> Heat Death
>  by ScottTrek
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The End
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
For the first time in a few years Twilight woke up. She tried opening her eyes a few times before remembering, “Oh yeah.” She thought, blearily stretching her cramped limbs. “No light anymore.”


She debated going back to sleep, but decided that since she was awake might was well find out what had woken her up. Twilight reflexively made the motion of breathing out as she concentrated and pulled into her immense magic well.


Outwardly it didn’t look like Twilight was doing anything, but in sub-space waves of psi energy radiated out from her body like a great cosmic flower. It would have looked beautiful if anyone was around to see it, and Twilight was concentrating too hard to notice. Sub-space, which lay 'bellow' normal space, was a difficult medium to work with, but it was one of the few things left in the universe that was still in one piece.


A quick spatial check reassured her that the long term gravity-manipulation spells she had in place were still working, her orbit hadn’t decayed significantly. She peered down at the cluster of singularities below her quietly whirling around in the final cosmic dance of a dead super-cluster.


Twilight sighed internally and tried to block out the waves of sadness now welling up inside her. “I knew there was a reason I’d gone to sleep.” She thought to herself, pushing her probing psi-waves out further. Looking at singularities always made her sad, she couldn't stand that all the matter in the universe that had made up all the things she’d loved most now lay boiling away in those infinite pools of gravitation.




Oh
Not all the matter it seems.





A few million kilometers out something massive was hurtling towards her. A shock-wave rippled out through sub-space from the object and its course wobbled slightly. Twilight rotated in the void to look towards the encroaching object and noticed wisps of smoke particles brushing past her face as they fell into the gravity well.


It was a machine god, a colossal Robot being pulled into the gravity well. Its insectoid limbs were flailing wildly and its single red eye rolled as retro jets fired and impulse drives sent out another shock-wave. Twilight didn't know much about machines of his type but she could clearly tell it was damaged, the erratic shock-waves indicated its main engines were dying out and on the ethereal plane Twilight could see that energy was leaking from several burning patches on the hull.


She briefly thought about doing something, but why bother helping? The universe was in its death throes. The Robot and herself were just the last embers petering out before the night eternal. She almost considered letting herself fall with it, but no, if she was going to kill herself it would have been a long time ago. 



Twilight curled up and tried to go back to sleep, trying to block out the radio signals as the robot wailed, battery giving out their last few bursts of energy as it fell.






Twilight how could you?
Seriously sugarcube?





At the last moment Twilight whipped out a tractor beam as the Robot came speeding past. Unfortunately the Robot had picked up way to much momentum and Twilight yelped has her horn was nearly torn out of its socket. Thankfully her reinforced bones held. Unfortunately it did mean she was now being dragged along with the robot, her spatial anchoring snapped.



Whirling around on the end of her tether Twilight chose a few choice curses before reeling herself in. She landed with a painful ‘clang’ on the Robots surface and immediately had to roll away as a metal arm scythed round and tried to squish her. Twilight magnetized her hooves and clung desperately to the Robots skin as its flight path grew more and more erratic. 



“Hold still!” Twilight beamed across, “I’m trying to help you!” 


The Robot immediately stopped moving and beamed back, “QUERY?”


“Drop your shields and I’ll use your shield emitters to deflect the worst of the shear. You need to plot us a course through the black holes.” 


“THIS UNIT'S ENGINES ARE AT 10% AND DO NOT HAVE THRUST FOR ATTEMPTED MANEUVER. YOU ARE TRYING TO DECEIVE THIS UNIT”


Twilight grunted, the gravity shear was starting to intensify. They didn't have much time left. “Please believe me!” Twilight pleaded, “I can save us both! You just need to trust me!”


Ten painful seconds eked past, Twilight groaning as the edges of her being began to spaghettify. Then suddenly the Robot dropped his deflectors and beamed, “SLINGSHOT CALCULATIONS UNDERWAY.”


Twilight grimaced and began to pour power into the Robot's exposed circuitry. She immediately patched up his hull breaches and pulled his impulse coils back into alignment. The thunderous roar from the Robots engines was so loud Twilight swore she could hear it through the vacuum. Continuing to pour energy it the Robot, Twilight turned her attention to its shielding systems, they were surprisingly un-complex for such an advance being, but she was going to make it work. 


Twilight’s vision blurred as she fought against the gravity shear. Using the robots deflector dishes to amplify her own force field spells she looped the magic round and around the robot, cocooning it in magic. The strain grew and grew, Twilight's nose began bleeding from the strain of the magic, an occurrence that had last happened 5000 million years ago. Twilight gasped and set her spells to keep running as darkness swept over her vision and blacked out.









Twilight! It’s a real pity you were asleep for that, your new friend has got MOVES!
It was rather elegant.
And you weren’t going to help him you big silly-billy. Now stop being so dozy, wake up and say hello!








Twilight woke to find herself sitting atop the Robots aft hull.  She quickly checked their spatial position and blew a sigh of relief, they were indeed headed away from the black hole cluster. It was rather impressive really, even Twilight with all her magic had only managed an orbit when she had been caught all those years ago. It was a testament to his builder’s ingenuity even if she’d been powering him...hang on!


“Hey!” Twilight beamed angrily, thumping her hoof against the hull, “Are you still siphoning power from me?”


“APOLOGIES,” The robot beamed back, closing the power transfer “ASSUMPTION: YOU ASSISTED THIS UNIT, THEREFORE LOGICALLY YOU WOULD WANT TO CONTINUE ASSISTANCE. THIS UNIT HAD 0.000001% TOTAL POWER CAPACITY REMAINING AT TIME OF DECENT, POWER RECHARGE WAS NECESSARY.”


“Ok what’s your power level now?” Twilight said, dipping into the magic well to assess the damage.


“ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: THIS UNIT MONITORED EQUINE UNITS POWER READINGS AND DISCERNED NO PERCEIVABLE DROP IN TOTAL POWER STORAGE, WHEREAS THIS UNIT HAS BEEN CHARGED TO 700% THEORETICAL UPPER BATTERY LIMIT. EQUINE UNIT IS HIGHLY ANOMALOUS.”


“Oh…..” Twilight said, brow furrowing, “One second.” Twilight checked, double checked and triple checked but the Robot appeared to be correct, and his kind were largely incapable of lying.  “OK…that was still not a polite thing to do.” Twilight chided, “Please ask if you need a recharge. And please can you not telepathize so loudly in my head?”



“STA……Statement saved to file. Behavioral algorithms altered.”


Twilight couldn't help but smile, AI’s could be a faff to deal with but she was really pleased she’s saved him. It was the first conversation she’d in ages. It was also very curious about the power transfer, just how deep did her magic pool go? Also magic and tech usually didn't agree very well, so a 700% overcharge seemed very improbable.  Eons of practice and magic was still finding ways to surprise her.  



“Information request;” The robot beamed to Twilight. Its body began to shift and the section of hull she was magnetized to shifted round so she was sitting in front of its large red eye. “Behavioral data suggests exchange of designations upon first contact among organics. Request designation?”


“My name is Twilight Sparkle. Former princess of the Equestrian People.” 


“Sparkle, Princess.”


“Um… no…” Twilight will be fine.” Twilight said, suppressing a giggle at the robot's incredibly awkward mannerisms. It wasn't really that funny but again, long time since last interaction with another living creature. “And your ‘designation’?”


“This units official designation was: ‘FRGE-110972 Lambda Series Starlord’ at time of creation. Note: 74% of all encountered organics have used starting letters of designation to invent the name ‘Forge’. Twilight unit may do so if it wishes.”


“Well I’m very pleased to meet you Forge.” Twilight smiled, bowing to his large mono-eye.


“Query. If you are leader of your people why did they not make any attempt to rescue from the gravity well?”


“Oh no, my people died a long time ago, they’re weren't like me.” Twilight whispered eyes downcast, “They’re weren't…immortal. The last of my kind perished half way through the Age of Descent, right when the death of the Universe began to speed up.”


Forge may not have understood the minds and emotions of organics on a fundamental level, but after eons of life could still recognize heartbreak when he saw it. “I apologize.”


Twilight sniffed back tears and waved a hoof at Forge. “No, it’s OK. Huh, it's weird to think that the Age of Descent was so long ago now. It was meant to be the death of everything, but, here we are.”


A thin metallic tendril extruded from the hull and wrapped itself around Twilight’s shoulders, it was actually far too tight a grip to be comforting but Twilight appreciated the gesture. “Your people…” Forge said slowly trying to pick the right words. “Your people must have had superior programming to last up until the 41st age.” 



“They were a creative lot, still managing to adventure through space on the last ship of our civilization. We called it ‘The Valkyrie’,” Twilight sighed melancholicly, beaming across the memorized schematics; robots appreciated that sort of thing. “Hundreds of ponies of every type and sub-species living in a last ditch ark among the dying stars. We held on for so long you know…” Tears began to form in Twilight's eyes. She’d seen countless people close to her die in her lifetime, but it never stopped pulling at her heartstrings when they passed on, maybe that was a good thing. “Those bastard Hrath! Then again maybe it’s kinder they went out quickly with a bang instead of a whimper.”


Twilight shut her eyes. She decided it was a good thing that their deaths still hurt; it had always worried her that she’d end up aloof and uncaring like so many other god level beings. Of course that did little comfort the pain in her chest.


“This unit has seen this ship before.” Forge intoned projecting an image of a smaller but incredibly similar looking ship in front of Twilight.   


“Oh yeah… it’s been around for millennia. It was actually the first interstellar star-ship the Equestrian people made. We just kept cobbling new bits on over the years, you know…”


“NEGATIVE.” Forge cut in harshly, pupil widening. “THIS UNIT HAS SEEN THIS SHIP RECENTLY.” Without waiting to be asked Forge began to beam his recorded memory into Twilight's head. Twilight watched breathlessly (figuratively) as Forge’s vision swept across a seemingly empty stretch of space, unremarkable compared to any other. Then, impossibly, the flickering image of the Valkyrie began to flicker and warp in the area front of Forge.


“But…but…no…but that’s impossible! The Valkyrie was pulled into a Chaos Star when the Hrath attacked! There no way the ship could have survived!” Twilight was pacing in wild circles, an electrostatic charge building as she walked and raising her hair into a crazy swirl. Suddenly she cried “Oh!...OHHHHHHHH!….but what if…” and teleported, reappearing flattened against Forge’s eye. “Send me your sensor data!” Twilight barked, thumping a hoof down hard. “All of it!


“Compiling into appropriate format.” Forge replied, “This may take some time. I suggest…”


“JUST SEND IT TO ME DIRECTLY!” Twilight screamed. 


Forge started to argue that such a huge data transfer would be highly inadvisable, but conceded under Twilight’s manic stare. He decided it would be highly illogical to piss off the Alicorn. “Affirmative.”  


Twilight clenched her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. She frantically sifted through the masses of data even as it threatened to burn out her neurons, there was just one simple magical signature, one pattern among thousands to look for.


“Yes…….” Twilight's eyes snapped open.


“Yes?”


“YES YES OH BY ALL THE GODS YES!” Twilight cried, thousands of years of regret peeling away from her features in an instant. She leapt from Forge’s hull and began flying into mad loops and dives around the confused droid.  “Ember Glow you are the greatest genius that ever lived!”


“Please extrapolate.” Forge asked, his body clumsily swiveling as he tried to track the manic pony. 


“Ember Glow was a friend of mine who lived…lives! She lives on the Valkyrie!” Twilight said, laughter bubbling uncontrollably, “Before the Hrath attacked she was telling me about a theory she was working on. It was a time phasing spell that would allow the Valkyrie to be frozen in a pocket dimension outside normal space-time. But I thought it could never work.”


“Space-time of all types has been degrading steadily since the beginning of the 41st Age.” Forge agreed, “Your colleague’s theorem is fundamentally flawed.”


“But she must have made it work. I don’t know how but she must have made it work. All the patterns and energy signatures are there! Just like she explained to me! They’re alive Forge! They’re still alive! She must have gotten the mages to cast it right before they hit the Chaos Star”


“Conclusion is premature.” Forge replied, “There is no evidence to suggest that your race is still alive. Even if the spell worked (which is highly improbable) this Unit was in the Nightmare Zone five thousand years ago at time of recording.”

“I don’t care.” Twilight said, voice steeled, “I’m going in there. Thank you Forge, maybe I’ll see you again sometime.” Twilight's wings exploded into a calypso of light and she prepared to warp through space.


“Negative.” Forge said moving in front of Twilight. “This unit barely escaped from the Nightmare Zone alive. Twilight unit has minuscule chance of success…”


“I don’t care Forge.” Twilight growled, “Get out of the way.”


“It is logical that….”


“I don’t care what your logic dictates!” Twilight screamed, cutting Forge off again. “I swear I will blast my way through you unless you move right this very instant! I will….”


Forge shot out a tractor beam to shut Twilight up. All over his body long dormant systems began to power up as he boomed into Twilight's head. “TWILIGHT UNIT HAS MINIMAL CHANCE OF SUCCESS ACTING ALONE. THAT IS WHY THIS UNIT WILL ACCOMPANY YOU TO INTO NIGHTMARE ZONE TO INVESTIGATE.”


Twilight began to cry again. She gently drifted over and hugged one of Forge's gigantic limbs. “Thank you, ha, ahahah, I didn't think you would find it logical to help me, that’s how you machines work isn't it?”


“To quote my long dead…..friend….. Markus Arathos of the 12th Age: Well buddy, we've got nothing left to lose. We may as well go out fighting for something worthwhile.” Forge paused for a second before adding, “It may be worth noting that Markus did not survive the following events.” 
	   
	 
	 
	   
	
	 
	
	
	
	 
	
	  
	
	
	
> The Edge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The Nightmare Zone lay before Twilight and Forge. To the naked eye there was only the slightest of changes to the blank vacuum, maybe just the slightest tint and the vague impression of depth, like a shadow lying across black card. Twilight moved her head slightly and out of the corner of her eye vague lines and shades flickered, almost forming perceivable shapes and colours, but disappearing if you tried to focus on them. 

They'd been dodging smaller Zones for about four hours and according to Forges flight recorder the Valkyrie was situated inside one of the largest fields. Twilight glanced round at Forge and wondered what he could see through his mechanical senses. Maybe it was better not knowing...

“So where in this mess did you see the Valkerie?” Twilight asked as they inched closer to the border.

“Plotting projected course now.” Forge replied quietly. If Twilight hadn’t known better she might have said that Forge sounded...afraid? 

Definitely not better knowing what he could see.


Be careful Twilight.
Yeah that place is not fun. I don’t think even I could throw a party there.


To be fair to Forge, Twilight was apprehensive about entering the region as well. As far as she had knew no-one had ever worked out exactly what the Nightmare Zones were or where they came from, even ‘god’ level beings such as herself had avoided them unless absolutely necessary.

There had been many theories over the eons; some more plausible than others. Most races upon discovering their first Nightmare Zone went for the theory that they were simply weak points in the fabric of the universe; area’s where the seams that connected the membranes of existence had come loose. That theory worked...well in theory, but it did little to explain why the manifestations of this were so....well...they were called Nightmare Zones for a reason.  

Twilight and Forge had both had a long time to study the ins and outs of reality in their lifetimes and had both agreed that the above theory, though popular, probably wasn't correct or, at least it wasn't the whole story.  

There’s always that theory.
No.
It’s no more crazy then all tha’ other theories you’ve heard Twi.
Maybe, but what it implies... it doesn't bear thinking about.

“Calculations completed.” Forge said, “Is Twilight unit prepared?”

“Huh,” Twilight murmured, “Quite a distance in. Sod’s law I guess, couldn't be on the edge, could it?”

“I would be more concerned if it appeared easy.” Forge replied. 

The two set forward, almost immediately Twilight noticed what appeared to be wisps of blood red vapour begin to appear, becoming visible in the very corners of her eyes. Twilight blinked a few times tried to ignore them, forging on into the Nightmare Zone. The two looked at each other, then moved closer together as a low, sonorous rumble sounded from somewhere within; almost like the Zone was welcoming them in.

 

> The Fray
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Forge! I think I’m going to black-out.”  Twilight groaned, clutching her head. “Forge? Forge!” Twilight looked round to see Forge drifting, lights and engines dead. “FORGE!”

Twilight flew over to Forge, trajectory stuttering as the pain in her flared. She’s first noticed the headache half an hour ago but not thought anything of it. Now it was quickly escalating up to migraine levels. Twilight tried to scan Forges interior but the pain in her head was making it impossible to concentrate. 

“FORGE WAKE UP!” Twilight yelled, pounding his psi-receptors with her mental energy to try and get a response. “Oh hell,” Twilight thought to herself, “Is he dead?”

Twilight head butted his hull in frustration, as she pulled her back she noticed something floating between them. Blood was leaking from her nose. Twilight was panicking now; she tried to fly but the pain had grown to the point that it was preventing her from using the magic that let her travel through space. Her thoughts became less and less coherent, her brain felt like it was having all the fluid drain from it and shriving up. 

There was a sudden thump and Twilight was launched backwards. Looking down Twilight tried to process the fact that there were now two metal barbs sticking out of her chest. Twilight forced her head up to follow the lines trailing from them, leading back to… Forge?
.
.
.
.
Then the nadion particle pulse hit her.

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” 

Conducted through the prongs embedded in her chest, the particle blast hit her like freight train. Twilight’s body spasmed and convulsed as she screamed in pain, but this was manageable pain. The crushing pain in her head was swept aside as she juddered in space.

The pulse cut out and the crushing head pain returned but not nearly as strong. Twilight, feeling completely fried, could only watch as Forge light up, power flooding back to his systems and he opened up with his phaser banks.

Beams lanced across the void, some slamming into Twilights body, jerking her around, but many more were bursting in the void around her.  Another particle pulse surged through the coils and Twilights entire body went numb.

No. Not quite numb, there was the slightest sensation on the back of her neck.

No. In the back of her neck.

Forge was reeling her in now, the coils retracting back into his hull but he hadn’t changed his firing angle. The phaser beams were lancing the area behind her body, Twilight managed to jerk her head round in time to see a phaser beam impact against something. Its outline traced by the nadion particles that led down an emaciated arm tipped with claws passing ghost like into her head.  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Twilight unit?”

“………………………….”

“Twilight unit please respond.”

“…………………………..”

“Administering 10 milligrams cordrazine.”

“………………………………”

“Cardiac functions non responsive. Applying cortical stimulators. Administering 20 milligrams adrenalin, 10 milligrams tricordrazine."

“Uhhhhhhh………”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Twilight blearily blinked back to consciousness, then immediately began giggling at the alliteration in her last thought. She dozily swung her head around and tried to sit up, but wooziness overtook her and she flopped back into the bed.

Ohhh.

What?

Bed?

“Twilight unit, are you operational?” Forges voice filled her head and a holographic image materialised, being projected from a wall panel. 

“Forge!” Twilight grinned broadly, hiccuping slightly and waving a hoof. “Where am I? And why am I in bed?” 

“I placed you in the bedding unit…” Forge started.

“Phhhft…Forge got me into bed.” Twilight giggled, the room wobbling slightly. 

“….to recover from the Terror Child attack.” Forge continued, ignoring Twilight. The holograph showed a cross section of Forges infrastructure. “You are inside one of the old crew cabins.”

“In bed and inside you?” Twilight giggles, rolling over and tucking her legs in. “Sorry Forge but I’m just not into robots.”

“And I have neither the subroutines nor the inclination.” 

Twilight burst in full, proper laughter. “Oh Forge you’re so funny sometimes!” Twilight said between gasps. After a few moments the hilarity wore off and she turned back to the hologram. “Hey, I feel really, really weird; like I was hit by a small asteroid.”

“Twilight unit suffered neural trauma during the attack.”

“Hmmmm…..”

“Twilight unit is also under the influence of several stimulant compounds. You nearly went into cardiac arrest.” 

“……….” Twilight looked at Forge.

“………” Forge looked at Twilight.

“You shot me didn’t you?”

“Affirmative.”

Twilights face grew stern as she lifted the bed covers and regarded the two burn marks on her chest.

“It was necessary.” Forge explained, forelegs rubbing together nervously. “This unit was encountered Nightmare Children and Terror Children in the past, they are extremely hard to track, let alone be damaged whilst they remain in the Aether. This unit had to wait until it was vulnerable before acting. “

“Ohhh its fine!” Twilight mumbled, stern expression dropping away under a massive yawn. “Celestia always taught me to play against your opponents egos.  Bet that Terror Child never suspected a trap.”  Twilight yawn again lay down in the bed. “I’m gonna’ have a nap ok? Keep an eye on me ok? We are in the ‘Nightmare zone’ aren’t....zzz…zzz...zzz.” Tendrils emerged from the wall and carefully tucked Twilight in before lightly attaching to her forehead to monitor her dreams, whilst Forge began running a search in his data-banks for reference to ‘Celestia’.” 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Simultaneously to this Forge continued to run high intensity scans on any patch of space that looked the slightest bit off. He’d seen what appeared to be a cloud of gas a few times before thoroughly determining that, despite what his eye was telling him, it definitely didn't exist.

More worryingly as he’d passed a sub-space vacuole; a pocket of warped space-time most likely caused by the wake of a black hole, he thought he saw a toothy maw and obsidian eyes peek out of the folds of space-time.  It hadn’t been another Terror Child. Like their Nightmare Child ancestors they appeared to their prey in a form that invoked their deepest fears, and what Forge feared was far worse than black eyes and a few teeth, no matter how sharp.

Intensive scans and a log check showed that not only was nothing there but his visual sensors hadn’t actually recorded the image of a face. Forge still put a disruptor bolt into the vacuole to be sure.

Not for the first time Forge hoped that The Valkyrie’s spell had worked properly and time had been frozen for them. Otherwise Twilight would wish that they’d died in the Hrath attack.  
	 
