cramped space, illuminating wood brittle with age. The most prevalent detail, however, was being upside down and uncomfortably contorted, like I had tried to dive into a barrel. With my range of motion limited, my hoof couldn’t quite make it to my face.

Through a narrow crack, there was a severely limited view of a cobblestone wall. Over my pounding heart, I could hear little more than Ponyville's usual din. Maybe after another half hour it would be worth the risk to try and upright myself and see where the thankfully previously empty barrel was. Dirt crunched as a lone figure made its way towards me. All I had to do was remain still and it would pass me by.

"Sterling, you do know you don't entirely fit in there, right?" Twilight asked, sounding like she was trying very hard not to laugh. Why was I so bad at hiding?

Using the only part of my body free to move, I stoically defended myself. "Back! Back I say!"

Twilight snorted at my swishing, deep blue tail and asked, "You're stuck, aren't you?"

"Entrenched." A studious alicorn such as her should have been able to tell the difference.

Accompanying an amused sigh, the barrel lifted into the air and spun so that it was upside down and I was not. Yet I refused to budge… until she shook the damn thing and dumped me on the ground. However, she wasn't expecting me to be ready to bolt again, and I took off towards an open field as soon as I got my hooves under me. I made it all of two steps before the ground rushed up to meet my face, my tail gripped an aura that was the most dastardly of colors: lavender.

"Help, help! I'm being repressed!" Nothing I did made any progress on reclaiming my hostage appendage.

"Will you calm down already?" She rolled her eyes, holding me in place with little effort. "We need to talk, and I'd rather do it to your face."

Hesitantly, I turned and faced Twilight, who looked incredibly nervous. "Where is she?" Looking around for any white pegasi also served to work out some of the kinks in my neck, so hooray for incidental multitasking.

"Why are you so afraid of her?" She knew. Anypony could see that much, not that I would have expected less from the student of the being I was trying to avoid.

"You know why." I sighed. "I know you listen to everything she says, but you can't let her send me to the moon. I like air." It was true, breathing was one of my favorite pastimes.

Twilight winced. "Why would you think like that? She would never do anything like that." She nervously looked around and sighed with relief when she saw nopony else in earshot. "You do have to talk to her though. She went ahead to the library while I searched for you, not that it was hard to find a pony that had seen a crazed mare in a cast. I have to admit, I'm surprised you were able to move that quickly."

"It's amazing what recklessness will get done, eh?"

She massaged her temple and sighed. "Are you ready for me to teleport us?"

"Not really."

"Tough. It was less of a query and more of a warning. She's in Ponyville specifically to speak with you."

My mouth hung open, trying to form words but finding my voice to be uncooperative. Celestia was here to speak with me? They hadn’t just happened upon me during a leisurely visit? "Why?"

"That's not my place to explain." She shifted uncomfortably and her wings twitched. "I would really appreciate not having to overpower your reluctance. I've read it's not pleasant to be teleported against your will."

"Fine. Let's just go."

"Hey, it'll be alright. You don't have anything to worry about." The genuine smile she gave me alleviated some of my anxiety. Her horn lit up and there was a fuzzy sensation in the pit of my stomach. It built to a towering peak in an instant and a blinding light radiated from Twilight. I blinked, and when my eyes opened, I was in the library, no worse for the wear other than mild disorientation.

"Here she is, Princess Celestia. I found her in a barrel on the edge of town," Twilight said to the ivory alicorn, who sipped a cup of tea at the table I remembered reading at a couple nights before.

Celestia was even taller when sitting, making the table look like a piece of children's furniture. Every last piece of her royal attire was absent. Power and grace readily bled from her, forming an aura that should have been intimidating but only felt calming. I felt no need to prostrate myself, but this was most definitely a being that didn't need to prove anything.

She looked at me with kind iridescent eyes, changing from blue to green to orange and back again at the slightest change in lighting. No matter the color, they faintly twinkled like her ethereal mane, which I found myself guilty of staring at as my train of thought derailed and violently exploded. It was like watching an aurora strapped to somepony’s head.

"Thank you, Twilight Sparkle. Sterling Gears, it is a pleasure to meet you. Again." Her voice was more like a mother's than a ruler's as she chuckled into her tea.

"Uh, hi." I nodded. It felt like I should have bowed a little, but my legs were locked.

"Please, take a seat, both of you. There is much to discuss."

Sitting down, I noticed it was just the three of us. "Where's Spike?"

Nervously laughing, Twilight replied, "Cutie Mark Crusader Dragon Tamers." I winced. Poor guy.

"How are you doing today, Sterling?" Celestia asked with genuine interest as she filled two additional cups of tea. Herbivores drinking tea made sense, but sometimes I wondered what the big deal was.

Small talk was not on my list of possibilities. "Been worse, I guess. How about you?"

"Thank you for asking. I'm enjoying a cup of tea with my faithful student and a rather interesting acquaintance of hers, so I would say I'm doing quite well. And thanks to you, Joyful Bastion is also doing well."

She had to be talking about the guard from last night that actually made it. "I can't take most of the credit. The pack had to save all three of us."

Twilight, who had been content to just glance between the two of us as we spoke, piped up. "I talked to Vinyl and him. The way they tell it, you had ordered a tunnel dug under Ponyville and that was the only reason the diamond dogs could get to you in time. Not that they didn't act admirably, but don't sell yourself short." A quill scratched on paper as she eagerly grinned. "I also heard you created another spell pattern after only a few hours of research. Do you happen to have them around?"

"This one destroys the thaumite when you use it. If I have the matrix in front of me, though, I should be able to recreate it.

A graceful wing reached out and with a touch stopped Twilight from launching a barrage of excited questions. I thanked Celestia with my eyes, and she nodded at me with a warm smile. "I'm sorry, Twilight, but it will have to wait for later."

Twilight frowned. "Alright. Sterling, please talk to me before you use that pattern again. You ended up venting so much magic that some unicorns are getting headaches from just walking through the plaza."

"I suppose you're wondering how I knew you and Sunny Skies were one and the same." I sighed.

"Yes, I am curious of that. I was rather fond of that visage, but if it's been compromised..."

"You're fine, I just panicked over some rumors I had heard long ago." Hiding my origins would have been easier if I hadn’t backed myself into a corner right away.

Twilight arched an eyebrow as she absently reshelved a couple of books with hardly a spark from her horn. "Where did you hear these rumors?"

Pausing for what was probably too long to avoid suspicion, I gently tapped my snout while thinking. "I don't remember where it was exactly, but it was far away. I'm really the only pony in town who knows but wasn't supposed to." How long was I going to have to keep this up? "I'm sorry I fled like that."

"At least you didn't actually have a smoke bomb," Celestia said. "Twilight says you have a knack for interesting technology, and I doubt you would have avoided using one if it would've helped your escape. There is no need to fear me, my little pony." I squeed.

The noise drew a bewildered glance from Twilight and mild surprise from her mentor. Sheepishly, I grinned, and noticed how warm my cheeks felt. "I trust you, Princess Celestia. I just hope for the best but expect the worst."

"A pessimistic view, but I see the wisdom behind it. No doubt it has kept you safe in your trials." She did know! Game over, man! Game over!

My coughs punched my gasp in the face and prevented it from drawing even more attention. It was still conspicuous, but far less so. "My trials?"

There was a mischievous glint in her eyes, playing above what was either a smile or a well-practiced smirk. "You're quite the traveller. I'm sure you've seen many things few others have laid eyes upon."

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes at Celestia prancing around outright accusing me, I continued to feign ignorance in hopes that I was wrong. Like I told her, hope for the best, but expect the worst. "Can't let it stay unexplored terrain forever."

She tittered and sipped from her teacup once more. "Adventure calls to those who call to it." A plate bearing flaky pastries bobbed gently in front of me. "Scone?"

Not seeing any that were clearly raspberry, I tentatively pulled a blueberry one off the platter and set it down on the tiny plate before me. "Thanks."

While I chewed, I caught Twilight shoot her fellow princess an anxious glance. She replied with that frustratingly warm smile and asked, "Sterling, what do you know about dreams?"

That was an odd route for the conversation to turn down, definitely one I didn’t expect. Other than waking up from an unknown, yet familiar, nightmare that morning, I didn’t have much experience with dreams. "Nothing."

The eager scholar jumped at the chance to lecture. "Oneirology, the study of dreams, is a mostly undocumented field of research. What we do know mainly stems from what Princess Luna, as she has reached a level of expertise in it nopony could ever think of matching, has told us. There is a realm where all dreams reside whether they are good, bad, or downright terrifying, and all living things visit this malleable place when they sleep. Memories do have a variable effect on the fabric of this reality, which is why dreams are sometimes of days past. Most importantly, even the most frightening dreams can not actually harm us because Princess Luna both protects us from it and it from us." D'aww. Twilight was so adorkable in teacher mode.

"I change my earlier answer to 'slightly more than nothing'."

"A wonderful explanation. Thank you, Twilight Sparkle."

I figured it was time to start showing my cards one by one—it wasn’t like we were playing go fish.  "Those creatures have nothing to do with me."

Twilight seemed a little surprised at my abruptness, but she hid it well. Across from her, Celestia wasn’t even flustered. "You were not being accused, and even if you were, you've saved the lives of three different ponies as well as yourself. Not to mention beginning positive diplomatic relations with a previously hostile pack of diamond dogs. All that would surely testify your innocence, would it not?"

"Yeah, I guess, but then why do you need me? I don't dream enough to remember anything important. I'll try to figure out how to get rid of those creatures, but I doubt I'll be much help. My headfirst approach to research doesn't mash well with those things. What are they?"

"Their ilk has never been seen on Equestria or Equus."

"It's true. Even I couldn't find anything. All of my books have nothing on them. Spike told me how you reasoned the existence of the secret room, by the way. Some of the most obscure knowledge in existence and still nothing." Twilight looked like she was about to collapse in defeat. "Which reminds me. Princess, is there a secret section in the Royal Archives or Canterlot Library?"

"Both actually." She nodded. "But I'm afraid to say they fail to shed light on this subject."

Twilight gaped, her mouth hanging open as her expression flickered between betrayal and curiosity. "Why didn't I learn about this until now?"

"You never asked. Sometimes minor secrets slip your mind when you've been keeping them long enough."

"I totally nailed it!" I energetically pumped my hoof.

"Minor? How is this minor? So many books I didn't know existed!" She panicked, her breaths coming in quick and short. I looked around for a paper bag.

"Twilight Sparkle." The words' authoritative undercurrent shot Twilight's franticness dead in its tracks, and she meekly stared up at her mentor as she continued, "The books sit on their shelves much as they have for many years, and will continue to do so for many years to come. There is much time for you to read them, but there is a crisis at hoof, is there not?"

"Y-yes, Princess Celestia. I'm sorry." Her lower lip quivered as she hung her head, looking like she had just been pimp-slapped by reason.

Subject change to the rescue! "And what part do I play in this crisis?"

The alicorn—the white one, I mean—easily recognized what I was doing and winked gratefully. How does one express gratitude with a mere wink? You'll have to ask Celestia herself, because I still don't know how she pulled it off. "Simply put, your nightmares are polluting the realm of dreams, and my sister is expending copious amounts of energy and time just to keep it contained. Normally, with her skill at manipulating dreams, these nightmares wouldn't give her pause, but she and I are nearly certain they are comprised mostly of memories instead of fears."

That was just cheating. I’d been doing pretty good at keeping things on the down low, if I do say so myself. I paled at the thought of Luna fighting my memories, since they probably weren’t the warm fuzzy ones. "And memories resist being tampered with?"

"Actually, they are immune to modification at all. There may be spells that appear to change memories, but they merely alter your perception and knowledge of them. The memories are still there, but you'd just gloss over them or view an illusory one," Twilight said as her mood returned to her usual eagerness to learn or teach.

Celestia beamed at the calmed alicorn. "Very well said." Twilight preened at the compliment, and Celestia turned to me. "As you may have gathered, Sterling Gears, your memories will remain until they are dealt with. With Luna occupied with their containment, she has not been able to effectively counter the darkness and creatures we find ourselves beset by every night. If your memories were to remain unchecked, their influence would be too great to contain, even for Luna. The damage would be as irreversible as it is devastating."

Her student gasped and found she couldn't decide who to worriedly stare at. "What sort of memories could do something like that?" Apparently, there wasn't a memo that got sent out to all the princesses. Heh, royal e-mail.

"Ones I would prefer you to suffer in curiosity over rather than learn any details." My ears fell flat as I slouched, content to staring at the half-eaten scone. Even if the creatures weren’t my fault, how many were gone because I was making a mess? And that still hinged on me having nothing to do with the first issue. I cut off her indignant reply and added, "I'm not trying to hide things, Twilight. It's the more pleasant option."

She was still miffed, but no longer thought it was an insult, at least. She looked to Celestia and wordlessly asked for support, confirmation, or to just say anything.

Celestia's infuriatingly gentle, calming smile had been replaced by a hard line forged of protective resolve. "She is right." A tear escaped misty eyes and rolled down her cheek as she looked down to Twilight. "These are not events any being should remember. I will not have you haunted by those horrors. There may soon be a time where she must speak of them, but I wish that day to be long in its coming. If it appears at all."

"I'll be frank. Actually, I'll be Sterling, but you get the picture. How much do you know, Celestia? As fun as it is beating around the bush, you and I both know it’s only wasting time." I levelled a steely gaze at the ancient ruler.

Twilight glared at me in shock, her eyes ablaze with fury at my insolence. Princess Celestia's amused laughter was the water that doused that fire, leaving behind puzzled charcoal. "I was curious how long you could keep up before I cornered you, but you do make a point. Consider the game over." She turned stone-faced in an instant and spoke quietly, her hushed words inaudible to anypony more than a body's length away. "What I'm about to say stays here with the two of you."

"And Pinkie," I added, earning a reproachful look. "Not my fault. You know full well I was trying to keep things under wraps. She's under a Pinkie Promise, so she's not a loose end. I just wanted you to know."

"That filly does have strange ways of knowing things," Celestia quietly mused before turning back to the issue. "Sterling Gears is not from Equestria. Or Equus."

"Excuse me?" Twilight uncertainly asked. She was hesitant to question Celestia, but this was just too absurd.

"That is the mildest thing I could have said. There is much more, but I'd like to have Sterling's permission first."

"What for?" I snorted.

"A courtesy for what is most likely our first and last interdimensional traveller."

"Tell her what you want. You know Twilight far better than I do, so anything you can trust her with, I can trust her with also."

Twilight looked like her head was about to explode. Her eye twitched a moment before she became a blur of movement, gathering extra quills and paper and excitedly sat back down. The quill floated in the air, eager to scratch at the paper.

"I'm sorry, Twilight. I can't have you writing this down." With her own golden glow, Celestia moved the tools aside, much to her student's chagrin. "However, if there are other things she wishes to share that would be appropriate, I see no reason you can't record them."Right, no telling Twilight the really messy details. I'd draw the line at top ten zed kills, but only because I really wanted to tell the one with the garden gnome. "Sterling's home is dead, and she was the last of her kind. She was a human, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, and male." She looked at me for confirmation.

"Spot on." My voice felt as dead as the world she spoke of. I had thought I was done with that hell, but I had dragged enough of it with me to cause problems. Why did they always bring up the gender thing?

Twilight snorted and promptly covered her mouth in embarrassment. Blushing, she said, "I'm sorry, it's just, really? I don't even know why I think it's funny." After another moment, she hastily added, "About you not being a mare, I mean."

I rolled my eyes and spoke sardonically. "Oh good, because I totally thought you were laughing at seven billion dead people."

Even Celestia looked shocked. Did that mean I won a prize? "Did you say seven billion?"

"Yeah, a seven followed by nine zeros. That's just a rough estimate though, it was probably a couple million higher than that."

Abruptly Celestia stood up. The hard line had returned to her face, though it subtly quivered from time to time. "Please excuse me for a moment." Her voice had a slight waver to it, and she retreated to the back of the library, stopping only to motion Twilight back towards the table.

Sighing, I frowned at Twilight. "Equus doesn't have near as many residents, does it?"

"Not even close."

"You're taking this well."

"Me? What about you? That was just a number of ponies I'm having trouble picturing, but you." She paused to let out an exhausted, shaky breath. "You lived it. You watched them… die." Her voice almost gave out on the last word. She was visibly struggling to keep her composure.

"Well, I wasn't at each person's side when they kicked the bucket." I risked a small smile.

"How can you just dismiss it like that? They had lives! They talked, they laughed, they cried, they lived, and you're almost joking about it." She snapped through the tears she wasn't even aware were falling.

"What else was I going to do? There was no time to grieve. I was too busy not joining them. Five years, Twilight. Five years spent scavenging for food. Five years spent watching the rest of my species die. Five years spent fighting monsters, both the original threat and people who wanted my phat loot."

"What did you have that they wanted so badly they'd kill for it?"

"Food, water, medicine. Funny thing is, I would have gladly given what I could spare. I always got lucky when I went scavenging." I laughed half-heartedly and looked away, making sure it was clear I wasn't actually amused.

A sobbing alicorn plowed into my side, wrapping me in a hug as she wept into my fur. "I'm so sorry. I figured you'd gone through something terrible with how jumpy you always acted, but I never would have imagined it'd be anything like...like..."

I patted her foreleg. "I know. It's alright, Twilight."

"Stop it, I'm supposed to console you, not the other way around." She sniffled.

"Tough. You're more broken up about it than I am."

We sat there for almost a minute. Unsure of what to do, I gently patted her foreleg the entire time. Eventually, she broke contact and asked, "What sort of monster kills that many?"

"In retrospect, the number of deaths probably wasn't as appropriate as Princess Celestia intended. Explaining what killed us is definitely beyond that line, so..." I pantomimed zipping my mouth shut.

"I think I'll take your word for it this time." She gave a weak smile and downed an entire cup of tea like she hoped it was whiskey. What would happen if Tall handed Celestia a Bass Cannon.

Princess Celestia strode back to us, as calm and collected as ever, but it wasn't hard to spot the recently dried fur under her eyes. "I sincerely apologize for my conduct. The number of deaths looked staggering, but an actual number was far worse. Twilight Sparkle. I'm both proud of you and ashamed of myself for you reacting better than I did. It seems I was wrong to try and filter what you learned from Sterling Gears. You're a princess for a reason and you have every right to learn the wondrous and horrific events ponies have experienced."

"Thank you, Princess Celestia. It means a lot to me to hear you of all ponies say such a thing."

It looked like I needed to get us back on track before I contracted diabetes from all the sweetness. A cough brought their attention back to me. "Do either of you know what a zombie is?"

"A mindless, undead pony who feasts on the living? Yes, but fortunately they're just fictional." She shuddered at the thought. It took a second or two for Twilight's face to sag once more. "No..."

I nodded. "Yep, zombies. They aren't really that scary once you get used to them and start pegging the stragglers." With a “chk-chk,” I cocked my leg like a shotgun and took aim. "Pew pew and down they go. It's much worse when you don't know where they are." It was my turn to shudder. There had been far too many times where rotting hands grasped from the shadows and came within centimeters of pulling me in. I didn't know what my memories would do if they got out of hand in that dream place, but I didn't like the reaction they got just from being mentioned. "You still haven't told me what I need to do to help."

She looked upon me apologetically, her tone dripping with pity. "Princess Luna needs to take you into the dream realm so the two of you can unravel the toxic memories from the inside."

"Well, shit.”
> One Word Titles Look Cooler
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

An infinite sea of ink devoured the sky above Canterlot, its endless waves seething with writhing darkness as they pushed in on the protective glow of thousands of lamps. Behind the uneven shield stood stoic unicorn guards whose horns thrummed with eldritch energy. Their morale was bolstered by the addition of pegasus and earth-pony troops, who had been equipped with blazing torches once I’d testified their effectiveness to Princess Celestia. Despite light both magic and mundane, all I could see was two teal eyes reflected in a window that may as well have been covered in a sheet of black paint.

The hall had a name, a long and frilly name I couldn't remember since Celestia only mentioned it once and it sounded really boring. Towering windows flanked by satin curtains covered one side of the hall, gold and onyx weaving through the soft cloth in a myriad of patterns. While the windows themselves were more or less identical, no two sets of curtains boasted the same design. A few of the patterns looked Celtic, but with how many windows there were… well, you know what they say about monkeys and typewriters.

Twilight was crushed she couldn't be here to help, but her mentor reminded her Ponyville needed protection as well. Then she jokingly added that it was especially true since I wouldn't be there to patrol the streets like I had the night before. There hadn't been much time to talk afterwards as the sun needed to set, and whatever malevolent energy plagued Equestria made it far more difficult to move the star unless she was at the balcony outside of her personal quarters. Apparently, having these as her quarters for so long had either created or attracted—Twilight made certain I knew it was heavily debated—a ley line smack dab in the center of the room. Don't tell either of them I said it, but Twilight is far better at teleporting additional ponies.

Two guards, a pegasus and a unicorn, unblinkingly watched me from their positions next to the regal doors emblazoned with Celestia's cutie mark. It only took a minute or two to get bored of making funny faces at them. They made no reaction to the faces or me tapping out a tune on the polished, veined marble tile and feigning anger over them not playing the chorus. There was a chuckle heard over my groans when I underestimated how much traction hooves had and ended up sprawled on the ground when I attempted to slide after a running start. They only truly seemed to notice my presence when I quietly brooded at the window, and their eyes bored into my back from the moment I sat down.

With the darkness came the voices, whispering poison to me and me alone. My ears twitched instinctively, even though they weren't responsible for hearing the words. They wouldn't break me. Once we’d taken care of my nightmares, there would be no time of day where those things would be safe. I would be waiting with a blasting rod for each pony they’d taken, and I wouldn't be alone. The light steel-blue pony's face smirked with me, matching my resolve tit for tat. Her eyes flicked to something behind me.

I snarled and spun around, dropping low and preparing to launch myself like a maned bullet. The two guards started towards me, but Celestia halted them with a single look. When she turned back, she found me submissively hanging my head and exuding near-palpable shame.

She looked out the window and frowned at the oppressive sight. "It will look much better after tonight."

"Shall we go meet Princess Luna?" With a soft pearly wing, she nudged me down the hall. She turned back to the two guards and calmly spoke. "It is just nerves. You two may leave, I need to speak with Sterling Gears alone." They nodded and reluctantly vanished without a word of protest.

"I'm sorry." No matter how calm she acted, it always felt like I was walking on eggshells. This darkness had taken some of her ponies, and it was my fault it was here in the first place.


"I know. This isn’t your fault. Would you like to speak about what you've been hearing?"

"I don't understand." 

She chuckled, the sound clear over the strangely soft clopping of hooves on stone. "Pony ears are not just for listening, they are also one of our biggest ways of expressing emotions."

"They were twitching."

"Yes, but that is just the first thing I noticed. You're exhausted."

"I feel fairly awake, but I doubt you mean physical exhaustion."

"You have an earth pony's stamina, that is certain. Neigh, what I was referring to is emotional."

I mulled over her words and found I couldn't quite figure out what she meant. Hopefully, none of my frustration was evident in my tone. "Care to elaborate?"

Celestia nodded and smiled. "Of course, my little pony." Every time I heard her say that one phrase, my heart warmed without fail, and my worries ebbed temporarily. "Fortunately, you haven't hidden your past from yourself—you know full well what you've gone through and don't delude yourself into thinking it was something it wasn't. However, I fear you've only managed this by sweeping it under the proverbial rug."

"I think I know what you're getting at. What does this have to do with the voices?"

"Everything and nothing." She tittered at my deadpan expression. "I don't believe the voices are the result of your trials. I'm quite certain they are related to this darkness, and you perceive them because of the anguish permeating your entire being. You must face your troubles. Like I said earlier, you haven't hidden your past, but you have ignored it in hopes of it vanishing on its own."

"I need to keep looking and moving forward. The past is the past."

She was silent for almost too long. "That is true, but you've sped past it instead of truly seeing it. The past may be behind you, but remember it is merely the path to the present. If you don't look upon the path already travelled, there's nothing to stop you from getting lost and travelling the same steps again."

I’d already heard that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but how did that apply to me? I hadn’t started the apocalypse, I’d defied it. But this was Princess Celestia, and she was definitely giving off that wise ruler vibe. I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Every time I stopped to think, everything threatened to overwhelm me, and I couldn't let that happen. Facefirst to victory had gotten me this far.

"What do I need to do?"

Celestia smiled with pride and draped her wing over me. Whether it was her raw power or her ties to the sun, the area right next to her was a few degrees warmer. "You've already taken the first step by stopping. Now you must turn around and confront your fears and emotions." She chuckled and turned me back around. "I meant figuratively turning around, but I admire your readiness."

"Thank you for your help, Princess Celestia."

"Please, just Celestia. It's a formal title for formal occasions."

My smile felt more genuine than ever before. "I can do that. So, have you been messing with time while you looped the corridor?"

"I'm glad you noticed. You're more observant than you act."

"Not intentionally, that's for sure. Things just stand out sometimes, like the fact we've passed the doors to your bedchamber like fifteen times."

"Sixteen actually, but who's counting? We've walked this hallway just once. I've placed us at the beginning of the hall and the minutes we spent in it each time we neared the end."

Damn, that was pretty sweet. "That sounds really magic intensive. Just how much power do you have?"

"I have enough."

"For?"

"For what I need it for." Fine, be that way, Celestia.

Even though it was frustrating that was all I'd get out of her, I laughed until we approached a pair of thick doors decorated with Equestria's emblem: the two royal sisters curved around a sun and moon. Although the emblem was placed in the center of the door, the wood had been shaped so each sister would be accompanied by the heavenly body associated with them, and when closed they would seamlessly mesh together once more.

Celestia spoke as we entered a moderately sized room. Well, moderate for the few I had glimpsed in the castle, it was about the size of half a small house. A marble fireplace gently crackled at the opposite end, bathing the room with its warm glow. Various vases and other objects of interest sat on pedestals up against the wall, and above them were many beautiful paintings. The paintings were all of landscapes, except over the fireplace hung one of Celestia and Luna sitting side by side on their thrones.

A table covered by a cloth so clean and white it almost hurt to look at occupied most of a scarlet rug with golden borders. Along with the table were ten high-backed chairs—four on each of the two longer sides and two grander chairs at the ends that could only belong to the princesses. The chairs were low to the ground and set just far enough from the table that a pony could barely walk in front of them yet still be able to reach their meal if they were sitting. Plush cushions matching the rug adorned each chair.

"Please, help yourself. You will need the energy." She gestured towards a heaping pair of fruit bowls, whose sizes were only eclipsed by their variety.

She didn’t need to tell me again, and I dashed to the table, where the cushions quality momentarily stunned me. I actually felt bad for sitting on it, but that thought was lost as I snatched my first victim. Pinkie’s breakfast cupcake was my most recent meal, but with the anxiety of being around Celestia, the hunger went unnoticed until that first juicy bite.

"I don't think I've ever seen a pony eat a kiwi fruit that fast." She sat down at one end of the table and waited for me to messily devour an orange before she spoke again. "You've adapted to your new body quite well. A new species and gender is radical, to say the least. You don't appear troubled by it at all."

"Because I'm not. I love being a pony. Sure I had to deal with becoming quadruped, losing my hands, and learning to use different muscles, but why would I let that stop me? Because I switched genders? Looks like all the other mares are doing fine, so it can't be too bad. I may not have gotten a say in my new form, but I feel healthier, stronger, faster, and just all around better than I used to.” I blamed magic and a steady diet. “Well, my dexterity seems to have taken a hit, but that’s all I can think of. And it would be nicer without everyone thinking I should be freaking out."

"Imagine other… beings in your position. I doubt many would take it near as well as you have. Would you mind discussing your old world until my sister arrives?"

"Go ahead and pick my brain all you want, but don't forget Twilight will probably send whatever notes she writes straight to you." I grinned. Bouncing information off the librarian turned princess was something to look forward to—it would help fill in the holes dotting my general knowledge of Equestria.

"Very true. There will be substantial reading material in the near future. I hope you understand what you've gotten yourself into with your promise to her," she said with mock pity. "Just the barest overview then. What was your world like?"

"Cities choked with poisonous fumes, rampant crime and violence, and each person's main concern was getting themselves as far ahead as they could, no matter the cost. Our population outgrew everything we had."

"I meant before the catastrophe." Celestia frowned, straining not to remember the death toll I'd mentioned earlier.

"So did I."

Shocked silence followed my retort and her frown deepened. "I see. Surely that couldn't have been the case for every person, as anypony can easily see you have a good heart."

"Yeah, I guess there were some that stood out as good people, but it was rare to find them in positions of power. Charisma trumped morality." I snorted derisively. "You know what they say: one bad apple makes the rest of the bunch look like psychopathic asshats. There were more good people than how it sounds, but it was hard to notice them—there were just too many. Overall, humanity is pretty meh.

“In the end it didn't matter if you were good or evil. It was the living versus the undead, and the truly dead watched from the sidelines. It's funny in its own way—going extinct was the closest we ever came to worldwide peace."

"And what about you? What were you like?" Celestia had an expression I couldn't discern beyond it being negative.

"I existed, I guess. My one goal was making it to the next day, but back then my survival was dependent on working myself to death so I could afford my apartment and food." Two jobs and taking any odd job that came my way wore me down fast, and I felt like a husk in the crowd, just like the rest of my species. Life was dismal, and even the dullest grey was more vibrant than each day. "Celestia, from what I’ve seen, Equestria is a beautiful country, and each pony I've met carries more happiness than the entire country I used to live in." No matter what I told myself though, I couldn't bring myself to hate the world I used to live in. I didn't want to miss something that'd never return.

"Thank you. I'm glad to hear you are more than content with your new life. Welcome to Equestria, Sterling Gears."

"No, thank you. What else do you want to know?" I was ready to ramble while we waited for Luna. Celestia's calming aura also had the effect of making me feel more open, not that I had honestly considered withholding anything specific.

"Did you have a different name before you became a pony?"

My words caught in my throat. “Give me a moment.” Why should I bother? It was useless information, especially since the IRS hadn’t followed me to Equestria. I was Sterling Gears now, right? There was no sense in having any other name tied to me, especially an old one from a dead world. "Yeah, but sorry, I'm going to have to refuse. That human is gone, and there Sterling Gears sits in his place. I think it's something I can and should let fade away. It’ll be a part of me I can’t forget, but that’s all. It’s a life I can’t go back to."

To my surprise, she beamed. "Of course. It is good to know you are able to let go. I am thrilled to see you've already taken to heart what I told you earlier."

Had I? But I’d thought I was doing the same thing to my memories. Then again, I wouldn't have been sitting in that chair if I'd actually let them go. And speaking of chairs. "Why do pony chairs have backs? Sitting with your back against them is just awkward."

"They're far more useful on benches where you can lay against them. Other than that, it's simply traditional to add them as decoration. Is there anything else you'd like to know? It's rather entertaining to think of new ways to describe things I've taken for granted." She laughed and took a bite out of a pomegranate. I hadn’t seen any pomegranates—I wanted a pomegranate. One of her ears twitched and she sighed. "I'm sorry, but your questions will have to wait. Luna is almost here, you see."

"Princessy telepathy?"

Celestia rolled her eyes and smirked. "More like she still hasn't gotten the hang of this decade's style of royal footwear. Listen."

My ears twitched as well when they picked up a clatter steadily growing louder. The noise halted just outside the door moments before they burst open, and in strode a tired-looking Luna.

"My apologies! I lost myself in ensuring I had properly drawn the circle." While Celestia's voice was simultaneously commanding and gentle, Luna's had a barely hidden energy hiding behind it and sounded far more melodic. It was both relieving and disappointing to not be deafened by the Royal Canterlot Voice. Causing hearing damage is just how she shows she cares. "I take it this is the one thou hast mentioned?" She clenched her mouth shut and sheepishly looked at her sister.

"Yes, this is the pony necessary for tonight. And sorry, my dear sister, I did notice. Two words, two bits."

"Blast," she muttered. She turned to me and politely smiled. "Greetings to you, Sterling Gears, I am Princess Luna of Equestria. I trust you are well?"

Bravely fighting a bout of confused chuckling over their small exchange, I nodded back. "Yep, thanks for asking. This fruit is amazing." I chomped down on a juicy grape to emphasize my point.

"I'm sorry to rush you, but I wasted enough time double-checking everything. We need to get started as soon as possible. I can't keep everything stable from out here." Even though she looked ready to pass out, her legs nervously twitched as if she were aching to run after being immobile for months.

"Nonsense, you're not rushing me. I had plenty of time to stuff my face." I climbed out of the chair and gave Celestia a slight bow. "Thanks for everything, Celestia."

Celestia smiled while Luna arched an eyebrow at her for my informal tone. "Of course, my little pony. Keep her safe."

"Sure," I said, though I didn't know how much help Luna would need from me. Well, I did have the experience at least.

Simultaneously, Luna said, "Certainly."

The two of us glanced at each other and then looked to Celestia for clarification. She merely smiled and glided out of the room, chuckling.
> Consciously Sleeping
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The royal, royal-blue alicorn trotted through Canterlot Castle at a pace I could barely match. The noise from her regal slippers loudly declared her presence and drowned out any noise my hooves might have made. Princess Luna had said we'd be conducting the spell in her observatory, but had failed to mention how many stairs the trip involved. I still had not mastered the art of traversing stairs, but normally they only gave me the smallest amount of trouble. With my broken leg, though, my progress was painfully slow, and Luna huffed impatiently.

Since she was a little more than half-again as tall, she had to look down to make eye contact. "Time is of the essence, Sterling Gears. We must make haste."

"I'm going as fast as I can, you know. Not my fault ponies haven't invented elevators yet."

"I had forgotten about your leg, my apologies." A rich sapphire glow enveloped me and floated me up the stairs. It felt like I was weightless, but at the same time gravity was still trying to pull me down. The whole experience was nauseating, to be honest, and it probably wouldn’t ever be a popular method of travel.

Staggering back and forth when she set me down on level ground, I thanked her and asked, "What was that thing Celestia mentioned about words and bits?"

Luna snorted and her wings rustled. "She grew exasperated with my slow progress in learning this age's manner of speech, so she decided it would be fun to fine me every time I slipped back into the old ways. What I have seen of fun says differently. Unfortunately, her method is surprisingly effective, so I must stick with it."

"What does she even do with those bits?"

"What else? Cake." Her laugh sounded less restrained than her sister's, as if she were less concerned about maintaining the reserved-princess appearance. Not that Celestia's laugh sounded fake, Luna just had a laugh that truly felt like one.

Of course it was true Princess Celestia had a love affair with cake. How could I have expected anything different? "I'm sorry you've been contending with my memories for the last few days." My ears flattened into their all-too-familiar position.

"Worry not. It gives me an excuse to get away from that stuffy throne room, although I do wish we could have had these two crises at separate times. As much as it pains me to say it, even Nightmare Moon—" Luna grimaced like she’d just licked a soggy ashtray "—would have let the stars shine."

"I can't wait to see them. I haven't had the chance to see an undisturbed night yet. My first night here was spent hiding from an Everfree Storm."

She was calm as I spoke to her and listened like she was trying to wring every possible meaning out of each word. Luna's personality should have been quiet and cold, but she had turned out to be more approachable and less intimidating than her sister. If Princess Celestia played the role of a mother, Luna would be the favorite aunt, who spoils her nieces and nephews every time they visit. "You're much different than I expected."

She chuckled as she lifted me up another spiraling staircase. "You expected me to be more like my sister?"

Shrugging while you're immobilized is understandably difficult. "Kind of, I guess." I winced as my ears popped from the climb.

"Tia can be such a… bore at times, but that's just who she is. She's Equestria's heart, warm and steadily beating to provide life to our subjects. But this heart is monotonous. Yes, there is a beat, but it is the same beat throughout the ages, and it needs a soul to make it truly worth hearing."

"I take it you're that soul?" I was going to be upset if I stumbled upon a poetry beat and found Luna there.

"I'd like to think so. Ah, here we are." We arrived at a landing just large enough to contain a plain door flanked by two ponies in deep purple armor accented with gleaming silver. Charcoal coats and black tails showed where the plate didn't cover, and two large membranous wings laid folded at their sides.

"Princess Luna." They saluted in greeting, the rustle of chain accompanying their deep voices. Slitted eyes looked us over, warily lingering on me.

She nodded and spoke authoritatively. "At ease. Sterling Gears will be joining me tonight. Make certain none interrupt us." They nodded curtly, and the one on the left pushed the door open, which creaked as it swung inward.

My expectation of the observatory was a mostly empty room with a mammoth telescope tilted towards the night sky. The telescope was correct, but the room was anything but empty. Three towering bookcases dwarfing even the largest of Twilight's stood against the wall of the circular room. Numerous desks were buried underneath parchment, quills, and half-empty bottles of ink. A giant lattice reminiscent of a wine rack held countless scrolls, most of which were yellowed with age. Or coffee. How could the princess of the night not appreciate caffeine? Crammed into what little space remained, a chalkboard that hadn't been cleaned in years displayed complex equations with unfamiliar symbols and many intricate patterns with tiny notes next to them.

Luna shut the door and hovered across the room to a clearing ringed with piles of books and scrolls. She stared at it intensively, muttering to herself while her brow furrowed in thought. She proudly smirked and pointed beneath her.  "Everything seems to be in order. Take a position in the center of the runic circle, please."

Paper brushed against my legs like crisp autumn leaves as I worked toward the clearing and the circle, my motions stirring up ancient dust. Just how long had they been sitting there? Twilight’s library had a bookish smell, but the scent here was less like old paper and more like knowledge. 

How many of the scrolls were in a long-dead language only Luna remembered? “Do you have any idea why I became a mare?”

“I’m afraid not. It’s an interesting conundrum, to say the least. I’ve been told there’s nothing biologically out of place. Your body doesn’t act like it has been forced into an unfamiliar shape. There might be something pertinent to your situation written in the Archives, or perhaps Twilight Sparkle will have an idea. Remedying it should be a simple matter once all this is taken care of, but I doubt it’d be possible to restore you to the proper species.”

“Don’t bother. I just want to know why.”

“Ah, I see. Well, that’s your choice.” Luna had no idea how many brownie points that’d earned her. “If there’s nothing else, please get in the circle.”

The diagram looked like a spell matrix, with complex clusters of lines that appeared utterly random unless you knew what you were looking for. It was drawn directly onto the stone floor with chalk, and a couple chunks of the fragile rock were scattered to the sides. Everything was contained within the circle, even the runes of power lining its edge and the six equidistant crystals sparkling in the torchlight.

A section of the design caught my eye. "I think you could get more out of this if you connected these three lines."

She tilted her head and regarded my advice. "It seems you are correct. I'll admit, I'm surprised, even with what I've been told about your penchant for spellcrafting. How did you know?"

"With the first pattern I designed, I made ten of them. This just reminded me of a difference that made it work better—I got lucky that it actually did something here." Shrugging again, I sat in the center of the circle. "Why do you need this circle anyway? I thought all it took for spells was a matrix."

"In most cases yes, but for magic such as this there is too much energy to control without a focus. Are you almost finished with the questions? I don't mean to be terse, but we are in a hurry." Even though she sounded impatient, I could still see an amused grin.

"My bad. Just one last thing—what will the spell actually do?" The cold stone under my rump was getting hard to ignore.

Luna hesitated while glancing back to her chalkboard. "Well… I can't really say. Such a spell has never been needed before, but in theory it should render you physically unconscious and pull nearly your entire consciousness to the dream realm—far more than what usually arrives. What will remain unaffected is the minimum amount required to keep the nightmare stable enough for us to interact with."

"I see. Well, not really, but I get the idea. I get to be a sleepy guinea pig." My goggles settled into their appropriate place over my eyes. "Upload me to the network, Luna."

She looked at me curiously and opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it. One last time she checked her notes, calculations, and runic circle. Luna cracked her neck and shook her various limbs like she was getting ready to run a marathon, then took position and closed her eyes.

The room hummed with energy as she braced herself and gathered power, which coalesced around her spiraled horn more intensely than any spellcasting I had seen. Air and light screeched as they deformed, unnaturally pulled towards the dark azure singularity that was Luna's horn. My fur stood on end and tried to jump straight off my skin as the circle flickered to life, glowing a brighter color than her usual aura.

The energy forced Luna's head down, but she stood strongly as her hooves dug into the cracking floor. The magic in the air was palpable, flowing around me like a raging stream and roaring furiously into my ears. Arcane fire blazed around me as the circle ignited, power bleeding up from the lines. The distortion steadily increased, and I found myself concerned she was about to rip reality a new one. That was my job.

With a grunt and a pained cry, Luna forced her head back up and opened the floodgates. While the atmosphere had screamed earlier, it now wailed like a banshee as a brilliant beam roared forth and combined with the circle's energy to engulf me in a radiant pillar. Magic seared through my nerves and veins, causing pain in ways I didn't know were possible. I wanted to scream but nothing obeyed.

Suddenly, it was over, and I could see Luna sweating and panting. A line of singed clutter had been violently forced aside, creating a clear path from me to her. The world turned sideways, and I felt the slightest twinge of exhaustion and pain as I hit the ground. My eyes closed, and I felt myself fall asleep, separating from my body to drift in the darkness. At first, the abyss brought back memories of the Void, but I calmed when I noticed how different it felt.

I was still a pony, but my leg was completely healed. If it was just a matter of thought, this place could have just as easily made me human again. Even though it would have been nice to walk on two legs one last time, the experience would have only seeded regret and longing. Not to mention bipedalism might have taken a little getting used to after the last few days.

Small shapes slowly came into view, multiplying exponentially like watching stars appear as night fell. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of pinpricks of light and color drifted in a prismatic spiral galaxy that radiated hopes and dreams as well as phobias and miseries. Breathlessly, I watched as they gently swirled and bobbed like multi-hued fireflies.

"Beautiful, is it not?" Luna gracefully strolled into my vision, walking on some unseen floor. "I have long waited to show this to others, but even my best work fails to capture even a fraction of it."

"That was awesome!" I couldn’t help but squeal and bounce around her. "You were all 'imma firin mah lazer' and then—just wow! Since you're here talking to me, I guess it worked and I'm not just a pile of smoking ash on your floor."

She chuckled and guided me with a wing. "You're a strange, but amusing, pony. No ash, but you were smoking a bit. I didn't singe any more of your mane though—all the damage there is strictly your doing. I hope the experience wasn't too unsettling."

"Nothing I couldn't handle, but I'd recommend presenting a disclaimer before you do it on anypony else. Are these dreams?" We were in the dreamscape—what else could they be?

"Indeed. Each one of these is a dreaming being—ponies, dragons, diamond dogs, zebras, and so many others. I'd take you in for a closer look, but their secrets should remain as such. Not to mention the risk of waking them. It's a difficult task when I'm alone, but with one such as you..." She led me away from the dreams and their wondrous light—towards a blurry speck in the distance.

"Pfft, I'm completely inconspicuous. Why are my memories all the way out here? And are they nightmares or memories? I'm still not entirely clear on everything even after Celestia and Twilight tried to explain it."

"Both. They're entwined with one another." The blurry speck turned into a cloudy pustule that pulsed waves of anguish. With the fury of a tsunami, they crashed against a barrier that briefly shimmered into view with each attack. "When you dream of past events, you are still dreaming, but it is far less malleable."

"I remember them mentioning you couldn't fiddle with it. Have you been in there at all?"

She nodded, sighing at both the memory and the task ahead. "I have tried to fix it myself, but it was too overwhelming. Here, emotions are stronger than magic, and this disease will not be cured until you make your peace. Are you ready?"

The sickly orb was an infection, and seeing it so close reminded me why it was there. “Why did this happen? I needed to leave. You said you’ve seen in there, you know I couldn’t stay!”

“Calm yourself!” It wasn’t Canterlock, but the blast of sound still ruffled my mane. “You must stay calm, lest its bindings erode even quicker.”

It had reacted to my outburst, the contents churning more furiously than before. “What can I even do? We haven’t even gone inside and I’ve almost screwed us over.”

Luna bit her lip as she looked between me and the nightmare. She nodded and was soon sitting next to me, looking down with a caring smile. “You are right, I have seen through your eyes. I have seen your fears, but I have also seen your determination. They could not stop you before—with me at your side, why would now be any different?” Standing, she motioned for me to do the same. “Rise, Sterling Gears. We have an arduous task ahead of us. Are you ready to begin?”

"Of course. Come, Luna—adventure awaits!" The barrier proved to be more resilient than expected and bounced me back toward Luna.

Rolling her eyes, Luna muttered, "A little too eager." She surrounded me with a small shield and after prodding it with a hoof, nodded in satisfaction. "Now you'll actually be able to get through the barrier without breaking it. I have no control over where we begin, or even which memory, so be prepared."

"Shouldn't be that big of a deal. It can't hurt me that much, right?" There was a twinge in my gut. Of course Murphy’s Law applied here too.

"There might be a tiny side effect to you having this much consciousness." Luna’s cheeks turned purple. "It's going to be a bit more tangible than you'd expect."

With a groan, I slapped a hoof to my forehead. "Of course it is. Do we have to worry about the virus?"

"Maybe?" Another sheepish smile. "I would not risk an injury."

"Let's get going before you tell me I have to keep my speed above fifty miles per hour." Wait, she wouldn’t understand that. "It's a movie reference." She still looked confused but pushed onward anyway.

The shield gently parted around us like we’d entered a giant soap bubble. Much like its larger relative, the shield around me solidified with each wave of anguish, and bands of blue rolled around me with each impact. The murky edge of the memory proved resistant to entry, and I felt like I was pushing against a wall of spongy clay.

"Hmm. I hadn't thought of this. I'll still be able to get in, but it'll take a bit more effort to have you follow." She quietly observed while stroking her chin. "Maybe I could—no, no that wouldn't work."

While she tried to figure something out, I pushed. It was slow progress, but I might have been able to get through in a week or two. "Give me a push."

"Are you sure? If the shield breaks, you will suffocate."

"If it breaks, just push harder and try to get me through. We don't really have many options unless you want to use loads of time trying to find a better idea." If she didn’t come up with something soon, I’d start worrying again. The indent I’d made in the membrane filled in seconds. "Hopefully it'll be easy once we break the edge."

