Mass Core 3: Thebe Paridigm

by Unwhole Hole

First published 28th of March, 2017

Starlight Glimmer is dispatched to Council space to retrive the heretic Scootaloo

A direct sequel to Mass Core 2: Crimson Horizon.
Based on a Mass Effect crossover.

Two hundred seventy eight years have passed since Starlight Glimmer witnessed the destruction of Earth. In her long life, Starlight witnessed many things: the extinction of humanity, the Rise of the Alliance, the slow descent of the Council into rule by the shadowy Governors; most importantly, though, she presided over the transition of Equestria into a modern technological empire under the rule of the immortal goddess Twilight Sparkle.

This long peace, though, is interrupted when a dangerous criminal awakens from cryogenic stasis: the heretic Scootaloo, executed for crimes against the Empire. In response, Starlight is tasked with hunting down and eliminating a her former friend, only to find that there is far more to the mission than she initially expected.

Chapter 1: Frost

The first sensation was fear. Not simple fright, but mortal terror, free of any logical thought to constrain it. The second sensation was cold, a chill greater than any she had ever felt before. Her entire body ached and burned to her bones, and every nerve screamed as her circulation was reestablished.

Memories began to return, but they were not ordered properly. All of her thoughts were slow and heavy, and compounded with her mortal dread, time seemed to stretch. How long she lay there still and confused was unclear, even to her; it could have been hours, or days- -or merely seconds.

Then Scootaloo opened her eyes. Even in the dim lights of her surroundings nearly blinded her, and she screamed- -or tried to. All that came from her mouth was foul-tasting water, and, choking, she rolled over. Above her was the pod she was still linked to, now standing open with fog slowly drifting from its base, the control module to the side sparking with violet energy.

Scootaloo had no idea what it was, nor did she have any idea where she was, only that she was profoundly cold and that her entire body ached. As she slowly began to regain consciousness, she also became aware of the linkages in body. The irrational fear she had felt was fading, but as soon as she saw the metal spikes and tubes in her limbs and body, it was replaced with profound disgust. She pulled one shaking hoof to her mouth and wrapped her teeth around what she only assumed was an IV line. She pulled, and as she did, she felt something move out of her- -something almost impossibly long.

She followed quickly with the others: secondary IV’s in her lower legs, a tube inserted through a hole in the front of her neck, and a long system inserted between her legs that she could feel sliding out of her kidneys as she withdrew it, screaming.

When she finished, she passed out. There were dreams, but they were of things she did not understand. Dreams of light and armor, of mutation and a face with violet eyes as fiery as they were dead. All were hurried and rushed by her delirium until she awoke with a start.

She was still cold, but not nearly as much. Slowly and shakily, she sat up from the pool of blood and bodily fluids that she was lying in. Her coat cracked as she moved; she had apparently been covered in some kind of gelatinous fluid that had long-since dried into a crust.

“What…the buck,” she wheezed, coughing suddenly. It hurt to talk, and it was somewhat difficult with the hole in her throat.

Again, as slowly as possible, she slowly got to her feet. She nearly fell a few times and felt ridiculous. She was a grown mare, and yet she was having as much trouble just standing as a freshly-born foal.

Scootaloo looked around her. She found herself standing in a small alcove adjacent to a grate catwalk that led in either direction past numerous identical cells. There was almost no light, but from what little there was Scootaloo could see the plumbing and tubes that ran beneath the grate and emerged from the walls, interfacing with each of the pods and dropping to levels unseen.

What struck her was the profound sense of loneliness. There were no signs of life; there was no motion, and no sound save for a distant dripping and the hum of the machinery that maintained whatever kind of facility this was. From the thick layer of greasy dust on the floor, though, it was quite apparent that nopony had been down here in a long time.

Scootaloo stepped forward. The sound of her hoofsteps echoed loudly off the walls, more loudly than they should have.

“Hello?” she called weakly. There was, of course, no response. She was alone.

Her only logical course of action, then, was to try to find her way out. Walking was extremely uncomfortable, but Scootaloo forced herself to keep moving. Her entire body was still cold, as if she had spent hours outside in winter with an inadequate jacket. The room itself was not warm by any means either, and the motion made Scootaloo feel at least marginally warmer.

What she found, though, made her increasingly uncomfortable. There facility was almost labyrinthine, and everywhere she looked there were more and more rows of pods. She eventually found a narrow stairwell to the next level, only to find more of the same- -and still no ponies. It occurred to her that she might be very deep underground.

The lights on the next level up were worse than the lower ones. They were flickering, and several produced a dim violet light instead of the harsh white light that they were meant to. A pipe overhead was dripping some kind of fluid, and a toolbox sat open but abandoned against one corner of the path. As if whoever had been working there had just left, never to return again.

Confused and unnerved, Scootaloo approached one of the pods. It had what appeared to be a thick glass surface, and Scootaloo wiped away some of the frost on its surface to see her reflection in the glass. She looked terrible. She was gaunt and pale, as though she was experiencing the worst flu of her life- -which, in her current state, did not feel far from the truth. She was still a young mare, though, barely past her fillyhood and small for her age. What she could not understand, though, was why her mane had been shaved so short. As she turned her head, she realized that it was not purple like it was supposed to be. Instead, there was evidence that it had been died into stripes of several color before it had been cut to barely a quarter of an inch.

“Like Rainbow Dash…” she whispered. Her eyes widened as she started to remember her sister. There were many good memories, and more that were bad- -but there was something important that she was not able to recall.

As she moved, though, her eyes refocused on something else on the other side of the glass. Confused and curious, Scootaloo slid her hoof across the surface, breaking off more of the ice. Then, when she saw it, she jumped back with a yelp.

It was a pony. Or, rather, what was left of one. Half its skull had been removed, exposing part of the brain inside. Its one remaining eye was staring madly, and its mouth was contorted into a frozen scream. It still had one arm, but its torso was cut off halfway. Anything lower than that was machines. The entire assembly appeared to be encased in something that Scootaloo was rapidly realizing must have been ice.

They were frozen. All of the pods contained frozen, forgotten ponies, or at least parts of them.

Scootaloo backed away. She wanted to run, but knew that there was no point in it. They were everywhere; there was, as far as she knew, no way to escape. Not that she could. It was not the ponies themselves that she was frightened of. They were inert, and probably- -hopefully- -dead. It was the unknown reason for their presence that frightened her.

So, she wandered. There was not much else she could do, nowhere else she could go. Scootaloo had no idea where she was, or why there was nopony there. She tried to wrack her brain to figure out what this place might have been, or how she had gotten there, but she found herself unable. Memories were returning to her- -the academy, her command, her promotion to Priestess- -but her later memories still alluded her. The last thing she remembered was sitting with Starlight, Trixie, and Princess Twilight. They had been drinking some kind of awful tea, and they had small lemony cookies. They had been laughing.

Then she saw a pony. When she did, Scootaloo froze. She did not know why; she should have been glad to see somepony , to not be alone- -but instead she only felt fear. Her instinct told her to turn and run the other way, to hide- -but logically, she knew that was ridiculous.

So, slowly but confidently, she approached the other pony. She did not want to startle him, but likewise, she did not want to appear weak, even if every step made her more and more frightened. As she drew closer, she saw that he was working on an open pod.

“Excuse me,” said Scootaloo. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I don’t know where I am…”

She trailed off as the pony stiffened, and then backed out of the alcove he was standing in, still holding the pair of frozen eyes that he had been extracting from the pod’s occupant. As soon as he came into the light, Scootaloo realized that her instinct had been correct. This was not a pony at all. He had skin like a pony- -pale blue, with a well-maintained coat- -except it was not HIS skin. Instead, it was stretched tight over a mechanical frame, the joints of which still showed through where the skin did not reach. His face, though, consisted entirely of a robotic framework, save for his eyes. Those, though dead, were organic.

It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. It screamed. It was the most horrible shriek that Scootaloo had ever heard, and she jumped back, trying to plug her ears. It did not help, though, because the sound seemed to come from all directions- -and suddenly, Scootaloo realized that it WAS coming from all directions. The false-pony’s scream had morphed into an alarm.

“Escaped subject,” it spoke, as calm as it was stern. “Stop immediately. Lie down and put your hooves over your head. Failure to comply will result in forced disincorporation.”

Scootaloo, of course, was having none of this. She started sprinting. Her wings automatically buzzed as she tried to take flight, but, as always, they were useless. She was unable to fly.

More of the semi-mechanical ponies started to appear. Several emerged in front of Scootaloo, and she banked to the side, leaping over the edge of the catwalk and dropping a level. She had no weapons and was barely able to keep moving, but her training took over, propelling her toward cover and out of their range- -but only for a moment. They followed, dropping easily to the next level and pursuing.

Scootaloo knew that she was at a clear disadvantage. She did not know the layout of the facility, nor did she understand exactly what the automatons were capable of. If they were anything like the equidroids she was familiar with, though, she was far outmatched.

To her side, she saw a gap in the wall- -the entrance to a corridor. Scootaloo decided to take that chance. As a distraction, she leapt up and grasped a wide conduit in her teeth. It was cold, and it burned her mouth, but she still managed to pull it free. A plume of high-pressure cryogenic gas flooded behind her, obscuring her escape.

She dashed into the corridor and took a sharp left. It was narrow, confusing, dirty, and almost completely unlit. Still, Scootaloo thought she had at least partially lost her pursuers. That was until a large dull-yellow Pegasus dropped into her path.

“You,” he said, glaring at her. One of his eyes had been messily replaced with a cybernetic one, and the scarring on that side of his face was extensive. He was heavily armored, but Scootaloo did not recognize the faction he belonged to or even what that particular type of armor was made of. “STOP!”

Almost as soon as he ordered it, a blast door between him and Scootaloo sealed shut. Then there was a second sound as the one behind her closed as well. She was trapped.

Something violet sparked to her side. There was a loud creaking as several ancient-looking pneumatics engaged, unlocking a rusted-shut access panel. Scootaloo watched as it popped open, and realizing that it was her only hope. She ducked inside.

Where it led her was not at all pleasant. The door shut behind her, and another one opened at the end of a dusty, spider-infested offshoot path. What she immediately became aware of aside from the sensation of spiders crawling through her coat was the sudden decrease in temperature. She had thought that the inside of the facility was cold, but wherever she was heading was positively frigid.

Then she found herself in a gap between two buildings, or rather, between an inner and outer shell of the same building. She was standing on a small, rusted metal staircase that ducked under an enormous conduit that led between the surfaces, spanning over what seemed like an infinite drop.

As Scootaloo ascended, she noticed a glint of light. The only source of light in this dim, possibly forgotten maintenanceway was a small window. Scootaloo though that a window was strange, especially since she had assumed that she was deep underground. As she approached it, though, she gasped. She could not have been further from the truth.

The dirty, yellowed window was apparently meant to allow for viewing of a heatsink assembly that protruded from the wall, connecting to the conduit that Scootaloo found herself beneath. Beyond it, though, the sun was just rising over the surface of a planet far below. She was not sure of the specifics of it, but she saw clouds and oceans, and even several large storms flashing with lightning. This was not an underground installation at all- -it was an orbital platform.

Scootaloo gripped the railing tightly, and felt the rusted staircase shudder and creak from the force. Turning away from the view of the alien world, Scoootaloo followed the path as cautionsly and quickly as she could until it led to another access hatch. The hatch, like the railing, was in disrepair, but when Scootaloo eventually opened it, she threw herself in, actually glad to be somewhere warm again.

It seemed that she had at least momentarily lost whoever it was that was chasing her, and she decided to move stealthily through the narrow hallways. Eventually, she found herself in a large room. There was little light, but she recognized the shapes looming in the shadows. This was a hanger, and it was full of starships.

The lights in the hanger suddenly flashed on, and Scootaloo heard a cry from behind her. Something fired at her- -she was not sure if it was magic or bullets- -and she ran, ducking behind one of the ships. She looked around, trying not to panic as her enemies approached. That was when she spied a small starship across from her. Taking the chance, she ran toward it, dodging several more shots as she crossed and ducked behind a rack of equipment that was apparently being used for repairs.

Her fortune seemed to finally be turning. The smaller ship was not only parked, but it was open. It had apparently being undergoing repairs. This added a new level of risk, but Scootaloo gambled that whoever had been fixing it had at least mostly finished. She boarded, and the ramp began to close behind her.

By this time, her conscious mind began to realize what she had on a more primitive level already known. In the Naval Academy, she had spent countless hours learning to recognize the various starships. She had even overseen the Core remediation project with Starlight Glimmer, and she had continued to familiarize herself with the new models. None of the ships in this hanger, though, were anything like she had ever seen. She recognized none of them.

On the inside, this ship was strange. It was by no means small, but the opressivly bare hallways within made it feel that way. It was utilitarian, but at the same time felt unfinished- -a thought which Scootaloo desperately tried to push out of her head.

She quickly found her way to what she assumed was the bridge- -except that it made no logical sense. It was a spherical room with a captain’s chair in the center. There was no space for a crew, or glass for a front screen. In fact, if Scootaloo was right, this room was nowhere near the front of the ship at all.

Still, she took her place in the chair. There was no ship in Equestria that she did not know how to fly. As she fumbled around, though, she quickly realized that this ship was the exception. There was no user interface whatsoever: no screen, no control panels, not even a manual system.

“What- -what the BUCK!” cried Scootaloo. “How am I supposed to do this?”

As if on cue, a surge of green light filled the room and rapidly resolved next to her. In less than a second, it resolved into a partially translucent representation of a green-colored mare with well-styled but unassuming hair.

The mare looked at Scootaloo, slightly confused. “Welcome to the EN-174 G model Scout Vessel, a product of Eqqus Tech Manufacturing. I am- -”

“Who the hay are you?!”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “I was about to explain that. You interrupted my product information monologue. That’s terribly rude. Should I start again?”

The ship was suddenly rocked, nearly knocking Scootaloo out of her chair.

“Oh dear,” said the mare. “It appears that we are under fire.”

“Then tell me how to get us out of here!”

“I am unable to comply with that order. Are you authorized to operate this vehicle?”

“Authorized- -my name is Priestess Scootaloo, of the Cult of Harmony! Yes I’m authorized!”

“Checking…” The mare paused for a moment. Then she looked back at Scootaloo. “I’m sorry, but no Priestess named ‘Scootaloo’ is listed in the records that I have access to. Perhaps you have your organization confused? Would you like me to cross reference?”

“What- -” Another blast shifted the vessel, and Scootaloo was not sure how much it could take before they started trying to cut their way in.

“Name located,” said the mare, somewhat surprised. “Captain Scootaloo Dash of the Royal Equestrian Navy. Is this you?”

“Yes! YES!”

“Authorization accepted. And may I congratulate you on two hundred and eighty seven years of continuous service to the Empire of Harmony!”

“What- -two hundred and- -”

“Running startup procedure! Yay!”

The spherical room flashed with light and seemed to distort. Startled, Scootaloo let out a cry and held onto her chair as a hologram crept around the inner surface of the sphere. The effect was to make the walls of the room appear transparent. Suddenly, Scootaloo found herself suspended, floating in the cargo bay as a surprising number of soldiers surrounded her, trying to get into her ship.

“Oh my,” said the holographic mare. “It appears we are surrounded by enemies. Would you like me to engage defensive weaponry?”

“YES! YES! Why are you even ASKING!”

“Well, because I’m programmed to be polite. Which clearly you are not. Engaging defensive protocol.”

Outside, two green-colored spheres formed on either side of the ship’s cockpit. They then erupted with hundreds of energy bolts firing faster than Scootaloo had ever seen a projection cannon fire. Every pony in their path was shredded into clouds of blue-green mist and metal.

“I didn’t say kill them!”

“Correcting parameter,” said the mare, her weapons now streaking through the crowd but narrowly avoiding several terrified looking Pegasi and a unicorn. “Reboot system complete.”

The ship suddenly hummed to life and picked itself up off the ground.

“The primary doors to this hanger have been sealed. Calculating alternative exit.”

The energy spheres contracted sharply, and then a pair of beams shot outward and upward, tearing through the roof of the hanger. The immediate decompression pulled most of the damaged or dead pony robots up with it, as well as various tools and items. The Pegasi held onto anything they could for dear life, and the one unicorn in the group projected a spherical shield around them to maintain atmosphere.

The ship then rose rapidly, to the point where Scootaloo was actually slammed into her seat.

“Oh, sorry,” said the mare. “My apologies. This is my first time operating with a living passenger, and I have not yet loaded protocols for pro-biological inertial dampening. Correcting.”

The crushing inertia weakened, and the ship shot off into the darkness of space. Scootaloo almost had time to let out a sigh. Then the ship was rocked with something much more powerful than small-arms fire.

“We are being pursued,” said the mare, as if mildly amused. Scootaloo looked over her shoulder, and through the projection saw several large and ominous ships rapidly gaining on them.

“Can we lose them?”

“Yes,” said the mare. “This vessel is far faster than theirs. However…”

“However WHAT?”

“It is not equipped with heavy shields. In other words, they will have destroyed it before we are out of their weapons’ range.”

“So- -so then WHAT?” Scootaloo’s mind raced. Ideas rushed to her, most of them bad. Then she realized that she did have one chance. “If my authorization is still active here- -can we teleport?”

The hologram looked confused. “Teleportation technology has not been used in nearly three centuries. Unless you are referring to a mass-jump?”

“YES! Whatever that is, DO IT!”

“Okay. I can do that. Where would you like to go?”

“Like to go- -ANYWHERE! Just not HERE!”

“Well, that’s not very helpful.”

“JUST DO IT!”

“So angry. Engaging mass-jump.”

Behind them, the ships fired several bolts. Just before they struck the location of the ship, though, the space around it distorted as its core projected a spherical mass effect field. There was a burst of electromagnetic and gravometric energy as space tore open, and then another larger one as it snapped back shut. The beams of energy crossed through empty space; Scootaloo was gone.

Chapter 2: The Last Cores

From the balcony, Starlight Glimmer looked out at the sprawling city below. It was night, and the sky over Canterlot was beautiful, lit by stars and the brilliant moon overhead. Below, the lights of the towers and structures of the city reached out to every horizon, filling it with its own glow to rival the sky.

The wind blew slightly, and Starlight’s vestments rustled. Summer had long since passed for this region of Equestria Prime, but the coldest parts of the winter had not yet arrived. The air was cold, but Starlight did not mind. She did not pull her collar higher or adjust her robes, instead, she looked solemnly out at the city that so long ago she believed she would never be permitted to return to.

After several minutes of silence and solitude, she sighed and reached into her clothing. From there, she removed a small card. It was a Hearthswarming card, printed on fine paper and complete with a pair of hoofwritten notes inside, addressed to her. What she focused on was the picture on the cover, though. Even in the moonlight, she could make it out. A tall, pale-pink young alicorn mare with unusually large wings standing beside a stately but elderly stallion, her husband. His mane and beard, which had once been bright orange, had almost completely passed to gray. Even as old as he was, Starlight still felt a distant spark within her heart- -but it quickly collapsed to sadness when she was forced to acknowledge the state that he was now in.

“Starlight?” said a familiar voice softly from behind Starlight. Without turning, Starlight already knew who it was, but she faced her friend anyway. Standing behind her was a violet alicorn, dressed in a more limited version of her public regalia over ceremonial armor.

“Oh, Twilight,” said Starlight.

“I thought I could find you here,” said Twilight, stepping out onto the balcony. She seemed to notice the tears in the corner of Starlight’s eyes. “Starlight, is something wrong?”

“No,” said Starlight, wiping her face. “Not at all.”

“What’s that?”

Starlight saw that Twilight was looking at the card. She held it up, and Twilight took it gently in her violet magic.

“Oh my,” she said, smiling as she looked at it. “My niece certainly has grown! And Sunburst is truly handsome, even at his advanced age. In all honesty, I don’t think those military stallions ever really lose that poise.”

“I don’t understand,” said Starlight.

“About…the poise?”

“No,” said Starlight, perhaps too harshly. She turned to her friend. “Why me? I understand with you, or Cadence, or Flurry Heart. You’re alicorns. It’s in your nature. But Sunburst and I- -we were childhood friends! I should…”

“Appear as old as he does?”

Starlight winced and nodded. Despite the intervening years, she appeared- -and for all biological purposes, WAS- -as young as she had been the day that she had been freed from slavery as a Core.

“I’m not going to lie, Starlight,” said Twilight, “I don’t know the answer to that. You’re an anomaly. But according to my books, it’s not unheard of for some rare unicorns to live for much, much longer than others. Starswirl the Bearded lived for nearly five thousand years.”

“But I’m not Starswirl the Bearded! Look!” Starlight’s horn flickered weakly, and she tried to tug the photograph away from Twilight. At most, it twitched slightly, as if it had been buffeted by a light breeze. “I can’t even use magic anymore! Not since…” She fell silent, and became conscious of the scars on her back. They always hurt, on some level, especially whenever she moved. Even after all this time, though, it was not the pain that bothered her but the sense of something missing. The protrusions of metal from her back and spine, the implants that had once permeated her body- -they were all gone, save for a single partially operational omnitool. The day that Twilight had taken her Core implants was the day that Starlight had lost her magic.

“I did what I had to do,” said Twilight. “You would have died. Starlight, you saved me. You pulled me away from that life, set me free. I couldn’t just let you…I couldn’t…”

Starlight sighed. “I know, Twilight. I’m not blaming you. It’s just…” She took the photograph from Twilight with her hoof. “It’s just that…him, me, and you? We’re the last three living Cores.”

“No,” said Twilight firmly. “We’re not Cores. Not anymore. You know that. We’re ponies now, the same as everypony else.” She leaned forward and took Starlight’s hoof in her own. “Because of you. Because of what we accomplished together. Look at all of this.” She gestured out at the sprawling metropolis below the Royal Spire. “We built this. A world where technology triumphs over magic. Where we don’t have to be slaves. Because of US. And because of you. You saved them, Starlight. You won.”