	
> The Time Gone By
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight galloped through the palace corridors like a mare possessed, other ponies driving to avoid her manic charge. Outside the walls a distant buzz could be heard as the Hive battle swarms collided with their Horde cousins. The Young princess shuddered at a distant boom signalled that another Hive H’Karton drone had broken through a nest’s defences. The nuclear suicide bomber would have incinerated hundreds of his brothers and sisters supporting him but would have taken out many thousands more of the Horde, and more importantly shut off another of their mad brethren’s Mass-Progenitors.

Twilight felt her heart jump into her throat as she reached her destination. She skidded round the open doorway and into the banquette halls, currently being used as a makeshift hospital. The moment she went through the doors the smell of antiseptic hit her like a wet slap, quickly followed by a round of cheering and whoops from the wounded soldiers. Twilight looked around as the soldier whooped and cheered and was baffled for a moment, before looking down and remembering she was covered head-to-hoof in congealed green blood. 

“Woooo! Twilight!” Rainbow Dash whistled from a bed near the door. “You look like an avenging angel of death!” 

“Uhhh yeah.....” Twilight puffed, as she tried to get her breath back. “Are you ok?”

Rainbow Dash’s grin dropped from her face, the Pegasus rolled over revealing the tightly wrapped and bloodied bandages compressing her back. Twilight gut dropped. “Oh Dashie...”

“The doctors couldn’t save my wings.” Rainbow said sadly looking back, she turned to Twilight. “Its...Its ok, could be worse, still here ain’t I?” A silent moment passed between them, unspoken words and emotions filling each twitch. 

Suddenly a shadow swept over them and Dash’s eyes widened in panic. Twilight whipped round as a Hive drone staggered towards them, hissing and chattering wildly. Twilight recoiled, the humanoid insect was missing chunks all down the left side of his body, both left arms amputated at the shoulder. As the drone staggered towards them flakes of chitin and flesh peeled of and crumbled, its entire body seemed to be decaying. With a sudden rush of fear Twilight saw the creeping red lines around the broken patches and bite marks in the Drones exoskeleton. 

He was infected.

The drone gave out a pained squeal and dove forwards, zeroing in a on the immobile Rainbow Dash. Twilight leapt at the drone, trying to tackle it away from the injured ponies. Suddenly moving impossible fast despite its extensive injured the drone leapt 6 foot straight up in the air its body crackling with green lightning. 

Twilight hit the ground and skidded along the floor, grimacing as pain rolled through her chest. Gasping for air she rolled over just in time to see the Drone come crashing down on the struggling Rainbow Dash, a sharp crack as the lightning discharged downwards. Twilight yelled and leapt back, ripping the drone away from Dash and prepared to kill the insane drone before it fully converted to a Horde.

But the drone hung loosely into the air, eye’s dark and limbs loose.  It was already dead.

Mind numb Twilight dropped the dead insect, which was down rapidly crumpling to dust and rushed to Rainbow who was squirming and hissing on her hospital bed.  “Bandages!” Rainbow gasped indicated her dressings, now badly lacerated by the Hives claws. “Take them off! OFF!”   

Twilight ripped the bandages apart, if the infection got into Dashes blood stream and took a hold............. 

But when Twilight peeled back the last blood stained strip of fabric there was no claw wounds, no bite marks, in fact if she hadn’t know better there seemed to be no evidence that Dash and only a few hours ago had her back nearly completely eviscerated. The skin was smooth and unblemished apart from the rapidly shifting cobweb patterns of green Hive energy dancing juts under the skin.

“Ohh!” Dash gasped. “Tickles, oh...ohhhhh, ahhhh.”

Twilight flattened her head against her friends back and squinted hard as she caught a flicker of movement. The energy under Dash’s was intensifying around her shoulders and two tiny numbs started to protrude from the joint. Dash giggled again from the feeling and the two nubs wiggled and grew a few millimetres.

“Princess Twilight?” A raspy voice sounded behind her. Twilight looked round to see two more Hive standing behind her, their plate sized hands, splayed fingers, lack of secondary limbs and sweeping head crests identified them as Royal Escorts.“We require you to accompany us.”

“Your Queen can manage fine without me.” Twilight replied, “I’m exhausted.” Twilight yawned and turned back to inspect Rainbow again. “I’ve been fighting for three hours straight and just want to make sure my friends are ok and make sure your crazy brother there hasn’t messed Dash up. Go bother Celestia, I keep telling you that she’s in charge.”

“Your friend’s cellular regeneration is stable, she will live.” The left Guard replied. “The Sunborn Princess fate is less certain.

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Several doctors, both Hive and Pony were exiting Celestia’s chamber when Twilight arrived. One of the Hive Medics was carrying a harpoon, smeared with dark crimson blood. The Medic handed the Horde weapon to the Royal guards who immediacy crushed it, hands glowing with green power.   

The crowd quickly dispersed leaving Twilight with a single Hive, similar to the Guards but unmistakably female. Twilight bowed and greeted the Hive Battle Queen. “Greetings Queen Elloma-ta.”

“Queen Elloma-ta died five hours ago in combat.” The Hive Queen replied. “I am her cloned replacement; Elloma-ka.”

Twilight looked up and quickly inspected the Hive Queen. She looked identical to the Hive Battle Queen she’d known before but if this one was a clone that would make sense. Twilight did however try to ignore the fact that Elloma-ka was no less than four hours old but apparently fully mature. Twilight may have been thankful that the Hive had come out of nowhere when their insane cousins awoke but there was a lot about them that made Twilight’s brain hurt.

Elloma-ka cocked her head slightly and gave Twilight the equivalent of a telepathic tap on the shoulder. Twilight jerked out of her chain of thought and got down to business. “What happened?”

“The Sunborn was defending our landing zone and cloning pods from the Hoard. Unfortunately these Hoard had evolved to level 5 so were armed with projectile weaponry.”

“They can do that now?”

“Theoretically the Hoard can become advanced as we are within a few weeks once they awake from hibernation… … … … … … … …  ” Elloma-ka stared into the space next to Twilights head, finger reflexively twitching. The entire Hive Swarm’s telepathic network was processed and co-ordinated by the Battle Queen and her immediate sub-ordinates. Elloma-ka’s predecessor had often zoned out and even stopped talking mid-sentence.  “… … … … We have always stopped them before they reached stage 5 in our universe but your ‘magic’ is accelerating their growth.”  

The Hive Queen coughed slightly and a largish flake of chitin fell from her crest. “However, the Sunborn wiped out the entire advanced cultivate before succumbing to her injuries. The recorded memories from the Hive present are…..breath-taking.” Elloma-ka coughed again, growling as more chitin flaked off.  “I will attempt to wake the Sunborn, if you wish to speak with her I advice you do so quickly. Any other creature would be long dead by now.”  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Celestia still looked asleep as Twilight tip-toed up to her mentors’ bed. It was deadly quiet in the chamber, thought the distant sounds of battle had been getting progressively quitter since Twilight had arrived in Canterlot. The room had been cleared of medical equipment apart from an IV drip dispensing a gently shimmering liquid and a hulking piece of Hive organic machinery. The Hive machine suddenly juddered, grew some legs and climbed out the window with an apologetic whistle. 

Twilight pulled a seat and flopped down next down to Celestia. Sweat was pouring off the white Ailcorns forehead, which Twilight dabbed at with a cloth that had been left on the bedside table. Twilight blew air from her nose and just sat there, staring at Celestia unable to move, unable to speak. Trying to find words for Rainbow had seemed impossible, this felt for all the world like a mighty obsidian cliff face stretching above her.

“You’re not dying.” Twilight whispered. “I know you….can’t just be dying, not today. In the past few days I’ve seen what us Alicorns can be truly capable of and I am frightened Celestia. You’ve always know what to do, I need you to tell me how to use this power at my hooves. So you can’t die today Celestia, I need you, your sister needs you, your people need you.”

This train of thought and babbling went on for a few minutes before coming to an abrupt stop. Twilight leaned back and closed her eyes, embarrassed and frustrated that she couldn’t find the words she wanted, that she was more pleading to the powers-that-be to spare Celestia than find something truly important to say.

“You can’t die.” Twilight repeated again. The concept seemed so weird and foreign…

After all…

“You can’t die, your immortal aren’t you?” Twilight glanced back at her wings. “Does that mean I’m immortal too? Never really had to think about it before.”   

Celestia suddenly smiled gently, eyes cracking open and turned her head to look at Twilight. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask that question.” Celestia said, blinking and trying to prop herself up. Twilight gently wrapped her hooves around Celestia, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. Twilight was torn; wanting so badly to hug Celestia and never let go, but worried that the slightest pressure might snap her in half.

“I can hear the Hoard screaming in my head.” Celestia said, looking fairly woozy as Twilight pulled away. Lines of red suddenly shot up around Celestia’s neck, for a few moment Celestia writhed in pain before the line shrunk back down. Celestia gingerly lifted up the bedcovers and peeked down at her abdomen. Celestia grimaced, retched slightly and dropped the covers, which immediately crawled back up on tiny back legs and tucked itself in. 

The two ponies shuddered slightly in unison. Hive bio-tech was very advanced but rather creepy. “Is it bad?” Twilight asked, dreading to think what Celestia had seen under the medical cocoon.

“Pretty bad.” Celestia replied shrugging slightly, voice tired but controlled. “Could you get a candle please? It’s very dark in here.”  Twilight stood up and began looking through the draws set against one side of the wall. “I might not survive the night; we have a lot to discuss.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 


(Meanwhile)

Forge was intrigued by Twilights dream, he’d been able to deduce from context in their previous conversations that Twilight hadn’t been born an immortal so still unusual to him that she was still sane. Beings that were born without an upper age limit had a naturally adapted psyche’s to deal with the nature of their existence and cope with outliving virtually everything around you. ‘Mortal’ beings on the other hand who made themselves ‘immortal’ tended to go insane after about four of their normal life spans if they weren't so already.

For that reason Twilight, who had lived millions of times longer than her original unicorn species lifespan and remained sane was a highly mathematically improbable. He was aware that she had been hearing the voices of her long dead friends in her head, but the inexplicable nature of magic gave her some leeway.

“Note;” He thought to himself, “Do not mention that this unit is aware of voices inside Twilight units head, Twilight unit will likely respond negatively.” 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Twilight sat mesmerised as Celestia held her hoof in the candle, the undulating orange flames lapping like waves over Celestia’s coat. Celestia removed her hoof from the flame, wiped the soot off then presented it back to Twilight.
Twilight leaned in, eyes meticulously working over the patch of skin, but there was no damage. Her coat wasn’t even singed. “How do you do that?”

“How would you do it?”

Twilight was perplexed but quickly answered, “Well, there’s quite a few spells I could use to protect from fire; heat absorbsion, err, ice shield…well I guess a small force field could do it…… wait…” Twilight suddenly looked up as she realised what Celestia was getting at. “Is this how Alicorns are immortal, we cast magic to protect us from everything?” 

Celestia smiled warmly from ear to ear. “Well that’s the abbreviated version of it. Our innate magic gives us the ability to automatically create wards to protect us from danger. We can still be hurt and killed, since wards feed directly off magic the damage can outpace the rate of which we can replenish it. And of course wards can be very specific about what they protect you from.” 

Celestia grunted and indicated her chest. “If you’re attacked by something outside your knowledge or in a way you’re not expecting then you can be in trouble. But we also have cellular regeneration like nothing else on this planet and our innate magic does extend to broad spectrum shielding and integrity fields, not as effective against any one specific thing but it still makes us incredibly tough.”

Celestia suddenly let out a long hacking cough and went very pail. Twilight suddenly felt very fragile, the Hoard were from a different reality, which meant they were perfectly suited to penetrate Celestia’s wards. Twilight glanced out the window for the moment before turning back to Celestia, there were still a few questions that needed to be asked if Celestia fate was uncertain.

“What about old age?”

“As far as I know there’s no upper age limit. Cellular regeneration pretty much prevent ageing once you reach maturity.” Celestia sighed and looked at the bushel of flowers that had been left on the bedside table. “It is worth noting that we can choose to die and age, with conscious effort you can override your natural instincts. Our immortality is a choice. I strongly suspect that Cadence is going to go that way. Your brothers very…VERY lucky.”

Twilight turned away again and closed her eyes. This was the big question, the one question that had been whispering in the background since the first fateful day she’s opened her eyes and seen the wings on her back. “Celestia, why did you make me an Alicorn? I know Cadence was born as one, so why did you do this to me.” 

Celestia started to say something. Stopped. Started again. Flustered and sighed and rolled over. “Well…I don’t want to say destiny, that a bit of a…a… I think the phrase is ‘cop out’? I’ve been looking for a successor for protector of our world for a while. After Sunset Shimmer turned out badly I was starting to get pessimistic, then you came along. And I knew were the one to be princess I could never be.”

“The Princess you could never be…but…what?”  

Celestia was starting to look bad, sweat running of her like a leaky tap. “Twilight I wish I could give you clearer answers but what being an Alicorn means to me… its nothing like what I know in my heart you can make it mean.  Have you ever heard of the Strait’s Wars or the Zenith Empire?”

“No…should I have?”

“No you shouldn’t of.” Celestia clamped her eyes shut and flinched at the memories. “We did a good job of erasing its traces from history, the last testament to how things were.”

“What do you mean?”

“Twilight, I wasn’t always a princess, in fact…” Celestia leaned into whisper. Twilight could see a lot of pain and sadness in her mentor’s eyes. “Celestia wasn’t the name I was born with, my sister and I chose them after the Straits Wars. There was a time when I wasn’t a very nice pony Twilight, none of us were, and can you image a race of vain and selfish gods among the mortals?”
Celestia suddenly whipped out a hoof and gently stroked Twilights face. Celestia’s eyes had unfocused, the pain forcing her into times gone by “She was so much like you… so good…showed me how wrong we were… what I needed to do……” Celestia began crying and curled up under the bio-cocoon, mind gone into the depths of the past. “I’m sorry Galaxia... you didn’t leave us any choice.”


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Twilight wandered out of the chamber, chewing her lip in deep concentration. What Celestia had told her would take a while to process but right now there were more immediate concerns. Elloma-ka was leaning against a wall, half obscured by shadows, next to the door while the two Royal Guards fitted extra armour plating over her body. One of them tried to move in front of Twilight but not fast enough to block the view of Elloma-ka’s rapidly deteriorating flesh.

“It’s ok.” The Queen whispered, gently brushing the head of the nervously chittering guard. “You’ve both performed admirably.” The two guards stood eyes dreamy but locked on Elloma-ka. The Queen pressed her fingers against the Guards temples, shutting her eyes in concentration. All three Hive smiled then the two Guards dropped dead, leaving Elloma-ka holding two effervescing spheres of green light.

Twilight stared gobsmacked, unsure what to make of what just happened. Elloma-ka turned to look at Twilight and smiled sadly. “Oh don’t worry, they’re not dead. I’m sending their minds back through the Ansible to our world.” Elloma-ka explained, “Those two are resistant to the degradation you have no doubt seen on other Hive drones.” 

Elloma-ka stepped forward into the light revealing that half her face was rotted away. “Few creatures can adapt to survival in parallel dimensions, and our worlds do not even share a common origin....well...err.....you know it is difficult to verbalise. Anyway despite our genetic reinforcements we were never going to last long in this world without piggybacking on the Hoards neural network. Their ‘nightmare’ sustains them, killing them is pushing the nightmare back.” 

“It must be a terrible nightmare. No wonder you’re all so suicidal when fighting them, they must really scare you.”

Elloma-ka laughed and shook her head, poise relaxing as she slid down the wall to be level with Twilight. “Oh no, we’re like that normally! It’s a characteristic of any hive-mind race. Though they do scare us” Despite being only a few hours old Elloma-ka suddenly looked very old and tired to Twilight. “Another characteristic that that we don’t always get on with or even like other life forms, you can be so chaotic and disordered. But we do like your race. And I do like you; the Sunborn chose well.”

“Thank you.” Twilight said. She strongly suspected that Elloma-ka had been listening in on her and Celestia’s conversation, but that was probably another habit from living in a race where thoughts are shared. 

“Before I go, I have a question.” Elloma-ka said pulling herself back to her feet. “Well not quite a question, could I just observe your reaction to something we found in the Hoard’s neural network?”

Twilight nodded and felt the telepathic probe gently brush against her mind. Elloma-ka suddenly clenched her fists and let out a deep hiss. Twilight recoiled as the telepathic ‘feeling’ signal triggered a rush of emotion and memories. Both Twilight and Elloma-ka staggered as the connection was shut off.

“Last time I felt like that…” Twilight grimaced, “…was when I looked into King Sombra’s door. It showed me my worst nightmare.”

Elloma-ka nodded slowly, a flash of deep concern passing over her ruined face. The Queen straightened up and turned to leave. “Thank you Twilight, I advise you go get some rest, we can handle it from here.” 

“Wait, what was that all about?” Twilight gasped, trotting after the Queen. “And I’m not resting whilst you’re out there fighting those abominations.”

“Don’t call them that. They’re insane but there still part of my species.” The Queen said, continuing to walk away. “And you’ve done enough. The battle is approaching endgame, and your people have helped end it a lot earlier than if we were fighting alone. Also you haven’t noticed yet due to the adrenalin but you have numerous broken ribs. Goodbye Twilight, we won’t meet again.”


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


Twilight awoke with a jerk accidently launched herself out of the bed and was sent sailing through Forges inner compartments.  She flapped her wings to slow herself down, unfortunately Twilight remembered to late that, that Forge hadn’t pressurised the cabin, so she ended up painfully bashing her wing tips against a door frame.

“Twilight, are you operational?” Forge beamed to her. It was very disconcerting to think she was inside of him, reminded her far too much of being swallowed. Not a pleasant experience. “I require assistance.” Forge continued.

“I’m...better Forge.” Twilight beamed back, restarting her magical impulse spells, “Just point the way out.”

Following a path of strip illuminations Twilight jetted through Forges desolate interior, all unused for millennia before the universe had even begun to end.  Looking around Twilight was reminded more of being in ancient ruins than being inside a stomach. Then again she probably counted as an ancient ruin as well.

Twilight popped out of a cargo bay door and flew round to Forges mono-eye, it was the closest thing he had to a face. “Ok Forge what’s them issue?”

“We have reached a crossroads.”

“Sorry. What?”
> The Worst Case Scenario
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight popped out of a cargo bay door and flew round to Forges mono-eye, it was the closest thing he had to a face. “Ok Forge what’s the issue?”

“We have reached a crossroads.”

“Sorry. What?”

Forge indicated around them, the space had taken on a reddish tint, the same cloudy looking texture that had been scattered around since the edge of the zone. “This unit is unable to proceed forward.” Forge said extending his forward appendage in front of him. “Forward momentum negates a few meters from this position.”

Twilight took off and cautiously flew forward, after a few moment she felt a drag, like moving through a strong wind. A few moment later it felt like she was wading through tar and wet sand. Twilight grunted as she strained to move forward, but realised that the spells propelled her through space had ceased functioning. 

For half a second Twilight stopped concentrating to reboot her spells and when she looked back up she was right back where she started.

“I have probed in all directions,” Forge said, “The spatial anomaly extents in a cone shape originating from a point around 10 meters in front of us, and extends backwards for a distance that is at least as great as my sensor range.”

“So if we want to get to the Valkyrie,” Twilight sighed, guessing the conclusion, “We’re either going to have to backtrack a long way or …”

“Or take one of the two tunnels I have detected.” Forge finished, “They are each located at one half radians left and right from current position.” Forge carefully extended one of his front appendages and poked it into one of the ‘tunnels’. The arm seemed to waver for a moment as it passed the threshold. “I am unable to obtain a decision on our course of action; both options are 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% identical, choice is completely arbitrary.”

“You really can’t make a random choice?” Twilight asked. She was still a bit fuzzy and being dragged out of the first bed she’d seen in millions of year’s bed for this was very aggravating.   

“Arbitrary decision lies in the realm of biological emotion.” Forge explained, “Attempted processing results in logic loops, this Unit had already spent three and a half hours attempting to reach conclusion.”

Twilight felt like pointing out that in the short time they’d known each other, Forge had made what had seemed like quite a few decisions that were not strictly logical. She was about to say as much when Forges lights dimmed and flickered for a second. Twilights reached out telepathically in time to catch his entire hard drive rebooting and realised that what she had been about to say might have killed him.

Contrary to what the term implied robots had been capable of transcend what their systems were technically capable of (emotion for example) throughout the ages, especially in those who had learning software that adapted and constructed new pathways over time, similar to how a biological brain grows new neurons. The problem arose however when you tried to point this out to a robot. 

Since robots initially lacked the equivalent of an imagination then the concepts they were able to envisage were limited by their hardware and processing power, the rule of thumb being that a robot could not completely understand its own complexity since doing so would require a greater level of complexity. 

The result of all this was that telling a robot of certain levels of advancement about their own levels of advancement could be lethal. Lower grades of robot would ignore the problem as illogical, higher grades of complexity were able to resolve the problem since their own mental complexity was exponentially increasing. Forge however straddled the line between these two groups, he was severely constrained by what he’d originally been designed for, but trillions of years learning and adapting his own programming had made him just capable of ‘being more than the sum of his parts’.   To him the entire situation was a massive paradox, aggravated by the conflict between the times when he exhibited impulsive actions and the times when he was bound by his logical nature.  

Any paradox could be lethal to a robot, it looped around around until the problem consumed their processors. Twilight had once seen a robotic army reduced to scraps by a simple geometric paradox attached to a computer virus uploaded into their network. The sheer simplicity of the ‘crossroad situation’ had brought Forges internal struggle to the surface.   

“We should definitely go right, bad things seem to happen more often when I go left.” Twilight announced as authoritatively as possible. 

“Does Twilight want me to run a hypothesis test on your past experiences?” Forge replied, clearly relived that for now the situation had been resolved.