The shield lurched forward barely making more of a dent than my efforts. "Come on, I'm not made of glass." I bounced off the front of the barrier as it slammed into the wall again, immersing itself about halfway. "Going to have to use a battering ram instead of just kicking the door down. Give it all you've got!" I rocketed to the front as it made contact, crumbling against the front of the shield like a pre-scrambled egg. I rolled to the back of the small sphere as it continued pushing forward at a high speed.

There was nothing to see but the barrier as the milky beige covering pressed in, and I realized just how little space there actually was. The shield was constantly alight as it strained against the wall. A sound like ice being crushed alerted me to little cracks spiderwebbing from the bow of my little orb.

"Just how thick is this damn thing? I should be out the other side by now!" Bracing myself against the cracks wouldn’t do much, but I had to try. I just needed to go a little further. Luna must have felt it weaken because energy surged into the crumbling barrier.

Thin lines covered the entire sphere, creating an ominous mosaic, and I couldn't hear my own panicked breathing over the crackling sound of doom. Suddenly, all resistance disappeared, allowing for a brief moment of confusion before hitting another wall, and the magic shield shattered. Tiny shards evaporated into the air with a twinkling chime.

"Are you well?" Luna asked as she appeared at my side. When my head stopped spinning, I gladly accepted the hoof she’d been offering.

The murky clay substance was nowhere to be found. We were in a small bedroom, the dust in the air highlighted by the lonely ray of light shining through a broken window with bland curtains. A full-sized bed with white sheets and pillows nestled in the corner, kept company by a nightstand with an alarm clock whose numbers were a blur as they changed. The grooves in the checkered brown and red carpeting marked where a dresser once stood before it was placed against the door as a barricade. A second, unblocked door was slightly ajar, but I couldn't see more than the grimy tiled floor of a bathroom. Post-apocalyptic wind rattled the window, its howling only part of the gruesome symphony I never wanted to defile my ears again.

Sinking into old habits, I gently tapped on the bathroom door—any zombies still in possession of their vocal cords would have let loose their signature moan at even the slightest hint of prey. Thankfully the bathroom was vacant. I tested the lights and water only to find that neither worked. If the electricity was off, why did the alarm clock work? Right, the excuse here is “because dreams” instead of “because magic.”

Luna patiently watched me examine the room for security threats and nodded when I gave the all clear. "Do you know where we are?"

"A motel room, but I've holed up in a lot of those so I can't pinpoint an exact one." Even so, something about it was familiar.

"At least we are alone."

"I'll say. Not like there's any supplies around here—it’s a complete crapshoot to find supplies."

With her face screwed up in concentration, Luna attempted something with no noticeable effect. "Curses." She panted as she wiped the sweat from her face. "It seems your memory of a world without magic greatly limits my powers." A relieved smile played across her snout as the alarm clock floated into the air. "At least I still have the basics at my disposal."

I stared at her dumbly, my hopes dwindling without the full power of a near-demigod on my side. "But you're Princess Luna. Shouldn't you have enough power to just shrug it off."

"I'm lucky I have as much as I do." The alicorn scowled, staring out the window at the desolate cityscape before her. "If it weren't for being present in that… television show—I think it was called—the two of us would be faring worse. Ponies wouldn't even exist in your memories."

The dream stuff was too weird, even with magic involved. "I'd hoped I wouldn't have to try to explain that one. You learned it just by looking around?"

A door slammed open down the hall, and rapid footsteps came up to the entrance to our room. I warily glanced at Luna, who, to my surprise, smirked.

Rapidly pounding on the door, a familiar voice called out, "Luna, open up if you're in there!" A loud thump echoed as he kicked the door, and he swore when it only served to injure his foot. "Luna, they're right on my ass!" Sure enough, demoralizing moans slowly crept down the hall.

"I may have made an ally last night." The dresser groaned with age as we pulled it away from the door—she used her magic while I pulled with my hooves—just enough to allow our visitor to enter. "Door is clear!"

The doorknob twisted and Dave stumbled through the narrow gap, ramming his shoulder against the furniture with a cringe-worthy thunk. He hissed through gritted teeth. "Close it! Close it!" The moans grew ever closer, and I could hear the shuffling as they dragged their diseased limbs toward us.

With the barricade back in place, we had a moment to catch our breath before the dull pounding began. The door was thick, and it'd be a long time before they'd break it down, if their attention even lasted that long. Hotel walls were more-or-less soundproof, so if we refrained from shouting or singing karaoke, they would forget about us and move on.

Dave slumped onto the bed and massaged his shoulder, wearing a larger hole into his frayed tweed jacket. "Hey, kid. Nice of you to join us. Next time though, give me some warning that you're going to stir up a shitstorm."
> Zombie 101
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zombies are relentless if they have an inkling there’s prey to be found nearby. There had been a few occasions where the rare zombie with an attention span longer than five minutes had chased me for an entire day.

Between the cacophony and how badly Dave shook, there had to be dozens of them out there. The three of us silently watched the door as the clamor continued, each minute as excruciatingly long as the time it takes to thaw the middle of a microwave burrito.

With all three of us hiding within, the hotel room was much more cramped. Cracked windows, peeling paint, and ratty sheets surrounded us. The deteriorating condition of the furniture and building only lent strength to the gloomy atmosphere.  Granted, it was near this state before the apocalypse, but that little bit extra pushed it from disgusting half-star hotel to depressing.

Dave reached up to tilt his hat down only to find it had fallen off his head during his flight. He grumbled angrily and rubbed his eyes. "What did you two do? All fine and dandy one moment, walking along and keeping an eye on things for you, then things got real. Literally. Relatively literally. You know what I mean, I just want an answer."

The weary princess was the first to reply, her voice calm, but concerned. "David, we need it to be this stable. With Sterling in her current state there is actually a chance of resolving this issue."

Nothing can resist a pony-pout. "How come I don't get to call you David?"

He shrugged and offered a snide smirk. "You aren't royalty." Except Dave, apparently. Jerk.

"How did you know we'd be here?"

Dave snorted derisively. "It's always this room. You have this nightmare three or four times a week."

There was a stain on the wall that held my attention as I contemplated his words and eventually replied, "That can't be right. The only night I remember having a nightmare was last night." But it had felt like it wasn’t the first time I’d had it.

"And what was different that day?"

"I was in mortal danger?" I shrugged. And put Vinyl in it too. If it weren't for the pack—I didn't want to know.

"I said different." He rolled his eyes as he spoke, and Luna tried to hide her chuckle with her hoof.

Had the raspberries spoiled? That couldn't be it, they’d been awesome to be rotten, and I was sure my gut would have protested at least a little. Had it been from ducking out of the hospital or designing that new pattern? It probably wasn’t anything that had happened on my walk with Spot, and after that I’d gone right to the library. Oh, the argument. "You ditched me."

His eye twitched. "I did not ditch you! You drove me away, and now you know what happens when you do it. For whatever reason, me being around keeps the nightmares from actually bothering you. I don't know how or why it works, it just does. Every night I get to sit in on your dreams and—"

I eagerly jumped into the conversation, much to Dave's chagrin. "So you know what we're going to have to do to wrap things up?"

Dave glared. "Like I was trying to say: every night I get to sit in on your dreams and watch them transform from recognizable places to puréed insanity. I get a few minutes at the beginning, tops, before everything goes screwy. Whatever happened yesterday when you made me leave, I got stuck and couldn't do anything to stop them from getting to you. Not that I have any idea what I’d been doing to stop them in the first place, but it was good you caught a glimpse of how it could have been. Builds character. Things only got stranger when this one showed up." He nodded at Luna and grinned. "I scared the crap out of her."

Luna turned her nose up. "I was merely startled to see somepony else who wasn't part of the dream. That is all."

"You and I have very different opinions on what actually happened." Between the eventful night and following day, the spat had slipped my mind. With the memory of the argument refreshed, I couldn't help but return his angry glare.

"Do we? I tried to point out something that should be common sense, but you bit my head off over it."

"Bit your head off? Are you kidding? You spent the entire time telling me I was going to end up alone and abandoned, and then you did exactly that."

Dave’s face was a bright crimson as he jumped to his feet. "Because you never listen to anything I say! I mean nothing to you! You think I was just talking out my ass earlier? I was right. Again." So much for keeping quiet.

"How so? All you did was throw poorly veiled insults at me."

"That was advice, you thick-skulled twit. You would have seen it if you weren't so intent on playing with your beloved ponies."

Luna raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"They're better company than you." The smirk I shot him nearly caused steam to erupt from his ears.

"How is it my fault? I'm from your head! I don't know what part of your mind went rogue and created me, but you seem to think I had a choice. Why would I want to be tethered to some empty-headed jackass who won't stop to think about what mess they've blundered into? I can't go to anybody else." His voice shuddered and he took a moment to compose himself. "You're all I have, kid—and Pinkie too I guess, but that girl makes even less sense—and even though I only exist to you, it's like even you can't see me." Dave plopped back into his seat and frowned, his fiery angry dying down to smoldering melancholy.

Even the wind refused to break the silence that had descended upon us. Words eluded me. Was that really how he felt? I just didn't follow everything he’d suggested. I' was sure I'd taken his advice plenty of times. Let's see, there was back in the electronics store when I’d had to escape. And then there was… crap.

The faint sound of my hooves on the low-pile carpeting mocked me as I swallowed what little pride I had and approached Dave. He didn't frown, he didn't smirk, he didn't scowl. His face could have given any royal guard a run for their money. If it were still my first couple days as a pony I might have tried to put a leg around his shoulders, but I had since learned that using my forelegs for any gesture more complicated than a hug felt extremely awkward.

Resigning to simply lean my head against his shoulder, I let out a weak sigh. "I'm sorry. I know you're there, Dave, I just—I don't approach situations like you. I'd rather wing it, but you're right." Hesitantly, I added, "I missed you, Dave. Please don't think I don't want you around."

For the longest time, he didn't say anything. Eventually, his fingers brushed near my ears and mane. "You're pretty soft, you know that?" He chuckled and gave an earnest, if minuscule smile.

I returned the chuckle. "And you're pretty soft-headed."

"Yeah yeah, I've heard that one before." He continued to scratch at my ears, and I won't lie, it actually felt pretty good. It looked like there was something to ear-scratching after all—my thoughts melted as he hit just the right spot.

Relaxed and wondering what would happen if it actually put me to sleep, I stood there as Dave stared at a spot on the wall. Luna cleared her throat, chuckling as Dave jumped. He kicked me away and sheepishly grinned. "So! I never got an answer as to what you two did. Mind filling me in?"

Luna was more than relieved, and it showed in her voice. Other than her tone and the amused smile, nothing betrayed her thoughts. "Did I not explain yesterday?" She considered sitting, but one look at the moldy carpet convinced her otherwise.

"You were a little busy grilling me for information about what these memories were from. Remember being disappointed I didn't know anything about this dream stuff? And asking about the most random things? Then you bailed once I told you who the dreams belonged to."

"My apologies, I needed to lower the moon." Luna stuck her tongue out at Dave. "I also needed to inform my sister of Sterling's identity so she could arrange for her to be brought here while I designed the spell needed."

"Ah, of course. We could have saved a lot of time if you'd just said 'because magic,' Luna."

"Yeah, it was pretty awesome. There was so much power in the air you could feel it, and that laser beam at the end was the best laser ever. Now that I think about it though, the result of the spell was anticlimactic." I shrugged and curbed my building excitement. "Sorry, Luna, it's not that it wasn't epic, because it was. I'd just expect a spell that looked like that to blow up the ocean or something."

She scoffed. "Nonsense. A spell of that proportion would take at least thrice as much mana as the one that brought you here. The next time I cast a spell that muddles the border between conscious and unconscious, I'll be sure to tone it down." Her ear twitched as she strained to listen to something I couldn’t pick up. "It would seem our guests have departed."

"So, Dave. You spent last night talking to Luna, and that's how Celestia knew all that junk about me, right?" I didn't have to wait long for his tired nod. "Did you explain anything about the zeds? We're going to have to fight our way to—where are we going again?"

"I couldn't get a word in edgewise." Dave held up his hands. "And no idea. Like I said, I have no clue how it plays out in the first place."

"Luna?" She had to have some idea. This was her dojo.

Her stern gaze softened as she turned away from Dave. "The exact solution is unknown to me, but in essence, we need to resolve what caused these nightmares in the first place. There is much to do if we wish to free the night."

"That sounds like all sorts of fun. Good thing you have super princess powers, eh?" Luna and I shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, come on!"

With a sigh, I looked out the window and frowned at the carnage surrounding us. It was just like before: the wrecked cars scattered like a child's toys, boarded or shattered windows on every building, and not a living thing in sight, though that didn't mean the cityscape was bereft of motion. The streets writhed with zombies like a maggot-infested carcass. They wandered aimlessly, shambling in and out of alleys and buildings on the slightest whim. Somewhere behind the endless, thick clouds boiling overhead, there was a sun that was once eager to show itself, but now remained sullen and weak. Home sweet home.

Luna's soft voice surprised me as I hadn't heard her walk over. She quietly watched out the window alongside me, and it was a few gloomy minutes before she asked, "It was like this everywhere?" I sighed and nodded, upset over my lack of a plan. Guessing the cause of my mood, she added, "You may be back, in a way, but once this is over, it will be naught but a memory."

"I thought that's what it became when I escaped." My voice was quiet as my snout gently pushed against the cold glass, fog spreading from my nostrils with each breath.

"They were more than memories if they haunted your dreams, Sterling Gears. Come, now is not the time for sulking. No doubt we have an arduous task ahead of us. It is a dangerous quest that you, and you alone have the knowledge to navigate." With a gentle nudge of her magic, she turned me to look into her eyes.

Within Luna's teal eyes—a scant few shades lighter than mine oddly enough—I could see many things. Concern dominated them, trying to find the best way to assuage any pain they came across. Determination confidently shone with promises of a future victory. But behind the warmth, I could see the pain, regrets, and loneliness burdening her. She was as much an outcast as I was. A fellow loner. "Together we can end these horrors, but it cannot be accomplished by hiding. Do not forget there is much at stake. We must save the Realm of Dreams to draw out what plagues Equestria."

“Right, no pressure.”

“I believe you are underestimating how—oh, my mistake. Regardless, we’d best get started.”

"You're right." With renewed vigor, I asked, "Dave, are there any supplies around?"

He nodded toward the bed. "Check under the pillow. You always hid a gun there. Just in case."

The pillow left a nasty taste in my mouth as it was tossed aside. I would definitely avoid picking up anything else with my mouth while I was there. True to Dave’s word, there was a matte black handgun with a faux-wood grip waiting. I tried to grab it, but I groaned as my hooves came into view. The slip-ups were just getting embarrassing by now. How many days had I been a pony?

"Luna, would you be capable of using this with magic?" I held it out to her, jiggling it to get her attention.

The gun floated out of my grasp and slowly rotated in front of Luna while she looked it over. "You said this was called a gun, David?" A couple loose parts jiggled as she prodded them cautiously.

"Yeah, just be careful not to—" thunder roared through the room. The smoking pistol fell to the ground as Luna jumped away in surprise.

Fire coursed through my leg. I curled up to nurse the injury and screamed, "Dammit, Luna! I was just getting used to having that leg again."

"Volume." Dave snatched the gun off the ground and frowned at Luna. "Yeah, I think I'll hold onto this. Ammo is scarce enough without you shooting us." Then he disappeared into the bathroom.

Luna's eyes reflected her panic and fear as she dashed to aid me, only to retreat as she reminded herself it was her fault in the first place. She quickly repeated this many times, threatening to wear through the thin carpeting while she stammered apologies every few seconds. If I hadn't been curled up in pain, it would have been hilarious.

"Found the little bugger!" Dave exclaimed as he ran out of the bathroom with a first aid kit. He knelt by my side and opened it to find a meager assortment of basic medical equipment. "Right, I've never had to do this myself, but I've watched you patch yourself up quite a bit. So long as it's nothing too serious, that is."

I grunted. "Just grazed me, I think. Forgot how much that burns." Dave took my leg. I called out to the pacing alicorn, "Luna, I'll be fine. You just nicked me."

That did the trick. She sighed in relief and hung her head. "I am truly sorry for injuring you. I should have been more wary of what was obviously a weapon."

I flinched and growled at Dave. "Why not just twist your finger in there while you're at it?" He rolled his eyes at me and grumbled a string of curses. "Don't worry about it. We could have told you sooner or at least put the safety on."

She nodded and let out a sigh of relief. "Are you sure you're alright? Shouldn't you be furious I injured you?"

"I wouldn't say I'm ecstatic, but I'm certainly not angry. It hurts like a bitch, but it shouldn’t carry over to the real world. We finish what we’re doing here and it’ll be like it never happened." I chuckled while Dave made sure the bandage was secure. "I just got shot by a princess—I don't know if I should be honored or irritated. Agh! Not so tight."

Dave returned the chuckle as he repacked the first aid supplies. "Your royal bullet wound is cleaned and dressed."

Confusion was plastered across Luna's face as she returned to her thoughts and resumed her stoic viewing of the dead city beyond the window.

I sighed and shook my head. "Luna," I called, and upon getting no response, I repeated her name louder. This time she arched an eyebrow in my direction, but made no move to speak. "I still have to go over the basics before we can head out."

She nodded and came over. "Ah, yes. What am I required to know?" Her voice still held uncertainty and regret, but it had faded, swept under the rug by other worries.

"I'll keep it simple. Zombies bad. Don't let them bite, scratch, grab, or tickle, though that last one is just because it'd be really creepy. To kill a zombie, destroy its brain. It sounds simple, but the human skull is sturdier than it looks. Zombies like noise as much as Twilight likes books. Gunshots, car alarms, and cell phones are like zombie magnets. Stay quiet, stay alive. Until you get bored, that is. Those guys are slow, just make sure you can get away."

Dave groaned and buried his face in his hands. "And she was doing so good too. Just follow the basic meaning behind her words and use common sense. Partaking in Sterling's sense of fun has the nasty side effect of grievous injuries or drawing several hundred zombies right to your front door."

I couldn’t help grinning. "And then they're all in one place for the fireworks. Which reminds me, we should try and find the stuff for explosives. You up for a little science experiment, Luna?"

She leaned over and asked Dave, "Should I be worried?"

"If you're undead." He paused for a moment. "Or not fast enough to get out of the blast radius."

Luna's eyes widened, and she shot me a worried glance. "Are you sure you possess no ill will towards me?"

"Like I'd say anything if I was."

Dave rolled his eyes and whispered, "You're fine. Shall we set out then? For some reason they didn't flock to us after the gunshot."

"At the very least, let me dull the pain. That much should be within my current power." The pain ebbed away and was replaced by a dull tingling as her horn glowed, and I beamed my thanks at her.

The felt weird as I stood. "Excelsior!" I cheered as I stumbled to the door and struggled to pull the dresser away. "Little help?"

"Luna, you can have this back. No, don’t argue. Out in the hall I tripped over a body with a fire axe stuck in it, so I'll just grab that. With magic you'll probably be able to keep the gun steadier, especially if we need to use it on the move. Remember, the gun is a last resort because of the noise. Shoot a rock through their head or something—I don't know how your mumbo jumbo works. Point this end at something and pull the trigger if you need to fire." He motioned to the parts as he mentioned them, and Luna firmly nodded her understanding.

"Buildings still have fire axes?" I impatiently tapped the dresser.

"Dead fireman?" He shrugged. "Anything you're unclear about, Luna? Now is definitely the time to ask."

"What if we do get bit?" She inquired as her magic wrapped around the dresser and unblocked the door.

I froze and looked at her. "You don't get bit." I really didn't want to find out if doling out mercy was necessary there. I'd had enough of the real deal, and I doubted Princess Celestia would take kindly to her sister’s execution, zombie or not.

The stench of rotting flesh flooded the room as we peered out into the hallway. Half a dozen bodies, if you added up the scattered gore as well, lay haphazardly in either direction. The axe Dave had claimed was at the end of one trail, and I wondered how difficult it would be to swing such a weapon myself. 

Many of the other rooms' doors were ajar, some having been broken down entirely. An exit sign dimly flickered at both ends, again in spite of the lack of power. Large splotches of dark brown covered the carpeting and painted, white walls. Their interior designer should have been fired— corpses and blood were so last year. Four zombies awkwardly shuffled far to our left, but luckily, they had yet to notice us.

After we recovered from the nasal assault, Dave held a finger up to his mouth and crept to the axe, warily keeping an eye on the zeds further down. Luna and I followed, thankful for the carpeting and ambient moans muffling our hooves. The pistol floated steadily at the princess's side while I took up the rear to avoid getting a mouthful of ethereal mane, which probably tasted like space. At least Luna wasn’t afraid to get dirty. She would have quickly found out that trying to avoid everything was impossible.

With a strong tug and quiet squelching sound, the axe came loose, challenging Dave's balance and failing. We nervously looked to the zombies, but they remained oblivious. As he crouched and slowly moved forward, Dave quickly peered into each open doorway we passed. An overhead chop ended the first target, but the noise of it slumping to join the rest of the bodies alerted its brethren, who hungrily moaned and lurched toward us.

I looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. Normally I'd be able to improvise a weapon from anything that was sharp enough or had plenty of heft, but hooves severely limited my options. However, I spotted a ball-peen hammer and pointed. "Luna, use that hammer."

Dave winced as the tool whistled past him, inches from his ear, and obliterated the cranium of a one-handed zombie. Boom! Headshot! Seeing an opening, Dave rushed forward and ducked a lunging grab. If the undead could express surprise, the one that suddenly found himself looking at the ceiling instead of his meal would have looked utterly flabbergasted. The zed's aggressor was quick to recover from the low sweep and end any confusion.

The flying hammer made its triumphant return and knocked the jaw off the fourth and final enemy, drawing a curt "Curses!" from Luna. Fortunately the blow staggered it, and Dave was quick to close the distance before it could recover.

"That wasn't so bad." Dave grunted as he unwedged his new best friend. "Good work with that hammer, Luna."

"I'll say," I said with a proud smile. "You didn't leave behind any of his skull."

Instead of matching my excitement, she merely frowned. "I had hoped it would be different, as they were just memories, but I can almost see what it must have been like for you."

"It gets easier." I nuzzled her neck, hoping it was far less intimate than my sudden paranoia feared. I didn't want to dirty her coat with my gore-caked hug, but the last thing I wanted to do was come on to royalty.

She didn't swat me away, glare incredulously, or stammer a 'let's just be friends' speech, so it was probably safe.

"I hope so." Luna sighed.

"I find it helps if you think of it as a game." Dave groaned again. Maybe he had a gutache.

"A game?" Her eyebrow raised as she regarded my suggestion. "Games are meant to be fun, yes? This most certainly is not something that should be called fun."

"Keeps your mind off it and gives you a bit more incentive to push on." My smile faltered as I lost myself in my thoughts. Had I just been hiding all that time? Was that all I'd been doing? Not behind barricades or firepower, but entertainment? I missed everyone, but they were gone for good. Nothing could bring them back. Why did that tie my stomach in knots and burn my throat? It’d never done that to me before. Had I never really thought about it? I may have hated the solitude, but I’d at least accepted being alone.

"You alright, kid? You're awful quiet, which is a rare thing for you." Although he wore a smirk, he was clearly concerned as he rubbed my withers. Did Dave actually care about what happened to me? Did it go further than just his own preservation?

My funk cleared as I shook my head, and although it still lingered within sight, I could ignore it for now. There were more pressing matters to attend to. "Just thinking about this mess."

"We'll get through it. You did it more or less flying solo, but now you have me and Lulu to back you up. Can I call you Lulu?" He glanced up at Luna to find a stern frown.

"No." All it took was two letters to convey her threat of bodily harm, and her word cowed Dave instantly.

"You're right." With a forced smile, I not-so-gracefully bounced to the door underneath one of the aged exit signs. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."
> Grief
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I really should have seen this coming." Dave sighed while keeping vigil outside a cavernous janitorial supply closet. Inside said closet, there was a hoard of junk for me to rummage through.

Only the tools that would be hilariously ineffective in combat were left, but I wasn't searching for a simple weapon. No, I was searching for something much more effective. "Yeah, you really should have. I could not have been any more clear of my intentions."

"How about 'gee, Dave, I'm going to scrounge up the stuff to make enough explosives to level the building?' That sounds much better to me." His terrible mimicry of my voice grated on my ears. "This is such a terrible idea."

"I feel I must agree with David. This course of action seems most unwise." Luna returned from the vending machines, floating several packs of trail mix and a handgun she had yet to fire… at a zombie. "Will this be enough for what you intend? Also, I—” she shuddered, her items shaking with her “—would not recommend ingesting any food found in these nightmares."

Dave held out his hand. "Pass me one. They can't be that bad."

Hesitantly, the alicorn princess relinquished one to him. "I fear they may be tainted. I strongly recommend not eating anything." She scoffed at the skeptical glance she received. "You cannot say you were not warned."

Dust covered my entire front half as I dug through the mess on the lowest shelf of a tall shelving unit. Once again, my goggles proved to be an excellent purchase as that much dust would otherwise inevitably find its way into my eyes. A pained shout sent my head into the shelf above. The impact knocked a few containers and cans off their perch, and a rain of metal and plastic crashed around me. Groaning, I kicked the debris aside and pulled myself away from the search.

"What is this?" Dave cried as he tossed the bag aside, clawing at his tongue. "It tastes like moldy cereal covered with spoiled milk and served in an ashtray. Sterling, hand me some bleach."

Luna tittered while I vindictively laughed and rubbed the forming bump atop my skull. "She told you not to."

Returning to my task, I noticed the avalanche left the reason for my search lying atop a can so encrusted with pale blue paint it would be more difficult to open than the average jar of mayonnaise. The smallest text was blurry and illegible, just like everything else, making it look like a newspaper left out in the rain. The effect was disconcerting, but Luna had dismissed it as a common occurrence in the dreamscape for miscellaneous items to lose detail. Fortunately, the letters that remained legible included the contents, and I proudly exited the closet with the can in my mouth.

"Car… wax?" Luna read aloud as she gave her two companions a perplexed look.

"The metal vehicles on wheels outside. Waxing a car is—" Dave snapped his fingers while he sought an analogy Luna would understand, the look of mild annoyance on his face providing her and I with minor amusement. "—kind of like using furniture polish, I guess."

"How would such an item be used to create a 'volatile distraction' as you called it?" Luna asked with the glint of curiosity in her eyes. Her hooves ever so slightly twitched with anticipation, and while she wouldn't throw herself into it as extensively as Princess Twilight Sparkle would, she was still excited.

"Alright, Luna, let's do some science." I went to dramatically pull my goggles down and quickly turned the motion into running my hoof through my mane as I realized I was already looking through the eyewear. I chuckled sheepishly, their grins making it crystal clear I hadn't fooled them. "I'm going to need you to help me prep these. My dexterity ain't what it used to be."

In front of me, I laid the materials: trail mix, car wax, and paint remover. I rubbed my hooves together eagerly while I sat, and the steps ahead pleasingly rushed to the front of my memory. "Alright, first thing we need to do is—"

[INFORMATION CLASSIFIED BY ROYAL ORDER #800-M]

The princess warily eyed the small pile of goop in front of us. Small bits of dried apricot stuck out of the otherwise-consistent substance. I’d insisted the apricots added a cohesive structure necessary for optimal performance, but I really just hated apricots. Especially apricots in a nightmare where everything tended to taste like ass, judging by Dave's response to the trail mix. I carefully scraped all of the goop back into the car wax container and stuck in a long strip of cloth to act as a fuse.

"I fail to see how this could cause as much destruction as you insist it will." Luna frowned as she looked over the slight mess we had left.

All I could do was grin. "You'll see." Then I balanced it on my back—a task that proved much easier than expected—and trotted happily out the door.

Only one zed had stood in our path, and Dave efficiently dispatched him with a precise swing of the axe. For somebody who had never wielded anything before an hour or two ago, he was proving surprisingly proficient.

In the hotel’s lobby, it was hard to ignore the rank layer of gore haphazardly spread over the furniture, but even blood and guts made for better upholstery than the ugly paisley previously covering them. Through an open arch we could see where continental breakfast had once been served, and at just a glance we could see how thoroughly ransacked it was. A spotless, silver tap bell sat patiently on the counter, and behind it was an office turned disaster zone, complete with upturned desks and toppled filing cabinets. We crept along the front wall and slowly peeked outside. Suddenly, zombies...thousands of them.

Well, maybe it was closer to a few hundred, but there was still no chance to escape in that direction. That was perfectly fine, since this was where we were going to set up them the bomb.

"Remind me why we're doing this again?" Dave sighed as he pulled away from the doors and lightly punched my shoulder.

"For great justice." Readying the bomb was as simple as setting it down and laying out the fuse. Pointing at its end, I asked, "Can you light this end with magic?"

Before I could explain further, a small flame sparked to life and slowly worked its way up the cloth. "Now what?"

A wide-eyed Dave gasped. "Fleeing!" And he bolted back into the hotel’s depths.

Luna turned back to me as I hammered my hooves on the door, hopefully creating a pony cacophony loud enough to lure them toward us. They wouldn't be able to break through the glass in time, ensuring they got a faceful of fiery awesomeness. The horde turned to us, every zombie snapping to attention like they’d spotted a going-out-of-business sale, and I chuckled as they shambled.

"Sterling, should we be following David?"

"Hmm? Oh, right, probably."

It wasn't difficult to locate Dave. All we had to do was follow a string of expletives to a frantic man hacking at a board-covered door. He spared the quickest glance to see who his visitors. He grunted a couple words with each swing. "Shouldn't we… have cleared… a path first?"

Magic glowed around the nails securing the boards, and one by one they dropped to the ground with a muffled “plink.” Dave snorted as the last board fell away, and pulled the door open. "Magic is so overpowered."

He shoulder-checked a zombie, knocking it to the ground, but kept running. Four pairs of hooves finished the job well enough. Dave only led the way because any attempts to pass would have probably ended in a tangled pile of limbs. It felt like ages before we burst into a stairwell, where Dave stopped suddenly, resulting in a pileup that would have been comedic if it weren't for the ticking clock.

"Let me take a peek quick. Don't want to be grabbed or blown up." Dave opened the door just a crack and peered out, closing it after just a moment. "We still have a bunch out there. Looks like you might get to use that gun, Luna. Let's go."

Dave sprinted out the door first, followed by Luna, and then me. I had been hoping for a slew of royal bullets to strike down a few of the closest enemies, but all I got was one frustrated alicorn.

"It won't work!" she growled as she knocked a zombie away with it. We couldn't move as fast as Dave because our larger bodies meant we needed larger openings.

Up ahead, Dave weaved around zombies as he ran towards an alley which would hopefully allow a bowling alley and a generic warehouse to shield us from the blast. "Safety's on!" He called back as he ducked between two tourists. "Button by the trigger!"

A faint click served as a prelude to a nearby zed dropping with a neat hole in his forehead. Luna looked at the gun in surprise and then shot another zombie almost casually. If zombie's could feel terror, all of them would have been trembling as Luna smirked and searched for targets with an unnervingly amused gaze. She was a damn good shot! Hopefully she wouldn't run out of— the pistol clicked after it ran dry—ammo too quickly.

Thankfully, she didn't hesitate before bashing skulls with the pistol and a bent tire iron scooped from the ground, but no bullets meant we were back to our old speed. Dave disappeared into the designated alleyway half a building ahead of us. A few moments later he was sprinting across the street as a quartet of zombies staggered behind him.

"You dare assault me from behind?" Luna snarled as her hoof snapped out and sent a zombie rolling.

I jumped over the rolling zombie and frowned at the crowd slowly closing in on Luna. "Luna! Get to Dave!"

The group was still distracted as I plowed through them, trying to ignore the feel of my hooves trampling a few zeds that had been knocked prone. Compared to other ponies, I wasn't very large at all. If anything, I was a smidgen smaller than most mares my age, but I was still much heavier than your average human, and the momentum I could direct into the undead's terrible balance was incredible.

Just as I reached her, Luna broke through the crowd with a mighty shout and a wheeled dumpster borrowed from the side of the road. As frightening as the Royal Canterlot Voice was, a speeding chunk of metal wiping a group of zombies out like an eraser wiping off chalk on a chalkboard was far more effective. Despite our surroundings, I had to stifle a laugh as it slammed into the warehouse, cracking the weakened bricks and utterly flattening the zeds.

The few stragglers were easy to evade, and we ducked into the alley Dave had entered. At a dead end, Dave panted heavily as he stood over nearly a dozen mangled corpses, wiping off as much gore as he could. The sigh of relief he let out when he spotted us quickly turned into an exasperated groan as the first zombies stumbled into the alley.

"Are you sure you prepared your device correctly?" Luna asked as we joined him.

"Any second now. I don't make duds."

On cue, a tremendous rumbling shook the ground, shattering what little glass remained in the vehicles and buildings. Although muffled, the sound of the blast was still as loud as an air horn. A dark cloud of dust and debris flowed through the streets to swallow anything unlucky enough to get caught in its path. The telltale creak of a strained building forced us to the other side of the alley in fear.

The air slowly cleared, revealing a sizable pile of rubble that conveniently sealed the entrance. The occasional hand that stuck out of the debris still twitched and grasped blindly, but the moans had more or less been silenced.

"Astounding," Luna breathed, her eyes wide with awe.

"I think I'm leading in kills now." I grinned, admiring my handiwork. It shouldn’t have been anywhere close to that big. I was glad we hadn’t settled for a closer hiding spot. Maybe the apricots had done something to the mixture after all. "There's no way they'll be finding us for a while."

"I doubt there was anything that didn't hear it, and now they're all headed towards that motel. I think your plan worked a little too well, but nice work, kid." He smiled and patted my back.

"How could such a simple mixture produce such carnage?"

It was a little embarrassing to not have an answer that was little more than shrug. "All I know is that it works very well. Had a hunch to put it together one day, and let's just say I was lucky I didn't have the supplies to make very much."

There was no chance there'd be more than a little of that hotel left standing, and the pleasure such a thought brought me was immense. There had been an ulterior motive to my plan, one I didn't share with Luna or Dave.

The longer we’d spent in that building, the more I recognized it and recalled my previous visit. I hadn't been alone—not until I left anyway. There had been five or six of us taking refuge during the first year. We'd barricaded everything we could think of, and had planned on turning it into a base of operations after two months on the move had run us ragged.

There wasn't much of a chance we would have given each other a second glance, but banding together for survival sparks friendships—and rivalries—in the least likely of places. I still couldn't remember what we’d been in the area for in the first place, but I knew it was my idea at least. My terrible idea.

Mimi, a shoe salespo—salesperson had hidden a bite wound. All of us had known the rules and trusted each other to follow them to the letter, but she was too scared to put a bullet through her head or ask one of us to do it. It hadn't been a large wound, so it took a fair amount of time for her to show any symptoms, and she was masterful at keeping all of them hidden except the cough. As each day had passed, her condition slowly deteriorated, but the rest of us didn't look very healthy either.

She’d died in her sleep, and when she awakened once more, she tore out Finnigan’s throat, who had been unlucky enough to be resting next to her. I missed Finn's jokes and stories. Quiet guy, but he could have spun a story from nothing. His flailing and gurgles had woken Judith, whose screams roused the rest of us as she fled the room. The mousy girl had always said the worst thing about the apocalypse was the death of all the flowers. A fitting thought for a florist, I guessed.

Edwin and I had always slept with weapons nearby in case of a break-in, but they worked just as well for ending a lying snake and a bleeding chef. Ha, Edwin was such a stubborn old codger. I wished he'd told us the story behind his shotgun.

There hadn't even been time for the casings to hit the ground before we heard a crash as Judith screamed. She’d had a great singing voice. We’d ran after her, even as the sound of splintering wood and moaning overtook her screeches of pain. A vehicle from a wayward survivor had opened a gaping hole, and the horde eagerly streamed through to claim the driver and a panicked Judith.

The two of us had retreated to one of the fallback points: a pile of furniture and pilfered sandbags. Ammunition waited for us, and we had been ready to clean up what we thought was only a small group of zeds.

We were horribly wrong—just as we’d turned to abandon the building altogether, age sucker-punched Edwin's hip and he crumpled. I still remembered the last words I ever heard him speak as he held out his hand to stop me from aiding him. "Three shells for them and one for me. Matilda and I aren't going out alone." When I’d tried to pick him up in spite of his instructions, he butted me in the gut with his gun and gave me the determined glare of a man at peace.

The first shot rang out before I even turned the corner. The second shortly after that, and then a short pause before the third. There wasn’t a fourth.

A calm seeped through my thoughts, and for a moment, I wasn’t blaming myself for the troubles my nightmares had caused. I’d finally destroyed the hell that had taken them. Goodbye, my friends.

Dave's voice shook me from my grim reverie. "Kid, you're bleeding. Did you get bit?"

Sure enough, rich red blood leaked from beneath my bandages and stained my coat. "All the running must have agitated the wound." Whatever spell Luna had used was still in effect, and there was little chance I would have made it otherwise.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and stopped holding his breath. "Right, right. That makes sense. Let's take a breather, and I'll see if I can find a way to patch you up." He produced the medical kit from somewhere inside his jacket and set to changing the bandages.

Luna stood silently and glared at the rubble. Something was troubling her. "You alright, Princess?"

"Hmm? Yes, I'm fine. I was contemplating our recent skirmishes. I shouldn't feel like it, but dispatching those foes was almost… exhilarating." She shuddered. "There were so many around us. Legions of them crawled from every crevasse, yet I found a small satisfaction in each one I put down."

I smiled lightly and asked, "Satisfaction in the killing or satisfaction in bringing them peace and stopping their ceaseless attacks?" I'd had experience with that dilemma.

She closed her eyes to search for the answer. "The latter."

"Then don't worry. There is no good these beasts can do. They stalk, they eat, they kill, and there is no cure. All you can do is put them down.

"And to think you'd be the one to show wisdom." Luna chuckled. "Thank you, Sterling Gears."

"Don't mention it. Been there, done that."

"Was that door always there?" Dave asked as he pointed at a door that belonged on a home in the suburbs instead of a brick wall in an alley. It was a plain, off-white chunk of shaped plastic and wood with a small semicircle of glass near the top. On the side of the door frame stood the address number, the wrought iron numbers worn with age. I froze. I recognized those four numbers.

"No, not again." The calm from my vengeance had left, and I sniffled at the dread replacing it.

"You know this place?" Dave pointed his thumb at the numbers and arched an eyebrow. "I don't remember it at all."

The reason we’d been at the hotel in the first place dawned on me. We were there only because I was supposed to walk through this exact door. I knew where the door belonged. I knew what waited.

"Sterling?"

"Give me the axe, Dave." There was a patch of clean fur large enough for me to wipe my eyes.

"What?"

"Give me the axe. This is something I need to do myself."

The man looked up to the alicorn, silently asking for support, but all he received was a solemn nod. He hesitated before ultimately giving it to me. "We'll be right behind you."

It tasted like fibreglass and sweat. I gave it a few practice swings and tried to find a comfortable spot on the handle.

The door was unlocked. Just like before. The living room I stepped into was a chaotic wreck. Just like before. The zombie moaned as she lunged at me. Just like before.

Unlike before, I was prepared for the attack. Ribs gave way as I bucked it in the chest, sending it reeling into an end table. My swing with the axe was clumsy, burying the weapon in the floor. A blue glow appeared around the axe.

"No!" I screamed. "I got this." Surprisingly, Luna relinquished her hold.

"This is stupid, we need to help her!" He started forward only to be stopped by Luna's outstretched wing.

She didn't turn to look at him, her eyes still locked onto me. "If she doesn't want our interference, it is not our place to give it. Rest assured, I will not let her perish if it comes to it, but this is her fight."

The zombie had just begun to rise to its feet once more when I kicked again. I steadied my hoof over its gnashing head and sobbed. "Sorry, Anne." I barely felt the crunch.

They approached me and the now-still body, where Dave pulled my crying form against him and gently stroked the side of my neck. "It’s alright, you did good."

I couldn't answer right away. I was too busy looking at the corpse, still seeing who she once was. Before me was the infallible smile and chocolate ponytail I'd never forget. We'd spent so much time playing and laughing together over the years, but now she would remain asleep and silent forevermore. We had been best friends once, but now nothing remained of our bond but ashes.

A few minutes passed before Luna calmly asked, "Who was she?"

Another minute passed before my voice returned. "Anne. My sister." I shakily motioned towards two piles of mangled gore near the toppled entertainment center. "And that was her husband and daughter."

My sobbing resumed, and it was the only sound that could be heard throughout the house as I cried into a thankfully clean spot on Dave's jacket. "I never even got to say goodbye. Look at me, I sound like a cheesy drama." My chuckle was pathetic. "I'd been hoping they were still alive and holding out. At the very least, I wanted to know if they had left for greener pastures, but this was all that waited. This was the only hope I'd had left, and it was gone in an instant. All I could do was scavenge what little food remained and flee."

Luna lowered her head to my level and smiled comfortingly. "Now is your chance to say those goodbyes. Take as long as you need. David and I will make sure you remain undisturbed." Dave reacted to a signal I couldn't see and removed himself, leaving me alone with my sister.

Tears splashed against the hardwood floor, creating little puddles of misery. I didn't know where to start. I couldn't start, not like this.

Eventually the words showed themselves out between sniffles. "Hey, sis. Long time no see." She remained silent.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, Clay, and Sidney. I'm sorry… that last time we saw each other we fought over something as meaningless as where to bury Mom and Dad.

"It just seems so pathetic, looking back on it. We'd spent all that time together as kids, and it makes me regret not visiting more when we moved out. We were so close one moment, and separated by the entire country the next. Not a day has gone by where I don't remember those moments, where I regret my mistakes and celebrate the few triumphs.

"I made it out, and I still wish I could have brought you with me. You would have loved Equestria. Not as much as Sidney, of course, but you would have been happy there. You would have been safe from this mess. You didn't deserve this death. You had a family, whereas I had nothing but myself to keep me company. I'm sorry. So very sorry. If I could trade my life for your family's I wouldn't hesitate for even a second.

"Remember when we used to visit the park down the road?" I was still crying, but there were some tears of happy remembrance mixed in. "The one with Mr. Johnson's gas station across the street. I cherished each time we'd gone and I'd bought my little sister one of those ice cream bars. So many options, but that was all you ever wanted. When I asked you why, you said it was because the fancy stuff never tastes as good as it looks, but the simple stuff tastes better than it looks.

"In a way, I'm glad you went out when you did." I cradled a hand adorned by a simple wedding band. "I would have hoped for much better circumstances, but at least you didn't have to suffer through the end of the world any longer. You didn't have to see people tearing each other apart until none remained, and you didn't have to see the monsters continue their reign. You didn't have to spend two years without human contact. I'm glad I got to see those horrors instead. They'll haunt me, but I'll protect you from them, just like I've tried to always protect you. I may be your big sister now, but that won't change the fact I need to guard my little sister. Even when she's gone. I won't let them touch you, or even my memories of you.

Everything faded away until it was just us. "Goodbye, Anne. I'll always love you." And then I was alone.
> Doubt and Guilt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was great to finally be at peace with the deaths I had witnessed, the memories of life brutally cut down by the plague. They wouldn't be forgotten, and I’d still miss them, but the oppressive weight was gone. Could have done without actually reliving it, but whatever, the feeling it left was almost enough to put a bounce in my step. I hadn't even realized how much it hurt—after a while it gets tuned out like elevator music.

Although I was feeling better than I had in a long time, the endless darkness around me didn't sit well in my gut. Well, darkness wasn't exactly correct: I could still see myself like I was standing in a normally lit room. How I was standing was another awkward issue. With nothing below or around me, panic slowly trickled into my heart to await the inevitable attack.

Thankfully, the terrifying monotony was short-lived as pieces fell from above. As they found their places they slowly formed a room that was a bit too fancy for my comfort. It was weird seeing chunks of the room fall—a chair here, a few books whose bookcase hadn't appeared yet there—and I didn't even notice a luxurious, carpeted floor rise from beneath until it rested against my hooves.

The carpet’s touch made me jump, but the floor remained stable. When the last item, a bust of some bearded dude I didn't recognize, found its position, I noticed David and Luna were also in the room. He was also completely bewildered at the change of scenery, but Luna wore a smile so knowing she probably owed Celestia a fair amount of bits for trademark infringement.

"Would one of you explain what the hell just happened?" Dave sighed, turning a chipped antique chair resting in front of an equally ancient desk and dropping into it. "And why we're one obnoxious bird short of being in Poe's study?"

Remarkably, the room was in excellent condition. Sure, it looked like a swift breeze would dismantle most of the furniture, but there was the distinct lack of stinky, dead things that usually adorned any place I visited. The desk Dave sat at was empty save a few uninteresting knick-knacks and a layer of dust so thick you could grow crops in it. Three bookcases took up an entire wall, their cluttered shelves throwing the barren desk in sharp contrast. An uninspired painting of a landscape occupied another side of the room alongside countless empty picture frames and two lamps providing the only light. In a desolate corner stood a covered body-length mirror, and I wasn't going to be the one to remove the sheet.

The satisfied voice of the alicorn felt barely out of place. "It would seem Sterling has vanquished the first of however many nightmares."

"Three. It's the magic number for these sorts of things." I didn't know what was so special about that number, but damn if it wasn't a good starting guess for nearly anything. Three pendants to get into the castle, three good movies about a whip-cracking archaeologist, and three parts in a self-referential tricolon.

"Interesting theory," Luna muttered.

"So, who's ready to blunder through that door and figure out what we're supposed to be doing? I might not even MacGyver an explosive this time." Unless I could help it. Luna obviously didn't get the reference, but with the way she winced, she understood well enough.

Dave gestured toward the mirror. "Shouldn't we check that thing out?"

The look I gave him was usually reserved for those who ask for me to go on a snipe hunt. He stared back and gestured for me to elaborate. Sighing, I said, "It has trap written all over it. All it's missing is a tiled floor where you have to guess the right symbol to step on."

His eyes widened as he regarded the corner again. "Pit, spikes, or darts?"

"Hell if I know. Could even be a rolling boulder, but that'd be an odd architectural feature in a place like this."

Luna said, "Perhaps it had the same designer as whoever placed your sister's home in that large brick building." My heart ached at the fresh memory. Too soon, Luna. Too soon.

"How can you live with yourself?" The pale cloth fluttered as the muffled voice spoke.

I was already at the door. "And the creepy voice cinches the deal. Let's go."

"And if dealing with this mirror is the way to resolve the current nightmare?" Luna inquired as she took a couple of steps towards the covered object.