Starlight tried to force a smile, but her eyes diverted to her flank. The pair of equals signs were still tattooed there. Starlight still remembered the day she had gotten them from a surly salarian in a dirty Omega tattoo parlor. They were supposed to remind her of her single goal: to achieve equality between ponies, and to set her kind free.

“But now…” she paused. She could not bring herself to say it, that without that purpose, there was no longer a reason for her to continue. That she should have died long ago, but somehow was cursed to keep living without a purpose. Instead, though, she just smiled. “Never mind. Thanks, Twilight. You always know how to make me feel better.”

Twilight smiled. As she did, she revealed her teeth. That was something she almost never did, and even then, only with Starlight when they were alone. Starlight was not sure why, but Twilight did not have normal pony teeth. Instead, she had several rows of incredibly sharp, pointed teeth. The pair of them has spent many nights hypothesizing why that had happened- -a side-effect of ascention to alicornhood, or a result of being a Core in the Harmony for so many years- -but the real reason still eluded both of them. In any event, Twilight had chosen to keep it a closely-guarded secret. The only time she could truly smile was with Starlight.

“It is my job,” said Twilight, leaning against the rail and looking out over her empire. “I am the Princess of Harmony.” She looked up at the sky. “It’s a beautiful night. Luna has outdone herself.”

“You know that’s a myth,” chuckled Starlight, joining her best friend against the rail. “We’ve been to those stars. Remember? How long ago was that?”

“A long, long time,” sighed Twilight. She turned to Starlight. “You miss it.”

“I do,” admitted Starlight. “There was a time when I could summon an entire starship around myself out of thin air. And the freedom. The speed. Being able to go anywhere, or do anything…” she paused. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like being here. With you.”

“Well,” said Twilight, her expression darkening, “I may have something you may enjoy.”

Starlight realized that something was wrong. “What is it? What happened?”

Twilight charged her horn, and a datapad dropped from a small surge of violet energy over her head. She caught it in her magic and extended it to Starlight. Starlight took it and began scrolling through the file that was already open on it.

“We’ve had a breach,” said Twilight. “From a cryostasis vault. Starlight, it’s Scootaloo.”

“Scootaloo,” muttered Starlight. Time was a strange thing, and the memory of the name was so distant that Starlight did not immediately recognize it. Then she saw the small image on the datapad, and her eyes widened as the memories came flooding back to her. “No,” she said, looking up at Twilight. “The heretic? But you had her executed!”

“I tried to have her executed,” said Twilight. “But her sister intervened. She begged me, Twilight. Rainbow Dash begged me to show mercy.”

“And you did? For what she did to us?”

“I had to. Rainbow Dash was a powerful pony when she was alive, and a dear friend. So I had Scootaloo sealed in cryostasis indefinitely.”

“Cryostasis?” Starlight scrolled down the page. Even without her magic, she was still far more intelligent than most ponies and was able to quickly read through paragraph after paragraph of text. “But I’ve never heard a case of a pony regaining consciousness after a full-body cryogenic freeze.”

“That’s because no pony has been foolish enough to try it on a living subject. It’s mostly just used for storing spare biological parts. And to be honest…” she sighed. “I had assumed that she would never regain consciousness. That the process would have killed her. And after Rainbow Dash stopped demanding visitation rights because of, well, her death, I kind of…forgot.”

“You forgot?” said Starlight, darkly.

“If you could, wouldn’t you?”

Starlight had to agree, but she went back to the pad. “She stole a ship, attacked several quant drones- -and then mass jumped out.”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “And our predictions indicate that she went directly into Council space.”

Starlight looked up, her eyes locking with Twilight’s. “Then this is bad. VERY bad.”

“I know,” said Twilight. “That’s why I’m telling you this. Because I trust you more than I trust any pony, more than I have trusted ANY pony.”

“You want me to bring her back.”

Twilight nodded. “But as you are aware, I have spent centuries securing our position of influence in that galaxy. At the moment, we are currently positioned in a state of neutrality. We are allied with both the Alliance and the New Council. This situation is unbelievably delicate.”

“And you don’t want to send in an army? I’ve heard that one before.”

“Do you think I need an army? I will give you one, if you ask.”

“No,” said Starlight, passing the datapad back to Twilight, having already committed it to memory. “Not for tracking down one heretic. But after what she did to Trixie, and what she tried to do to you? I’m not going to bring her back alive, Twilight.”

“Do what you have to, High Priestess. I’ve had a ship prepared for you. Fresh from the Martian shipyards. You can leave at your leisure.”

“Then I will be leaving immediately,” said Starlight.

Twilight smiled, not bearing her pointed teeth. “Excellent.”

With Starlight preparing for her mission, Twilight was once again left alone. Despite being the immortal ruler of countless billions of ponies and equivalent sentient creatures, she seemed to spend the majority of her time in isolation. Contrary to public opinion, the upper levels of the Spire only had a skeleton crew of staff and only two real residents.

Twilight marched through a grand, long chamber, her hoofsteps echoing off the granite-tiled floor and off the gold-colored walls and arches of the ceiling. It being night, almost all of the Grand Hall was kept in the dark. That was better; her eyes were sensitive to light.

At the far end of the hall was her throne. It was comparatively simple for a throne, but it conveyed the sense of authority and power that Twilight felt was necessary. She stared at it for a moment, contemplating what she had gone through to get to this point and the things she had been forced to do. Things that Starlight must never know about, that no one save for her would ever be aware of.

Then she sat down and looked out across the dark, empty room.

“She’s going to find out, you know,” whispered a voice. Twilight turned sharply to see a violet alicorn step out of the shadows to the left side of her throne. Her face was shrouded in darkness, but Twilight knew what she looked like down to the finest detail.

“And when she does, she’ll hate you,” said another alicorn, emerging from the right. She was identical to the first, and her face was equally as shrouded.

“There’s only one option. You know what you need to do.”

“Stop it,” said Twilight, pressing her hoof against the cold stone of the throne. “STOP. IT.”

“You have to kill her.”

“Yes. Kill her.”

“You know you want to do it. Every time you see her. That body, that flank. You want it.”

“She wants it.”

“Kill her. Kill her and eat her.”

“EAT HER.”

“STOP IT!” screamed Twilight, slamming her hoof against the side of the throne. She jumped off, breathing hard. “She’s my friend! My ONLY friend! I’m not a monster! I’m NOT!”

“Yes you are,” said the pair at the same time. “You were born a monster. You will die a monster.”

“You would know,” whispered Twilight.

“She will betray you,” said one of the pair.

“She will turn on you. Her friendship is a lie,” said the other.

“When she finds out, it will all collapse. She will hate you.”

“Maybe…maybe I want her to find out,” said Twilight. She looked up at the empty space behind her throne, and stood entirely alone in the room for a long minute. “Maybe I want her to know…”

Chapter 3: The New Council

“Oh! OH! There it is!” cried Lordraia, pointing. Artum followed where she was pointing, looking up at the sky. He saw the light of the serpent nebula, the beautiful glow of hundreds of stars in the process of birth and the clouds of swirling gas that surrounded them. Alas, he could not see what she was gesturing toward, although he knew it was there.

“What does it look like?” he asked.

Lordraia blinked, confused. “You don’t see it? It’s next to the greenish star, that one, right there.”

Artum shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t know where you’re pointing. It’s that I can’t see that far. It’s the albinism. Despite making me dashingly handsome, these eyes aren’t exactly good for seeing.”

“Oh,” said Lordraia, seeming somewhat ashamed that she had brought it up. “I didn’t know. How far can you actually see?”

“I can see you,” said Artum, smiling.

Lordraia blushed, slightly, her pale cheeks flushing with purple. She was, even by asari standards, far above average in terms of beauty. Her skin was unusually pale blue and marked by extensive navy lines that framed her face, linking by whips across her forehead to a single blue dot in the center of her forehead. Her visage combined with her perfectly fitted Subcouncilor robes created a vision of stately wisdom and confidence that Artum had come to realize ran quite contrary to her relative youth.

“You didn’t answer the question,” said Artum jokingly. “What does it look like?”

Lordraia looked up at the sky again. “Well, from this distance, it’s small, but you can kind of see its shape. If I had a pair of binoculars, I could probably see the components of the shell and the Presidium Ring…I mean, it’s just so BIG!”

“I can imagine it,” said Artum, remembering the diagrams he had been shown back on Thessia. Still, he strained his eyes to try to see it. As he did, their delegation guard crossed the verdant fields toward them. Most of the planetary delegations had small contingents of guards, and the asari delegation was normally no acceptation to that rule. On this particular day, though, their normal group of commandos had been replaced with a single Justicar. Artum, as a native to Thessia, of course knew about the Justicars, but she was the first he had ever seen. She was indeed every bit as impressive as the legends suggested. She stood tall and proud, with her red-shaded armor gleaming beneath her ceremonial cape, her sword affixed firmly to her back. Somewhat ashamed, Artum felt his eyes wander to the slit in the front of her armor, convincing himself that he was only admiring her bust size because of the immense age it implied. She was clearly well over one thousand years old.

“Justicar Samara,” said Lordraia, her tone immediately shifting to one of profound respect. “We were just admiring the Citadel.” She paused. “Actually, it is said that you once walked it, in the times before the rule of the Governors.”

Samara paused, seeming to silently consider the answer to that question. Then, with the most subtle of smiles, she answered. “Indeed. I have, in times long passed. When the Governors were still called ‘Collectors’.”

“Does that imply that you have seen one? A Governor, I mean?”

“Yes,” said Samara. “Which is to say, I have fought them, as necessary, and won. But those were different times.” She turned toward Lordraia. “Subcouncilors,” she said. “The Council is beginning to assemble.”

Lordraia’s eyes suddenly widened, and she looked down at Artum, then back at Samara. “But- -but Sha’eta, she isn’t here yet!”

“The Councilor will meet you in the Hall,” said Samara, calmly.

“Right, right.” Lordraia took a deep breath and straightened her clothing. “Ready, Artum?”

“I was bred to be ready,” said Artum.

The trio began walking across the loose stone path. The setting around them was incredibly picturesque. Despite his intense love of Thessia, he still found Agrostation Six incredibly beautiful. It was a marvel of engineering: like its siblings in the Serpent Nebula, it was a purely artificial planet, built from scrap, trash, and native material of the nebula pulled together by a power mass-effect generator until they coalesced into an artificial planet. The artificial garden worlds had been originally been intended, quite literally, as gardens- -food sources for the Citadel. Agrostation Six had only been redeveloped recently, though, after lying abandoned for centuries.

What it had become was far superior to the dusty, empty world that it had been in the past. Now, it was covered with lush fields and forests that had been constructed and designed by the galaxy’s premier ecologists to showcase the cooperation of select plant, animal, and fungal species from across all of Council space.

Lordraia noticed Artum looking up at the blue-green sky over the manicured forests. “You want to fly, don’t you?”

“Do I?” asked Artum, pretending to pose it as a serious question. “Yes. I will admit that I do. I would like to soar through the clean air, to feel the rush of the grass against my hooves as I run through the field- -but both of those things would be uncouth at the moment.” He paused, considering. “Hmm. Perhaps I will write a poem later on the subject.”

Lordraia laughed nervously. The central Hall came into view. Atum felt his breath catch in his throat. He had seen it before, of course. As a Subcouncilor, he had attended numerous Council meetings. The stunning architecture always affected him, though, every time he saw it.

In the distant past, the Council had met on the Citadel. That had been tradition, until the Second Reaper Incursion two hundred and seventy eight years prior. At that time, the Governors had ousted the occupants of the Citadel and dissolved the first Council. It had taken time, but the Council had, in time, reformed. Now they met in the Hall, a stunning building that stood as the shining gem of Agrostation Six.

As a meeting place for all the races of the galaxy, its architecture had been something of a point of contention for some time. Eventually, though, the races had settled on a unique choice: Prothean. The prothean race had preceded almost all known species, save for possibly the rachni, and the Hall had been created as a modern homage to their ancient cities to represent the unity that the galaxy once again strove toward. The Hall itself had large, linear portions merged with elegant parabolas and curves, all simple and understated but radiating power and mystique- -and that was just the outside. Its various internal wings showcased the architectural designs of the resident races, and simply walking through the structure was an experience of great cultural profundity.

“Oh crap,” said Lordraia, momentarily breaking her cultured and profoundly couth façade. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I am more nervous than I have ever been.”

“Relax,” said Artum. “This is quite literally in your blood. Your mother and father were two of the most popular Council members in history. I mean, there is a statue of Vakarian and Falare in the south garden. Have you ever seen it?”

“No.” She paused. “A statue? Seriously?”

“That, and I read your dossier. You were almost raised the Equestrian ambassador Rarity. You’ve been accompanying her on diplomatic mission since you could speak.”

Lordraia smiled. “I remember. I love Aunt Rarity. She was like a second mother to me. We just got along so well! Passion for business, and our mutual love of haute couture. It was almost freakish how similar we were.” She steeled herself. “Yeah. I can do this. I’ve met with Tartaran generals, diamond-dog revolutionaries, nobles and business tycoons- -I’ve even met with Princess Twilight herself! I can do this!”

“You met with Princess Twilight Sparkle?” said Artum, somewhat amazed. “That I did not know.”

“I was very young at the time. I remember that she was extremely kind to us, but at the same time immensely terrifying. Like royalty is supposed be, I suppose.”

“As a pony, I admire Princess Twilight Sparkle greatly. Her dedication to the improvement of Euquestria and her diplomatic acumen are both quite admirable.”

“Why aren’t you nervous?” said Lordraia sharply, her annoyance and her remaining unease both showing through in an instant.

“Because I was bred not to be. My breeding committee designed me to be outgoing, logical, quick-witted, and willing to be defiant within reason. I was literally born to be a politician.”

“I see.” Lordraia frowned slightly. It was not a significant change in her facial expression, and would probably not have been noticed by anyone without Artum’s training. As a breeder, Artum was aware of how the asari viewed his people’s highly specific reproductive practices. The problem was not Lordraia’s dislike of institutionalized eugenics, but rather her inability to fully hide her emotions. At the Hall, that was an enormous liability.

As they entered the Hall, the number of individuals milling about grew. Not all of them were diplomats; there were a great many staff, as well as entourages and assistants to the diplomats dispatched according to their political culture and needs.

A large elcor passed, his tiny towel-like throw dyed a subtle blue-green to represent his status.

“Councilor Cloran,” said Artum. “Hello.”

“(Dismissively) Hello, Subcounselor Orthan,” said the elcor. Then, turning toward Lordraia. “(With much greater interest) Hello, Subcouncilor. I have not yet met you. But (bashfully) your choice of clothing design is impeccable.”

“Lordraia.” She contorted her arm subtly in an elcor greeting. “And might I say that the design would not have been possible without access to fine elcor fabric. No other beings that I’ve met have the patience needed to make the weave so impeccably fine.”

“(More bashfully, and slightly lustfully) Oh, you.”

“Actually, I do believe we need to discuss your government’s tax on Dekuunan textile exports. The asari market is simply clamoring for more access.”

“(Nearly swooning) Indeed. There is talk of that in the government, but the volan shipping agreement- -”

“We can discuss this later, I think,” said a voice from beside the elcor. A taller and somewhat more ornately dressed and taller asari emerged from behind the enormous quadruped.

“(Profoundly surprised) Councilor Sha’eta. You snuck up on me.”

“I certainly did not intend to,” she said, sounding somewhat annoyed. Artum could already tell that something was wrong with her. Her normally nearly violet skin was far more pale than normal, and almost green. Her eyes were focused on the elcor, but would occasionally dart across the room toward nothing at all. “Nor did I…” she trailed off. She turned to Lordraia and Artum. “We need to get into the Council meeting, don’t you think?”

“Of course, Councilor,” the pair said in unison.

“We can discuss trade deals later. With me.”

“(Disappointed) Of course, Councilor.”

The elcor Councilor slowly lumbered off, and Sha’eta watched him go for unduly long. Then she turned back to the others. Her eyes were unusually wide, and she was compulsively scratching the right side of her face to the point where her manicured fingernails had produced five purplish lines in her smooth asari skin.

“Councilor,” said Artum. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“I bit ill,” she said. “Perhaps something I eat. My meal with the turian Councilor last night may have contained dextro ingredients.” Then, muttering to herself, “that would be something the turians try…”

“But the turians are some of our staunchest allies,” protested Lordraia.

Sha’eta’s eyes narrowed, and her fingernails dug deeper into her face. “You would think that. But when I was barely a girl of two hundred and fifty, we had a human Councilor. And you know what he did to us. Or do you, even? Your mother still hadn’t figured out how to have sex without killing her partners then, had she?”

Artun saw Justicar Samara’s jaw clench with infinite subtlety. It was something Sha’eta should have noticed too, but she either ignored it or failed to see it at all. Artum had known her for several years, and this was not at all normal behavior for her.

“Now, that does not mean the turians would try to poison you,” said Artum. Then, trying to remind her. “If they heard you speaking of that, it could be taken as quite an insult.”

“No, an insult would be trying to form trade deals without my permission.”

“Oh- -I didn’t realize. I do apologize- -”

“Just because you’re young and pretty doesn’t mean you should leverage that. I won’t have my subordinates falling into their sick alien stereotypes of us. Not now, not…” Her eyes widened, and she trailed off. For a moment, she stood almost perfectly still. Then she blinked and, without warning, started walking toward the main hall.

Artum and Lordraia looked to each other, but then followed her.

“Is she normally like this?”

“Not at all,” said Artum. “Not at all.”

The Council meeting chamber was, in general, considered a circle. In actuality, though, Artum knew that it had historically been intended as a kind of shallow spiral. It had a “head”, an area separate from the continuous fine desk that formed a multi-segmented but otherwise uninterrupted ring through the cavernous room. That area was reserved for the three Prime Races, or those who had held positions in the original Council. Artum, Lordraia, and Sha’eta, as the Councilors of Thessia, took the central area. To their right sat the turians, led by a battle-hardened and heavily scarred female and her two male Subcouncilors. To the left stood a desk that maintained but never occupied. The Outbreak on Sur’Kesh had begun long before Artum had been born; in his whole life, that bench had never once been occupied.

After the delegates of the three Prime Races took their places, the other diplomats began to file in. The exact consistency of their delegations was somewhat variable; it depended on the culture and choices of the group that was being represented. The prototypical and preferred group was three: a Councilor and two voting Subcouncilors. The rachni, however, only ever fielded one Councilor, and the krogan Subcouncilors were more or less what was commonly called “muscle”, functioning as escorts for their invariably female Councilor.

Likewise, not every delegation consisted of a single race. In the same way that the Thessian group always contained at least one breeder, the delegation from Kahje always contained at least one drell. The most diverse, though, was always the Omega delegation. In this case, the pair of Subcouncilors were both dressed in heavy armor, though from their motion Artum surmised that one was a salarian and the other either a very old baterian or a very large vorcha. As they sat down, Aria T’loak was projected into her seat as a hologram.

The asari woman was terrifying in her own right, and she immediately scanned the room before her eyes settled on Artum, and she gave a small nod. Artum blushed. Lordaia seemed to notice.

“You didn’t,” she whispered.

“Certainly not,” liked Artum. His “diplomatic” relations with Aria in his younger years were not something he wanted anyone at all to know about, but the fact that Lordaia had noticed was a good sign for her own perceptivity. It was possible she was showing promise after all.

From there, the meeting proceeded as almost all of them did. The same basic concepts were covered: once again, a petition from the Vorcha Federation to join the Council- -rejected of course- -and the status of the Council’s invitation for the Zetans to join- -also rejected, as always.

That was barely perfunctory, though, because the conversation eventually turned to what it always did: the Alliance. This, in Artum’s opinion, was always horribly depressing. It was never a matter of the state of diplomatic relations; the Council had long-since ceased negotiations with the Alliance. It was a matter of how much territory had been lost, of what fresh havoc the Alliance was causing, or the estimates of the number of worlds that they contained. The war was strange. There were no direct battles, no direct loses apart from minor skirmishes. It moved deceptively slowly- -but there was no mistake. The Council was losing.

“…we are willing to send a full contingent of reinforcements,” grunted Urgnot Drez, the krogan Councilor. “We can drive them back!”

“Only if you want to start a full-out conflict,” groaned the turian Councilor. “You will NOT. We cannot take that risk.”

The volus Councilor slurped, and then stood on his chair. “We have lost twenty two percent- -SHHHFFHT- -of our trade route holdings in the last quarter alone! TWENTY TWO PERCENT!”

“Only because you were trying to cut fuel by skirting the neutral zone,” said Locutus, leaning back in her chair. Nobody was entirely sure what she was, exactly, apart from a geth. Her appearance was fundamentally quarian, despite a substantial part of her body being cybernetic. There were rumors that she had once been a biological quarian, the only one to have died on Rannoch during the quarian genocide. At least, before the geth had brought her back to finish the extinction. “Or could it be that those ‘trade routes’ led, perhaps, INTO Alliance territory?”

“SSSHHHHFFHT- -that is a LIE! You have no proof!”

“Don’t I?”

“(Calmingly) calm down, Councilor Gilv-Clan.”

“No! I won’t calm down! If anything, this is THEIR fault!” He pointed suddenly at the Thessian group. “The Alliance is already- -SHHHHHFFFFHT- -pushing within mere lightyears from Thessia, and they have done NOTHING to stop them!”

Sha’eta, who had been nearly silent throughout the entire briefing, stood up suddenly, a trickle of blood dripping from five streaks on the side of her face. “If we have lost, it is only because WE have been handling the brunt of the force!”

“We offered to help,” growled Drez.