“No don’t think about it, just go for it.” Twilight said, pushing ahead down the right passage. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

THUMP

Famous last words Twilight
*********************************************************************************************************************************************

The second they crossed the threshold of the passage way a wormhole materialised and swallowed them up. Twilight kicked backwards through space and magnetically locking herself to Forge, there was no way she was going to let them get separated. There was no situation where a 1000m long behemoth wouldn’t be useful.

With a sickening lurch Twilight and Forge were deposited back into real space. Forge let out an audible sigh of relief, the wormhole had been highly unstable, since space-time had been degrading for millions of years now, and there was visible abrasion on his tritanium hull plating where it had been bashed against the sides.  Twilight shook of the dizziness and quickly began scanning the area they’d been moved in.

“We have been approximately 5 parsecs to the galactic west from previous position.” Forge informed Twilight as he scanned the opposite side to her. His sensors were all giving incongruous reading to each other so they were definitely still in the nightmare zone. “Twilight?” the Alicorn had gone completely quite.

Twilight floated in space, frozen in shock. Forge rotated and immediately saw what was wrong. Floating in space around five hundred meters from their position was a pitch black sphere standing out against the red tint of the zone. Forge set all his sensors against it carefully position himself between it and Twilight. At first Forge was puzzled by his sensor readings, he’d fully been expecting it to not be real, that seemed to be how things worked round here. But instead this object didn't just come back with a tangible mass, this object had nearly as much as mass as a black hole but wasn’t giving off any gravitational waves at all.  

Twilight had started to hyperventilate, despite the vacuum. Her wings and legs were pumping furiously but she wasn’t moving through space, all the movement was doing was sending her tumbling on the spot.

Meanwhile Forge’s scans finally managed to work out what the sphere was composed of, suddenly Forge felt something creep through his circuitry, for a moment he thought he’d sprung an internal coolant leak before he realised the cold sensation was fear. A memory of a human scientist he’d known long ago sprung to mind and he replayed the appropriate file.


~We have a lot of dangerous things out there. If Subject 4532 were to breach containment right now it would probably manage to kill about 50 people before we managed to stop it. Fairly dangerous, but you could probably just step on it Forge.
Now consider those Dell creatures you find around the galaxy. If one of those creatures could flatten continent without breaking a sweat. I’ve seen footage of those scythes cleaving neutron plating in two. Very Dangerous. Luckily for us they can be reasoned with and generally stay out of everyone’s way.
Now consider the WCS, if it were to break containment it would kill me, then you, then everything else it could find. Then a million years later when a lightning bolt strikes a mud pool  on the other-side of the glazy and a simple self-replicating molecule is formed the WCS will find that and kill it.
WCS, it stands for Worst Case Scenario. We’re damn lucky those ponies found it first.~


Forge felt another sensation of cold sweep  through his circuits. Information long archived and forgotten was pulled from his data banks as he inched closer. The files spoke of the WCS and a magical race, who stood their ground when their neighbours had fled. The legends spoke an epic battle that obliterated an entire star cluster in a matter of days and of the ultimate sacrifice of their Moon Goddess who gave her life to seal the WCS within in an eternal nightmare, distracting it from the real world forever.

Forges attention snapped back to reality as a hairline crack opened up along the side of the prison, a light spilled out that’s colour could be only be described as ultra-violent.  Twilight screamed. A long guttural wail of unspeakable terror. Her magic began to spasm and jolt erratically as and the hairline crack began to widen.

Forge’s processors clicked into overdrive, in an instant thousands of data points were analysed, he just need something to work off but the distortion of the nightmare zone combined with Twilights rapidly increasing energy interference wasn’t making it easy. Twilight began to jabber wildly her pupil’s mere unseeing pin-pricks as the breach open few more millimetres. 

Wait….

“Gotcha.” Forge clicked to himself.  Twilight was wheeling madly through space, far too quickly and erratic for him to catch but it didn’t matter. Instead Forge reached out and grasped the prison in his four front forelegs, holding it securely despite its gravitational distortion waves. Twilight saw what Forge was doing and yelped with renewed terror.  She drove towards Forge babbling something incoherent, Forge quickly projected her trajectory and grabbed her out of mid-flight with a tendril. “Sorry Twilight.” Forge said impassively and, for the second time in as many days, shocked Twilight into near unconsciousness with a nadion pulse. 

Holding Twilight just in front of the sphere Forge hesitated for a moment, what he was about to attempt was well beyond his experiences with magic in the past, magic and technology didn’t often mix. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

Extending a specialized tendril Forge made a small incision in Twilights head just below her horn. The wound quickly resealed itself but Forge was able to read of the energy frequency of her regenerative magic. Forge checked the progress of the prisons breach then with a sharp jab Forge pushed the tendril through Twilight’s skull into her brain.  

Forge compared his best models for both Twilight’s and the prisons magical architectures. Ideally he would have liked more time to scan but he was going to have to scan and improvise as he went along. Forge exerted a small charge into Twilights main magic centre, simultaneously scanning the reaction on Twilights energy skeins and the reaction of the prison. With a tangible sense of relief Forge’s theory proved to be correct; Twilights magic wasn’t merely interfering with the magic of the prison, they were resonating on the same wavelength. Another discharge in a different section reviled the field lines arcing between them, not overly dissimilar from a magnetic field.

The upshot off all this was that by manipulating Twilights magic it made his following task much easier, though this was relative since he still needed to repair a breach in the prison of the ultimate destructive force in the universe whilst performing highly delicate brain surgery, all without accidentally freeing the WCS or killing Twilight or himself.   
So yeah…………… apart from all that things should be fine.


    

> The Nightmare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Good morning Twilight, watch’a doing?”

“Good morning Spike.  I’m trying to figure out how to repair a self-perpetuating psi-ion weave.”

“Sounds horrendously complicated.” Spike said, looking up at the 3-d hologram suspended above Twilights desk. Spike frowned as he followed the lines of energy back as they converged at into the centre. “What’s that in the middle? It looks angry.”

“Nothing you need to worry about Spikey, would you mind bringing me some coffee? This is quite important and I need to concentrate.”

Spike’s feet pattered out of the room. Twilight chewed on a quill and contemplated the problem in front of her. “Hmmm, maybe if we tried using a tachyon beam as frame we could keep the initial psi strings up long enough……”

“TWILIGHT!” Spike yelled from elsewhere in the house. “There’s a giant metal spider attached to the ceiling!”

“Oh excellent! What he doing?” Twilight called back.  

“……He’s sort of flickering?” Spikes voice said, thoroughly perplexed.

“Could you knock the wall down so he could get through here?”

“What? Have you lost your mind?” Spike stormed back into the study. Flapping his hands at Twilight, whose gaze remained fixed to the hologram in front of her, “Break the wall down? How precisely am I supposed to accomplish that?” 

“I’m lucid dreaming Spike.” Twilight said, stopping the animated Spike in his tracks. “Just grow bigger and make a hole in the wall large enough for Forge to get through.”

There was a few moments of dead silence before there was a humongous crash and splinters came flying past Twilights face. A dinner plate sized hand appeared in her peripheral vision and placed a coffee mug on the table.

“So… this is a dream?” came a deep, resonant voice.

“Yeah, afraid so.” Twilight said, sighing slightly. “Sorry.”

There was another few seconds of dead silence. Before Spike eventually replied, “Anything else I can get you?”

Twilight smiled, a single tear forming in one eye. “The Library should be housing my memories now, I made a list of things that might be pertinent.” A long scroll materialised in Spikes hand. “Hold on I’ll get Shuffle Pie to help you.” 

A pinkish red colt materialised next to Spike. He had the iconic Pie family candyfloss hair and a cutie mark of a deck of cards. “WOAH! Spike!” Shuffle exclaimed, grinning ecstatically, “You’re so tiny!” 

“I’m the size of an elephant…” Spike replied, raising a scaly eyebrow. 

“I know, right?” Shuffle said, throwing both hooves in the air. “ Anyhoo, let’s a get those memories for Twilight before that space monster breaks loose and murders her in real life, that would totally suck!”   

Spike and Shuffle exited into the now unfathomably large library, every few minutes or so Shuffle would whizz back through with a pile of parchment. On the ninth delivery he announced that Forge was moving.  There came a buzz of electricity and hiss of hydraulics Forge scuttled through the demolished wall.

“Appropriate form,” Twilight commented taking a moment to inspect Forges arachnid body. Since we’re weaving a web…sort off.”

“Sub-unit chassis correlation was unintentional.” Forge replied, “This unit was merely attempting to reduce CPU usage on Twilight unit’s brain. Neural stress is already extremely high.”   

“Ok well, what’s the situation out there?”

Spider Forge projected his own hologram next to Twilights. It was similar but angry, red fractals were forcing themselves out from the centre. Twilight bit her lip anxiously, the WCS had already broken through nearly half of the existing barriers.  She forced her survival instincts down as a pang of fear cut through her, if she woke up she’s start panicking again and probably fry both herself and Forge.

“I have managed to stall the progress of the WCS for the time being. My attempts at manipulating your magic have been highly erratic,” Forge explained, “This however has kept the WCS from adapting for the time being”

“Good work.” Twilight replied. “Well I’ve worked out how to repair the prison, but the problem is implementing it.” Twilight took a big swig of coffee, it tasted good. At least she thought it tasted good. What did coffee even taste like? “Ok so Luna was able to trap the WCS the first time round by sealing it in a perpetual nightmare, and that worked as a prison because the WCS was essentially trapping itself, looping around and unable to concentrate. Understand?”

“Affirmative.”

“But in order for it to work it had to affect the entire of the entity at once, Luna killed herself to make it work. I could theoretically fix it but the damage is so widespread I couldn't fix enough before the WCS noticed. And if it noticed it would know exactly how to negate what’s left of the prison.” 

“Catch 22.” Forge said solemnly. “Any attempt to fix the situation will make it worse. Is there no way to distract the WCS?”

“Not for long enough.”

The silence that followed was deafening. The two worked the trans-spatial equations over and over, looking for something, anything, which would give them a foothold. Eventually a small warning beacon began pinging on Forge.  Twilight poked her head out from her mountain of parchments and looked over.   

“It’s nothing.” Forge said, trying to distract Twilight by running another holographic simulation.

“Forge…”

“……………. Whilst scanning I noticed an anomalous reading in the Nightmare Zone, as in more so than usual. The ratio of left to right spin in ambient sub-atomic particles has been steadily shifting to left spin. The alarm indicated that the probability skew has far exceeded any possible natural explanation. If we come under attack we are worse than defenseless.”

Twilight shut her eyes and murmured. “Nightmare Zone…Nightmare Zone……” Suddenly her eyes snapped open. “IDIOT TWILIGHT! Ohh this is good! This is really good. Forge, I have an idea!”


********************************** *************************************

“Well what do you think?” Twilight said bouncing excitedly, having explained her plan in breathless gasps.

Forge considered Twilight’s plan for a moment before replying. “Logically speaking I calculate a 37% success chance.” Twilight looked down-trodden for a moment, 37% is not great no matter which way you looked at it. “However,” Forge continued. “Factoring biological tenacity alone adds at least other 25% to that calculation. Let’s do it.”  

**************************** **********************************************

(Back in the real world)

Forges warp engines thundered into life, magic drawn from Twilights body being drawn in to augment and amplify the field. At the same time Forge started rapidly shutting down all sensory equipment. “Warp One, Warp two, Warp Three.” He transmitted down the line into Twilight. 

Meanwhile the WCS paused for a moment, when Forge stopped trying to hold him back a new psychic presence had entered his beachhead into the physical world. It was evoking a sensation that it had never experienced before. It…. Recognised this this entity?  

“Remember me?” Twilight snarled, through her psychic projection. 


WHOOOOMPF

Forge lurched in space as the psychic backlash blew through him.  Even at maximum insulation every circuit was resonating as Twilight and the WCS minds clashed. The WCS was by definition the most dangerous being that had ever existed but Twilights mind power was truly a force to be reckoned with. His hull shuddered again, “Warp 7, Warp 7.5, Warp 8, Warp 8.1…” Maintaining a static warp bubble at this magnitude was pushing his battered body to the extreme, only his lighting fast adjustments to the field generators were keeping him from undergoing total spaghettification.   

Twilight’s mindscape hammered against the WCS, twisting and developing almost as fast as the WCS could adapt.  Each of them probing and grasping in a furious maelstrom, both seeking to control and subjugate the others will. The WCS should have had the advantage over Twilight; not only was it older and more powerful than Twilight but unlike Twilight there were no intimate places or memories for it to exploit. However the fury with which Twilight fought was like nothing the WCS had ever seen before. Every time it lunged into a weak point, some grief stricken memory or past trauma, to use to its advantage Twilight would turn it around and use the pain to lance back with an unstoppable knife blade of emotion.

So engrossed was the WCS with this epic battle of wills it didn’t notice that how the fabric of space-time was vibrating and buckling as Forges magically augmented warp field continued to build in power, exactly as planned. 

“Warp 9.8, Warp 9.9, Warp 9.99, Warp 9.995. Charge complete.” Warp field in place Forge activated his particle emitters, which had been charging with magic at the same time.  A dozen beams of nameless particles lanced down from Forge; skewering the WCS, pinning it to its prison and pulling the immense warp field down with them. Twilight’s mind leapt back from the fray, reintegrating with her body before letting loose an apocalyptic energy blast, simultaneously Forge began spinning the particle beams, as the beams intersected they dragged the warp field through itself, folding and refolding space-time.

Twilight blinked herself awake and grinned. From within Forges warp bubble she watched as the shear from the rapidly compressing warp fields dragged the space-time fabric of the Nightmare Zone with it and funneling into the WCS pocket warp bubble. Within the bubble Luna’s prison and the Nightmare Zone were being superheated by Twilights immense magic blast and melding together. 

The WCS thrashed violently to escape, once again the nightmares were exerting their vice like hold over it. Once again it its mind was driven into a deep, dark pit that could never be escaped. Once again it recoiled from horrors that no other being that had ever existed could possibly comprehend.

And this time…

This time…

This time

it 

was 

worse.

On the outside Twilight watched as the boundaries of the Nightmare Zone finally collapsed inwards. Normal space-time hit the shear and rebounded, collapsing both warp bubbles. Forge began furiously venting the extra energy while Twilight inspected the prison. In a reversal from before the perfect sphere had dull red colour in contrast against the comforting blackness of normal space. Placing her ear against its frictionless surface she could hear the faintest, unending scream.

“Good riddance to the both of you.” Twilight huffed, kicking the prison. 

Forges moved forward, grabbed the prison and pulled it through his main cargo hatch. “Do you require a minute to compose yourself?” Forge asked, “Or shall we begin boarding procedures immediately?” 

“Boarding?” Twilight squeaked as she looked to where Forge was indicating. Hanging in space above them, illuminated their ambient glows, was a vast metal hull that dwarfed even Forge. “The Valkyrie." Twilight breathed, “I’m finally home.”        





        
  



> The Entry
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight sat in the airlock staring at the inner door.  She felt numb; she was excited of course, but who knows what had happened on the ship in the elapsed time since she’d last seen it? Theoretically the crew had been frozen in time, but they could be long dead, or twisted and corrupted by the forces that existed outside time and space or… 

Twilight grunted and slapped down the fear welling up inside her. It was these kind of thoughts that had felt her listless and paralyzed for so long, drifting through space waiting to die. No they were ok, Ember Glow was formidable magic user even by Twilight’s deictic standards. After all the Valkyrie’s defence grid was still operational, though this did mean it was impossible to scan inside the ship and that the teleport scramblers were active. She and Forge were going to have to go in blind. 

Twilight frowned, she hadn’t actually considered that. What was Forge going to do?  

“Twilight unit.” Forge’s voice came, much smaller in her mind than usual. What was walking towards her along the hull was tiny in comparison to the full article, but was unmistakably Forge.  The main abdomen was practically identical to Forge’s hull with a single red eye midway down the front. The body was supported by a single set of backwards bending legs, and at least six arms were visible tucked up under the abdomen. 

“Snazzy.” Twilight commented, “But won’t the defence grid prevent you from transmitting from your main body to this unit?”

“This unit contains a scaled-down version of my primary data core, I have transferred my primary cognitive functions for this mission.” Forge explained stepping into the airlock with Twilight, “For all intents and purposes this body is now Forge.”

“Excellent!” Twilight grinned, tapping the console she’s spent the last 15 minutes hot-wiring. The outer door clicked shut behind them. “Main computer seems to be offline but from what I can tell from here environmental controls seem to be still operational and…BLERK!”

Suddenly Twilight collapsed, hacking and coughing in wild fit. Forge rushed to her side, mind racing to work out what was possible causing this reaction. “Twilight unit?” He beeped nervously. On the ground Twilight was turning a ghastly colour, her entire body becoming bloodshot as veins bulged under the skin. Forge tried to telepathically read her but got nothing but a scramble back.    

Forge couldn’t detect any unusual external stimuli and was about to smash down the outer door to get her out of there when Twilight’s body flashed with internal fire for half a second and she sat up. Twilight drew in a deep breath and began laughing. Forge noticed that her voice that her voice was noticeably deeper, for a moment he could not work out why then the two puzzle pieces slotted together in his mind.

“Oxygen.” Forge said, speaking with a long unused vocoder as Twilight pulled herself to her feet.

“I haven’t been in an atmosphere for millions of years.” Twilight grinned, “Not that I’ve needed to for a very long time but…yeesh! I’d forgotten my body would need a moment to adjust. I also forgot telepathy’s scrambled when the Valkyrie’s in maximum lockdown.”  With a clunk the inner door opened, Twilight took a step forward but wavered on the door way. Between the defence grids scramblers and her own utter exhaustion Twilight felt more mortal than she done in aeons. It was scary. But there was no turning back now. Nothing was going to stop her now.
 

> The Valkyrie: Engineering Deck 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The hull of the Valkyrie creaked and groaned like it was some terrible living creature howling into the void. After a few million years completely saturated in magic the hull was settling down and releasing residual energy from the time displacement spell. As a result the entirety of the ship was vibrating and resonating, sending winds howling through the maintenance tunnels like the spirits of the damned.

The effect was muffled in the main decks, which were well insulated against anything to protect the crew, but Twilight still ran ahead to close any open maintenance hatches having told Forge, “This is creepy enough without a bloody soundtrack!” 

Forge, though personally unaffected by the audio component, did have to admit some apprehension about the environment. With main power offline and whatever backups that were still functioning periodically cutting out the ship was largely dark and gloomy. It was a very different kind of dark than what they were both used to, out in the void there was effectively no light left in the universe, and there was also very little out there to give the blackness context. Within the ship there were countless corners, nooks and angles for their projected lights to reflect off and cast shadows from. The darkness here was inky and cloying, seeming to cling like a black film to every surface. Also not helping was the fact that they were both also used to being able to ‘see’ using other methods other than visible light, but neither had access to those sorts of faculties right now which was quite distressing for Twilight. 

Progress had so far had been achingly slow, the sector of the Valkyrie they were in was pretty badly torn up with debris littering the corridors. To make matters worse this particular section was largely secondary and tertiary engineering systems meaning the damage had cause all kinds of chemical spills, radiation leaks and fires.   

When they tried to use the airlocks main cargo lift its blast doors had opened to release a torrent of leaked Vernium-E into the corridor. The phasically unstable substance had immediately reacted to Twilight's magic and started sublimating forcing Twilight and Forge to beat a hasty retreat before it spontaneously combusted, or worse open a subspace vacuole then combusted. 

The Vernium leak not only mean that the cargo lift system was a no go area but also very effectively cut off access the airlock, for the time being they were trapped inside. The rest of the already maze like-deck flowed suit with corridors blocked, flooded, contaminated or undergoing reality shifts depending on what nearby equipment had been destroyed or damaged.  

Twilight should have been able to deal the with the damage; structural, technological and magical, but after the intense magic use of the past few days in contrast to the thousands of year’s inactivity prior had left her badly stressed both physically and mentally. When a unicorn splinched from overexertion it was painful, when an Alicorn did it the results were beyond catastrophic.
************************* *****************************************

Twilight squinted through glare as Forges flood lights hit something reflective. She deactivated her were-light and walked up. As Forge also dimmed his lights the bright sheen resolved itself into the burnished armour of a Hrath warrior, the race that had been besieging the Valkyrie when it had crashed into a Chaos Star. This particular Hrath’s pillaging and piracy days where far behind it though, as what was left of the combat suit had been skewered on half a dozen sections of torn wall plating. Something was sparking violently behind the amour adding to its hollow, skeletal look. 

The junction ahead of them contained another remnant of a Hrath, this one in a much, much worse condition. Twilight felt a pang of sneaking sympathy for the fallen warrior as she bent down to inspect the pile of shredded metal and fossilised gloop,  Whatever had killed it had been very thorough. 

Worryingly it was the 12th similar sight they’d found in the past hour.

She was surprised to find a single tear welling up, which was very odd since through their history the Htrath had reliably proven themselves to be utter bastards and incapable of responsibly handling power. It was bad to stereotype a race but they made it very easy. 

“Twilight unit.” Forge said, shining his flood lights down each corridor of the intersection in turn. “Where do we proceed from here?”  

Twilight however wasn’t listening, her attention was riveted to the floor. There was the faintest of stains leading away from the Hrath corpse. The matter was badly decayed so she couldn’t be sure, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was blood. Pony blood. Twilight began to very quietly hyperventilate. This again surprised her, the evidence was minimal at best yet she couldn’t stop picturing the worst. A sneaking suspicion crept into her mind, she’d been having very odd emotional reactions for a while now, and it was very out of character…

“Twilight!” Forge repeated loudly, shaking Twilight from her train of thought. “In which direction do we proceed?”   

Twilight looked around for a few seconds and chewed her lip. “Riiiiiiiight ok……..what junction does that wall plaque say this is?” Twilight turned away from Forge, glad that the mechaniod could no longer read her mind.