"I don't think the solution would be right at the beginning. I'll take my chances with the inevitable horde of living dead. Ready, Dave?" I opened the door just to have it fall off its hinges and fade away. "That was interesting."

Shaking his head, Dave sighed. "Yeah, I'm just going to ignore that one. You have my axe."

"That's not how it goes," I deadpanned, although the expression faltered when I caught Luna rolling her eyes. It was one thing to see another pony or Dave roll their eyes, but when it was Luna or Celestia, I can’t resist laughing.

At first glance, the hallway appeared ordinary: evenly spaced, lacquered doors and peeling, snot-green wallpaper that was too ugly for even a nightmare. Lamps identical to the ones in the previous room bisected the space between every other door. What shattered the illusion of normalcy was the lack of an end. There were doors as far as the eye can see in both directions, and no doubt even further than that.

"I don't remember ever being in a place like this," I grumbled. The length of the hall subtly twisted side to side, and I hoped it was just me seeing that.

"This certainly is more akin to a nightmare." Luna sighed with similar gusto.

Dave groaned as he joined us. "I am so done if music starts playing and we get chased in and out of random doors. I am in no mood for a slapstick routine. Does this look familiar at all, kid? I've been drawing blanks since I got here."

"So much for being a guide, let's go that—" The random direction I’d pointed now led to a familiar, covered mirror sitting in the middle of the hall. You could almost hear the bricks hitting the ground. Unanimously we turned back to the room we’d just exited and found a blank wall. When we looked back, the stalker mirror was within touching range, the cloth continuing to billow in an unseen wind. Could I even file a restraining order against furniture?

"You know you deserve death."

"Alright, fine! I'll pull off the damn sheet!" The cloth felt slimy between my hooves as I yanked it from the mirror before my party members could voice their silly logic and reason. "There. Are you happy now?"

The sight of the zombie within drained the blood from my face. He wore a mangled jacket over a t-shirt that had no business being in such a great condition, and his jeans should have been taken out back and put out of their misery. Chunks had been ripped out of his legs and arms, showing me more about anatomy than I’d learned in the actual class, and I would have preferred the coloring book over this.

Matted, brown hair tenuously clung to what remained of his scalp in clumps, and one of his eyes was missing, replaced by an abyss rivaling the Mariana Trench. Zombies don’t normally have an expression, but the pleased smile on this one’s face churned my gut. He resembled nobody, but I instantly knew who was looking at.

"You…" Dave nearly dropped his axe in shock.

Before us or the mirror could speak another word, I roared and bucked the mirror into a thousand pieces of frozen quicksilver. They exploded in slow motion before flipping gravity the bird and hanging in the air, leaving the entire direction blocked by floating shards. Every single shard reflected the same decaying face back at me.

"I'm glad you remember me, Dave, but it's hardly been a week, hasn't it?" The corpse laughed, and even his voice sounded rotten. "And you brought Princess Luna to visit little old me? I'm touched."

"Begone, beast. You have no place here."

"As much as I hate outright ignoring you, Woona—" he laughed at Luna’s seething rage  "—I'm gonna have to say no. I'm here to stay, and I think I'll take Sterling Gears to keep me company." Just hearing my name in that voice flared my anger.

I bucked again, disturbing only a few shards that lazily floated away. It was less effective than punching a river. "Get out of my head!"

"Your head? I'd like to say we have joint custody."

"This is your last warning. Leave or I will send you straight to Tartarus, where you belong."

Another grim chuckle. "We both know you can't do that. Oh, it seems you have guests. I hope you recognize them all, Sterling Gears. They've been waiting for this for a long time."

A plethora of doors creaked open, and I spun around while Dave kept an eye on the hovering shards. People shuffled into the hall, moving in the unmistakable style of a zombie, but that's where the similarities ended. The usual smell wasn't present, and there were no gaping wounds. Where there should have been blank faces with open, moaning mouths, there was only the violently scowling faces of the past. They slurred actual sentences, but with all of them speaking, it congealed into an unsettling din. Luna, who had apparently forgotten using all her ammunition, sighed with exasperation as her gun clicked with three successive pulls of the trigger.

My body was paralyzed, forcing me to watch with eyes as wide as saucers as they advanced. It couldn't be right, I’d watched all of them die! All of them were dead!

The mirror laughed as it violated the privacy of my thoughts. "Of course they are, but they didn't have to end up that way. Without you, they could have lived much longer. I'm sure they just want to return the favor."

A dull tugging on my tail almost snapped me out of my state, but my legs refused to cooperate. Something pulled me backwards as I quivered, and whatever it was pushed through the mirror bits.

Each face carried its own memory, returning me to each of their deaths. It was all my fault. All my fault. All my fault. My fearful stare was transfixed on the advancing horde until I found myself dragged into a musty, concrete room. The sound of the door slamming was barely heard, overwhelmed by my sobs and stammered apologies.

"Kid, it's alright, we're safe now." Dave's voice was faint and distant, and his fingers hesitantly ran through my mane. "Come on, you're stronger than this."

"The being who is responsible for all of this will be slain, I swear it. I will not rest until the deed is done, but we must complete this task first. Sterling, you must face this. Please, pull yourself together." Luna's voice strained as she moved a few boxes in front of the door. "Talk to us."

If it weren’t for their constant reassuring, the loop of self-torment would have never released me. My sobs died into sniffles, partly because I was calming, but mostly because seeing Anne again had already drained me. I still wasn't talking, but at least I wasn't completely unresponsive. I slowly pulled myself off the ground and into a sitting position to stare mutely at my hooves.

"I'm sorry." My throat felt like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper.

"There is nothing to apologize for. We merely—"

I stomped my hoof and wailed, "There is! All those… things out there." Even my breath was shaky. "They were people I killed. Living people." The princess's wince made me flinch.

Shock played across her features briefly before she recovered and asked, "And what of the figure in the mirror?"

Everything was still a little blurry as I looked up at her. "It was me. It's what should have happened to me instead of escape."

"There is no need for such talk. That is a fate none deserve."

"Don't I, though? I wasn't kidding. All those people are dead because of me. Every last one. They were bandits, companions, fellow survivors. Some I killed because they had been bitten, but what if they were immune, and I’d executed them for no reason? Some had attacked me, but what if there’d been another way? What if there was a better answer to each mistake?" I could still name each of those faces: Finnigan, Gordon, Ashley, and so many others.

"Listen to yourself." My ear stung from Dave’s flick. "Nobody was immune. Have you ever seen proof that anyone was?"

"I never gave them a chance. I was too scared to try. I-I never even hesitated. I just killed and moved on like a monster."

"Enough!" Luna forced me to look into her blazing eyes. "I have faced monsters, and you are no monster. You cannot change what is done, but you mustn't bear a burden that might not even be true."

"She's right. I was there for some of those, and you did them a favor. Anyone still fighting after that long wouldn't want to join the horde, and you know it. Would you?" I shook my head. "Then stop being a whiny bitch." Luna gently whacked him in the back of his head with the empty pistol. "How do you even know what that word means?"

"I know an expletive when I hear one. What David—" she gave him a stern glare while he massaged the growing lump "—means to say is we're here to help you confront your issues, not hide from them." Dave grumbled to himself, and at the mention of 'royal pain in the ass,' Luna smacked him again. "I heard that."

“Agh! Same spot!”

A small smile found its way onto my face, and I nodded. A few sniffles still wormed their way into my speech while I thanked them.

Even though I was taking in the room for the first time, it didn't take long to complete the tour. There was little more than the concrete comprising the walls and floor. A small drain stained with long-dried water waited patiently in one corner. In the center of the room hung a frayed string dangling beneath a lightbulb, which—to my surprise—didn't flicker.

"This room is boring." The guilt fought to make itself known like sparks seeking kindling, but the fresh memory of the recent conversation snuffed each flame.

Luna had already begun unblocking the door. "I agree. Even the Gala is more lively."

"Why do you still even have the Triple G?" At her look, I added, "Grand Galloping Gala is such a mouthful. Does Celestia secretly like it?"

She scoffed and gave a coy smirk. "My sister? Of course not. She enjoys finding ways to discreetly ruin it. But enough of that, I believe it is time to finally destroy this nightmare, don't you? As the face in the mirror said, you have guests waiting for you." It was amazing how those words, so similar to the ones that had terrified me not ten minutes before, now inspired confidence.

Throwing the door open and holding my head high, I glared at the guilt zombies waiting right outside. Well, that was creepy. Upon seeing me, their chatter picked up again. Despite the chaos, individual questions pelted me like hail. They asked how I could have let it happen, and how I could’ve been so heartless. Accusations, pained cries, lamentations of the damned, you know, the typical audio at any PTA meeting. They refused to step forward and merely continued gibbering, but the three of us wouldn’t be caught off-guard.

"Are you almost done?" The tapping of my hoof cut through the air like a knife as their words died down.

Have you ever seen a confused zombie? They weren't technically zombies, but close enough. Each of them stared blankly. Was this not the same man-turned-mare they’d driven to tears? No, it wasn't.

"Well? I don't have all night." The last of the noise died off, and I smirked. "Got it all out of your system? Good. I'm sorry you didn't survive, and you’re right that things might have played out d-differently.” My voice started to hitch, and I risked a moment to look at the two who fought by my side, smiling at their encouraging nods. “But they didn’t. Do you know how badly I wanted to bring others with me? I didn’t want to be the only one going through that portal, and even though I don’t want anypo—anybody to go through the V-V—” the memories left me shivering for a moment “—through the Void, I would have taken most of you with me.

“At the very least, each and every one of you has no right being undead. I was always thorough. I did it quick, I did it painless, and those of you who attacked me first, it's your own damn fault. This is my head. GTFO." Dave whispered the actual words to Luna, who had to stifle a snort.

They froze and what little color they possessed drained from them. Curious, I prodded one with a hoof, and it crumbled to ashes at my touch. "Drama queens." I scoffed as I pushed through them and back towards where the shards floated.

"Do you honestly believe that will work? You can't hide behind your humor forever. They will be back." It snarled as we approached. "I know you. I am you."

Luna or Dave might have been about to speak, but I motioned for them to stay quiet. "I'm on a roll guys, I got this. And no, you aren't. You don't look anything like a pony, for starters."

"Dave said it himself. You're just a human in a pony's body." The mentioned man winced.

"I think I traded up. I'm bloody adorable now." There were small chuckles behind me.

"We were having an argument and were both pretty pissed," Dave said.

"And we made up, or did you miss that part? You aren't me. You're a might-have-been at best, something that would have only came to be if I failed, and I didn't. It's funny, isn't it? Your entire existence is based around a failure that failed to be." Several of the shards dissolved like the door had, bringing their reflections with them.

“Everyone you sent after me was a reminder of those who didn’t make it, a cheap shot at lingering doubts. What I’ve done is set in stone, and you know damn well it wasn’t worth the risk to look for another option. I refuse to feel guilty I was the only one who made it.

"I'm not a human hiding in a pony's body. You see me as I am." At least one shard disintegrated with each prideful word. "And just as you aren't me, I'm not you." The look of fear on the figure's face was satisfying. It wasn't my face, it only pretended. "I am Sterling Ge—."

Only the largest fragments remained, howling. "There is no getting rid of me. You are lying to yourself about the skin you wear."

"Rude much? My new life is not a lie—I am Sterling Gears… Equestrian." With one final, confident grin, the figure was gone, banished to wherever you banish things like that. I'm a doctor, not a banishment expert. Well, I'm not a doctor either, but the point stands.

The transition between dreams was much quicker and more gentle this time. If I’d blinked, the shift might have gone unnoticed, though getting the wind knocked out of me by a short fall would have been fairly obvious.

"Two down, one to go. Hopefully. Right guys?" Looking around the room—a hospital room, by the look of it—there was nobody but me. No Dave, no Luna, but thankfully no zombies as well. "Guys?" Of course I was dumped in a hospital.

They weren't on the other side of the adjustable bed, with its sterile sheets neatly stretched over the mattress, nor were they sitting at the simple table. Admittedly, I would have paid admission to watch Luna try to sit in a chair designed for a human's proportions, especially since it would have slid around on the smooth tiles. They weren't in the bathroom either, and my nerves crept up. They had to just be in a different room.

My mane whipped back and forth as I frantically searched the hallway. It should have been filled with wanton carnage, but this place looked like all the staff and patients had walked out the front door or never even showed up in the first place.

"Dave? Luna?" There was no evidence any of the rooms had ever been used. Maybe they were somewhere else in the building? I hoped they were alright and nearby.

My hooves were barely able to operate the elevator buttons. There wasn’t much room to pace, but that’s what I found myself doing when the next floor arrived. That floor went even quicker than the last, and it wasn't long until I’d fruitlessly gone through all five floors, screaming their names. My heart pounded I burst outside. The move was undoubtedly foolish with the zombies that would be waiting for me, but I needed to get out of there. It was obvious Dave and Luna weren't there, so I had no reason to stay in that damnable hospital for another minute.

Only, no attack ever came. No vehicles sat in the parking lot, and no sound reached my ears other than my own ragged breaths. Even the tumbleweeds were missing.

Even though the hospital was behind me, my panic remained, and I screamed until I was about to pass out. The sound would attract zombies, no doubt, but that meant nothing. My ears strained and swiveled to pick up any noise, but the air remained silent except for a few lingering echoes of my shout. Defeat and crushing despair were all that responded as I sat in the parking lot.

"I'm alone."
> Desolation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A sound like two coconut halves banging together echoed through the empty streets I trotted, my head hung so low it almost brushed the opposite curb whenever I crossed the road. The dreary greys and browns of an apocalyptic wasteland surrounded me. At first, I’d called out every few moments, but as time went on and my throat grew sore and dry, I resigned to just plod on with what few dregs of hope remained.

Solitude wasn't a foreign concept—I’d spent a lot of time on my own, even with Dave popping in now and again to offer his two cents. My contemplation reminded me how I still felt distanced from the diamond dogs and townsfolk. Alone, even in Ponyville. The traces of friendship I shared with a few wouldn’t progress far, I saw that now. It was mostly my fault, but how could they possibly relate? Nearly all of what I knew was an entire universe away.

My grief, doubt, and guilt lay behind me, scattered to the winds. This was just another nightmarish hurdle to leap, but how could I? Dave and Luna, the real reason I’d made it this far, were missing, and I didn't even know where to start looking. They could handle themselves—Dave with his axe and Luna with magic and whatever she felt like throwing with it—but my worries about their safety remained.

Small twinges of pain shot through my leg as the spell wore off, but the gradually building, dull ache meant barely anything. At least it was something different. The towering buildings obscured most of the overcast sky, not that there was much to see in the endless clouds. No warming sunlight bounced off the countless windows, and no breeze ruffled my fur or mane. 

This wasn't the city I'd taken refuge in—nothing contained a shred of familiarity. No signs told me what lonely road my hooves trod, and no billboards tried to guilt trip me into changing my stance on something pointless.

Normally, a silence this eerie was just a prelude to an attack, but the usual tension was absent from the air. I turned left, if only to have my hooves make a different motion for a few moments.

"Bored." I drew out the word and huffed with equal parts exasperation and depression. The quiet was too much! I’d take the moaning over the silence—I needed something, anything.

My journey continued in that vein for an eternity. It was worse than a trip to the DMV. The few buildings I’d entered to take a break from the streets were also empty and unremarkable.

"There has to be something I can do other than talk to myself. Wait, I know a way to get somepony to show up, even if it’s just to tell me to shut up," I muttered. I took a deep breath and sang, "I've got a lovely bunch of coco—"

From an alleyway, a conglomerate of moans echoed, its distaste in my choice of music very apparent. Shit, that wasn’t exactly what I’d meant. I’d said somepony, not somezombie.

Being alone was starting to look a lot more enticing when a small crowd of zombies poured onto the street. Unfortunately, it didn't stop with just them: hundreds of zombies made themselves known as the horde swelled in size. I immediately turned and bolted from the growing cloud of undead, shouting mixed curses and apologies.

As the spell on my leg wore off more and more, the pain only grew, until my gallop turned into an awkward hobble that just barely kept me ahead of my pursuers. I opened the door to a building I hoped would have a rear exit. Dead hands grasped at me as they swarmed through the office, and I immediately slammed the door shut. "Nope!"

With zombies rapidly approaching from ahead, I was grateful to find the next building appeared empty. It wouldn’t stay that way, so I pushed everything I could quickly move in front of the doors. The barricade and the glass entrance wouldn't hold, but it would slow them down long enough for me to secure the second floor. Leaving out a different exit wasn't an option given the number of zeds, and this generic office building was as good a place as any to establish a foothold. The thought of settling into a base of operations drove my mood down further, but this was not something worth risking.

There was no trouble searching the first floor. A sea of cubicles dominated most of the floor, but none of them had the personal touch I would usually find, but it was a relief I didn't find pictures of the employees' families. It was like the building had just been finished and nobody had found a chance to work there yet. The sterility was unnerving, and the bland whites, browns and greys grated on my eyes. The most depressing discovery of all was finding my anatomy made it near-impossible to entertain myself by scooting around via office chairs. Damn this pony posterior!

As I entered the stairwell—elevators are nearly impossible to escape—I heard the distinct sound of shattering glass and hungry moaning. The second and third floor went ignored, and would be searched much later. Floor four, the accounting offices if the placard was correct, was occupied, but it wasn't anything a quick trip-and-stomp couldn't fix. The fancy, and therefore heavy, furniture packed into the downward stairs would work well enough on the off chance they got that far.

"Well, this is familiar." I sighed as I rested on one of the remaining couches. "Never had a hidey-hole this comfortable or well-lit before." Having electricity was a little weird too since it was one of the first things to go back then, and Equestria didn't have that technology yet, but I sure as hell wasn't complaining. I wanted to sing Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall, but zombies apparently dislike music.

Moping in lazy circles delayed facing the upper floors. Who knew what waited up there? There hadn't been much resistance so far, but I'd seen zombies stashed in all sorts of crazy places.

If it weren't for my hooves, I would have thought I’d never left in the first place. It wasn’t like I did much other than make a mess of things during my stay. Maybe it’d be best if I stayed there. My thoughts were betraying me, trying to drive me further into depression, and I spoke aloud just to have something else to focus on. "That's enough of that. It's high time I cleaned up the rest of this place."

The next few floors only had five enemies between them, and they went down without trouble. It was too easy to get back in the groove of sweeping and clearing, a thought that left an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. All went well until the eighth or ninth floor—nobody bothered to number the damn things—where I opened the door and found what couldn't be less than fifty pairs of eyes turning in my direction.

"Sorry, I didn't know there was a meeting," I shouted over my shoulder, scrambling up the stairs and praying to any invisible pink unicorns that may have been watching.

Some small bit of luck let the stairs continue all the way to the roof, where I'd hoped I could jump to a nearby roof. It was a terrible idea, even without my leg, but with how fast they followed there wouldn’t have been time to blockade any of the higher floors. Going lower was even less of an option. You know you’re having a bad day when your only option is to jump off a building.

A brisk wind blew my mane into my eyes as the roof access door slammed open. The air was still earlier, but there was always wind this high up. Unfortunately, there was nothing to hop to. In fact, there was nothing except an endless plain of fog expanding ever outwards, and I knew there weren’t that many stairs. "I'm so sick of this dream crap."

Should I take out as many as possible or just let gravity end it quickly? I’d really wished I could have fixed everything. Live alone, die alone. At least I wasn’t leaving anyone behind. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never come to Equestria in the first place. The leading zombie was bucked into his friends. The damage was minimal, but it did slow them down.

"If you want a snack, you're going to have to work for it." I couldn't make a difference in Ponyville after an entire week, but I'll make one here. However small it will be. Something protested against the thoughts, pushing against a mental barrier.

Zombies covered most of the roof, and even more were shambling out of the building. I bucked two more zombies as the circle shrank further, doing my best to ignore that my leg felt like it was on fire.

Tall Order's words echoed through the air, and despite how quiet they were, they came in clearly  over the clamor. "As a friend, I can't let you do this. If it weren't for you, we would have had to walk back to town and there's no way we could have escaped without your cart."

Slivers of hope shone through the cracks in the wall.

I remembered that! They really were my friends, weren't they? My body was on autopilot, doing everything it could to keep those rotting hands from getting hold while my mind wandered. Knowing my end was near filled me with calm. A hand clamped onto my tail, and nothing could shake him loose as he pulled me in, time slowing as his bite neared. The knowledge I’d actually had friends was a small comfort.

Just as I let out a sigh of resignation, my tail was released and some of the zombies fell back. Next to me, a being made of light blue energy recovered from the fierce kick that saved my flank. It didn’t need to be a perfect copy for me to know who it was. Tall Order. The figure nodded and pulled me to my hooves before toppling a few more dominoes. A searing beam blasted a large chunk out of another zombie, and I couldn't help but smile at the shimmering, white figure.Vinyl Scratch.

The wall weakened further, whole chunks crumbling.

"Sure, Sweetheart, I was just about finished. I'll head down the cafeteria and have them send some food up. Go ahead and tell her friends they can see her now." Although Redheart's voice made me flinch, the thought of the visitors I’d had that day made me smile.

A small tan figure joined the fray, throwing punches left and right. And if I was thinking about Spot, I couldn't forget Fido or the rest of the pack. The lumbering silhouettes of the pack tore into the crowd. And Pinkie Pie, of course because—

The wall vaporized.

"I'm friends with everyone!" cheered Pinkie Pie, who looked like herself instead of an outline. "Hiya Gears! I was wondering when I'd get to come help! Blech, these guys stink!"

It was too much to let go without asking, "Pinkie, are you actually here?" All the zombies were now wearing party hats. And so was I, oddly enough.

"Of course, silly! The Mirror Pool is sealed, so there can only be one Pinkie Pie." Her eyes shifted back and forth. "Accept no substitutes."

The horde was no longer advancing, and we were actually pushing them back. It was slow, but progress was progress, and it didn't look like they could even be hurt.

"Holy deus ex!" Pinkie gasped. I facehoofed so hard I slid backwards. "I'll be right back. I'm going to grab Twilight and Spike."

"I can understand Spike, but are you sure Twilight considers me a friend? I thought I just irked her." This was hardly the place for discussing friendships, but things had stopped making sense as soon as Pinkie had shown up.

She scoffed. "Oh psshaw. Of course you're friends with Twilight. And that's not even everyone who's invited!" In one of the more disturbing things I've seen that night, she literally pulled herself out of the dream. As in she grabbed her tail and soared into the distance while shouting, "Whee!"

"Dream or not, I'm going to pretend that didn't happen. Who else could I possibly consider a friend though? I haven't been here that long." But I did have one who had been with me longer than I'd been in Equestria.

"Bout time you remembered me, kid." Dave grinned. He was ready to join the fight, but stopped when he saw the festive headwear. "Pinkie Pie?"

"Pinkie Pie." I sighed.

"What are those things?" shouted a terrified, young voice from behind us. I turned to see a purple dragon cowering behind a confused and disgusted—confusted—lavender alicorn. I disliked turning my back on zombies, but the phantasms had no issue holding the line.

"Zombies. Pinkie, did you actually pull them out of their dreams?" That facehoof was much more gentle than the last one.

"Of course! Well, I pushed Twilight out of hers because it was the only way I could interrupt her b—"

"Badminton game! I was playing badminton." She chuckled nervously. "But how did you get us here Pinkie?"

"That didn't look like badminton. It looked more like—"

"Pinkie! Just tell us how we got here so we can get out sooner." If Twilight blushed any brighter, Celestia might get confused and raise her in the morning. “I hope I can’t remember this come morning.”

"Fiiiiiine. It's a dream, so I get to make even less sense!"

Spike grumbled to himself, "Didn't think that was possible." Twilight gently smacked him with a wing, though she obviously agreed. "This looks more like a nightmare than a dream. Did she drag you here too, Gears?"

"Not quite. This is my nightmare-memory thingy. Well, this one’s a little bit more nightmare than memory. I still don't know how Pinkie got here considering how much energy it took to send me."

Twilight frowned as she looked around. "We shouldn't be here. Just being in another pony's dream like this is all sorts of wrong." Her eyes widened with worry as she saw Dave. "Why does that one have an axe?"

Dave, having returned to the fight and given up trying to understand the situation, called back as he swung through an ethereal diamond dog to reach the zombies on the other side, "Not a zombie. I'm Dave. Nice to meet you, Princess."

"...Likewise." Her eye was twitching and a few strands of her mane frazzled.

"Gears, this one had a gun, so either get Moonbutt here or teach Sparklepants how to use it."

Oh, shit, I’d forgotten about Luna! "I wasn't sure if I could count Princess Luna as a friend."

The mere mention of the Lunar Princess was enough to allow her entrance, and she chuckled. "We've had quite the adventure this night, Sterling Gears. I would be ashamed if you couldn't." At her graceful appearance, Twilight gasped and bowed, missing Luna's eyes rolling.

"How nice of you to join us. Got one here with another gun and some clips that should work with the other one." Another powerful swing through a dog-shaped shield. "Kinda nice being able to take these guys out while safe."

Luna giddily snagged the weapon and ammunition, and she deftly reloaded her empty handgun despite the fact me and Dave hadn't taught her. She smiled and took aim. "Ha ha! The gun has been doubled!" Okay, she was probably having a little too much fun, but I was still sure my heart had just exploded.

"Sorry Twilight, Luna's best princess now." Twilight was too befuddled to be insulted.

Spike and Twilight jumped as Luna's salvo began. Recovering quickly, Twilight asked with ravenous curiosity, "Princess Luna, what are those devices you're using?"

She tilted her head as she looked between her weapons and her sister's student. "They are nothing you need concern yourself with as they have no place in the real world." Thankfully, the glance she shot me went unnoticed by Twilight and her assistant, and I nodded in agreement. "Pinkamena, what have I told you about interacting with dreams in this manner?"

"Oops, sorry Princess." No, she wasn't. "It was just so gloomy in here!"

Luna sighed and rubbed at the beginnings of a headache. "Be that is it may, with Gears's realization she wasn’t alone, I am all that is keeping this place held together. I can not release it until the three of you are back in your own dreams."

Pinkie smiled sheepishly. "Okey dokey lokey." A door covered in pink polka dots appeared on the roof with a “poof” sound and a puff of smoke. Spike yelped in protest as she grabbed his tail in her teeth and tossed him through, the door vanishing as she did so.

Twilight backed away from her friend, like one would with a wild animal. "Thank you, Pinkie, but I'll just walk out."

"Silly Twilight, you don't have to walk. You're already standing on your way out." Twilight cried out in surprise as she fell through a trapdoor. "Say hi for me!"

Pinkie climbed into her party cannon and waved her goodbyes before disappearing in a blast of confetti, leaving a contrail of candy and party supplies.

I'm sure that even the zombies were shocked, because the moans actually ceased for a few moments. Luna and I stood there, our mouths hanging open, until she said, "The pink one scares me."

"I don’t blame you. Are we really finished? All the baddies aren't even gone."

"Oh, yes. One moment." Her horn glowed and the world dissolved into the ether of the subconscious realm. Gone was the diseased sphere, a peaceful darkness remaining in its place. "It feels good to have my strength back, even if I will miss those guns. They proved quite useful in that situation. Sterling, you have to remember your goal was to confront your fears, and that's not always synonymous with confronting your enemies."

Dave lazily backstroked through the air, a satisfied smile on his face. "Glad that's over with. Nights are going to be so much easier now." He noticed Luna was distracted by something. "What's up, Luna?"

"There's something else present. It feels similar to what's been attacking my night, but the differences are far from subtle. Aha!" A sapphire sphere appeared, highlighting and containing a writhing mass of darkness. "Fascinating. If I had to guess, I would say this being nurtured your nightmares. I'll have to do more research, but I believe this will help us against our current foe."

"That thing was inside my head? Don’t be gentle with your research." My glare failed to ignite it, unfortunately. “What do we need to do now?”

"Your task is complete. I can undo the spell so you can have what little night remains to sleep normally. I, however, have a princess and a dragon to convince they were only dreaming. Then I need to find Pinkamena's dreams and berate her." She shuddered heavily. "Farewell, David, I fear it will be difficult to speak with you again. Sleep well, Miss Gears."

"Thanks, Luna." Her horn lit up one last time.

It was the best sleep I ever had.
> Interlude—Luna's Debriefing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her time in the disturbingly real dreamscape was enough practice for Princess Luna to canter through the vaulted halls of Canterlot Castle without sounding like an avalanche of pots and pans. A myriad of tapestries fluttered as she passed by at a brisk pace. Her usual impassive expression had returned when she’d finally finished tying up loose ends, most of which involved cleaning up after Pinkie Pie's antics, and left the realm of dreams.

Luna still wasn't sure how Pinkie did what she did, but if there was any lesson she'd had to learn since her return, it was not to question the Party Avatar—an official title bestowed by a drunken Celestia. The next day she’d found it so amusing she allowed it to stay. She made it to the private dining room, only accessible to the princesses and any they invited, in good time.

"Sister." Luna gave a polite nod as she entered the room and took her usual seat at the end of the table opposite Celestia. "We were successful in removing the corruption."

Celestia smiled wider at the fortunate news. "I am glad it is finished. I would expect no less from you. How is our guest?"

"I personally moved her to a guest room the moment I finished convincing your student she was just having a dream."

"Oh?"

Luna swallowed her bite of apple and sighed. "Pinkie Pie."

"I see." Celestia was genuinely amused at the thought of the party pony's antics. "What is your assessment of Sterling Gears?"

Luna looked away for a few moments before replying, "She is… troubled. There was some sort of creature, a parasite I believe, infesting her subconscious, but it merely encouraged the issue, not created. Even stranger, it appears to be related to what assails our citizens in the dark."

Her eyes subtly widened. "That is interesting. Do you believe Sterling is responsible?"

"Neigh. She's a victim, a refugee, a survivor, but this is not something she would be capable of doing."

"That is good to hear. She is quite the fascinating pony. Would you please explain what troubles her?" As she spoke, she levitated a folder to Luna.

"Sterling is… fragmented would be an accurate description I suppose. While I was in there, I met a being by the name of David. Apparently, he's Sterling's imaginary friend. Although I do believe that's what he is, he's a bit more. It's like he's a completely separate pony—my apologies, person would be the correct term."

"Isn't that a trait a sizable amount of imaginary friends possess? Created by foals to either give them a friend they can relate to or garner support from when facing obstacles?" Celestia was well aware this was her sister's area of expertise and would trust her word on this matter, but not without giving her observations.

Luna shook her head. "That is what I thought it was at first, but this is far different. David is incredibly well-established and distinct, and Sterling is aware he doesn't exist. They truly behave as if they are of separate minds."

"An additional personality perhaps?"

"It is… possible, but very unlikely. I had the unwelcome opportunity to see what Sterling could have looked like. It is not an image I will soon forget, but I can tell you David is not Sterling. Probably. At this point, the only definitive answer I can give is this is something I have not previously seen."

"Is she dangerous?"

"Perhaps. That is, if you're a building she dislikes." Luna couldn't help but chuckle. She gave a brief description of the event. "Her home was ruthless if it's anything like what we faced. My magic was severely limited when we were inside, to the point where I could do little more than simple telekinesis. It appears magic had no presence, but her race more than made up for it with technology, confirming my suspicions from the earlier glimpses. I was allowed to use a projectile weapon called a 'gun' and found it to be quite efficient despite its unassuming appearance." No need to tell her sister about the injury she caused.

"So if they had no magic, she's not simply copying technology from her world?"

"Correct. From the sounds of things, she's something of a prodigy. I believe that between the diplomatic relations with the diamond dogs and her past and future innovations, Sterling Gears is a pony Equestria will be fortunate to have in the approaching months."

"Then I do not regret having these documents written up. Take a look if you wish, I will give them to her when she awakes." She paused to give Luna enough time to glance at the papers. "Birth certificate, proof of citizenship, passport, medical history. Everything she needs to truly restart her life. I will also have Twilight Sparkle prepare a reading list to familiarize her with her new home."

"Birthplace: Canterlot?"

"From what we can tell, she first appeared in a region considered Canterlot by the zoning administrators. The birth date is the result of her assumed age deducted from the date she arrived."

"Clever. It should be honest enough to hold up against any investigation. Much more believable to others than her actual origin as well."

"Comes from centuries of practicing politics, Lulu." She grinned and took a sip of tea. "Is there anything else I should be aware of about Sterling Gears?"

"Yes. The prominent themes in the nightmares were sorrow, bearing responsibility for events beyond her control, second-guessing herself and her choices, and isolation. Although the nightmares are gone, there is no doubt she still harbors some of these feelings, but at a level safe enough for her to handle. As I said last night, it is likely there was no choice on her part as to her new form, and I am worried about her nonchalant attitude toward her sudden disparities.  She seems to be the type to bottle her thoughts and emotions, but she's also impulsive, nearly incapable of thinking her actions through."

"Sounds like she'd be at a disadvantage while playing chess."

"Quite. She looks to be comfortable in her new body, physically, but we've already established her psyche is unsound. How do you suggest we assist her? Do we even have to at this point?"

"Of course. At the very least we'll already have Twilight keeping watch for any signs of trouble. To be safe, I believe I'll send her a few books on psychology. Hopefully she doesn't already possess her own copies."

"Let's hope she follows it with the appropriate amount of fervor. I'm somewhat expecting her to diagnose all of Ponyville with various maladies."

"As am I. At the very least, it will give me something to do."

"You are incorrigible." She didn't even try to hide her playful smirk.

"I know." Celestia tittered. "What of her previous knowledge of Equestria?"

Luna sighed. "It is most bizarre, but I was able to speak with David the night before last, and I was informed there was some sort of entertainment they used to have. Stranger still, it is a work of fiction like any play or novel. There are some inconsistencies, like what happened with the changelings after Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’s wedding, but from what I was told, David doesn't enjoy the show near as much as Sterling, so we will need to speak with her to learn more."

Celestia returned the sigh. "Very well. It is an oddity, but it is a minor one we can deal with at a later time. Actually, I'll have Twilight help Sterling with history and take notes while she tutors."

"Must you push everything off on her?" Luna secretly wondered if it would be worth getting an apprentice of her own, if only to take off some of her workload so she could spend more time working on the night sky.

"I was there for that history, my point of view would be biased," she said matter-of-factly. "Also it's really boring."

"She does enjoy taking notes."

"That she does," Celestia said wistfully, recalling memories of a certain young filly going through more parchment than most of Canterlot. "There is nothing more I need to ask."

Luna nodded and yawned. "And there is nothing I require from you, so I shall retire for the day. When I have the opportunity, I will transcribe a complete retelling of the adventure, but for now, farewell." She yawned again and smiled. "It will be lovely to have the night back."

"As always, I look forward to seeing it." Her smile was so warm and comforting Luna almost passed out on the spot. "Sleep well, sister." Right as she opened the door, Celestia called after her, "Don't forget my two bits." She couldn't help but giggle as Luna slammed the door.
> A Brighter Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you ever woken up feeling completely rested? I mean truly refreshed, like you aren't sure how you never noticed how terrible you actually felt the night before, because that’s all that passed through my head.

My nightmares had been banished, and we had a potential source of information on our foe. There was never a time my body and mind felt that great, and I lazily wondered if I could find a way to bring the bed back with me, even if I had to drag it with my teeth.

The bed I awoke in was a glorious four-poster behemoth with pillows softer than a sack of bunnies and clouds. Even the bed in Soft Down's inn was a bed of nails compared to this pile of win.

I couldn’t stop smiling as I looked around the guest room, taking in the color scheme. It looked like red was the go-to color for nobility and lesser royalty, similar to how purple was on my old world. For once, not a single thought protested me thinking that world was behind me. Sighing with contentment, I nestled back into the pillows.

A few minutes later, a rogue beam of sunlight slipped between the curtains and, of course, poked me in the eye. Rolling over didn’t stop the light for long. Covering my head with a pillow kept it from my eyes, but I could still feel sunlight beating down on me, more distracting than comfortable.

"Dammit, Celestia. Leave me alone, this bed is comfy," I grumbled through my ultimately ineffective pillow shield. The light’s intensity increased and I swore I heard sizzling. I didn't think ponies could get sunburned, but I probably shouldn't tick her off. "Alright, I'm up."

Face met floor as my leg caught the covers. I’d forgotten my leg was still broken.

The last few dregs of sleep were rubbed from my eyes as I yawned and looked around the room. The bed was large and took up most of the floorspace, but they still managed to fit a wardrobe, chest of drawers, and vanity, all of which were made of the same dark, polished wood. Two doorways, a single and a double, led out of the room, and going through one let me freshen up in a ridiculously decadent bathroom. Considering most of what goes on in a bathroom, it was a silly place to have a lot of decoration, but whatever, I don't own a castle.

"Morning, kid." He stretched and groaned with satisfaction as several joints popped. "Damn it feels good to be back out here. Maybe it's just the bed though."

"Yeah, I love that thing."

"Your stuff is over here, next to the bed."

My goggles rested atop a note on an end table. Ignoring the few droplets falling from my recently washed mane, I sat back on the bed and read from the delicate stationary:

Sterling Gears, please come to the Court of Day when you awake. There are some things we need to discuss before you depart Canterlot.  –Princess Celestia

Luna's comment about Celestia being the less artistic sister suddenly made much more sense.

"You'd think her hoofwriting would be more legible after however many years."

"Maybe you're holding it upside down? No, wait, guess not. I think you’re just supposed to meet her at the Carp of Day? Wait, that says ‘Court’ doesn’t it?"

After turning several corners, the pastry I’d grabbed was gone, and there was still no clue what path led to the Court of Day. I resolved to ask the next guard, and the directions led back the way I had come and then some. 

Two identical guards guarded, as guards do best, the tall double doors standing between me and the Court. The fine-grained wood everywhere else in the castle was here as well, accentuated by gold and silver filigree. A large solar emblem dominated most of the wood. Although relatively simple when compared to the other woodwork, these regal doors stood proudly, welcoming all who sought a royal audience.

"Sorry I'm late. I couldn't find the castle directory. I'm Sterling Gears, Princess Celestia left me a note."

The two pegasus soldiers glanced at me in tandem, nodded, and opened the doors with practiced synchronization. Truth be told, it was a little creepy how closely they mirrored one another. With a second gentle creak, the door closed behind me, leaving just me and a pristine white alicorn, who “innocently” whistled as soon as she saw me.

The room was almost spartan: there were no elaborate decorations or fountains, just a checkered marble floor, the carpeting, and unlit candelabras. Sunlight streamed through stained-glass murals, but it was slightly disappointing to see these were just extravagant, colored windows. The ones with all the events must have been elsewhere. If not, I was going to start flipping tables. I’d probably get kicked out of the dining room, but it’d be worth it.

"A knock on the door would have been a much nicer way to wake up." A respectful distance from her, I stopped—or at least I assumed it was respectful. For all I knew, I was supposed to stay back at the door, and all that stood between me and being piledrived was the current absence of guards. "You didn't have to nearly light my ass on fire."

"I haven't the faintest idea of which you speak." Her grin and amused tone spoke differently. "I trust you slept well?"

"First half was a little rough, but it ended well enough."

"There's something I don't like about her. I keep thinking about all these 'careful what you wish for' stories." Dave frowned and took a step back. "Watch your step."

Celestia chuckled and beckoned me closer. "Come forth, there is no need to speak from such a distance. I was unable to meet you elsewhere—have to listen to the nobles sometime, you see—but as you can see, it is just you and I. Thank you for keeping my sister safe."

Moving to the edge of the dais, I snorted. "Keep Luna safe? I barely had to do anything. She's a great shot."

"Hell yeah she is. I don't regret giving her that gun at all. Well, maybe a little at the beginning." He smirked as he motioned towards the leg she had injured.

"You let no harm come to her, and that is all I ever ask. I discussed some of what transpired with her, but it was a very brief chat considering all that occurred. She mentioned an explosive device used to level a large building. Would you care to elaborate?"

"I don't know if we levelled it, since we didn't really check how much damage it did. I showed Luna how to make it, though, so if you guys ever need to blow something up she can also take care of it. If you can find the materials, that is."

"I see. What are you planning on doing with your knowledge of destructive implements?"

"Not sharing it to the public, that's for sure. I'll tell you what I know when the information actually comes to mind, but I don't have any intent to start a bombmaking course."

"I dislike censoring information from my little ponies, but what you know can easily be mishandled. I'm glad you were already planning on keeping it private, as that's one less thing I must demand."

"What are the others?"

A small folder floated from behind her throne, gently hovering in front of me as it opened and displayed the pages within. "These are your identification papers, everything here marks you as a citizen of the Kingdom of Equestria. These will be filed away, but copies will be sent once you have an address.

Celestia gave me a few minutes to gleefully bounce around like an idiot. "It is your secret to tell, but I strongly suggest you entrust it to as few as possible." The high from the documents had yet to fade, and what she wanted was already expected. "I trust I do not need tell you that as a citizen of Equestria, you fall under its laws and will not endanger its occupants without consequences."

"Of course. Don't worry, I don't play around when it comes to safely using explosives."

"Sure you do. Just not others' safeties."

"I would be a terrible regent if I did not worry. Now, I assume you will be returning to Ponyville, so I sent word ahead to Twilight Sparkle to prepare a reading list for you." That wouldn’t be good. "Yes, it will probably be as much, if not more, than you expect. She will help get you up to speed, and in return all I ask is for you to continue sharing your knowledge through her."

"As if she'd let me hide it from her anyway." I smirked.

"Yes, I doubt that would end well." She looked out a window and frowned. "It seems we have run out of time,  as I do have further appointments today. Are there any questions you need answered before you go?"

"Yeah, how do we guarantee a straight answer out of you?"

"Where can I find an inferno crystal? I'm trying to start thaumite production, and that's all Fido needs to smelt wolf’s ore, I think."

"I will have one sent to the chariot." She scratched some information onto a scroll and sent it off with a puff of magic.

"Really? No epic fetch quest? No searching some distant, dangerous temple full of traps?" The lack of a grand adventure was upsetting.

Celestia tittered and waved me off. "Of course not. They're uncommon, but hardly rare. Consider it a donation to the sciences."

"That's it? No catch?" He scrutinized her poker face for any hint of deceit and failed.

"I'm not one to look a gift princess in the mouth. Thanks, Celestia."

"You are welcome. Now go, you have a life to enjoy." She smiled again, and the exit opened with a gentle tug of her magic.

"Don't mind if I do. Tell Luna I said bye and thanks as well." My injured leg felt weird—I spun around to catch a glimpse of Celestia winking before the doors shut entirely. I hadn’t even noticed until just then. She was good.

"Would have been nice to get that done earlier. At least Luna had the excuse of being tired from dragging your ass into the dreams."

A well-dressed unicorn called my name and motioned for me to follow. "Right this way, ma'am. Princess Celestia had transportation prepared to return you to Ponyville."

My attempts at striking a conversation crashed and burned—apparently this stallion's special talent was despising small talk. He was either a high-end servant or a mid-rank noble. On the plus side, his disdain wasn't directed towards me specifically. He just had a prickly personality. 

Mentioning my excitement over a chariot ride, I learned railroad travel had been suspended until further notice. I’d almost forgotten there was still trouble out there. When we reached an open ledge where two pegasi waited with my chariot, he nodded and left without another word.

One of the guards was much more amiable, and gladly conversed with me during the flight. She, who introduced herself as Raindance, chuckled as she motioned to the other guard and described him as “hilariously shy around mares not disguised by Royal Guard armor.”

Finding it hilarious, I proceeded to tell him every one of Vinyl’s lewd jokes I could remember. Raindance eventually had to silence me because she didn't want to lock up from the laughter and drop out of the sky. Wind Watch—a.k.a Private Bashful— proved the armor's glamour did nothing to prevent or hide blushes.

The ride was something that wouldn’t be forgotten soon. Untamed land sped by below us, and the only major sign of civilization was the dark line of railroad tracks. It was exhilarating to feel the wind on my face and in my mane.

They gracefully landed in front of the Golden Oaks Library. I grabbed the small canvas pack containing the inferno crystal, waved goodbye as the guards departed, and was promptly tackled by Princess Twilight Sparkle.

"What was it like? I need to know everything you saw and did, and if you can remember it, everything Princess Luna did to send you there. What kind of circle did she use? I bet it was Starswirl's Mnemonic Binding, right?" Our muzzles were inches apart, and she was staring at me like she would stare at a first-edition encyclopedia set.

"I think you need an adult."

When the world came back into focus, there was an alicorn standing over me. "And I thought Pinkie was the excitable one."

"What—oh, heh." Twilight helped me up. "I guess I did get a little carried away. You're the first pony other than Princess Luna to traverse the realm of dreams! Did you take any notes?"

"How would I have brought them with me?"

"A valid point. I bet it would be possible to carry over inanimate objects with an appropriate..." Her voice became an incoherent mumbling as she trotted back into her home, the door closing shut behind her. The door opened again just as I’d turned to leave. "Wait! Sorry, come on in. The princesses gave me a list of books to lend to you."

"She's a bit more absent-minded than I remember."

The library was more of a mess than usual, and Spike was tiredly running all over the place in a vain attempt to eliminate the clutter. He caught my expression of pity and slowly nodded while glaring at the alicorn.

"Are you alright, Twilight? You look—" Would it be better to break it to her nicely or just be honest? Eh, whatever, somebody had to say it. "—completely insane in the membrane."

As she opened her mouth, I pointed at the disastrous library and her frantic assistant. Her ears fell back and she frowned. "I can't help it. Thirty ponies are missing, Gears. Thirty! And I can't find any way to track them down or stop it from happening again. They have to be somewhere, right?"

"Frazzled mane, bloodshot eyes, dark bags under her eyes." It wasn’t hard to figure out what Dave was getting at.

"You didn't sleep much last night, did you?"

"No she didn't," Spike called as he hastily swept the stairs.

"I slept a few hours, had a weird dream. I-I'll be fine." She looked away from me and sighed. "I'm just so worried. What kind of princess can't keep other ponies safe?"

"One that exists. Go get some sleep or I'm going to find Zecora and ask her to help me make a tranq-dart." I gave her a friendly push and she almost toppled. "Look, you're barely standing."

"I do believe this pony is correct, though I prefer a method less direct." Turns out a pile of books can hide a zebra until she pokes her head around the side. "To exhaust yourself like this is unwise, go to bed, please, and close your eyes."