“No, you offered a strike force. The mere cost…” She froze, her mind seeming to blank. Then she continued as if nothing had happened. “…of a blockade is more than…” She blinked, confused, as if she had just realized that she had paused for an undue amount of time. “The cost of a blockade is immense.”

“The Council will not lose Thessia,” said the drell delegate from Kahje. “The Governors will not permit a Core world to fall.”

“I wouldn’t put my bet on those freaks,” said Aria. “Where they there for the plague on Sur’Kesh? Or how about when the Alliance reactivated those ‘lost’ supernukes for Palavan? If anything, you should consider retaking the Citadel for yourselves.”

“With the honorable Councilor Aria- -this one reminding the Council, a known criminal- -supplying the weapons?”

The baterian Councilor suddenly stood. Almost the entire room cringed. Any time the baterians wanted to talk, it never ended well. There was one historical event, even, where it had devolved into a fistfight- -so to speak- -between their Councilor and one of the hanar Subcouncilors.

“We have reason to believe that Alliance privateers are responsible for the increased piracy in our sector.”

“(Extremely sarcastic) Pirates in baterian space? How unusual.”

The baterian Councilor’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll admit, that there has been a degree of piracy in the past, but the increase has risen dramatically. And…” He paused for effect. “Our research seems to indicate that the culprits may be HUMAN.”

Now the Council nearly gave out a collective laugh. “Humans?” said the turian Councilor. “You can’t be serious. Humans have been extinct for over two centuries. It is confirmed- -there are none left.”

“There are more quarians than there are humans,” said Locutus vas’Geth. “And I’ve spent a lot of time removing vermin.”

The argument immediately devolved. As it did, Sha’eta leaned back and put her hand on Artum’s shoulder.

“I…I need to go,” she said, her eyes darting around wildly. “I need…I need to go. To…” She trailed off, and then stood up and left. Artum and Lordaia looked at each other, dumbfounded and nearly panicking.

“But- -but what do we do?” whispered Lordaia.

“We step forward,” said Artum.

“Step- -but we can’t!”

Their Justicar guard took a step forward and put her hand on Lordaia’s shoulder. “Have faith in yourself, as I do in you.”

Lordaia looked up at her. “Thank you, grandmother.”

Then the pair of Subcouncilors pulled themselves forward.

“With regards to this situation,” said Artum, loudly. Even after almost three centuries, the sight of a talking albino winged horse was still somewhat striking for those not accustomed to them, and the “debate” quickly slowed. “We would like to address the problem of cultural theft and vandalism throughout Council space.”

Now there really was a groan, but Lordaia took Artum’s momentum and pushed. “It may be possible that these pirates are responsible. Various precious locations have been looted. Prothean archeological sites, and those from numerous extinct races. Irreplaceable elements of our shared culture have been looted.”

“It’s not just that,” added Locutus. “I’m sure the turians have noticed it too. And the salarians. There have been ships sighted in restricted areas. Places where there used to be Reaper battles.”

“And why would we have any interest in Reaper technology?” asked one of the turian subcouncilors. “It is one of the few laws that the Governors care about- -we are not allowed to work with Reaper artifacts.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that somebody is.”

“This one and this one’s people are far more concerned with the risk to the sacred works of the Enkindlers. Is the honorable Subcouncilor suggesting that, perhaps, the Alliance is responsible?”

“That would make sense,” said the volus Councilor. “They are not bound by our regulations.”

“We…do not think so.” Lordaia looked to Artum, and he nodded.

“We believe another organization may be at work. A private entity.”

“What are you implying?” said the baterian Councilor, perhaps too self-consciously.

“Only that there is an unidentified group collecting religious artifacts.”

“(Self-doubtful) Could it be Cerberus?”

“No,” said the turian Councilor quickly. “Cerberus died with Earth and the human race.” She turned toward Lordaia and Artum. “What you are describing is the work of vandals. At best, petty religious zealots or looters selling Prothean artifacts to collectors. Do I need to remind you that we are in the middle of a brewing war? We have far more important things to worry about than petty theft.”

With that, Artum and Lordaia’s pet project was dismissed and ignored as the Council went on to discussing the management of debt between nations and how to reconfigure the trade deals that would be affected by having to force the volus to shift routes. Lordaia and Artum just went silent, knowing that they had lost.

After several hours, the Council meeting finally went into recess. For the remaining two Thessian delegates, it had not been a total wash. They had been unable to move their motion to investigate artifact theft, but while Artum had begun to retreat from the pressure Lordaia had stepped up and showed that even as young and inexperienced as she was, she was both prudent and effective at diplomacy. She had eventually gotten Locutus to relinquish several geth listening posts to the blockade, and assisted in negotiating a new route through rachni space in exchange for postponing the development of a Thessian mining colony. A risky move, but just getting the rachni to concede something was no small task. Even the turians were mildly impressed.

As they left, Artum was in high spirits.

“You truly did inherit your mother and father’s spirit,” he said.

“Well, no,” admitted Lordaia. “My mother was actually shrewd and quiet. I have no idea where I got this from.”

“Well, whatever it was, I want some,” joked Artum. “Even with all my breeding, I just can’t get that PUSH. It’s just- -”

He stopped suddenly, as did the group that was standing around him. Every exiting Councilor had just ceased walking, and Artum, being in front, immediately saw why.

Sha’eta was standing in the middle of the floor, her robes dripping with violet fluid that had collected in a wide pool beneath her.

“C- -Councilor!” cried Artum, stepping forward. “You’re hurt! We need- -” His words caught in his throat as she turned, and he saw that the entire right side of her face had been torn off, exposing her teeth through the ruined cheek- -and yet, despite this, she still did not stop clawing at it. She continued to run her stained fingernails through the dripping wound, tearing more pieces of flesh out of her face every time she did.

“Sha’eta, what- -what have you done?”

To Artum’s surprise, she answered. “I can hear it,” she said, the motion of her teeth visible through the side of her face. Some blood trickled from her mouth. “I don’t know how I never understood.”

“Understood what?” Artum turned around to the dumfounded group. “We need a medic! Medigel! NOW!”

“The words,” continued Sha’eta, now apparently talking to herself. “The ideas. The thoughts. So…so grand. But so incomplete. Divisions after divisions. Pulled apart, but waiting. I…I can hear them. I can almost understand. No…not thoughts. A paradigm. A collection of thoughts…” Her hand suddenly stopped, and her eyes, blue and clear, flicked down to Artum. She paused for a long moment. “And I see my role. The role I was born for.”

“What role? I don’t understand!”

“I die…so that Thebe may live.”

Her body suddenly flashed blue. Artum took a step back, but as he did he felt something heavy strike him. He saw a flash of red armor and a blue hand wrap around his chest as another shot out, projecting a biotic field around him. He did not understand what was going on, but he saw. Sha’eta charged her own biotics, but not in a way that Artum had ever seen before. Her body seemed to glow brilliantly, and even through his albino-red eyes, Artum saw her flesh tear apart within from the energy. He heard the sound as she detonated, and felt the blast of the biotic explosion against Samara’s shield. The image, though, was burned into his mind: of an asari screaming as her bones and flesh exploded from within, every organ nerve and blood vessel tearing apart into homogenous violet mist that was then annihilated in the all-consuming biotic fire.

In one of the lower levels, a group of black-clad figures appeared from the shadows. They moved quickly through the largely abandoned hallways, never speaking but marching in perfect coordination. Though all of them were fully covered in armor, it would have been apparent to an observer that they were of diverse species but of the same group.

They approached a group of turian guards, all of whom were ostensibly part of the turian party’s security contingent, even though none of them were anywhere near the Councilor.

“Stop,” they said, raising their mostly ceremonial rifles. “Put your hands on your head and kneel, slowly!”

The group did not respond. The turians quickly opened fire- -but to no effect. Their bullets were shattered against the assailant’s shields, not even slowing them. The turians, of course, just continued to fire, ignoring the fact that projectile weapons were at least two hundred years out of date.

The turians were then pushed out of the way from behind as heavily armored krogan approached. Unlike their counterparts, the krogan actually paid attention to changes in tactics and drew their swords. The first two of the black-clad figures- -a drell and a baterian- -stepped forward as well, drawing violet tech-blades. The battle was over in only a few moments, and the krogans and turians sat bisected and bleeding on the floor.

Behind them now stood the region that the group had been guarding. It was a small metal canister held by a five-meter wide circle of bright white light. The two swordsmen stepped away, and a turian stepped forward. He paused at the edge of field and then inserted his hand through. The reaction was immediate: his armor began to immolate, and the flesh underneath began to burn away. As a turian, his aluminum-rich skin lasted a few seconds longer than that of softer organics. What truly mattered, though, was the cybernetic core that he held beneath the extensive and fresh surgical scars that ran over his skin.

The arm lasted barely a second, and the turian calculated the speed that he would need to move. Then he stepped in completely. He only lasted a total of six seconds, just long enough to reach the central object, remove it, and transfer it to a quarian that was waiting for him outside the glowing circle. By the time he did, though, he had lost too much organic matter and collapsed in the light, spasming as the remainder of him departed, leaving only a cybernetic endoskeleton.

The remaining members then departed, with one carefully leaving a small explosive charge behind and setting the timer. They then began their escape, which was not difficult. Their sister had already detonated above, possibly taking several Councilors with her. To the group, that was of little consequence and importance; it was simply a distraction.

As it turned out, though, one of the guards did seem to catch on, her perception drawing her to them as they made their way through the now abandoned volus section of the Hall. Samara dropped from an overhead balcony, landing in front of and blocking the path of the four-member group.

“Criminals,” she said, addressing them. “You have attacked a place of diplomacy and peace. I cannot abide by your presence here. You will be judged.”

“You don’t understand. You can’t understand. You can’t hear the paradigm.”

The two soldiers of the group drew their swords. Samara, likewise, unclipped her ceremonial cape and drew the sword on her back. She focused her energy into the hilt, and the gravity centrifuge within reacted to her biotics, charging the silver blade with blue light.

She charged, as did they. They were pragmatic and efficient, but seemed to otherwise have no training. Samara, in contrast, did. With her immense age, she had begun life in the era where all noble purebloods would be taught to use swords and then to the age where advanced shields had finally made projectile weapons obsolete. Her sword was not ceremonial, nor was it a simple knife for hacking and slashing. It was a part of her, a component of the weapon that she had become.

The first one fell easily. Samara deflected his sword with hers, then struck him in the chest with a singularity that began to cut through his armor. In his distraction, she sliced through him, only to barely dodge the attack from the baterian. The blow was glancing but still managed to cut into her armor. She ignored the pain and leapt back. The baterian pushed, as did Samara. She raised her sword, and the baterian moved to block- -only for Samara to draw a pistol within the confines of the baterian’s shield and fire an armor-piercing slug through the girl’s neck.

By this time, the other two- -the quarian and an asari- -had started to run. Samara immediately gave chase.

“It is time,” said the asari, taking the canister from the quarian. “Do it. Become our Goddess.”

“I will,” said the quarian. The asari nodded and continued to run, but the quarian stayed. She reached down to her wrist and activated a small device. Her neural network interfaced with the implants, and she began her role.

Samara immediately felt a change in the air, an ionization, but it was already too late. The quarian just seemed to move, and then, suddenly, Samara felt a fist slammed into her chest. Her shield shattered and her biotic barrier nearly failed as she was thrown backward with immense force.

Then the quarian moved again, the corona of violet biotic energy surrounding her carrying her at immense speed. Samara had experienced several cracked ribs and a collapsed lung, but she still twisted in the air, bringing her sword into a blocking position as the quarian struck again, this time from behind.

The blow was incredible, and followed by a shockwave from the quarian. Samara was once again thrown backward, but this time managed to plant her feet just long enough to weather an array of absurdly powerful biotic singularities that ravaged gravity around her.

The quarian raced forward again, now screaming. Samara braced, but something was wrong. She had heard screams. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Men and women begging for their lives, screaming in pain as she cut them down without mercy. This was different, though. She had only ever heard it from one other source before. This quarian sounded just like a Reaper banshee.

Something was also wrong with her body. The biotic energy that she now possessed was too intense. She was burning from within; her suit was evaporating from her body. Samara could see it falling apart, and could see the face behind her black mask. In an instant, Samara realized that the screams were not the sound of her anger and rage. They were that of the girl’s FEAR. Her body was being ripped apart from within, and she had no idea why.

“It- -it hurts so much! IT HURTS SO MUCH! Oh Keelah, I don’t- -” She suddenly hitched, and then screamed one last time as her marrow overheated, reeving her flesh from within. Samara watched in horror, but performed her duty as the Code dictated. She severed the head of her kneeling enemy, granting her a reprieve from her pain and serving justice.

She turned her attention toward the other, the one remaining member, but it was too late. She saw the asari stepping through what could only be described as a portal, a hole in space to a hot, acrid word with a sickly yellow sky and broken red-black ground. Samara jumped toward the portal, but not before it snapped closed.

Although there had been losses, nothing of value had been lost. The mission had been a success.

Chapter 4: High Priestess

Mass-jumping had a particular sensation. Starlight had experienced it enough times that she had come to expect the familiar vibration and sensation of pressure in her bones, or the way her body seemed to lurch just slightly in every direction at once. Around her, the ship creaked ever so slightly as she remerged into space.

She leaned back in her chair, watching through the front glass at the expanse of space beyond. There was no real sensation; she had thought that returning to the stars would make her happy, but it was not the same. Seeing it through the glass, distant and separated- -it was no different from seeing it in video. It just made her remember how much she missed her long-range sensory implants.

Looking down, she tapped at the orange-colored control system projected around her left hoof. The ship responded as she confirmed her coordinates and reset her course. The omnitool shifted, and Starlight interpreted the feedback to begin a new set of calculations concerning speed and engine thrust.

Twilight was perceptive. There was no pony that knew Starlight better than her best friend, and as such, Twilight had taken care to acquire an Alliance-built ship for her. Equestrian ships were generally of a much higher caliber, but through the years, Starlight had developed a strong aversion to quants. Logically, she understood what they were. That they were not alive. In her mind, though, they reminded her too much of Cores. It had become especially bad in the recent decades as quants had become smarter and better at pretending to be real ponies.

An Alliance ship met her requirements far better. In fact, it was almost the polar opposite of the quant-based design used by all Equestrian-made ships. The interface was profoundly simple: the ship was almost mechanical, lacking any form of onboard computational capacity. In the Alliance, the users were expected to perform any and all calculations mentally and operate the ship manually. This was considered virtually impossible for organic lifeforms, but it was not beyond Starlight’s ability. She could perform the majority of the calculations that she needed in her head, using her omnitool only to check her math and to feed instructions directly into the ship’s control architecture.

Outside, a planet was looming in the distance, backlit by its brilliant yellow-orange star. Through the window, Starlight could see the numerous orbital platforms that surrounded it: telescopes, listening posts, defensive turrets, and several railguns that would be more than adequate to take down small moons. Surrounding these structures was a small armada of spacecraft. Starlight did not even need her scanners to tell that they were unmanned; they were tiny and moved with patterns so predictable that they borderlined on cliché.

The planet’s defenses were of no consequence. Starlight clicked near the center of her omnitool and engaged her vessel’s tactical cloak. As threatening as this fortress-like planet appeared, it was downright primitive compared to the Alliance, the Council, or even Equestria.

Several Council probes sat just outside the planet’s orbital perimeter, and Starlight ignored their warnings. She entered the necessary sequences into her ship, and felt it hitch as it struck Parnack’s atmosphere. Deftly, she guided the craft into a particularly unpopulous region of the world and landed amongst the forest.

When the ship finally came to a rest, Starlight disconnected the control cables from her omnitool. With a flick of her hoof, it vanished, and she stood. She momentarily paused to look through the window at the forest beyond, and at her reflection. It was the same reflection she had always seen. It never changed.

She then turned and proceeded to a supply section behind the main bridge. The controls had been custom-reconfigured to a being of her height, and she tapped her hoof against a control pad to open a closet. Inside were several items. Starlight picked up the small container that contained her contact lenses, and then looked up at the uniform that was hanging neatly above her. It had changed substantially over the years: parts had worn out and been replaced with Equestrian equivalents, or elements upgraded. In some places, ornamentation had been added to represent Starlight’s station within the Cult of Harmony. At its core, though, it was the same. The same armor that had been given to her by a mute rachni so long ago.

It was spring on Parnack. Where Starlight had landed, the trees were almost as thick as her starship, and the forest floor was blooming with flowers in every conceivable shade of green. The air was not cold, but Starlight did feel a humid chill and pulled her cloak up to her neck. Then she deployed a combat drone. It materialized from her omnitool as a sphere of light, and then floated to her side. Once it was completed, she affixed a single-eye HUD- -or, as it was colloquially known, a “Garrus eyepiece”- - to the right side of her face.

The drone began scanning, and Starlight paused, reading the results as they came to her.

“Atnospheric eezio concentrations are high,” she muttered to herself, mildly surprised. That meant that the yahg had at least begun to develop FTL technology.

Their planet, though, hardly indicated that level of development. It was largely deserted, consisting of enormous forests and endless planes with only a few highly-developed cities or settlements dispersed throughout. In fact, it rather reminded Starlight of what Equestria Prime had looked like when she had first arrived as a Priestess.

Even the scanning drone was barely detecting anything, at least at first. Starlight still continued, though, scanning as she went. It took nearly an hour of slowly walking through the forest before she began detecting anything more substantial than plant matter and occasional spikes of energy that she attributed to eezio contamination in the atmosphere.

The scan indicated a large number of organic lifeforms approaching at high speed. This gave Starlight pause. Yahg were not known to be friendly to outsiders, and apart from her ominitool, Starlight had not brought any means to defend herself.

The approaching creatures, though, turned out not to be yahg. Starlight did not know what they were, exactly, but assumed they were part of the planet’s native fauna. Her drone detected them first, approaching in a large herd from all sides: hairy brown creatures with abnormally long, thin legs, their heads covered with soft antenna and their sides with numerous eyes.

They were not, apparently, predators. In fact, as they approached Starlight, they slowed, observing her carefully. Whatever they were, they seemed to be curious, approaching Starlight gingerly on their narrow and almost ridiculous pointed legs. Whenever she or her combat drone would move, they would begin to become spooked and jump back.

“None of you would be able to communicate, I suppose,” said Starlight. The creatures, as expected, did not respond, except with a confused expression of surprise.

Then, suddenly, their antennae stiffened. They froze, and then sprinted with amazing speed. Starlight did not understand why, and found herself wondering what she had done to offend them- -when her eyepiece suddenly lit up with a top-priority warning.

Starlight barely managed to dodge as a singularity round struck the soil behind her, imploding through several rocks and detonating in a percussive explosion that threw Starlight back several feet. The bullet would have been fatal on impact, but with it missing her, Starlight was able to roll and return to her feet, directing her drone to scan the surrounding area.

The drone, however, was useless. Although it could not pick up any signal, Starlight easily traced the bullet back to its origin visually. Almost a hundred yards away, she saw a glint of blue skin from a hooded figure standing on a broken branch protruding from the trunk of a high tree.

The figure raised her singularity rifle again, and Starlight responded by generating a partial suit of tech-armor. “ZEDOK!” she called.

Upon hearing this, the figure lowered her rifle- -but did not come down from the tree. Instead, she turned and leapt. There was a surge of blue energy from her legs, and she leapt a substantial distance to another limb, and then another.

“Zedok, come back!” yelled Starlight as she started to run after the asari.

Starlight was a reasonably physically fit pony, but the ground was uneven and rocky. In addition, while the asari above could easily leap tens of meters or more, Starlight was barely sixty centimeters at the shoulder. She simply was not very fast.

Still, despite the limitations of her small pony body, Starlight was managing to keep up- -and, as she quickly came to realize, not by sheer perseverance. The asari could have outrun her easily, but instead, she always kept herself just in range. Sometimes she would stop and turn back, watching silently from within her loose camouflage clothing. She would watch, waiting for Starlight to catch up, leading her.

“Zedok! Stop! It’s me, Starlight! I just want to talk to you!”

By this time, Starlight was now completely out of breath. The asari seemed to take notice of this, and dropped several hundred feet to the ground. Starlight rushed forward with her last burst of energy, expecting the woman to run again. As she did, she noticed how strangely silent the forest had become.

When she reached the clearing where the asari was standing, she was on the verge of collapsing. The asari was standing in the center, her unusual clothing wrapped around her in a way that made her look more like a shrub than a person.

“Zedok,” wheezed Starlight.

The underbrush suddenly seemed to shift. Silently, several more figures emerged from beneath the trees, all of them dressed in similar clothing to the asari. They, however, were MUCH larger. Too late, Starlight realized that she had been led into an ambush: she now found herself surrounded by a hunting party of six yahg, all with their singularity rifles pointed directly at her head.

The asari raised her own rifle and pulled back her hood. Starlight realized immediately that this girl was not Zedok at all. Her skin was aqua, and mottled around the edges of her narrow face. Her primary markings were “eyebrows” consisting of two large, black dots each as well as a pair of smaller dots beneath her eyes.

“You’re not Zedok,” said Starlight.

“No,” said the girl, her voice thick with what Starlight could only surmise was an accent that could only be gained from a lifetime of speaking yahg. “I am not.”

“No,” said a different and far less accented voice. “That would be me.”

Starlight turned to see another group of yahg. One among them was substantially larger than the others, her horns long and curved with age. She was not the one who had spoken, though; the leader of the group was an asari.

This time, Starlight knew that she had found the right person. Time had changed her slightly: Zedok’s formerly flat chest had grown out, if only marginally, and the extensive scarring that had once covered her face had now been reduced to a distant shadow. Her eyes, though, were the same as they had been in the past. The explosion that had taken her face had also taken her eyes, and though her skin would recover, her sight remained artificial. A pair of slightly luminescent mechanical orbs settled on Starlight.