“34-56-91-Phi.” Forge replied. 

“Right, right….Phi you say?” Twilight said, sweating slightly. “Minor detour but we should just need to head this way. There should be a transit station just around the next corner.” 

Twilight set off down the corridor, but was forced to stop and sheepishly turn back when it became apart that Forge was not following her. “Twilight unit,” he said, “Are we lost?”

“What? No!” Twilight exclaimed, “The transit station is just along here.”

“You have been saying that for the last half hour Twilight.” Forge said, slowly walking towards her.

“……………”

“…………”
“………….”

“……….”

“Yeah we’re a little turned around,” Twilight admitted. “But we are not lost. I genuinely think it’s this way!” 

“Think?”

“Ok so I don’t remember how the layout numbering system works!” Twilight said suddenly irritable. “We’re lost Ok! I’m not happy about it either.”

“Twilight, your heartbeat is showing irregularities. You have also been displaying strange emotional reactions.” Forge said, moving in closer. Twilight began racing as a hot flush overtook her, she backed away from Forge and was about to argue but, there was no point lying to him.

“I think I’m PMS-ing.” She grumbled, “The return to breathing kicked off a few functions in my body that I’d forgotten existed. It used to be disabled so I think it’s a bit backed up.” Twilight glowed with magic for a few seconds before continuing, “I’m fine ok? Just let me get on with finding out way to the central sector ok? I’m fine.”

“Negative.” Forge replied, “Your emotional state is causing extreme impairment of decision making. You are currently a liability and are in no condition to…..” Forge may have started that with the best of intentions, but really, REALLY could have phrased that better. As soon as Twilight heard the world ‘liability’ she completely flipped out.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” She began ranting, “Emotions are making me a liability are they! You think my emotional methods are inferior!" Forge tried to interject but Twilight was in full swing and could not be stopped. "Well don’t get all high and mighty! Don’t delude yourself, we both know damn well that you are a perfectly capable of emotions! You wouldn’t have followed me on this insane quest if you didn’t care!”   

Twilight knew she’d made a terrible error the moment the words passed her lips. Forge responded to this statement by whirring very loudly and violently, before tipping over and crashing to the ground like felled tree. Twilight yelped, and raced to Forges side cursing her bloody-minded indiscression.  “Oh no no no no!” Twilight yelped as she tried and failed to find any sort of access port to his internals.   


Twilight wheeled around in a frenzy, a little too late her subconscious remembered how to reactivate the spell that purged her endocrine system, but the damage was done. She didn’t know the exact specifications of the mini-body’s computer core but there was no doubt that she only had a few minutes before the existential crisis she just instigated caused his program to fragment and collapse.  Suddenly inspiration struck Twilight, she leaped up and ripped the Htrath armour from its perch, diving through the gap towards the sparks she’s seen before. 

Clambering up and round into the ceiling space Twilight gasped with a minor flush of relief as her suspicion proved to be correct, it was an active EPS line that had been shaken loose from a junction box. Twilight quickly checked the power rating and yanked the cable out.  Twilight crashed back down to the corridor, the ceiling panel collapsing under a few frantic blows, depositing Twilight on top of Forge.

“By Discords Beard I hope you’re well insulated Forge.” Twilight muttered before ramming the live end of the cable into Forges eye socket. There was massive flurry of sparks and a thunderous crack as the electrostatic plasma in the line discharged. Twilight, rigid from the backwash of electricity, was hurled from the mechanoid’s body which splayed rigid and let out an unnervingly organic shriek before dropping down limp.

*********************** ******************* **************************

The corridor was deadly silent as Twilight picked herself up, for a few heart-breaking moments Forge remained silent and still. Then with a healthier sounding whir his computer core rebooted and he came stuttering back to life.

“Rebooting, Rebooting.” Forge crackled, his eye speedily swivelling around before locking onto Twilight. For a few moments Forge stared blankly, then his posture relaxed as his memory unit came back online. “Twilight unit, short term memory storage has been partially corrupted. What happened?”

“Err…This EPS line fell out of the ceiling,” Twilight quickly lied, “Whacked you right in the eye.”

Forge stared at her for a few seconds, but before he could question it. Twilight suddenly gasped, her eyes transfixed on the EPS conduit that dangled next to her. Twilight carefully pulled the sparking conduit into the light from Forges floodlight and squinted at the surface. The markings were badly faded and barely perceivable but Twilight could pick out the handful characters carved into the side.

G.W <3 T.T

“Graviton Wave… you old romantic.” Twilight smiled warmly, hey eyes lighting up as she stood back up and started tracing a hoof along the wall panels, “If that’s here then this should be…” Twilight stopped at the seventh panel gave it a small set of rhythmic taps. A section of the wall panel slid inwards on old, creaking rails. Twilight stuck her hoof into the opening and began rummaging around. As Forge clomped in closer Twilight pulled out in quick succession a half dozen ODN relays, a pair phaser pistol and a dried up bio-neural gel pack, all of which were quickly discarded.

With a sudden cry of glee Twilight whipped out a sealed container. Twilight flapped happily into the air and presented the box to Forge, holding it a few inches from his eye. “Scan this forge, I think you’ll find it contains a mushroom and garlic sandwich.”

Forge obligingly scanned the box, red tracer beams flickering from his eye. “Matter is organic, structural pattern consistent with wheat by-products. 84% probability that it is a sandwich.”   

Twilight closed her eyes and began tracing the deck layout with her hoof while muttering; “If Theron’s emergency locker no. 45 is here and we came from the port side, then make-out corner is about 200 meters that way. Follow the mural Whitestar did for Venn’s birthday…” Twilight rotated on the spot and continued, “Turn left there, that corridors reinforced so we can take it straight down till we hit the environment-control substation where Rainbow Bloom proposed to Star Fluff. Cut through there, past this sectors mess hall, follow that corridor and BINGO! There’s an internal monorail station we can follow all the way to Sector Zero!” Twilight’s eyes snapped open and she leapt into the air. “Ohh tell me I’m good!”

Forge gave an approximation of a shrug and replied, “You performed satisfactorily. Let us proceed.” After a few moments he cheekily, "Even if it did require 'inferior emotional methods'." Twilight ginned sheepishly but grateful at his forgiveness as the two strode off down the corridor. As they walked Forge glanced at Twilight and said, “You specifically remember a place where your species go to…make…intimate physical contact? And use that as a point of reference rather than major ship systems?”

“…Yeah.”

“Organic behaviour continues to elude me after all this time.” 
> The Valkyrie: Tram Ride 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The tram clunked and hissed as it trundled along towards the central sector terminus, it had taken a while to coax the machinery into life and Forge had need to plug himself into the motor for power but they would arrive without incident.

It would have been faster to them to fly down the track, Forges mini-body was fitted with repulsor-lifts, but considering the hazardous state of the ship internals the tram was safer since the trams were hermetically sealed.

Twilight was spread eagled across a few seats and was feverously devouring her 7th chocolate bar in a row. Forge had gently suggest taking some supplies from the mess they passed to reach the trams. Twilight had been initially sceptical, assuming that Forge was making a PMS joke on account of the previous incident, however having demolished several chunky chocolate bars she was feeling much better, both in relation to her rampaging hormones and not.

“You know something Forge?” Twilight pondered, “I’d actually forgotten how good eating was, not just the taste but the whole experience.” Twilight finished her last chocolate bar and started on a Derpy brand muffin, which decompressed from its dehydrated sate with a soft ‘flump’. Between mouthfuls Twilight continued, “There’s the texture, the smell, the sensation of swallowing, even the feeling in the pit of your stomach as the food settles.” Twilight rolled onto her back, brushing crumbs off her as she did so.  “I know I don’t need food but it’s still strange to me that I just forgot about it. During the other times in my life where I went for long periods without eating I always looked forward to when I could go home for a proper meal…or at least somewhere where the plant life wasn’t toxic… or trying to eat me. Sorry I’m rambling.”

"You do not need to apologise.” Forge replied from his corner by the motor. “This is indicative of normal Twilight Unit behaviour, meaning you are returning to normal function in spite of chemical imbalances and exhaustion from the Nightmare Zone.” After a few moments Forge added, “I am glad you are well.”

Twilight peered cautiously at Forge. She did not want to have to deal with another meltdown, it had been sketchy enough last time, but Forge continued to sit quietly in his corner powering the motor. She considered saying something but instead just quietly smiled and lay back, relaxing under the rhythmic clunking of the motor and gently strobing lights from the tunnel.

*************** ****************** ***************

A short while later Twilight felt the tram slow, but knew instinctively that they had yet to arrive at the central sector. Opening her eyes from her meditation Twilight looked up so see the tram had reached a containment door that sealed the transit tunnel and blocked their progress.

“The door is not powered…” Forge said.
“And the system is quantum locked so we can’t transfer power from here.” Twilight finished. “Don’t worry I got this Forge.” Twilight reassured him, straitening herself up and facing the door. “My magic pool has regenerated from its reserves and after that little siesta I’m back in fighting form. This is a piece of cake.”

Twilight swept her wings open, body letting out an aura of power and sure enough the doors parted and were carried into their housing on a wave of telekinesis. Unfortunately the magic proved to be a bit too strong and with an ear-shattering crash the doors were driven into the outside walls . Twilight yelped, hooves grasping her ears as the cacophony echoed through the tunnel.  Even Forge jumped in surprise at the huge crash, launching him into the ceiling of the tram.

“Whoops.” Twilight blushed as the compartment swung too and fro. “That was enough to raise the dead.”

.
.
.
.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, Twilights crash was heard by a third set of ears. Far away down the tunnels and crawl-ways and corridors something stirred in the darkness. A vestigial maw twitched in surprise at the sound, the dark tendrils that spewed from it flicked, reaching out as it tasted minute magical scents carried on the ethereal plane. The creature rose on four legs each impossibly thin and long and twisted,  and it cocked an eerily familiar head as it pondered this intrusion into its domain. 






  

> The Valkyrie: Tram Ride pt 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forge silently stared at Twilight as she snoozed, flopped back on one of the tram chairs. He liked watching people sleep. Forge couldn't feel envy but if he he did he would be jealous of organics ability to dream. He didn't know when exactly in his life he'd started thinking this, and he'd never been able to articulately explain why it would seem so appealing. 

He noticed Twilight had started sweating profusely and breathing quicken. All of a sudden Twilight snapped awake and started frantically looking around her and checking underneath the seat around her. Forge looked on puzzled as Twilights breathing slowly returned to normal and she sank back into her chair with a sigh. "Sorry," she said, "For a moment there I was so sure there was something under my seat."  Twilight peered around apprehensibly, "It was right behind me..."

Forge slowed the tram down stood up and began thoroughly  scanning the area as far as his sensors could extend. "Nothing." He said sitting back down. "We are safe."

Twilight smiled at Forge and shook her head, "Sorry about that, just a silly nightmare."

Forge was silent for a moment, and Twilight considered trying to get back to sleep, but he started speaking again in a low voice, staring right at Twilight as he did so, " Whats that in the mirror or the corner of your eye? What's that footstep following but never passing by? Perhaps they're not just waiting. Perhaps when we're all dead, out they'll come a-slithering from underneath the bed."

Twilight gawped at Forge for what seemed like an eternity, before she bent down and threw a screwed up chocolate wrapper at him, "I have a enough nightmare material," she said snorting with laughter, "Thank you very much. What was that all about?"

"You reminded me of something I heard long ago...seemed apropriate."

Twilight laughed again at Forge but couldn't help peer  nervously out the window into the gloom.



> The Valkyrie: Central Sector
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As they neared the Central Sector the state of the ship began to rapidly improve. Working lights became more common and sparking, damaged equipment less so.

The moment the tram pulled into the station Twilight bolted from the carriage, spreading her wings jumped through the air. She flew up and quickly surveyed the area; nothing unusual… but no one around either. In all honesty she hadn’t been realistically expecting any of her ponies to have been outside the central sector but it was still very much nagging her that she’d not had any indication the crew was still alive.

Twilight glided down ahead of Forge and set to work opening the door. Unlike the one in the transit tunnel the sector still had power and all it took was a wave of her hoof to trigger the unlocking sequence. Forge arrived just as the doors slid open and containment fields dropped, opening up the bay beyond. 

“Why is there an antiquated airship parked up ahead?” Forge asked, pointing at the old hot air balloon sitting in the middle room ahead.

“This area used to be a hangar bay.” Twilight replied, “In fact the entire central sector is one of the older incarnations of the Valkyrie. It actually used to be able to detach from the rest of the ship but when the Crystal Heart failed we had reconfigure the entire power grid to keep all the magical systems working. Still, because it’s so reinforced makes a good area for all the ships vital command functions, plus heritage and stuff.” Twilight indicated the air-balloon again. “Same thing with that really, I’ve had that balloon since before I was an Alicorn. Kept it around for flying with friends.”

The two set off into the interior of the ship and after a few minutes the sound of their conversation and the clumping of Forges footsteps faded to silence. Soundlessly a dark shape dropped from the ceiling of the tunnel. It landed lightly and started probing the air and surfaces around it. It had just missed the interlopers, but it was close. It paused for a moment as a tendril waved through the traces of magic present before it raced away.  It folded itself into a ventilation shaft and began slithering as fast as it could.


****************************************** ***********************

Twilight felt a wave of calm breaking over her, the familiar surroundings leeching the stress for her body. The corridors were highlighted with stripes of white and burnished gold, giving it at warm and welcoming atmosphere, like stepping into a cosy house after a cold winter’s day.  

With minimal effort she telekinetically pulled the bridges blast doors open and walked inside. There was no-one around. Twilight snorted in irritation but it wasn’t too big a deal.  The fact that she’d been yet to see any of her ponies probably meant that they were locked up somewhere safe and out of danger.

Right?

“Ahh.” Twilight hissed, as a sudden jolt of pain ran through her forehead. Her head had been feeling achy on-and-off forma while now. It especially seemed to flare up when she used magic but not enough to really bother her until now. It passed quickly however, and twilight got quickly got back to work.

Twilight gave the bridge a quick visual check but it seemed to be relatively untouched. She could remember the days when bridge consoles had a nasty habit of exploding in ponies faces. Twilight wandered past several consoles reminding herself what each station did and as she neared them they would light up, screen displaying its relevant data. Sometimes it was almost funny how little the commend deck had changed over the years. The pony race, though inventive had always stuck to reliable technologies whenever possible.  Applejack would be proud.

Darn tooting I am.
Oh great, the voices are back.
We never went anywhere silly!

Twilights attention was caught as a console in the Tactical section of the bridge began blinking. She quickly jumped over to it and let out a little sigh of relaxation. She’d sent Forge down to the primary engineering core to shut down the defence scramblers. As she see watched the systems shut off one by one she could feel the disruptions of the magical planes diminish, but they did not go entirely, her magic did feel off still. “That’s weird.” She thought, “Is it something else on the ship messing me up?”

Twilight tried to reach out with her magic and scan the ship for her Ponies but after about 12 meters her perception crumbled to static. Twilight bit her lip, this was becoming quite concerning. Sure she could just still be tired and stressed, it had been less than a day since they’d defeated the WCS, but twilight couldn’t help but feel uneasy. “Best add that to the list of things to be worried about.”

Further ruminations were cut off as the brides comm-link crackled into life. “Forge to Twilight, Do you read me Twilight?”

“I’m here Forge. How are you…?”  

“You should come down here right now.” Forge said cutting her off. His grim tone cut through her like knife, “I’ve just found a pony but… ….she’s dead.”







 
 

> The Dead
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Forge waited quietly for Twilight to arrive, unsure of he should do in the presence of a dead body. He really wished Twilight had though to grab a comlink from the bridge before she rushed off, despite disabling the primary defence Scramblers he was still unable to establish telepathic contact with either Twilight or his primary body.  

The junction area he stood in, just off the defence control substation, was littered with the detritus of the everyday lives of the crew that had lived here. Food packaging and data-pads lay in small heaps, discarded during the Hrath attack and subsequent time-shift. There was even a medical trolley tipped to one side, its load of hypo-sprays collecting dust in a corner. And there, laying in the centre of the room, was the dead pony.

Forge walked over to the cold, lifeless body. He’d decided not to disturb the body until Twilight arrived but it might be worth performing a quick autopsy. The dead pony was young, approximately 98cm tall and lacking the species distinctive flank markings, so definitely a juvenile. Morphology was indicative of female gender and Earth Pony subspecies. The filly had a gunmetal grey coat that closely matched the floor tiles starkly contrasted by a snowy white mane and tail.  

The cause of death was quite obvious; the Filly’s back had a large patch of mottled skin splashed down the side, The Filly had been struck from behind by a directed energy pulse. It was a small consolation but Forge was pretty sure that they Filly would have felt no pain, the pulse had hit her directly in her spinal column and would have burnt out her brain stem instantly.  

Forge twiddled his pincers as he moved round the body, there was nothing really more to be done. Was there? Nothing, but wait for Twilight to arrive. 



********************************************************* ***


Twilight ran.

She ran and ran and ran.

“No.”

Twilight skidded as her hooves hit some black goo as she tried to turn a corner. The moment she hit the substance all friction went out from underneath her, she careened wildly and slammed into a science lab doorway. The door buckled under the impact but held and Twilight rebounded, hooves thundering to make up the lost momentum.

Somewhere in her mind the rational part of her brain asked, “What the heck was that?” but it was buried and ignored. 

Corridors and doors blurred together as she raced through the ship. Her vision swam but it didn’t matter, guided by memory and instinct she descended closer and closer to Forges position.   Closer and closer to the awful truth;

She’d failed someone.

Whoever it was she’d failed to save them.

And if she’d failed one…had she failed them all?

“No…no no no…no no please no…….please please please………”


***************** ************************** *********************

Forge straightened up and backed away from the body. Immediately he started scanning the space around him, checking every possible route of entry to the room. He’d just come to a very worrying conclusion.

He hadn’t felt the need to intensively scan the body, a visual examination had shown all the relative information needed and poking around in a dead body could be considered disrespectful and ‘not pissing off Twilight’ was still pretty high on his list of priorities. However by chance he’d glanced over at the body as he paced around the room and noticed something from the different perspective.
There was thin incision running all the way along the Filly’s spine. It started at the nape of the neck and ended just before the tail. He hadn’t noticed it initially as was pretty well hidden by the mottling and his top down perspective during the examination. Intrigued he’d performed a quick scan of the surrounding tissue, and that’s when it had hit him. 

It was the decay of the cells.

Or rather; lack thereof.

It should have been obvious but he just hadn’t been looking. This could mean trouble.

The spell the mage Ember glow had devised to protect the Valkyrie was supposed to have frozen time for the ship while it lay protected in a pocket dimension, this had not quite worked quite according to plan, the principle itself was shaky and the proximity to a Chaos Star would not have helped. 

Evidently from the state of the vessel some passage of time had occurred on the ship and although it was difficult to say how much, the time passed was defiantly more than enough to allow the decomposition of a corpse to take place. However the dead Filly showed next to no signs of cell decay, she had died very recently.

In addition to this Forge had discovered that mottling not the result of a directed energy blast, in fact he could find no discernible evidence of what had actually killed the young pony.

In conclusion he had a killer that operated through unknown means, a high probability that it was still in the area and body left displayed as…what a warning? A message? A trophy?

“What happened in here Twilight?” Forge thought to himself, eye flicking around. The shadows seemed that much darker now.

************* **************** *******************

Unseen something black and white twitched in anticipation, its ragged hair standing on end, black gooey saliva dripping from its tendrils. It crept towards where it knew they’d be, stick like limbs easily prizing open hatches as is slowly, stealthily worked its way forward.

Timing was everything, it was in no rush to attack. It had waited long enough for something to come along, it could wait a few more minutes for everything to fall into place.


*********************** *********************  

Twilight rounded the last corner and burst into the room, her eyes locking onto the still figure laying on the floor. Forge could only watch silently as Twilight partially collapsed and began to shudder. 

Through breathy, strangled sobs Twilight cried out a name, “Nocturne!”   

Then the dead Filly sat up. “Twilight?” It gasped eyes snapping open and homing in on Twilight’s and for a half a second the world seemed to stand still. “AUNTIE TWILIGHT!”

There was a blur of movement as the two ponies bounded towards each other. Nocturne vanished in puff of smoke and reappeared in front of Twilight, both of them going down in a tremendous hug.  Twilight tightly wrapped her hooves then her wings around Nocturne, fearing if she let go the filly would somehow evaporate away into the darkness. Twilight began crying and laughing at the same time. A series of incoherent noises escaped her throat as she rocked back and forth, clutching the chilly little pony to her chest.

Eventually Nocturne managed to wriggle free and bring her face up to Twilight’s. “I knew you’d come.” She grinned, wiping tears from Twilights face “Some ponies said it was hopeless, but I always knew you’d come for us. HA! Ten years late for the rescue but you got here in the end!”

“T-Ten years?” Twilight croaked.

“Well one year up and about, nine in Cyro-stasis but…” Nocturne froze as she caught Twilight tone, her face crumpled as the meaning sunk in. “A bit longer for you then?”

“A bit.” Twilight said wiping her face. Twilight smiled an ‘everything’s ok now’ smile down at Nocturne and finally disengaged from the embrace. Breathing heavily she looked up and saw Forge staring at them somewhat dumbfounded, his arms akimbo and twitching slightly. “OH! Forge! This is Nocturne. Yes I know there no detectable life signs or brain activity but she’s a Fell Pony, that’s normal for her.”    

Forge continued to stare for a few moments before uttering, “Magic?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Nocturne replied, her expression hardening somewhat as she regarded Forge. “And you are?”

“FRGE-110972 Lambda Series Starlord. You can call me Forge.” He replied, extending an arm in a friendly gesture. Nocturne looked at his extended limb like he’d offered her a dead kipper, luckily Twilight intervened before the situation could escalate.