The zebra’s appearance made me jump. The two opaque phials hanging from her bag clinked together as she walked towards us. As she drew closer, there was the pleasant smell of dried herbs, a scent that lent her an air of enigmatic wisdom. 

"Hey, it's the zebra from the racism episode." There were some odd looks as I tried to kick him in the shin. It couldn't actually hurt him, but he still got the message.

"Just working out a kink from the ride back. At least I won't have to look for too long. What are you doing here?"

"The forest is less safe than usual these nights, and this princess asked for my assistance against these wights. So I am here, for now, until the danger has passed, then I will return to the comfort of my forest home at last."

"I'm going to hug you now." Was all the warning Zecora had before I glomped her, carefully, so as to not disturb the mixtures she carried. Surprise, confusion, and amusement fought for control of her face, and I was back across the room before she shrugged and pretended it never happened. "So, Twilight, how bout 'dem books."

The fledgling alicorn mouthed an apology to Zecora as she led me to a stack of thick books that wobbled back and forth. "I took your unique situation into account when I selected these, so hopefully they don't seem to bizarre." Her voice was quiet enough neither Zecora nor Spike had a chance of hearing.

"From Filly to Mare: What You Need to Know About Growing Up." Dave was literally rolling on the floor, laughing.

Twilight blushed and looked away. "Yes, well, I did say unique situation."

"You could always tell me instead of giving a book on it."

"S-sorry, I really shouldn't."

"Relax, Twilight, I'm just messing with you. Like I'd ask royalty to give me the talk about the birds and the bees." It wasn’t my fault she made it way too easy. "Here's a fair warning, though. If you have a test planned for that book, I will do my best to make you blush on every question."

"I think we can skip that test then."

"Awesome, I'll get started tomorrow." I wasn’t really looking forward to a particular book though.”

"Tomorrow? What's stopping you from starting now or when you get home?"

"Don't really have a home, yet, I'll just pass out in the caves." Twilight winced. "It's safe there, and I don't want to risk being outside after dark, even after everything Luna and I did. As for starting right now, you're going to bed soon, whether you like it or not, and I'm not going to risk waking you up. That reminds me. Hey, Spike!" He dashed to us and teetered back and forth, his eyes barely open. "Get Twilight some tea you think will relax her the most." I looked at the dragon-shaped cloud of dust he left behind. He must have liked that idea.

"Alright, fine. I guess a little nap does sound wonderful. You better be back here bright and early tomorrow. You have a lot to learn."

"Good enough for me, later Twilight. See ya, Spike!" A groggy “later, dude” was his reply.

Twilight Sparkle sighed in defeat as she slumped into a seat. "I must be tired if I'm letting you of all ponies convince me."

"She's right, you know."

I made sure to say goodbye to Zecora as well on my way out and made a mental note to ask her later about brewing potions, because how could that not be fun?

Ah, early afternoon Ponyville. The smallest hint of dread was the only thing out of place as I began my trek to the gem hills, and even then, it was barely noticeable behind the bright scenery. Other than that, it was just like a normal day. So peaceful. So quaint. So utterly boring I found the idea of watching paint dry to be more exciting.

Sure, there's joy to be found from basking in warm sunshine or feeling the cool breeze rustle your coat ever so slightly, but those were things for normal ponies to enjoy. For me, a calm day just creates tension while waiting for things to go south.

"You could relax just a little." He'd been chatting ever since we left the library, but he was understanding of my reluctance to reply. Still, I managed to ease up a little bit, prompting a small smile from him.

When we finally got out of town, was able to speak. "So, how was it last night after we finished?"

"Peaceful. It was just really nice to be done with that mess. I wonder what info Luna will beat out of that beastie."

"I don't envy it, that's for sure. Still freaks me out though."

Dave nodded. "Same here. We've seen some messed up shit, and that's pretty high on the insane-o-meter. Nothing we can do until Luna contacts us about it, and you better believe she will. We're the most experienced at dealing with it, as sad as that is."

The chat continued back and forth, smoothly flowing from one subject to another. It felt good to actually consider Dave as a friend, although realizing how long it had taken made me feel a bit crummy.

More of the path was committed to memory with each trip. Everything had a feeling of familiarity around it as we walked, until a crude building shattered it.

It was fairly large, about the size of a one-floor ranch house, and built from barely shaped stones stuck together with poorly mixed mortar. No glass occupied the windows. Instead, they had a simple cloth curtain hanging over two wooden crossbars. There were three distinct sections, but the lumpiness made it hard to be certain. A parched, thatched roof sat on top of everything, conforming to the odd shape like loose wrapping paper. The only entrance was also the most well-built part of the dwelling: a sturdy iron doorframe around a thick, plain door. No light shone from inside.

"What?" Dave shrugged. I could have sworn he was grinning, but nothing looked out of place whenever I looked at him.

"Let's see who's home. I'm sure they'll explain why they built it."

No answer came when I knocked, but the slightly ajar door opened further at my touch. There were vague shapes in the darkness beyond, and only the lack of voices kept me from running. There were a few faint glows, but they revealed nothing. Suddenly, the lights were uncovered.

It turned out nearly a score of diamond dogs shouting "Surprise!" was frightening, and I would have sprinted back to Ponyville if it weren't for the beaming pony, party supplies, and giant banner displaying "Welcome Home, Beta!" Dave stepped in and to the side and gave Pinkie a thumbs up.

A grin split my face as everything clicked. This wasn't just any ramshackle hut that smelled of dirt and dogs. It was my ramshackle hut that smelled of dirt and dogs… and it was perfect.

Those creatures were still out there, but we could afford a night spent partying.
> Groggy Mornings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just… wow. Thanks, all of you. I never expected to come back to something like this. Seriously, thank you."

Pinkie, smelling of sugar-encrusted sugar with extra sugar on top, shoved her face into mine. "I'm so glad you like it! We worked so hard to get everything set up in time, and I finally got to throw you your party! We have cake and games and more cake and it's going to be so much fun!" Her excitement blew mine out of the water and into orbit.

"Is this the entire pack?" There’d never been so many of them in one place. A few waved back as I looked around my new home, unable to see even the walls behind the hulking figures. Were those nametags? There went my excuse.

"Except the ones on patrol, but don't worry, I made an extra batch of cupcakes just for them." She halted midair and frowned. "If it weren't for those… thingies, everydog could be here." Pinkie's momentum picked up again, and she beamed. "Well, what are you just standing there for? Let's party!"

Pinkie had taught nearly the entire pack what a party was. She didn't believe their usual revelry could be accurately called a party. A get-together maybe, but not a party. The pack was divided between enjoying the party and being unsure of what to think of it, but none openly disliked it.

As they led—dragged—me through the crowd, a barrage of paws fell upon my back, accompanied by congratulations Ponyville probably heard. My spine would still be feeling the goodwill come morning.

Pin the Tail on the Dog made me chuckle, although I wasn't sure if it was because of the game itself or the flailing, blindfolded diamond dog. Snagging a drink from the refreshment table, I coughed it up when turned out to be rock ale. My liver twinged as the rest of the mug went down. Why? Endurance training, that's why.

My eyes swept across the crowd, and I realized they were all genuinely content, if not outright happy. "Are we really doing that much better than Rover?"

A loud "Yes!" shook the building, followed by a round of laughter.

The event blurred as the day went on. Drinks were drank, cupcakes were nommed, and I was allowed to witness the hilarious tragedy that was diamond dog karaoke. Vinyl Scratch and her brother showed up just as the lowering sun turned a sapphire sky to an amber one.

The ominous feeling brought by the previous nights was absent, and we knew we’d have at least one night as it should have been. Even so, we weren't quite ready to abandon the safety of the lights.

Tall Order's curiosity led to a sampling of rock ale resulting in him being incapacitated for an hour, but he rejoined the party with a dopey grin and nothing but compliments for the potent beverage. Somehow, he’d learned Spot was behind the majority of brewing, and he struck up a conversation in an attempt to obtain a supply for his bar. The diamond dog looked unsure at the prospect of being a business partner.

Just as you'll find life wherever there’s water, you'll find music wherever Vinyl is. She did her 'thang' from a turntable Pinkie set up, and it wasn't there five minutes prior. A few songs in, the dogs clutched their ears and howled in pain after a high-pitched crescendo. After the faux pas, she took a break to figure out which of her music was diamond-dog friendly.

Diamond dogs can party for a long time. The sun had set, the stars had come out, and they still drank and chatted like the party had just started. I’d managed to find and sneak out the back door to catch a peek at an actual Equestrian evening.

The night sky was breathtaking. Thousands of twinkling stars hung overhead, and a band of brilliance draped across the heavens like a ceremonial sash. The light from the tiny lantern did nothing to impede my view. It was well worth the wait.

"Do you think it's safe to be out here? It's not like we won." Dave sighed and leaned heavily against the wall. Pinkie had prepared a batch of imaginary baked goods for him, so he hadn't felt left out of too many festivities. As much as we wanted to know how she’d pulled it off, it was Pinkie Pie we were talking about.

Dave was silent as I stared skywards. "I think the normal night is too bright, they need that super dark junk. Plus, it'll be harder for them to sneak up now. To be honest, I really just wanted to see the stars."

He let out an impressed whistle. "They really are something, aren't they? Damn, Luna knows her stuff."

We sat in companionable silence. Well, as silent as possible with the party’s constant thumping. It made for killer ambiance though—I'd take bass beats over crickets any day.

"You enjoying the party at least? Pinks left a note under my hat to tell me about it. I mean, come on, what the hell is up with that?" He laughed nervously and checked his hat and pockets, flicking the party favor he found aside with an annoyed, yet amused, grunt. "Of course."

"Pfft, of course I love it. Got friends, got a new pad, and we got the baddies on the ropes hopefully. Things are looking up."

"Until you regain enough mental stability that I cease to exist." We both laughed at that one.

"Hey Dave?" I quietly said a few minutes after our chuckling died down.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No problem, kid." We shared a friendly smile and returned to stargazing.

The door slammed open, causing the two of us to jump. Vinyl’s mane was more disheveled than usual as she poked her head out, grinning when she found me. "Aha! There you are." Vinyl shouted back to the room, "Found her! She's just taking a breather."

"Well get her back in here! Wouldn't be any fun to start the game without her!" Pinkie laughed as the building shook with agreement and encouragement.

"You heard her, Gears. Come on." She happily beckoned for me to return to the warm, friendly haze of the party. Alcohol may have been present, but none of them were overdoing it. None were past tipsy, despite the amount of ale some of them had managed to slam back.

Pinkie Pie, Tall Order, and about a dozen diamond dogs crowded around a table, nursing mugs with varying levels of fluid. A blue-and-white-striped tie wrapped around Pinkie's head like a warrior's headband, the free ends dangling as she gestured us to our seats. Other than the two spots left open, there wasn’t room for a hoof between the dogs. Pinkie's grin changed to a mischievous smirk as she reached under her chair.

Glass met wood with a clatter as Pinkie slammed the dark bottle onto my unfortunate table. "Alright, fillies. Who's up for some more fun and games?"

A drinking game with Pinkie Pie? No friggin' way was I going to pass this up! It was going to be awesome!


——


"This is not awesome." The morning sun struck me with a headache that felt like a moose tap-dancing on my skull. Rolling over to get back on my hooves, I fell off the mostly empty refreshment table and bounced off a snoozing diamond dog with a half-hearted groan and an apology. He barely grunted in acknowledgement.

A few pack members were spread around the room in various positions of questionable comfort, a few of which would make greatly amusing blackmail material if I had a camera. The place was much cleaner than expected. Mostly empty drinks dotted the room and its mismatched furniture—some built for ponies and others for diamond dogs. My mouth was a desert while I crept to kitchen.

Water needed to be pumped to the faucet for it to work. I gingerly sipped a mug of water, trying to ignore the interesting flavors the wood and stone added. A defenseless cupcake sat on the counter. Its end was quick and painless.

After taking advantage of having a bathroom, I navigated the maze of unconscious bodies. The bag from Canterlot rested near the door. The stone felt warm, even through the canvas.

The bruises on my back crying out louder than everything else, my body protested against last night’s shenanigans with every step down into the earth. Fortunately, the cool, slightly damp air of the caves was more lenient than the sun, so I didn't feel like complete crap. Maybe about eighty-percent crap.

The forge’s oppressive heat didn’t help the hangover, but I steeled my resolve and pushed my way towards the exhausted smith. Even though he was about to fall over, his swings didn't falter.

"Oh, hello Beta." He drawled as he noticed me. He lifted the chunk of metal with a pair of tongs, nodded in satisfaction and quenched it in a basin of water. He yawned as a cloud of steam arose from the tub. "Back so soon?"

"Soon? I was gone for a day. You don't look so good, is that why you weren't at the party?"

He blinked twice and shrugged. "Thought party was tomorrow. Guess I been working longer than I thought." Facehooving nearly made me vomit and was promptly added to the list of things not to do while hungover.

"You should really get some sleep, your forge will be still be here when you get up. It looks great, by the way. Is that everything you needed to make on your own? It's looking pretty badass!"

Its new additions made the blazing forge even more intimidating. Unable to resist his usual flourish, Fido had blended form and function seamlessly. Hard angles dominated the structure he worked inside: the maw of a beautifully sculpted wolf head.

The lower jaw went down and around the sides, coming to meet at the very front of the forge, and the rest of the head created a hood of sorts. A runic symbol more ancient-looking than diamond dog script was engraved into each fang. Pillars designed to control the heat's flow flanked the master craftsdog's sculpture.

"That good thing, yes?" He grinned when I nodded. "Yes, all done with forge. Hope First Alphas would approve."

"I'm sure they would. You make me regret taking your spot as Beta less and less each day."

"Good." His chuckle quickly turned into a painfully long yawn. "Finished your pick. Might have forgot to make pony size."

"I'm sure it will be fine. I can build up the strength if necessary." Or I’d make Aloe and Vera incredibly wealthy with all the massages my neck will need. That was the second time I’d thought of all the repeat business they might be getting—I might need to see about possibly striking a deal with them. "Got your inferno crystal while I was in Canterlot."

His hammer sailed through the air and landed with a thunk in its appropriate spot on the rack of tools. Fido clapped his paws together, wringing them excitedly, and nearly crushed my ribs. He released me from the bear hug, and waited for me to fish the coral-colored crystal out of the canvas bag. The stone felt hot in my hooves, just a few degrees shy of burning. He was back at the forge moments later, searching for the best way to install it.

Playing the responsible adult made me uncomfortable, but one of us had to remember the most important lesson of a forge: fire hot. "Hey, you can put it in, but I don't want you smelting anything until after you get some good sleep. Not a nap, sleep." He pitifully whimpered like a puppy who’d stopped being petted. "Sorry, Fido, you've been up for like two days. It's for your own good." The last few words sent shivers down my spine.

“Besides, we have a lot of work ahead of us. We can finally strike back, but we need to be prepared. I need your best, and you can’t do that unless you get some sleep.”

"Yes, Beta. Guess you right. Just so much can do now. Can make lot more crafts for tradesponies. They like my work." He swelled with pride.

"Mayor Mare already sent somepony by?" If I was really Beta of this pack, I needed to start acting like it and pay more attention.

Fido nodded and pointed to one of the tables off to the side, where a large tool and a bulging pouch waited. "Yep. They buy some silver trinkets." He snorted derisively. "Stupid, weak metal. Not know why so valuable."

"Some just like the look I guess. I think silver gets used in mirrors too." My hoof drew back from the head-sized sack—it was real. "Looks like you pulled in quite a bit of profit." Inspecting the moneybag first felt rude, but it practically had it’s own gravitational pull.

"First bits we make. Not even know what to do with them." Fido chuckled, and my spine groaned as he deposited the bag on my back. "All yours, Beta."

It was too much. As nice as any income would have been, there was no way I’d earned that much. The heavy sack jingled as it hit the ground. "I'll take a bit, but not all of it. I'll bring you into town one of these days so you can learn how to shop. I guess it'll also get the townies more used to you guys being around. We can divvy all of it up later at a meeting or something, I want the pack to have a fair say."

He shrugged and yawned. "You're in charge." The gold jingled as he withdrew a pawful and placed in the bag that used to hold the crystal. "Your cut." He cut me off before I could say a single word. "Your cut."

"If you're going to twist my leg about it… But I'm going to be using that pick to do some serious digging. I need to help out around here, and I can't just spend all my time tinkering." I could, but variety’s the spice of life. Or maybe cinnamon. Nutmeg? Paprika, that was it! But variety’s pretty tasty too.

My eyes widened at the work of art Fido had crafted. Fido hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he forgot to size it for ponies. This thing would be unwieldy for Big Macintosh! The head was about as long as my foreleg and comprised of steel, and a thick spike with minimal decorations menacingly jutted to one side.

On the opposite side as a counterweight, a block of blued steel had been engraved with a rune on each face. The handle looked like simple wood, but the way it sat in my mouth told me it had a metal core. It was going to take some practice to use, if the test swing and subsequent crash into a table were any clue.

"It's beautiful, Fido. Thank you." Setting down the well-balanced pick almost felt wrong.

His jowls jiggled as he nodded. "Of course. Make sure strike much earth with it. Don't hurt self though."

"Nah, I'll be fine. Pain's a great teacher anyway."

"If you say so. Anything else, Beta?"

"Nope, off to bed with you. Go on, get." Fido was too heavy to push, but that didn’t stop me.

Fido chuckled as he abruptly moved to the side, sending me sprawling to the ground. "Going. Don't worry."

We walked the same path until the main cavern, where I split off for home to drop the pick off. After all, no sense in carrying something so heavy in my mouth all day.

Only two diamond dogs remained in my home: Balsa, who had dug the tunnel for the rescue team, and Flint, a smokey-furred mutt. It was a little surprising to find “mutt” wasn't considered an insult. It was just another word to them. Dave reappeared as the front door closed behind me.

"Finally sleep off that sugar crash?" I giggled, the dry earth crunching underneath my hooves as I began the familiar walk.

"Nah, just slept in a bit to enjoy my first night off in, well, ever. Looks like you still have all your body parts, so I didn't miss anything interesting. We should have come to this world a lot sooner." He adjusted the brim of his hat to better block the sun.

"Finally warming up to Equestria?" I was glad he was starting to like it. Didn't really want him to be irritable if we were going to be living there from now on.

"You could say that. It helps when I don't try to think about the science behind magic or Pinkie Pie's shenanigans. Especially the latter." He chuckled and smiled, no doubt thinking of the only other pony he could talk with. "Girl can throw a great party though. I thought it'd be like a generic kids party, but she proved me wrong."

"Must be. I wonder if there's a list of all the types of parties she knows. Speaking of lists though, I finally get to cross off 'Have Pinkie Pie Throw a Party' on my Human in Equestria list."

"Your what now?"

"Well, like I said before, I think the more fanfictions something has appeared in, the higher the chance it has of happening. Take the Pinkie Pie party for example. I'm surprised she was able to hold off this long without exploding into a cloud of confetti."

I heard an exasperated sigh. "She’d probably do it too. What else is on your list?"

The mental checklist flashed by. "Well, I didn't arrive in the Everfree, so I don't have to worry about a manticore or timberwolf attack. Doesn't mean it won't show up if I wander in there though. Meeting Celestia and Luna went pretty well, and I didn't have to go through that obnoxious 'oh you lied to us for so long about where you came from. How can we trust you even though it's apparent we wouldn't have believed you if you told us'."

"You actually have that entire thing on your list?"

"Yep. Twilight already freaked out about the new knowledge thing, and we'll be taking care of the world comparison soon enough."

"Anything you're surprised hasn't shown up yet?"

"Haven't been trampled by the Cutie Mark Crusaders yet, or been run over by Scootaloo on her scooter. Ah, shit, haven't met Rarity yet either. She's going to try and make clothes for me, spaz about my appearance, and probably even try to drag me to the spa."

"All you ponies look the same to me." He gave an amused grunt. "Aside from the colors."

"Racist."

"Yeah, yeah. What are you going to do about Rarity? You could just avoid her."

"Nah, the universe never works like that. Somehow, I will meet her. I should strike first and force the meeting, but I really don't want a new set of clothes and I want to have it forced on me even less."

"If you knew anything about fashion, you could distract her with something she hasn’t seen."

I stopped for a moment to think. "That could work… I know just the thing!"

"Care to share?"

"Nah, it's going to be good though." Dave shuddered at my grin. "Just need to stop and get some paper to doodle on. No peeking."

He held up his hands defensively. "Never crossed my mind. Just don’t get too far off track. We don’t know how long it will take for the creatures to reappear, and chances are they’ll be pissed."

“I know we haven’t won yet, but whenever they come, we’ll be ready. I’ll make sure of it.”


——


The door to the boutique slammed open, knocking loose the bell that hung overhead and causing Rarity to jump and ruin her stitching. With a twitching eye, she turned to face me and the badly rolled scroll held in my teeth.

She was opening her mouth—I needed to act fast! "Rarity! Socks!" Although it came out somewhat distorted by the paper.

"What?" Her white fur skipped pink and jumped straight to a red usually reserved for sunburns that required hospitalization.

I sprinted up to her and deposited the scroll on the unfortunate fabric. The speech I’d planned ahead of time went right out the window. "Socks! Ponies look good in socks! The world of hoof fashion needs you! No time to explain further—I need to go!"

"Wait, you can't just..." she trailed off as I disappeared through the door as quickly as I'd entered. "Well, let's see what she was so worked up about she found it necessary to barge in like that." She hemmed and hawed as she looked over the crude diagrams drawn by a pony who very clearly didn't have much experience working with a pencil. While she read, her horn glowed and slowly picked up the mess. She'd need to order a new bell.

Rarity smiled deviously, her anger forgotten. "I believe I could make this work."

On the other side of a barely opened window, I grinned. It was like giving a catnip-laced ball of yarn to a cat.

Somepony behind me cleared their throat and asked why I was spying on Rarity.

“Move along citizen, nothing to see here,” I said. With Rarity occupied, it was time to pay Twilight a visit.
> Learning Curve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes later found me trying to catch my breath on one of Ponyville's disturbingly numerous park benches, as running while laughing like a dentist had gassed me didn’t mix well. Rarity hadn’t followed me out of the store, but I had to make sure she wasn't chasing me down with a vendetta for startling her like that. In my defense, it was hilarious.

A smoothed dirt path meandered between the well-maintained flowers and trees. Every tree’s leaves could not have been greener if they'd dumped a can of paint over them, and the flowers shared a similar vibrancy. Unfortunately, the last vestiges of my hangover reacted poorly to the hundred meter get-away-from-Rarity dash combined with the visible spectrum's attack on my retinas.

"Aww, my cupcake." I frowned at the small pile, hoping it would reconsider being a nasty bunch of goop and return to its scrumptious pastry status.

"Maybe you should get going before anybody notices you're trying to pave the path with your breakfast." He hadn’t broken a sweat from running alongside me, but he still used his hat to fan himself faster than a coked-up southern belle.

Twilight, in her hunger for knowledge, had likely prepared an interrogation at the library, but it couldn’t be put off forever. The stories I’d read came to mind, and even though a small part of me agreed with Dave that fiction shouldn’t be trusted, it was all I had. They suggested a few likely questions, and coming up with answers for them would set me ahead.

A changeling nodded at me as he buzzed by, his wings a blur as they carried him off before I thought to wave back. I made a mental note to ask Twilight about them.

Upon reaching the marketplace, some of the merchants scooted their carts and stands away from the road. At least they didn’t run in terror.

The shopping went by in a half hour, and as much as shopping used to annoy me, there was something satisfying about haggling. The lack of a cart limited my purchases to a sturdy tool belt similar to the one I'd had for my old pick, a few simple tools to go in it, and a fresh pair of saddlebags. Hopefully, these wouldn't be left in a hospital in my haste to dodge a certain pink-haired mare.

"Hey, Dave." The comforting weight of the saddlebags and belt hardly hindered my movement at all, even at a bouncy trot. "I was thinking… I'm going to need some more furniture for the place, but that got me to wondering about the rest of the pack. With trade opening up, maybe we could improve quality of life down there.”

"Sounds good to me, but I'd talk with them first. They might prefer hard stone to a soft bed for some reason, but that's only a maybe, and I don't think they would disagree with some general improvements. You know, I bet they finished that tunnel. Maybe we can use that guard you saved as leverage to convince the mayor to allow it. Put a minecart track down in there and boom, easy route."

"And with Fido able to produce thaumite now, I should be able to rig them up with patterns if I figure out a decent control mechanism."

"Now you're getting it. But don't devote all your thought to that just yet. Remember, we still aren't entirely out of the woods just yet. I really hope Luna is making headway on that bastard so we have a better idea of what we're up against. We need to take this break to fortify our defenses. When they come back, they'll come back hard."

"Fire and magic. Simple, but we know it works. We have torches and lanterns, so I think that means we have pitch unless they're using something else. Trap 'em and burn ‘em. Also, I’ve already talked with Fido about knuckling down."

”You don’t even have knuckles.”

“You know what I mean.”

"The fire might not be the best idea since it'll probably happen in the caves. I don't need it much, but you and the dogs require air." Dave scratched his chin pensively, then snapped his fingers. "Easy, we just have them dig air tunnels or something. I'm sure they know how cave stuff works, so as long as you don't do it all yourself, we shouldn't have to worry too much."

"Don't worry about that, I'll be busy taking care of the magic part of fire and magic… Wait, when did we get to the library?"

He chuckled and patted my head. "A few minutes ago. You sounded like you were on roll, so I didn't want to break it up. You ready for the Purple Terror?"

With any luck, my knocks didn’t betray my anxiety. "Hell no."

"It's open!"

The library looked a lot like it did any other time I’d been there, and the book-hoard had changed little. On a cushion sat Twilight, who was surrounded by spare parchment and enough quills to make a pegasus’s wings twitch with discomfort. Come to think of it, that was the first time I’d visited the library and Twilight was already present.

There was also the usual overworked purple dragon, more books, mysterious mist rolling out from under a door I'd never used, a burgundy psychiatrist’s couch, and even more books. There was an odd smell to the smoke. It was familiar, but I couldn’t quite put a name to it.

"Twilight Sparkle, if you say 'and how does that make you feel,’ I'm going to scour my memory for the most poorly written clopfics, rewrite them, and then read them to you." My glare spoke of terrible things, of things that can not be unseen, of things that make you shudder if you randomly think about them during the day and choke if you're drinking something at the time. She flinched, but that may have been more about them being poorly written than subject matter.

"Do I want to know what a clopfic is?" She nervously chuckled and levitated a few psychology books back to their original places. "Well, have a seat and let's talk. Spike, you can go help Rarity now."

"Why am I suddenly glad I don't know what a clopfic is? And no, please don't tell me later." Dave absently browsed the shelves.

A small, scaly blur managed a "Hey, Gears." before it disappeared out the door.

Lying on the couch put me at eye level with Twilight, who was still sitting on the floor. "What about Zecora? Not that I'd mind if she knew with her whole wise-shaman deal."

"Don't worry about the smoke. Zecora set up down in my laboratory because it's better for her ingredients. I'm sure she wouldn't pry on such a private matter, but it's good to know you don't mind her being privy if it comes to that."

"Alright. What do you want to get over with first, Dr. Freud? The inevitable psychology or the Q&A about my old world?"

"Dr. Freud?" She absent-mindedly nibbled the end of the quill. "Human psychologist?"

"Before my time, but yeah, he was a famous one."

"Famous you say? What kind of work did he do?"

I snorted. "All you need to know is cocaine, sauerkraut, repressed memories, and penis envy." The lack of a blush made me frown. "Schlong envy." I’d have to remember that scientific names didn’t faze her. "You are way too easy to mess with, Twilight."

Dave elbowed me in the side, grinning. "Don't forget all males want to sleep with their mothers."

She huffed and hid her face behind the scroll as she wrote. "Can you please be serious about this? What did he actually do?"

"It wasn’t specific, but I wasn't really lying about any of that." The awkward silence was glorious. "New question, ask away."

"Alright, let's start with this. How well do you feel you are currently adjusting to life as a mare?"

Of course that’s what she wanted to talk about. They hear I’d been gender-flipped, and suddenly it’s all they want to talk about. "I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably have to say it again—I knew just about as much as being a stallion as I did a mare. Sure you could argue about still being male if I ended up as a stallion, but switching between species is more jarring in my opinion. Biped to quadruped? Omnivore to herbivore? Hands and feet to hooves? Beats the snot out of some dangly bits in my book."

Twilight let out a studious "Hmm" and glanced towards the books she had stashed earlier. "I can see how that might be. I know you’re sick of the question—we’re just concerned, alright?”

“Sorry, it’s just so frustrating hearing about it all the time. I want to know why—that’s it.” My hoof stomped hard on the last word, startling me as much as Twilight.

”Maybe if you’d actually deal with it…”

“There are some transformation spells that could change your species or gender, but they are all temporary as far as I know. Are you sure you didn't influence your new form in some way?" Her amethyst eyes flickered over various book titles out of reflex, and it took an act of will to turn her attention back.

"As sure as I can be. I didn't exactly have a make-a-pony switch on the doohickey I used to get here."

"Would you be able to rebuild this machine?" Twilight inched forward on her cushion.

"Ha!" Dave scoffed. "I'd like to see her go through that shit."

I couldn't help but laugh. Sure, she couldn't have known, but it was still too funny. "Not a chance in Tartarus. Even if I remembered everything I’d need to build it, I still wouldn't be able to do anything. The parts were very specific." While trying to come up with a suitable analogy, I heard a faint explosion and what could only be Zebrican cursing. We shared a good laugh with Zecora none the wiser. "Imagine a bag full of bits, and as far as you can tell, they're identical in every way. But you need just one of those bits. None of the others will work. It looks the same, weighs the same. Everything is the same. Except it apparently isn't, since only one of those bits works."

Twilight looked at me incredulously, her quill still quickly scratching on the parchment. "If they all appeared identical, how did you know which one you needed."

"Had hunches, followed hunches."

She groaned. "You're trying to tell me you built a device that let you transcend the barrier between realities using only your gut?"

"And explosives. And Rick." I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness for the friend that was lost during the trip through the void. Twilight looked confused. "He's a crowbar. Well, I didn't use them to build it exactly, but I used them to get the stuff to do so."

Dave sighed. "I miss Rick. He was a better conversationalist than you. No offense, I just never got the feeling he was ignoring me."

"What have your hunches helped you do in Equestria?"

"Haven't had any. It's really weird when you feel little twinges constantly, and then suddenly it's not there. I don't know what they were, but they saved my ass way more than they should have. Not that I'm not thankful, though. I like living."

"As do I." She chuckled and returned to nibbling on her quill. "Let's go back to where I mentioned spells that could have transformed you. The scanning spell used earlier was just quick diagnostic. I know one that’s much more thorough, and I could use it if you’d like. It may be our best chance of finding anything." 

"Whatever floats your boat, Dr. Princess."

She rolled her eyes before closing them and lighting up her horn. There was the mildest of tinglings, but that was it. Twilight's face was screwed up in concentration, her brow wrinkled like a disgruntled shar-pei's. I wondered what she could see while she was poking around in there, but she didn't react to any forced mental images.

"Still nothing." Twilight sighed and rubbed her head. "There is absolutely nothing affecting you. It’s the same results as earlier: you are just an ordinary earth pony mare. Celestia, Luna, and I are nearly one hundred percent certain of your origins, but wouldn't that mean you'd show up here as a human if there was no magic influence on you? How did you become a pony? And why a mare?"

"Sorry, Twilight, no clue. If it helps speed this along, I'm being completely honest when I say it doesn't bother me. I really don't get why that's so hard to understand."

Sighing, Dave pantomimed shaking me by the shoulders. "We don't understand either!"

Her head shook, the pink strip bouncing distractedly among her otherwise violet mane. "It's not hard to understand. We just want to make sure there aren't any more issues that need to be dealt with." She sadly mumbled, "Definitely seen more than your fair share of trauma."

“Twilight, I don't need pity, really."

"Well, there is something else that came up on the scan." She bit her lip nervously and refused to look me in the eye,

"Pony cancer? Arturian brain worms?"

"You're pregnant."

You could hear a pin drop, and nothing dared move. Even the smoke, that had been billowing out from under the basement door thanks to Zecora's work, had nearly frozen in place. I gulped. "What? But—but I didn't even have sexytimes! That's just… ew… get it out get it out get it out!"

Twilight slowly approached and wrapped me in a hug, cooing, "Shh, it's going to be alright. Would you like to know something?"

"You're going to Kali-ma the parasite out of my gut?" It would hurt, but I was willing to stomach the pain.

Dave chuckled grimly. "Any way I can get front row tickets for that?" That was a bit much, even for him.

"No." You could taste the tension in the air, like blueberries and peanut butter. She leaned in close and whispered, "That’s for calling me Princess Purple."

I groaned with the realization and Twilight toppled over in laughter, fortunately releasing me from the hug first. "Shit… you got me good." She had no idea she’d just declared war. I exhaled the breath I didn't know I was holding and slowly applauded by clopping my hoof on the floor.

"Hell yeah she did. Kudos to her for that one."

Suddenly, there was a noise that sounded suspiciously similar to an eavesdropping zebra losing her balance while laughing, then falling down the stairs. Dave and I laughed, while Twilight sighed and checked on her.

"She's fine, just a little bruised." She retook her seat and scribbled a few notes down. "You took that really well. The revealing part, not the announcement in the first place."

Using a prank during a psychological evaluation was a bit hard, by my standards. "Clever filly. Well, are we done with the mind probe yet?"

"More or less. We should have enough time left for you to answer a few questions. I don't quite trust the night just yet, even with Luna protecting it once again." Twilight nodded and unfurled the first of many question laden scrolls.

“How much did they tell you? I know I explained a bit to Celestia, and Luna learned a bit from dreamwalking.” And Dave, but Twilight wasn’t cool enough to know about him yet.

“More about the end of your world—” Twilight shivered like she’d just participated in a dunk-the-princess carnival game. “I’m sorry. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. More about the end than anything else. As far as I know, they wanted me to be the first to hear and record most of the information. I should have a list of questions somewhere around—”

"Wait, let me save you some breath and time. Get ready to write." I took a few deep breaths and launched into a half-planned tirade.

From me, Twilight Sparkle learned about Earth faster than she would have with wikipedia. I told her the basics of my old species and planet. She was dismayed she only got ten seconds to drool over the internet and frustrated my retelling of history was the abridged version of the original abridged version’s table of contents. The opportunity for revenge presented itself at the topic of omnivores.

“No need to make that face, Twilight. There’s nothing wrong with a species eating meat, is there?” It took everything just to avoid hurling myself, but a pyrrhic victory is still a victory. “Do you have a problem with gryph—” Noise refused to come out of my mouth as Twilight’s horn glowed.

“Shut up, Sterling.” She took deep breaths until she regained her composure, although she needed to pause again after nearly every sentence. “Most ponies don’t bat an eye if a species eats meat. I know you’ve met Applejack, but did you know they raise a couple pigs every year? They’re not just for garbage disposal, and you won’t find truffles anywhere nearby. If you’ll behave, I’ll tell you why it—why it makes me sick.”

The hold on my mouth faded the moment I nodded. “Silencing spells are cheating.”

“As you might know, I lived in Canterlot Castle before coming to Ponyville. One time when I was a filly, there was a mix-up, and I was delivered the meal originally intended for Ambassador Coalfeather, a gryphon.”

“Oh.”

“It gets worse. Ponies tend to get a little nauseous from eating meat in the first place, but Coalfeather’s favorite dish is—aged pork.”

“That’ll do it.”

“You didn’t hide your sickness very well. Why would it make you ill?”

“Because whenever I think of it, I get slapped with a memory of the sickest I’ve ever been.”

What remained of Twilight’s nausea vanished in an instant. “That’s interesting. So you’re saying that something about your transformation forcibly conditioned your sense of taste? If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know how I’d handle it if daisy and daffodil sandwiches made me sick. Can we get back on topic though?”

After lightly touching on war and the lack of magic, I got carried away explaining science. It was weird—things I couldn’t remember just started pouring out. I remembered a song detailing the periodic table of the elements, almost falling into laughter at Twilight’s wide-eyed expression halfway through. Only giving her a promise to explain further at a later time allowed me to continue.

Her quill’s tip broke during my examples of technology, and the poor thing smoked as she discarded it and grabbed a new one, motioning for me to start again.

It wasn’t much longer before I said, “I think I’ve scratched the surface of just about everything. Long story short: once upon a time on the not-so-magical-planet of Earth, there were a bunch of humans. Then they all got eaten by a bunch of zombies. The End. Can I get a glass of water? I'm dying over here." My throat was more parched than a salt flat in the Sahara.

"I'd say you covered most of your bases with that. Can't think of anything off the top of my head you missed. Well done."  Dave nodded. After the meat incident, he’d stopped wandering and sat down.

A stunned princess hoofed me a drink, which was promptly drained. "Thanks. There’s a tiny bit more, but that's the basics. This last part gets a little weird. And yes, I am aware of what I was just explaining. I know what you want to ask, and this next bit explains it, but I need to be absolutely certain you won't have an existential crisis, curl up in a ball and cry yourself to sleep, or end up enchanting another random object so that ponies fall in love with it."

What was Zecora doing down there? The familiarity of the smell was driving me nuts.

The last words woke her from her coma, and she glared at me. Twilight opened her mouth to tell me off, but closed it in the confusion. Then it flopped open and shut again, since she knew I would be answering that question as well. "Explain."

"No way. I'm going to need a Pinkie Promise, so you get a little more incentive not to break it. Just make sure not to poke yourself in the eye this time."

She scoffed. "I haven't done that in—" Her eyes widened. "Will you please stop that?" She sighed while I smiled. "Fine." She performed the Pinkie Promise with practiced precision, and I wasn't sure if I should have been proud or disappointed she didn't poke herself in the eye. "Now spill those beans."

"Alright, just remember your promise. Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend…" Both of us looked around in anticipation. It wasn't like Pinkie to miss her cue.

From behind the basement door came the sound of hooves on stairs. The door slammed open, and Zecora, slightly irritated, ushered out a very sheepish-looking Pinkie. The door abruptly closed behind the pink pony the moment she was clear.

"My bad." She shrugged and bounced towards the front door. "Must have took a wrong turn." We held back our giggles until she was gone.

"Oh, Pinkie." Twilight sighed wistfully. At least she’d finally learned not to question the Pie.

"Forever!" cried Pinkie Pie as her head popped out of an ink vial, causing both of us to jump, Twilight adding a yelp of surprise to the mix. "Good, glad we got that cleared up. Dave, you're coming with me, we've got some baking to do. Bye guys!" She gripped his hand with an iron hoof, and, despite his protests, yanked him back into the vial with her.

"Dammit, Pinks! This better not stain!"

It didn’t smell like Twilight had drugged my drink.

"Who's Dave?" she asked after a long silence.

Drawing as much drama as possible into my voice, I said, "'Tis not important. Princess Twilight Sparkle, it is time for me to tell you of the awesomeness that is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic."
> Who Let the Dogs Out? (And in Town?)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight Sparkle, newest alicorn of Equestria and probably the only one with obsessive compulsive disorder, sat enraptured as I recounted everything I ever knew about My Little Pony. She learned of nearly everything from that first day in Ponyville to the day she became an alicorn.

Her face mixed confusion, curiosity, and the slightest bit of fear, but as my explanation went on, she settled into a neutral expression Luna would have been proud of, although there was a hint of a smug smile when I mentioned everyone who saw the episode with the royal wedding knew she was right about Cadence being Chrysalis all along.

She stopped me to ask how what a television was and how it worked, and was then disappointed I couldn’t tell her everything about how they worked. Twilight was also unamused when I told her it was human magic.

I sang a few of the songs, namely "Winter Wrap Up" and "At The Gala," but the one that really drove my words home was "Celestia's Ballad," which Princess Celestia sang in whatever that weird place was where she told Twilight she'd been stalking watching her since that very first day. Then I told her about the birds and the bees to make sure she was still with me and received a telekinetic flick to the ear for my troubles.

Explaining bronies to her was more challenging, because while she was very familiar with the subject of the show, she had just learned it had fans. Twilight learned of conventions, fanworks, companies capitalizing on the fandom's zeal, and much more than she could have ever believed possible.

However, I did downplay the “dirty” side every fanbase possesses—I told her it existed and gave some vague examples, but that was all I felt like doing. Mostly because it brought up memories of things that made me blush, but it was also fairly high on my Things Not to Tell Royalty list, right below "Purposely Terrible Pickup Lines" and "Pull My Hoof." Also, it gave me curveballs to hit her with later.

Finally finishing, I took a deep breath and relaxed on my seat. It was the last of me rattling off incredibly lengthy explanations while Twilight threatened to ignite her scrolls from the friction of her quill's tip. My throat was hoarse, but it was a good feeling, like the satisfying ache after a day of hard labor.

The light of a late-afternoon sun streamed through the windows. Shadows were growing throughout the library, and it wouldn't be another hour before Twilight would have to turn on the magic lights. Still, the identity of that damn pungent stench eluded me, but it was definitely coming from Zecora's temporary abode. Twilight was emotionless, refusing to inform me if cover was necessary.

"Well?" I eventually asked, leaning forward slightly.

"Hmm."

Just "hmm." No panicking about a civilization that knew much of her last three years. No spamming every anti-scrying spell she could muster. No curling up into a ball and mumbling to herself. Just the sort of noise one would make when trying to decipher a strangely shaped burn on a piece of toast.

"You're taking this better than I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"Smartypants Incident?"

Twilight huffed. "I'll admit it's… weird to know this happened in a different universe, but altogether it looks like it’s barely more invasive than an unauthorized biography—I should know, I've found four about me so far. Even with the large following it garnered, it's not like they actually spied on our entire lives."

"Least you don't have to worry about anyone from my universe doing it again."

She sighed and shrunk back. "There is that. Even if there are more universes besides the two you've visited, and even if some of those hypothetical universes have the same show, book series, or whatever medium it appears in, I don't believe this is anything to be paranoid about." She clapped her hooves excitedly and gleefully added, "But look at all these notes I took! It will take me weeks to analyze all of it, and this is just the first day."

Her infectious glee soon had me smiling. "How different are things here than the show?" Granted, the only difference I really noticed was the changelings going around town unmolested, not that I had a problem with them.

Twilight's eyes rapidly scanned the multitude of notes, tossing aside each piece of parchment as she finished with it. "It seems the show was a bit nicer about certain things. For instance, Zecora's reception was a bit worse than what you saw—there's a reason she doesn't come to town much—and Gilda was much less friendly during her visit—two ponies were hospitalized."

Her eyes widened as she noticed the slowly diminishing daylight coming through the window. "Looks like we need to finish soon so you can get back to the Gem Hills before nightfall. Will you be available tomorrow? Our discussion took much longer than anticipated, but I'll adjust the schedule next time."

"Wait, I want to know why there's changelings living in Ponyville."

"They have just as much a right to live here as you do. They’re not the monsters you think they are." Her statement felt well-used.

"Not what I meant, Twilight. They only showed up in the show for two episodes, and they were all in the invasion force. I met Space Home the night I broke my leg. He was the one that sheltered the three of us."

"Star Poem. I'm sorry I assumed you thought they were monsters. It's just… less than a year has passed since the invasion, so it's still fresh in the minds of many ponies.” Twilight's hoof scuffed at the floor as she hung her head solemnly. "There's been some issues, violent ones, especially in Trottingham and Appleloosa."

Things couldn’t be hunky-dory everywhere in Equestria, but the news was still a splash of cold water to the face. "How many changelings are on our side now?"

"Almost a hundred. We have twelve here and most of them are situated in Canterlot, but there are a few scattered among other cities as well," said Twilight. "I can explain it in more detail tomorrow. When did you expect to show up?"

Mentally running through my schedule didn’t take very long. "Later on, I was thinking about taking some of the diamond dogs into Ponyville tomorrow so they could do some shopping and get used to being on friendly terms with the citizens, as well as get the citizens used to them."

"I think that's a great idea! But I don't know if everypony else will feel the same."

"That's why it'd be easier if you were there. Less of a chance of getting garbage thrown at us."

"Surely that wouldn't happen." My deadpan stare made her fidget. "But I'm very busy tomorrow, you see."

"Sleeping in?" Spike had told me several horror stories about Twilight in the morning.

Twilight nervously laughed and looked shiftily from side to side. "No, of course not. It's… princess… things."

With a snort, I tossed in the best method of bribing Twilight. "If you come, I'll make sure to bring Spot tomorrow. He's the closest the pack has to a historian and could tell you all sorts of things about the diamond dogs that nopony else knows." And thus, her internal struggle began.

Her mind pitted curiosity against the urge of sleeping in and pretending nothing existed outside her library. With a groan, she relented. "Fine. I'll be by before noon, so try to be awake." She grumbled, "We better still have coffee."

Another glance out the window told me there was still some time left, even if it meant cutting it a little close. “Have you had any luck with finding the missing ponies?”

The room’s mood plummeted. “No. Absolutely nothing I’ve tried has worked. There hasn’t even been any new knowledge about the specters since learning fire worked as well as magic.” She frowned as she looked at me, her voice as quiet as a church mouse trying to sneak into bed after being out late drinking. “It’s not your fault, you know.” My wince must have been noticeable. “There’s no proof you had anything to do with it.”

“You know the time frame is too much of a coincidence, not to mention I’m the only one who hears them in my head when they get close.”

Twilight’s wings flared and knocked some of her scrolls off the table. “What?”

Maybe I should have remembered to mention that to Luna. “It’s mostly just demoralizing screams. When they attacked that guard, it was so loud I almost couldn’t move.”

“That’s still not decisive evidence. You could just be hearing them because you used to be a diff—”

“You’re just grasping at—”

“And you’re just trying to heap the blame!” she half-shouted. “I won’t let you do that to yourself, Sterling. Self-loathing won’t help anypony.”

“Ponies are missing Twilight, you said it yourself. What am I supposed to do?”

“What else? Tinker. You’re an intelligent pony, Sterling. Those stun-patterns you designed have proven to be effective, and I know that’s not all you can come up with.” Her hoof gestured around the library. “There’s so much more you could create with the knowledge in some of these books. Do what you do best, and the rest will fall into place.”

“I—” She had a point, didn’t she? Two inventions was a good start, but there was always need for something new. “You’re right. I’ll save the self-loathing for afterward.”

“That’s not what I—whatever, we’ll deal with it then.”