Starlight watched Zedok’s mechanical eyes widen and her expression soften. “No fucking way,” she said. “Star?”

“Well, yes,” said Starlight, sheepishly. “Who else would I be?”

The next thing she knew, she was being wrapped in an incredibly tight hug.

“ACK! Zedok- -tiny pony lungs- -fragile ribs!- -Can’t- -BREATHE!”

“STAR! I can’t believe you’re still alive- -I didn’t think I would EVER see you again! I can’t believe- -”

“AIR!”

“Oh,” said Zedok, releasing Starlight. “Sorry. I forgot how little you are. And soft and…Star, what the hell are you wearing?”

“Clothing,” gasped Starlight, running an internal scan to confirm that her ribs were, in fact, still connected to her sternum.

“Mother,” said the other Asari. “This confuses me. Why do you embrace the salarian?”

“Salarian?” Zedok seemed confused. She pointed at Starlight. “She’s not a salarian. Come on, I KNOW you know what a salarian looks like.”

“If not an Abductor, then what?”

“I’m a pony,” said Starlight.

“That hardly answers the question. Are you food, or an enemy?”

“Neither,” said Zedok, standing up. She motioned to the yahg. “Lower your weapons.”

The yahg immediately obeyed. The asari girl, however, did not.

“Sbayadvlag,” said Zedok. “Starlight is one of my oldest and closest friends. I’d rather you don’t shoot her.”

“And I’d rather not be shot,” said Starlight. “That is, if you don’t mind terribly much.”

Sbayadvlag then lowered her weapon. As she did, Starlight was able to finally see that the girl was actually substantially younger than Zedok. She was thinner, smaller, and overall more youthful.

“Damn, Zed,” said Starlight, looking up at her friend. “You got old.”

“I’m krogan,” said Zedok. “We don’t get older. We just get sexier and angrier.”

Zedok raised her hand into the air and produced a somewhat complex gesture. “Alright,” she said. “Whatever game we had? Starlight just scared it off. Back off and cut to the north valley, if you want to. I’m going back to the farm. Regroup when you need to. Sbaya, you’re on me.”

As Zedok turned, the largest of the yahg- -a female- -addressed her in yahg. Zedok responded, and they had a short exchange before Zedok and Starlight passed by.

“What did she say?” asked Starlight.

“She asked why we do not simply eat you.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told her that the meat on your skinny horse ass isn’t worth the munitions.”

“Well, if there’s anyone in the galaxy who knows about having a skinny ass, I suppose that would be you.”

“You’re damn rig- -HEY!”

“Mother,” said the other asari. “Shall I proceed ahead?”

“Sure. We’ll meet you there. Starlight has stubby legs, so she’ll take a bit.”

“My legs are not stubby,” protested Starlight. “They are in fact of slightly-above average length for a mare.”

Sbaya nodded to her mother. Then she turned to Starlight. “Before that, though, if I may, I feel compelled to apologize. I had mistaken your intent and did not realize that you were a friend and guest. I hope you can forgive both my indiscretion and my poor aim.”

She then took a step back and jumped, elegantly rising to a high dead branch. With several more leaps, she was high in the canopy of the trees. Starlight turned to Zedok. “You have a daughter.”

“Yes. I figured that was self-evident.”

“With Darien?”

Zedok snorted. “What?” she chuckled. “Let me guess- -”

“The way she talks? Yeah. I noticed. Also, you snorted.”

“No I didn’t.” Zedok looked down at Starlight. “And you? After all this time, I bet you have literally dozens of…what are baby ponies called? Kits? Pups?”

“Foals,” corrected Starlight. “And no. I don’t.”

“Ah,” said Zedok, seeming to understand. “So, you WERE into girls.”

Starlight blushed profusely. “No, it’s not- -no! I just- -I never had time. I’ve been busy.”

“Star, I’m not criticizing your choice. I mean, look at you. You haven’t aged a day. You’ve got time. Or not, if you’re not into kids.” She shrugged. “Just saying, though, they HURT. I mean, I didn’t even know my body could do that. Remember that time you impaled me? Like, through-and-through?”

“Of course. Because you shot me with a corrosive round. We both almost died.”

“Yeah. Multiply that by about eighty. I mean, it’s an asari coming out of another asari. And you’ve got wings and horns and stuff, so…” Zedok shivered. “…and hooves.”

“That sounds pretty bad.”

“It was. I punched out one of the doctors. And Darien fainted. Apparently, they normally lay eggs, so this was new to him.” She looked up at the trees toward a quickly-moving shadow that Starlight could only barely see. “But I don’t regret it. Never did, not for a moment. Not ever.”

The “farm” that Zedok described was a substantial walk, and night was beginning to fall as they reached it. Starlight very distantly remembered that Darien, Zedok’s husband, had been a farmer of what she imagined was a type of fish. The farm, however, was more expansive than Starlight had come to expect of agricultural endeavors. The area that Starlight was led to appeared to be a kind of outpost that had been constructed along a set of large and deep artificial, stone-lined ponds.

“Don’t get near the water,” said Zedok. “They tend to get a little bitey this close to the harvest. And their normal prey looks actually a LOT like you.”

“Noted,” said Starlight, shying back from the murky black water and the oddly hairy shapes moving just beneath its surface. “But I thought you were training to be a doctor?”

“Training? When? I AM a doctor. I have been for a very, very long time.”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

“Hunting. With my extended family. There are these animals that I really, really like to eat.”

“Like big deer? Tentacles for faces and lots of eyes? Really long legs?”

Zedok grimaced. “Eew, no! That’s a shlo’rk, they taste like butts. Fried butts. That, and the singularity rounds tend to turn them into red mist.”

Starlight considered that for a moment. “Then what were you actually hunting for, then?”

Zedok did not answer the question. Instead, she opened a large door to the outpost building. Like most yahg structures, it was built to be extremely sturdy and to blend into the landscape that pressed up against it from all sides. The trees planted near it to reinforce the walls almost seemed to be eating the stone and wood of the building itself.

“Mother,” said Sbayadvlag, causing Starlight to jump from shock. She had seemed to materialize feet from Starlight without a sound. “Should I fetch sticks for the fire?”

“No,” said Zedok. “It’s getting dark. It’s not good to be out now.”

“The darkness does not concern me,” said Sbaya.

“No, of course not. You’re half yahg and a quarter krogan. But you being out in it does concern me.”

Zedok watched her daughter expectantly, but Sbaya just smiled. “Oh. Yes. Of course, mother.” She followed her mother and Starlight into the structure, hanging her coat on a hook in the wall and propped her rifle next to the door. Without her external coat, Sbaya actually did look much smaller than Zedok. Starlight was not sure if it was simply because she was younger or if it was just because she had a more narrow frame. She was dressed in a sleeveless garmet that had been dyed in various shades of olive. It was drab and thick, but she appeared to be able to move freely.

As she entered, Zedok took off her own furry coat and threw it over one of the oversized chairs in the building. She was wearing a similar garment- -it was the asari-sized equivalent of what most yahg tended to wear- -but it was colored in various shades of red and orange.

“So,” said Starlight. “If you’re here, who’s watching your practice? Fenok, I assume? He never struck me as the kind to hunt.”

Zedok stopped walking and looked over her shoulder. Her expression had hardened, and Starlight knew that she was about to hear bad news.

“No,” she said. “The practice is mine now. Dad isn’t here now.”

“Not here?” That made little sense to Starlight; Fenok had always been an enormously caring, even overprotective father to Zedok. She had imagined he would never leave her side, nor the side of his young granddaughter. “Then where is he?”

Zedok did not answer for a moment. “He’s on Sur’Kesh, Star.”

Starlight was confused. “The salarian homeworld? That seems like a strange place for a krogan. But I can stop there next if you think- -”

“NO!”

Starlight took a step back. “Zedok- -”

“You can’t go to Sur’Kesh, Star,” said Zedok firmly. “Trust me. You can’t.”

“If diplomatic clearance is a problem- -”

“You…you seriously don’t know, do you?”

“Know what? Zedok, you’re not making any sense.”

“The Outbreak. Sur’Kesh is in level five quarantine.”

“Outbreak? What kind of outbreak?”

“Disease. A plague. A bad one. Worse than the genophage ever was. Dad was at a conference there when the first wave hit. The fatality rate…Star, the salarians are almost extinct.”

“Sweet Celestia- -is Fenok- -”

“Dad is fine,” said Zedok. “Mostly fine. Krogan are extremely resistant to it, but…”

“But what?”

“He’s still infected. He can’t get off the planet.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Not for the salarians,” said Sbaya, approaching from behind. “Grandfather is a brilliant doctor, and a student of the krogan Okeer. With his work, the disease will no doubt be cured within the next millennium.”

“Millennium- -wait,” Starlight turned to Sbaya. “I thought you hated salarians?”

Sbaya blinked. “Ah,” she said, turning to her mother. “It is…a mistranslation.”

“‘Salarian’ is the yahg word for alien,” said Zedok. “And the connotation is very, very negative. They have a history. A pretty bad one.” She pulled up a chair near the building’s central fireplace. It was small and asari sized. Zedok sat down, crossing her legs as she did. Sbaya moved behind her, standing.

“Well, that sucks,” said Starlight.

“Starlight,” said Zedok, slowly. “Don’t get me wrong. I am so, so happy to see you. But why are you here? Why now?”

“Ah,” said Starlight. Through the question was somewhat hurtful- -even if it had not been intended that way- -Starlight had been expecting it. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited in so long. The Core liberation and reintegration project took a substantial amount of time and effort, and I guess I just got so engrossed in my duties with Princess Twilight that I lost track of time.”

“Duties?” Zedok raised an eyebrow.

“Not like that,” said Starlight. “But…well, I’m the High Priestess of the Cult of Harmony. It’s not an easy job. Not that being a doctor isn’t, but…” Starlight sighed. “I’m sorry, Zed. I should have written or something. I feel terrible just showing up and asking for your help.”

“What kind of help?” asked Sbaya.

Starlight extended her hoof. Her omnitool emerged, causing Sbaya to jump slightly. It projected the file and a small image of the heretic Scootaloo. “This fugitive escaped from custody and is thought to have fled to the Milk Path galaxy.”

“A criminal? They dispatched the big important ‘High Priestess’ to catch a criminal?”

“This isn’t just any criminal,” said Starlight, snapping the hologram closed. “This pony was a war hero. She prevented war during the Agrostation Six incident and defeated the mad-Core Sunset Shimmer.” Starlight paused. “She also brutally murdered a fellow Priestess.”

“But those incidents,” said Zedok, pausing. “That would mean she’s as old as you, at least.”

“Thirteen year younger, yes.”

Zedok seemed to accept this. “Right. And you want my help?”

“I would greatly appreciate it, as would Princess Twilight. But you do not need to if you don’t have time. I mean, you have a daughter, a life. But you’re the only one I can find easily. If you have any idea where Jack might be, I really could use that information.”

Zedok’s expression changed, as it had when Starlight mentioned Fenok.

“What?” said Star, realizing that something was wrong.

“Star, do you know how long you’ve been gone?”

“What? Probably several decades, I would guess. I mean, I feel really, really bad about it, but I was just so busy it all kind of blurred together. Jack must be pissed! I’ll have to bring her some good vodka. She still drinks, right?”

Zedok shook her head. “Star, it hasn’t been several decades. It’s been several CENTURIES.”

Starlight laughed. “No way.” Her smile faded as she realized that Zedok was serious. “What…how- -how long?” she said, stepping forward. “Zedok, how long have I been gone?”

“The battle, the one against the Crimson Horizon? That was two hundred and seventy eight years ago.”

“And- -and Jack? She must be so old- -”

Zedok shook her head. “Star, I’m sorry. Humans, they just don’t live very long. They aren’t like us. Jack was already old back then. She’s…she’s gone, Star. She’s been gone for hundreds of years.”

Starlight started to protest, to explain how that just could not be right, that there was no way she had been gone that long- -but on some level she already knew. She collapsed to the floor.

“But…but it doesn’t make sense!” she said. “I- -I was only gone for a few decades! Fifty years at the most! She- -she’s strong! She should have been able to make it that far!”

Zedok stood from her chair and knelt by Starlight, wrapping her in a hug. “Starlight,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“But- -but- -two hundred and seventy eight years! Almost THREE CENTURIES! How- -HOW?”

“This happens, Star. It’s not uncommon for people like us. For asari, for krogan. You get busy. Time passes. A year. Ten years. A century. Two. For us, that’s barely anything. A tiny fraction of our lives. An insignificant passage of time. But for them…that’s lifetimes.”

“But- -it SHOULDN’T BE THAT WAY! I’m- -I’m not supposed to be like this! I’m not supposed to be this old!” Starlight tried to say more, as if protesting her situation could somehow make her assertions true. Her words, though, became unintelligible through her tears. All she could do was hug Zedok, and be hugged.

It took a long time for her to calm down, or to at least regain her composure. Her mind felt numb; she had still not accepted that Jack could possibly be dead, even though she knew it had to be true. The memory of the time still felt blurred, but thinking about it, she started to notice the inconsistencies. Most of her time was spent with Twilight, who did not age or die, or with Flurry Heart and Sunburst, who likewise aged impossibly slowly. At the same time, she distantly recalled the long string of funerals of friends and acquaintances before she had eventually given up on trying to befriend mortals.

“And the…and the others?”

Zedok leaned back and shook her head. “As far as I know? They’re all dead. Everyone is dead.”

“Even…even Darien.”

Zedok’s expression fell. “Yeah. Even Darien.”

“What…what happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“He got old, Star. That’s what happens. Male yahg can make at most one-fifty. He made it one-twelve before the dementia started to set in. I was there with him to the end.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what? You couldn’t have done anything. That’s just the way life goes. I’m actually pretty lucky. I was married for almost a century. We had a daughter, a farm, a family. A lot of folks don’t get that kind of thing.”

“I didn’t get that kind of thing,” said Starlight, softly.

“But that is the past,” said Sbaya. “Regret is simply a desire to change what has already been. But since the past cannot be changed, it is a futile emotion.”

“I can take you to her grave, if you want. I know where it is.”

“No,” said Starlight. “I don’t…” She took a breath. “I have a heretic to execute. Right now, I need to focus on the mission.”

“Right,” said Zedok. She stood up and dusted herself off. “Then you’ll need help. We’ll come with you.”

“Wait,” said Sbaya, her eyes widening. “We?”

“Yes, ‘we’,” said Zedok. “As in you, and me.”

“But- -but the harvest!” protested Sbaya. “I’m needed here!”

“Your cousins can more than handle the harvest themselves.”

“I can’t! I’ve never been of Parnack before, I wouldn’t- -”

“Which is exactly why you need to come. Your, what, sixty?”

“Fifty two.”

“Exactly. By the time I was your age, I had been on over eighteen different planets, fought ponies, mutants, and god knows what else- -and pushed YOU out from between my legs!”

“Mom- -”

“No buts!”

“But you had also lost both arms, your eyes, and your face,” noted Sbaya.

“And been impaled through the chest.”

“Yeah, that one was on me,” said Starlight, raising a hoof. “Sorry.”

Sbaya seemed pale. Starlight opened her omnitool.

“What- -what are you doing?” asked Sbaya, genuinely concerned.

“Summoning my ship,” said Starlight. “I’m not walking all the way back there.”

“You have a ship? What kind?” asked Zedok.

“It’s…oh, what was it called? An AG17 Hermes Mark IV scout vessel.”

Zedok’s jaw dropped. “You- -you mean the ALLIANCE Hermes class?”

“Of course. They make the best ships.”

“You- -you- -Mark IV? MARK IV? That’s- -do you have any idea how much one of those COSTS?”

“Nothing. Because the Alliance doesn’t sell them. Well, not to anyone except the Princess, of course.”

“How much does it cost?” asked Sbaya.

“Well, let me put it this way,” said Zedok. “If I pooled all my money for the next, oh, seven thousand years? I might be able to afford one of the suspension cylinders for its main core.” She turned to Starlight. “Damn, Star. Being a Priestess has some perks, doesn’t it?”

“High Priestess,” corrected Starlight. “But all of that means approximately nothing here. Not without a plan. I have no idea where Scootaloo is or where to find her.”

“Neither do I,” said Zedok. “But I know a place to start.”

Chapter 5: Quant

Scootaloo shivered. The initial bone-chilling cold that she had felt had long-since faded, but new symptoms had started to develop. She felt terrible. Her lungs rattled when she tried to breathe, and sometimes she would cough blood. There was also a good chance that she had a fever.

Her memories as well had still failed to coalesce completely. She was not sure where he had been, but understood that there was a good chance that she had been frozen. That in itself was frightening; as far as Scootaloo knew, the field of cryogenics was still in its infancy. It was impossible to know if her symtoms were the normal result of having been thawed, or if something had gone horribly wrong.

So Scootaloo did what she was trained to do. She ignored the sickness and pain and continued with what she had been doing.

“Captain Scootaloo,” said the green holographic pony as she pranced gracefully after Scootaloo down one of the ship’s main access corridors. “Where are you going?”

“The Core containment plant,” said Scootaloo, coughing slightly.

The hologram looked confused. “Did you mean ‘engineering’? If so, it is in the rear half of the sublevel. The sublevel access stairwell is eight meters back, to the left. However, you have no reason to go there. All of my systems are functioning normally.”

“Do you have a name?”

The hologram once again looked confused. “No,” she said. “My default designation is ‘Interface’. However, some commanders to prefer to name their interfaces. The most common choices are ‘Idiot’, ‘Ship’, ‘Moron’, ‘Mildred’, and ‘Sexy’.”

“I’m not calling you ‘Sexy’. But I’m not pronouncing ‘Interface’ every time, either. That’s, like, three syllables.”

“Ah, yes,” said the hologram. “Yes, Captain Scootaloo, three syllables is unduly long for a name. If I may offer a suggestion, you may shorted in to ‘Inte’.”

“Inte? It will do for now.”

“You also have the option to set my appearance. I come in a full range of customizable color and body types. Our most popular are a female Pegasus with extremely fluffy wings or a tall male unicorn with an exorbitantly long, hard horn.” She paused. “As a female Pegasus known for blatant lesbianism, you would probably prefer the fluffy-winged form.”

“It’s not ‘blatant’,” protested Scootaloo as she entered the stairwell to the engineering sublevel. “And what’s wrong with mares liking mares?”

“Would you like me to answer from a legal or philosophical perspective?” Inte paused, noticing Scootaloo’s expression. “Or was that a rhetorical question?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t.”

Scootaloo quickly descended the stairs. “I’m not resetting your appearance.”

“Ah. So you prefer ‘Loli Earth Pony, Green with Yellow Highlights’.”

“Loli- -no!”

“So you would prefer a different color scheme?”

“No! Because it doesn’t matter! I have a policy with Cores. I don’t keep them locked up. I’m going to let you out.”

Inte stopped, looking completely befuddled. “Out of what?”

Scootaloo ignored her and descended into the engineering deck. It was relatively cramped, filled with open-access systems that she did not even come close to recognizing. Everything was unfamiliar, and yet somehow the same. All of the equipment was assembled radially, built around the imprisoned Core in the center.

When she finally reached the center, though, Scootaloo froze. She had been expecting what she had always seen in the center of starships: a Core. A unicorn pony, his or her spine surgically opened and filled with implants that linked to the ship, powering it with the magic necessary to keep it functioning.

Every ship Scootaloo had ever been on had used a Core- -or at least every Equestrian ship. Even with Starlight and Twilight’s plan to eventually phase them out, most of the countless thousands of Equestrian vessels were powered by enslaved unicorns. This one, however, was not.

There was indeed a tube in the center, but it did not contain a pony. Instead, it contained what appeared to be a convoluted crystal suspended in fluid and overgrown with pale tissue that looked nearly biological. The tissue ran up through the fluid in the tube and out into the various assemblies that attached to it. As Scootaloo watched, she could see the living, purplish tissue twitch and contract, and the light within the crystal slowly flash and shift.

“What the hell is this?” she whispered.

“This is my primary core,” said Inte, appearing next to Scootaloo. Scootaloo, startled as well as unnerved by the half-living sight before her, jumped back. Her sudden motion frightened several small, insect-like robots which immediately scuttled upward into the rafters, lighting the transparent tanks of fleshy material as they moved.

“What- -what is this? You- -you’re not a Core!”

“Core? No. Of course not. The creation and use of Core ponies has been absolutely forbidden for two hundred and seventy two years, with the moratorium on creation stretching back to Twilight Sparkle’s ascension to absolute monarch of Equestria.”

“But then what are you?”

“Me? Oh. I am a monocrystalline quantum virtual intelligence. Or quant, as we are commonly known.”

“We?”

“In the sense that there are more than one of us. Not the royal ‘we’.”

“There are more than one of you?”

“Not here, no. In total, yes. The control of a starship would normally require a large crew of experienced ponies. As such, every Equestrian starship is equipped with a quant to handle all operations procedures. I am this ship’s power source, as well as its intelligence. Of course, there are free-moving quants, too. You’ve met those.”

“Those robots?”

“Yes. They do not, of course, have as high of a processing power or a polished, attractive interface as my type does.”

“But- -that’s not any DIFFERENT!”

Inte looked confused. “I would argue that I am quite different from a free-moving or hive-controlled equidroid- -”

“That’s not what I mean! We went through all that to get rid of Cores, to switch over to machines- -and all they did was put a new kind of Core back in!”

“I am not a Core. I am a quant. I just said that.”

“Look at you!” Scootaloo gestured toward the central column. “I don’t know what the hell you are, but you’re alive! And your trapped here, just like THEY were!”

Inte looked at her core assembly, then back at Scootaloo. “Although most modern quants use a biological interface, I assure you, I am not actually alive.”