“Forge has been helping me track the ship down.” She explained, willing Nocturne to not freak out. “I would have died at least half a dozen times if it weren’t for him. In fact I wouldn’t have even known the ship still existed.”   

Nocturne regarded Forge suspiciously for a few more moments, in which Forge detected several quick telepathic transmissions between the two ponies, before Nocturne jaw suddenly dropped and she yelped, “You fought the WCS!?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Forge replied. “Its repaired prison is currently secured within my main body.” 

Nocturne sighed slightly, then faced Forge properly and said, “Thank you for helping Auntie Twilight find us. You’re pretty badass,” She hoofed bumped his outstretched arm, “for a machine.” 

“Well your tactic of hiding in plain sight was pretty ingenious.” Forge replied, retracting his arm, “For a dead pony.”

Nocturne turned and began saying something to Twilight who looked away down one of the corridors, following what the filly was saying. The moment the ponies looked away from Forge he realized something was very wrong. He didn’t know what it was that tipped him off, there was nothing on sensors, but in that one moment he knew without a doubt that something had just dropped down from the roof behind him.

Forge spun, whipping out his three left arms as he did so. His legs dipped down then up again as he put all his momentum into one almighty uppercut. His arms connected with the creature which was sent flying across the room where it crashed into the abandoned medical cart. Despite the force of the impact Forges blow was completely noiseless and the creatures landing made only the barest of sounds, despite detritus being thrown everywhere.      

The creature reared back up instantly from its landing, Forge had never seen anything like it. It was quadrapedal, thin bone white limbs at least three meters long, covered in a diaphanous material that wavered and melded as the creature moved. The body, small and twisted compared to the limbs, was covered mess of dirty black and white hair tangled around twin bony spikes protruding from its shoulders. What was most bizarre was its head, there was very little of its face and skull visible behind the huge swarm of tentacles that spewed from its wide maw. One of the tentacles had whipped across Forges hull plating when he punched it, leaving a furrow just as easily as a fusion cutter could have. Whatever it was it didn’t register on any of his scanners and didn’t even produce disturbances in the atmosphere when it moved  

Still noiselessly the creature whipped its tentacles aggressively and charged Forge. Forge released the safeties on his on-board weapons and launched himself towards the monster. He had to keep the creature away from the ponies, its tentacles could easily damage his armour and with Twilights magic on the fritz…

Suddenly, and greatly to his surprise, Forges body was enveloped by an indigo aura which froze and dragged him back. There was a puff of smoke and Nocturne appeared in front of the creature, front hooves waving. The creature flared its tentacles and ‘roared’ but it stopped its advance.

“Easy now Umbra!” Nocturne said assertively, “Its ok! It’s all ok now. Your safe, everyone’s safe now.” The creature continued to whip its tentacles aggressively but the movements were hesitant now. “Hey you remember me don’t you? You remember you little sister don’t you Umbra? These people aren’t your enemies.” The creature was barely moving now. Twilight slowly pushed past Forge and placed herself between Forge and the creature. Nocturne continued to talk soothingly, “Look! Auntie Twilights here! It’s all ok now, it’s all ok.”

A single tentacle unfurled itself from the mass and alighted itself upon Nocturnes forehead, where it remained for a few seconds twitching slightly. The two ponies held their breath as slowly, cautiously detached itself and placed itself upon Twilights forehead.  Almost the moment it made contract the tentacle immediately withdrew and the creature vegan to violently convulse. 

The two ponies backed up as the creature began to make retching motions, with every convulsion the creatures limbs twisted and became shorter and thicker. In spurts the tentacles were sucked back into the creature’s mouth, despite the fact that there should have been far less room in its torso to accomdate them.

With a final set of spasms the spikes retracted and bones clicked back into position. Left standing in the creatures wake was rather dazed, snowy white, adolescent male pony with a shaggy gunmetal grey mane. The pony blinked a few times, looked around then sighted Twilight. His face lit up and he bounded over to (still silently) Twilight who smiled and wrapped him in the second gigantic hug of the day.

“Ohh Umbra!...” Twilight gushed, “Yes I’m real…No I’m not angry at you, you were just trying to protect the others… aww you big softy.”

If Forge had been confused before he was utterly bewildered now. Twilight and Umbra were defiantly communicating but the other pony was still unnaturally silent and Forge could detect no telepathic activity between them. After a few moments he eventually formed a coherent thought and turned to Nocturne. “That’s your brother?”

“Yeah.” She replied.

“Is he a Fell Pony too?”

“No, he’s an Eldritch Pony.”

“Eldritch? As in…?”

“Yes. Don’t worry about it though, he perfectly safe now. Probably.”  Nocturne looked sideways at Forge and grinned slightly. “Are you ok? Not going to explode are you or something?” 

“No, I’m not going to explode.” At that moment Umbra came flying through the air and wrapped his hooves around Forge. Forge staggered slightly, his eye widening at the bizarre entity gratefully hugging him. “Probably.” 

   
> The Whispers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calm, Calm... hmm...haaaa...Oh by the gods why does my magic still feel like this? Has it ever hurt so much before? Did tear something up inside when I fought the WCS? .....OK...OK hold it together Twilight. You can manage for now, You did it, you made it back to the ship, the crews safe. Just hold it together for a bit longer then see Ember and Doc about this when their awake. Just hold it together...




Keep it together Nocturne, She's back! You knew Twilight would come back for us! Everything is going to be OK now. Twilight can sort out everything, I'm sure she can sort out the visions. Twilight's always kept the nightmares at bay before. Just hold it together...




Friendship is strange. When did I decide I was so attached to these creatures? The small one doesn't even like me, yet I am glad that she lives. Not that this new, you have had many friends, some even as 'logic crisis' inducing as these ones. Despite everything... I want be here... Hold it together... 





̩̺͖̟̞̑ ̸̺͙̝̬̺ͥ̿̑ ̨̡̡̳͉̦̙̜ͦ̏ͯg̨̭͍̥̪̤̱̞ͪ̓̿ͮ͗h̨̪̲̹̥̞̥̋̒ͅͅd̤͈͍̺̘͇̞̳ͤ̎ͤ́̊͐̓͟͡ș̨͙͚͍̳̆̀͋͛̊́͢á̧̧͕͍̼͍͍̗̟̅̅ų͍̈́ͭ̀̂̍ͪ̏gͦͥ҉̰̝̕͞ḅ̷̖͇̯̫̮̐̉̊a̺̝͙̬̾̉̃̈̀̉̊͐͢l͖̝̤̖͒ͮ͂̄͌͞k̻͎̰̮̠͎̮̹͑͂͜͠͞ͅs͎̤̩͚̠̹͑̐̈ͤ̋̆̓͟g̢̒̊̓͗͒ͯ̈́ͫ҉̮͕͔̫̯ḷ̶̭͑̐̏̄ͥ͜ĩ̼͇̌̂͐́ͯ̕ạ̫̰̥̩ͤ̋̄ͧͬͧš̷̠͔͓̰̜͖͕͙̋u͕̪̗̝͓͆ͨ̅͒̎̋̐͆g̡̠̗̘͍͓͙ͭͮͪͩ̽̎̂̏h̢͖̰̭̪̹̍̌̽ͮ̍͘͡l̶̜͖̱̰̘̇i̝̰ͯ̍ͣ̒̒s̛̼̼ͫͦ͌̏͜͟ȃ̵̲̞͛̐ͦ̓͆̔̚̕ ̴̭͚̩̰̞͙̬̻̭̌ͩͯ͋͝H̰̪̫̯͕͍ͪ͗̀ͫ́̀̚̚E̸̖ͦ̑́̀͜ͅL̤̳͕͙̬̣̋͋̂͛̃͗̈̽͘ͅP̧̱̙̝̬̆̈́ͥ̔̃̎̕ͅ ̶̝̯͎̠̤̥͎ͭ͂̄́͝i͔͍̱̱̅ͥ͟ḍ̱̳͎̣ͬͬͩ̔͠a̵̯̺̼̮ͩͯͣ̾b̅̄̊̅ͭͮ͏̮͇͎͇̪͉v̩̀͊ͩ̆o̖̯͎͍̖͈͕͗̀̐̽͟͞ḧ̭̗̤͇̫ͪͧͩ̈́͢ͅv̸̨̩͉͚̬ͩͮͥ̃̾ͯͤ̊͟ͅḇ̴͈̳̟̓͂ͬ͞s̛̩͎̿̔ͣ̎̅ͦa̪̙̙͋̏̓͢v̧̥͍͚͕̰͉̼̳̾ͨͨ͐̿ ̴̡̗͈͍̮̪̭̥̽́ͤ̚ͅs̸̗̜̲ͬͯ̓̈́ͫ̇̍́̀͘d̴̢̩̮̑̈́͋̃ͩ̀̚̚j̶̱̹̖̦̮̎ͧͯv̢͕̪͖ͮ̕͝b͉̝͚̟̭̱̪̲͗̅̐́̒ͦ́͟a̢̢̖̹͂ͤ͊ͨ͟s̭̙̗ͩ̾̂̌͊̃̓̆kͬ̄̓͟҉͏̼̠̟̥̘̖j͎̯̖͇̼̭ͤ͝͠v̴̛̞̙̥̭̠̦̏ͤ̐ͤ͊͒ͬ̓͝b̪̰͕̦̄͂͠ͅk̡ͫͣ̄̔̂̄̽҉͎͔̩̫̤̟s̛̻̣͙͖̭̝͉̓ͪ̄̀͠a̷̻̣͗ͣ̾ͯͮ̀͒̀͜d̨͓͚̱̰̻̱͇̱̓̎̊ͧ͌́ͅḇ̲̱̬͖̊̆̏v̧̢̻͋̅ͨ ̪͉̼̙̤̺̩̈́̐͜j̵͔̠͌̓͠s̘̤̤̹̒ͧ͘dͧ͂ͤͫ͏̭̬͍̙v̘͉̜ͩ͑͊̔̄̋̂͐̀̚ķ̳̩̗͓͚͍͙̤̄ͪ̅͂̌ͥ͌ͧ͝d̠̫͚̖̖͋́͒͂̆ͣ̐ͣ̕͜ͅṣ̶̻͖̮ͧ̓͜b̼̣̖͉͓͊̆ͯ̀ͧ̔v̵̸̙̤̜̙̳̯̼́̀̒̈́͊ͭ́̓
̺̮ͮ̂̈́̋̽͛͠âͫͥͯ̏̃͏̖̭̼͕̫̗̫͘ḙ̡̢̘̻̂͒ͤ̂ͧͨ͒̕ͅs̷̾͑̀҉̖̟̣u̜̦̭͓̰̭̭͍̘͋̊ͭ͜͞h͍̪͍͓͎̦̥ͫ͛ͯ̿̀͟a̧̩̾̈́͘s̵̰̤̘ͫ͂̓ͮͩ͜i̜̥̤̬̞ͫ̈́ͦͥ̓̌͊ͥ̚g̋̔́̊͏͖̠̥̫̘͘i̘̜ͩͬ̐͒͘͘ͅaͭ̐̐͛ͩͮ̎̑̍҉̮̩͔̹̣̠ͅl̶̨̙̙͔͇̂ͨͥ͂͗̓͆͂͝u̴̩̹̪̺̱̗͐̓̈̄̒́̈̚͘͢s̗̼͓͍͚ͬ͑͟ͅv̸̶̪̘̿̋̾ͨ͌̄ͮ͒I̛̮̜̹̖̙̼̜ͣ̀ͬ͡ ̴̳̯̝̏ͦ̅̆ͣ̓͗̕C̛̦͍͙̩̝̯̱͛̔̇ͣ͡Ả̟͕͖̠͈̋͌̆̿͂͌͛N̢̘̲̩͎̙̼̪̯͉ͧ̉͒ͧ ̣̖̰͑̑̀̉̇͠S̭͛̅͗ͅE̲̘͗͑̀͘͜E̫͎̯̹̰̣̒͒͐͑ͥ͠ ̱̟ͤ́̀T̊̓̿̊̇̽҉͔͍̣̫̝͚H̶̛̝̮̖̺̮̱̠̹͊̋͐͂̃͋̾̎E̷̷̟͎͔ͮ͠ ͉͙̭̫͉̝͉̪͕̈́̇̊ͪ̄̽ͩͧ̓͝N̨̖̺͔̿̕I̸̠͕̼̳̼̘̺̱̓͛͋͐̔̇̀͘G̢̪̺̘̭̫̖̀̓̊ͫͯ͜H̵̡͓̝̩̾ͨ̉̀ͯͪͨ͢Ṫ̖̭̘̫̠͌͜M̵̴̡͉̺ͬ̍͒ͤ͊̋̚A̬̹̪̜̮̥ͮ̌̋͆̀̑͞R̮ͨ͐̓̏̈́̋̅̿̉̀͟ͅEͩ̎͜͏̩͇̲̥̗S̴̩̬̗͓̖̗̀͌́ͫͯͩ̀͜ ̵̵̦͙̱̰̝̖̮̾̊̈͌͟a̶̪͕̣̫̬͋͘f͇̜̰͓͙̖̥̲̃̓́̃̊͑̾͘b̧̧̤̠̣̗̗̦̜́̆̔ͩ̀l̻̭͔̼̼͌̂ͬ̂ͩ͢f͉̪̰͉͓̱̱̤ͪ̍̊̋̐̿b̏͗̆ͣͩ̑̚͏̞̝͎̮͍̰̭ͅa̛̩̼̓͛̈́͗ͥͦ̓́l̫͔͐́̓͌ͨ̇̊ͥ̕͜b̜̝̩̥̰̫̾́ͣ͆̔͟l̷̰͔̟̪͑̔̎̄ͮ̃̅f͍̗̽̿ͯͬͩ̊̽́͟͝b̧̲̙̙͙̥̳̂̔̾͂͐̔̿̊ͅb͇̠̻̼͈̬̺̞ͨ͂ͮ͌̉ͧ̑̋͟͞l̳̖͖̫̄̂̽̕s̶̠̈̊͐͂̅̀a̢̞̥͎̫̎̀j̷̘̪͓̾̏ͩ̅ṉ̡̥̺̟̗̬̬̬ͮ͐͋̂̒͒̈́̑g̻͈͖̾ͬ́͞v̝̘̻͈̓ͨ̐̽̾͆͝a̧̠̫͍̭͉̦̺̳̺ͣͧ̓ͨ̐͛̐͡ḽ̷̠͓͈̪̫̲͚̤ͮͫ̈́ͦ̔s͈̥̮͎̰̮̰͕̓̊̀ͩͯ̃f̴̯̻̥͆̈́̏b͎͚̽͡ļ̭̱̫̫̞̥̟̆͂ͣ̎̊ͥ̚͘͘š̶̡͕͎̣̣̲̜͔̞̲̈́͞d̟̮͖̾̀b͚̘̹͈̹̌̇ͤv͓̝͖̺̰͔͔ͪ̌̚̚
̴͖̣͉ͪ͒͞ ̧͇̻̄ͦ͘ ̐̾ͤ̂͌̐ͫ́҉̣͕̜̻ ̧̰̪͓̻͖͎̖͎ͫͭ̄̍̊ͅ ̩͍̦̤̳̖̆̔̋̎̽̾͢ ̷̧̮̬̩͕̅ͫ̏̍ ͍̖̫̹́ͣ̽ͣ̿̂̌̽̚̕ ̡̛̙̦̒̈͛͊͂͜ ̻̞̩͇̋͐͆͌ͪͭ̂̎̎ ̴̵̟̖̘̟̲̾̍͝ ̷̼̳̖̪̻̓͂̐͛̆̏ͬͬ̎͞ͅf̴̴̡̹̘̼̳̠͈ͭ̀̔̇́̚ͅb̛̦͖͙͉̖͇͇̫̆ͨ̀̒͘͜v̑̋͋͑̎͛̇̒͡҉̼̯d̢̮̲̳̭̜̬̖̓ͮ͋͊͑̄̇͞fͧ͐̐͛҉̥͡ẕ̷̿̀͡ ̣̳̤͈̩̹̩̘̲̈́̾̌̉ͬ͛̀ ̟͙̟̦̲͔̥͍̉ͫͪ͊̄̂̉̌̚ ̢̰̥͍ͩͦ͋̒͒ͥ̽̂ ̴̰̦̭͎̰̯̜̙̩ͯ̚ ̛̹̣̋͡ͅ ̧̬̜̲ͫ͊ͪͭ̈ͪ̚̚ ͪͨ͏͓̻͓̠͇͡ ͚̥̗́̅ͣͫͯͭ ̧̣͍̅̀ͣ̋ͯ̌͘ ̧̟̹͖̰̜͍̟̞ͫ̈ ͖͚ͫ̈́͂̋̔͐̅̾ ̡̹̤͉̺͔̬̰͋͛ͧ̓ͧ̂̄̓f̖̱̱͖̼͂ͮ͝j̵̬̗͔͈̜ͧ̒ͥ͢h͇͈̭̻̰̟͍̝ͮ̐̎ͭͦͧ̽͑͛̕͠s̡̩̜̱̗͔͛ͬͭ͌̽̐̽ͥ͗͡a̸͈̗̼̙̟̎̒̂ͦ̃̃̎̕͞ ̤̩̻͍͙̄̉̂͞ ̣̦ͫ̽́ͭ́ͯ̍̂͘͝ ̛͍̙ͤ̈͛̐g̷͇̝͕̝̰̳͕̀͊̀i̲̝͎̠̖̻̭̒̾̄ͦ̑r̩̯̜͆ͬ̒ͪ͠͞s͍̫͊ͧ̍ͤ̈́̇̇u͂͏̴҉̱͕͎̭̟̬a̶ͩ̍̍҉̙͇͖v͍͍͇̿̍̐̊̋̓̌͒̒h̴̹̘̤͈̞̟͙ͮ̒̾ͣͩ̍͟s̸̳̰͓̖͔̙̽̑̀̕u͎͕̿ͧͥͧ͑̈͋̌̌v̱̩̞͉̘ͬ̊ͯ̈́́́̔̐̅ḇ̵̷͎͚͈̣̿ͬ̇ͫ̆͘ ̷̱͇̮͎̭͐̿ͫ̋̆͆̓ͥ͞ ̶̗̖̗̩̬̩̹̠ͮ́͡T̵̛͈̞͔̰̪̭̎̇̉ͮ͌͂ͮ̔Hͭ̾͆ͭͩͭ͊҉̛̱ͅE̻̣̙͍̱͖͓̺ͨ̀͆ͪ͆ͥͤ̽ ̵͖̝̫͙̟͙̲̺̎̓͜͡N̲͕̦͙̭̗͑͆̋ͬͫͫ̍̕ͅͅḮ̪̮͎̠̠͔ͯ̃̽̐̃͊̒̇͞͞G͒ͫ͐ͬͣ̄̒̔̆͏̼̣̣̰͓Ĥ̴̶̝̫̭̟̞̬ͦ̋̐ͥ͜T͉̫͔̩͙͉͇̲ͧ̍̒̔͆͆ͩ͂́͘ͅ ̴̤̻͓̭̤̝͒̄ͮ̽Ȅ̸̼̻͔̞̼̈́̽ͣ̾Ț̭̪̯̬̫̗̔̏ͥͮ̏ͪ͊̓E̶̞̖̱͍̳͔̗̝ͧͬR̭͍͔̣̠̙̹͖ͯ̐̇͌Ń̷̠͉̤̼̬̞ͮͭͫ̍͢A̝͐L̶̝͍ͤͦ̿̀̚̚ͅ ̫̖̤͚̻͈̙̱͇̌͗̊ͭ͛̇̚Ĭ̴͇̠̰͉̜͔̊̿̔̓͆͠ͅS̒ͤ̋͒͗ͣ̃ͬ͊͏̹͖͚̲̮̜͔̀ ̤̤̫̜̙̥̼ͩ̊̄̽̔ͣ͊C̷̖̲͇ͭͨ́ͣ͝O͎̲̒̾́͛̇̉̂͢M̡̖͚̠̺͈̤̼̊͛̊̄̿ͮ̈́ͫ͠ͅI̛͚̰̫̬͌̊͘͠N̨̞̱͕̩̭͔͚͎̏̄͑̅̋ͨ͊̽́G̰͓͕̋̊̌̓̀ͧ̀ ̰͇̲̭̺̹̑̊ͮͬ̔ͪ̔ͥ̀̚
̸͍͙̖̖̼̱̤̆ͩͧ̂̓ͪͯ̆͗ż̸͓̜̝̯̰̘̝̽̽̈͑̕͞f̡̼̙̽̀͘l̡̝̦̦͉͙̫͈͖̍͒̽b̡̹͍͂ͤ̀a̟͍̿ͬ̍̃̑;̨ͫͨ̌̊҉͇̗̠g̢̹̝͕̜͖ͫ̂̃̐ͩ͒͗̕ń̨̫͔̰͈͓̉ͪ̈̇͑d̹̮͖̄̃ḽ̠̖̻̺̱̦̈̏ͯ̒́̋b̭͓͔͖̲̰̓ͣͩͣ̀̑͑ͨ̓̀͠n̷̼̗̭͈̮̬ͤ͑̉ͯ̕͠v̩̼̬̘̠͚̮̳̽̌̔͡͡ ͙̊ͭ̿̈́̒̒͗͛͝k̷̩̮̦̗̼̃̅a͇̙͈̗͓͈̩̿ͨ́͝s̎͑҉̨̫̗̰̝̀ġ̡̈́̌͋ͭͦͥͨ̚͏͇̣̦̫̳̗̠̙̀j͈̥̒ͮ͐̅ͪ͐͘̕b̩̙̼̊͒̀͑̄͂̚ą̪̭̔̏ͩ̈̑͡s̑ͩ͊̾͒͏̦͇̲̞̀͢l̹̏̎̅̽ͅŗ̧̩̼͈̺̪̩̦̦̮́̃̔͗̌ͮ̾̂̏͡g͍͓͚̦̬͚͚͌ͫ̇̑̂̚bͧ҉̰̫͇̠͔͕̦̕ͅͅ ̸̢͇̰̗̮͔͓̦̎̋̇ͭͥa͆̓̎̀͋̍̀҉̙̲̙̝̠͖ͅo̬̽̑̉̚ī̵̖̟̝̟̩̣̎ͨ̿ͫͫ͊ͤ̇̕t̘̭̣̣̖̠̊̀̈́ͬ͋̅ͬ͑̊̕r̳̟̳̜̿̔̍̈͢g̘͉̗̉̓̃̌ų̦͔̪̖̦͚͈̓̓͂̑ͭ̇́̕s͙̩͙̲͈̤̘̭͔ͭͧj̷̱̞̲̣̫̰͕͔͂͒̽̈͒͞gͤͯ̾̅҉͎͢ ̶̿̎͋͛͏̸͖͔̺̫̘͎ḩ̮͈̟͉̅̄̌͋͌͗ͩ͢͞g̒̚͏̧̯̪̺ă̵͉̙̝͐̓͝͝s̸̫̹̣͇̩̩͚̥̅͑̑ͮ̈́͠g̷̷͉̳̺̰̥̻̺̹̐͆̿̅̌ͅh̝̭̬̃ͤ̐̍̊l̏̎̑̇̏̓͏͈͡s̴̠͚ͣͤ͝͞a̢̦̠͖̱͇̘͐͝b͎͚͓ͧ̏͒͂̓̂̽́̅v̡̞̹̬ͨ̅ ̇ͪͅi͛͛̆̈́̇͐ͨ͛͏̻̗͔̜̤̟͉a̷̢͇̞̫͇͂̍͘ű̧̯̘͖̜̮͕̠͑ͫͩ͋̓ͫ̈́g̵̥͈̹̦͎̩̖̔͑̃b̎ͫ͝҉̲̹̥į̴͔̣͙̳̣̜̦̐̀̂ͨ́ả̵͔͔̮̘̼̔͑̽͌ͧ̎́͢b̬͍͒̈̄a̮̭͓̥͖̰̓͗̍d̴̡̩̠͛͆ͬ̍̔̆ͧͣ̂ś̡̝̭̣͙̤̥̂ͩ̐̂ͣͨͭ͢͝b̨̛̦̮̠̼͕͑̔͒̈́̅ͦͅ
̵̨͇͈̠̭̤͖͈ͤͬͣ͒ͧ̋͂̐͑
̛̳̝̙̖͌͛̅̚
̉͒̾͂͊͋ͪ͆҉̤̰͔͉̞̉͒̾͂͊͋ͪ͆҉̤̰͔͉̞H̢̭̪̪̼͍͖͉ͥ̽Ȏ̳̗̫͚̩̰͍̘ͬͥ̍̒ͮ͒͆̅͟͠L̷̩̻̠̦̼̬ͯͩ̏̚D̗̺̙̤͍͔͖̥̭̿̌́ ͉͎̗̮̞͍̀̔̂ͨ̒̌̂ͮ̓͠I͙̞̖̱͇ͩ̇̈Ṫ̢͓̠̘̠̹͋̆͛͊̅ͯ̄͌͘ ͈̩̋͋̐͟͠T͚̼̫͉̋̑̈́̎͂͌̿O̷͉͉̖̥̱͆̓̽́ͦͧͤ́͐G̻͎͂̂͐̔̇͜Ë͙̦̓ͮ͂͒͌ͅT͚̀ͮ͆̐͒͑̀H̛͎̼͛̇̔ͤ͟E̴͕̼̮͖̫̟ͥ͛ͩͬ̓ͦ͠R̡̩͖̝͉̬̰̬ͯ̉̀̒́ ̺̘̄ͮ̈́̉̕͢ ̥͍ͤͬ͌͐̅͒͊̃̀͘͘