“It’s future Twilight’s problem?”

“Because that’s making me confident.” She looked at the reddening sky through the window and sighed. “You need to go. It’s getting really late.”

Nightfall would miss me by seconds, but I could still make it. “Yeah. See you tomorrow morning.”

“Just stay safe and remember what I said. We can get through this, and we will find those ponies.”

The door was open before me, but I took the time to look back over my shoulder. “Count on it.”

It felt bizarre for the word “home” to actually mean something pleasant. Before, home had just been where all the supplies were stashed. No decoration, no personal touch, just me struggling to stay alive.

The slow trot evolved into a speedy gallop, and it felt exhilarating to have full range of motion once more. The sun set slowly, like Celestia was postponing the night as long as possible. Behind me, the moon was ahead of itself, and halted just above the horizon to watch its sibling descend.

The protection of the early moonrise was unnecessary, as the sun had just touched the horizon when home loomed in front of me. After quickly dropping my purchased goods in the now-empty building, I wandered down into the tunnels, sticking close to every source of light.

The feeling of safety from the previous night was still present, but there was also a growing tension lurking in the shadows. Some of the darkened tunnels whispered, but it was so faint I could almost believe it was just me imagining things. Almost.

Dave was waiting for me at the main cavern’s entrance, and his earlier abduction surprisingly hadn't covered him in ink. We chatted discreetly while I tracked down Spot and told him of my plans for tomorrow. He eagerly agreed to join me, though he was less interested about speaking with Twilight Sparkle and more about finally getting to try ice cream. Explaining my idea for fire-based defenses was met with some skepticism, but he grew more compliant as I went on, until he politely cut me off and told me it would be taken care of, chuckling about some plans of his own.

He agreed with my decision to get Fido away from the forge for at least a few hours, and scurried off. I felt a twinge of guilt for using him as a gopher all the time, but damn if he wasn't great at it. Predictively, Fido was working at the forge, but there was more than just him waiting for me.

"Is this what I think it is?" A hubcap-sized spool of brass-colored wire about as thick as a pencil sent a familiar tingle up my foreleg. Could it only be shaped into wire?

"Just as you asked, Beta. Fresh thaumite just for you. And my thanks to pony princess for good inferno crystal."

"You can tell her student tomorrow if you'd like. I'm sure she'd pass it on for you."

"Why she visit?" He drew himself up and balled his paws into fists. "We been good."

Dave sighed. "This is already going well."

"Relax, big guy. You, Spot, me and a couple more if they want to will be going into town just to do some shopping, and maybe catch a bite to eat."

He grumbled and I could feel a low rumble run through my legs. "Don't know. Ponies not like us."

"That's what we're trying to change. We'll show them there's nothing to be worried about." I patted his arm, noting it was like patting a fur-covered pillar. "Plus you need to get some fresh air now and then."

Casting a worried look back at the forge, he whined.

"It will still be here when you get back. I don't think anydog else is crazy enough to use your forge, don't you?" Though I was worried Pinkie might try to bake in it if she got bored.

With another whine, he reluctantly agreed. I told him to be ready early and then left with the thaumite in tow. Because of its weight, it had to be rolled the entire way instead of just balanced on my back, which inevitably led to more than one Sisyphian reminder.  Gravity wouldn’t stop me—the night was still young, and there was thaumite to play with.

Thaumite was more reactive than I remembered. It felt good to be working with the alloy once more, and though it wasn’t anything too serious, I’d be feeling some of those bruises and burns tomorrow.

With Dave's insistence, a dozen of the "Come to Life" spell patterns soon sat on the table. He didn't interrupt my random tinkering afterwards, but it still didn't help me stumble upon any new patterns. However, I did find several ways to create a small explosion or make my entire leg numb.  Sleep came to me eventually, but only when exhaustion and pain won over the rush of aimless building.


——


A rapid knocking at the door roused me from my dreamless slumber, and Twilight called out, "Gears? Are you in there?"

She jumped as the door opened, and I yawned while looking at the sky behind her. It couldn't have been more than an hour since sunrise. The cool morning air stole all sleep that remained.

Twilight could barely contain her eagerness and shifted her weight often. The tips of her folded wings came within an inch of the saddlebags covering her flank, containing enough paper to give an environmentalist a heart attack. I would owe Spot after today.

"Are you hurt?" Leaning to the side, she looked me over. "What happened?"

"Science happened. I just need to clean myself up a bit so I don't look like I just lost a bar fight with a candle."

That done, I jogged into the tunnels. "Follow me. I told them you were coming, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise." Twilight followed me eagerly, all thoughts of my injuries missing from her attention. She had a scroll ready, and the occasional silence between drips of water or distant echoes let through the scratch of a quill.

More than once, a diamond dog looked at my minor injuries, saw the princess, and aggressively started towards us before remembering the racket my work had caused last night. I had hoped for a few more in addition to Spot and Fido, but Balsa was the only one comfortable enough around ponies to join us. Twilight wasted no time in bombarding poor Spot with an arsenal of questions. He looked to me in fear, and I mouthed an apology.

Many stares greeted us in Ponyville, and many opened their mouths to address the princess before spotting her company. More ponies awaited as we went further into town, and their reactions didn't differ from their predecessors'. It was like a soundtrack comprised entirely of record scratches.

Two changelings gave us empathetic nods, but didn't react otherwise. I shared my pack's unease, and Twilight, oblivious to the tense atmosphere, continued asking questions as fast as Spot could answer them.

"Hey, Twilight," I whispered and nudged her. "Did you tell them diamond dogs were going to be visiting." There weren’t any ponies running around, screaming about an attack, so things were still going better than expected.

Twilight stopped mid-question, and I heard her infamous nervous laugh. "I may have forgotten in my excitement." She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Attention citizens of Ponyville. These diamond dogs are here as guests and should be treated as such. There is nothing to be afraid of, so please, return to your business." There were too few shameful faces, and all too many ponies grumbling creative insults.

"You sure this good idea, Beta?" Fido asked quietly.

"Yes, I'm sure there are some ponies around who aren't bigots," I said loud enough for a few of the closer ponies to hear.

"I'm sorry. If I would have prepared an announcement, we could have avoided this."

"Not really. They still would have done this, and you wouldn't have had time to alert them anyway with how early you must have gotten out of bed." Gone were the unfaltering, smiling faces and jovial laughter. All they had for the diamond dogs was suspicion and hate.

A minty green unicorn missing her usual companion waved nervously and approached. Twilight was visibly relieved when she didn't bow and instead just gave her a polite nod. "Princess."

Lyra swallowed audibly and looked up at the two towering diamond dogs, halfheartedly smiling at them. She eventually let out a weak "Hello."

They waved back and gave their own nervous greetings, and Lyra jumped when she noticed Spot. I sighed, wishing I could pinch the bridge of my nose. "Lyra, it's okay, they're just here to visit. Didn't Mayor Mare tell everypony about me and Pinkie being in charge of the pack?"

She snorted, her usual exuberance quickly returning. "That's a good one. Mayor Mare didn't say anything about that, just that we didn't have to worry about them anymore."

Twilight caught my annoyed glare and nodded. "I'll speak to her and make sure she tells the whole story."

"No way! It's true? I heard rumors from Pinkie, but you know how she is. That's amazing!" Lyra squealed as her eyes widened, proving it wasn't just Pinkie Pie who was possibly made of rubber. She stretched a hoof out to the diamond dogs. "Lyra Heartstrings."

They blinked in confusion, dumbfounded by the carefree pony and her foreleg. A sneeze alerted me to the crowd that had formed around us. Needless tension filled the air, and I rolled my eyes at the collectively held breath. "It's just a hoof-paw-whatevershake."

Spot was the first to return the gesture and introduce himself, Balsa then Fido following soon after. Apparently satisfied, the crowd dispersed, just in time for Pinkie to arrive on the scene with her welcome wagon. The other two ponies joined me in stepping to the side as she began singing, dodging the blast of cake batter that followed. I was pretty sure I saw gems in it, so dodging was an excellent idea.

"Welcome to Ponyville, you three!" Pinkie said to the stunned, batter-covered trio, small eyes blinking away the goop. "I'm so glad you got to show up, because that means more will come and then I get to give more welcomes and throw more parties, and oh my gosh there's going to be so many parties I need to get started right away. I can't wait to introduce the entire pack to Ponyville. Oh, look at the time, I have to put the muffins in the oven five minutes ago!" She grabbed the tail of a speeding, grey pegasus without her notice and waved goodbye.

"I will never get used to that. At least she didn't take me with this time."

"Pinkie Pie," said Twilight Sparkle as she shook her head. "Hold on, I'll get you cleaned up with some magic."

"Wait." Spot struggled to hold up a dripping paw. He licked off some of the batter and nodded. "Okay."

"So, Pinkie's in charge?" Lyra asked the newly cleaned diamond dogs incredulously. "How does that even work?"

"Do you want to be the one to get her to step down?" The diamond dogs shivered at my question, shaking their heads at Lyra. "She's doing a good enough job though. Where's Bon Bon? I think this is the first time I've seen you and not her."

"At work. I'm not allowed in the store when she's working, too distracting I guess. You usually show up after noon, what gives?"

"Just showing these guys around town. With the way things are, you'll probably be seeing more of them from time to time, so I figured it'd be good to start with a princess for an escort."

"Good idea, you almost had an angry mob on your hooves. And paws." She giggled.

"I guess I could see a pony using a pitchfork, but a torch? Not without using one of those freaky hooves they need to walk or just holding their head sideways while it's in their mouth."

"What?" Twilight gasped, dropping her quill.

"You didn't notice? Half of them were ready to fight."

"But that can't be right. They should know better than that." Her mind was actively refusing to see the townsfolk that violent, and the conflict showed.

A passing changeling snorted. "They should." Those two words ended Twilight's mental war, and she huffed but said nothing.

"So… did you have any plans for your tour of the town?"

"Twilight wanted to ask Spot questions until she either runs out of ink or his ears fall off—"

"Hey!"

"—Nothing specific for the rest of us though. Twilight?"

"I don't have that many questions… I really didn't think this through beyond showing up in town and requesting information." So much for her usual organization.

"Spot still hasn't had that ice cream you promised him the day you got out of the hospital." He pointed at the small figure.

Resisting the urge to nod at the more-or-less invisible human, I tried to piece together a suitable plan. “Twilight, do you know a good place to get ice cream?”

Spot perked up and looked to Twilight as she replied, “Yes, but why?”

“No why. Beta say ice cream good, so I want some.” He fidgeted as he looked around, no doubt trying to find the fabled treat.

“Easy, Spot. Twilight, you won’t find another diamond dog that knows more about their history than Spot. Also, I kinda promised I’d get him some ice cream. While you do that, the rest of us will go around town to mingle and shop or whatever. There shouldn’t be much of a problem if Lyra’s with us.”

“Yep, nopony’ll cause trouble with me around!” It was hard to tell if she or Spot was more excited.

“And after that, Lyra will lead all of you to the parlor. Not exactly the place I would have chosen for a diplomatic milestone, however small it is.”

“You can pick where to go next time this sort of thing happens.” I smirked at Twilight, then looked to the rest of the group. “Any questions?” They remained silent except for Spot and Lyra’s inability to stand still. “Awesome. Let’s go.”

Things went smoothly, oddly enough, and aside from the constant staring and murmurs, the open hostility had pretty much vanished. Balsa took a liking to hats, much to the amusement of the hatter, and purchased four garish ones to wear simultaneously, much to everybody's amusement. Fido grumbled about being away from his forge, but didn't deny he was enjoying himself.

Lyra took her role as tour guide as seriously as she could, which is to say she zipped around at a nearly impossible pace and enthused about everything. She wasn't as random or off the wall as Pinkie, but with how much energy she had, I wouldn't be surprised if they shared the same sugar intake. Also, it seemed the hoofshake had gone a long ways with the other townsfolk, and some of them even gave meek hellos as we passed.

Dave ended up finding various ways to amuse himself, most of which would have been inappropriate if anyone else could see him. It's just like they say: invisibility makes you an asshole.

As we passed the “eye-catching” colors of Carousel Boutique, a small sign had been tacked onto the door. Rarity, while still trying to keep her script elegant, had quickly scribbled, "Closed Due to Fashion Revolution." The faint sounds of the dramatic unicorn working frantically came from within. Fido hurried us onward with fear in his eyes, insisting there was nothing we could want in such a place.

When they had their fill of the town, Lyra led us to an ice cream parlor called Frosty Flavors. The white-and-blue building was a little smaller than Sugarcube Corner—while they couldn't have easily rented the place out for parties, there was still ample room for the booths and a bar. Two unused benches sat in a small area to the right of the building, their matching color scheme the only indicator they were intended for customers who wished to enjoy their treat outside.

Pony furniture continued to baffle me. While the beds and many of the chairs were reasonably shaped for ponies, there was still the occasional piece of furniture, like the booths in this restaurant, that could not have been designed with equine shapes in mind. 

Behind a counter covered with labelled jars full of toppings, an orange unicorn's eyes widened in shock as two ponies entered with two diamond dogs ducking through the doorway behind them. He cast a quick glance over at two of his current patrons before he gave the four of us a sincere grin. "Welcome to Frosty Flavors, what can I get you?" He gestured towards a glass window over several, labelled tubs of frozen goodness.

A laugh escaped as I spotted the large corner booth where Spot and Twilight sat. Four empty bowls stained with varying flavors of ice cream wobbled dangerously as a tan-furred paw added a fifth to the stack and patted his belly with a content sigh. I really hoped none of them were lactose intolerant. Ventilated or not, I didn't want to be stuck in a cave with that. The purple pony sitting across from him was still engrossed in her notes and didn't notice us until she saw Spot wave.

"Thanks for showing them around, Lyra." Twilight called out to the clerk as she waved us over, "They're with us, Mr. Stripe."

He nodded back to her. "Sure thing, Twilight. Well, if you folks are as new to this as your friend, keep in mind this stuff is colder than a winter night in the Crystal Empire. You eat too fast, you get brainfreeze, simple as that. If you're curious about something, I'd be glad to let you have a sample. No sense in ordering something you dislike after all."

"Isn't chocolate poisonous to dogs?" Dave asked from behind the counter, pointing down to the rich brown tub of ice cream.

I looked over the ten tubs of ice cream. "Can you guys eat chocolate?" Balsa and Fido shrugged. "Hey Twilight, can diamond dogs eat chocolate?"

"Yes. There's no indication it has the same effects as on smaller canines, and their innate fortitude would keep them healthy, even if it was toxic to them."

"Awesome. I'll take a two scoops of raspberry in a co—bowl. In a bowl." Wasn’t even going to try and figure out how I'd carry the cone to the table, let alone eat it. I didn’t have a raspberry problem, I could quit whenever I wanted. "You guys feel free to take as long as you need."

Getting ice cream: awesome. Getting ice cream scooped and floated over to you by magic: double awesome.

"Good choice of place, Twilight." I'd missed ice cream more than I thought and had to fight back a delighted moan. It meant nothing to me that it needed to be eaten straight from the bowl.

"Mr. Stripe's a nice stallion. He didn't bat an eye when the changelings moved in, so I figured he wouldn't have a problem with diamond dogs."

"Of course not." The aforementioned unicorn scoffed. "Long as they like ice cream, who am I to complain? Still no luck on that love-flavored ice cream for the changelings though. They like the other stuff just fine, but they would be lining up all the way to Canterlot for it if I could just get the recipe right." While curious, I knew better than to ask at this point.

"Did you get the answers you wanted out of Spot?" Brainfreeze did nothing to slow me down.

"Oh yes, he's rather informative with a bit of incentive." Twilight smiled at the stack of dirty bowls.

Spot burped. "Ice cream good."

They didn't match Spot's gusto, but the other two diamond dogs enjoyed their ice cream as well, opting for a medley of flavors and toppings in their indecision. Lyra, surprisingly, had just two scoops of vanilla. No toppings, no sauces, just two round spheres of white ice cream.

White Stripe—he'd gladly told me his first name, insisting that he didn't need more who called him Mr.—was glad to join in on our menial conversations between the occasional customer. Twilight even packed away her writing supplies and joined in, laughing at the anecdotes and sharing a couple of her own. Apparently, Rainbow Dash's methods for training Twilight were very ineffective… and painful, but as Dash often told her, "Gotta slow down somehow."

The three diamond dogs were eager to share their adventure with their packmates, and the next day six of them came with, without Twilight's protection, on my way to get grilled about biology of all things.

If anypony thought more dogs was a sign of trouble brewing, they didn't act on it, and by day four, the pack didn't need me at all to visit Ponyville. No idea how it happened, but it might have had something to do with an apology letter from Mayor Mare that Pinkie had delivered one of the days she stopped by.

Several of the dogs voiced their concerns about their Alpha's infrequent visits, but I managed to convince them just how busy she was. Between work, parties, and being Pinkie Pie, she had a heaping plate as it was. Heck, I couldn't remember a time outside the party where she was around for more than a few minutes. They begrudgingly accepted the explanation, but they’d need a better solution eventually.

Vinyl came by one of the days, but she didn't spend much time away from Octavia now that she was back in town. Truth be told, nearly everypony was reluctant to go outside when the sun wasn't plainly visible. Tall Order was a bit easier to find and hang out with—he had picked up a temporary bartending job in town while his nightclub was still too dangerous to reach in the dark.

Thankfully, Twilight didn’t need to be educated every day. Sometimes, we spent the entire day trying to come up with a method to track the missing ponies or fight the creatures. We spent hours buried in book after book, with new ones being delivered nearly every day, but there was never any progress. She refused to let me fiddle with thaumite when we were researching: light one book on fire and suddenly you’re a villain.

Twilight continued to bother me about reading all of those books she’d set aside—her pestering intensified when she found out about the bookcase delivered to my home. The one on marehood remained unopened—it made me shiver each time I so much as looked at it.

Each night, hours were spent tinkering with thaumite, teaching myself to mine with an overly large pick, or chatting with Dave. It turned out that my current supply was ridiculously plentiful and was enough to last about six months if used properly. No doubt it would be only a month before my stock ran out.

It was hard to focus on creating anything new—the tension I felt was only growing stronger and stronger, and with it came the voices in the darkness. The creatures didn't appear, but it would only be a matter of time. The uneasy feeling growing within distracted me constantly, and I slipped up on simple tasks many times. Fortunately, it wasn't like I could get any worse at digging.

Though they couldn’t hear the voices, the pack felt something and grew irritable, snapping at each other over the smallest things. Even Dave couldn't hear them, and that's what truly spooked me. I refused to mistake the warning for something benign and requested as many patrols as we could afford without stretching ourselves thin. Meanwhile, I threw together blasting rods as quickly as I could, promising to invest time later in finding a way to not burn out the thaumite.

I really should have known better, but I couldn't help it. Even with the foreboding feeling, I went to bed one night with the misplaced confidence that I'd finally found a safe routine.

“Beta! Beta! Wake up! We under attack!” The world churned as Meeko shook me awake, screaming in my face the entire time. My thoughts were more difficult to unravel than a tangled Slinky covered in oil, but I managed to roll out of bed and run after him. I had a feeling that some of us weren’t going to see the next morning.
> Army of Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The jumbled plethora of thoughts racing through my mind in a tangled blur waited to free and prioritize themselves until I'd followed Meeko into the tunnels. We were under attack, and although I didn't catch who he said was responsible, it could only be that the creatures had made their move. Hopefully, the defenses would survive their trial by fire.

Two diamond dogs waited above the tunnel entrance, surrounded by blazing braziers and supporting a cauldron they tipped over after we ran past. Fire sealed the exit as one casually tossed a torch onto the sticky fluid.

Where the light was spotty, shadows flickered as if fearing the unnatural darkness writhing in the tunnels. Voices screamed at me alone as we ran past lost pathways, the noise grating on my mind like coarse sandpaper on clay. After the first glance down a tunnel, I kept my widened eyes focused on the path ahead. Within the darkness, I could see so many pairs of eyes, but it wasn't a glint of light, quite the opposite. Each pair was nothing more than two points that further pushed the definition of absolute darkness, bringing a twist to the phrase "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."

Meeko's lantern bounced wildly as he awkwardly ran with his remaining three limbs. Over the padding paws and loud hoofsteps, you could barely hear the rattle of the lantern's iron.

And over Meeko's pained yelp, you could barely hear the lantern clatter to the ground as a hulking, shadowy figure rushed out of a passage and checked him into a wall. Wasting no time, it grabbed his legs and dragged him back towards the darkness, Meeko's panicked claws leaving long furrows in the rock. "Beta!"

Dave winced and retreated towards me. "These ones are more physical, that's for sure. I know you've noticed it's definitely not a pony, and you know what that means."

We’d already lost at least one.

The figure halted as a bolt of magic ripped into it, vaporizing a large chunk. My practice with the blasting rods had paid off: the recoil barely affected me when the force of the spell took the useless thaumite out of my hooves. Not expecting to be done with just one shot, I quickly loosed two more before Meeko was able to scramble away from the far-too-close wall of black, shivering in the warmth of his lantern. But I wasn’t going to lose this one too.

"Gears… that one looked at me the first time you hit it. How did that one look at me? How can they know I'm here?" Dave stammered as he drew even closer, pressing up against my side. I couldn't feel him there, obviously, but I was glad to let him use me for support.

"We need to hurry." I knelt down and let Meeko throw his arm over my back. He was still too tall for me to support him on the move, but I could at least help him get off the ground.

Meeko nodded, still shivering, and hobbled off, doing his best to run with two numbed limbs. He wanted to speak, but his teeth were chattering too loudly for him to even attempt. He glanced longingly at the lantern’s flame before shaking his head with a grunt.

The clamor behind us grew, and I foolishly risked a glance to find dozens of the smaller creatures stumbling over each other in the light. Black smoke rose from them with a sizzling sound as they endured the painful light to catch their prey, the creature’s muttering and howling sharing the same volume. Each was discernible if focused upon, but also congealed into a writhing mass that was the substance of nightmares.

A potent-smelling pool of liquid spanning the width of the tunnel splashed under us. A fair distance ahead, we trudged through another and threw ourselves into the main cavern as the tunnel opened up, welcoming the sight of a couple dozen diamond dogs armed with torches.

"Now!" barked Spot, brandishing his flagon like a commander would a saber.

Flames roared across the tunnel as the liquid ignited, adding the satisfying crackle of flames to the din. Both puddles, their connection highlighted by a trail of fire along the wall, combusted and trapped the horde between two fiery barriers.

Where simple torches had merely repelled them, the walls of flame visibly injured the ones who were too close, and soon a mass of huddling figures howled and thrashed at their confinement.

"Barrel!" Spot ordered with another wave of his flagon, splashing ale as he did so.

Two guards rolled a barrel until it was just a few metres away. One of them rammed a tap into the barrel and then quickly pulled it back out. Then, the two of them gave the leaky barrel a strong shove and backed off as it sped past the first barrier.

Not long afterwards, splinters of smoking wood sprayed the area as the barrel exploded in a massive fireball, and I could only grin. It was good to know rock ale was more flammable than gasoline. The voices cut off instantly, leaving behind the sound of cheering diamond dogs and roaring flames.

"Beta!" Spot said as he padded over to me and patted my side. "Good to see you safe. You like idea?" He smiled as he gestured proudly towards the flames and a stack of several barrels.

The tan-furred dog yelped in surprised as I hugged him. "Very much. I think you actually killed that group."

"They are most definitely gone. I can feel it, I guess. But I want to know: was it the heat or light that hurt them?" Dave wondered aloud, scrutinizing the rapidly dying flames. "I don't think they'll fall for that trap forever though."

"Spot, what's the full extent of our defenses?"

"Two dozen dogs here for barrels and pitch." He pointed at the cauldrons hanging above each tunnel by a net of chains. A pair of diamond dogs manned each one, nervously keeping their torches as far from the flammable liquid as possible. Fido gave a small wave from one of the cauldron teams. "Two dogs and more pitch at exits."

"What about air holes? I don't want to die to them, but I don't want to suffocate either."

"Two dogs on those too. Dark ponies have no escape, only fire." Spot chuckled sadly as they rolled a barrel into another trap. "Sad to see booze go though."

"How many… how many have we lost?"

"Four. We can't take lost tunnels back."

"How much is lost?"

"Half. The deep half."

"Half..." I sighed. I didn't even want to know how many could have been down there with us, and we would be screwed when the pitch ran out. "We're going to need help."

"Who help us? All dogs defending."

"With any luck, Ponyville will still be safe. I need two dogs to get there fast and alert Pinkie Pie and Twilight so she can get a hold of Canterlot. Tell Twilight first though, you remember her?"

"Yes. She nice pony. Buy lots of ice cream for Spot. Who you send?"

The first one came to me quickly. "Balsa. She's been there before, so she'll be recognized, and she can dig through that last little bit of tunnel the quickest."

Spot shouted an order to two of the nearby dogs, telling one of them to switch out Balsa's role on a sentry team—the other would be an escort there and back. "And?"

"So you're going to have two diamond dogs burst out of the ground in middle of town and rush to the Princess's place? I'm sure that will go over well."

Each dog’s strengths and weakness ran through my mind. The past few days had taught me quite a bit about them, and I only had the occasional spot of trouble mixing names, like the parents of quadruplets. I'd need a dog who could communicate properly, and only “Reginald” fit the bill. "Western Agate." I noticed the hint of a scowl as I made my decision. I’d have to deal with that drama later. "He can speak the most clearly, no offense. There's guards around Ponyville now, so we need to make sure we send a dog who can say what's going on."

Luckily, West was already nearby, running supplies to where they were needed. I waved him over to tell him his new task. "Of course, Beta. I am ready to leave when Balsa arrives. What do we do if Ponyville is under siege as well?"

"Bring back any help you can get. If not, we'll make do." It felt terrible lying to them after all they'd done for me, but good leadership didn’t include telling them to kiss their asses goodbye. He didn't notice my bluff, giving a curt nod before clasping his paws together and waiting for his partner.


——


"Do you think they made it yet?" Only three of my blasting rods remained. There was no way to tell how much time had passed, but they only needed to last until help arrived. I should have made three times as many, or maybe making them three times as big would be a better idea.

The alcohol was gone, but the pitch fires were still going strong. Unfortunately, the flames alone couldn't stop the largest of the shadow creatures, shrugging off the flames like they were nothing. Two had attacked so far, so it was safe to assume one was still out there, waiting to strike. There was no doubt they were supposed to soften us up for the smaller ones.

Little else had changed save the addition of a cloth-draped body—Ravel took a punch from the first to make it through and had landed on his own axe. We had refused to let the second one catch us off-guard.

"Still not know." He slapped the flagon away as he caught himself trying to drink out of it again.

It was the last bit of alcohol in the entire cave system—even the unfinished stuff in the stills was gone—but he refused to just gulp it down. He didn't need blasting rods or burning pitch to cause damage. All he needed was a mouthful of booze and an open flame—a lesson of tipsy fire taught painfully to the two behemoths.

"What I don't get is why they're just charging at us like this. Yeah, they have the numbers, but they were almost using strategy back before we fixed up your dreams." Dave and I had been discussing the creatures as best as we could, but the moments I could safely whisper to him were few and far between.

"Yeah, like I said, they can't handle the normal night." There wasn't much any of us could do besides remain vigilant.

"But still, just rushes? Maybe… maybe they don't have any other options. It sounds like we have them confined to the deepest caves, somehow. They know we aren't coming to them."

"So they just throw shit at us until we run out. It’s a war of attrition," I whispered back and sighed, trying to massage some of the pain out of my right foreleg. My body ached from firing so many blasting rods. While the strain put on me had lessened with my developing technique, they still packed quite the punch, and the occasional fragment would hit me instead of just scattering harmlessly. Most hits had resulted in bruises, but there had been a few nasty cuts requiring immediate first aid.

"Definitely seems like that's the plan. We can't hold out forever, and who's to say those big ones are even tied to the missing diamond dogs? Don't give me that look, just think of the possibility that it might not be that."

"I don't want there to be one more out there. They're the real threat for now, and I don't want to think about what would happen if we had hundreds to contend with." I shuddered at the thought of those things rampaging through Equestria. There could only be one reason I kept shaking.

"Drums," Spot breathed, "drums in the deep… they are coming."

"Let them come. There are many dogs yet in here who still draw breath," I said solemnly as I took aim once more, swivelling between the tunnels, trying to figure out which one it would burst from. Inside, I may have been chuckling at Spot’s set-up for a reference.

With a roar that shook stones loose from the high ceilings, a specter twice the size of the others stomped into the cave, and with a single swipe, scattered the two diamond dogs and empty cauldron over the entrance. Stunned from the sheer size of the thing, it took precious moments to clear my head and aim for his, firing at its eyes the moment my shot lined up.

It took a step back from the deadly shot, but other than that, the blast was as damaging as a strongly worded letter. I swore loudly and fired again as it charged forwards, striking it in the shoulder and hurting it even less than my first shot.

"Move, kid!" Dave shouted as he scrambled out of its path.

I couldn’t move yet—I had one more shot. All sound faded as I aimed one last time. Each paw striking the ground felt like my own heartbeat. The creature bore down on me, shoving aside any diamond dog unlucky enough to remain in its path. It raised its abyssal arm to swing, and I fired.

Just as the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, so do the poorly laid plans of reckless ponies. The air rushed from my lungs as the creature swatted me aside like a bear slapping a piñata, pain and ice flaring across my side from the impact. The stone floor ripped my side apart as my body skipped across the ground, stopping only when it crashed into a stalagmite.

The blurred shape of a diamond dog approached me as a blizzard raged in my chest, throwing icicles further into my body with every pained breath. Heavy coughing spattered the ground with crimson.

While painful in its own right, the cold numbed the pain of the impact. Unfortunately, it lessened with each moment, and that meant the searing pain of cracked ribs grew steadily. Distantly, I could hear the yelps of the pack as they tried to tend to the wounded and dispatch the creature.

"Beta! Stay down. You hurt." A mahogany paw gently stroked my mane.

Squinting, I could just barely make out who was crouched near me. "Balsa? When did you get back?"

"Now. Pony princess should be right behind."

"I thought Twilight would just stay in—"

"Your kind has terrorized my subjects long enough! Begone from this place, demons!" Celestia stormed into the cavern, her terrifying voice empowered by ancient magic.

I could scarcely look at her, such was the blinding power she radiated. A pissed Celestia was a terrifying Celestia. Rays of light blazed forth, striking whatever she set her wrathful gaze upon. And just like that, the behemoth was vanquished, dissolving with a shriek of pain like a Furby stuffed into a blender.

"Now that is a cavalry." Dave grinned, applauding the lightshow.

Balsa helped me stand in time to see a group of guards take defensive positions near the darkened tunnels. Some of the unicorns split off to assist in medical aid, and one such granite-colored guard galloped to me.

"Hold still, this won't take long," he said, motioning for Balsa to lay me down.

After clearing the dirt and gravel—and one stubborn piece of burnt thaumite—my slide had picked up, he tightly wrapped thick bandages around my barrel. He even redid the hasty first aid from earlier. "That should do it. Just some broken ribs and cuts, Miss. I used a spell to speed up recovery, so you'll be good as new in a week or so. Just take it easy until then."

I grunted my thanks to him and made my way to where Princess Celestia stood with a glare that could rout armies. Some small instinct screamed for me not to speak with somepony so powerful, but every other instinct rolled their eyes at that nonsense.

It was as bright as day in the cave, like we weren't even underground in the first place. The attack had claimed two more diamond dogs, Tunn and Erga, and injured nearly all the others. Pinkie Pie—still in her checkered pajamas—had arrived with the guards and bounced around, doing her best to cheer up the dogs crestfallen over the casualties.

"Sterling Gears." Celestia, still slightly glowing with energy, addressed me with a tone at odds with her expression. "I pray the next time we meet will be under better circumstances."

"And without me being injured." Chuckling sent a stab of pain through my side. "Thanks for the save."

"Think nothing of it. My sister and student both send their regret for not being able to tend to this themselves. They were both needed elsewhere."

"So what now? The fires we have trapping them in the tunnels won't last forever, but for now they're contained."

"That is good to hear. I believe we must press the advantage while we possess it. Perhaps we can exterminate this enemy once and for all."

"I'm all for that. I'm fresh out of blasting rods, though, so there's not much I can do."

"Then you shall rest. However, I will need some of your pack to act as guides."

"I don't know who is best suited for that, but I know somedog who will." At my call, Spot limped over. "Spot, Princess Celestia wants to clean out the creatures for good, so she needs the best guides we have."

"At once, Beta." Spot warily eyed the princess, doing his best not to let the terrified shudders overcome him.

"They respect you a great deal," Celestia said with a satisfied smile. "You are only second-in-command in name, it seems. I never would have expected you to be in such a role."

"You and me both. Has Luna made any headway on her research?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Nothing notable. The creature is quite enigmatic. We can confirm these creatures are tied to the missing ponies—the energy signatures are similar to the ones masking their trail."

"Me and Twilight couldn’t figure out anything new either. Didn’t we all figure they were behind it in the first place?"

"Yes. It was the obvious conclusion, but we needed to be certain some other force wasn't taking advantage of the situation to abduct ponies." She took notice of Spot approaching again, this time with three diamond dogs in tow. "I must bid you farewell, it seems Spot has located the scouts. I promise I will return them safely."

"Toodles," I said, teasing a chuckle from her. I wished she would have patched me up again—the injuries hurt far more than my leg had when she fixed that.

That done, the pack needed me. Most of us were injured, but nothing more serious than broken bones or concussions. The pack showed a lot of concern for my injuries, even the dogs that were worse off than me. Having Pinkie bouncing around, passing out cupcakes and hugs did wonders for morale, and it was amusing to see they had all adapted to her shenanigans so readily.

Celestia took all but two unicorns with her when she disembarked, extinguishing one of the barriers and joining in the salvo of magic bombarding the waiting darkness. Occasionally, we heard the echoes of her voice bouncing through the tunnels, and we could tell things were going well for the princess and her forces.

Her attack was a resounding success, and the sentries confirmed none had escaped. The caves were safe again. And there was much rejoicing. Yay.

The darkness had boiled away before them, powerless against the trained guards and princess launching beams of light and magic. As such, there were no further casualties.  How they’d gotten a hold down there in the first place was still a mystery. Before she left, Princess Celestia promised me she'd have Luna send word of any breakthroughs.

I stayed with the pack that night, partly because it was my responsibility but mostly because they didn't feel it was safe to let me out of their sight just yet. Pinkie stayed too, declaring it a slumber party and promptly smacking Spot aside with a pillow. However, pillows weren't made to be wielded by diamond dogs, and soon, feathers littered the area.

The next day, we tended to the dead. It was a somber, quiet ceremony, and I almost broke the mood with a gasp when it came time to bury them. When they had told me the dead would be returned to the earth, I wasn't expecting something so literal. The corpses sank slowly into the stone while the pack lamented their loss with mournful howls. Afterwards, I presided over a ritual that involved Spot engraving their names in the Hall of Memories, more than tripling the length of the list.


For two nights, I split my efforts between mass producing blasting rods and researching ways to make a battery to store magic. My thinking was that a reservoir and a choke would allow me to use the blasting rods far more than just once. Nothing held magic very well though, and more often than not, it just dissipated into the air.

"What lets thaumite hold magic so well?" Dave asked, massaging his head in frustration. "We've been at this for hours and have nothing to show for it."

Storing it in extra thaumite was my first try, but any shape large enough to hold magic disrupted the spell it was attached to. "Maybe it has something to do with the metals in the alloy."

"Yeah, that might make sense. Aluminium and tungsten should be the next thing you try. Have Fido whip up a couple batches of just them and run some magic through it."


My ribs felt a little better with each day, but they still served as a reminder to not let my guard down. And not to stand in the path of something five times my size, but that particular lesson wouldn’t be forgotten anytime soon.

There had been a similar attack in the Crystal Empire on the same night as the one in the caves. Well, not so much an attack as a horde of shadowy figures throwing themselves against Shining Armor's barriers, which were far more effective than when he was being drained by Chrysalis.

While the night was still safer than it had been, the creatures had begun appearing on the fringes of society, waiting for any prey foolish enough to leave behind the safety of light. Travelling between cities was still too dangerous, and it was extremely difficult to learn how they were faring.

Word had spread in Ponyville of the attack and how we'd stopped it in its tracks long enough for Princess Celestia to show up. The townsfolk were much more welcoming of the diamond dogs, even going as far as throwing a celebration—planned by Pinkie Pie, of course.

Three days after the attack, there still wasn’t any progress on producing a magic battery. I'd read through about half of the books Twilight had set aside, constantly pushing the marehood guide further back in the pile.

Twilight had been busy practicing flight with Rainbow Dash yesterday, when I'd originally planned to ask her for suggestions on my research. Today though, she should have been free to give me a hoof with the two metal samples. A breakthrough was so close. I could feel it.

In town, there was a caravan of three covered wagons streaked with ash parked in front of City Hall. Exhausted ponies sat despondently, staring off into the distance or stifling sobs. Terror was all that waited in their eyes, and more than one had burns covered in dusty bandages.

I approached one that looked responsive, a tan earth pony with a cactus for a cutie mark, and asked, "What's going on?"

He looked through me and sighed, shaking his head and looking away. Only then did I notice he was shaking with more than fatigue—fear permeated him and his companions, spilling forth into the air like miasma.

A large creature with a coat of fur colored like a grizzly's stood nearby. Two large feathers had been tied into the shaggy fur behind its head.While its eyes shared the same weary look of its companions, there was still a tenacious spark of life. I had to wonder what a buffalo was doing all the way in Ponyville.

"Hey, you look like you'll talk. What happened that's got all of you so shaken up?" I was starting to get a little worried. The buffalo held their land as sacred, so whatever brought this one here must have been bad.

At first, he blinked in surprise, like he hadn't expected a pony to notice him, but then he turned and spoke in a low, rumbling voice laden with sorrow. "My tribe is destroyed and Appleloosa is lost, burned to the ground while the darkness itself claimed the citizens. What hope is there with such an evil baying in the night?"
> Tree Insurance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the day had started, I'd expected it to be just like the previous two. The weather would be mostly pleasant, a fair amount of clouds in the sky, and a bit of a nippy chill in the early morning. I would check on the pack and make sure things were still running as smoothly as possible with half the pack injured. Then, I'd wander into Ponyville later in the day with samples of aluminium and tungsten in order to run some experiments on them with Twilight Sparkle. For the most part, the day met my expectations.

The news of Appleloosa's destruction was a slap to the face with a cold cod.

All I could do was blink dumbly at the buffalo who had shared it with me. The scant few haggard ponies and buffaloes moping around the caravan were all that was left, save for a couple that were explaining things in the town hall.

The sheriff? Gone. He'd been jumped at the beginning of it all. Chief Thunderhooves? Also gone. His ill-fated charge had brought his doom. Appleloosa had already been suffering from a drought, and as such the usually dry area was as parched as the deadest desert. A single dropped torch was all it took to set the town ablaze, and in the chaos, this little band of covered wagons had slipped away with its precious cargo, travelling nonstop to reach Ponyville.

Applejack looked panicked as she rushed past, taking only a moment to look over the survivors before rushing into the town hall, almost losing her trademark Stetson as she galloped up the stairs. She was probably looking for Braeburn, who I could only hope had made it.

My hooves moved of their own accord and led me away from the dismal area while thoughts drowned out everything else. Appleloosa is lost. I'd heard that phrase before with a hundred other cities. Chicago, Madrid, Delhi, and so many others fallen to a horde they stood no chance against, and despite my previous experiences, the news of Appleloosa was a fresh wound separate from the old patch of scars.

Much to my chagrin, it wasn't the loss of life that saddened me. It wasn't grief I felt—it was despair. Despair that this was just the beginning. My melancholic thoughts were interrupted when I headbutted a tree.

I blinked and looked up at the arboreal library, which had been abruptly placed in my path. From within came the sound of rustling papers and a muffled "Coming!"

"There are better ways to knock." With an amused smile, Dave leaned against the rotund tree. Unlike me, he'd remained unscathed from last night's skirmish, and his jacket and hat were as clean as ever.

The chuckles made my muzzle ache even more. "Maybe, but it gets old." An alicorn with bags under her eyes picked that moment to open the door, and a loud yawn interrupted her forming greeting. "Sheesh, Twilight. You didn't go back to bed last night or something?"

She slowly shook her head and yawned again. "Couldn't fall back asleep. There's so much to look through. Did you hear about Appleloosa?" She stepped aside to let me in, almost stumbling over a wayward pair of books.

"Yeah, saw them outside the town hall on my way here. There had to be something we could have done to stop it."

"Ponyville would have likely been attacked as well if your pack had been overrun. Everypony owes all of you for their safety." The two of us took a seat, and when Twilight noticed I didn't have anything to add, she asked, "So, what brings you here today? Did you think of something else from your old world you wanted to discuss? Or should we pick up right where we left off on research?"

"Nothing like that." Twilight's pout was a sucker punch to the heart, and I quickly averted my attention to remove the metals from my bags. "I still haven't made any progress on developing a way to store magic, so I brought some samples to test how well they conduct energy. Unless there's already a battery for it."

"There are a few extremely rare crystals that can, but you have practically no chance of getting your hooves on them. I can help for a bit, but I need to get back to researching the voidlings."

"Voidlings?"

"Right, you couldn't have known yet. Luna coined the term during her studies. It's actually quite a fascinating creature. Just think, a creature that resides in the dreamscape."

"I'm not as fond of it as you are," I said with a chuckle. "The name fits though."

Twilight flinched like something had just been thrown at her. "I'm sorry, I should have—"

"Sheesh, Twilight, relax." I set the two hoof-sized lumps of metal on the table and pushed them towards her. "If we can figure this out, I'm sure I can find a way to give blasting rods more dakka." I was a little worried when she didn’t bat an eye at “dakka.”

"Not to mention all the other applications this could apply to."

"I'll focus on those after these things are gone."

She sighed and levitated the samples, examining them with a magnifying glass. "I suppose you have a point. It's just a shame to see all these breakthroughs immediately applied to weaponry. There's so much that could be done."

"What are you going to do to test them?" While there was no fixation on weapons in general, I still had a soft spot for my previous creations.

The glow around the aluminium intensified for a few moments, and when it dimmed the tungsten lit up. "Just a little bit of channelling. Did you happen to bring any thaumite with you? I'd like to make some comparisons."

“Never leave home without it.” She took the tiny spool off my hooves, asking why I always had some.

Honestly, I only had it so there’d be something to play with when boredom struck. Not that Twilight needed to know. If she did, she might come to the conclusion it was me behind the occasional burst of noise around town. Accidental or not, I didn't need that much attention.

While Twilight did her thing, I grabbed the nearest book and dove into it without looking at the title. I had no idea what I was reading, but I wouldn't let something as trivial as an unfamiliar language stand in my way. The aluminium sparked as her magic ran through it, behaving like it would in a microwave. I idly wondered if I could have built a magic microwave.

Twilight's battery of tests took the better part of an hour, during which neither of us talked. Finishing, she worked the kinks out of her neck and broke the quiet. "You can read Zebrican?"

"Nope." The book was tossed aside, landing neatly on top of two other books. "What'd you find out?"

She wanted to say something, but let it pass with a roll of her eyes. "Thaumite's properties come from its base components. aluminium provides the conductivity, but becomes far too fragile with a current running through it. The tungsten, while incapable of holding a charge on its own, is incredibly resilient to the effects of magic. The resulting alloy takes the strengths and results in a material that can conduct magic without being destroyed by it."

"So the aluminium is what we should be focusing on?"

"Correct. What stops you from storing energy in extra thaumite?"

"If I used that much thaumite it screws it up. It acts as if the entire thing is a single pattern and throws it off. Maybe stuff can be enchanted?"

"I don't believe there's a way to actually have it just hold magic though. All the enchantments I know of have an effect."

The brainstorming continued for a few hours. Spike threw together some sandwiches for our lunch and was amused when he had to remind us of their existence half an hour later.

Twilight and I tore through books fervently, communicating only when we had another idea that needed to be mercilessly struc down. I think Zecora left the basement at one point and rhymed at us, but we were in the zone. Nothing short of a bear on a unicycle was going to break us out of the groove.

No matter what, everything led to a dead end. We couldn't make any headway on enchanting or additional ways to reinforce aluminium without interfering with a spell pattern. The only reason I was able to near Twilight's frenzied pace was Dave's assistance. Nothing like having an extra mind to bounce ideas off of.

Out of nowhere, he sighed and spoke with the an exaggeratedly bored tone, listing off gibberish.

I raised an eyebrow at the bizarre—yet strangely familiar—string of letters and numbers coming from his mouth and disregarded the fact I wasn't alone. "You alright there, Mr. Roboto?"

"What did you call me?" Twilight blinked as she looked up from the three tomes she was perusing.

I waved her off. "Talking to Dave."

"...Right." She’d made it perfectly clear on several occasions she considered my continued contact with Dave detrimental to my well-being, but she was purple so what did she know?

"Come on, kid. You know what those are. I wouldn't have told you if you didn't." He sat back and smiled like the cat who ate the canary.

It sounded like it was just gibberish, but if Dave said there was more to it, there was more to it. "Kind of sounds like a chemical formula. Oh, of course. Al is aluminium."

Now Twilight was interested, leaving the safety of her book fort to see what lead I was following. "When you say chemical formula, do you mean like water is H2O?" She’d taken to my elementary chemistry skills with her usual dedication, and all that stopped her was what little I’d remembered about the subject.

"Yeah, he told me these four." My writing was barely legible, but it was a dramatic improvement from a week before. After explaining what elements I’d written down, I said, "They all have aluminium as you can see, but I don't know what they could be the formulas for."

"Some geochem major you are."

"I went to college?" It was hard to remember much of anything from before, but this didn't even disturb the silt at the bottom of the pond. I could remember the typical childhood memories—I winced a bit when I remembered Anna—and the dull blur of things while trying to eke out an existence in a still-living world, but no focused education.

"You were in your second semester of classes. Night classes in fact." Dave clenched his fists in frustration, eventually releasing them in a defeated sigh. "Who am I kidding? What'd you have for breakfast?"

"Food?" I shrugged, frowning and adding, "If you know what they are, why don't you just tell me?"

"Gears, maybe you should take a break. We've been at this for quite a long time." With the telltale glow of violet magic, the book in front of me slowly closed, like it was trying to avoid provoking a wild animal.