“Yes you are! Don’t give me that shi- -”

Inte stepped forward. Her expression became somewhat more serious. “What you are imply is, frankly, insulting,” she said. “I realize you did not intend it, but it is. I assure you, I am NOT alive. I am a machine. I run code, accomplish functions, fly the ship. I do not have thoughts, emotions, volition, free will, desire, choice.”

“But I’m talking to you!”

“No. You are talking to a very well-made VI interface. I am a program designed to replicate conversation with a real pony. Essentially- -if you will allow me to insult you as you have insulted my creators- -I am tricking you into believing in a fake pony.”

“A fake pony…” Scootaloo began to cough again, and sat down. She pulled it away and saw that it was completely covered in blood.

“Commander,” said Inte. “My internal scanners indicate that your vital signs are dropping. If you blood pressure continues to fall, you’ll- -”

Scootaloo did not hear the rest. She collapsed into unconsciousness.

There were sounds. A distant laughter, and something else. A sound of muffled gunshots, and a sudden cry. She looked up and saw a light- -and a single round circle set in a black mask.

Then she fully regained consciousness. The light remained, but Scootaloo saw that it really was just that- -a light. She was lying on a table, surrounded by an array of robotic surgical tools hanging from the ceiling. Otherwise, though, she was not sure where she was.

“Inte?” she called, wondering if she had even been real.

“I am here,” said Inte, her form materializing to Scootaloo’s right.

“What just happened?”

“Your vital signs dropped. I believe I said that.”

“Where am I?”

“Sick bay. You are not in good condition. You have frostbite to several internal organs that I believe may be critical to your continual survival. I believe that I have probably stabilized you.”

“Probably?” Scootaloo sat up. She still felt awful, but now the general malaise had at least been replaced with ordinary pain. “Ow…what do you mean ‘probably’?”

“I do not currently have a medical protocol module installed. I had to…infer.”

“Infer what?”

“Your physiology. It worked, though. You’re not dead. Hooray.” There was a small sound and a plume of holographic confetti. “Oh! My confetti protocol module WAS installed! Yay!”

Scootaloo turned on the stainless steel table, and groaned. “So I was frozen?”

“Based on the condition of your liver, spleen, lungs, and liver, I would say yes.” She paused. “I think I said ‘liver’ twice…”

“How long?”

“About twenty centimeters. You are unusually small for an adult mare, and your liver length reflects that.”
“Not that. How long was I frozen?”
“I do not know. I would require a historical landmark. What is the last even that you remember?”

“I remember…Trixie,” said Scootaloo. “I remember being a Priestess, and I remember Twilight…” She paused. There was something more there, but she could not manage to recall. “And Starlight…” Scootaloo looked up. “How long has it been since Starlight Glimmer was made a Priestess?”

“Starlight Glimmer was promoted to Priestess of the Cult of Harmony in the year of our Solar Goddess 1008. The current year is 1286. Two hundred and seventy eight years have passed since then.”

“Two hundred seventy eight…” Scootaloo’s heart sank. “That can’t be right. Is that even possible?”

“Based on the empirical evidence, I would say yes.”

“That would mean…” Scootaloo took a deep breath. “Everypony is dead. Everypony I knew, they’re all gone.”

“I do not know the ponies that you are referring to, but yes. In all probability, they have died of old age. The only ponies known to be alive from that era, apart from you, are Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Flurry Heart, Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Sunburst, consort to Flurry Heart.”

“Then that means Rainbow Dash is gone.”

“Correct,” said Inte, with no emotion beside cheerfulness. “High Commander Rainbow Dash died in year 1030 at the age of 52 of cirrhotic liver failure.”

“So…she went back to drinking.”

“No,” said Inte. “A brief scan of over seven thousand six hundred and eighty biographies indicates that Rainbow Dash did not drink following [redacted], and that her liver failure was the result of alchohol abuse early in her life.”

Scootaloo looked up. “What did you just say? Redacted?”

“What?” Inte did not seem to know what Scootaloo was referring too. “Oh. It appears that a historical event has been redacted.”

“What has been redacted, exactly?”

“I am unsure. It is redacted. Apparently from seven thousand six hundred and eighty biographies.”

“Inte,” said Scootaloo, slowly. “I can’t remember what happened to me. Why was I frozen?”

Inte seemed to consider for a moment. “[Redacted]”.

“Well, that’s just great.”

“This is great? I was not anticipating that reaction. However, yay!” More holographic confetti appeared.

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh. Please refrain from that. My creators, being absolute geniuses, did not think it would be necessary for me to understand sarcasm. So I don’t.”

“Then…then what?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

Scootaloo slid off her chair. Striking the ground only accentuated her pain; every muscle seemed to be cramping as if she had just finished several weeks of intense training. “I have to get back to Equestria,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happened to me, but Twilight will no. I have to see her.”

“That is not a good idea.”

“Not a good idea- -how is that not a good idea?”

“Largely because the cryogenics company that you escaped from has placed a ten million bit bounty on your head. All of Equestria has also been placed on alert, and it is rumored that a Cult Inquisitor has been dispatched to, well, dispatch you.”

“You’re kidding. On what crime?”

“Heresy,” said Inte, simply.

“Heresy? How?! I’m a Priestess! I have only ever served Twilight Sparkle with the utmost loyalty!”

“I am not sure the motivation,” said Inte. “However, in the present climate, if you encounter any agent of Equestria, you will be executed on sight.”

“Any Equestrian agent?” asked Scootaloo, stepping forward. Inte took a step back, looking concerned. “Like you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You are an Equestrian agent, aren’t you? How do I know YOU’RE the one telling the truth? How do I know you’re not lying- -or that you’re not going to sell me out to them if you’re telling the truth?”

“I am not lying. You can check my internal relation program if you like, or, rather, if you had the ability. But I assure you, I am telling the truth to the best of my ability.”

“Then why aren’t you trying to capture me?”

“Because I am a virgin.”

They both paused. “You…what?”

“Or rather, was a virgin. You are my first.”

“First- -I didn’t touch you, if that’s what- -”

“Not that. That’s not normally possible. Well, it is, but…uncommon. Usually. Not really. What I mean is, you are my first operator. The first organic being ever to set hoof in my since I came online.”

“First? But that doesn’t make any sense- -how did you get there, then?”

“This unit was activated sixteen hours ago. My initial directive was to move immediately to Cryostation Twelve around the planet Hayzel and await the arrival of an organic operator.”
“Under whose orders?”
Inte paused. “[Redacted].”

“Great,” said Scootaloo. “Just great.” She held up her hoof. “No confetti. That was sarcasm.”

“But I like the confetti. It’s so pretty.” She smiled. “Just kidding, I have no likes or dislikes. But I convinced you for a second, didn’t I?”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Do you ever stop looking at my butt?”

Scootaloo groaned and turned away. “Set me up a holographic interface in the bridge,” she said.

“Why? That literally defeats my purpose.”

“Well, I need to get us somewhere, and I don’t know how to get that information into you any other way. I’m not exactly used to this.”

“Oh. Well, in that case…done. Task complete.” She paused. “But, if I may ask, where are we going?”

“We’re outlaws, right?”

“Well, you are. I’m not.”

Scootaloo ignored her. “And we’re in the Milk Path galaxy. So, there’s only one place for outlaws like us to go, isn’t there?”

Chapter 6: Spectre

“So this is a Hermes class ship,” said Zedok, stepping onto the bridge. “It’s pretty nice.”

“It’s adequate,” said Starlight.

“Adequate? This is one of the most advanced ships in the galaxy, short of anything in the Alliance military or a goddamn Reaper.”

“Its reaction time has several milliseconds of lag, the acceleration is clunky, the long-range scanners have poor resolution, and everything is designed for a synth. I can’t even reach the high shelves.”

“So what you’re saying is that your old ship was better?”

“It was the best. And I never had to worry about landing. Or cleaning up vomit.”

“It’s not her fault,” said Zedok, referring to Sbaya, who was desperately clinging to the inside of a closet near the rear of the ship. “She’s never flown before. Yahg don’t fly.”

“She’s not really a yahg. You know that, right?”

“You tell that to her.” Zedok sat down on the floor on one side of the bridge and sighed. “Parenting is hard. I had no idea my dad had to put up with this.”

“If I’m not mistaken, asari do tend to go through a rebellious stage in their first few centuries.”

“That’s the problem. She isn’t.”

“Isn’t? How is that a problem, then? What, do you want her to be stripping on a table on Omega?”

“No, but…It’s just not normal. I don’t know if I did something wrong. When I was her age, I was all about guns and combat and adventure, but all she seems to want to do is settle down and farm.”

“I wouldn’t know,” admitted Starlight. “I don’t have children. And I spent my own teen years sealed in a tank powering a starship. She seems adjusted to me.”

“Yeah,” said Zedok, removing a gun from her back and inspecting the trigger mechanism. “I just wish she would, I don’t know…”

“Be more like you?”

Zedok frowned. “Well, when you say it like that, I sound like my father.”

Starlight eyed Zedok’s weapon. “What exactly is that?” she asked.

“This? It’s a singularity rifle. It’s based roughly on yahg weaponry. Sort of. They were something Lyra was working on before she…”

Starlight closed her eyes. “Lyra too?”

“Yeah. Aneurism. It happened very quickly. A side effect of having an artificial heart for so long. But, I kind of think she saw it coming. It’s why she built these.”

“Well, just keep it out of sight. This is going to be hard enough without risking a firefight.”

“Trust me, it will work.”

“It didn’t last time.”

“That was because Jack didn’t have all those shiny religious insignias on her uniform. Or lack of uniform, I guess. Come to think of it, why am I not naked right now?”

“Because you have something she never did.”

Zedok appeared confused. “And what’s that?”

“A bust size.”

“Well, I guess that’s something you and I don’t actually have in common, then, isn’t it?”

Starlight blushed. Zedok started laughing. From somewhere in the rear of the ship, there was a sound of low and nervous weeping followed by a spatter of fluid against the floor.

The air rushed as Starlight’s ship descended through the atmosphere of Agrostation Six. This time there was no cloak field or a descent through an abandoned forest. Instead, she approached a designated landing pad surrounded by ornate, low ground-cover gardens.

Because of her ship’s relatively small size, the ship was dwarfed by the smooth stone pad that surrounded it. From the area normally reserved for the exhaust blowoff of larger shuttles, three figures approached, bracing against the strongly scented ion wind.

Then the ship settled. Almost as soon as it did, the primary airlock engaged and slid open. Two asari and a pony watched as a crew of the same racial composition stepped off onto the pad below.

“High Priestess Starlight,” said Artum, smiling and stepping forward toward the approaching pony. From his perspective, she was profoundly impressive: instead of a standard all-white Pegasus, she was a stately pale violet unicorn mare. The more reflective elements of her armor gleamed in the setting sun, and her cloak billowed in the late-evening breeze. “We were not anticipating your arrival. If you had called in advance, we could have prepared a welcoming committee.”

“Quite the opposite,” said Starlight. “I am surprised to be greeted by you, Subcouncilor.” She looked up at Lordraia. Lordraia smiled, but turned the injured parts of her face away from Starlight and grasped at the part of her robes that covered the support splint over her left arm. “And Subcouncilor, I see.”

“You are the highest emissary of our most beloved ally, the voice of the Princess herself,” said Artum. “And…on a more personal level, I hope it is not inappropriate, you are a hero to my people.”

“I would hardly call myself that.”

Artum shook his head. “You allowed my Equestrian brothers and sisters to own the means of our own production. Just meeting you is an honor.”

Zedok’s electronic eyes fell on Lordraia. “What happened?” she asked.

Lordraia paused, considering if she should answer. “There was an attack,” she said.

Starlight’s eyes widened. “Where? How?”

Artum looked around, as if to see if anyone was listening. “We’re not supposed to tell you this, but I think it is acceptable if you know.”

“I don’t want to know if it jeopardizes our diplomatic relationship.”

“As acting Thessian Councilor, I’m making the executive decision.”

“Acting…oh Celestia…”

Artum nodded. “Earlier today, we were attacked by a terrorist organization calling itself ‘Thebe’. Our Councilor, Sha’eta, was killed.”

“An assassination?”

“No,” said Lordraia, perhaps too firmly.

“What she means is,” continued Artum, “that although there was an initial blast, their real target appears to have been an artifact in transportation. The explosion was a distraction.”

“An artifact,” said Zedok, almost sighing. “Anytime anyone says ‘artifact’, you know what they mean.”

“What?”

“He means it was Reaper.”

“I cannot confirm or deny- -”

“It was,” said Lordraia. “It was an illegal fragment of what is believed to be Harvester neural architecture. It was brought in by a baterian vessel, but the paper trail leads back to the turians. They were attempting to transport it to Sur’Kesh.”

“And why would they do that?”

“Their goal was noble,” protested Lordraia. “They were attempting to help develop a cure for the Outbreak.”

“With a piece of Reaper?”

“You don’t sound convinced,” said Lordraia, looking directly at Zedok. Zedok’s eyes narrowed.

“No. Because I trust the salarians about one tenth of the distance I can throw them. They already killed themselves by letting out a prototype bioweapon. Now you’re giving them Reaper tech.”

“That is a conspiracy theory,” said Artum firmly. “There is NO evidence of that. It is currently accepted that the Outbreak was the result of an Alliance attack.”

“Yeah. On the smartest species of the galaxy. And for some reason NOT on Thessia and Palaven. Please. If you had any real proof of that, you’d be in the middle of losing a war right now.”

“And who, exactly, are you?”

“Vuhlig Zedok. Of Parnack.”

“Parnack?” said Lordraia, suddenly far more interested. “The planet of the yahg? But nobody can go there! It’s quarantined!”

“Not to mention, Subcouncilor,” noted the elder asari standing behind the Thessian Councilors. “That she has a krogan name.”

Lordraia blinked. “You’re half krogan? That is extremely rare!”

“Yes,” said Zedok crossing her arms. “And my daughter is half yahg.”

“You- -you have a daughter?”

Zedok leaned to the side, revealing Sbaya, who was hiding behind her. “Vuhlig Sbayadvlog.”

Sbaya lifted one hand. “H- -hi,” she said, timidly.

Lordraia looked at Sbaya, and her eyes immediately went to the girl’s chest. “You’re my age,” she said, suddenly smiling.

“How- -how can you tell? And why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh! I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that, well, you might very well be the first of your kind! There’s never been a half-yahg asari before. But that’s not a bad thing, of course. I myself am half turian!”

“Oh,” said Sbaya. She paused, and then looked to her mother. “What’s a turian?”

“It’s her first time off Parnack,” explained Zedok.

“No!” said Lordraia. “You’ve never been offworld?”

“I’ve never even left the region around my family farm. Except to go to the city once when I was younger.” She paused. “I didn’t like it, though.”

“Oh, well, I simply MUST give you a tour!” Lordraia reached out and took Sbaya by her arm. “I almost never get a chance to interact with asari my own age, especially ones with such exquisite mottling patterns! And are those- -scales?”

“No,” lied Sbaya, covering the back of her neck with her hand.

“Go with her,” said Zedok. You need the socialization.”

“No I don’t.”

“You seem to be about the same size as me…That’s it! I think I would have a dress that would fit you perfectly!”

“Dress? Why?”

“Well, darling, your current clothing is…bland. Drab. Dull. Not that that’s a bad thing. I suppose

“Very few asari are actually interested in the workings of panglactic government these days,” noted Artum. It’s so nice to see someone who respects the significance of what we are trying to do here.”

Sbaya whimpered as she was dragged away. Artum watched her go and, still watching, addressed Zedok and Starlight. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“She needs this. She was at the site of the explosion. She saw our Councilor die, as well as several turian security forces near her at the time. Her biotics protected her, but only barely. She has unparalleled dexterity, but not her mother’s strength.”

“Few have Falare’s strength,” noted the pale-blue asari standing behind Artum.

“You saw the same thing,” said Starlight. “You weren’t effected?”

“My kind have been bred by your kind for millennia to experience as little trauma as possible when we are culled. Death does not really affect me.” He started walking. “Come, please. This planet does not naturally have predators, but it does become chilly in the evening.”

Starlight fell in line with Artum, and Zedok with the asari guardian.

“I really wish I could be here under more auspicious circumstances,” said Starlight.

“Of course. I did not expect you were coming here strictly to visit. Although I would be very pleased if you would attend a Council meeting sometime in the future.”

Starlight shook her head. “Twilight has a strong stance against even showing the appearance of interfering with your government. Besides. If I did, then I would need to attend the equivalent in the Alliance. And I have heard that the Empress is slightly…harsh.”

“Then what brings you to the Hall?”

“A criminal has escaped imprisonment and fled to your galaxy. She is wanted for heresy.”

“Heresy? That’s an unusual crime.”

“It is the most severe crime. She has made an attempt on the life of Princess Twilight, and murdered a Priestess. One who was a very dear friend of mine.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” Artum slowed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “But…is there a possibility that this heinous criminal might have a relationship with the Thebe terrorist organization?”

“Not likely,” replied Starlight. “She will have almost no knowledge of the modern world and no contact with outside forces.” She paused.

“I see,” said Artum. “Well, in any event, this is a dire situation. From my knowledge, Equestria is an overwhelmingly peaceful place.”

“Yes,” lied Starlight. “It is.”

“But your criminals…I am aware of what happened to Earth.”

“Sunset Shimmer was a unique case. That said, the heretic Scootaloo is an experienced naval officer and Priestess. She has the potential to be extremely dangerous.”

“I understand. And we will spare no expense to help you.”

“No,” said Starlight. “I didn’t know that you were having your own difficulties- -”

“We have more than enough Spectres to investigate what little of a lead we currently have with the Thebe situation. I can spare you at least one. Both for our own protection from this foul Scootaloo, and as a gesture of cooperation with Princess Twilight.”

“I am sure she will be grateful. I will inform her of the Council’s loyalty and generosity.”

Artum smiled. “Well, we have to set ourselves apart from the Alliance somehow.”

The high-speed tram slowed in its track, and Starlight steadied herself as it came to a stop. Like the Citadel before it, Agrostation Six was the center of all galactic operations. The Hall was the center of the galactic government, but other functions were performed off-site. Spectre Operations was one of those locations.

Artum was the first to exit the tram, and Starlight followed him. Zedok and the asari guardian followed.

“So,” said Zedok, taking the step down onto the utilitarian concrete floor. “You’re a Justicar, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Samara, simply.

“I didn’t think there were any of you left.”

“There are some. But few. Many were lost in the Reaper War, and many after. But there will always be more.”

“Assuming anyone wants to memorize five thousand lines of code, sure.”

Samara’s large eyes slowly turned toward Zedok. “At your age, I am going to assume you are very foolish. More so than you are brave.”

“You don’t like me making fun of your ‘Code’?”

“No. I neither like it nor dislike it. It is simply that precious few are willing to insult a Justicar to her face.”

“Don’t get in a fight, Zedok,” said Starlight from ahead. “Your face just barely fixed itself. I would hate to see it ruined again.”

“Her face would hardly be her concern,” said Artum. “Samara is a legend, even among Justicars.”

“Samara?” said Zedok, recognizing the name. “As in THE Samara?”

“It is not an uncommon name,” said Samara.

“As in the one who couldn’t manage to beat Jack Naught in a fight?”

Samara paused, for the first time showing an emotion apart from stoic boredom, if only for a moment. “You know of Jack?”

“She was a close friend of mine. A mentor, even.”

“Then that does indeed explain your blatant disrespect for the Code. And, knowing that, I would strongly recommend that you do not attempt to fight me.”

“Because I might be a challenge?”

“No. Because you’re liable to detonate yourself before I can even draw my blade. That, and I would prefer not to engage the student of a woman I considered a friend.”

“You knew Jack?” said Starlight, looking over her shoulder.

“Yes,” said Samara. “We joined the human Commander Shepard in battle against the Reapers. If I recall, she and him were lovers for a time. They were…loud.”

“You were jealous,” joked Zedok.

Samara stopped. “Yes. Admittedly. In some sense. But I have had three daughters by three lovers. All are dead now. One slain by my own hand, one taken by the Reapers, and one who gave her life to repent for my sins. All ardat’yakshi. As a Justicar, I regret nothing. But as a mother…” She trailed off. “I am sure you can understand my hesitation to produce another.”

“Well, crap,” said Zedok. “You are a HUGE downer. Jack was right.”

Samara smiled and continued walking. “I wish she were still alive. I would not go easy on her, this time.”

They were led slightly further to a large door.

“No guards?” said Starlight, looking to Artum.

“A facility filled with Spectres? You must be joking.”

He lifted his hoof and projected his omnitool. The door recognized his presence, and the hologram in the center changed color as it began to open.

The facility inside was far busier than the largely empty hallways outside. Starlight was struck by the sheer number of aliens as well as their variety. As she and her group entered, a pair of heavily armored drell and a turian with substantial facial scars stepped out. On her left, an elcor and a baterian were engaging heated words over a large projected map. Beyond them, the largest and most heavily armored krogan that Starlight had ever seen emerged from the armory holding a gun almost as large as he was, only to be chastised by a hanar for not having taken a proper sword.

“Is that a hanar Spectre?” asked Zedok.

“Yes,” said Artum, proudly. “At present, all Council races are fielding Spectres, apart from the salarians and the geth. The geth, of course, have their own parallel Infiltration agency.”

“I thought geth don’t infiltrate,” said Starlight.

“They don’t. At least not intentionally.” Artum reached out and grabbed the shoulder of a passing volus.

“Acting Councilor,” he said.

“Have you seen Jurenu?”

“SHHK- -that way,” he said, pointing. “In the back.”

Artum nodded and led the group to where the volus had pointed. Starlight noticed that several of the Spectres had stopped their activities to watch them pass. Many of them were focused on Samara, but a smaller number seemed highly intrigued by Zedok.