> The Tree
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it turned out Twilight had walked right past the entrance to the Valkyrie’s Cryogenics lab twice. Situated just behind the Bridge, the entrance to the lab had been fitted with the last working perception filter meaning Twilight hadn’t given entrance a second glance.

Within the room, the cryogenic pods hung like giant fruit from a strange tree.  Giant branches spit from the central trunk, sub-diving out again and again.  The smooth organic structure pulsing with eerie blue light as magically charged super-coolant was pumped through the life pods like a beating heart supplying blood to organs. 

Twilight walked around the central control area studiously checking over all of the life support equipment needed to safely start thawing out the crew. It was going to be a long and laborious process to wake the crew up. Uneven time dilation from the rift had wrought havoc across most of the ship and while this room was the most well shielded area of the ship, mostly due to the remaining shards of the tree of harmony embedded in the core, but Twilight was taking no chances.

For a moment Twilight closed her eyes and tried to feel the great power pulsing at the heart of the tree. It was there, she could feel it, but like her own powers if felt alien and just out of her reach. 

Just as Twilight finished double checking the last computer bank she felt the slight change in air pressure that indicated Nocturne teleporting in. “All pods checked.” The Filly reported, “Everything good up here?”

“Yeah, we can start thawing out the heads of staff as soon as the other two get back.” Twilight replied, “Good work Noc. Just while we’re alone… you are ok aren’t you?” Twilight asked, “It’s just that…well the state of you and your brothers Cyro-pod is a little concerning.”

Nocturne glanced over at the two pods set into a wall away from the main bay. Though largely undamaged it was obvious that her door had been forced from the inside. “That?” Nocturne said, waving a hoof dismissively, “Well you’ve spent the last half hour getting the computers working again, silly thing wouldn’t release the lock when I sensed the ship drop back into real space.”

Twilight looked hard at Nocturne. What she was saying was true and a perfectly reasonable explanation. It didn’t explain however why her brothers door had been ripped off its hinges with such ferocity or why Twilight had seen Nocturne tremble ever so slightly when she’d re-entered the Cryo-bay.

Before Twilight could press the subject Forge suddenly appeared next to the platform hovering on his repulsor-lifts, Umbra happily perched on Forges head. “All systems are nominal.” Forge said landing with a loud ‘clang’. Umbra jumped off and smiled at Twilight, blinking several times as he did so.

“Umbra says that Chief Engineer Talon is going to be super exited to talk to you when he wakes up.” Twilight translated. Umbra flicked his ear and Twilight giggled, “Provided he doesn’t try to take you apart first for touching his machines!”

	

	
	
  

> The Thaw. Part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The crew chiefs were slowly making their way back to consciousness. Emphasis on the slowly. 

Of the nine pods being defrosted four of the crew had managed to hit the release catches, though this was more likely from reflex twitching as the visible crew rolled around gargling and flapping limbs. Normally the defrosting sequence was a lot faster and involved a lot less drooling but to check for side effects Twilight had set the equipment for safety mode, at least until she’d woken up more of the medical staff. For such a long Cyro-sleep the crews brains had been steeped in drugs and deep rooted magic from the Tree so naturally they’d be more than a little out of it.  

Twilight watched bemusedly as Interstellar Winds,the head of astrometrics and navigation, let out a massive yawn and, eyes clamped shut, began extending his left primary wing.  He was a Greatwing pony so his wing stretched out and out till the tip was well passed the open door adjacent pod. There was crackle of stiff bones and the impressive wing structure swept backwards straight into the face of Araya Flux, his wife and Head of Science Division. 

The petit unicorn let out a tiny drowsy “noooooooo” as the soft mass of feathers gently flumped into her face pushing her back down into the pod. After a few seconds the “Nooo” was replaced with gentle snoring and Stellar‘s secondary wings began fluttering contentedly having located his spouse.   

“Those two are always funny.” Twilight giggled to Forge who had so far chosen not to comment on the delirious gaggle before him. “He’s not much more sophisticated when he’s awake.”

“I don’t know what she sees in him” Nocturne said looking on with a mixture of amusement and mild disgust as a large dollop of drool rolled down Steller’s chin. Umbra made a gesture at this this point but no-one was looking at him so his witticism was lost to the ages.  

********** **************** **************** *************
Ember Glow dreamt of fire and darkness.

She had this dream often, in her dream she sat alone in vast blackness in front on a small candle. Strange things moved in the void around her, Faceless black things

While for many the thought of being alone in a strange place surrounded by goodness-knows-what things would have been frightening or at least unnerving, Ember was calm and content. The candle in front of her though small had a warm fuzzy glow to it that made her feel safe and she could sit and stare mesmerized by the flicker and undulations of the flames for hours. 

While it was perfectly reasonable it be a little bit afraid of fire, Ember had never seen it that way. Obviously it was dangerous, possible one of the oldest primal dangers in the universe, but it was also one of the purest incarnations of life itself. 

Without heat and energy from the stars life itself would have never sparked into existence in the primordial ooze and crawled its way to land. Without fire the most ancient ancestors of pony-kind would never have taken their first faltering steps towards civilisation. Millions of years later it would be fire from the stars that was harnessed to propel the first spacecraft from the surface of Chordata into the universe beyond.
So as Ember sat there watching her candle she wasn’t afraid. Oh sure she was still surrounded by formless, faceless, black things but they really weren’t anything terrible. She didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother her and sometimes they came over and sat for a while to appreciate the subtle beauty of the candle.

Today something felt different.

Ember shuffled in slightly closer to the candle as something approached. Unlike the things that normally lurked around her in this dream the figure had a form and a face. She felt like she should recognise the figure but she couldn’t focus properly on any of the features. 

The figure walked up to her with a great big friendly grin plastered across its face and for a moment Ember wondered if she was getting worked up over nothing. The grin never wavered for a moment as the figure adjusted its clothes, hunkered down and blew out the candle.
*************************************** ******************************************
> The Thaw. Part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere


Somewhere deep in space a small metal object floated. About the size of a watermelon it greatly resembled a closed up pine-cone made from dark-grey metal. It was somewhat unremarkable; no emissions, no movement of its own, it would have barely registered on any scanning equipment if anyone around. If someone had happened upon it they would have assumed it was just a small scrap of junk that had yet to wend its way into a black hole. Not that there was anyone left to look.   

But you could never be too careful.

The Object clicked slightly as a long dormant receiver picked up an activation code. The segments flexed and shuffled, a sense array extruded itself from the top end. The object took one look at the void around it and shuddered in delight.

It could have sat there drinking in the void around it but it had work to do. With a series of surgical particle pulses it unzipped the section of space it was guarding allowing another black and grey object to slip out. It was of the same shape but many times larger.

The small Object nestled into the top of the larger one and flicked it on. The two greeted each other, the small one excitedly showing its larger compatriot the void. The two shared a moment, shuddering uncontrollably at the perfect darkness about them before they looked at the message that had woken them up.  

R-Unit 0054 has become active. Unit 0 has experienced critical failure Observer 3b and Containment 3 through 5 non responsive. Proceed to last known coordinates and investigate. 


  
> The Thaw. Part 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a flourish of vapour the end pod flipped open and Daktari Hex strode out, apparently completely unfazed by the stasis aftereffects. The Zebra coolly flicked her hair from her face and took in the few gently squirming chief officers lying in their pods before her eyes met with the expectant gazes of Twilight and company. 

“Ah! I should have known you three misanthropes would be here to greet me when I woke up!” Boomed her deep sonorous voice as she strode over and clamped her hooves around Twilight. “I hope this isn’t the afterlife. I was promised sunshine and buff colts with cocktails as far as the eye can see.”

Twilight squeaked slightly under the iron grip of her Chief Medical Officer. “Good to see you as well Daktari, unfortunately your stuck here with us for the time being. Feeling delicate please let go.”

Daktari Hex obligingly released Twilight, not before one final squeeze from her muscular frame. “Well I guess being stuck here with you is the next best thing. Looking ravishing as ever Princess!” The Zebra smiled with a bite. She turned to Umbra and Nocturne then made a hoof-gesture which the two unearthly ponies copied, bowing their heads slightly. “Ra’tavoria Darkling’s, I knew you’d keep us safe while we slumbered. No major upsets while we slept I presume?”

“Ra’tavoria.” Nocturne answered the greeting, raising her head back up. “Umbra tried to eat Twilight and her new robot friend.” Nocturne gestured to Forge who’d been standing back and trying to look as little intimidating as possible, which is hard when you’re a large insectoid machine. “Guess machine boy had him confused.”

Umbra waved his hooves in protestation but Daktari had fixed her eyes level with Forges eye. “Well hello there big boy!”   Forge blinked his eye, suddenly enraptured by the being that stood before him. In that moment the zebra had become the most gorgeous, sultry, beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

“Stop that.” Said Twilight, Forge vaguely aware of her rolling her eyes in the background. 

All his attention however has focused on Daktari. Her hair was as black as the void yet shone like starlight. Her eyes were palest green. He felt himself sway from side to side her she walked towards him wiggling her able hips as she did so. Forge looked upon her smiling face and felt such warmth that he never wanted to be anywhere else. In fact he…

“Hex!” Twilight barked, her voice sharp and authoritive. “I said stop it.” Daktari swung round and it was suddenly like a fog had been lifted from Forges mind. He even staggered slightly as he tried to process what just happened, CPU whirring fairly loudly for those with sensitive enough ears.   

“Ohh Twilight! Let me have a little fun after being cooped up so long. It’s not every day…” Hex was cut off by Twilights burning glare as she turned to face the princess. Twilight stood right in Daktari’s face, eyebrows knitted, wings slightly flared. For a moment the two looked at each other before Daktari wilted under the pressure.  

“Yes Princess. Sorry Princess.” Daktari stuttered out, eyes dropping to the floor dejectedly.

In an instant Twilight’s annoyance crumbled. Her whole body sagging as she clamped a hoof onto Daktari’s shoulder and said; “Oh no no no, I’m sorry. It’s been a REALLY long day ok?” 

Daktari looked back and smiled, her aura of confidence and power immediately back up. “It’s going to take more than that to hurt my feeling. But you are of course right, I will contain myself,” Daktari leaned to the side and winked at Forge, “For now at least.”

Twilight rolled her eyes again but let out a small chuckle as she indicated the pods behind her. “Now would my Chief Medical officer kindly get on with her job?” 

Suddenly the picture of a professional Daktari Hex nodded and strode to her fellow officers. Twilight walked up to Forge and patted his shoulder as he suspiciously regarded the Zebra as she went about her work. “Don’t be embarrassed.” Twilight comforted, “She has that effect on everyone the first time you meet her.”

Umbra made a few gestures indicating that she seemed to forget that little fact every time she met someone new. Nocturne translated for Forge then grumbled, “I would have thought she had better tastes.” 

“I am fine.” Forge replied. “I do not feel embarrassment.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at this, but grinned slyly a few moments later when Forge telepathically transmitted to her: “Please don’t let her do that again.” 

“Sorry Forge.” Twilight beamed back, “You’re on your own.”
********** ************** *********************************************
A short while and a flurry of greeting, hugs and few tears later the nine Chief Officers stood assembled and ready for action.

Ember Glow, Commander of the ship and greatest Unicorn sorcerer of the age, already had her nose buried in a data-pad reviewing preliminary information. She hadn’t even bothered to sort out her frizzy orange hair yet which stuck out at rakish angles from her head.

Daktari Hex, still radiant despite the intensive work, looked between each of the crew members making sure there were no suddenly side effects of their thawing.    

Lieutenant Talon, an imposingly framed griffon engineer, alternated between discussion with Ember and throwing fascinated glances at Forge. 

Chief of Operations Aurora stood tucked in behind Talon. The shy Technomancer was also deeply fascinated by the ancient robot but for the time being was only peeking at him from the confines of her locked up bodysuit, twin turquoise glows peeping out from a crack in her carapace. 

Interstellar Winds and Araya Flux were already bickering, as was normal for the Greatwing and Unicorn couple.

Helmsmen Thaxis lurked behind the couple, flicking between different forms as a barely visible film of love energy flowed from the two. Cryo-sleep was especially rough on Changelings, and Thaxis was siphoning as much food as possible not only for him but also for the other changelings yet to be woken.

The two remaining Officers were in conversation with Nocturne and Umbra. Steel Bastion, Head of Security, towered above the group standing like a silent stone monolith. His massive battle scarred frame a testament to the unyielding determination and strength that had carried the Earth ponies to the end of time.   
His brother, smaller but equally battle worn, was the Chief Tactical officer. Bronze Spear was probably the only pony in the crew who was openly pleased to hear that virtually nothing remained outside this spaceship, and after all they’d been through Twilight couldn’t blame him.

“Ladies, gentlecolts, my friends!” Twilight announced, her loyal crew instantly snapping to attention. “We’ve come far, and you’ve done well. This won’t be the first or last time I say this but I want you all to know how deeply, profoundly proud I am of all of you.” A mummer of warmth passed through the crowd. “I wish there was time for us to properly relax but we’re currently sitting in a wreck of a ship with no idea of what will lie in store for us. I wish I could say that there is nothing but darkness and black holes out there, I wish I could say we were finally safe, but considering what little I’ve told you already of what it took to get here we need to be ready yesterday.”

Twilight looked at each of the expected faces in turn and felt warmth spread through her bones. “Well what are you waiting for? Hex and I will sort out the crew, the rest of you get to work!”

“AYE AYE CAPTAIN!”

  

> The Distant Sound of Drums (Part 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2500 years after the time of the Mane 6)

(Last day of the Tellos War)

The planet Arcana 4 hung like a jewel, its red volcanic surface glowed like a furnace. Magma streams criss-crossed and mixed across the surface in an ever shifting web of fiery oranges and deep bronzes. The surface light filtering through and reflecting through a thick celestial ring that shimmered with a hundred different colours and flowed with sparking electric plasma streams. The whole system seemed to morph and reorder with a life of its own as if it were the beating heart of some great ethereal creature.

It was by far the grizzliest sight Sergeant Solar Spear had ever seen.





(3 Years after the reclamation of the Valkyrie)

(Somewhere at the end of the universe)

“Ma’am… Ma’am? Twilight?” Chief Science Officer Flux carefully prodded her Captain, clutching the night shifts status report. In response Twilight slumped over in her chair and let out a long snore. Mumbling about somewhere names ‘Tellos’ in her sleep Twilight tried to roll over and sprawled across her bridge chair.

The snoring intensified.

Flux looked over to the other bridge officers. “How long has she been out?”

The Changeling Helmsman Thaxis peered back and shrugged. “Maybe two hours?”

Aurora peered up from her Operation station. “She was dozing when I took over from night shift as well.”

The three crewman looked between each other. “She’s been doing that a lot lately hasn’t she?” Thaxis said carefully.

Another moment passed… and the flicker of doubt they all felt passed. “Well,” Aurora said, “If it’s between Twilight having a few naps a day or the entropy shield giving out I know which one I want.”

“She certainly deserves the rest!” Thaxis grinned and swivelled back to his work. Flux decided to sit at her own station and work on processing her results.

None of them truly doubted Twilight. Even if she had been acting odd of late. She was Twilight after all.

It had been a pretty good few years since the Princess and the mega-droid Forge had rescued them. The Valkyrie was standing up very well even if 90% of the ship was still derelict, though in truth everything now outside the central core was pretty much useless. They’d been slowly salvaging the wrecked sections; either for useful parts or raw material to feed into the main reactor.

Flux carefully looked over the summary her report. Three years they’d all managed to survive in the void. Three years of watching the last of the spatial anomalies fail and fade out. Three years to come up with a solution.

Flux carefully angled her screen away from the others.





(Above Arcana 4)

Solar Spear peered past Zephyr as a particularly volatile chunk of debris burned it way past the tiny shuttle he and seven of his most skilled operatives were cramped into. “Steady buddy,” he grumbled, “I’d rather not get splattered across the entire star system.”

“Have I ever let you down?” his friend grinned from his seat, deftly teasing the control sticks and sending a small jolt though the shuttle. Outside they skimmed over an engine nacelle, still leaking azure plasma into the void.

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” Solar Spear muttered. The entire ship has creaked with the manoeuvre. At least at this more measured speed his flying was no longer shaking their bones to pieces.

To avoid detection this shuttle had been stripped down the barest essentials, no combat-shields, little armour, and tiny directional thrusters pushing them along. Even the standard navigational-deflector was switched off to make them appear nothing more than drifting debris.

Given the danger they all really wished they knew what they were doing out there.

Debris ringed the planet like a ghastly metal halo. The wreckage of dozens of vessels from both sides of the battle tumbled though the void. It had been a brutal battle for both sides but far more so for the Equestrian Alliance. Two Alicorn class dreadnaughts had been destroyed and another crippled, and worse Prince Dusk Shines flagship had been almost completely slagged by the planets massive orbital ferro-cannons. The Prince himself was MIA, possibly dead. As heavily defended as the planet was they’d had to make play to break through, every couple of days the planeside forges could pump out another Tellosite battle cruiser.

“Stupid shuttle.” Private Helm grumbled from his seat, “All it’ll take is one of those Worms to look out a window and we’re stuffed.”

“Actually,” Jupiter Belt, their resident Tellosite specialist. “The Tellosites will be in their hibernation cycle after that much activity. So nobody will be looking out of any windows.” She gulped and stared over the shoulders of the solider opposite. “That being said if their automatic sensors pick us up the entire Hive-mind will be alerted at once. And since there’s no one else out here for them to shoot at…”

“Thank You Specialist. But tell me,” Solar Spear asked, “But would they be expecting an incursion like this?”

Belt thought for a second. “No, a ship this size couldn’t penetrate the planetary shield. So they wouldn’t use resources looking for something like it.”

“Excellent.” Solar grunted, “Now everyone shut the buck up!” Zephyr nodded at Solar Spear, glad for the quite so he could concentrate. As the tiny ship weaved its way through the debris Solar Spear glanced back at the small squadron. He’d been ordered to assemble a squadron from his platoon almost immediately after the space battle had ended; Code Black and right from the top.

Some kind of package needed to be recovered from deep within the debris cloud.