"Because you know this. You told me during the first weeks we were together, when you were constantly going over everything you'd learned in order to hold onto it. Fat lot of good that did it seems."

"I'm fine, Twilight. Dave wants me to figure it out on my own anyways." The elements mocked me as they sat on the page, and pictures of samples floated through my faint memories. "aluminium is slightly less common than dirt. In fact, none of these are especially rare except for Be… beryl? No, beryllium."

"Where does one find beryllium?"

"Come on, kid. You've got this. Sparklebutt doesn't know it, but she's leading you in the right direction."

"I thought Be was beryl first, but beryl's a gemstone… Gemstones!" Twilight's eyes rolled in their sockets as I excitedly shook her. "They're all gemstones!" Pointing to each one in turn, I said, "Sapphire, ruby, topaz, and emerald. Ruby is just sapphire with a small chromium impurity." That last tidbit was something that felt familiar, like which steps creaked in the house I grew up in. I should have guessed gems first—it was always gems that held magic.

She looked up from her notes with a nervous smile. "I hate to burst your bubble, but magic can't travel through gemstones. They can't possibly contain aluminium."

"No, they do, I know this." I saw Dave shoot me a knowing smirk. "What if—what if they don't block it, they just keep it out? Is there a way to fuse thaumite into a gem?"

"An interesting idea. Maybe I could use a teleporting spell, but with the safeguards removed. In theory it should work, or it might just backfire."

"The fun stuff always does. Get a sapphire—they have the simplest composition."

A few minutes later, we'd cleared an area and placed a medium-sized, deep-blue gem on the table. Twilight had grabbed her own eye protection, a pair of safety goggles, and took deep breaths as she intently stared at the small length of wire. We were two lab coats short of looking like a pair of scientists. I made a mental note to buy lab coats.

There was a small flash of purple light and one end of the thaumite was embedded deep within the sapphire. "Well, that was anticlimactic."

A smirk crossed her face. "Only you would be disappointed by things going smoothly."

"Now try running magic into it."

"I'll take it slow. Starting at one arc per second." Her horn gave off an extremely weak glow, like the dimming filament of a lightbulb. Nothing seemed to happen, but Twilight was still excited. "Remarkable! The thaumite bypasses the barrier without compromising it. Your idea is actually working!"

"You can't be that surprised." Boredom set in as Twilight continued to feed magic into the gem. "Crank it up a notch. Or five."

"Increasing rate of transfer to five arcs per second." The aura surrounding her horn was nearly as bright as when she usually used magic.

Deep within the gem, a mote of light appeared and with a shocked gasp, Twilight dropped her spell. However, the blue-tinted light within the precious stone refused to go out.

"Spiffy." A poke revealed no notable change how the gemstone felt. "Let's fully charge this sucker."

"Increasing rate of transfer to fifteen arcs per second." Sweat beaded on her brow.

"Twenty-five."

"Forty." Twilight could barely speak through her gritted teeth.

The tiny flicker graduated into a radiant core that bathed the library in azure light. It didn't burn to look into the gem, to see the hypnotic depths in the contained maelstrom of eldritch power. Twilight grunted with the effort of continuing to feed the gem. "Almost… done…"

I thought the magic couldn't be any brighter, but that was far from correct. A miniature sun blazed within the stone, practically humming with the energy.

The delicate chime of a glass bell tweaked my ears as a hairline crack appeared on the gem’s surface. "That's probably not a good thing." My words went unnoticed, and another fissure appeared. "Taking cover sounds like a good idea right about now."

"I can… hold it together." The power she focused through her horn tried to force her down, but Twilight was not one to be bested by a spell.

Three cracks, three strikes. I tackled Twilight away from the imminent meltdown, but cutting off the spell did nothing to postpone the gem's failure. There was barely any time for me to turn a tipped table into an impromptu barrier, scattering its contents with a dismayed protest from their owner.

When the gem failed, it was like Luna had entered a belching contest after consuming Diet Coke and Pop Rocks. The roaring shockwave spread through the library in a heatless explosion. I found myself, as well as the alicorn I protectively huddled over, forced backwards by the barricade as it pushed us to the wall. And just like that, it was over, gone in an instant.

Two shocked muzzles peered over the edge of the table after they untangled themselves from a blackmail-worthy position, squinting their eyes to see through the cloud of dust. My skin tingled from the energy permeating the air, and judging by her shudder, Twilight felt the same thing.

Where a table, sapphire, and research materials had once been, scraps of paper fluttered around a sizable hole revealing the basement. A stunned zebra looked up at us from behind a debris-filled cauldron, her mouth and eyes wide with shock. Spike, who stood in the entryway of the kitchen, had a similar expression. So did Dave, who warily peered out from behind a bookcase.

"Do not overcharge gemstones," Twilight muttered as she wrote with a singed quill before underlining her words in triplicate. Thinking for a moment, she added another line underneath and circled the whole thing for good measure.

"I am definitely remembering this for later." Oddly enough, the affected area surrounding the missing floor wasn't as large as expected. With how large the blast looked, there should have been damage spread throughout most of the tree.

As she beheld the lonely chunk of a book's cover, the damage finally sank in and she sniffled. "My books…"

The next few hours were spent consoling the library's other occupants and the multitude of worried ponies who frantically knocked to check on their princess. In the small bit of time between ponies, we cleaned up the worst of the mess and laid a sheet of wood—it didn’t come from a tree, but it definitely wasn’t plywood either—over the hole. Only with Spike's help was I able to convince Twilight she wasn't going to get removed from the library and banned from all the others.

Rainbow Dash, the only other pony who ended up seeing the damage, flew in through a blown out window and stared at the mess in fascination. To my relief, the brash pegasus recognized me and didn't immediately assume I was endangering Twilight. Before she could get roped into helping, she darted back out the window, claiming she had to water her hair.

When a familiar smell drifted up from below, it brought a fair idea of what it was, and I considered joining the zebra. Spike wore himself out quickly and threw himself into his basket the moment Twilight said he was finished.

"Today has been… eventful." Twilight cringed as I prepared to leave for the night. I wanted to stay and help research more, but between the lost progress and not wanting to worry the pack, there was no other choice. We could only hope the setback was worth it.

"I know I had fun." My chuckles summoned Twilight’s glare. "We did discover a way to make magic batteries after all."

"I still don't think it was worth it. How is your progress on the reading list coming along?"

On the bookshelf at home there were two rows of books. The upper row was books I had yet to read, and when one was finished, it was moved to the lower shelf. At that moment, there were about three or four times as many books on the lower shelf. "Almost done."

"Good to hear. I'm glad somepony actually reads my suggestions. Have you started the… umm…" Twilight nervously shifted as red tinted her cheeks. It still amused me how easy it was to fluster her.

My curt answer was joined by a shake of the head. "No."

Twilight sighed and rubbed her forehead, just under the horn. "Sterling, it's important you read that book. Why are you so adamant about putting it off? I thought you were fine with being a mare."

There was barely any time between her speaking and me replying, "I am!" Swallowing loudly, I apologized for accidentally raising my volume. "I am. Like I said, a body is just a body. The little quirks of my new gender are what scares me." Fluttershy would have been envious of how quiet my last few words were.

The alicorn bit her lip as she judged the time through the popular window. "What do you mean?"

It was my turn to be nervous, and it took a reassuring nuzzle from Twilight to make me respond. "That prank where you told me I was pregnant made me realize that it could actually happen. And if that freaks me out, what other surprises are waiting for me?"

"I'm sorry—"

"Don't be. It was just a prank and I would have realized it eventually." I glanced out the window like I was checking the time, noticing Dave patiently listening to the conversation. Why didn't Twilight have a clock? "I really should get going."

Magic surrounded the doorknob and held it fast as I tried to open it. "Just wait, Sterling." She leaned against me and let out another sigh. "Why didn't you tell me this was bothering you? I'm here to help, and not just because Princess Celestia asked me to. Even if wholesale destruction" —with a strained smile she gestured around the wounded library— "has a tendency to show up in the same place, I'd like to consider you a friend. Your friends will help you, Sterling. In fact, they want to help you. You just have to let them."

"I don't even know why this bothers me so much. I can shrug off everything else that's happened and roll with any punch that comes my way. But this just won't leave me alone. I'm reminded of it every time I use the bathroom or every time someone calls me ma'am. I know it looks similar to just being uncomfortable with being a mare altogether, but I'm serious when I say that's not it."

"I think I understand. Somewhat. Not really…" Twilight sheepishly grinned as she rubbed the back of her head. "There has to be something I can do to help. Just tell me what it is."

"You've done more than enough. I just need to stop being such a bitch about it."

One of the topics that had come up was cussing, and while 'bitch' was just a word for a female dog here, Twilight related it as the equivalent of calling myself a nag. "Please, you know I don't like that kind of language."

"Sorry. You know what I mean though. I just need to muscle through it. The apocalypse didn't stop me, why should a little book?" Behind the chuckles and dismissive hoof waving, fear still tainted my mood, and Twilight easily picked up on it. She tried to comfort me again, and I sighed. "Thanks, Twilight. I really do need to get going though."

She reluctantly nodded and held the door open. "Promise me you'll talk about this more. I can't force you to read that book, but please, it might help placate your fears."

"Pinkie Promise. But in return you have to get some sleep tonight." Her chuckles followed as I set off.

"You could have talked to me about this. No idea it was bothering you so much." Dave frowned, crossing his arms as he easily kept pace.

"Sorry, Dave. You just aren't qualified."

"And why the hell not?"

"It's a mare thing, you wouldn't understand." The sound of a palm hitting a face was rarely heard in Equestria.

"One of these days, kid, one of these days…"

When I finally reached the caves, the pack had been getting antsy over my absence. They tried to convince me to remain underground for my safety, but I politely refused—reading that book around them wasn’t an option. After apologizing and checking on everydog, I retreated to my home for the night, shuttering the indoor lights nearly all the way. Two seconds later, the lights were uncovered.


The uneasy feeling that always preceded a voidling attack was proving to be a godsend. A break was definitely in order after last night. Sighing, I pulled the dreaded, red book off the shelf, hopped onto the bed, and nudged it open.

"A papercut on my nose. This is already off to a great start."
> Huzzah!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What had been seen couldn’t be unseen, and there wasn't a single drop of eye bleach to be found in all of Equus. I officially knew more about ponies than I'd ever wanted to, and that was before the book's halfway point. Despite this, I trudged through the rest of the pages in a single night, with only Dave and the sound of crickets to keep me company. He refused to look over my shoulder like he had for the other books, and when teased about it he snorted derisively and shake his head.

At one point, when I was taking a small break to look at something other than text and blush-worthy pictures, Dave asked, "This making you feel any better about the pregnancy thing?"

"Until I found out I have a heat cycle to look forward to." The moment that chapter had surfaced, I knew that week would be absolutely excruciating.

Sunlight poked into the room through the simple curtains as the book closed with relieved finality. A yawn escaped my parched lips as I stretched on the bed to work out the kinks caused by laying immobile for so long. After the sound of satisfying cracks died away, I debated whether to endure the day or take a small nap.

"Hey Dave, what should—"


——


Ponyville sprung up around me, the buildings and citizens popping up like weeds in sidewalk cracks. At first glance, the colorful town was more or less like it should have been, but something felt off. Maybe it was some of the houses being stacked upon one another or the lethargic, polka-dotted ponies, but Ponyville had seen stranger.

"This is a rather dull dream." And if this was a dream, anything was possible. I could go flying, possibly explore what my mind thought Cloudsdale looked like. Perhaps an adventure would be my choice, a grand epic for the ages. With a decisive nod, I turned towards Sugarcube Corner. Free dream pastries with zero calories? Sign me up.

"Good plan, I should actually be able to eat something." Dave chuckled happily, a hollow smack sounding off as he patted his belly.

Thirty slices of moist, ambrosial chocolate cake later, a sonorous boom from the heavens interrupted our guilt-free binge.

"Hey, Luna. What's up?" I waved at the midnight blue alicorn as she strode through the door, the scent of fresh rain mingling with the homey fragrance of the bakery. The simple tiara she usually wore was absent, but her symbol, a silvery crescent, was still present and shone brightly from her ebony collar.

"Sterling, David, it is good to see both of you again. I'm sorry to intrude like this, but we are rarely asleep at the same time. This may come as a shock, but you, Sterling Gears, are dreaming." She took the opposite seat, using a wing to brush aside a mound of pastries that promptly drifted away, unhindered by something as silly as gravity. Luna stared at me with an overly serious expression, as if daring me to call her bluff.

"Okay." I decided not to tell her I wasn’t finished with dessert.

"She's not that clueless, Luna.."

Princess Luna would have done a spit-take if she'd been drinking, if the shock in her widened eyes was any indicator, but she was forced to settle for a surprised—and thoroughly unflattering—snort. "Truly?"

"We're in Sugarcube Corner, and I don't see Pinkie anywhere." Oddly enough, she didn't show up right then and there. "Not to mention all the slightly less weird stuff like Dave being able to eat stuff or the ceiling being painted like the Sistine Chapel's. Oh, and don't forget the swimming pool over there."

"What a fascinating mural. How did I not notice it?" Luna muttered as she looked over the ponified work of art. Neither royal sibling was present in the mural, each instance of God played by a pony with a bushy white beard that made Starswirl the Bearded look like Starswirl the Clean-Shaven. "Those are excellent points. Such clarity is interesting..." She trailed off, trying to fast forward past the lengthy explanation she'd suspected was necessary. "Very well, I suppose this is an advantageous turn of events. Do you know why I am here?"

"Because you're bored?" I shrugged as my knight punted Luna's pawn into the kitchen.

"Not quite, though I will admit boredom would be preferable to this painstakingly slow research." She smiled as her bishop moved into place. "Checkmate."

The chessboard burst into yellow flames, not even leaving ash or chess pieces behind. Due to the combustion technicality—if the board bursts into flame, a draw is the result you must claim—the first chess game I'd played in years didn’t end in a loss. "What have you found out?"

"It's a simple creature, more akin to a fungus than any beast or sentient species. But the mind belies its 'body,' and I fear I will be unable to progress, which leads to the reason for my visit. I request your assistance in gleaning more information from the voidling, as your previous connection with it may lend us a fresh perspective."

"Lead the way." Beyond a crumbling wall stood a plain, dirt path floating on an endless ocean, slowly undulating with the gentle waves and sending tiny plumes of sea spray into Sugarcube Corner. "Nice work, Luna, but I'm not mopping that up."

She chuckled and led the way. "This is not my doing. It is amusing to see a pony with such influence over their dreams… whether or not they completely control it. If you can learn to still your mind, I believe you will be awestruck by what can be accomplished.."

"Am I going to need a life jacket?" Dave nervously asked as he dipped a hand into the temperate water. "Hey, don't leave me here! Dammit." He tottered from edge to edge as he awkwardly ran to catch up with the two ponies and nearly stumbled over every wave in his haste.

"You guys suck." He panted, leaning heavily on me for support.

Ignoring the bony elbow digging into my withers, I said, "I guess this is a bit beyond what I'd call lucid dreaming, but I'm no expert. Does this normally not happen with ponies?"

"I am unfamiliar with that term, but I can discern its meaning easily enough. No, this level of control is not commonplace—it is rare I see even a quarter as much. Perhaps it is a side effect of the spell used to bring you here previously."

The ocean abruptly ended in a thundering waterfall stretching off into the distance, but the path remained, suspended by nothing as it meandered through a starry expanse.

"Not complaining."

"I am." Dave frowned, inciting chuckles at his expense from the two ponies he walked between.

What I had previously thought to be stars were other dreams—I was back in their realm. A niggling feeling in the back of my mind hinted my control ended where the dream did. Luna chose to keep the now-level trail and steered it towards a distant speck separated from its brethren. A pizza place would have been a welcome stop, but my stomach was still content with all that heavenly chocolate.

"Hello again, Barinzan," Luna cooed as we arrived at the voidling's dark blue enclosure, shades of azure swirling about like a soap bubble. The creature still lacked a definite shape, but there was clearly something inside the magic sphere. Lacking discernible edges, it was all I could do to compare its size to a jungle cat's.

Distracted by Luna's high-pitched tone, I clumsily stumbled, somersaulting into the air as my momentum carried me away. Luna simply smiled as she righted and placed me at her side with a flash of her horn. "Good catch. You named that thing?" Threats of endless headbutts dripped from my voice.

"Of course. You may bear some completely understandable animosity towards Barinzan, but it was just trying to survive." Animosity was putting it lightly. "However, I strongly believe there was an outside force causing it to take its feeding to such extremes. Sterling, this creature was manipulated, twisted out of the relatively docile form before you."

"Whatever it is, it's butt-ugly." Dave sneered as he poked at the sphere, chuckling quietly with each ripple his actions sparked.

The voidling certainly wasn't going to get invited to any birthday parties, but if Luna was right, there was something far more deserving of a hoof to the head. "So what's really behind those nightmares? More importantly, can I get first swing?"

Sighing sadly, she shook her head. "That is something I do not yet know, but I have determined it is the same being that besieges central Equestria. Barinzan's kind feeds on the malignant energy generated by nightmares, but they lack the ability to 'stoke the flames'." It was official, hooves made air quotes so much better. "What the actual enemy desires from the abducted ponies is still a mystery."

Despite my rage, some small semblance of pity tweaked my furious expression. Snorting, I turned away from the sphere and found Luna… nuzzling the barrier with a dopey grin on her face. "At least you like it." Smirking, I said, "Thinking of taking in a pet?"

Luna mused over my words, part of her smile still remaining. "A pet? I suppose Tia does have Philomena." She nuzzled the sphere again and spoke with the baby-talk known to rev a dog's tail to painful whipping speed. "Do you like that idea, Barinzan? You can stay here with me, and I'll take good care of you. Yes I will. Who is a good voidling?"

"Are you sure it's safe to have it around? I doubt you'll keep it in this giant hamster ball forever." Even then, I doubt anypony would welcome something like that rolling through their dreams, snatching their nightmares up.

Looking up from his fruitless attempts to antagonize the voidling, Dave grumbled, "Don't want to think about what this thing could do with free reign, even if you insist it can't farm nightmares. Ugh, that creeps me out just thinking about it."

"I am entirely certain no trouble will arise." Dave and I shared a look that promised future gambling on how long it would take for this to bite us in the flank—ass for Dave, but rears would be bitten in both cases. A few minutes passed in which Luna cast several different spells, mumbling results to herself each time her magic switched off. "It seems your presence has little to no effect on its behavior. Curses, I was certain that was a viable avenue of research."

"What are its weaknesses?" At her shocked look, I facehoofed. "Luna, I'm not going to snuff your pet. That’s bad manners. I wanted to know what I could use against the voidlings actually in Equestria."

"My apologies. Barinzan shares their vulnerability to magic, flame, and light. Although untested on the other voidlings, I found it also has an aversion to liquids." Melon-sized samples of the weaknesses materialized as Luna spoke of them, bobbing up and down as they circled her.

"Water?"

"Not just water. All tested liquids proved effective."

"Good to know. I'll stock up on water balloons."

Luna shifted her weight, hesitating on what she needed to say. With a sad smile and sigh, she said, "There is another reason I chose to contact you. Do you know what will happen when the source of the voidlings is discovered?"

"Elements of Harmony fire the Friendship Laser?" Or Celestia could send it to the moon along with everything else she didn't want to deal with, like tax forms or evangelists.

"Precisely. However, I fear they will not work on this foe. They purge chaotic impurities from whatever they touch, but voidlings are neither chaotic or orderly. They simply are."

"Are what?"

"No, I mean to say they just exist. Reports of the other voidlings have mentioned they speak of their pain and suffering. No good or evil, right or wrong, up or down. Normally this would be neutrality, but that word still fits improperly. We are getting off topic. I called on you because of your affinity for destruction. If there is any pony who can find an effective—if unorthodox— way to harm something the Elements of Harmony cannot, it is you."

"Hate to admit it, kid, but the pretty pony princess has a point."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, David," she replied with mock haughtiness. Luna: one, Dave: zero.

I sighed and gave a half-hearted salute at my task. "You got it, Luna."

"I am sorry to ask such a thing, but I thought your special talent dealt with explosions of all kinds."

"And accidental self-injury." Dave shrugged at our glares. “What? You know I’m right.”

"Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good explosion or ten. I just have so many other ideas piling up. Not to mention it's more fun when it's something I'm not supposed to be trying for. You said magic, fire, light, and liquid, right?"

"Correct." Luna's ethereal mane barely shifted as she nodded.

"I think I can—wait, fire or heat?"

Luna looked back at Barinzan. “Hmm.” A deep frown crossed her muzzle and she said, "Sorry, Barin." Her horn lit up and pain pulsed out from the voidling in a bizarre sensation that felt like forced empathy. Luna and I winced as it washed over us, but Dave remained unaffected and smirked at Barinzan's misfortune. "Heat."

"Can you bring up a chalkboard so I can write some stuff down?" I was barely able to finish the sentence before one appeared inches in front of me. Blanching in disgust, I added, "And some better tasting chalk?" Luna tittered, and my tongue was visited by strawberries while the tiny rod scratched across the black surface, eagerly marking the previously pristine slate. "Magic, heat, light, and water—yes, I know all liquids count, but bear with me. I don't know where magic would fit in, but the other three feel like they have something in common."

"It is strange seeing heat and liquid on the same side. Usually they conflict."

"Fire and water maybe, but not heat and liquid," Dave said. "The opposite of heat is cold. Actually, cold is just the lack of heat..." He trailed off as he stroked his chin in thought and paced, mumbling incoherently and shooting the occasional glance at the chalkboard or Barinzan. "I think I just figured something out."

"That's great, care to share?" A delightful crunch signalled another piece of strawberry chalk meeting its demise in my mouth.

"Name the three places that got attacked that night." He plopped down in an overly plush armchair with green upholstery, creating a loud "ploomph" in protest to the sudden weight.

"David, where did that chair come from?" inquired Luna as she circled said furniture, prodding it with a hoof. "Ooh, this is soft."

"You like? You'd be amazed at the things you can learn if you pay enough attention to Pinkie Pie. So, how 'bout those places?"

"Appleloosa, the Crystal Empire, and the Gem Hills," Luna replied, not taking her eyes or hoof—now slowly stroking the comfortable fabric—off the chair.

"More specifically the caves under the Gem Hills. Dry, cold, and dark. They're all absences! Whatever we're up against, it loves places with a lot of a lack of something else." Realizing his last sentence sounded strange, he grunted and added, "You know what I mean."

Luna's head rested gently on an upturned hoof, her brow knitting in thought. "Appleloosa was experiencing a record drought, so there is no doubt it was the driest place in Equestria the night of the attack." Excitedly gasping, she stomped her hoof and said, "This entity must be weakened if it can only attack where it would be strongest. And to attack those three locations simultaneously—its actions reek of desperation. Sterling, stop eating the chalk."

"Why? It's not like I'm eating real chalk." It still got stuck in my teeth like real chalk… I had been curious and really hungry.

"Fair enough. Hmm, these are quite delicious." Dave cleared his throat, summoning a sheepish smile below Luna’s reddening cheeks. "Well deduced, David. This should be specific enough to scry. I will need time to work nothing into the spell's parameters. Sterling, this should give you plenty of time to put together an appropriate weapon, especially if the report on the library's damage sent to my sister was accurate."

"Hey, I told her to stop charging it." Not that I wasn't glad to learn what happened when you overcharge a gem with magic.

"Do you know how many time's that library has needed extensive repairs since it was created? Eighty-six."

"Nice. I bet I could get that to an even hundred in less than a month."

"I would rather you did not. Of those eighty-six times, only seven were before my return."

"Great, now I have to catch up to Twilight's record."

Luna royally facehoofed. "That is not what I was getting at… never mind, just avoid blowing up my sister's student. Or her assistant. Or friends."

"Celestia's assistant and friends or Twilight's?"

"Does it matter?"

"Probably not. But I like Twilight's assistant. Celestia has all sorts of prissy nobles for assistants that I haven't met but am unjustifiably certain are unbearable."

"This is the first time I have been ailed by a headache in this realm," Luna muttered. "Do you have any further questions?"

I already had a feeling what the answer was, but it needed to be asked. "Is there any way of saving those already taken?"

Luna looked off into the distance, away from me, Dave, and even the glittering specks of dreams. It was too long before she cautiously spoke, like her words were made of brittle glass. "There is always a chance for a miracle." Another pause. "But I do not think so."

"Figured as much. They will be avenged." Appleloosa, Metalhead, my fallen packmates, generic ponies A-Z—their fates would be answered for. A reckoning was coming. This apocalypse would die in its infancy.

The barest skeleton of a smile flashed across Luna's face. "Are you clear on your task?"

"Build a bomb and work in those four things. I should be ready by tomorrow." Would have been sooner if C5 were an option, but Equestria lacks a ready supply of gelatin… and that would be way too awkward to explain.

Luna nodded. "Very well, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I shall send you back to the waking realm to get started."

"Aww. But there's so much more cake back in Sugarcube Corner! There was other stuff I wanted to do too, but free food, Luna!"

"Now is not the time to gorge yourself on sweets. Goodbye, Sterling Gears, I will be in touch." Her horn ignited in a familiar glow, and tendrils of magic swirled around me, growing in number until my vision was completely blue.

"Wait, I want to touch your swooshy mane first—crap, I'm already awake." Despite my best efforts, there just wasn’t a substitute for snapping fingers.

"Judging by the look on her face, I'd say she heard you." Dave laid next to me on the simple bed—little more than a cushion just big enough for a single pony to stretch comfortably without poking a limb over an edge.

"Nah. I'm sure she was just in a hurry." After all, why wouldn't Luna have let me touch her mane? It was a perfectly reasonable request, since her hair looks like it's made of friggin' space magic.

Dave's eyes rolled for the umpteenth time that day. "Regardless, you should get started on whatever you're going to make."

Yawning and rubbing the last bits of sleep-gunk from my eyes, I stumbled through a delayed morning routine and delved into the caves to locate the largest gems I could find. Larger gems probably meant more magic storage, and more magic storage meant bigger boom.

Hopefully, Twilight would be able to fully charge them herself, even if it took more than one sitting. Also hopefully, she wouldn't detonate them again. But before I could visit the Golden Oaks Library, a bribe gift was in order.
> Candy and Carelessness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hello, Sterling. I think this is the first time I've seen you in here. What's the occasion?" Bon Bon cheerfully waved from behind the lilac-tinted counter. It hadn't been hard to locate her shop—even if you couldn't follow the trail of foals devouring fresh sweets, a hanging wooden sign displaying the three wrapped candies of her cutie mark was a clear indicator what the building stocked.

Unlike most Ponyville merchants, Bon Bon's Bon Bons—most opted to call it “B-Fours”—didn't double as a home, and she lived elsewhere with her marefriend. As such, the candy shop was much smaller than its neighboring buildings, like a garden gnome between two plastic pink flamingos.

When you walk into Sugarcube Corner, you get smacked upside the head by the scent of sugar. If Pinkie Pie isn't working, it just smelled like a bakery—the hearty aroma of bread cooking and the sweet undertones of frosting intertwined to create a unique atmosphere. Here there were no baked goods, and even though every last item was practically made of sugar, there was no overpowering, sickly sweet odor.

Rows of angled jars filled with all manner of candies lined both walls and didn't leave enough space for even one more gumdrop. Built into the counter and shielded from the front by glass, another cluster of shelves displayed what was popular or new. A pair of washboard signs kindly suggested foals to ask for help getting candy from the upper shelves. Although the wax paper—Equestria’s hadn’t quite figured out plastic wrap—wasn't colored as vibrantly as the goodies they contained, an enticing kaleidoscope surrounded any who stepped through the oaken door.

Steel-blue hooves clacked against the wooden floor before they reached the strip of black carpeting before the counter. I looked down at them and was swept off as my thoughts wondered why they were the same color as my fur.

"Equestria to Sterling. Come in, Sterling." A hoof waggled in front of my face, but since hooves were already on my mind, it did little to shake me out of my thoughts. Bon Bon scrunched her face and made a dissatisfied grunt before poking my snout. "Boop."

I immediately sneezed but fortunately turned my head and didn't spray her.

When she finished giggling, she smirked. "Works to get Lyra back to reality when she's really gone. Though she doesn't tend to sneeze."

My nose continued to tingle, and my rubbing only exacerbated it. "Sorry about that. How often does Lyra get lost in thought?"

"It depends on where she is and what she's fixated on at that moment. When she was into fish, she'd spend hours staring into the river. What were you thinking about? If you don't mind me asking."

"Hooves."

"Hooves? What for?"

"They're weird."

"I'll take your word for it." Oh sure, she teases the mare who hadn't lived her whole life with them. "So, are you here for candy or did you want to talk about hooves?" Her smile momentarily inverted as two unicorn colts entered the shop, one a dumpy, dull blue, the other relaxed and lanky with a tangerine coat and a perpetual expression of contentment.

"Snips, Snails, please be more careful this time." Bon Bon sighed as her eyes flicked to a section of scuffed wood.

"Yes, Miss Bon Bon," they dejectedly replied in unison before quietly discussing their options among themselves.

We kept up the small talk while I took a tour around the store, trying to figure out what sort of treat would hit the spot. There weren't too many stories I could share with her, but she had more than enough about Lyra's shenanigans to make up for it.

She regaled me with a tale of how the eccentric unicorn, while on a history binge, got her head stuck in a railing during a tour of Canterlot Castle, but the story was interrupted momentarily while the two foals made their purchases.

Settling for a mystery bag, a brown paper bag with a large question mark on both sides and filled with a random assortment, I remembered the original purpose of my visit was to get something for Twilight Sparkle's services. I couldn't help but giggle manically as an item on the shelf of new arrivals caught my eye, practically demanding its purchase.

Dave laughed loudly, breaking the odd silence he'd adopted for much of the past couple hours. "That's just perfect."

"I haven't had the chance to try one of these myself, but I've heard good things." Bon Bon placed the gift in a small white bag and hoofed it back to me. "Enjoy, and don't be a stranger, alright?"

"I'll do what I can, how about I invite you and Lyra to dinner sometime?" I really shouldn't have been holed up tinkering every night, but I didn't have a choice for now.

"That'd be nice. I'm sure she would love that idea as well." Nodding at her, I turned to leave, but her voice called out again, this time sounding nervous. "Sterling, wait."

Picking up on her tone, I sneaked a glance at Dave for his input, and he'd only arched his eyebrow in curiosity. "Everything alright?"

Bon Bon sighed and stepped out from behind the counter. "We're just worried about you. You always sport some new injury every time we see you, and then there's all the trouble you get into: the cart crash, your little 'field tests,' and then there's that explosion at the library—"

"That one wasn't my fault. Mostly."

After a quick hug, she continued, "You haven't been around town long, but you're a… memorable mare. Just be careful. Ponyville wouldn't be the same without you." The mare flicked her head to swing an errant lock of pink back into place alongside its purple companions. "And it would make Lyra cry, so you'd be in for a world of hurt."

"Can't have that happen." With a sincere smile, I quietly said, "I'll be careful, Bon Bon." To be honest, I didn't believe other ponies thought that highly of me. To actually hear somepony say I'd be missed raised my spirits. Maybe, just maybe, I could have eventually felt like I didn’t stick out worse than a manticore wearing a sombrero.

"Good." She tersely nodded and retook her spot behind the counter. "Now get going, you're scaring away the other customers."

Dave smiled but didn't add anything of his own. Something must have been bothering him, and I’d need to remember to ask him later.

Huffing with mock-indignity, I left but only got halfway out the door before scrambling back and ducking behind the counter, terrified at what was coming up the road.

"What's going on?"

She moved to go check herself, but a foreleg full of panic barred her way. "Stay put, there's a musical number out there." They weren't going to get either of us to sing if I could help it.

Once the music had died down, Bon Bon finally succeeded in getting me to leave. She had tried during the song, insisting that it wasn't that bad and would do me some good, but my grip on the counter was too strong.

The faint stench of cheese told me it was the typical romantic question. Didn't know why a musical number was needed for something where the only oblivious pony was the confessee, but it was still better than the song somepony sang outside a laundromat that got the mustard out of their work uniform.

A myriad of murmuring ponies were lined up outside Carousel Boutique as I passed by, and a grandiose banner displayed, "Come See the New Facet of Hoof Fashion!" Naturally, my pace increased.

Dave had a wry smile on his face as we walked by. "I wonder what that could be."

"It talks!" I gasped, half out of mock surprise and half out of tripping over a rock. "Ow. You've been quiet. Everything alright? You're being very… un-Dave."

"Just in a quiet, contemplative mood today. Nothing for you to worry about." He waved his hand dismissively. I'd try getting whatever it was out of him again later, even if I had to resort to the song that never ends. Dave’s silence continued, and no amount of prodding on my part could draw him out of his shell.

There were more ponies out today than all but my first few days in Ponyville. While still polluted with sporadic pockets of gloom, the general atmosphere was refreshingly cheery, and it took all my willpower to not sit and pony watch.

"Oi, Twilight! It's Gears." The knocks rang out loud and clear, hopefully catching either Twilight's or Spike's attention no matter what they were involved with.

I winced at the sound of a yelp followed by a crash, which was then followed by the ever amusing sound of Twilight Sparkle cursing, "Ponyfeathers!" My giggles stopped just before the door creaked open. "Come on in, Princess Celestia mentioned you might need my help."

Stopping just inside the door, I chuckled giddily at her, and even Dave couldn't resist a laugh. "Twilight, why are you wearing socks?" Four blue-and-white-striped socks covered her hooves, stretching about three-quarters of the way to her knees. Even if I hadn't been the one to hand her the idea, there was no doubt these came from Rarity—even I could tell the quality of the cloth and stitching was phenomenal.

"Oh, you already know what they're called? Rarity gave me a set, and she mentioned some crazy… it was you, wasn't it?"

"Maybe."

"Socks are becoming quite popular, and I can see why. They're incredibly comfortable, and are perfect for when it's chilly but not enough to warrant slippers—not to mention they stay on easier. The decreased traction takes some getting used to, though."

"Yeah, I heard the crash. Well, Twilight, you're even more adorkable now." My unfaltering smile was probably creeping her out a bit, but it was impossible to stop. I was thrilled to see ponies in socks, especially since it hadn’t gone straight to being considered lingerie.

"That's not even a word!" the pony princess protested as she stamped a hoof, but since cloth covered it, it was more amusing than anything.

"Hey, Spike!" The purple dragon froze for a moment and shoved a tub of floor wax out of sight before anypony else could notice it. He sighed in relief when I winked an agreement of silence. "Help me out here. Twilight says she's not adorkable."

"Sorry, Twi. She's right." He shrugged.

Defeated by the majority vote, she groaned and changed tactics. "Did you read that book?"

Looking her straight in the eye, I gave a curt nod. "Yes."

For a moment it looked like she wouldn’t believe me, which would have sucked because it actually did get read. Twilight stared me down while rubbing her muzzle thoughtfully. She tilted her head this way and that before eventually conceding. "...Alright." I released my held breath and noisily deflated. "I'm sorry, learning all of that may have been uncomfortable, but it was also necessary. I guess all that's left on the schedule is to help you with whatever you had planned." Twilight cleared her throat to disguise the waver in her voice.

"She might be scared about working with you after last time, but I think it has more to do with there being a chance the Elements of Harmony won't work." He had a point.

Two large gems—a ruby and a sapphire—were placed on the floor, and a square-cut topaz was tossed to Spike, so he wouldn't spend the day drooling over the other two. Shortly afterwards, crunching could be heard from elsewhere in the library. "I need you to rig them with thaumite and load 'em up without wrecking the library. Whoever fixed this place up did great, can't even tell there was a hole."

Twilight took a half-step back, her hoof hanging in the air as she looked at me incredulously. "Are you sure? Those are both much larger than the last one. I'm not sure I can even completely fill one of them."

"Really, Twilight? You're the Element of Magic, don't be stupid. Also, I brought candy." The bag rustled as it dangled from my mouth.

Suddenly far more interested, she took the bag in her magic and smiled. "Thanks. I’ll see what I can do."

As Twilight floated a quill made of sugar out of the paper sack, I snickered. "You're actually supposed to nibble on that one."

"I can't believe I'm still doing that." She cautiously bit off the end. "Ooh, it's orange-flavored."

"Habit from when you were younger?"

"You could say that." Her wings twitched. “Let’s get started.”

Despite her innate talent for magic, it still took Twilight Sparkle several sittings to fill the gems to the point where one more mote of power would mean Ponyville's forecast for the next hour would be scattered book showers.

My suggestion to store any of the voidling's weaknesses—except magic of course—inside the gem fell flat, and Twilight wasted twenty minutes explaining the magic needed to be shaped externally to utilize those elements. Thankfully, I’d already figured that would be the case and had planned differently, because why would things ever be that easy?

With some intense persuasion on my part, somehow succeeding on both diplomacy rolls, I convinced Twilight to let me examine and use her laboratory supplies and Dave to help dig up a bit more of my geochem knowledge. It was good to hear Dave talk again, but he was still in a funk and spoke laconically. It was strange to actually miss his sass.

Although chemistry wasn't very far along in Equestria, they were still advanced enough that oil of vitriol and aqua fortis could be somewhat easily obtained. If they were still calling them by their archaic names, how the hell did ponies advance far enough to have plumbing? Magic was needed to further refine and combine them and others, and Twilight was all too happy to put in the universe's cheat code. If anypony asks who taught her and Zecora how to make nitroglycerin, it wasn't me.

Spike almost caused an incident when he barged in, waving an urgent letter from Princess Celestia, informing us that Luna had finished modifying the tracking spell. We were to leave tomorrow morning.

With a new spell straight from the princesses to practice, Twilight promptly expelled me from the library and promised to bring ample quantities of the requested chemicals and flasks, and I could only hope she heard me warn against mixing them without me watching. There was nothing left for me to do other than head home, shape a few blasting rods, and puzzle out how to best trigger the explosive.

Hours passed, but eventually, a pile of sculpted thaumite sat on one side of the worktable. Even though it was only passable, the sight of it brought a smile to my face. The trigger, a blasting rod five times as large as any other, rested over my saddlebags like a crude lean-to. Using that monster would be a last-ditch effort in the event an alicorn—or Rarity on the off chance she’s able to in the first place—couldn't set them off.

The supplies for tomorrow were all squared away, and there was a fair chance my saddlebags would burst before morning. All that was left for me to do was wait.

"Talk to me, Dave. I want to know what's wrong."

"It's really nothing you need to worry about. Just have a bad feeling about all of this. We're going straight for the throat and hoping we can hurt it. One of its minions messed you up good, and only a Celestia ex machina prevented you and the entire pack from getting wiped out." He stared at the wall for a good minute before laughing. "You mixing magic with nitroglycerin probably doesn't help things."

My ill-planned dive onto the bed bounced me off the other side. "Shows what you know. It's going to be awesome, just you wait." I snuggled under the covers, ready to squeeze all possible sleep out of the—

"Sterling! Are you ready to go?" Twilight asked as she knocked heavily on the sturdy door, the solid sound echoing through the morning air.

"Not funny." I shot a glare at Dave, who was sniggering while taking up as much of the bed as he could.

"This place could use a mare's touch," Rarity said quietly, but not quietly enough for me miss hearing her or the terse admonishing Twilight doled out. "Just a touch of paint would bring so much life to this… location."

"Some green would be nice," said a country drawl.

As appealing as it was eavesdropping on them talking about my house, they were waiting for me. Six mares—two earth ponies, two pegasi, a unicorn, and an alicorn—walk into a bar… never mind, they were just standing outside, and two of them were insincerely smiling. Each wore saddlebags with clasps matching their cutie marks. Twilight also carried a burlap sack bulging with what I hoped was flasks and beakers, not mangoes.

"You!" Rarity’s hoof quavered as it pointed. "You are the one who gave me that most wondrous idea for socks. You've brought about a fashion revolution! I simply must thank you!"

Arching a brow, my attention turned to Twilight and Dash, who were rolling their eyes. "They're just socks."

"Just socks!? How could you say such a horrid thing?" She held her foreleg to her heart like it had just been stabbed and gasped for air.

"You two can talk fashion later, Sugarcube. We got a long walk ahead of us and plenty of time to talk then, alright?" Applejack smiled. With how exhausted she looked, it must have been even longer since she last slept than me. Dark circles hung under her eyes, and she struggled to keep them open.

"AJ's right. Let's go already." RD being impatient? What a surprise.

"Why are we walking? Couldn't we get a chariot or use the hot air balloon?" There was also a troubling lack of additional support. My hopes were for Celestia to show up and just whip the sun at the damn thing, but a small contingent of guardsponies or an angry mob with torches would also be acceptable.

"We used the balloon to get here as you can see." Almost entirely hidden by distance and terrain, a pinkish lump I’d thought was one of Pinkie’s baking mishaps turned out to be a rapidly deflating air balloon. "But for some reason the tracking spell breaks up more and more the higher we go. Judging from the direction and distance, it will be quicker if we use the westbound road south of here and then head north towards Canterlot if need be."

"Isn't that the general area where you showed up, kid?"

"Is it possible it's underground?" I was betting it was on or under that hill I’d fallen down during my first few moments in Equestria.

"That's a distinct possibility, but hopefully not the case. How would we get to it then?" I coughed and jerked my head towards the cave system's entrance. No sentries waited at the cave's mouth—they tended to stay inside until Mt. Dragonshy's bulk shaded the area. "Of course."

"Ugh, surely you don't mean to ask these brutes for assistance." Rarity recoiled in horror, taking a step back. "They kidnapped me and attempted to press me into slavery."

"Um, Rarity? The diamond dogs are nice now." I realized I hadn’t met Fluttershy before and wondered if I was supposed to call “bingo” or something.

"How could they possibly be 'nice'?"

"Get with the picture, Rare. Pinkie and Gears took over, why do you think she lives out here?"

"Because she's crazy! No offense..."

"Some taken."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash quietly chuckled into their hooves.

"Pinkie wasn't kidding about that? I thought she was just playing a game. Where is she anyway? Pinkie, dear, where have you gone?"

"I'm talking with Dave." The bubbly voice came from behind me, back inside my home. "No, I'm not telling her that, it sounds mean and doesn't make sense. How could Rarity pull a stick out of her donkey when she doesn't have one?" Dave's facepalm could have been heard from Canterlot.

"Perhaps you should introduce us to your friend, Pinkie." I didn’t want to dislike Rarity, but she was making it difficult to tolerate her company.

"Sorry, you can't see him anyways." Thankfully they left it at that. After all, it was Pinkie Pie. Twilight did arch an eyebrow at me though.

"Okay, we're wasting a lot of time right now, but I think I can cut our travel time. We just need to go down into the caves and let them decide who wants to come with while I gather up our transport." Eyes widening, Dash pumped her hoof and zoomed over to the cave.

"I believe I shall remain up here. It's bound to be positively filthy down there, and I just got ready for the day an hour ago."

"Come on, Rarity. I reckon you'll be alright long as you don't go rolling around in the dirt."

"Actually it'd probably be best if she did stay up here. They're still kind of scared of her."

"Moi?" Her friends’ faces matched her disbelief.

"They shouldn't have done it in the first place, but they were only going to make you work for a day as punishment for trespassing. Not life-long slavery. Dog ears are far more sensitive than pony ears, so your high-pitched whining actually caused them pain. And to top it off, you took two months worth of food, far more than you manipulated Spike into digging up in the first place, to sew onto clothing." I knew I broke her when the fainting couch appeared.

"When you put it that way, that is so not cool." At least she looked a little guilty, not that she did much other than help carry out the gems Rarity pillaged. "Anything else we need to blab about for hours?" Dash frowned at the unconscious unicorn. "Or can we get going already?"

"Just one more thing." Dash flopped onto the ground, groaning at Twilight. "Sterling, I mixed a small sample of nitroglycerin like you showed me yesterday. Could you tell me if the composition is correct?" A tiny vial floated out of the sack and towards me, following even as I backed away in panic.

"Twilight! I told you how volatile that stuff was! How did you make it here intact?" That would have been very awkward to tell Princess Celestia.

"I kept it away from the flames. I'm not a foal."

"Volatile doesn't just mean heat. Levitate the vial over there slowly and drop it." My voice shook as I pointed to a very open, faraway space. It wasn't the smartest way to dispose of it, but Twilight would hopefully learn what she was toying with. I really should have clarified more. It was unlikely they had come across anything similar.

"You're not even going to inspect it? How will I know if I made it right?" Her ears fell flat against her head, confusion and sadness mixing together. "What did I do wrong?"

"Move the damn vial and we'll find out."

"Sterling." Applejack growled, pawing the ground like a bull. "Change your tone, or I'll change it for you." Dash glared a similar threat, Fluttershy looked like she was ready to tell me off, and Rarity snored.

Death loomed in front of me, but I remained calmish. "Twilight, please do what I said before you kill all of us." That stirred them up a bit, and Dash heroically—stupidly—lunged at the glass tube suspended in lavender magic to save her friends. "Dash, stop! You'll set it off!" Her air brakes squealed as she skidded to a midair stop. My physics ached.

"Why the hay would you ask her to make something like that?"

"I didn't. Not yet at least—I need her magic to properly mix the ingredients without setting them off. Now will you please just do what I asked? Raise a shield around us before you drop it."

Glumly, Twilight nodded and the vial of oily liquid floated into the distance until it could barely be seen. After a call to make sure nodog was watching from just below the surface, I nodded to her. A shimmering, violet dome appeared over all of us, including Rarity on her couch, and the small speck dropped to the ground. The distance was probably overkill, but I didn’t how big a blast that small amount would make.

A loud bang and a tall plume of dust later, I patted Twilight’s withers. "Congrats, you made it right." Maybe I’d overreacted a tad. Just a tad—maybe a smidgen, but a bit would have been too much. Still, that blast was the rough equivalent of half a stick of dynamite and would have done some serious damage if it'd gone off in the hot air balloon.

"What'd I miss?" Pinkie asked, her snout smooshed up against the translucent shield. "Oh, and Gears, I used the last of your flour, sorry."

"I don't have any flour."

"Of course you don't. I used it up."

"No, I didn't have flour before you got here."

"Then I must have used the last of my flour. Sorry Pinkie, I thought I was using Gears's flour. That's okay, Pinkie, I forgive you. Thanks! Would you like a cupcake? It's what I used it on, so it's only fair if you got some. Don't mind if I do!" She quickly quaffed a cupcake she pulled out of wherever she pulls things from. I had to give credit where it was due—her self-conversation really defused things.