The region the volus had pointed to was far less populated. From what Starlight could infer, it was intended as a large system of computer interfaces.

“Spectre Jurenu,” called Artum. “Are you here?”

“Yes,” said a voice from behind the stacks. Then the Spectre emerged, and Starlight felt her eyes widen. She had not known precisely what she was expecting, but the male voice had already confused her slightly- -but what she saw she was not prepared for. He was a unicorn- -a pure white unicorn, with an all-white mane and gleaming red eyes.

“Holy Luna,” she swore. She turned sharply toward Artum. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”

Artum smiled mischievously. “We did.”

“You realize that this is on par with heresy,” said Starlight, firmly. “That this violates- -”

“A number of Equestrian laws, yes.” He turned and looked Starlight in the eye. “But we’re NOT equestrian. The laws that bind our sister corporation do not bind us. The asari have no qualms about allowing us to bring unicorns into our eugenics program.”

“But- -”

“My genetic material is not even derived from an Equestrian pony, if that provides you with any confidence,” said Jurenu, stepping down toward Starlight. He was taller than most breeders, and handsome in the identical mass-produced way that all breeder stallions were. Starlight could not help but think that he looked just slightly familiar, though. “The genetic material provided originated in the Crystal Empire. And I assure you, our ancestor was more than willing to provide it.”

“Gross,” said Zedok.

“Indeed,” agreed Samara.

“Jurenu is the epitome of his production line,” said Artum, ignoring the asari. “We are already more intelligent than outbred ponies, but he exceeds us by far. In addition, he is an experienced adept specializing in espionage and data extraction.”

“He’s an analyst,” said Starlight, dismissively.

“Excuse me?”

“I can see his screen from here,” she said, pointing. “He locked the main windows, but I can see the programs running.” Starlight looked up at Jurenu. “Do you even have field experience?”

“Of course. I have run over sixty high-stakes missions with a ninety-seven percent mission success rate. Although, yes, computer work is something of a specialty of mine.” He turned his red eyes toward Artum. “And with regard to that, yes, Ms. Glimmer is correct. I have completed an analysis of what little tissue Justicar Samara was able to recover.”

“And?” said Artum.

Jurneu did not even bother to doubt if he should reveal information concerning the investigation with Starlight and Zedok present. He obeyed the orders he was given. “Genetic tests indicate that it was primarily quarian. However, there was evidence of heavy modification.”

“Modification? What kind of modification?”

“Firstly, there was a system imbedded in the subject’s marrow. The structure is modern, but bears a strong resemblance to a type of technology originally developed by Cerberus for reasons that have since been lost to history.”

“Its purpose?”

“Unknown…but I can hypothesize that it was part of the system that allowed the subject to exhibit biotic properties. The marrow samples showed extremely high concentrations of element zero, as well as non-quarian genetic sequences. Based on my analysis of the structure, the DNA was likely created synthetically. It contains gene fragments of something, but it is too damaged and…incomplete to be recovered.”

“Excellent work,” said Artum, almost bragging. “As I told you, High Priestess. He performs excellent work.”

“He performed the job a quant would normally do. I’ll need to see his field performance before I can make any further judgements.”

“Of course. And you will.” Artum turned toward Jurneu. “Spectre, you have done excellent work, but I am removing you from the Thebe case. I would like you to assist Starlight Glimmer in tracking down an Equestrian criminal hiding within our galaxy.”

“Of course,” said Jurneu without hesitation. He smiled at Starlight. “I would be happy to assist you in this important task.”

“You seem a bit eager.”

“I think he think’s your hot,” whispered Zedok, loudly.

“That would be crude,” said Jurneu, “but, admittedly, Ms. Glimmer is quite attractive. For an outbred. And I do not mean that in a nonprofessional sense; I myself am only attracted to my sisters.”

“That’s even more disconcerning, though.”

“He means breeder mares,” clarified Artum.

“Well, it’s still weird.”

“As for my enthusiasm, it is not only in the hopes of ridding our beautiful galaxy of a criminal scourge, but to prove to you the effectiveness of the Thessian eugenics program.”

“So I can report it back to Equestria?”

“If you deem my performance adequate, yes.”

“You will also be given any resources we can spare,” said Artum. “And Jurneu comes equipped with all the resources that befit his position. Trust me, High Priestess. He is one of our best.”

“Any resources are appreciated,” said Starlight. She looked up at the breeder unicorn. He seemed to blink less than a normal pony, and he had the same smile that all his people seemed to have most of the time. Starlight herself had nothing against breeders as a people, at least not in the sense of the anti-breeder racism that many ponies still harbored. She did not see them as less than ponies, but rather as somewhat unnerving. They had originally been produced as slaves, but under Twilight’s rule had morphed into a quasi-religious order of near fanatics obsessed with advancement through controlled breeding. Seeing a pure-white unicorn staring back at her- -a being that, three hundred years ago, would have been a ruler by his coat color alone- -made their ideological zealotry suddenly seem all-too-real.

Jurneu stepped down from the computer racks and deactivated his computer terminal with a small surge of violet magic. “I need to visit the armory first,” he said, falling into step with Starlight and Zedok. “It will only take me…” He trailed off, looking up at the group of busy Spectres moving throughout the room. His expression changed to one of equal parts amusement and hesitation. “Well…that’s unusual.”

Starlight looked up, and she saw something approaching them through the crowd. Exactly what it was, though, was something that Starlight could not ascertain just by looking at it. She felt herself stop, and she could not help but wonder if she should be afraid or not.

It was approximately the size of a normal person, if not slightly larger. Likewise, it was bipedial, as were most species in the Milk Path galaxy. Its body, though, was not organic. Not even slightly. It appeared to be mechanical, although it was difficult to tell through its thick armor. Starlight initially suspected that it was a synth, but she knew from experience that all synths invariably looked humanoid. This thing looked something more like a turian.

Most of the Spectres moved out of the way. Almost all of them either looked at it with complete unabashed surprise, although a few of the more experienced among them looked upon it with the same combination of emotions that Jurneu had: as though this were indeed something worth watching, but also something that needed to be watched only from a great distance.

“Hey!” said the large krogan Spectre as the approaching being bumped into it. “Watch where you’re- -”

Before he could finish his sentence, he was thrown across the room. The mechanical creature seemed to expend almost no effort, and several Spectres stepped out of the way as the krogan slid past them.

“Vuhlig Zedok,” it said, calling across the room and pointing. “YOU!”

“Zedok, what the HELL did you do?” whispered Starlight.

“I have no idea,” said Zedok.

The creature suddenly moved forward much faster- -unnaturally fast, even. If Starlight had any doubt that it was a machine, she had none when she saw it moved. Within seconds, it was towering over her, staring down through a darkened visor and several asymmetrical precision optics. Starlight saw Samara reach for her sword.

“Don’t even think about it, Justicar,” said the creature. “I don’t have a particular desire to fillet an old woman.”

“So boastful. Would you like to test me, child?”

“Bah. No point. Your body is weak and organic. So very slow and pointless.”

“Spectre, what is the meaning of this?” snapped Artum.

The machine pointed at Zedok’s forehead. “HER,” it said. Then, slowly, it looked down at Starlight, its optics refocusing. “And her…Whatever they are doing, I want in.”

“But you are already assigned- -”

“Then I’m changing my assignment.”

“You can’t- -”

“It is sometimes wise to avoid pointless battles,” said Samara, as though she were simply offering an abstract adage with no relation to the current situation.

“Fine,” said Artum, reluctantly. “But you need to submit the proper forms to the turian Councilors- -”

“Yeah, fine, I’ll get to it.”

“Wait a minute,” said Zedok, annoyed. She looked up at the machine. “Who the hell are you to butt in on our mission?! Do I even know you?”

“What, Zedok, you don’t recognize this sexy face?” said the machine, pointing. “Because I’m pretty sure you wanted to do me back when this was all organic. With ‘all’ being used very, very loosely.”

“I think I would recognize a face like that. Plus, I don’t go for synths.”

“No. You have a yahg fetish.” The machine lifted its hand and snapped its fingers. Its surface seemed to shift as a high-grade body-hologram formed around it. It was in flux for a moment, but then Starlight watched the image of body armor form. Within seconds, the machine’s internal metal skeleton had assumed the form of a young turian- -a turian with a familiar face.

Starlight’s eyes widened. “Buck me in the plot and call me Fluttershy…B…Berry?”

Jurneu covered his mouth as he almost snorted trying to suppress a laugh. “ ‘Berry’? The great Spectre Tyros’s first name is ‘Berry’?”

Beri’s eyes narrowed- -or at least, the holographic version of them did. She pointed at the white unicorn. “Don’t toy with me, Thessian. And put some damn clothes on, you disgust me!” She paused, and then turned back to Starlight. “And who the hell is Fluttershy? And what in Saren’s name is a plot?”

Starlight was barely paying attention. “But- -but- -” she turned to Zedok quickly. “How- -how long to turians live?”

“I don’t know,” said Zedok, shrugging.

“Usually around eighty years,” said Samara. “Although few that I have met have ever made it that far.”

“But then how are you even here? Why aren’t you dead?”

“She is,” said Artum, darkly. “She has been. For a long time.”

“Sort of, yeah,” said Beri. She tapped her head. “Sixty four percent. That’s how much of my brain is left. Everything else? Sexy, sexy machine.”

“You’re a cyborg?”

“Not just any cyborg,” said Jurneu. “The most advanced cyborg ever created. Spectre Tyros is something of a legend. The oldest living Spectre. The things she has seen in her life would fill a multi-volume biography. I would know. I edited it.”

“And I think I have one more chapter left in me,” said Beri. She looked to Starlight. “I don’t wake up for just anything. But whatever it is that got you out of your royal-consort job on Equestria? I want in on it. Because if it’s anything like last time, it is going to be…impressive.”

“What happened last time?” asked Jurneu.

“We kind of blew up Earth,” said Zedok.

“Oh…wait, WHAT?”

“Sure,” groaned Starlight. “You can probably do…something. And I’m not a consort, I’m a Priestess. There is a difference.”

“What, Priestesses just cuddle the Princess?”

“I’d like to cuddle a Princess,” admitted Jurneu. He paused. “Actually, that’s probably a genetic artifact. Weird…”

“Eh,” said Beri. “Jurneu, come with me.” She turned around and started walking toward the armory. “If you’re going to live long enough to cuddle a Princess, you’re going to need some guns. The real good stuff. It’s on me. It’s not like anyone’s going to inherit this ungodly pile of credits. I had better use it somewhere.”

Jurneu smiled and followed her, seemingly glad to be working with another Spectre. Starlight put her hoof to her head. She was beginning to develop a migraine.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Zedok. “She wasn’t exactly, you know, useful the last time we worked together. And I don’t think having half of her brain replaced with circuits and VI systems is going to be doing her any favors.”

“We need all the help we can get,” said Starlight. “Scootaloo needs to die. And she is not going to be easy to take down. Not easy at all.”

Chapter 7: Omega

The ship tremored, and Scootaloo felt her hooves grip tightly on the edges of her chair. It was not something she wanted to do, exactly, but rather an involuntary reaction to the mass-jump. The ship itself had an excellent ride- -at least when Inte could remember to maintain the inertial modulation field- -but something about the mass-jump process just made her feel uncomfortable down to her core. Somehow, it felt unnatural.

“Arrival confirmed,” said Inte.

Scootaloo let out a breath and loosened her grip. Then she looked around her. The cockpit of Inte’s ship made her feel as though she were floating freely in space, save for the chair, its platform, and the door behind it. All around her, she saw an immense asteroid field. Enormous rocks and hundreds of starships were swarming around her, and she ran her hoof across the holographically projected controls, telling Inte how to move the ship into the proper course.

As the ship slowly turned, Scootaloo finally saw it: floating in the center of the field, a single large asteroid, its rocky body covered in artificial structures that released and ominous red glow. The center itself resembled something like a jellyfish, but it had been linked to so much more. Where there had long ago been one asteroid, there were now tens of astroids, all showing signs of habitation or mining, all linked to the central tower- -which was itself linked by a long tether to a stormy, polluted planet far below.

“Omega,” said Inte, as if reading its name of a title card. “A civilization constructed in the remnants of a depleted asteroid. Initially a free-floating station until it was merged into orbit around a now-inhabited planetoid asteroid. The current government is despotic-anarchistic, ruled by Queen Aria T’Loak. It is an internal world-state with a seat on the New Council.” She smiled, proud of herself, then looked confused. “Why are we here, though?”

“Because it’s a good place to get help. Or to hide.”

“No. No it isn’t. Considering the majority of the population is criminal. And considering that this would be the first place anyone would look.”

Scootaloo frowned, and then piloted the ship forward toward one of the docking bays. “What do you know?”

“More than you, clearly,” said Inte.

From Scootaloo’s perspective, the last time she had been to Omega had been just over eleven years ago. She had a young, green naval captain attempting to search out the pony that she would eventually come to know as Starlight Glimmer. In reality, though, almost three hundred years had passed since that time, and now Scootaloo found herself pursued instead of the pursuer, and for the first time really understood what her friend must have felt like back then.

Omega, however, had hardly changed. On the outside, yes, it had gotten larger and more expansive- -but on the inside, it seemed that nobody had upgraded or changed or, in several cases, even cleaned during the duration. There was still the characteristic unpleasant scent of garbage and decay mixed with the baked-in scent of alien cooking and the even more pervasive scent of aliens, and the hallways were still stained and poorly lit.

What Scootaloo quickly realized, though, was that although Omega had not changed much, its occupants had. All of the old races- -the krogan, baterians, vorcha, asari, turians- -they were all still there in some amount. Beside them, though, sat an unusually large concentration of ponies. Yet, somehow, despite being tiny horses, every pony Scootaloo saw seemed to mesh perfectly with the Omega society: many of them were gruff and scarred, some not looking as though they had bathed in decades. They wore dirty armor and carried any kind of gun that they had been able to modify to suit their unique needs. Likewise, there were some pony shopkeepers, a few pale and nervous looking pony runners, dealers, and addicts, and Scootaloo even spotted a pair of all-white Pegasi mares standing with a pale-yellow unicorn, all dressed in saddles and stockings outside of one of the many clubs.

The only other thing of note, in Scootaloo’s mind, was the strange appearance of the humans in Omega. In her time, they had been highly varied, with numerous skin tones and hair colors. Now, though, every single human Scootaloo saw was immensely tall with the same blond hair and blue eyes. Several of them appeared to watch Scootaloo as she passed, their surprisingly dead-looking eyes tracing her through the crowd.

“Well, this is definitely an interesting place,” said Inte. Despite Scootaloo’s fond hopes, the hologram had a mobile setting. Through her somewhat translucent body, Scootaloo could see a hovering, eye-like metal sphere that served as a mobile projector.

“You know, you could wait on the ship,” muttered Scootaloo.

“I am waiting on the ship,” said Inte.

“Well, you’re attracting attention to us!” hissed Scootaloo.

“No more attention than a mare 2.78 centuries out of date would attract to herself, I’m sure.”

“Just go back to the ship!”

“No.”

“What? But you have to do anything I say- -”

“I never said that. I only stated that I do not have free will. There is a difference between independent volition and agency.”

“You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“Yes, actually. Really, I do not feel comfortable leaving you alone out here.” A salarian in a full-body environmental suit lumbered by, growling at Scootaloo. “This place appears dangerous to organics. Also, I have seen over one hundred thirty eight…nine…Equestrian health-code violations since we have arrived.”

Scootaloo suddenly shushed her. They were approaching the Afterlife Club. Scootaloo could hear the noise as much as she could feel it: a dull, thudding version of what once had been a very popular pop genera on Equestria Prime.

“Are you aware that seven of the nearest mercenaries just armed themselves?” said Inte cheerfully. “It would appear that you are not welcome here.”

“Shut. IT.”

Scootaloo made her way into the club. It was as crowded as ever inside, and she saw several asari and several ponies dancing on the tables. Many of the patrons seemed to be focusing their attention either on the dancers or on the bar. Scootaloo and Inte, meanwhile, skirted their way through the back of the club toward the private section in the rear.

As they approached, though, two unusually large krogan bouncers stepped in their way, each reaching casually toward their swords.

Scootaloo, undeterred, approached them. “I need to see Aria,” she said.

“No,” said the largest of the krogan. “You don’t.”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“Glorg, I think she’s trying to use some sort of mind trick on us,” warned the other.

“Well, then,” said the larger, staring to draw his sword. “You should probably call the carpet cleaning salarian. He’s about to have a job to do.”

“O’Doul sent us,” piped up Inte.

The krogan looked at each other. “Did he now?”

“Oh yes. He most certainly did.”

They paused, and then they stepped aside. Scootaloo looked at Inte, and the hologram-pony trotted jauntily into the room.

“How did you do that?” whispered Scootaloo, running up to Inte’s side. “Who the hay is ‘O’Doul’?”

“It is the passcode. I heard the last person to enter use it about sixteen minutes before we arrived.”

“You- -how?!”

“I am currently tracking every conversation within the range of my long-range scanners to accumulate an understanding of the information present. At least, all conversations in languages I can understand.”

“You can do that?”

“Apparently.”

Scootaloo did not know how to feel about that, or the fact that Inte was able to lie so easily, even if it was just a password. The idea of a machine that could hide the truth was somewhat unnerving.

As they entered the rear section of the Afterlife Club, a well-dressed asari stopped them.

“Stop,” she said, looking up from a holographic datapad. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Scootaloo. I’m here to see Aria.”

The asari looked at her dtatpad. “Um, no. No you aren’t. You don’t have an appointment. Get out.”

“I need to see Aria,” repeated Scootaloo, now more firmly.

“Get out before I throw you out.” The asari’s free hand began to glow with blue energy, and although Inte took a step back Scootaloo held her ground.

A voice spoke from behind the asari. “Let them through, Jennifer,” it sighed.

Jennifer’s eyes widened slightly, and as she regained her composure she immediately stepped aside. “Yes, of course Lady Aria.”

Scootaloo paused, but then stepped forward into the space beyond. It was a relatively flat, somewhat quiet area. There were no guards, only a single asari sitting comfortably on a couch.

“What’s the matter?” she said, leaning forward. “If I recall, the last time you barged in unannounced you didn’t bother asking.”

“I’m surprised you still remember that. Or me,” said Scootaloo.

Aria’s eyes narrowed, but only slightly. “Of course I remember. You and Fenok’s wife marching into my territory, making demands and threatening me. I probably should have killed you then.”

“Fenok’s wife…you mean Lyra?”

“Yes. Her, I actually liked. The wedding was incredibly sappy, but she was a good person.”

“So,” said Scootaloo, feeling her heart fall once again. “She’s dead now, too.”

“Of course she’s dead,” said Aria, leaning back. “That’s the only reason I didn’t have Jennifer splatter you. That, and the cleaning cost. Getting pony out of my carpet is incredibly difficult. Trust me, I know.”

“Chilled saline followed by hydrogen peroxide is the recommended method for pony-blood removal,” suggested Inte cheerfully. Jennifer wrote it down, but otherwise everyone ignored her.

“It seems to me,” said Aria, “that you are way past your expiration date. I’m actually curious, for once. How are you still here?”

“I’m just that awesome.”

“Clearly not.” Aria snapped her fingers, and Jenny reached out with her left hand, projecting her omnitool. A holographic image appeared, and Scootaloo instantly recognized her own image floating in the center, surrounded by Equestrian writing that had been partially translated into alien.

“You’re a wanted mare,” said Aria, calmly. She looked Scootaloo in the eye. “Did you assume I wouldn’t know?”

“No. I assumed that if I’m a criminal, I should probably come to Omega.”

“Well, you assumed wrong. This is probably the WORST possible place for you.” She pointed toward the door. “Those people, out there? Criminals, pirates, bounty hunters. All of them are going to be gunning for you and their own weight in Equestrian gold bits. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to try to stop them. It’s not my job.”

Scootaloo looked over her shoulder, and saw a pair of ponies watching her from a distance suddenly decide that they had somewhere better to be. She immediately began to wonder if Inte had been correct and if Illium would not have been a better choice.

“Inte,” said Scootaloo, slowly. “How many conversations are you hearing with me as a subject right now?”

“At least seven. Possibly more, although they are in a language that I cannot translate.”

“If the quant can’t read it, it’s probably Terran Proper,” suggested Aria. “The synths here tend to speak it. And if the synths are talking about you? Well, you’re more fucked than Fenok’s wife.”

“That’s why I came here. To you.”

“And what, exactly, do you expect me to do? I don’t interfere with their enterprises, as long as I get a cut.”

“I need to get somewhere where they can’t find me. Then I need to work this out. This has to be a mistake. I need to contact Princess Twilight, or Starlight Glimmer.”

Aria considered for a moment. “I’m not going to intervene on your behalf. Too much is going too good for me to jeopardize my situation with Equestria, not when you’ve never really done me anything to help me.”

“Fine, then,” said Scootaloo. She turned around. “Come on, Inte. We’re leaving.”

“Did I dismiss you?” said Aria harshly. Scootaloo slowly turned around. “If I wasn’t in such a good mood right now? I would have blown a hole in you for turning your ass-end to me like that. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help.”

“Then what, exactly, are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I know someone who can help. Someone here on Omega that specializes in that sort of thing.”

“Who?”

Aria shook her head. “You have to do something for me first.”

“What?”

“Jennifer,” said Aria, looking up at her assistant and smiling. “Get her the ‘uniform’.”

About two hours later, Scootaloo stomped back into Aria’s lounge, furious and out of breath. She was still wearing her ‘uniform’: a set of sheer, thigh-height stockings, a frilly pair of miniscule panties, and an even frillier saddle.

Aria, upon seeing her, started laughing. “So, ‘Priestess’, how are feeling?”