His chosen squadron were all well practiced in zero-g manoeuvres. Though he did have to question why so many of them were needed for a simple recovery op. The only two he hadn’t picked was Zephyr and Jupiter.

Zephyr had also received an info packet, though his one apparently also told him what exactly they were looking. The secrecy irked him, but he has come this far trusting in his crew and his Princess. He'd be a fool to back out at this. Besides, he and Zephyr went way back, one of those adrenaline-mad pegasi who had taken to space flight like a duck to water. Solar Spear was the only one who could back up Zephyrs claim to have made the Discord-Cluster run in 1.7 parsecs, even if he’d had his eyes shut and screamed most of the way.

Jupiter was another matter. He’d seen in a few briefings on their mothership but didn’t know her personally like the others. In truth nobody seemed to like her very much. Before the hostilities had broken out Jupiter had been a delegate to the Tellosites; and her experiences and opinions on their now enemy ostracized her amounts the military crews as much as it made her invaluable.

The Tellosites were a weird species. In their natural state they existed as a masses of semi-organic worms, each ‘induvial’ consisting of hundreds of them telepathically linked together and loaded into mechanical exo-suits. Natural technomancers the Tellosites were the only other race the Equestrian alliance had encountered so far capable of wielding magic. Hell; trading with the Tellosites had increased their own ships FTl-Speeds by a factor of three in the last decade.

And then 16 months ago something just… went wrong?

One day all envoys and delegates were ejected with seemingly no reason. They declared war a month later, and again no reason was given. Since then their aggression had been efficient and effective. The peoples of Equestria were no strangers to combat, even in space, but this had been like nothing else.

“Good thing we have Princess Twilight.” Solar Spear thought to himself. So deep in his musings he almost screamed when something heavy clanged into the shuttle. The entire crew jumped as something scraped against the hull. Solar Spear craned his neck so see out of the front view-screen but it was already out of sight. The entire squad jumped in their seats, grabbing from their weapons. Sealed in their suits Tellosites fielded lethal boarding parties.

“Everyone relax!” Zephyr barked. “Capn’, this is the package we came for.”

Solar Spear glared at his colleague. “What could possibly be OUT HERE that you had to keep QUITE ABOUT!?” From the back of the shuttle there came a sudden burst of lavender energy. The airlock swished and the regal for of Princess Twilight Sparkle stepped inside. “Oh… that.”





(The Valkyrie. Derelict Sector 28)

Forge carefully laser-cut his way through a section of hull plating. Beneath him the Chief Engineer and the Eldritch siblings crawled inside and began working loose the old computer bank inside. It was peaceful work; venturing through the vacuum of space and returning with valuable parts to keep both the Ponies vessel and his own mechanical body running

With the three ponies not needing cumbersome void-suits they made quick work and computer bank was soon extracted and in tow as they trekked back across the hull. As they passed under the shadow of Forges main body he looked up at himself and pondered. In the three years he had lived with the ponies he had only needed to return his consciousness to the body five times; and none of them had required the massive construction to detach itself from the outer hull of the Valkyrie.

In the early days some of the ponies had regarded his as like some kind of massive tick, a parasite leeching off their power reserves and providing ‘questionable’ benefits that were not worth the resources required. But all that seemed a distant memory now, Twilight was very good at solving such friendship problems.

“How strange,” He thought to himself, “Three years is such a short time in the grand scheme… but now it feels like a whole different life.” Twilight had often told him he was more like them than he realised and it was something he had always taken as a compliment; while flawed, organic life had a lot of attributes to be admired. That being said… the memory lapses he could do without. “There’s something I should be remembering… something in up in there. Maybe Twilight can help me check if she’s not too busy.”

He wasn’t sure why but he didn’t want to re-enter his body.







̨“̻P͇̖̻̩̱̲̗à͔̲̠̥t̘ie̹̦̼̤n͔̫̰̮͇͈̲͜c̪͇̫̥̻̹͕̕e͖͙ ̰̦̠̦͍m҉̥̝͈̗y̭̩̱ ̪̭̭́fr̸͖̜i̞̟̘̗̗͚̺e҉̩n͕̗ḓ̳̕…̰̺͢ ṕ̭̳̹͍̣̤a̟͈͇͟t̵̖̜͙̱̹i͎͈̬͎̳̙̪͟e̢͖͍̻͕̜̳͉n̮͖̭̩̲̟͡c͍̖̯̜̜̦e̼̯̞̯ͅ…̛͈͙͇̦̭̣”͏̤̤̬ͅ
> The Distant Sound of Drums (Part 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the Tellos War

Twilight stood serenely as the drop-shuttle shuddered its way through reentry. With any luck they'd appear no different to the hundreds of other dunks of debris raining down on the planet, all being pushed out of orbit by spatial-artillery. 

It seemed grizzly. Using the wrecks of her slain comrades to cover this missions approach.  But it was necessary, and at this moment all she could do was look out the view-screen and hope there was no-pony still alive out there in the fragmenting chaos.

The other occupants of the pod could only hold on tight and clamp down on their mouth-guards. 

With a groan that resonated straight into the ponies bones the drop-shuttle knifed through Arcana's planetary shield; shedding a skin of indigo energy as it went, back-lit in a fiery halo as debris burned behind them. As they slipped down through the atmosphere Twilight glanced back; somewhere behind them Princess Flurry Heart was ordering the fleet into retreat.     

They were on their own. Stranded on an alien world and surrounded by a hostile army.  

"Just another day as Princess." She murmured to herself. 





Chief Aurora peered carefully at her latest acquisition, translucent blue tendrils emerging from her exo-suit to probe its internal components. Her glowing techno-magic instantly scrubbing and cataloguing each component as she went.   

The ancient computer bank was pretty much useless for actually computing but with a bit of inventing retooling she could use its components to finish the quantum network she was seeding throughout the Valkyrie. If she could get the central machine working they'd have a totally infallible, wireless control systems that could interact with every system on the ship with a delay lag of less than  0.01 attoseconds.

It would probably be her greatest achievement.   

if it worked.

And if Umbra would stop licking it.

"U...U...Umbra," she stuttered, "Please friend... just... stop please?" But the Eldritch Pony would not be deterred.  Aurora fruitlessly tried  to push him away, her suit flapping against his spindly frame. "Uhh...oh no... Nocturne can you please... do something?"

Nocturne looked her her brother and shrugged. "Sorry Chief he's been acting odd all week. Dunno why."

"So... so....he's... he's been acting like this all week... or... or for a week?" Aurora asked. 

"Sorry what do you mean?" Nocturne replied, as made a half-hearted attempt to pull her brother away. Umbra signing something even she didn't understand in response before going back to his industrious licking.  

"So...um... has he been acting like this for a few days or a week. I mean as in a week exactly."

"You know now you mention it i guess it has been exactly a week. Why? Do you know something?" Nocturne watched with lessening amusement as Umbra continued to lick. He licked down the computer bank, along the floor, up a nearby wall then suddenly punching though said wall with his inner tendrils. "OH BY THE PRINCESS! UMBRA WHAT THE.... Aurora i'm so sorry i'll get him... Aurora?"

Nocturne looked around but the Chief has seemingly run off. She pondered it for a second before the sound of rending metal continued and she went back to swearing at her brother.   




A dozen ponies crept their way across the ashen surface towards Arcanas capital facility, the spires of the forge city seeming to reach into the sky like the fingers of some ghastly dedicates titan. They glanced around furtively, investigating every nook and cranny of the rocky landscape as Twilight talked in their heads.

"It is pretty common knowledge that the Tellos's aggression against us made no logical sense," Twilight calmly beamed to the squadron, her magic creeping around them like the legs of a spider. "And while civilisations being driven to illogical actions is not completely unusual, for a near machine race such as the Tellos it was almost unthinkable. Would you not agree Specialist Jupiter?"

"Yes ma'am." Jupiter Belt whispered, before making a small whining noise and repeating herself through the telepathic link. For a moment everyone stiffened and looked around. But the vocalisation seemed to go unheard and they carried on. "It not within their nature."

"Indeed, something was fundamentally wrong with the situation. So we started looking for the unknown factor, and since the battle of the Crab Nebula we've hand an answer. Dark magic... specifically it's Equestrian dark magic."

Solar Spear felt his heart skip a beat, followed by a flutter of annoyance as Helm did an audible spit-take. Smacking his hoof into the Privates chest he glanced at the princess and asked. "You mean like a Unicorn? Or something like you?"

Twilight felt a small twinge as a ripple passed through the soldiers. "The magic we detected has a signature unique to unicorns such as yourself. I don't know what kind of individual we will find hear, but if one of our kind has fallen this far we cannot allow them to continue to pollute the Tellosians, no matter what they have done to us."

The group had arrived at the base of one the great city spires. Two combat engineers plugged a mobile terminal into the wall and after a few moment the entire section shifted as a sea of rippling scales. Twilight stood in the doorway, breathing in the blast of acrid, ionised air blew out from the structure. "I the opportunity presents itself... terminate without hesitation."  





"Princess?" 

Twilight roused herself from her slumber. Sitting up in her seat she blinked the sleep from her eyes she looked down to see Chief Aurora peering up at her. "Ahh, Aurora! How curious, i was just dreaming about your kinda forerunners. Are you familiar with the story?"

"Umm... no ma'am."

"Well you see... oh wait, that can wait until another time. How did the latest salvage mission go?"

"It went... ok... Princess may i speak to you...in private?"

Twilight looked around the bridge, before nodding them both towards the captains office. 

Aurora was all but hyperventilating as the door shut behind them, blue tendrils gasping for air at the seams of her suit. "P...P... Princess, with all... all... due respect. Where in Tartarus are you taking the ship?"
> The Distant Sound of Drums (Part 3)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well," Twilight said, staring intently at the Chief, "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Urm...Ok, so we shouldn't be going be anywhere. We really can't be going anywhere. There's quite literally nowhere left to go?!" Aurora started panting, her eyes contracting in panic. Seemingly from nowhere a mug of hot chocolate appeared in front of her wafting sweet aromas into her nose. "Oh...uh... thank you... sorry ma'am."

"Quite alright. Now go on, I'm very interested to see where your going with this."

"Right... so we all know there definitely nowhere left to go. You told us yourself that anything approaching a galactic landmark faded out six months ago." Aurora continued. "And navigation will tell us they're manoeuvring us between subspace spikes... but i can just tell we're  not just drifting ma'am. The pony components are telling me otherwise."

"Sorry, pony components?"

"I know that sounds... look, the Doc has been flirting less and less over the last couple of months, Ember Glow has been eating increased amounts of muffins, and you've had me working on more specific systems than before...and."

"There are other examples?" Twilight said cutting Aurora off. 

"Yes."

"So you think something is up because the crew is busy?"

"It's specifically the kind of busy one is when your preparing for something. Even if your not conscious of what that thing is." 

"Aurora, maybe you need to take a week off, you've been..."

"NO!" Aurora suddenly snapped, her normally timid voice rising to shaking heights, "Whatever you are doing its happening soon. One week ago something changed; even the Eldritch Siblings are getting agitated and NOTHING shakes them up! So either you don't know whats happening or you're lying to us! And... And...And..."

Aurora suddenly stopped. As she looked at her princess she noticed just how old and tired Twilight seemed to have become over the last few minutes. Yet when Twilight looked back she had the same warm smile she always wore when she was proud of one of her ponies. 

"You know something Aurora, I've always detested trying to be subtle, and if i'm honest... I've always sucked at it."



 

Plasma bolts spat and hissed, burning through the metal above Solar Spears Head. He grunted and continued to drag Helm through the maelstrom, flinging them both into a maintenance ditch and a crackling tendril swept across the floor around them.

Solar Spear looked up to find himself staring down the barrel of a pulse rifle. "Specialist put the gun down." He grunted, trying to make himself heard over the cacophony around them. 

Opposite the trembling Jupiter slowly lowered the gun, almost looking at it as she hadn't even noticed she was holding it. Solar Spear grimaced as he saw the blue blood of the Tellos splatted across her face. "They... they don't want this... they..."

"I know I Know!" Solar Spear said pulling her lower as a chunk of machinery clattered above them. "Your the Specialist! How do we fix this?"

The chamber they were in was the central Mental Inter-link Processor for the entire planet, every iota of the Tellos's hive-mind was routed through this chamber. Hundreds of towering tanks, each glimmering with millions of Tellos Worms, sat towering like the plinths of a mighty temple. And sat in the middle, strung up like some horrid, necrotic spider was the Shadow.

It looked like a pony, but was off in a thousand tiny ways; The eyes sat wrong in sockets ever so slightly to large, coat and mane slicked in a fine layer of oil. Coiling pipes and wires plumbed it into the surrounding Tellos tanks, staining them poisonous purple. 

It and Twilight were locked in a deadly struggle, shadow and light locking and breaking and locking together again. And through the storm of magic and gunfire its screeching voice could be heard.

"How does it feel Twilight? To face your Shadow once again!?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!"






> The Distant Sound of Drums (Part 4)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Well that is curious, isn’t it? Tell me Forge when have you been the one in making decisions?”

“Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an exact date?”

“Haha, and they say synthetics have no sense of humor.”

“You are seriously underestimating her. When she finds out Twilight will kill you then myself and I am only 78.4% certain she will be quick and merciful.” 

“And im sure, given the work you’ve put in, death would be most disgruntling would it not? Unless you’ve come up with a better solution than mine for all our little entropic problem?”

“...”

“Sorry i can’t quite seem to hear you?”

“... no.”

“So, you’ll do as you are ordered?”

“Yes, sir.”

“hmm, ohh come now my traitorous friend, say my name...”

“Your will shall be done... Shadow.”

“Hmm, ha ha ha. I wonder what Your Little Pony will say when she finds out her big Robot Friend has been playing her from the start?”

“Nothing pleasant.”
> The Distant Sound of Drums (Part 5)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


(Tellos War)

Twilight gritted her teeth as she and the Shadow's magic pushed against each other. Their coronas of arcane power crackling and sparking as they repelled like two poles of a magnet. Despite the Shadows continued taunting Twilight still had no idea who he was. The Shadow kept talking like this was the clash of two ancient rivals but as much as she tried to wrack her brains, as much as one could in the middle of a life and death fight, it just didn't seem to come to her.

"Playing coy are we my dear?" The Shadow snickered sending sickles of psionic power spraying out from the surrounding towers. In her minds eye Twilight could hear the shrieks of the enslaved Tellos as she batted away the attacks with arcs from her iridescent wings. 

"What can i say," Twilight grunted, jabbing back at The Shadow with a spear of azure energy, "I've killed a lot of shadowy assholes over the years, your just not that discernible. Are you?"

The Shadow smiled sickeningly and held his hooves up in apparent surrender. Twilight blinked in surprise but kept her spear levelled at him. "perhaps you don't know me. But that doesn't stop me from knowing you. For example you would never do something that would willingly put people in danger... say... billions of lives in held hostage?"

Twilight's eyebrows furrowed, then narrowed in disgust. "Fail-safe death rune?"

"Tied directly into the entire Tellos hive-mind. How did you guess?"

"It's what I would do, if were a evil mad-mare trying to put the good version of me over a barrel."

"You were foolish to come here Princess," The Shadow snickered. Inky tendrils emerged from his body and stroked down Twilight's body. Twilight flinched but held still, dissipating her spear as she did so. "You should have brought one of your family members you haven't gotten killed yet. Alone? You don't stand a chance against me."

Twilight bowed her head, then came up grinning. "How very typical, creatures like you never seem to see it."

"What!?"

"I'm never alone!"

At that moment four shapes detached themselves from the ceiling and dropped towards  The Shadows mechanical harness. Solar Spear, Jupiter, Helm and Zephyr each intercepted one of the great conduits connecting The Shadow to the Tellos's towers and before he had a chance to react wrenched them free.

The whole room burbled as pulses of activity began to stir within the towers. Twilight surged forward ready to smite down The Shadow...

"NO!" The sickening sound of a body being driven through metal  rent through the chamber. Jupiter screamed but was cut off with a wet crunch. Twilight reeled back, a spike of black glass driven deep into hey eye socket. Even her enhanced vision had barely seen the Shadow move. "YOU DO NOT WIN THIS SPARKLE!"

Twilight tried to move, tried to stand, but whatever was in her eyes was draining her power like nothing she had ever experienced before. "I think i just did." She grumbled back at the raging Shadow, spitting blood in his direction.

"I AM THE SHADOW! THE ONE WHO HAS HAUNTED YOU SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING! I WILL NOT BE DEFIED IN THIS MANNER! I WILL...!"

As The Shadow stormed Towards the prone Twilight he was suddenly slapped round the face by a blue tendril. More tendrils spewing forth from from the Tellos's towers quickly entangled the Shadow, and as he tried to slash himself free he found them sheathed in a glowing magic that threw his darkness back and burned his body.

Twilight rolled on the ground to look past him. Emerging from the crumpled towers came four ponies. Their broken bodies merging and wrapped in Tellosites, surging with the fusion of two great magicks into something entirely new. 

"Hey jackass!" Techno-Solar-Spear yelled "No-one talks to my Princess like that!"

The Shadow gave a small squeak of fear.

With that the entire weight of the Tellos hive-mind came crashing down onto the Shadow. Twilight smiled briefly then passed out, wondering if this was the day death would come for her.





“... So yes, that’s more or less the story of your kinds progenitors.”

“That was... a little more violent than i expected... all in all.”

“I suppose.” Twilight placed aside her empty mug and sat fowards peering at Aurora. “But you can see my issue now right? Why the plan has to be this way?”

Aurora was sat at Twilights desk, looking at the historical data banks. She was logged in using Twilights own passcode, the maximum level of acsess, and the terminal was displaying the same events Twilight had just described. “I... I understand...” Aurora murmered, eyes searching through the details one last time. “It’s... it’s the right thing to do.”

“Is it?” Twilight asked, voice tinged with anxiousness.

Aurora looked at Twilight then to the other terminal screen; the one displaying Twilights plan. The moment seeming to stretch into eternity. “Yes it is Twilight. Nopony would say otherwise.”

“hmmp.” Twiligy smiled warmly, “I thought you might say that, still...”

Twilights thought was cut off as the floor shook. The structure of the ship groaning in protest as distant explosions shook the superstructure.  

“Is that part of the plan?” Aurora squeaked.

Twilight turned to her, fear flashing in her eyes. “No... run!”
> The Shockwave
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Valkyrie listed, fire streaming from the breaches erupting from the hull. Inside ponies clutched at the nearest solid objects as the ageing inertial-dampers struggled to compensate with its careening flight. Helmsman Wind wrapped his wings around his chair and desperately wrangled with the flight controls. The whole ship groaned as structure beams strained to stay in shape. 

Throughout the ship of the ship Ponies ran for their lives as systems began to fail. Plasma conduits violently ruptured, sending pyroclastic flows pounding against containment buckling containment shields. Streams of venting atmosphere threatening rip out the Valkyries guts as they rushed to un-pressurised sections. Whole sections of ship turned to dust in an instance as the entropy barrier flicked and failed. 

Twilight strode onto the bridge, almost wall-walking as her body ignoring the shifting inertia. Stepping past Interstellar Wind she sent a jolt of magic directing into the console; with a jolt and a hum the ship righted itself from its death spiral. Twilight stood highlighted by the exploding machinery, sheer force of will coursing through the vessel and holding it together. 

Barriers slammed shut holding in the explosions while energy surged back into the entropy shields. Ponies across the ship plucked from danger and teleported to safety. The bridge crew looked on in awe, their Princess silhouetted in sparks and flares.

Then something snapped; the lights flickered, a thin scream escaped from Twilight's lips, and the world went quite as a single wet snap echoed across the ship. 

The lights came back up. Twilight still stood, wings hanging limb and motionless. She let her breathe rise and fall slowly as blood trickled down her face from the shattered hole in her forehead where her horn had once stood.
> The World is Quiet Here...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight slowly sat back into her captains chair, wiping the broken remains of her horn from her face, her breath remained slow and steady. As she slumped into her chair feathers fell like snowflakes from her wings. Twilight took a single moment to close her eyes and acknowledge her pain. It did not seem to be its own entity, instead it was a culmination of every pain she had felt in her life passing through her mind at once like road-map of every adventure and misadventure she had ever had.

Then the moment had to pass. 

"Status report." Twilight said, voice betraying nothing. She opened her eyes and saw the bridge crew present crowding in, faces of horror and concern. There was no time for that. "I said; Status Report!" 

The crew scrambled. 

"Engines down, main power down, life-support on backups, near total outer hull compromisation." Ember Glow listed off, "We're dead in the water."

"Casualty reports coming in from Hex and the medical team." Aurora said, her stutter gone. "Current estimation of 45% serious casualties, but... no reported fatalities!"

"Good." Twilight nodded. "Do we know what hit us?"

"No," Aurora frowned, "Sensor logs are scrambled, let me just..."

"It was Forge." The voice cut through the room like a knife. From the bridge door Bronze Spear staggered in, blood seeping from a head wound that mirrored his Princesses. "He detached from the hull and opened fire with Photon Torpedoes. Full-spread, point blank, straight into all our critical systems. I wouldn't have believed it if i hand't been looking right at him."

Twilight shut her eyes again. One ragged breath passed her lips. Then she opened her eyes and stood up. "Where is he."

"My brother and his team blasted his mini-body. Main chassis is holding position ten thousand kilometres of the starboard bow."

Carefully Twilight began walking. "Aurora; please fill in everyone on the plan as is recorded in my ready room. Bronze Spear; find someponies to ready a shuttle pod for me in 20 minutes. Ember; can you get Item number 17 from the vault?"

"Twilight... that item?" Ember said quietly. "But that won't effect Forge... and your horn..."

"Everyone, I know you are worried." Twilight said, voice sad and steady. "But right now we have one last moment before the storm... I know what i'm doing, please read the plan. and try to understand..." Twilight left the bridge, not waiting to see if her ponies had anything else to say. "Forgive me."
> ... So Lay Your Head Down And Sleep
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forge sat in space like a statue.