Smiling at her antics, I marched towards the cave. "Alright, let's get started."
> Ad-freaking-venture!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two hours. Two excruciatingly long hours. That's how long it took for Twilight to stop apologizing. At first, I thought her and Fluttershy were having an apology-off—Twilight for not listening and Fluttershy for, well, she was a little too quiet to understand, but it was fair to assume it was about her reaction, despite its tameness. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one receiving apologizes from the scholar, and I also wasn't the only one growing tired of hearing them.

I'd insisted the event only angered me because my preference was to die from my own mistakes and not a borderline-cogniphilic alicorn’s. They believed me, which only left myself to convince.

A trio of diamond dogs had volunteered to join us, and several more had expressed interest but were far too injured. Since we probably had quite a bit of digging in our future, I was glad to see Balsa join us. Recent events had gifted her a taste for adventure.

Western Agate was hesitant at first, but understood the value of a diamond dog who could fluently speak Equestrian. The third was Shok, a stocky, terrier-like mutt who took an excessive shine to Spot's tactics—in addition to the several torches each dog carried in their travel kit, many rock-ale Molotovs hung from two jury-rigged bandoliers crossing over his chest.

Rarity remained unconscious while we were in the caves and even when we loaded her and the freakishly heavy fainting couch onto one of the two carts. Several fat jokes were prepared for when she awoke.

The two carts were similar to the one wrecked in the marketplace, except intact. They'd been used to deliver the few pieces of furniture pack members had purchased, but now they would carry a much more interesting payload. That is, once all members of the payload could be convinced to board.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of a cart that moves without being pulled." Applejack prodded a wheel like she was testing for sturdiness. Her attitude towards had slightly warmed, but that was comparable to eating a spicy pepper in an arctic blizzard.

"You could always pretend it's being pushed."

Applejack's eye twitched and for a moment, I thought she was going to break out the lasso. "You know what I mean. I'm just not sure this doohickey of yours is safe."

"Safer than anything the Crusaders build." Like that meant much.

"Ah don't know what's worse: that it makes me feel better or that you're probably right." She snorted again, but jumped into the cart and laid down by the front, her head resting lazily on the side.

Naturally, I ended up in charge of driving one of the carts. Pinkie, the only other member of our party with a driver's license—straight from the Canterlot Department of Magic Vehicles—drove the other. The accelerators barely differed from their original design as far as the spell pattern went, but I'd come up with a far easier method of controlling the amount of contact.

The pattern was attached to a lever that worked like the throttle on an old-fashioned steamboat—depending on how far over you pushed the stick, more or less of the spell pattern would touch the cart and adjust the speed accordingly. As proud as it made me, they still lacked a way to travel in reverse since rotating the thaumite had no effect on direction.

Twilight and Rarity were supposed to keep the carts on the ground so we could go as fast as possible without worrying about bouncing off the road, but a certain unicorn was still unconscious.

Twilight had stepped up to plate and was all "Pfft, I got this shit. Watch and learn, my pony homies." Alright, that may have been paraphrased a little.

"Faster!" A reckless, sky blue pegasus as she stood at the front of my cart with her hooves up on the sides. "Tank could go faster than this. I want to feel the wind in my mane." You would think a weather pegasus would be able to notice that it was already windy outside.

"For the last time, Dash." My eyes were starting to hurt from all the rolling they’d been doing. "Seven ponies, three diamond dogs, and a couch is a lot of weight. We're still making better time than we would if these were being pulled."

"So you're saying if we got rid of Rarity's couch we could go faster?"

Glancing back to the red furniture, nothing had changed. She was still asleep with one foreleg draped over her eyes and the other dangling off the side. Her mane was still being buffeted by the relentless wind, and I couldn't help but giggle at what her reaction might be. "I guess. Just try not to wake up Applejack." The farmpony had been lulled to sleep by the fairly smooth ride.

"No thunderclouds, got it. Be back in a jiffy." The rainbow contrail she left behind never ceased to amaze me.

"How is everybody holding up?" It was a little difficult to speak clearly over the wind in our ears. I could only imagine how much trouble they were having understanding Fluttershy in the other cart.

"Everypony." Twilight risked nervous glances at her friends. She must have been worried about giving me away.

"I'm hardly a pony, Princess." West, the only diamond dog in Pinkie's cart, chuckled. He pointed at his fellow packmates. "And it would seem I'm not alone."

"Rainbow Dash!" Rarity shrieked, flopping off her fainting couch to evade the concentrated downpour. It was a stroke of luck she'd been facing the cart’s interior.

"Wakey wakey, Rarity. We need the speed and you were slowing us down with that couch of yours." Dash forced her head underneath and flipped it over the back gate, watching it fall apart as it bounced behind us. "Huh. Thought it was a bit sturdier than that."

As the unicorn rose in volume, Balsa tugged her tail and pointed to where Applejack peacefully laid with her Stetson covering her eyes. Sopping wet and smiling sheepishly, Rarity retired to a rear corner and settled for glaring at the pegasus, who retook her spot at the front.

With the lighter load, we made good time and reached a familiar inn late in the afternoon. We should have been there an hour or two earlier, but maybe I’d just been really booking it my first time down the road.

While we worked on turning the carts onto the northbound road, Twilight spoke up. "I've been running some calculations, and I don't think we'll make it before nightfall. I think this inn is a much better idea than camping out."

Dash and I shared a groan at the idea of having to wait even longer, but a small part of my discomfort may have also been from the idea of facing Soft Down again.

"Seconded. The thought of having to ‘rough’ it in the dirt like that—" Rarity shuddered like snow had dripped down her neck "—I'm just glad this place came along when it did."

"Actually, I was thinking of our safety after it gets dark. A well-lit building would do better than a campfire."

"Yes, that too."

The two carts came to a stop alongside the building, all of us eager to work out the few kinks that inevitably surfaced. We grouped up while Fluttershy gently shook Applejack. Just as Rainbow Dash started grumbling about getting another rain cloud, the cowpony stirred with a sleepy "I'm up, I'm up."

"Think Softie will be glad to see you again?" Dave broke away from Pinkie—he probably needed a break after riding and chatting with her the entire trip—and sat on a small boulder. My snort was passed off as a sneeze. "I think he'll understand at least. You should talk to Twilight though. I think she knows exactly where we need to go. And so do you."

"Later."

Something about the quiet inn just wasn't right. The fur on the back of my neck prickled as a feeling of dread washed over and clung to me like an oily wave.

As one of the first through the door, I had the chance to see just how much the place had been wrecked. Furniture was shattered, the wood scattered about like kindling after a tornado. Feathers from a multitude of torn cushions sprinkled the area and soaked in the occasional splatter of red. Bloody streaks decorated the floor and walls in a macabre mosaic. My eyes flicked back to the stained feathers, noticing some of them were tan instead of the usual white of pillow stuffing.

"Hello? Is anypony there?" Twilight called out, ignoring the carnage and ringing the service bell. What should have been a crystal clear "ding" instead sounded like shrieks of life cut short.

"Oh my! Have they even heard of dusting?" Rarity asked, running a hoof along one of the few intact tables. The blood marred her fur, but she paid it no mind.

Bewildered at their nonchalance, I opened my mouth to question their sanity and barely managed to catch myself. My eyes clenched shut so tight it hurt, and when they opened the destruction and gore were gone. Everything was intact and nothing had been painted scarlet by futile struggles. A thin, undisturbed layer of dust covered every surface like a winter's first snowfall.

"Are you feeling okay?" A hushed voice to my left caused me to jump, and I wheeled to face a pale yellow pegasus adorably attempting to take refuge behind her mane. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to surprise you. Please don't be mad."

Dave failed to suppress a “D'aww.”

I gave a single, faint laugh at classic Fluttershy. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"Um, are you sure? It looked like something really bothered you. You can tell me about it if you want. Or not, it's up to you."

Her adorableness was stopping me from full-out lying. "It's nothing. I didn't get any sleep last night." I spoke too quickly—they had to be certain something was wrong now.

Dejected, she nodded and left, only to make room for Applejack. The universe was really showing its love. "You don't have to hide things from Fluttershy, ya know? She's just about the kindest mare you'll ever meet."

"I really didn't get to bed last night. Spent too much time stocking up for today." Teal eyes locked with emerald ones, the first trying to weather the second's onslaught.

"I know when a pony is hiding things. We got off on the wrong hoof, but that don't mean I can ignore that you’re hurting something fierce." Applejack's expression softened, but her eyes maintained their ferocity.

Unable to take it anymore, my head turned to the side. Part of me wanted to tell her off or just snap at her to mind her own business, but I was better than that. "I don't want to talk about it." With any luck, she wouldn't detect the annoyance in my voice.

She rubbed at her forehead, sighing. "Alright then. But, I'll tell ya right now, it's better to get that sort of thing off yer barrel. Trust me."

"Maybe later. This really isn't the place for a story like that." Not that she’d ever hear it unless there was no other option. No sense in running around telling everypony my life's story, especially since most of it was boring.

"I'm holding you to that." It looked like there was more she wanted to say, but politely nodded and excused herself to join the others in searching the building for ponies, disappearing up the stairs.

"Damn hick." Dave scoffed and gestured rudely, incidentally reminding me of another thing denied by having hooves. "Where does she get off prying like that?"

"Dude, I saw you watching her leave. Stop checking out her flank." Dave glared so hard half the room shivered at the sudden drop in temperature.

Soft Down was gone: there was an unshakable feeling of dread in the back of my skull insisting he didn't just pack up and leave. Call it cynicism, but it wasn't something I'd only felt once or twice. The others had to have thought the same, even if they didn't know what the feeling was.

It wasn't long before Twilight stepped out of the door marked "Employees Only" and shook her head. "I can't find anypony. It's like they left for vacation, but nothing was locked up."

"No ponies or cookies in the kitchen." Pinkie appeared behind Twilight, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's and spraying crumbs. "Not anymore anyway. Anypony bring any milk?"

"Applejack, Rarity," Twilight shouted up the stairs. "Either of you find anypony?"

"Sorry, Twi. Emptier than a barrel after cider season."

The bookworm stepped back to let her friend by. "Where's Rarity?"

"Still prettying herself up in the bathroom, I guess. Rainbow soaked her pretty good." Applejack shrugged before plopping down on a cushion, coughing on the resulting cloud of dust.

"Hopefully Rainbow finds somepony then. If not, this place was likely deserted."

On cue, the prismatic pegasus pony perilously plowed through the portal, colliding with Shok and sending them both tumbling through a table. Somehow, none of the diamond dog’s bottles so much as cracked. Sheepishly apologizing to the diamond dog, she pulled him off the ground. "Nothing outside except for a weird crater near a pile of junk."

"My bad. I was here a couple weeks ago and may have blown myself up a little."

"You've been here recently? Why didn't you say anything?" Twilight asked.

"Because it's an inn… ponies visit all the time.” At least she had the gumption to look embarrassed.  “There was a pegasus, Soft Down, who pulled me out of an Everfree storm. Turned out he owned this place, but he's obviously not here now."

Rainbow Dash snorted in disgust. "Ugh, those things are nasty. Nothing I can't handle, but since you're an earth pony, I'm glad I wasn't in your hooves." Her brow furrowed in thought. "We met the day after, right?"

"Yeah, you 'rescued' me." We quietly giggled over the memory.

"If Mr. Soft Down isn't here, shouldn't we leave? I don't want to intrude." Fluttershy stood next to the door her fellow pegasus had knocked open, glancing between us and the marshy area across the road.

"Sorry, Fluttershy. It would still be much safer to rest here for the night. Wouldn't you rather sleep in a bed than on the ground?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, I don't mind sleeping outside. It's kind of nice, and a lot of my animal friends do it all the time."

"Ooh, did you see a waterbed upstairs, AJ?" Pinkie Pie was already out of sight, her hooves echoing from the second floor hallway. Regardless, she still heard Applejack say she couldn't remember any. Instead of returning, Pinkie insisted Applejack didn't check the water-closet.

She removed her Stetson and wiped her foreleg across her forehead, quietly muttering, "Why do I even try?" Applejack turned to the demure pegasus and smiled. "Tell you what, Shy. We'll still pay for the night, even if nopony is around to take it."

"If you really want to."

"That’s that then. I'm gonna go call a room." A rainbow-colored blur disappeared in the same direction as the pink one.

"Go ahead and get comfortable, everypo—everybody." Western Agate thanked Twilight with a polite nod. "Sundown is less than an hour away, so now would be a great time to eat your dinner. Sterling, can I have a word with you in private?" Noticing the several curious looks directed at her, she said, "I need your perspective on some equations that are giving me trouble." Sweet Celestia, how could nobody have noticed such a terrible lie?

"Ooh, somepony's in trouble."

As the door closed behind me, I heard Pinkie shout  "Found it!" followed immediately by the sound of a rushing flood mixed with Rarity's shrieks. Twilight held the door just shy of closing entirely before deciding she didn't want to know how much damage Pinkie had caused this time.

"I'm sorry, but there aren't actually any equations." Her ears fell and she turned her head. "I had to lie to get you out of there."

I was too tired to make an innuendo, no matter how much she set herself up. I’d mess with Dash’s head later to make it up to my sense of humor. I rolled my eyes at Twilight. "You're not the greatest liar. I take it you know exactly where we need to go and noticed too many coincidences."

She lay down and yawned, forcing me to follow suit. "Shortly after the recent Everfree storm, Princess Celestia sent me to analyze a magical disturbance north-northeast of our current location. Since the storm's residual energy threw off my readings, I couldn't figure out exactly what happened. Now though, I believe you are involved in some way." I don't know how she saw any fictional concern peeking out from under my drooping eyelids, but she held up a hoof to stop me from talking—not that I'd had anything to say. "Don't worry, we already know you aren't behind the voidlings, remember? I just want to know if there's anything you can share on this matter."

"Giant hill with more rocks than Sweet Apple Acres has trees?" Twilight snorted at the comparison and nodded in affirmative. "That's where I showed up. I appeared a couple meters in the air, I think? I don't think I was too near the top when my tumble started, but it took me a long time to hit a tree at the bottom."

Twilight excitedly jumped back to her hooves. "Even with the interference, I knew there was something very unique about the magic in the air."

"Transformation or whatever school teleporting falls under?"

"Transpatial and no. Those would make sense, but this was too different. Too chaotic."

"Discord? I haven't heard anything about him since I got here, so for all I know he's still a bad guy."

"No, Fluttershy really befriended him. Admittedly, I don't fully trust him yet, but he probably has nothing to do with this. He went to unravel some of the plans he'd set in motion before he was sealed in stone the first time." That was some crazy forethought. “At least that’s what we hope he’s doing.”

"Well, the Everfree Forest is the only other thing I can think of that's chaotic. Would a storm that formed there share that kind of magic?"

Her eyes lit up, and I found myself wondering what the pony equivalent of eureka was. "Of course! That's why it seemed familiar. The magic that was there was displaced, probably absorbed by you when you became a pony. Or maybe it had nothing to do with you becoming a pony. Your world may not have had magic, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't have had some capacity for it. Unfortunately, I would need a human to draw any conclusive data."

"Twilight, focus." My cheeks burned when I realized I’d snapped at her. "Sorry. You were going off on a tangent."

She once and sheepishly smiled. "Whoops. What I was initially trying to say was the Everfree storm's magic must have filled in the absence left by you showing up, but that was way too much energy for you to take in alone. There wasn't any trace of transformation or transpatial magic, so where did the rest go?"

"Probably into what's there now. You're tracking emptiness, so maybe it's been sucking up magic like a milkshake."

"Yes, that seems to fit. But that worries me. If it really does absorb arcane energies, how much of an effect can we make on it?"

"Hey, you're the leader-type, not me. You don't get to be all mopey and hopeless unless there's character development involved." She stepped back as I jabbed a hoof at her. "Now show me your game face!"

"What?" The bewildered look plastered across Twilight's face caused Dave to laugh.

"Game face!" I scrunched my face and snarled, mustering as much determination as possible into my expression. "Now you try."

"Grr?" Dave rolled on the floor, clutching his sides.

"That's it? Fluttershy wouldn't be intimidated by that look. No offense."

Twilight's second attempt was even worse, and the adorkableness of it made me and Dave laugh even harder. This was hopeless. "This is Rainbow's department, not mine. I need to get some sleep, and you should make sure Applejack does as well. Figure out a watch rotation for tonight, and just wake me up when it's my turn."

"For not being a leader-type, as you put it, you're giving out quite a few orders." Her smirk reminded me of Dash's pranking face. "Go get some rest… Beta."

“Says the princess.”

Rarity was still absent, probably fixing herself up after Pinkie, who was happily mopping at a gigantic puddle of water covering a quarter of the room, had interrupted her.

My packmates were chatting with Rainbow Dash, and they smiled as they noticed my return. Dash followed their eyes and nonchalantly waved.

"You all prepped in case there's another attack tonight?" They winced at the memory and nodded grimly. "Excellent. I need to get some sleep, so that's where I'll be. Twilight is working on a watch rotation, so listen to her, please. Western Agate, I have a difficult task for you tonight."

"I will face it to the best of my ability." The proper diamond dog bowed deeply. "What would you ask of me?"

"Rarity's going to come out of that bathroom and probably spend the entire night trying to apologize. I need you to talk with her and calm her down. She should respond better to somedog who speaks fancy."

West threw his head back and laughed. "Is that all? You had me worried, Beta. I will talk with her."

"Awesome. That's everything I needed to say, so you can go back to what you were doing. Sorry for interrupting your conversation." All four of them readily dismissed my apology.

Halfway to the stairs, Dash called after me. "Gears, wait. What are the chances of there being a fight tonight?"

"No idea. I'd just rather defend against nothing than get caught flat-hoofed again. I have an idea. Follow me." She followed me to where I'd slid my saddlebags off. Dash confusedly looked over the blasting rod I gave her. "I think it would be a good idea if I weren't the only one who knew how to use these."

Fluttershy and Applejack were hesitant to accept the lesson, but before long, they conceded to the necessity of the situation.   As expected, Rarity immediately sought me out once she was grooming, and was pointed to Western Agate without a word.

By some stroke of fate, my room ended up being the one I’d stayed in my first night. It was amusing to look back on how unsure I’d been on my hooves back then. Only a week had passed, but so much had happened it felt like months ago. Even with most of my last visit a decent memory, the beds were just as comfortable as I remembered.

My dreams were nothing special, just being lost in a labyrinth. Sure, any number of things could have freed me, but where's the fun in that? With any luck, I'd be able to find David Bowie as well. Dave followed silently.

"Sterling Gears, how goes your quest?" Luna's appearance caused me to launch myself into the air in fright. Dave and her laughed as I slowly drifted back to the ground. "My sincerest apologies, I did not mean to startle you."

"No harm done." Tell that to my pounding heart. "I thought you could only show up like this if you were asleep as well, and I'd think you'd be awake by now."

Luna shook her head and phased her hoof through a granite wall. "Astral projection is just another skill of mine. I may not be as influential, but interaction with dreamers is still possible. Your task?"

"So far so good. We stopped at an abandoned inn at the crossroads west of Ponyville."

"An excellent choice. It would be far easier to defend a building than a campsite."

"Our thoughts exactly. How is Barinzan?" I resumed my walk and she followed.

Luna frowned in concern. "It is restless and… worried, I think. Our enemy has likely noticed what we are attempting and is now acting on it."

"Awesome. Anything else I should know about?"

"Not that I am aware of. That said, how are you, Sterling?"

She frowned when my immediate response turned out to be a shrug. "I'm alright. I just want this to be over with so I can finally relax without worry. You?"

"Dreadfully bored. Nopony ever comes to Night Court, but witnessing some of the nobles Tia deals with makes me appreciate the quiet. Have you been successful in keeping your origins hidden? Normally, I would be one of the first to encourage you to share such information, but I fear it may be unfavorably tied to current events."

"Nothing like a lynch mob to influence things," Dave grumbled. "Gears saw something that shook her up when we first entered the inn. Fluttershy and Applejack didn't get anything out of her, but they're still suspicious or concerned."

"And what did you see?"

A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the scene. Blood and feathers everywhere I could see. "It was like some of the things I've come across while scavenging… it was clear somepony had been killed. Why though? I thought we dealt with all of that!" A mare was screaming in the background. "We went through all of that, but it still haunts me." The walls shuddered, viscous blood seeping out as the stone cracked.

Luna laid a wing over me, and the maze slowly healed. The effect was lessened since she was intangible, but it was the thought that counted. "What we faced was the inner turmoil causing your nightmares. There are wounds and scars I cannot touch, and you must be the one to conquer them."

"You can not save them all."

"What was that?" Luna growled as she adopted a defensive stance, her wings spread menacingly and a potent glow encompassing her horn. Dave replied similarly, but fully intended to use Princess Luna as a shield if shit hit the fan.

"Luna, I need to wake up now! There's voidlings near the inn." Why could I hear that voice again? I hadn't heard it since we’d evicted Barinzan. All my effort went into waking myself up, but the maze mocked me as it refused to leave, the walls cackling like a B-movie villain.

I jolted awake with a gasp and sprung to my hooves, wincing from a sudden headache as my mind retaliated against the transition and the spell Luna had used to cause it. A table and chair stopped my stumbling, but the clamor awakened Shok and West, who had both been napping on cots they’d carried in while I was out cold. I really needed to stop running into furniture so often.

Quickly striding across the room and to my aid, they picked me up off the floor and asked what was wrong. They steadied me as my head swam, stopping me from staggering back into the table.

"At least they're nice enough to warn you. We'll have a talk about that voice later."

"Don't worry about me! There's voidlings nearby, we need to wake everybody up pronto!" I bit the middle strip of my saddlebags and flung them into the air, catching them on my back in a feat of coordination that would likely never happen again. "I’ll have to practice that one. Alright, I'll go meet up with whoever is on watch right now. You two go rouse the others."

They nodded and ran into the hall after me, splitting off to hammer on every door in the hallway with big, meaty paws incapable of properly playing the tuba. Balsa and Fluttershy looked up from their friendly discussion and their expressions quickly changed to concern. When she saw me, Fluttershy clutched the blasting rod tighter.

"Sterling?"

"Voidlings nearby. West and Shok are waking up everypony else." She shivered and retreated to stand under a wall-mounted light. Balsa nodded and went to the door with her tinderbox in one paw and a torch in the other.

The door slammed against the building as we burst through it, the blazing torch in her paws casting its flickering light into the shadows. No less than a dozen voidlings regarded us with expressionless visages, and they stood only a few pony-lengths away.

"No solicitors!" A blasting rod should have been waiting for me, but only canvas met my hoof. A look back told me they were on upside down. Oops.

The voidlings flinched as Balsa brandished her weapon at them, snarling and spraying forth  vindictive insults. Their abyssal bodies stood out against the natural darkness of the night, their supernaturally black coloring contrasting against the… well, it’d be difficult to find a color they wouldn't stand out in.

Shrugging off my bags, I flipped them over with my snout and hastily yanked out a blasting rod, ending the non-existence of a voidling with a lucky shot. Another bolt of magic seared by my ear, and I glanced back to see Rainbow Dash smugly smirking as she walked forward to grab another rod.

"These chumps don't looks so bad. Don't see what all the worry's about." She paused and cocked her head. "Are they whispering something?"

"We're lucky it's probably just the quiet ones. They shouldn't do anything unless there's an opening or a lot more of them." Of course, several dozen more chose that moment to appear at the edges of our visibility. "Good thing I brought enough to share with the entire class."

The voidlings surged forth, rushing our position like a shadow blitzkrieg, and only a giant swath of flame saved us. Shok laughed maniacally as he hurled another into the advancing crowd, using his torch to light the rag serving as a fuse. "For Ravel!" Another ignition, another throw. "For Shen-Shen!" He tossed the next bottle into an area that was already aflame. "Ha, this fun!"

"I question the wisdom of letting Pyro-dog play with fire so close to such a flammable building." Dave had brought up a valid point, and I could only hope Pinkie hadn't used up too much of the water with whatever stunt she’d pulled the night before.

"Woowee!" Applejack cheered as she let loose. At this point, aim was hardly a necessity. "Nopony told me we were gonna have a bonfire! Time to pay these varmints back for Braeburn and the rest of Appleloosa!" There was a venom to her words that warned me to keep a safe distance.

Twilight fired her own magic missiles that sought out their targets in the darkness. She took the time to carefully aim and judge distance between each shot. Fluttershy was shoved backwards by the kick each time she shakily fired, but she sternly carried on. Shok was running out of bottles quickly, and the otherwise effective barrier would not last much longer.

Out of the corner of my eye, a blotch of pink adjusted the marshmallows roasting on carefully placed sticks. The party cannon had the firepower we needed, but there was no way it would’ve worked. Twilight turned another voidling to mist, which gave me an idea.

"Pinkie!” A hoof clonked against her combat helmet as she saluted. "We need a heavy weapon!" And I'd thought I had a big smile.

"What's she going to do?" Dave moved so I was between him and Pinkie.

"Just like Canterlot. On it!" I almost felt sorry for them.

"Hey! What are you doing, Pinkie? Let go of my tail!" Twilight shouted as she feebly kicked at Pinkie Pie.

A hail of magic erupted from Twilight's horn as as Pinkie turned her tail like a crank, spraying hot, sparkly death into the hapless voidlings. "Say hello to my purple friend!"

As the onslaught died off with a faint whirring sound, Shok whined. "Aww, no more."

"Um…"

"I think that's all of them, good job, everybody." After a final scan, the blasting rod in my hooves returned to my saddlebags. This time, I had made enough, but it was still disheartening to see the scattered bits of thaumite all over the porch.

"What about…"

"Pinkie, I don't know what you did, but please warn me next time." Twilight yanked her tail out of Pinkie's hooves and stroked like she was trying to comfort it.

"Okey dokey lokey!"

"The inn…"

"We kicked their flanks! They didn't stand a chance." Rainbow wiped the sweat off her brow. "Sheesh, is it me or is it getting warm out here?"

"That's because—"

"Good heavens! The inn is on fire!" Rarity screamed with the lung capacity of a champion diver.

Fluttershy sighed.

"Sorry." Shok smiled sheepishly. "Fire look slow. Get stuff quick." A crown of flame danced atop the inn as the thatched roof caught fire. "Really quick." He rubbed the back of his head after Balsa pulled her paw back.

Somehow, we managed to gather all our things before things got too dicey. I even had time to duck back in and save some of the cushions. Soft Down may have shoved me away from the inn, but he knew his cushions—they were just too damn comfortable to let perish in fire.

"One more trip!" Rainbow Dash was trying to hold an argument while clamped onto my tail. With a titanic groan, the roof collapsed inwards, half of the building following suit as the blackened timbers buckled into the flames. "Never mind."

At least we already had a campfire and, more importantly, smores.
> Into Yonder Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Until that night, none of us had ever seen a diamond dog’s mouth gummed up with marshmallow. The heat of the impromptu bonfire was immense, forcing us to retreat up the road but not far enough to be stuck outside the firelight.

It was mostly marshy around the crossroads—not enough to summon images of a swamp, but it was not a place you walked—or slipped during a storm—into without getting wet and muddy.

A small distance from the rest of the group, Shok sat in a timeout issued by Pinkie. She'd used a “doghouse” pun twenty-three times, wringing every last drop of amusement out of the word and all but ensuring none would be inclined to use it. A pun assault of that magnitude was a war crime in some cultures.

Sleep was hard to find—the adrenaline from the skirmish worked better than intravenous coffee, yet what goes up must come down. Not even Dash fell asleep before me.


——


I’d only been in a dream-forest for a moment before Luna's projection popped in and stumbled through me in a spectacularly failed hug attempt. She drew herself to full height and affixed me with an impassive look. However, she wasn’t able to hide her embarrassment.

"Sterling Gears, it is good to see you are well. There was much worry over your sudden disappearance earlier. What of the others?" Princess Luna struggled not to join our chuckling.

"They're fine. Nobody was injured, although we did kinda… burn down an inn." Despite my mumbling, she frowned. "It wasn’t my fault."

Luna sighed and her frown inverted. "What are my sister and I going to do with you? I suppose it is good fortune your nearest neighbors are protected by a large layer of stone and earth."

"Oh ho ho. Did Lulu just take a potshot?" Dave laughed as he sat on a mossy trunk.

"I demanded you did not call me by that name, David." She turned back to me and said, "My insult was in jest, and I apologize if I have offended you."

"Sheesh, Luna. Relax." I rolled my eyes at her and stopped my hoof halfway to patting her side. No sense in such a gesture when my touch would travel through her. "Now, I don't know how much longer I'll be asleep, so how about we just hang out until you need to lower the moon."

"I believe this 'hanging out' includes the having of fun, correct?" Dave and I shared a glance when she expressed the air quotes with her wingtips. It was a herculean feat to not bust a gut, but we managed to clench our mouths tight and nod.


——


Oatmeal: the blandest of hearty breakfasts. That was the case as a human, at least—as a pony, they still weren't anything special, but the mush had a little flavor before I’d dipped into Pinkie's sugar and spice supply.

Seven ponies complacently ate their food while the diamond dogs carefully foraged underground for gemmy sustenance, careful to not allow too much darkness to build up in the temporary tunnels.

With a grunt, I forced down a larger than recommended mouthful of oatmeal and spoke to ease off some of the tension. "Told Luna about the attack and the fire." I quickly realized that probably wouldn’t make anybody feel better.

"You did what?!" Twilight's hold on her bowl vanished, dumping the remaining half into the dirt. "Do you want us to get banished or jailed?"

"Or thrown in prison in the place you get banished to?"

Fluttershy covered her snout as she impersonated—imponyated?—a tomato, but it was too late to stop her loud snort from causing everypony else to burst into laughter.

"I take it that's along the same lines as exploding twice?" Dave stared longingly at my oatmeal, almost missing my faint nod.

Twilight harrumphed but failed to hide her amusement. "I guess my idea was a bit much. How did you tell Princess Luna anyway?"

"We were hanging out. We're like this." I raised a hoof before my eyes and frowned at the lack of fingers to cross. "Sorry, forgot that gesture doesn't mean much around here. I mean, we're buddies. She was bored and wanted something to do."

"But she's Princess Luna. Shouldn't there be, I dunno, princessy stuff she has to do?" Dash asked disbelievingly.

"Dash has a point. I find it highly unlikely she was capable of sparing any time outside her royal duties."

"Do any of you know anypony who's been to Night Court?" A few shrugs and murmured refusals answered me. "Hence, bored Luna."

"I think I can get ponies to show up, but I'll need more rubber chickens…" Pinkie mumbled to herself. It was curious, but that way lies madness.

Before too much longer, breakfast was over, and we were forced back into the carts, speeding down the road with the welcome addition of various cushions under our rears. It would be to not need a half hour to shake off the soreness from sitting on bare wood for so long.

Applejack opted to stay in my cart this time, and she tried to say something several times but gave up before making a sound. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone?

A slowly growing, oppressive aura smothered any conversation in its infancy. The plains still looked the same, but something in the air was draining the very soul of the place. It was brittle, like a masterpiece that crumbled to dust the moment it was touched. The cushions did nothing to make us more comfortable here.

When a familiar forest flanked the road, Twilight asked if we could slow down to make the tracking easier. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife, spread it on metaphorical bread, and have a very disappointing meal.

"Stop up here, we'll need to walk through the woods the rest of the way."

It was doubtful this was the exact spot my romp through the forest had ended, but the ghost of my past self still traipsed across the path, disappearing into the woods for a moment before returning to the road. The dirt was smooth and undisturbed, as if nothing had ever set hoof, foot, or paw on it, and even the evidence of my passing had been washed away.

Rarity daintily dropped out of the wagon and blanched at her surroundings. "I don't suppose there's a path we can take to our destination?"

"Nope. Looks like we're gonna do some hiking." Applejack grinned and started after Twilight, who was already nosing around beyond the treeline.

When you spend your time singing and getting used to a new body and world, a long walk flies by in no time at all. During that trip, it was just trees, trees, and more trees with the occasional tree on the side. To occupy myself, I counted the number of times somebody in our party stumbled over something underhoof.

"It's so quiet," said Fluttershy. Her completely understandable volume was a testament to how complete the silence really was. "Where have all the animals gone?" Forty-nine.

"I don't think they cared much as long as it was away from here." Fifty. I tripped over a root and faceplanted. Fifty-one.

“I hope they’re okay. A few endangered species live in this area, including a species of spider with fewer than a dozen still alive.” That spider had it coming.

"Are we there yet?" Pinkie whined as she bounced unimpeded through the underbrush.

"Actually, yes." The trees thinned, and we found ourselves staring up a giant hill dotted with rocks and boulders of all sizes. The path I’d carved with my face was almost visible if I squinted hard enough.

Twilight cast a few minor spells before snorting in frustration. "Sterling, it seems you were correct about the disturbance being underground. A twenty-seven degree incline in that direction should lead us right to it." She scratched a small “x” into the ground, all but pulling out a ruller and measuring to make sure both lines were the same length.

Twilight said my name twice more before I realized why she was trying to get my attention. I turned back to the diamond dogs. "You three know what that means. Balsa, you're on point, and be careful… especially you, Shok."

"Said I was sorry."

"And if Soft wasn't impersonating disco, you could apologize to him too."

The ground was eager to part before their paws, and they disappeared below the earth with a small spray of soil as they worked in tandem. With a small grin, I dove into the tunnel and promptly lost my footing on a patch of loose dirt. Fifty-two.

"Do be more careful, Sterling." Rarity sighed as she dusted me off. There was still an apologetic glimmer in her eyes, but whatever Western Agate had said to her last night stymied the guilt. I'd definitely have to find a way to repay him for putting an end to that. It was odd she kept attempting to apologize to me, though.

Twilight and Rarity lit the way while we followed after the diamond dogs and their bobbing lanterns. Freshly disturbed dirt surrounded us, and the tunnel lead downwards at an angle just steep enough to discourage galloping.

Earth has a particular smell to it. Depending on soil composition and whatnot, it differs from place to place, but they all have a similar aroma tying them together. The dirt we tread upon didn’t smell like it should have. If anything, it smelled lifeless. Not dead, just lacking in everything that could give it character. It was just like the plains.

They stayed ahead of us as they worked, easily matching our pace. Balsa plowed through the ground like it was made of vanilla pudding while Shok and West further directed any soil pushed their way. With this effective system, it wasn't long before Balsa barked something unintelligible and the trio halted to allow us a chance to catch up.

"Something wrong?" It was difficult to keep balanced on the incline as my pace increased.

"Balsa says there's a large cavern up ahead." West stood straight and cracked his aching back with a soft grunt. "I am sorry about that display. Can't quite dig as well as I used to. Anyway, when she says large cavern, she means large cavern."

"How big we talking?"

"Make home look tiny." Balsa snorted as she swiped through the last wall of dirt, our assortment of lights disappearing into the ravenous abyss beyond.

We hadn't broken in level with the cavern floor, but there was only a short slope that thankfully levelled off before our light reached its limit. The air was staler than most knock knock jokes, and not a single one of us passed our fortitude saves to avoid wincing at an odor more ancient than a fossilized retirement home. In the far distance—further testament to the truly impressive size of the cavern—a swarm of glimmers beckoned, like moonlight on a rippling pond.

"Hello!" Pinkie shouted, smiling as her echo returned. "How are you?"

"Shh!" A sky blue hoof jammed itself into her mouth. "Don't let them to know we're coming."

"They'll find out sooner or later. Covert ops isn't our thing." Finding purchase on the stone was difficult. "Face-first to victory!"

Each hooffall was a thunderous affair masking the growls of ancient entities roused from eternal slumbersl. Thankfully, Pinkie Pie only needed to be told once to put her cymbals away. Our little bubble of light moved with us to reveal the occasional stalagmite or other interesting formation, and the tunnel we had entered from soon disappeared into the fluid darkness.

"Obvious trap is obvious?"

We worked our way towards the faint sparkles spotted earlier, but they stayed the same distance away no matter how far we walked. I couldn't help but feel a pang of fright. Would I stop being so scared of the dark after it was over? I would have liked to go back to fearing reasonable things like plutonium dragons and unspeakably awful, indescribable horrors. And Nurse Redheart.

A faint shape appeared in the darkness, possessing a distinctly different color than the surrounding stone. It was still too early to make out any details, but we didn't have to wait long before a monstrous talon breached our little sanctuary, rousing several gasps of fright completely reasonable surprise. Surprisingly, Fluttershy didn't squeal in fear, but upon looking back, it turned out she'd frozen and toppled to the side like a fainting goat.

"This is a dragon's cave!" said somepony behind me as I inspected a faded, black talon easily three times my size. Vague shapes in the dark told me it was one of four on a claw large enough to cover an entire building. "Sterling! Get away from there, you'll wake it up!"

"That'd be a little difficult." There was no need to be quiet as I pointed at the barely visible sliver of yellowed bone holding the claw in place. "This thing is long dead."

Twilight joined in on my examination. "Hmm. How do you suppose it died? What could kill a dragon of this size?" She shuddered. If it was some insidious creature that felled this gargantuan, I didn't want to meet it either. "I'll send up a flare."

The lavender missile soared upwards and burst into a dazzling array of light that slowly drifted back down. The massive dragon's right foreleg was what we'd stumbled across, and the redwood-sized bones connected to a rib cage large enough to comfortably fit a small village. To our left hid the dragon’s rear, shrouded by distance, and at the very end of the serpentine neck in the other direction, a gigantic pile of rock sat where its head should have been. It was further proof that gravity can be a bitch.

"Ouch." Rainbow Dash shared my assessment.

"I'll say. We need to find what we came here for. We can divvy up the loot later." It would totally be a dick move to just call dibs… but I can't say the temptation was absent.

"Right, a dragon cave should contain its hoard. It should be right over there."

Greedy excitement shone on my face, but come on, big dragon means big treasure pile. If the dragon’s dead, it’s officially lootable. You could almost hear dreams shattering as the glorious hoard turned out to be a few scattered gems and coins. It was like the dragon tried to convince its mother it ate enough by spreading the meal around. Either that or this was the worst dragon ever.

"Pinkie, put away the trombone." I received a disappointed "aww" for my troubles. "At least it shouldn't be as much math to divide diddly squat."

"Look on the bright side: it can't distract us as much now." At least five deadpan looks shot in Twilight’s direction. "R-Right. Let's keep going."

It felt strange walking through the remains, but we wanted to take the scenic route even less. The occasional piece of treasure came into view, looking every bit as ancient as the bones that once guarded them. Twilight judged it would have taken several centuries for the incredibly rot-resistant dragonflesh to completely decay, and even longer for the bones to yellow so much. However, she was at a loss when asked what happened to all the treasure.

“It looks like something was carved into the floor long ago.” Twilight ran her hoof over a faint furrow, slowly tracing its contour. “Do you think it has anything to do with the dragon?”

“Wouldn’t doubt it. What’s it say?” I followed the markings to the edge of the light, but they continued far beyond a safe distance.

“It’s too faint. We would need to come back with the appropriate tools.”

We were glad to lose sight of the bones and the unease they left in our guts. Fluttershy was most relieved at leaving the dragon's remains behind, but she definitely felt guilty about it. When she locked up in fear was so adorable, it was hard not to bring it up. The diamond dogs really didn't show much unease over the whole thing. If anything, they were just disappointed there were only enough gems to pass as a fancy meal.

The lack of discernible features made it hard to tell if we were getting anywhere. If it weren’t for Twilight’s tracking spell, we’d be hopelessly lost. Even so, it was doubtful we’d find the way back out just as easy.

Suddenly, our light shrank as the darkness ahead lunged toward us.

We jumped back, and half of us yelped in surprise. I'd already aimed a blasting rod, the situation’s oddity all that kept me from firing. The light hadn't distorted—we’d run into a wall of familiar blacker-than-black that swallowed everything touching it.

Yet, no voidlings stepped out of the shadows, and no voices wormed their way into my nervously swivelling ears. Bad guys didn’t just run out of minions before you blew up the secret lair.

"This is what we're looking for." Twilight eventually broke the silence as she retrieved a headband thingy, commonly referred to as the Element of Magic, from her bags. Placing the gold tiara encrusted with a sparkling amethyst upon her head, she turned to her friends. "Ready girls?"

"Ready!"

My inner brony madly squeed over the opportunity to witness the Rainbow Cannon of Doom in action, almost drowning out some very decent advice from Dave.

"Maybe you shouldn't stand in the way of what's pretty much a pony superweapon." As the six mares floated into the humming air, Dave couldn't help but frown. "Shouldn't we know what we're blasting? Is it too late to stop them?" Their eyes answered Dave's question by opening to show the blazing light barely contained within.

My awe sent my voice running for the hills, and I could only stare as the prismatic ribbon roared into the air, highlighting the abyssal blister that was our target. It stuck out of the cave wall like a tumor, making no effort to pretend it belonged. It made no move to defend itself. In fact, Gummy was less passive than whatever this was. If a rainbow seething with arcane energies screamed towards me, intent on petrifying or cleansing me from existence, I wouldn’t have been nearly as calm, and there would have been a lot of panicked thrashing.

Energy washed over us as it harmony met darkness, and a deafening blast shook dust from the distant ceiling. The Mane Six floated back to the ground, except for Rainbow Dash, who didn’t let the lack of an open sky stop her from flying.

All of us stared in shock at the black orb. They didn’t make a scratch on it.

"It didn't work," Twilight murmured. "I-I felt it. It was like they couldn't see it."

Luna had warned me about this, but seeing it still sent me reeling. The Elements of Harmony, the very thing that gets pulled out when somepony mentions the big guns, had failed. However, Princess Luna believed I was the key to success. My hopes weren't that high, but Plan B still needed to take its chance.

"Twilight, mix up half the stock into nitroglycerin. Don't forget to keep it cool." She continued staring in shock at our enemy. Her friends shared similar 'well, shit' levels. The sound of my hoof stomping on the ground echoed defiantly through the air. "Twilight!"

"Maybe we did it wrong. We need to try again!"

"Twi, you know we did it exactly how needed to." Applejack sighed as she pleadingly looked up to me like I had all the answers. "I don't know what Sterling wants to try, but maybe we're trying to use a hammer to dig a ditch, and she has the right tool." She grimaced, unable to stomach the taste of lying to herself.

"R-Right." I calmed myself with a few deep breaths. "Right. My plan is simple. Blow it to Tartarus."

"I like this plan." Dash grinned—it was nowhere near the cocky grin she normally sported, but at least she wasn't faking.

While Twilight wordlessly mixed the chemicals together, I took one of the glowing gems out of the bag and inspected it for cracks.

"What did you do to that poor gem?" Rarity winced at the sight of the modified crystal.

"Just trust her, Miss Rarity." West gently smiled. Surprisingly, Rarity smiled back and visibly calmed.

"I never explained it to you guys? Well, you remember that blast in the library a few days ago?" Most nodded, Pinkie cheered, and Twilight flinched. "This is like that, but bigger and better. There's some speculation in there about this thing's weaknesses, but honestly, I'm just going to blow it up."

"I really like this plan." Dash stomped in approval. She paled as her magenta eyes caught the chemicals her friend was stirring together. "We're going to need to back up a bit, aren't we?" I just smiled.

"Beta? Can I throw fire? Promise won't burn down cave." If only diamond dogs made that “squee” noise ponies were so good at. On second thought, that would have been creepy.

"You guys can try whatever you want. I'm not going to stop you." The sentence wasn't half over before a flaming bottle soared through the air and vanished into the inky depths. "I think it needs to break open first, try again but throw it at the ground right before it."

"Last one." Shok slunk off to the side where he sat on a rock, put his head on his paws, and pouted.

Something pushed against them as they tried stabbing it with torches. It looked like it wasn’t just going to sit there and take it. Either way, I had something special in store for it.

Eventually, Twilight produced a few large flasks filled with nitroglycerin. She wished me luck before retreating with the others, leaving the diamond dogs to provide light while I worked.

They watched silently as I delicately wrapped the gem and flasks into a bundle, placing it as close as I dared to the barrier.

"Now what?" Balsa asked, looking between me and the explosive.

"Oh yeah. Oi, Twilight! I need you to set this off!" In retrospect, making a second trigger would have been a fantastic idea, if not obvious. You know what they say about hindsight—it makes you feel like facehoofing.

It wasn't long before Twilight blinked over, startling all four of us. "I suppose you need me to overload the gem?"

"Yep, just fill it until it cracks, it should cascade from there and give us enough time to take cover with the others." The bundle was our hope for the future, and looking at it filled me with joy. It was like a child to me... oh wow, I'm a terrible parent—new metaphor please. This was my creation, my ideas made physical—I instinctively knew its strengths, its weaknesses, and most importantly, its capabilities. "We might need a shield too."

It was time for the moment of truth. Twilight prepared to give the ruby its final push, while the rest of us hunkered in the lowest patch of ground we could find. Nobody else but me saluted the gem’s noble sacrifice.

"Alright, here we go!"

"You already said that."

"I was there for what the first gem did to my library, so excuse me if I'm a little nervous."

"Sheesh, Twilight, no need to snap." She glared angrily, a scathing look Rarity mirrored. "I did not mean to say that out loud. So… take your time."

A flash of light and the appearance of a protective dome signalled Twilight's return to the group, where she promptly told us to get our heads down. Sharp protests pierced the darkness like an arrow, and we all tensed in preparation for the upcoming blast.

I was in no way disappointed.

While the earlier detonation had been a brilliant blue, these flames were a blindingly bright crimson. In a mere instant, the blast expanded to its full size and washed over our shield.

A second blast closely followed the first as the nitroglycerin realized it should be exploding instead of twiddling its thumbs. A resonating boom climbed over the deafening roar, and the cavern shook with the mighty force unleashed upon it. Screams too faint to identify came from behind me, drowned out by my laughter until the ruby flames winked out and the echoes ceased.

"Who needs finesse." Waving a hoof at the settling dust while loose stones rained from above, I chuckled. "When you can have fun?"

The looks on their faces sent me into another laughing fit, one Pinkie promptly joined in on.

"That. Was. Awesome!" Dash flew a tight loop and squeed. Catching herself, she coughed into her hoof and awkwardly smiled.

Playfully nudging the boisterous pegasus in the side, Applejack smirked. "I reckon that could give your rainboom a run for its money when it comes to barn clearing."