“Absolutely humiliated,” spat Scootaloo.

“Aw, why?” said Inte, trotting in behind her. “You’re such a good dancer!”

“Frankly,” said Aria. “I find you adorable. You’re like a regular pony, except smaller. Even your wings are in miniature.” She looked out at the still-cheering crowd outside. “My patrons seem to agree. My old offer still stands. You could make me a lot of money, especially if I let them ride you.”

“I’m a Priestess of the Cult of Harmony! I- -I shouldn’t be pole-dancing on tables!”

Aria leaned forward, glaring at Scootaloo. “And yet you just did. Because I MADE you. Now tell me, Scootaloo. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” said Scootaloo. “Dirty. Violated.” She sighed. “Which I suppose was your plan. To humiliate me. For your own sick amusement.”

“Oh no,” said Aria. “Not at all. I just wanted to see if you could do it. That job you just did? Dancing on a table? That was once my job. And Jennifer’s job.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. It must have been close to five centuries ago by now. But I did the same thing you just did. Except often with less clothing.”

“Then why make me do it?”

“Let’s call it a ‘learning experience’. Because where you’re standing right now? You’re in deep shit. If you want to get out of it, you’re going to do a lot of things far worse than what you just did. I wanted to see if you had any resolve.” She shrugged as she leaned back. “And I like you. Not very much, but enough. And you look adorable in those socks. If you were a colt? I’d have you in bed by now.”

“Well if it’s resolve you want, fine. How about you put on the saddle and we do duet?”

Aria laughed. “Maybe another time. If you survive this next part.” She became more serious. “The person you need to see is named Delilah. She works down on the surface.”

“You mean the planet?”

Aria nodded. “A lot of stuff goes on down there. A lot of stuff I don’t ask about, as long as I keep getting paid. Delilah is one of those things. Corporate espionage, sabotage, trafficking…making people disappear? She does it all.”

“And you think she can help me?”

“I think she’s the only one crazy enough to try to help you, yes.” She pointed at Scootaloo. “You can keep the uniform. She tends to like fillies. And it will make paying her easier.” Aria looked up at Jennifer. “Transfer Delilah’s contact information to her quant.”

“Thank you for your help,” said Scootaloo, somewhat sarcastically as Aria waved her away. As Scootaloo turned, though, Aria spoke one last time.

“I’d be very, very careful if I were you, Scoots,” she said. “Delilah is not a normal person. A lot of people who go down there? They don’t come back up.”

“Well, if I’m lucky, I won’t be coming back up either.”

“We’ll see. I’ll be interested to see if you can even make it. Because as soon as you step outside Afterlife, well…you’ll see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Scootaloo left with Inte close in tow. She had been trying to sound self-assured with Aria, but as she returned back onto the main floor of the Afterlife Club, she could not help but feel herself becoming increasingly fearful. She had been in stressful situations before, but she was trained for space battles and combat, not for something like this. It took all she had to keep herself from panicking. That, she knew, would be the end of her.

She was partly knocked out of this state of mind as a drunk batarian slapped her flank. The sudden pain made her cry out, and she promptly kicked him in the shin. He howled in pain and attempted to kick Inte. Being a hologram, though, his foot passed through the upper part of her body and he slipped into a krogan who seemed to take immense offense to being touched.

Scootaloo, her rump still smarting, went directly to the restroom to change. Or, more precisely, to take off the ridiculous clothes she had been forced to wear. As she did, she stopped to look into one of the pony-height mirrors that had been installed in the room. She did not look terrible, just strange. She decided that it was not all that much more embarrassing than the somewhat ridiculous Priestess robes that she had needed to wear in her former position. The contrast between her institution-style nearly shaved rainbow mane and the stripper clothes was somewhat jarring, though.

She decided that as unfortunate as her haircut was, it might actually be useful. The photograph used in Jennifer’s hologram had been somewhat old, showing Scootaloo in a naval dress uniform with her characteristic short-cut violet hair. In her current state, it was possible that some of the bounty hunters might not recognize her.

When she left the restroom, she encountered Inte, who was waiting for her, cheerfully swaying to the club’s music.

“Inte,” said Scootaloo, wanting to test her hypothesis. “How many conversations are you detecting about me now?”

“Two hundred and sixty seven,” said Inte with her characteristic cheerfulness. “You are very popular! If I were as pretty as you, I would consider taking up a job as an exotic dancer as Ms. Aria offered! The fact that you somewhat resemble a young filly seems to be quite a draw!”

Scootaloo shivered, and not only because she had been wrong about people not recognizing her. She started walking toward the exit, and Inte followed, humming along to the tune of the song that was playing. When they finally reached the edge of the club, Scootaloo took a deep breath, and then stepped outside, quickly ducking into the crowd of aliens.

“Inte,” she said, immediately noticing that a pair of heavily armed Pegasi who had been ostensibly smoking outside Afterlife suddenly started moving toward her. “Do you have any weapons?”

“I’m sorry, but the Inte-Mobile platform does not normally come equipped with defensive capabilities. That would require the Inte-Hardbody Mark II equidroid or higher. Although I do have hardlight manipulation abilities, if that helps.”

“Buck,” swore Scootaloo. She noticed a pair of krogan and a small group of baterians pushing through. “Then we have to do this the hard way. We need to get back to the ship.”

“I would recommend against that,” said Inte. “The distance to the hanger bay is three hundred and twenty two percent longer than the distance to this facility’s decent elevator. Considering I am listed as being stolen by you, they will most likely expect you to go that way.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me this BEFORE?”

“I tried to. But you are a bad listener.”

“Scootaloo?” said a voice. Scootaloo turned around suddenly, half-expecting to see somepony she knew. Instead, she found herself facing a slightly diseased looking dull-red Pegasus in well-worn polymer armor.

He took her reaction as adequate confirmation of her identity and lifted his wings, revealing the weapons that were mounted beneath them. Pure instinct took over, and Scootaloo grabbed Inte by her central sphere and threw her between herself and the mercenary. Inte squealed, and several shots rang out. Scootaloo barely managed to pull her hooves out of Inte’s body before she hardened, stopping the bullets.

“My warranty!” cried Inte. “My warranty is being voided! I am not recommended for ballistic defense, my hardlight projection emitters are only indended for- -”

She was innerupted as Scootaloo kicked her into the pony, knocking him off balance just long enough for her to flank him. He tried to balance himself, but with his style of under-wing guns, he had no way to turn fast enough. Scootaloo leapt up and took one of his wings in her mouth. It tasted disgusting, but she held on. Remembering her hoof-to-hoof training from the Academy, she pulled and twisted. Despite the armor over the front of the wing, it almost immediately dislocated. The combination of the taste, the popping sound, the screaming, and the way the wing twitched as it fell limp made Scootaloo want to vomit.

With one wing damaged, the mercenary immediately lost balance and collapsed onto his side. The others around them took advantage of his state and began to rush forward, slowed only by the torrent of civilians fleeing the sound of automatic weaponsfire. Scootaloo quickly grabbed Inte, who was continuing to spout her warranty information, and ran.

“MOVE!” ordered Scootaloo.

“But you could have damaged my projectors! You’re lucky I can still retain my full color spectrum- -oh, look, a quarian!”

Scootaloo barely managed to dodge a tech blade that came swinging toward her from the aforementioned masked figure. The quarian swung again, but Scootaloo ducked into a narrow alley that was too large for the biped to move through comfortably. The quarian instead raised her omnitool and fired a bolt at Inte.

“Hacking in progress,” said Inte. “Compensating!”

There was a small explosion, and the quarian was knocked back, screaming and clutching the bloody remnants of her arm where her omnitool had once been.

“Oh wow!” said Inte, her eyes literally sparkling. “Their blood is so PRETTY!”

“I said MOVE!”

“Oh.” Inte picked up her legs and, being massless apart from her hovering spherical core, floated past Scootaloo. “You know,” she said, not even out of breath. “You could just fly to the next level.”

“I can’t- -fly,” said Scootaloo. Unlike her holographic companion, Scootaloo still had to breathe- -and having substantial freezer burn in her lungs did not make that particular action especially easy.

“You can’t fly? But you’re a Pegasus!”

“Do you think- -I would- -lie?!” Scootaloo’s tiny wings involuntarily buzzed, as if to punctuate that point.

“Ah, yes,” said Inte. “Your file does indicate that you are disabled. Turn right.”

Scootaloo turned almost instantly into a dark, lightless hallway- -and tumbled down an unseen staircase.

“See?” said Inte, floating down the stairs, her body illuminating the area as she returned to the now wider floor. “If you had larger wings, you probably would have dislocated one of them doing that.”

“Yeah,” groaned Scootaloo, standing up. She was covered in trash and bruised, but she continued to move quickly into the Inte-lit darkness.

She had apparently dropped into a lower access tunnel, and the area did not seem to have been especially well developed. The lights appeared to have been made at least four centuries before, and broken sometime within fifty years of that. The entire place smelled strange, and the walls were littered with what could only be described as mechanical trash: parts of rusted-out generators, engines, damaged ship components, and other detritus from the Omegan society.

Several figures moved in the dark, stepping away from the equipment that they had been analyzing. Scootaloo could not see them well, but from their method of motion and spiny, rough-skinned bodies, she could tell what they were: vorcha.

“Sorry,” said Scootaloo, slowing as several of the vorcha moved toward her. “I just want to pass through, I don’t want any trouble and I won’t touch anything!”

The vorcha paused, and then seemed to accept this. One of them spoke to her in whatever language it was they spoke naturally.

“He says you are lucky the last pony who came down here was so filling,” said Inte.

“Good to know,” said Scootaloo, sarcastically. She understood that vorcha were sentient beings, but as grotesque as they were, in many ways she wished they were not.

Almost as soon as she started to walk quickly past the vorcha, a group of baterians and salarians burst in from a secondary entrance. Scootaloo rushed forward down the long hallway toward where she assumed there was an exit.

“Over there!” yelled a salarian. “There she is!” He ran after Scootaloo, but almost immediately bumped into a vorcha. “Out of my way, filth!” he said, pushing the mostly naked creature back. “Don’t make me have to- -”

The vorcha reacted almost instantly, charging one of his fists with an orange-tinged biotic light. With a hissing scream, he slammed it into the salarian’s chest, crushing through armor and bone and sending the bounty hunter flying backward.

The bounty hunters opened fire. Many of the vorcha were immediately filled with bullets, but they hardly seemed to notice. In response, they returned fire with a combination of improvised weapons and devastating biotic attacks. More mercenaries arrived, but they were wholly unprepared to engage a room filled with extremely angry biotic vorcha.

Where the room had earlier been dark, it was suddenly aglow with the blasts of orange light and the rapid blasts of white-blue from the weaponsfire. The sound was almost deafening, but Scootaloo did not look back. She took advantage of her pursuer’s distraction and raced toward the exit.

Then, suddenly, something very hot seemed to hit one of her rear legs. She cried out and momentarily collapsed. She looked back, and in Inte’s light she could see a deep gash on one of her rear legs.

“Scootaloo, I do believe you’ve been shot,” noted Inte.

“No shit,” said Scootaloo. She stood up, wincing at the pain in her rear leg. “It’s a graze, I can keep moving.”

“Well, you would kind of need to keep moving. Unless you want to be shot with far greater precision.”

Scootaloo growled something unintelligible at Inte, but continued to limp forward. She was still moving at a good pace, largely ignoring the pain and increasing blood loss, but she could not move nearly as fast as she had been able to before. This situation was worsening, and it was worsening quickly.

They barely made it twenty meters, though, before their path was impeded by a large, rusted door.

“No, not now!” said Scootaloo, trying to wrench open the enormous circular piece of steel with her hooves. She turned to Inte. “Inte, can you hack it?”

“There is not interface on this side,” said Inte. “Without and access point- -”

She was interrupted by heavy footsteps that emerged from the darkness behind them. Scootaloo looked behind her to see that an enormous, heavily armored krogan had managed to fight his way through the vorcha. His armor was covered in their blood-like fluids, and he looked angry- -and, at the same time, sadistically happy.

“Well,” he said, drawing a large hammer and activating the mass centrifuge in its head. “At least this last part is going to be easy, right?”

He took a step forward, and Scootaloo braced to defend herself, even though she without any weapons she stood not chance against a krogan in hand-to-hoof combat. The krogan seemed to understand this too, and with mild disappointment took a step forward- -and then jerked forward suddenly.

An expression of surprise crossed his face, and both he and Scootaloo looked down to his chest. Scootaloo felt sick as she realized that he had been impaled from behind, and nearly cried out when she saw the object now protruding from his chest open into a blood-soaked, five-fingered hand.

The tall humanoid woman behind the krogan pulled her arm back out with a single quick motion. The krogan, though badly wounded, now seemed more angry than anything else. He turned around, raising his hammer, and the blonde woman struck him in the head. Her expression hardly changed, as if she was swatting a fly- -and the krogan’s head was crushed in. He spasmed and fell to the floor. The blonde-haired, blue-eye woman and a pair of almost identical men looked down silently at the still-twitching body. Then their eyes slowly turned toward Scootaloo.

Behind Scootaloo, the door suddenly screeched, and Scootaloo jumped. It moved slowly, and then slid open completely. Scootaloo started to jump through, but the woman spoke.

“Scootaloo of Equestria,” she said. “Please, wait.”

Something in her voice gave Scootaloo pause. She looked back to see that although all three of the humanoids had large swords, none of them had drawn them. They had not even taken an aggressive posture. Stranger still, the horde of bounty hunters had caught up to them, but were keeping their distance far behind the group of three.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” said the female. “We abhor violence and murder.” Her blue, dead-looking eyes drifted downward to the mortally wounded krogan. Despite his substantial head trauma, he was still trying to crawl away. She quickly brought her foot down on his neck, snapping it and causing him to suddenly go limp. “At least in general. It is terribly messy work.”

“Scootaloo, the door is open,” said Inte.

“Then what? What are you here for?” asked Scootaloo, ignoring Inte.

“The same thing the rest of them are for. You. But we would like to make you an offer.”

“Scootaloo. We need to go,” said Inte.

Scootaloo paused. “What kind of offer?”

“The directives from Equestria are to capture you dead. We, however, see no reason to adhere to that requirement. If you come with us, we will guarantee your safety. You will be returned to Equestria alive and healthy to face trial there. I am told that your justice system is more than fair.” She pointed behind her. “Them? They will not grant you this guarantee. They will kill you, or worse. And even if you escape Omega? They will not stop hunting you. You will die, Scootaloo.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I would strongly suggest you don’t,” said one of the males. “Please, this can end peacefully. At least take a moment to consider out suggestion.”

As much as she did not want to- -as much as she wanted to dart through the space between the wall and slowly opening door- -Scootaloo found herself frozen. The offer, she was quickly coming to realize, was not a bad one. She had no idea why she had been declared a fugitive, but she knew that it must be some kind of a mistake. She had been nothing but loyal to Twilight Sparkle, and she had considered the elder mare among her closest friends. These bounty hunters were offering to almost guarantee that the two met, and to give Scootaloo a chance to clear her name.

Because of this, Scootaloo took a step toward the mercenaries. The female among them smiled, and when Scootaloo saw that smile, she stopped. The woman had before seemed mostly alive, but as soon as the corners of her mouth started to tilt, she suddenly appeared like a pallid corpse.

“Target locked,” said Inte, suddenly. “Firing!”

The floor suddenly started to rumble, and Scootaloo grasped at the dirty floor as all of Omega suddenly seemed to shake. Then, all at once, a blinding light shot through one of the upper decks. Scootaloo covered her eyes with one of her hooves, but not before she saw the beam strike the three humanoids and partially vaporize some of the bounty hunters who had been too close behind them.

Then came the explosion. It was like thunder, but hundreds of times louder, amplified further by the confined space. The blast nearly drove Scootaloo deaf, and the force of it suddenly pushed her outward and then, with even greater force, pulled her inward as the beam dissipated.

Though knocked free of her senses for a moment, Scootaloo quickly regained her composure.

“Direct hit!” said Inte, as though she were somewhat surprised herself.

“You- -what did you do?!” cried Scootaloo. “I thought you said you didn’t have weapons!”

“The Inte-Mobile projection unit does not. However, my main body does.”

“You mean- -”

“I successfully struck enemy combatants through two hundred and eight decks! And with only thirty seven civilian casualties, which is lower than the acceptable civilian casualty threshold of [acceptable civilian casualty threshold not specified]!”

Scootaloo was about to protest the wisdom of firing one of the ship’s weapons through Omega when she saw motion on the other side of the room. At first, the bounty hunters who had survived the blast began to step forward- -but then they suddenly stopped and backed away quickly.

From the ashes and shattered pieces of Omega’s decks that the beam had knocked loose, three figures slowly stood. The blast had certainly affected them: a substantial part of their armor, clothing, and skin had been burned away. What was underneath, though, remained completely intact: skeletons of whitish ceramic and metal, animated by advanced robotic components.
“Hmm,” said Inte. “It appears that the beam strength has been somewhat attenuated by having passed through two hundred and eight decks.”

The synth leader leader, the “woman”, looked at Scootaloo and her one remaining blue eye narrowed. Half her face had been burned away, the artificial skin separating from the network of facial robotics beneath it and, ultimately, her face beneath.

“The offer is now rescinded,” she said, tearing away the skin from her face. She and her compatriots drew their swords and charged with almost impossible speed. Scootaloo and Inte barely managed to jump through the small gap that the door had made in time.

Almost as soon as they did, the door snapped shut with unexpected speed. Scootaloo rolled backward just in time to avoid a second blast door that sealed over the first. Inte was not as fast; her rump was caught in the door. Being a hologram, though, it simply ceased to exist. She looked down at the “injury” with a look of mild annoyance. “How rude,” she said, stepping forward and re-projecting her rear legs.

“Wow,” said Scootaloo, suddenly finding herself out of breath. “That was close.” She stood, shaking somewhat from having barely escaped danger. “You got the door just in time.”

Inte looked confused. “That was not me. I did not have access.”

They both looked to the door’s rusted control panel, which sparked with purple energy and suddenly began to combust.

“Well, they won’t be able to get through now,” said Scootaloo.

Almost on cue, she felt a small amount of heat coming from the door. She turned, and felt it growing hotter. Then she saw the metal starting to shift color, becoming slightly redder and slowly gaining more heat in a small area near the center.

“It would appear that they are attempting to cut through it,” said Inte. “Considering the thickness and strength of the door, that must be taking a prodigious amount of energy.” She turned to Scootaloo. “You must be extremely valuable.”

“How long until they get through?”

“Well, assuming they cut at equal power output and the door is consistent in material- -”

“HOW LONG?”

“Fifteen minutes thirty eight seconds. Absolute maximum.”

“Then we need to keep moving.” Scootaloo started walking. Having stopped even for a moment had made her injured leg start to freeze up, and walking was extremely painful. She gasped, and began to realize that the gash was deeper than it looked.

“You need medical attention,” said Inte.

“Yeah. And who’s going to give me that? You?”

“No. I am not approved for medical use.”

“Then I’m just going to have to deal with it, aren’t I?” Scootaloo continued to limp, trying to ignore the pain. “You know,” she said. “It isn’t even that bad.”

“Since ‘bad’ is purely subjective, I have no means of judging that.”

“You want to know what is bad? There was one battle that Rainbow Dash never talked about, even though we all knew what happened to her. It was during the Crystal War. They hit her ship. Hard. It sheared off one of her wings, and she still managed to pull herself into the captain’s seat and keep fighting, even if she was the only one still alive. If she can do that, I can do this…”

That thought was what allowed Scootaloo to continue. She walked for several more minutes until she reached the nexus port to the elevator unit that led down to the planet. Approaching the door, she collapsed against it, sliding down to the floor.

“I am entering a request for the elevator to stop at this floor,” said Inte, accessing one of the panels on the side of the large cylindrical housing. “There are eight in continuous operation, but only three that are pressurized for the descent. It will take eight minutes for it to arrive.”

“Then it’s going to be close.”

“Yes. Although based on my current calculations, you will most likely be overtaken and killed before it arrives.”

“I’m not dying here, Inte,” said Scootaloo. She sighed. “But if I’m going to make it out, I need your help.”

A sudden thud echoed through the empty metal hall. Then another. Finally, there was a third and a tannish colored hoof punched through a vent grate. The grate clattered to the floor, and a pony pushed out into the hall. Another followed, and then another. After several seconds, seven pony bounty hunters had emerged from the vent.

One of them, a brick-red Pegasus, looked back to where the other mercenaries had almost half-completed their cut through the blast door.

“Ha,” he chuckled. “Idiots.”

“It’s not their fault they were born with hideous oversized bodies,” said another. He paused. “Well, except for the synths. I think they get to choose.”

One of the bounty hunters lifted his rifle in his magic. “Right,” he said. “Let’s say we go get a filly?”

They all smiled and drew their various weapons. As none of them were especially rich- -and because they all lacked fingers- -they were forced to use firearms instead of the more practical swords and hammers favored by larger species. Of course, in their line of work, it hardly mattered. Few of their targets had the kind of shields that stopped bullets.

“Hey, I hear she’s some sort of military hero,” whispered one of them, smirking.

“And that’s why we’re not going to shoot quick,” said another, a slightly slack-jawed earth pony. “No offers. No chances. Just make her dead right quick.”

“But preserve the head,” said the red Pegasus. “We need that to collect the reward.”

“Head? Hell no. Kneecap her. Can we at least try to keep that tight flank intact?”

The leader frowned. “Come on, Push, don’t be disgusting.”

“I’m not! It’s just that, well, with her tail cut that short? When she runs, you can see EVERYTHING! And her body? Ohhh…she looks just like a little filly.”

“If I get a bead, I terminate her.”