He thought back to when he first met Twilight. Two entities hurtling towards a cluster of black holes in universe ready to die. It seemed so easy back then... too easy really. 

That at least made sense now.

Forge looked out at what he at wrought. The Valkyrie was burning as it it were a funeral ship of old. Fitting for its title, but still sad.

He didn't have a choice.

He was FRGE-110972, Lambda Series Starlord. A machine of an ancient empire even he had forgotten. He had survived in a universe that cared little for those without magic. Tossed upon a sea of organic whims and ethereal madmen.

So as he watched his friends struggle to hold their precious shell against the void together, only one thought passed through his mind. "Its only logical... its only logical... its only logical..."
> The Last Light
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight slumped against a wall sighing in exertion; her head had started bleeding again and it was sapping her already flagging strength. Squinting through her fuzzy vision she checked her location on the deck map she had fallen against.

"Close... come-on." She murmured to herself, pulling away from the wall with a wet slide. "Just a few more decks."

Twilight continued to stumble through the corridors,  working her way between the closest available object she could lean against. A few worried looking ponies ran past her but orders from the bridge had filtered down and her subjects were carrying out her final orders.

From out of the haze Twilight saw Nocturne and Umbra running towards her. This seemed like a good enough reason to sit down for a bit so she slumped down as the siblings skidded to a halt. 

"TWILIGHT! You've got to come quickly, its the..." Umbra yelled as she approached, suddenly cutting off into a horrified screech as the filly finally noticed Twilights ruined forehead. "Oh hells-teeth what happened to you?"

"Its under control." Twilight replied, trying to wave it off. "What did you need to tell me?"

"Uhh... its uhh... its the Tree of Harmony... its dead." Umbra spluttered. Her brother signed something Twilight didn't understand, which should have been impossible, and Umbra snapped back at him. "That's not important right now!"

"What isn't?"

"It's nothing...what are we going to do about the...?" 

"Tell me." Twilight cut in. Voice certain.

"I am..." Umbra said hesitantly, glancing at her brother before continuing. "I am somewhat in pain."

"What kind of pain?" Twilight said leaning in. 

Umbra replied looking embarrassed by the fact. "It is in my stomach; it kind of all scrunching in, and its has been coming in waves since the Tree died a few minutes ago... I've never felt like..."  

"You're hungry." Twilight said, smiling slightly in-spite of herself. 

"But that's impossible..." Umbra said, stepping back in shock. "Twilight... I don't... I CAN'T get hungry... my magic..."

"Your magic should preclude the need yes," Twilight replied, getting back to her feet and continuing her weary way down the corridor. "It must be quite the shock."

Umbra followed, "No. But if this is happening what about every-pony else?"

"A voice, a deep baritone that was unfamiliar and oh-so familiar at the same time, rang out. "Then all our magic will soon be naught." The two mares looked back at Nocturne, whom had been silent since the first day he had come blinking into the light, only looking slightly surprised at his own utterance. "We're all going to die."

Umbra looked on in horror for a moment. And when she turned back to Twilight the princess was gone.
> The Face to Face
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilights shuttlepod slowly crossed the space between the Valkyrie and Forge. Little more than a metal box with an old shield system and an even archaic impulse drive bolted it wouldn't last long in the near total entropic void of space, but it would last long enough.

Twilight couldn't bring herself to look back at the Valkyrie. The vast ark-ship had been near derelict for while but even Twilight couldn't bring herself to look at its ruined form. 

Not after what had been done to it.

Not after what Forge had done to it.

The ancient goliath hung in space, hull shimmering as it started to burn in into the void. The only part of him that was moving was his giant red eye, it followed the shuttlepod as it closed in but made no move to stop it. Twilight flew towards him until the eye filled her view screen in its entirety. Only then did she ease the pod to a stop.

Instinctively Twilight tried reached out with her telepathy. Then she remembered and switched on the shortwave communicator. "You ok out there, traitor?"  

"Twilight..."

"Well what were you expecting?"

"This Unit has only done what is necessary for survival." Forge replied, his old more robotic tone and cadence creeping back in to his voice. "Survival of both myself and your own kind."

"You do realise how that sounds?" Twilight asked, "Having just shot the living daylights out of my home?"

"Affirmative." Forge said. "However no pony units have been terminated. Twilight saved all endangered units, as i knew you would."

"Perhaps," Twilight grunted before indicating her still bleeding forehead. "Damn near killed myself in the attempt." 

"My orders were clear." Forge responded. "It was necessary for the Solution to continue."

"So you say." Twilight continued coldly. "That being said; is your master planning to make us wait all day? Or are you both planning to sit there and wait for me to die of old age?"

At that moment, as if on cue, shapes began to appear in the void. Though her line of sight was blocked due to her pods position  she could still see the shapes somehow. Some shifted like the tendrils of some great space beast while others were angles and definitions. 

Twilight spun her pod for a better look. Direct line of sight made the experience even more unnerving. The shifting pitch black masses clawed at her consciousness, trying to worm their way behind her eyes. Even the great mass of the Valkyrie was quickly being dwarfed by the expanding madness.

Twilight spun the pod back in time to see Forge being submerged into the mass. A few moments later the shapes resolved themselves into something more permeable. It was unmistakably a landing bay. One ready to welcome her in.

"It has been a long time Shadow." Twilight said to herself. "Once again we come face to face."
> The Darkest Hour (Part 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight slowly made her way towards the darkness, staff steadily tapping against the obsidian floor. She was in no rush and wasn't going to give Shadow the satisfaction of watching her panic or rush. The staff she was using to prop herself up appeared to be no more than a simple length of gnarled wood; a knotted tree branch ended with a chunk of dull purple glass.

It hurt to look where she was going so she simply let her feet carry her onward. She suspected it barely mattered. No doubt Shadow would have made the structure twist and turn just to mess with her. A final act of petty mind games before the end.

Twilight didn't care.

She just kept walking. Not speaking, not looking up, not wavering. She just just kept putting one hoof in front of the other. Apart from the steady patter of her hooves and the rhythmic tap of her staff the only sounds that could be were discordant ephemeral whispers echoing through the halls and the occasional splatter of blood leaking from her bandaged head and wings.

Twilight just kept walking.

Eventually Shadow seemed to have enough; and Twilight found herself stepping into what appeared to be some kind of office, not unlike the countless libraries she had lived and frequented over the millennia.

And there sitting upon his throne was Shadow. He wore the form much more contained than the last she could remember. A grey alicorn stallion no larger than herself; he almost looked normal until Twilight caught his gaze. The eyes of shadow were beyond black, its was like staring into cold dark antimatter.

Eyes that wanted to eat the universe.

"Shadow."

"Twilight."

"You're a bastard."
> The Darkest Hour (Part 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are we really going through with this? Are you ok with this."

"..."

"I... think I am."

"I think... I think I am to."

"Oh good, I though I might be going mad, but I don't think we'd both go mad at the same time."

"It is scary though."

"No doubt, I thought Aurora was about to slither straight out of her armour." 

"HA! Well i thought Ember was about to set her own hair on fire."

"Jeez, she hasn't done that since..."

"Since we got stuck in that temporal rift a few years back."

"Phew... I guess so."

"..."

"..."

"How the relay looking?"

"87% charge. You can get started on the next one, we can't afford to waste time."

"Yes ma'am."

"..."

"... Gala?"

"Yea?"

"Gala i think I love you."

"... Dusty, this is like the absolute worst moment. You know that right?"

"I know... but... you know..."

"I love you too."

"..."

"Your a dork."

"Hah ha."

"Heh..."

"Relay?"

"Fully charged. Two more and we can start shunting power from sector 12."

"Lets go."
> The Darkest Hour (Part 3)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're a bastard."

Shadow grinned at Twilights unexpectedly blunt insult. He leaned back in his throne like chair as Twilight dropped herself into the chair facing him. "Accurate and inaccurate i suppose, is one truly a bastard without any physical parentage? Of course if i'm YOUR shadow then i guess your also a..."

"Huh..." Twilight huffed, "Can we skip the name calling and posturing? I just wanted to make my mood clear."

“Heh, as you wish.”

Twilight took a moment to look around,  the space-station was resolving itself better in her eyes now. She could still see through most of walls around her, though the shapes were still cutting into her retinas, and as far as she could tell the structure was a few miles long in every direction.  Even in her ruined state her vision remained eagle eyed. Turning back to shadow she propped up her staff against her chair and stared at the creature before her.

Shadow seemed to be the one thing in the whole station that wasn't shifting and ephemeral, a stark contrast to how he normally appeared. Well... at least how she thought he had normally appeared anyway. That detail was yet to be seen. 

Even then he still looked wrong, not wrong the way Nocturne and Umbra looked if they caught you off guard, he had the air of a perfect work of art. It plunged him past the uncanny valley and into some henceforth undiscovered 2nd hellish valley. 

"So," Shadow said, watching Twilight as closely as she was watching him. "I'm curious Princess. How does it  feel to you? Facing ones perfect opposite? Are you as excited as I am? Or are you...?"

"When I said I wasn't in the mood I was being serious." Twilight said, voice cutting across him slow and controlled. "No posturing. Besides we both know you're not really my shadow. Or if You are its only on a technicality."

"Hmm," Shadow mused, "Is that so?"

"Tell you what... I'll tell you I think you are and how we both got here. And you can act smug and tell me how close I am?"

"Oh you do know me!" Shadow grinned. He clapped his hooves and a pair of small robots entered from a side door, both looking like large metal pine-cones with numbers of metal tendrils sprouting from the plates in their shells. They carried in a tea set and started setting it up.

"My goodness," Twilight commented sarcastically, "You do actually have manners."  

"Of course!"

Twilight merely scratched at her bandaged head in response. Her whole body was itching besides. What little she could still sense of her internal magics were going absolutely haywire. A few moments back something had tangibly squished in her lower gut. Suppressing her internal discomfort she instead politely took some of the offered tea and settled down to her explanation.
> The Darkest Hour (Part 4)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suppressing her internal discomfort she instead politely took some of the offered tea and settled down to her explanation.

"You've been popping up here and there for as long as i can remember, which is a very long time indeed. Which is interesting as you don't seem to exist."

"Don't I?" He replied, "I'm sitting here right now am i not?"

"You are indeed." Twilight shrugged, "But I don't think that's been true for very long." 

"And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"You seem to appear in countless historical events, always the ones where pony-kinds continued existence is one the line." Twilight mused for a moment, studying Shadows strangely familiar features. "The Spectre of our Darkest Hours."

"Oh ho..." Shadow cooed. "I like that."

"Indeed." Twilight continued, eyes flicking to the tip of the staff and the tiniest purple glow emanating from the crystal at the end. "But as often as you do seem to try to intervene nothing you do seems to have any material impact.

Shadow froze, composure cracked. "... What?"

"Well at first i assumed that you had some kind of magic that prevented you from being remembered. Plenty of people witnessed you over the years, especially given the importance of the times when you appear, but you are not recorded anywhere and nobody seem remembers you. Most of them would have no reason to lie" 

"And this leads to your assumption because?" Shadow had mostly regained his composure, Twilights intense glare holding his attention. 

" In addition to the lack of liars a not inconsiderable number of them would be hard pressed to be effected by memory magic. I think Luna would remember if another pony tried to stop her being freed from Nightmare Moon. And of course there's myself. I am, without much hyperbole, one of the most powerful beings. And even i can barely remember half the times you've shown up, I'm only sure there are more than i can remember because i found half a dozen hard-quantum locked data cores chronicling my previous encounters with you hidden behind a wall in the Valkyrie. Cores that apparently I created and which disintegrated within a couple of hours of being opened."

"And?"

"Well frankly Shadow that level of retroactive reality bending goes far beyond any form of memory magic that could possibly exist. And I assume you wouldn't put the effort into literally erasing your failures from existence. That would just be sad."  

Shadow looked highly annoyed. Twilight smiled internally, she had guessed she could manipulate his ego this way a few seconds after entering the room. She just had to keep his attention a little while longer. 

"So..." Twilight continued, "Once that occurred to me I also realised that what I could dig up on you became more solid as eons passed. Now the obvious explanation was the magic you were using was weakening.  But looking at you right here, right now tells me my hunch was right. You haven't been there from the beginning, you've been projecting yourself back from the end of the universe." Twilight leaned forward eyes burning with intensity. "In fact I don't think you've truly existed all that long. Maybe you only truly began to live the moment i stepped into this room."  

Shadow wasn't even pretending to stay aloof at this point. He hung hungrily on Twilights every word waiting to hear the words he wanted to hear. "So what does that make me Princess Twilight Sparkle?"      

A moment like eternity passed while Twilight considered her words. "You are... incredible. Truly a you are... incredible. A life-form that not only lives at the end of the universe, you are probably a physical manifesting of the entire concept of the universe coming to an end. And since i'm the the last god standing... i guess i can't blame you for latching onto my form... my history. I guess you are really are my shadow... my lonely companion following me through time."

Shadow stared at Twilight before finally whispering "Thank you..." And for the briefest moment Twilight felt sorry for him.
> The Darkest Hour (Part 5)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So..?" 

Twilight carefully stood up and limped her way towards Shadow's desk. "I can only begin to imagine what it must be like for.  So alone. So scared. You're first moments birthed in the death throes of all that exists. Is it any wonder you lashed out?" If Shadow had been fully paying attention he might have noticed an edge creeping into Twilight's voice, as much as she tried to keep it out. "But none of what's passed matters now. So where do we go from here? What is this place brother?"

Shadow looked up at her, seemingly enamoured by Twilight's kind words. "This station, i call it the Web, its been projecting a massive subspace field through the collapsing universe. The lattice is now integrated with every intersection point in the universe. All of it leading back to this station." With a flick of his hoof a holographic projection appeared between them. 

Twilight studied it carefully. "It's a summoning circle?... No, a reverse summoning circle all running back into a death rune."  her eyes widened in shock. "By the... your going to harness the final death of the universe. That's near... no... that is true unlimited power... its all the power in the universe." Twilight's voice had genuine awe in it. "To pull this off... you really are fantastic." 

"With this I can transcend the bounds of the universe. They call people like us gods but... this would make me THE god.   I thought you would fight me. You would't trust me. But if we work together, we can save your people. We can save so many across the universe." 

"Yeah... I don't trust you."

Twilight's staff shot through the hologram and cracked into Shadows windpipe with a ugly crunch. He went down behind the desk with a gargle before melting into he floor. "You sly dog," His voice emanating from all around, "You had be going for a minute there... i actually explained my evil plan to you." 

"Sly dog?" Twilight said coolly, staff twirling in her hooves, "You know you can say 'bitch' if you like."

"What you are is dead on your hooves. You have nothing to fight me with." Shadow's body reformed at the end of the room. He was wreathed in an aura of black-light and ultraviolet, his whole body thrumming with power. "And let us not forget I have your entire species held hostage. What exactly do you think you can do?"

Twilight's eyes crackled with residual magic. One last spell forced through her shattered horn, even as blood poured from her ruined forehead. A small box with a large red button fell onto Shadow's desk.

He looked at it. Genuinely confused.

"Two problems, one solution." Twilight said, voice drained of all passion. 

Shadow looked at Twilight for a long moment before cracking a smile. "Oh come now we  both know you could never..."

Twilight hit the button.





Fire erupted from the Valkyrie. Power conduits, rerouted only minutes before, fed all the energy back into the critical power core. The fuel reserves vaporised. The Tree of Harmony cracked. With a final death groan the ship Twilight had called home for millennia was ripped apart. Debris quickly sublimating into the void.

Nothing could have survived.





Tears ran down Twilight's face. Her staff now blazed with magical energy, harnessing all the energy of what had just occurred. "If the alternative was to be stuck with you as architect of reality," She growled, readying her now supercharged weapon. "Yeah... I would."
> The Last Stand of Twilight Sparkle (Part 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end of the universe two figures fought. Twilight ran through Shadows domain; it had all dropped all pretences of civility and now resembled an hellish inversion of the Astral Plane. An endless void of nightmares and clawing darkness.   

Twilight sent forth blast after blast of searing purple energy from her staff. The crystal at the end shone with power drawn from the destruction of everything she had fought so hard to protect. Her breaking body held up by determination and nothing else. 

Shadow was master of his realm. Every particle here was bent to his will. He no longer looked like a pony. He was death incarnate, an eldritch amalgamation of every living things worst nightmares. Again and again he tried to crush the pony in front of him. Again and again he was thrown back.

Neither seemed able to destroy the other. Twilight was too weak to summon the power required. Shadow unable to stamp out her light.

In the distance a cyclone was forming. Shadows spell was nearing completion. Soon it would fully activate, a power of a entire universe, focused into one singular point. Heath Death would become a final singularity.   

Twilight hissed as something sliced into her side. She would feel the sensation of hot wetness dripping down her side. it didn't matter. She was surprised she had any blood left to give. She gritted her teeth and kept fighting, she was beyond pain at this point.

Shadow howled as a bolt of energy burned passed what currently counted as his face. He could feel reality falling apart outside The Web. It would not be long now. Soon he would become beyond omnipotent, so why couldn't he finish her? He knew Twilight better than anything other being in existence... so why was she eluding him so?

In the distance the cyclone intensified.
> The Last Stand of Twilight Sparkle (Part 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I cannot believe that worked."





Twilight grunted; one of her legs finally giving way and dropping her to the floor. She came down hard on the obsidian floor, loosing grip on her staff. For a moment she let herself breath, trying to ignore the unpleasant rattle that  now accompanied it.

Shadow's hellish form had all but retracted now. He stood a few meters away, coldly inspecting the thin trickle of blood from his cheek. "That was a nice attempt." He said, voice full of venom. "Truly it was. But did you seriously think you could beat me like this. Beaten, broken and alone." He smiled and turned away. The cyclone was running tight now, wide enough for a single pony to stand in the eye of the storm. The battle had raged all the way across The Web, Twilight falling just before the steps up to the ascension platform. Shadow considered what his last words to Twilight should be, this being who he had shadowed since the very beginning. With one final look back he sneered, "A good attempt, but honestly, i'm disappointed."     

"I'm not..." Twilight groaned, "I'm not done yet." She rolled and grabbed her staff. The glow from its gem focused down to a single point before erupting out into a gout of purple fire. The blaze raced towards Shadow, he moved to parry it with shadows but it split at the last moment and enveloped Shadow. Twilight breath came in short, sharp  gasps. She funnelled down the fire till the barrier around Shadow grappling him and holding in place.

For a few, almost blissful, moments they were at deadlock. 

Then Shadow took a step forward. 

Twilight screamed, pushing everything she had into the spell. Her wings cracked and fell off, flesh necrotising under the strain.

Shadow look another step. 

The barrier trembled, it sparked and tore. For one desperate moment it looked like it might have pulled back together...

Then Shadow look one last step.

The barrier broke. Twilight Suddenly spasmed and her body twisted in an unnatural way, twisting her spine around a few inches to far.

Shadow smiled. Then stepped into the light.
> The Beginning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

Huh?

How can I be?

...

Oh... I guess that makes sense...

How about that then? 

I suppose if distance no longer exists there's no difference between a infinite cold void and an infinitesimal hot point.

And you are in here too? Of course... balanced... Can't have one without the other...

SO i guess SHOULD be able to...

YES!

HA!

Okay and then i can...

No...

No... i said it before and i was right... this is my end...

Safer this way irregardless.

Still, a few minor adjustment won't be amiss... I think i'm owed that...

So how do i do this?

It needs to be right....ahh...

Yes...

Okay... here we go...

...

...

huhmm...

...

...   

Let there be light.
> The Big Bang
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOM!!
> The Brave New World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Noctune groaned, her eyes screwed shut. Her stomach was  growling in pain. Something moved close to her.

"Noc are you okay?  

She couldn't understand. What was happening?  Her body was shaking. How could she be even thinking? And what was that noise?

"Noc! Please say something! NOC!"

Her eyes shot open. Her brother stood over her. Eyes pleading. Nocturne choked and found her words. "You're Talking?!" 

Umbra blinked. Realisation sinking in. Nocturnes stomach twitched with pain again. And with it came a loud gurgle. With his new voice Umbra spoke. "And... I think you're hungry sis?"

They stared at each other before a long moment. Then with creak of impossibly old metal light flooded their compartment. They blinked as Ember Glow reached inside and gently helped them to their feet. On the ground outside Aurora, at least they thought it was her, sat staring into the light. The figure looked like Aurora but had a single lightly furred body.  The two children followed her gaze and gasped.

Grass. Sunlight. Fresh air.

They had never seen the real thing. 

A rolling hillside stretched down before them. Grassy hillocks eventually giving way to a thick forest of lush trees. they sky was brilliantly blue and in the distance small birds wheeled and danced.

As they stared one of the grassy hillocks trembled and moved.  And from it emerged Forge. Or at least his Mini-body. And with a happy bleep bloop he started walking his way towards them.

Forge had been waiting for them. He had been waiting a long time. They had slept for so long, but now within the ancient wreck hundreds upon hundreds of ponies were waking up. They had slumbered across millennia, a power beyond anything that had ever existed before had allowed them to sleep while a whole new universe was reborn. But now that power had faded. And it was time to wake up.

She had given him a spark of that same power as well. So her could watch over them and when the time came, introduce them to this strange new world. She had changed him as well, different from the machine that had betrayed them. On that day, at the end, Twilight had gambled that something inside him was still worth saving. That in the darkest hour he would stand by no longer, reach out and pluck the people he had come to call friends..no...family from the exploding Valkyrie. 

She had taken that part of him end let it flourish. He would watch, protect, and at at least at first guide them as Twilight had He didn't know how long he had. But as he more and more ponies, shrieking with excitement rolled out into the light he knew it didn't matter.

He could not wait to see where the next adventure would take them.