"As if!" She huffed as she took another glance around. "Well, even if it does do more damage, the Sonic Rainboom is still way cooler."

"Oh, Rarity, you don't look so well." Fluttershy's gentle voice called our attention to the swaying unicorn, whose face was more green than white.

"It's nothing. It must be all this stale air."

"Actually, Rarity, I think it might have to deal with an over-saturation of magic released by the explosion. The air is practically dripping with energy, and you aren't used to dealing with large amounts of it like I am. No offense."

"None taken. Darling, most unicorns aren't used to this much." Rarity beamed as Twilight acted bashful at the comment.

"If she's having trouble now, what will it be like for her when she gets closer to where it went off?" Dave thoughtfully observed as he tapped his chin.

"Western Agate, do you mind keeping Rarity company again? It might get worse if she gets any closer." It always felt dirty to relay Dave's advice. We both knew his limitations, but it just didn't feel right to get all the credit.

"That's actually a good idea." For some reason, she made it sound like that was a rare occurrence. "Let's go see if you need to set up another one of those explosives, Sterling."

"Gears has another one waiting?" Rainbow asked and zipped to the edge of the light. "Let's go set it up already."

"Rainbow Dash, these are very delicate materials I'm using. Utmost care—pfft, hahaha I can't even say that much with a straight face. Let's just hope I did something to it."

Fluttershy and Applejack opted to stay behind and help West keep an eye on Rarity. As dramatic as she can be, she looked genuinely ill. Kudos to her for keeping all that oatmeal down though.

Had I essentially made a dirty bomb that only affected unicorns? The thought sent a shudder through me as it brought back memories of some attempts to contain the infection.

A sizable crater tinted the same scarlet as the blast awaited us. The crater was perfectly smooth, like it had been sanded by a master craftspony. Destruction was spread beyond the depression, of course, but it was nowhere near as satisfying as it was this close to the origin. It looked like mixing magic and nitroglycerin was a good idea after all.

"It worked?" Several voices—mine included—said in unison.

"We might want to save the celebration for later. Gears missed a spot." Rainbow Dash squinted at the distant end of the crater.

Sure enough, a doorway-sized oval of black remained on the cave wall. Its predecessor had been an unsightly bulge, but this was just an unsightly spot, like somebody had slapped a portable hole onto the stone. It sat there stubbornly, its edges roiling as we cautiously approached.

"I expected more of a fight, but you really did a number on it." Dash grinned as she punched my shoulder. "You think you even need more of that nitrogremlin stuff?"

"Nitroglycerin." Twilight tiredly placed her hoof over her face.

"Overkill is saferkill… That one needs some work." Just one more bomb, and we could go home. "Alright, let's finish this."

We patiently watched while Twilight mixed the materials in the flasks, hoofing each one to me as they filled.

"I still think it's a bit much. This chump doesn't look so tough anymore."

"Rainbow Dash, do not taunt Cthulu." Really, how could anybody be dense enough to not know this.

"Huh? How do you know it's called that?"

"It's not. Point is don't mock something that might be way more powerful than you. You're tempting fate."

“Sterling, you're being unreasonable, but both of you need to quit it so I can concentrate on properly mixing this." One last vial was filled and levitated to me, where it was tucked into the bundle with the others. "I think we're in the clear. What could it do to stop us now?"

That last statement was the straw that broke the fate camel's back. The surface of the stain boiled violently. We backed away slowly, but not before placing the bomb as close to the wall as possible.

Before anypony could say "It's probably nothing" the shadowy depths surged forth, enveloping me, and the others’ screams told me Twilight had also been grabbed. With its quarry captured, it returned to its previous state of stillness on the wall.


——


"You just had to go and say it, Twilight." Whatever the blob of ink did, my body was going to be sore for days.

"Where are we?" The alicorn stared around us in wonderment. Wherever we were, it didn't have any walls, floor or ceiling. It had less substance than the Dreamscape, and we were standing in it somehow.

The surroundings swirled chaotically, sometimes producing random splotches or patterns, and other times resorting to geometric figures. The colors bled together just as much, but they had a dulled appearance to them, like looking through sunglasses. Granted, I was still wearing my goggles, but they didn't have any tint to them.

Even stranger, the place had a dynamic odor to it as well, switching from repulsive to fragrant in the blink of an eye. If there was a way to taste this strange realm, that sense would have probably acted similarly.

A low muttering reached my ears, which flicked every which way trying to discern the proper direction. It was a voice with no presence. It was nothing like a voice in my head, which still had some sort of feel to it. It felt like recognizing a word I’d just read. It would be more accurate to say nothing spoke—it was just there.

The voice was in an alien language—if it was even a language at all—and it wasn't just one line vying for my attention. Hundreds if not thousands surrounded me, and it took a conscious effort to tune it out. Worst of all, there was something nauseatingly familiar about this whole place. I looked at Twilight, who looked like she felt the same discomfort.

"We need to get out of here, now!" Dave gulped, nervously looking around for an exit while his composure crumbled like a stale piece of wheat bread. Sweat poured down his brow in rivulets, and he was visibly shaking.

"You!" Twilight shouted, pointing her hoof straight at him. With a growl she lowered her head and charged a spell. "I remember you from that one strange dream. Are you behind this?"

“You can see me?”

"You can see him?"

"Of course I can see him! Do you know this creature, Sterling?" She stood back up, keeping her stony glare and charged spell.

"Twilight, this is Dave." Seeing Twilight in shock never got old. "My imaginary friend, chum, buddy, pal, or whatever you want to call him."

"Not quite." A voice stood out from its brethren, growing from a part of the ambiance to a full-fledged speaker. It kept the same strange feeling, but could not be simply tuned out.

"Go ahead and blast that one," I whispered to her.

"You can attack in vain." A dark splotch separated itself from the mass of colors, pulsing slowly. "But I can taste your curiosity." With each pulse it grew in size, rising up from nothing. "Especially you, the one named Princess Twilight Sparkle. The choice is yours: fight something you cannot hope to comprehend, or sate your curiosity with a being unbound by the laws of realities."

"Kid, can't you feel it? This place is almost just like the Void. W-We need to find a way out. Hell, make one if you need to, but do it fast."

"You will find such a task impossible." No trace of emotion could be found in its words. It spoke, we heard. "This is my domain, and I control every aspect of it. It is my will alone that keeps the Void, as you call it, from destroying your minds. Now, ask and I shall answer."

"Why are you so eager?" Twilight asked skeptically.

"Yeah, you're being a little forward. How about you drop us off at home and we'll arrange a Q&A later." I think I’ll name you Grue.

"You are mistaken, Broken One. The three of you will not leave. Neither will your allies when their vigilance inevitably falters. What you call eagerness is not something I can feel. I do not feel. I am. That is all." The blackened figure writhed in front of us, unable to keep the same shape for more than a second or two.

No sound came from Twilight’s hoof when she stomped it. "But why?"

"The more information you possess, the more filling it will be when I consume you."
> Exposition, Exposition Everywhere
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What a fascinating device you've come across." Although the swirling mass of darkness possessed no tone or presence, Grue seemed amused as it regarded where my blasting rod had ineffectually struck it. "That's the level of tenacity I've come to expect from you, Broken One, but please save those morsels for later."

"Stop calling me that!" Dave shook his head, holding back my hoof from grabbing another blasting rod. "When I'm done here, you'll be the one that's broken."

His look said that we’d get out of this if we just kept it together. A subtle twitch of his head led me to notice the volatile bundle of cloth sitting behind me.

"How would learning make us more filling?" Twilight scoffed, taking a tentative step forward. She had noticed how useless my blasting rods were, and any of her magic would likely have the same result. With any luck, she would had also noticed the bomb.

The three of us exchanged looks of confusion when it didn't reply right away. "It has been long since I have conversed in this matter. If the memories are correct, you should find a vague analogy in the feeding habits of the ones known as changelings, but instead of emotions, I require information."

Something about this thing felt like deja vu of a different case of deja vu.

Hopefully, a plan was brewing within Twilight’s head, because mine had nada.  It was time to waste time until one of us had an idea. "You won't find a lot of that here, so let us go and get lost." When it didn’t react, I waved my hooves. "Shoo!"

"No. This universe is just the next in a long line of meals. I have devoured more than you could possibly comprehend. Even your concept of infinity is an infinitesimal speck compared to the truth." A sense of finality filled the area as it drew itself up, looming over us . "No creature, let alone one as broken as you, of any realm can hold sway over me."

"Leave her be." Twilight growled, lowering her head and flaring her horn in warning. "Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you?" She regarded its words with curiosity. "And what is your problem with Sterling?" The emphasis on my name brought me a small smile despite the situation.

"Problem? If I were capable of gratitude, the Broken One would be one of those who has unwittingly earned it. As I said, there is nothing you could do to me. This is not petty revenge or malice. I do not wish to spread good or evil, order or chaos. Equestria has something I desire, and I am taking it."

I hadn't heard anything beyond the first two sentences. My ears folded back as the words played themselves over and over in my head like a cassette tape used one too many times.  "How have I helped you?"

"Don't listen to it, Sterling. It's a lie."

"How?"  Truth be told, I didn't think I was capable of being that loud.

"You wouldn't have made it from your home if it weren't for me. You believed you made it through the end of your world on your will alone?" I wanted it to maniacally laugh or do something different than remain unnervingly passive. "It is odd you have survived for this long—much longer than any other vessel."

It hadn’t just been my nerves. I really had helped this thing. Accident or not, it was my fault all those ponies and diamond dogs weren’t coming back. Dave had been right—we’d been used.

"Vessel?" Twilight’s voice wavered, uncertain whether to pity or hate me.

"I have been searching for something more than sustenance. Something extremely rare even among an eternity of eternities. I believe you call it magic." Grue was polite enough to pause for our gasps. "It is my ambrosia, but such a difficult meal to capture in any decent quantity. Most realities only have a meager few drops to consume."

Twilight felt miles away as she tilted her head toward me. "And what does this have to do with Sterling?" My thoughts were rebelling from the evidence, and her words went in one ear and out the other.

"Can you not see it? The Broken One is not from your world. They are the only possible vessel—the one that I have long waited for, world after world, dimension after dimension. Enough of the original being survived my presence to not only endure the Between, but also ferry me past the barrier."

How much of my survival was me, and how much was Grue? I hadn't known what those nudges were, but what did the origin matter when they’d promised a way off that dying rock? What if it wasn't just one lone survivor this thing had influenced? How much had Grue manipulated to get here?

"How long?" This knowledge could break me, but I needed it. I had to know for the sake of everybody.

"Far over a thousand days. It would have taken less if it weren't for that errant thoughtform my intrusion birthed." Its words vibrated with anger and frustration, sending violent ripples through the fabric of whatever surface we stood on. The waves winked out like someone had flipped a switch from 'maelstrom' to 'calm'. "But there is nothing left for their guidance to hinder, and they will also be consumed."

The background whispers steadily grew stronger and threatened to overwhelm me as I gritted my teeth to ignore them. Twilight and Dave looked like they couldn't hear the same, but why? Twilight had a whole different mindset, so it was possible she could easily ignore the whispers, but the scowling human was my imaginary friend so shouldn't he have the same reaction? What part was Dave though?

The line between seeking answers and buying time for Twilight was rapidly blurring.  "What did you do to me? And what does Dave have to do with it?" She continued to regard our conversation with tenuous awareness, her eyes flicking between the rest of us. Her mouth twitched as she murmured plan after failed plan to herself.

"A name for something little more than a bundle of ideas? Fascinating. When I finished setting your world in its proper motion—"

Screaming all manner of profanities and war cries, which melded together into a single angered scream, I lunged at Grue. Would it be hurt? Definitely not, but none could say I refused to try.

The ground pitched up under my hooves and I tripped, stumbling painfully before something picked me up and bashed me against another surface while Grue watched patiently. It threw me against something once more before casually tossing me back to the others, who immediately rushed to my side.

Neither hoof nor hand could touch me before I charged again, despite their protests.

"Enough." Tendrils wrapped around my rear leg, the sudden stop nearly wrenching it out of its socket. There was barely any time to wonder why fate hated that particular limb before a sickening crunch filled me with a wave of pain.

"You… you killed everyone!" It wouldn’t keep me down—there were still three limbs in working condition. "Anne, my parents, my friends, that funny guy at the gas station. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had a microwave burrito? Everything is gone, and it's your fault!" 

Blind rage fueled me forward, anger and adrenaline drowning out the searing agony as I clumsily rushed Grue again. Raw emotion poured out of my mouth instead of the heinous threat I'd intended.

"Sterling! Just stop… we can't do anything to it." Twilight didn't even need magic to hold me down once I'd been tossed back to them, beaten once again and having my unfortunate leg broken even further and twisted painfully. How much of the bone was still intact? Hopefully, it would just buff out with magic.

The object of my anguish stood before me, so close and yet farther than the horizon. Looking like the fruits teased in front of Tantalus, Grue silently watched as I sobbed, my anger turning to frustration and then hopelessness. It paid no mind to the angry glares Dave threw its way while Twilight comforted me. "If you wish to continue your futile assault, you should know there are still three limbs I have yet to disable. Your physical condition means nothing to me."

"Bastard…" Sparks of rage arced between him and Grue.

"Oh, that's right. Before I was interrupted, I was explaining how you came to be. With the proper events in motion… no interruptions? Very well then." Not that I didn't try, but my energy had been too thoroughly drained by the beatings for me to even stand. "It was time to seek my next vessel. When I found you, I knew you were the one needed.

"A mind is such a strange container—ever-full and yet ever-growing. Room needed to be made. Removing parts from a mind is a difficult endeavor. Cutting out too much of any one aspect causes the rest of the mind to unravel, but I've had much practice. Too much logic and you'd question the suggestions. Too much restraint and the hesitation would result in your death. Pointless memories, obsolete skills, and anything else that was extra were removed."

My gut churned. Grue had treated my mind like a pizza, removing any topping it disliked, and it was a picky eater. How much more of a person had I been before it came along? How incomplete was I?

"Usually the excess disperses, leaking off into surrounding area and vanishing, but your tenacity kept this excess together. Instead of dissolving, it collected just enough ambient substance to create most of a being. A physical form would forever be out of its reach, and it knew straying too far would be the end of its accidental existence. And so it remained around the mind it had been created from, now altered enough to have room for myself."

Lost in the thoughts of what could have been, I tentatively listened to Grue. Each word that made it through drove another spike through my thoughts. I could almost feel myself losing my grip on any shred of hope that remained, like they were being siphoned off as we spoke.

"You're sick. You dissected her mind, used her, and ripped her from her home and body!"

"The Broken One's current form is not of my doing."

"How did it happen if it wasn't you then?"

Dave looked between Grue and the bomb. With however it saw its surroundings, Grue seemed to hardly notice him unless he actively spoke out. He crept toward the bomb.

"Do you know where we are, Princess Twilight Sparkle? Of course you don't, realities with that level of universal awareness are a rarity."—The snubbed pony huffed—"Inbetween yours and the Broken One's Realities, and every other reality as well, is an entirely different plane. Even those who thought they had mastered interdimensional travel were still stuck in only a small cluster of universes. Currently, we are in an area of my own creation outside the realm you are familiar with, yet not in the Between.”

“What is the Between?”

“Tell me, where do ideas come from?"

Twilight had to think for a minute before she came up with an answer satisfying to her. "Logical thought or inspiration should be the primary methods. But wha—"

"Incorrect. Those may help one obtain a specific idea, but they do not create them. Ideas are just information that has travelled between universes, and they are the only thing that can do so freely. Any idea anything has ever had has travelled through the Between, and before you insist they must have started somewhere, not everything has a beginning and an end. Some things just are. Every universe is giving and receiving this precious energy, even from itself at different times."

"How could something travel through time so easily? Forwards or backwards, it's almost too much to believe, and I have visited the past." Her eyes widened slightly as she spotted Dave slowly sneaking off to the side with a bundle of cloth under his arm.

"Physical beings always possess the simplest, linear perception of time. They may believe time is on its way to being understood, but even if they succeed, how they experience it cannot change. This isn't as simple as travelling beyond the edge of a universe—many of them are infinite. The few dimensions you view your surroundings in are too insufficient to grasp the complex structure of these forces."

"If what you say is true—"

"It is. Truth tastes better than falsehoods."

We shuddered at the reminder we were nothing more than snacks to this thing.

Twilight's legs were starting to shake. "If what you say is true, wouldn't it be possible for the very idea received to turn around and propogate itself?"

"It does happen."

Dave had almost made it halfway by the time I checked on him again. It looked like Grue’s vision was based on movement. Twilight had shut down to comprehend every fact Grue had fed her, or she just had a migraine.

The hopelessness still weighed me down like an anchor, but Dave hadn’t reached his target. There wasn’t any more time for self-pity, and it was up to me to continue the questioning, despite how appealing it was to curl up into a ball and take my lumps until the nightmare was over.

"What does that have to do with how I got turned into a pony?" I could lose myself for hours in the whispers nibbling at my ears, and they only grew in number as time went on. It was like carrying too many items—trying to get a hold on one that got loose only caused you to drop the others.

"Sentient beings and creatures are not the only ones capable of ideas."

"So Equus?"

"And every other world is just as capable of receiving information. Why do you think you recognize so much of the fauna and flora? This isn't the first world where the focal species has tools they lack the proper appendages to use. That is not to say you will see the same things everywhere, but it would be difficult to find two completely dissimilar universes. Even the primary language remains relatively unchanged."

"That's weird… but what does that have to do with me?"

"Even further restricting the differences is the set of constants. There is always a focal species. There is always this language. There is always—"

"A lighthouse?" Whatever Grue had for a hand met whatever it had for for a face.

"Do you understand what I am telling you? Or are my words wasted while your companion recovers?"

"No need to be a dick about it." It probably wasn't a good idea to tick off something planning on eating me, but meh.

"Whatever species you thought you were, your species did not change, the focal species of the current universe did. Since you needed to remain as such, your body changed to follow the new laws."

"So what my univ—old universe considered humans is the same as what this one considers ponies?" I was going to need a drink after the mess was over.

"Correct."

Twilight recovered from her issue for the chance to answer one of the questions that had been bothering her. "And her original body didn't influence her new one, so odds were she was going to end up as a mare due to our gender ratios."

"Wait, nothing special? Just probability?" Except for a few key issues, the switch in gender didn’t bother me. Still, it was upsetting to hear I'd lost my balls to a roll of the dice.

"If you call travelling from a different universe because of a monster who destroys worlds nothing special, then yes." At least she was still in good enough spirits to roll her eyes at me.

"Also correct. It is excellent you two are learning so much. This will be an excellent meal, but I think you could still use a little more seasoning." Learning pointless trivia wouldn’t be near as much fun anymore. "Two beings steeped in information, yet so different. You would find one of you to be like an aged wine, the other an overnight marinade."

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not." Dave was getting so close, but his pace slowed as he drew nearer. There was no way to tell how long it would take for him to get set up. He just needed to keep going. "But, what?"

"It's simple, really. The Broken One has been through the Between, and the Between has been through the Broken One. Raw information is a part of you, greedily soaked up by your body as you struggled to keep your mind intact. It's not the same as knowing something, as nearly all of it will still be indecipherable even if it manages to seep into your thoughts. 

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, you have been absorbing knowledge since the day you were born, your hunger for information is greater than any other being on your world. Day after day, week after week, your intelligence and flavor grew."

We'd had more than enough of being compared to an entrée. "What did you do to the others you took?" It was a struggle to stay calm, but a deep breath helped. "They're gone, aren't they?" I'd already figured as much, but confirmation would still be saddening.

"Quite. Their fate was the same as the one you are soon to meet."

"What did you do to them?" Twilight's tone and expression were level, but if anything were under her hoof, it would have been ground to a fine powder. A glowering flame shunted aside the twinkle of curiosity in her eyes, granting her a glare that would have convinced King Sombra to give up and just purchase a Grow-Your-Own-Crystal Kit.

"You've met what was left. I don't feast like some ravening beast, rending flesh and bone with razor teeth. First I strip the essence—something some have called the soul. This leaves a hollow shell, and when I devour the shell, consuming every last trace of wholesome magic permeating all beings on this world, the hollow remains."

"Those… things that attacked us at the inn were the missing ponies?" I couldn't help but wince as Twilight figured it out. There's denial, and then there's whatever Twilight had been caught up with.

"And changelings." Grue paid no mind to Twilight's angry quaking. "It's a shame I ran out of griffons and diamond dogs, they would have made short work of your defense." I could add changelings and griffons to the list of species I’d helped kill.

"How could you? All those lives, snuffed out just for your own desires. How can you live with yourself?"

"I do not live, I exist."

"Mark my words, we will stop you. And if Gears and I can't, my friends will." A magenta aura covered her horn as she readied several spells, the nearly complete matrices buzzing through her mind begging to be completed and have their energy released.

"And what do you plan on doing? Your magic can’t affect me. I've absorbed so much of it already from not just this world, but the combined dregs of countless others. This domain is a testament to how much power I have gained, how much knowledge I have gleaned from all those minds. A realm neither inside or outside another." There was a strange sound and our surroundings shimmered, the colors lightening a shade. Was it laughing? "Or perhaps you expected that belligerent thoughtform to sneak up on me with the intent of using that explosive device."

Dave gasped as he was ripped off his feet and dangled in front of Grue. He clutched at the invisible noose around his neck while his feet kicked helplessly. He was rotated until he faced us, his eyes surprisingly bereft of fear. The calm on his face was unnerving, and it was my turn to gasp when it dawned on me it wasn’t calm. It was acceptance.

"Let him go!" One of my good hooves stamped, secretly checking how much weight my mangled leg could take. It could support little more than nothing, but even that wasn't bad for something that looked like it had been run through a rusty woodchipper twice.

As pointless and painful as the charge would be, Dave needed me. With any luck, it would break its concentration long enough to get him out of there. No amount of pain or damage was too much for saving him.

Collection of thoughts or not, he was my closest friend and had seen me through the most trying times of my life. As much as Grue wanted to believe he had controlled me, Dave was the one to thank for my survival.

"This is where it ends. I grow peckish and need something to tide me over until you two are finished." It watched with amusement as a magic glow surrounded the flailing human and tugged. "That won't be necessary." Twilight gasped as her hold on Dave vanished, and the backlash smacked her off her hooves.

Determination on his features, Dave writhed harder, but his struggles lessened as he was smashed into the ground not one, not two, but five times. Being imaginary didn't stop the blood freely flowing from his mouth and nose. He coughed as Grue's grip shifted from his neck to his torso.

Noticing he could speak again, he managed to weakly smile and choke out. "Light up a big one for me, kid."

"Dave!" It was hard to tell which hurt more: my leg or the scene before me.

Time slowed to a crawl as he gave one final smirk, and then Grue mercilessly ripped him apart. Each piece dissolved and disappeared like a small pile of sand in a windstorm. Dave was gone. My best friend, my aegis against everything clawing at my psyche, and he was dead.

Twilight's magic easily contained me, halting my attack before it could even begin. She couldn't understand how much Grue had just taken from me, after it had claimed so much else. It would pay, no matter the cost. Tears were in both our eyes as I glared and screamed for her to let me go. Droplets flicked left and right as she shook her head and sniffled.

What was the point of Dave's sacrifice if Grue already knew of the device? We could have just said 'here, have a snack' and the result would have been the same except Dave would still be here. I was furious at myself for letting events pass as they did. I could have stopped him. I should have stopped him.

But this wasn't the time for regrets. My teeth ground together as I squeezed the tears from my eyes. We still had a job to do.

"That was an interesting meal. No physical experiences to muddy the waters. No need to fret, you two. My methods won't be near as… messy when it's your turn." The bundle of cloth floated in front of Grue as it began to unravel. "Now let's see what you'd planned on using. A wealth of magic energy. Have you learned nothing? Magic suffuses me, it cannot harm or hinder me."

Bewildered, I glanced to Twilight, who had a similar expression. I’d thought everything it'd devoured had simply vanished or been digested in some way, not became a part of it. Furthermore, was Grue really capable of absorbing the gargantuan amount of magic Twilight had stored within the device? With that much magic, how much more the bastard would be capable of.

The gem hovered, slowly bobbing up and down, as a lavender vapor leaked from the thaumite jutting out of the gem. Grue slowly absorbed the magic, curiously wondering aloud why the flow was so low. This was it, this was our one chance to stop it. One final gambit and we could either go home or cease to exist.

"Twilight… blow it up already!" Fortunately, Grue was too absorbed in its meal to pay us any mind, greedily sucking down the energy the moment it left the gem.

Twilight’s horn sparked to life, and a thread of her magic connected her and the gem as she fed magic into it as quickly as possible. Seconds crawled by as I watched the distant gem for any sign of cracking. It gradually grew brighter as she overcame how much Grue was draining, but it was slow progress.

"Sterling, I—I can't keep this up long enough to overfill it." She grunted as sweat dripped down her brow and off her muzzle, ignoring what we stood on and falling into the void.

The trigger that was designed to set off the device in case either magic user was unable caught my eye. Surely a bigger blasting rod would have enough juice to push the cobalt jewel past its limit. Clumsily aiming towards the floating gem, I squinted and tried to steady the unwieldy thaumite. Debilitating pain and maddening murmurs distracted me as I tried again and again to line up with the thaumite leading into the gem.

"Zero chance of hitting it from this far away, and I don't think I can get close enough. Anyway you can suck this thing dry before Grue notices what we're doing?"

Her words were more strained than the first time she’d overloaded a gem. "Grue? Whatever, I'll ask if we get out of this. I can't drain the magic from things like it can, but if you shoot me with it, I might be able to convert and direct the energy. Just make sure you hit my horn."

Now that was a target I could hit. The magic cannon pointed straight at her horn, still wreathed in her waning energy. Gulping, I steadied myself and cautiously closed the two ends of the circuit together, trying not to screw up the shot while doing so.

The smaller blasting rods hardly made a sound. It was like a large firecracker going off, or maybe a bit louder—there had been many complaints in Ponyville, so it was possible my hearing was fading. They had a kick too, enough to leave a welt or a bruise, or if you were really unlucky, catch a sharp chunk of thaumite in your skin.

This thing was at least five times the size of a regular one, and it kicked like a bionic mule.

It sent me tumbling away from Twilight,  making me cry out each time the ground jarred my leg. My forelegs they had nearly been ripped from their sockets. Thaumite shrapnel had sliced up my entire front, and I'd even heard a few shards ping off my goggles.

As much as it looked like I was really bad at shaving, there wasn't too much blood staining my coat as I groaned and stood. It took a bit to recover from the sudden dizziness, and when I looked towards Twilight, my mouth dropped open, pulling at the fresh cuts.

Her horn was hidden behind a pulsating, miniature sun, and her eyes were blazing white slivers as she squinted from the brightness. Yelps of pain interspersed between strained breathing as she tried to gain control over the extra energy.

It looked like she was moments away from critical mass before she let loose one final scream and the sphere of magic rushed down the thread connecting her to the gem, like a bulge travelling through a cartoon hose. The connection vanished as the orb travelled, drawing up the path as it went. Twilight sagged, but somehow remained standing and trotted to me as the first twinkling crack rang out.

"What is this?" Grue asked with its signature lack of emotion. No fear, no anger, just curiosity over the failing gem.

As the sapphire reached its final moments, the voices only I could hear surged forth once more, and I collapsed with my hooves over my ears. Twilight didn't need to be reminded to put up a shield.

"So much power… and it will be mine."

An abominable scream that would haunt us for the rest of our days pierced our ears as the first blast raced along the connection and used Grue’s plundered magic as fuel, poetically tearing it apart more violently than it had Dave. The disturbed nitroglycerin eagerly joined the azure flames, and the force of the second detonation sent cracks spider-webbing across Twilight's shield and utterly annihilated every trace of the defenseless being that had found itself empty of magic for the first time in eons.

She screamed at the forces hammering against her barrier, pouring all the energy she had left into keeping us unharmed. Her shield failed just as the blast ended, and she crumpled, her legs no longer able to support her weight.

"It's gone…" All that remained was the prismatic cloud of loose magic permeating the area, and I nearly lost my balance shaking Twilight. "We did it! It's over."

The free energy rushed toward the most receptive container the entire demi-plane, and Twilight let out a wail that would send a banshee to buy noise-cancelling headphones. The magic she had fed into the gem not long ago, the magic she'd already stored in the gem, and the magic Grue had taken from the beings of not just Equus, but every reality that hadn't stopped it all flooded into her. The influx quickly filled up her depleted reserves, but even her unnaturally large resevoir had only scratched the surface of what sought purchase in her battered body.

"Twilight!" Wild magic stopped me from getting too close to her, and it visibly danced through her fur, splaying out her mane and tail like she was in a storm.

No matter what I tried, I couldn't get close until she'd absorbed every last drop of magic, her eyes rolling up in her head as she passed out. Trying to rouse her sent jolts of energy through my forelegs like when tinkering with thaumite, but far more potent.

The voices screamed out at me in so many languages as the walls quaked. My mind screamed for it to shut up. This place wasn’t supposed to exist, and everything supporting it was gone, absorbed into the unconscious princess before me. A rift in the weakest part of space tore open as it tried to absorb all that resembled what had kept it together for so long. Beyond the hole, there was a blurry view of a familiar crater.

"Twilight, get up! Our way out is here!" She remained dead to the world. “Don’t make me drag you.”

The tail in my mouth tickled my nose in a very inappropriate attempt to make me sneeze. Every step towards the portal was as agonizing as it was difficult. I was battered, bloodied, bruised, beaten, and broken, but the two of us were getting out of there.

The rift loomed just in front of me, dauntingly challenging me to lift the dragging pony through its yawning maw. On a normal day, it probably wouldn’t be much trouble to heave a pony Twilight’s size, but the day had been far from normal.

The steadily shrinking rim caught my attention before a better plan came to mind. Of course it was shrinking. I could only hope Twilight hadn’t eaten too much at breakfast.

Time ticked by as I worked my head under her and tried to just force her through. Failing that, I sighed in resignation and grabbed her in my forelegs. At the rate our exit was shrinking, there would be little room to leave after her, but there’d already been enough sacrifice.

Incomparable pain clawed at me as I was forced to stand on what remained of my rear leg to shove her through. I was barely lucid, my throat was raw from screaming, and the tears made it hard to see anything but blurred colors. I’d had better days.

More exhausted than ever before, I took the opportunity to cuss one last time at the screaming voices before climbing through the rift, which was just barely large enough.

The stale cave air made me cough and sputter, and I tasted the lingering ancient death that still hung heavily throughout the cavern. Couldn't give up yet though, I still wasn't all the way back in Equestria. Fighting the last of Grue's influence flowing against me, my tail got out a second before it would have been too late.

I didn't want to know why the suction was affecting me so strongly while Twilight was peacefully laying on the rocky ground, but it wouldn't best me. The others were still missing, probably taking refuge.

With a grunt, I yanked my good leg free, feeling it scrape against the edges of the tear. One leg to go. A pained shout and another yank failed to completely dislodge me.

An excruciating pressure closed in on my trapped leg.

"No no no no—" Screams interrupted my words, only to sputter out as pain overwhelmed my senses.

The sound of crunching flesh and bone made me empty my stomach. Everything was fading. I could barely recognize the ground rushing up to meet my face.

At least the voices didn’t follow me into blissful unconsciousness.
> Just a Flesh Wound
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rhythmic. Raspy. Slow. Those three words best described the first thing I heard as my eyes fluttered open, and immediately shut again to block the blinding light. With a sharp intake of air, I realized that noise was actually my breathing.

My body and mind felt numb and barely coherent as I tried to figure out what had happened. There was that horrible pain, my roughed up face impacting the ground next to a prone princess, and then nothing until waking to the sound of my own breathing.

"Saving the world sucks." A groan struggled to fight its way out of the parched desert my throat and mouth had become.

A voice full of spunk and energy called out from elsewhere in the room. "Holy shit, you're awake!" 

Something toppled, and a set of hooves scrabbled across a tiled floor before there was a presence next to me. Inching my eyes open a bit more, I made out a fuzzy white and blue blob with two patches of purple.

"Vinyl?"

"The one and only. I'm so glad you're alright." A tight hug squeezed pain out of the numbness. The pressure lessened as I yelped, and Vinyl nervously chuckled. "My bad. How you feeling?"

The last couple days—at least I hoped it was still the last couple days—were mostly clear. The attack on the inn, the deceased dragon, losing Dave, taking advantage of Grue's gluttony in order to destroy it. "Bleh."

"Sounds about right. The doc didn't think you'd even be awake by now. You were messed up… bad."

"How bad?"

"You lost so much blood you were whiter than me or Rarity."

I whistled, or at least tried to. The air soundlessly passed through my parched lips. "That would explain why I feel pretty weird. Can I get some water?"

"Sure. Drink up." A cup glowing with a light blue aura pushed itself against my snout. The water was room temperature, but refreshing. "Almost forgot! The docs will want to know you're awake."

I couldn't help but chuckle as my eyes acclimated to the glare of the hospital room’s lighting. The “call nurse” button would have been a better idea, but looking around, I couldn't find it. My breath caught—the others had brought me to a hospital!

After a moment of fear, I relaxed. Every part of me was just too exhausted to be terrified. It wasn’t often I had to take a raincheck on panicking.

Vinyl soon walked back into the room with a small bounce in her step, followed by Nurse Sweetheart, whose pinkness nearly hurt my still-adjusting eyes, and a cream-caramel-colored unicorn wearing a doctor's coat. A stethoscope draped over his neck, tucked under his chestnut mane, and dangled to and fro as he trotted to my side. Of all the cutie marks to represent a medical practitioner, surely there were less odd options than having an EKG on your flank.

"Thank you, Miss Scratch. Please go to the waiting area while we check Miss Gears over." His voice was as sharp as a scalpel and as clear as the rubbing alcohol on the tray Sweetheart had pulled in. A small air of importance followed him, like he was the sort of pony you'd instantly believe if he shouted “don't worry, I'm a doctor!”

"Aww, can I please stay? She just woke up and we haven't seen each other in like a week." We’d had lunch together a couple days before the adventure, but Vinyl was too awesome to shoo away. Even though I wasn't panicking, there was still plenty of nervousness for her to de-edge.

"Oh, let her stay, Doctor Stable. Miss Gears here is likely to need a friend soon." Sweetheart was definitely the hospital's caring, patient-pleaser nurse. That meant if Redheart, whose absence from the room was the best news so far, was the hardass, then Tenderheart could only be the sassy receptionist.

The stallion sighed and rubbed at a growing migraine. "Very well."

Sweetheart's words churned in my gut. "Wait. Why am I going to need a friend soon?"

All three ponies exchanged nervous looks, silently playing a game of “no, you tell her” until Vinyl sighed and said, "Your leg's off, Gears." The other two facehoofed.

"What she means to say," Doctor stable said as he glared at Vinyl, who shrugged, "is you were brought in missing your right rear leg. Normally we could perform surgery to reattach a limb…"

"But it's trapped in a pocket half-outside reality that closed on my leg as I left." They blinked dumbly. "Well, it is."

Nurse Sweetheart was the first to speak. "Not to be rude, but you're taking this much better than expected."

"I'm quite upset, I'm just like forty percent painkiller right now." The panic squirmed in the back of my mind, but it was buried by a euphoric fog of insensitivity. It was awesome.

Vinyl was the only one who laughed, while the two medical ponies merely shook their heads and got to work. The battery of tests they performed was nothing too interesting: testing reflexes, checking vitals, you know, the stuff you usually experience during a physical, but if it came in a pony flavor. The one highlight was not having to turn my head and cough.

You'd think ponies would have perfected a medical adhesive that doesn't stick to fur. Nope. The bandages being pulled off was the closest I came to feeling anything other than a numb tingling.

A few bandages dotted my head, but I didn't think there'd be too many scars. The rest of my front side was not so lucky, and only a few sporadic patches of fur peeked out from beneath the white bandages criss-crossing my barrel and forelegs. It took freakin' forever to get everything changed. A sneeze interrupted my count at twenty wounds.

When they moved the thin, white sheet off of me, I caught the first glimpse of my leg, or rather, what remained of the unfortunate thing. The heavily bandaged stump was little more than a hoof-width long. For a good long time, I stared at the empty space my leg should have occupied. An errant twitch from the stump sent me into an inappropriate laughing fit—I was definitely still drugged and hopefully would be for a while. It wasn’t like I had a choice to not be present when it finally hit me that my leg was gone for good.

After what seemed like hours, the two ponies finished and either told me how to make a piña colada or that they needed me to remain in the hospital for a couple more days of observation. Either way I had a hankering for coconut, and Nurse Sweetheart was amazing enough to go find me some.

"You sure you're okay?" Vinyl asked while I contently munched a plate of shredded coconut after the two ponies had left. It would take a few months, but eventually I spent a couple weeks trying find out where Equestria imported its tropical fruits from.

"We'll see when these drugs wear off. Thanks for being here."

"Of course. We're pals, aren't we? Besides, with those creatures gone, Octy's been letting me go out at night again. She's all sorts of scary when she's being protective." Vinyl shuddered. Once Octavia had figured out I wasn't trying to steal Vinyl from her, she treated me with indifference, but before that it was nothing but the evil eye.

Her words reminded me why I was here in the first place. "So it's over? We won?"

Vinyl beamed at me, showing off her pearly whites. "Nopony's seen a thing since the night you all left."

"I can't believe I forgot about the others." The foreleg not attached to an IV drip draped over my eyes as I leaned back in the adjustable bed, wondering where they’d put my goggles that time. "Are they alright?"

"Sure, lemme go get them." She was out the door before I could tell her she didn't have to be a messenger again.

I rolled my head away from the door and came snout to muzzle with a wall of pink. Half a minute passed before my brain registered they hadn't suddenly redecorated the room.

"Hello, Pinkie." My words felt like slush as I slurred.

"Hello, Gears," she replied in a similar manner.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out how to best hug you for saving Twilight, getting out of there, stopping Grue, forging the beginnings of a diplomatic alliance between ponies and diamond dogs, saving the dreamscape with Princess Luna, making leaps and bounds in an underdeveloped field of research, helping establish new leadership of a diamond dog pack…" I tried to follow her, really, but there were just so many words. It was like somepony had loaded alphabet soup into a shotgun and gone on a verbose rampage.

"That's a lot," I said when she took the rare moment to breathe. Pinkie Pie's lung capacity is so high, she should have a tattoo that says, “can be used as a flotation device.” Then again, most ponies were more buoyant than a large door.

"I know! I'm going to need to borrow one of Twilight's microscopes when she wakes up if I'm going to fit it all on the cake! And don't even get me started on how much banner I'm going to need." Excited fireworks danced in her eyes, and she gasped. "Almost forgot!" She hugged me and skillfully avoided causing any pain whatsoever.

Pinkie’s words echoed in my mind. "Wait, Twilight's not up yet?"

The mood ring that was Pinkie’s mane sagged as she glumly nodded. "They say there's nothing to worry about and that she was somehow overfilled with magic, and I mean really overfilled, like a balloon with way too much air, but I don't think she'll pop, at least that's what the doctor told me before he went on break. I found him in the break room to ask if he was sure, but he fell asleep because every doc I know has loooooooooooooooooong shifts. Everypony's hoping you can tell us what happened."

“I’m sure she’s okay. She’s tougher than she looks.” Then again, you’d be surprised what could be endured.

She sighed and shook her head. "We want Twilight to say she's okay, even if it's Future Twilight. As long as she doesn't get Present Twilight all loco in the coco again." Pinkie glanced around the room and frowned. "Where's Dave? I thought he'd be waiting for you to wake up." She pulled out a cupcake and jiggled it. "It's his favorite flavor."

Instead of an explanation, all that came out was a weak sob. I hadn't been thinking about Dave for a whole ten minutes, but Pinkie's question hit home like a railroad spike tied to a sledgehammer. Failing to speak again, I shook my head at her and her rapidly sinking mood.

Mane completely listless, Pinkie hugged me again, tears of her own soaking into my pale-green hospital gown. "I'm so sorry, Gears." The comforting embrace lasted until the sound of clopping hooves and indiscernible chatter drifted through the half-ajar door.

It could only be more doctors or Vinyl with whoever she'd rounded up, so we hastily wiped our tears and waited. With the loud hoofalls masking most everything else, it was a pleasant surprise when West and Spot showed up alongside Rarity and Fluttershy.

After the enthusiastic greetings, I noticed all five of them trying—and failing—not to glance at where the contours of my leg should have been visible. At least it distracted them from our bloodshot eyes and damp cheeks.

The limb’s frequent injuries had gotten old, but there were still trying times ahead for me. Even so, the involuntary amputation played second fiddle to Dave's sacrifice.

"Don't worry about me, I'll walk it off." Predictably, Pinkie and Vinyl were the only ones to chuckle at the admittedly tasteless joke, but hey, it was my injury. The other faces were a mixture of embarrassment and discomfort, and in Spot's case, confusion. "So, what'd I miss?"

"Oh it was absolutely dreadful! We thought you and Twilight were gone forever!" Rarity looked off to the side and lifted her foreleg to her head. "Nothing we did could get that ghastly beast to release you, and it had the gall to attack us as well. It all happened so fast. One moment we were huddled together with all the light we could muster, and next thing we know, everything is flowing back to where you two vanished. Suddenly, a piercing scream cut through the dying darkness, and we rushed toward the noise to… excuse me." The squeamish unicorn disappeared down the hall, clenching her muzzle.

Turning her head away from where Rarity had disappeared, Fluttershy kicked at the floor and continued the explanation.  "Your leg was severed just below the stifle, and there were multiple lacerations and bruises covering most of your body. I performed first aid the best I could, and ooh, I knew I should have brought a second deluxe kit. I'm so sorry." She shied away, returning to the safety of her mane.

Pinkie’s addition was as astute as it was informative. "It was gross."

Adorable as her shyness was, it made me roll my eyes. "Considering I'm here to say it, you don't need to apologize. A second kit wouldn’t have changed much."

"Sorry." I wasn’t getting paid enough to talk Fluttershy out of apologizing.

There wasn’t going to be an apology spiral if I could help it. "The trip back was alright though? Come to think of it, who drove the other cart?"

"Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy smiled. If anypony's mood shifts were weird, it's Fluttershy’s, not Pinkie’s. "The diamond dogs helped me take care of you on the way, especially Mr. Agate here."

West's cheeks flushed, and he dismissively waved his paw. "You give me too much credit. My rudimentary medical knowledge pales in comparison to yours." A blush war was budding.

Rarity returned, looking very much like she'd failed to find a mouthwash capable of substituting jet fuel. "Darling, do you mind telling us what happened to dear Twilight? She's been mumbling in her sleep since we found her."

I nodded and closed my eyes to string the drifting thoughts together more easily. Recent or not, it was hard to think, of anything before we’d been captured, and a nagging thought told me the painkillers couldn't be behind all of it. "I think she soaked up all the magic the baddie stole. If the doctors are right and she does wake up soon, you'll be able to get better info. What was she mumbling about?"

"Most of it sounded like garble. The only thing we could make out was something about gods and harmony."

"Only the destruction of harmony can slay a god."

Failing to figure out how somebody pieced that particular phrase out of those two words, I looked around and noticed the perturbed stares coming my way. "Do I have something on my face? Besides bandages?"

"Why'd you say such a horrid thing?" Rarity frowned with equal parts disgust and shock.

"That came from me?" They nodded, and I shrugged, completely baffled.

It hadn’t sounded like my voice. They really didn’t say that much—how did I fill in the gaps in a phrase I heard in the Between? Hell, was it even relevant to this reality? Once again, we needed to wait for Twilight to wake up for any decent answer.

"Spooky." Drawing out the word and tossing in an overtone appropriate for a ghost story, Pinkie wobbled precariously as she wiggled her forehooves for added effect.

Rarity and Fluttershy awkwardly shuffled their hooves and gained a newfound interest in the medical equipment connected to me by spindly wires. Wanting to know what was so interesting about them, Pinkie hopped over the bed and stared at the heart monitor. Soft, impeccably timed beeps emitted from her.

"What you going do now?" Spot asked. His tan head barely poked over the side of the adjustable bed. "Can ponies walk on three legs?"

There had been many stories of amputee dogs coping just fine, but I couldn't recall anything about equines. That said, there was definitely a new tinkering project in my future. "I'll manage. They might even have a prosthetic. Looks like I'll be a pirate next Nightmare Night."

It wasn’t just going to replace my leg. It was going to do things impossible for an organic limb. Extra storage was the first thing that came to mind—the ability to always have thaumite or a storage gem on hoof would be indispensable. "After that? I guess I'll do what I've been doing: juggling being a Beta with poking science and blowing stuff up."

Satisfied with my answer, Spot stepped back to where West stood tall with folded arms and an unsettled frown. Little guy probably just wanted to hear I'd be resuming my duties the moment I stepped hoof out the hospital’s front door.

"I think I'm going to go check on Twilight again. Sterling, it's good to see you are awake. Thank you… for everything you've done, thank you." Rarity's curls bobbed as she politely nodded and left.

As she passed West, who had sidestepped and given her a small bow, I called out for her to wait. "Can I commission you to make something for…" There was a painful knot in my throat as I tried to keep my voice level. "A friend of mine."

Judging by the amount of concern in Rarity's eyes, I must have started to tear up again. She noticed Pinkie Pie had stopped her beeping for a moment before losing herself again. "I will do my best. What did you wish for me to make?"

"A bowler hat. It doesn’t need to be anything special, but it would mean a lot to me."

A smile flickered on Rarity's muzzle as she nodded. "Of course. I vow to make it the best hat this side of Canterlot. However, please refrain from breaking my bell next time you visit my boutique." She sighed deeply and gently tugged the thick, bland curtains open. "I'm glad to see things have calmed down."

"Are you kidding? I'm just getting started." Surely, Rarity would know better, even with how little we'd actually conversed.

"I was referring to the foalnapping voidlings."

"I knew that." The room burst into chuckles, and I looked toward the window to hide my embarrassment. My view of Ponyville was little more than a few errant roofs jutting into a blue sky, like jagged rocks in a shallow bay.

Things would be different without Dave around, but I owed it to him to march forward and face whatever Equestria threw at me—be it a manticore, weekly ancient evil, or trio of over-rambunctious fillies. This was my home now, a second chance at living in civilization instead of scavenging in the burnt carcass of a city.

I'd already lost one home to the end of the world. This time, the apocalypse would have to get through me first.