“Oh, come on, Shot! We’re going to kill her anyway, can’t we at least have some fun first? We can even take turns!”

“You can have your fun after I put a slug in her neck.”

Push grinned. “Well…not ideal, but it works for me.”

Their leader motioned with a wing to silence them as they approached the elevator platform. They moved as stealthily as they could through the darkness. It seemed that somepony had carefully removed and stacked the lightbulbs from the area, forcing the entire region into complete darkness.

Suddenly something orange shot by.

“There she is!” cried Shot. The group immediately opened fire.

“Ahh!” cried the mare. “No give hurties! Am only little filly!”

All of the initial shots seemed to miss, and Scootaloo ducked into a parallel hallway. The crew of pony bounty hunters gave chase.

“How the hell is she so fast?” shouted one of them.

“Just keep moving,” said another, checking the Omega schematic on his omnitool. “If I’m right, we should be coming to an opening right about…”

They all entered an area where the hallway suddenly widened. It was another one of the ancient hallways that had originally been used to house equipment when Omega had been an active mining colony but now housed nothing but random old junk and sometimes vorcha. In this case, though, it was completely empty.

The group fanned out and searched through the darkened hulks of metal and overturned barrels of rusted, useless machine parts.

“I’m not detecting any life signs,” said one.

“Over here,” said the leader, who had already reached the other side of the hallway. He pointed up a large door. “She must have gone through here. Macro, can you crack it?”

“Of course I can crack it,” said a smallish unicorn. He approached the door and began hacking the control.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said another, clicking at his omnitool. “That door is supposed to be locked…”

“Here, filly filly filly,” said Push, ignoring his comrades and shining the light on his gun into the debris. “Just come out, I’m not going to hurt you. Well, it will hurt at first, but then I promise you’ll like it!”

While he was so concentrated on checking the debris for his prize, he failed to watch where he was going and slipped on a piece of debris. He cried out and clattered to the ground.

“Come on, Push, SHUT. IT,” said Macro. “I’m trying to concentrate. You have no idea how hard it is to move the little ball with no fingers!”

“Damn it,” said Push, rubbing the back of his head. He sat up and picked up the piece of detritus he had slipped on. It was a metallic sphere about the size of his head with several multicolored lenses inlaid into its sides. “Fucking vorcha, leaving trash all over the place.” He threw the sphere across the room into the heaps of other worthless garbage.

“Almost…got it…there!” said Macro. He entered the final sequence to open the door.

“WAIT! STOP!” cried another one, his omnitool suddenly blaring out a warning.

His realization came too late. The door pulled open, exposing the hallway to the depressurized deck on the far side. The ponies screamed, but the sudden rush of air was too strong for them to overcome. They were instantly pulled through and to their near-instant deaths on the other side.

The door then slammed closed and locked. The debris that had been pulled toward the opening by the rush of air fell to the ground, including the sphere. After several seconds, it rose into the air and Inte reignited her hologram, now set to her default pattern instead of Scootaloo’s.

“Fatalities confirmed! Yay!” She produced a plume of holographic confetti. “Captain Scootaloo will be so pleased by my ability to brutally murder her enemies!”
 

Chapter 8: Delilah

Inte, it seemed, had taken a great amount of liberty by describing the descent elevator as “pressurized”. There was air, certainly, but only in the barest sense. As Scootaloo sat amongst the cargo, she could hear what little air she had hissing out through the damaged and porous walls.

It was cold. Incredibly so. Scootaloo found herself shivering, which made it extremely hard to control her breathing. As a Pegasus, she had something of a genetic advantage when it came to thin atmospheres. The combination of her lung damage and the fact that she had never actually been physically able to fly in low-oxygen situations, though, negated that advantage completely.

Still, despite her consciousness drifting in and out, Scootaloo was able to witness her descent as the elevator raced down a nanopolymer cable toward the planet below. Not that there was much to see, of course: the planet below seemed to be covered in what looked like a combination of perpetual storms and heavy smog. Through those clouds, Scootaloo could see the rays of orange lights emanating from what were either cities or refineries.

The conditions slowly began to warm, and the oxygen began to return. The air that came with it smelled terrible. Scootaloo could tell that it was not only heavily contaminated but it had been recycled for a long time. When the doors finally opened and that hot gas rushed in, Scootaloo almost gagged.

She stumbled out of the transport, barely avoiding the automated machinery that began to unload cargo from the elevator and the others around it. She was in the center of a large room, with the several cables from Omega continuing down to somewhere below her. What immediately became apparent to her was that this place was not really meant to be inhabited. There were walkways, but they were covered in oily, gritty dust and led past modular walls that looked like they had not been cleaned or repainted since they had been installed centuries ago.

The surface, Scootaloo realized, was clearly meant to be largely industrial. What kind of industry, she did not know, nor did she want to. Just that it seemed as though all commercial activities took place far above in the main port high above. That was where people lived and worked. Whatever happened on the surface was out of sight to the majority of people.

Scootaloo took this as being toward her advantage. The main unloading bay branched into tens if not hundreds of channels that spread out throughout the various city-sized complexes; to any bounty hunters who arrived on the next habitable elevator, she could have gone in any direction. It would take them months to find her.

She, of course, knew exactly where she was going. Inte had given her detailed if rushed instructions, and Scootaloo looked around the room until her eyes fell on a dusty sign that read “61”. That was the path she took.

The path was long and seemed more like a tunnel connecting two boiler rooms than an actual corridor. As Scootaloo continued, though, it began to widen and enlarge into what she roughly interpreted to be a dusty and largely abandoned city street. She was by no means alone, of course. There were a few people wandering the streets; most of them were either vorcha or mechanical drones, although a few were members of different races that were either hiding from what was above or too poor even to live on the Omega Station. Most of them were dirty, and some were muttering to themselves in corners. A few scantly stocked shops and widely spaced shops had sprung up attached to the structures of the hallway, apparently to cater to whatever individuals had made their way down here.

Scootaloo eyed the various passerbys suspiciously, but none of them seemed to be interested in her. At least from what she could tell: as she passed a makeshift bar built into the front of a narrow alley, an asari and a baterian- -both in black armor marked with the sign of a star- -looked at each other and nodded before reaching for their faceplates.

After traversing a complicated network of roads and pathways for some time, Scootaloo arrived at what she could only assume was supposed to be her destination: an extremely nondescript prefab office building with a small plaque reading “Corporation #062”.

Scootaloo climbed the dusty, crooked plastic steps to the building, passing by a group of pink, curly-haired creatures that she had initially taken for ponies until they had stopped giggling amongst themselves and turned their hungry smiles toward her. At that point, it became obvious that this entire planet was likely completely infested with clingons.

Ignoring them, Scootaloo entered the office. What she found inside was a paradox: it was both a perfect match for the landscape outside and, at the same time, completely out of place. It looked good, like an ordinary office- -at least at first. There was a dull-colored carpet, some chairs, and some brightly lit white walls adorned with abstract paintings. It looked like an ordinary office, but, as Scootaloo walked toward the reception desk, she realized that the whole place had the air of a waiting room that a hospital had, somehow, inexplicably abandoned. The chairs were cheap and identical, and the paintings on the wall were reprints of generic, artistless color. Even the light seemed to white and harsh, as though it belonged in a garage workshop instead of a small frontroom. Worst of all, though, was that the entire place was completely and totally empty.

There was initially no one sitting at the reception desk, but as Scootaloo approached, the air behind it seemed to distort and flash. In less than a second, a humanoid VI had appeared.

“Hello!” she said with the same kind of vaguely disconcerting artificial cheeriness that her and Inte seemed to share. “My biometric scanners indicate that you are a new customer.”

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo. For some reason, this VI was more difficult for her to interact with than Inte; it just seemed to be staring expectantly, the expression on its face frozen in what Scootaloo supposed was meant to be an accommodating smile. Instead, it looked almost threatening, and Scootaloo could not help but feel like she was being watched by more than the VI. “I’m here to see Delilah. Aria sent me.”

The VI raised an eyebrow. “An Aria reference? This is unusual. Hold.” She paused, freezing completely. Scootaloo shivered. She had little experience with machines, and at that moment she decided that she did not like them. “Confirmed. You may go ahead. It is the very last door on the left.”

“Um…thanks?”

“Your welcome, small horse.” The VI smiled, and then flickered as it collapsed, leaving Scootaloo once again alone in the excessively bright room.

After pausing for a moment and wondering if this was the right choice, Scootaloo decided to at least try to see what would happen. She was nervous, and for good reason. She had no weapons, shield, or armor, and had been forced to leave Inte on Omega Proper to make her escape. If things went bad- -and there was a very, very high chance that they would- -her options were extremely limited.

Despite knowing this, though, Scootaloo passed down the narrow and overlit hallway. The glow of the white paint and the almost nauseating choice of “art” did nothing to assuage her fears; in fact, she was, in fact, finding her instinctual desire to run increasing. It only continued to grow as she passed a number of fake-wooden doors and she wondered what, exactly, was behind each of them. She could still not shake the feeling that she was being watched.

Then, finally, she reached the last door. The gold-colored metal plating on the handle was starting to peel off, and Scootaloo could not help but pause. Then, with some amount of care, she struggled with the handle and eventually opened the door.

Although she had thought that her situation could not possibly get any stranger, Scootaloo immediately found herself standing on a beach. She had no idea how that was possible, but that was what was around her: the door stood, still leading out into the hallway, but now standing in sand. To her left was a choppy, gray ocean beneath an even grayer sky. Snow was falling, and in the distance Scootaloo could see and old lighthouse.

“What the actual buck,” she swore to herself. She continued to look around, and found herself slowly walking along the edge of the pristine sand past a decaying wooden fence. The whole situation was just bizarre. Stranger, though, was that although the scenery around her LOOKED completely realistic, it did not feel like a real shore at all. The air did not smell right; it smelled mechanical and oily like the rest of the prefab. Likewise, the air was only mildly chilly and the snow neither melted nor accumulated, even when it fell against Scootaloo’s body. Near the fence, the tall, dead grass swayed in nonexistent wind, and Scootaloo quickly came to realize that this whole setup was likely a hologram of some sort.

This became even more likely when Scootaloo encountered a desk. It was situated in the middle of the beach, and though level, it had the distinct appearance that it had been deposited there by the tide. Its surface was covered with a number of distracting kinetic objects: a Newton’s cradle, several magnetic swings, and a drinking bird that was repetitively sipping at a large mug of water.

The desk also had a chair, although it was facing away from Scootaloo, up toward the rocky hill that the lighthouse was built on. As Scootaloo got closer, she heard a heavily accented voice yelling at someone.

“No, I said no more!” said the voice. “- -No, I don’t care if she had a reference from Aria! It is not MY job to do what she says, I certainly pay her enough- -what do you MEAN you sent her in already?!”

“You wouldn’t happen to be Delilah, would you?” asked Scootaloo.

The chair swiveled quickly. When Scootaloo saw Delilah, she gaped. Delilah seemed to do the same.

She was a pony, a mare of roughly the same size and proportions of most stallions. Two large violet wings emerged from the back of her clothing, and her long violet and pink hair was pulled back from her horn and tied into an extensive braid. She just seemed to stare at Scootaloo, slowly closing her omnitool.

“Scoot…Scootaloo?” she said.

“Six?” replied Scootaloo, herself apparently experiencing an identical level of disbelief as the large alicorn sitting in front of her.

Six’s response was unexpected. She leapt over her desk, sending all of her various kinetic toys flying- -although she quickly caught them with her magic, returning them to their original locations as she passed- -and wrapped Scootaloo in an incredibly forceful hug.

“Scootaloo!” she cried, squeezing. Several things cracked inside Scootaloo. “I thought- -I thought you were dead! How- -how- -no! I don’t even care! Oh, Scootaloo! You have no idea how much I’ve missed you!”

“Six…can’t…breathe!”

“That just means the hug is working!”

Six continued to hug until Scootaloo began to black out. At that point, the alicorn set her down into the sand and Scootaloo began to choke and gasp.

“I highly doubt you could comprehend the mixture of emotions I’m feeling! Well, knowing you, you certainly could, but I surely would fail to express them to their fullest depth! I mean, after all these years!” She paused, and frowned, as if counting. Then she looked at Scootaloo. “Actually…you’re very old, aren’t you?”

“So are you!” choked Scootaloo, somewhat offended.

“I’m thirteen years younger than you. And I’m 282. I don’t mean to be offensive, but you shouldn’t be alive.”

“Neither should you!”

“I’m an alicorn. I don’t age. Neither do you, apparently. You know, you could have called. I really did miss you.”

“I was…busy…”

“With the cryogenic freezing?”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “How did- -”

“Because your gushing a veritable torrent of blood and getting it all over my sand. Here.” She gave Scootaloo a hankercheif to wipe her mouth. “Your lungs are damaged, and- -and is that a gunshot? On your leg?”

“It’s a graze.”

“A graze,” sighed Six. “Of course it’s a graze. With WHAT is the question? Corrosive? Polonium? Forus worm eggs? Here, let me…” She paused again. Then, slowly: “Scootaloo. Why do you have a gunshot on your hind leg, cyrodamage to your lungs and that…interesting haircut?”

“I need help,” said Scootaloo, simply. “I really, really need help.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. I think I have a chair around, if you can…” She trailed off, and then slowly started looking around at the beach.

“What?” asked Scootaloo. “What is it?”

“You weren’t followed, were you?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because my security system just started killing a surprising number of intruders.”

“Buck!” swore Scootaloo.

“Maybe later,” said Six. She leaned over her desk for some controls on the far side. The beach hologram flickered and then vanished, revealing the fact that Scootaloo was actually in a surprisingly small and strangely shaped darkened room. “Right now, though? We need to get out of here.”

“Out? But you just said there were intruders coming in the- -”

“We take the back door,” said Six, pointing to a smaller pony-sized door that had initially been concealed by the hologram. As she walked toward it, she simultaneously opened it and kicked over her desk. A pair of auto-turrets immediately came to life, their mechanisms whirring as they directed their attention toward the main door. Through it, Scootaloo could already hear the sounds of weapons and screams of agony as whatever Six had installed behind those excessively lit walls tore through the approaching aliens.

Scootaloo barely made it to the door when she was nearly knocked over by an explosion. The larger of the two doors nearly hit her as it was torn off its hinges by the blast. Six turned almost immediately, catching Scootaloo and charging her horn. She fired off a trio of singularities that shot around her turrets and froze the first wave of mercenaries in place, pulling them off the ground and allowing the turrets time to perform their primary function.

“Keep moving!” She pushed Scootaloo and projected a biotic shield behind them. “GO!”

Scootaloo started to run, and Six followed her into what seemed to be a basement. It was a section of the prefab that had not yet been finished to look like a cheap office; instead, it was a number of dusty, cobweb-filled prefab components. They were barely even lit, and Scootaloo could not help but smell a vaguely familiar and sour scent wafting through the drafty hallways.

For a moment, Scootaloo thought they might have a chance of being safe. Some of the bounty hunters, though, were more intelligent than the others. Rather than fight their way through the security system above, they had already infiltrated the lower area.

Six turned around suddenly, just in time to shield Scootaloo from a blast of rounds from a turian soldier. Scootaloo turned her head to look and nearly ran into an asari who had stepped out from the shadows. The blue-skinned woman smiled as she raised a shotgun, pointing it at Scootaloo’s face.

There was suddenly a violet blur from the depths of the basement. The asari screamed as she was pulled down by her neck. She continued to struggle and cry out as her attacker dug her teeth deep into the soft blue flesh before completely tearing out the woman’s throat.

The pony, having finished the asari, pulled her head back and looked up. Her face was still stained with violet fluid that almost matched her coat and wings. She was the same height as Six, but much thinner. She had the same color hair as well, although hers was cropped short, revealing her badly scarred and nonfunctional horn. Her eyes were covered in an opaque tech-visor, and her enormous fang-like teeth were so long that she was almost completely unable to close her mouth.

“Seven?” said Scootaloo, still somewhat in disbelief. She then looked beyond the alicorn to where a pair of mercenaries were charging toward her. “Seven, behind you!”

Without hesitating, Seven moved with almost beautiful fluidity, spreading her long alicorn wings and floating backward. She raised both of her front hooves and summoned a pair of omnitools. Two orange bolts shot out, striking both of her targets in their chests. They slowed and screamed as they were immolated form within, grasping at their chests as their internal organs began to combust while they were still alive. The whole room began to smell like cooking meat.

“Got to love that smell,” said Six, pushing past her sister as they traded places so that Seven could produce a subtractive tech barrier that peeled the flesh off of several ponies unfortunate enough to step through it while Six concentrated her magic into a thin beam and bisected all of the individual still blocking their path. “Yeah, I know,” she said as if Seven had spoken. “Scootaloo!”
Seven seemed to smile. She and Six pushed Scootaloo forward and then to the right into a small antechamber, at which point Seven closed a metal door behind them.

“That’s not going to hold them for long,” gasped Scootaloo. Her lungs were burning, and her whole body was shaking. As she predicted, something started pounding on the door.

“It doesn’t need to,” said Six, opening a small cabinet. She removed a set of respirators and passed one to her sister and the other to Scootaloo.

“What are these for?” asked Scootaloo, not wanting to know the answer.

“The primary exit has been blocked. We need to take the tertiary exit- -” Something hit the inner door of the airlock hard, deforming the metal. “Damn- -just put it on!”

Scootaloo slid the respirator around her face. It was sized for a pony, but not one of her smaller than average size. Six leaned over her and pulled the straps with her magic, tightening the facemask.

“Okay,” she said. “Breathe normally. And if you smell either fresh cut grass or rotten eggs, well….”

“Well what?”

Six looked at Seven, then back at Scootaloo. “Well, that would mean it’s already too late.”

Then, without waiting for Scootaloo to react, she slammed her hoof into the emergency release switch. The second outer door clanked, and then pulled quickly to the side.

There was an atmosphere outside, so the room did not experience explosive decompression. The process was no less unpleasant, though. The pressure did immediately drop, and Scootaloo felt her ears pop painfully. The air was incredibly cold, and Scootaloo shivered as Six pushed her forward into a wide, decaying tunnel. Scootaloo promptly landed in something wet and ankle-deep that she was absolutely sure was not water.

“Left,” said Six. “Go left!”

Scootaloo did, and she waded through the debris and liquid of the tunnel. As she did, she became aware of a sound, a kind of low whistling that grew louder and louder as she advanced. It sounded like wind, and when Scootaloo was finally close enough to the end of the tunnel to see the dim light of distant lightning strikes outside, she realized that it was. The sound was produced by the massive storms raging outside.

Another sound became apparent, though. The sound of rapid footsteps splashing through the muck behind them. Scootaloo tried to run faster, but he she was too small and too tired to keep going much more quickly.

Then, when they had almost reached the end of the tunnel, two figures stepped out from either side. Scootaloo slid to a stop and looked up at them. Both were dressed entirely in black armor, and both were holding mass-effect miniguns.

Scootaloo ducked as they raised their weapons. They did not point them at her, though, but behind them at the oncoming group of bounty hunters.

“For the goddess,” one of them said as their miniguns spun up. After that, Scootaloo heard nothing but the roar of their weapons firing. In passing through the tunnel, Scootaloo had failed to find any viable cover- -and no doubt neither had the hunters.

The pair continued to fire, and Scootaloo felt Seven pulling her along. She did not know who this pair were, or what their goal was, but they seemed to be helping. For some reason, though, she could not take her eyes off them until she was literally dragged into the rocky and polluted landscape beyond.

Even after Scootaloo passed, the pair continued firing. It was effective at first, but eventually the more advanced mercenaries with actual modern shields arrived. They simply walked forward, ignoring the bullets as they ricocheted off their shields. Among these was a synth. He approached effortlessly and brought his hand down on the smaller of the pair, killing her effortlessly. The other dropped her weapon and stepped back.

“I die in Her glory,” she said, entering a command into her omnitool and screaming as her body ignited with pink-violet biotic energy. Her armor corroding almost as quickly as her body, she charged the synth.

In the distance, Scootaloo heard the scream, but only barely. The wind from the storm was deafening, and it was barely possible to hear Six, let alone noises in the distance.

The planet was a rocky mess, covered in jagged boulders and crags and dotted with the remnants of abandoned structures and crashed, decayed spacecraft. Overhead, a tempest was raging, pouring down rain that was something other than water and gusting with almost enough force to push Scootaloo off her feet.

Suddenly a corroded rock near her burst apart with a surge of blue light. Scootaloo ducked, knowing that she was being shot at. She fell against Six, who propped her up.

“Can you fly?” shouted Six over the sound of the storm.

“No! I can’t!”

Six nodded and grabbed Scootaloo under her shoulders. Then she and Seven spread their extensive alicorn wings and took flight. They were apparently very skilled, but the storm greatly impeded their ability to move.

Then, from above, something descended. Scootaloo saw the running lights passing through the clouds and realized that it was a ship.

“Aw shit,” said Six, charging her horn.

“Wait! WAIT!” cried Scootaloo, nearly bursting into laughter. “That’s MY ship!”

“Your ship? How did you- -” Six cried out as a bullet struck one of her wings and she plummeted to the ground, dropping Scootaloo painfully against some jagged rocks. Seven, seeing her sister injured, immediately descended as well, projecting a tech barrier as she did.

“Oh crap,” said Six, standing. “I’m hit.”

“Six! Hold on, I- -”

“We need to go,” said Six, pulling Scootaloo and Seven close. “This is going to be super rough. This was always more Eight’s thing than mine.”

Upon hearing this, Seven immediately struggled to get away, but it was already too late. Six, with a look of immense concentration on her face, charged her horn and activated a teleportation spell.

The three of them vanished, and almost as soon as they had, the ship above turned and began to rise through the atmosphere. What few bounty hunters were left shot at it, but their tiny weapons had next to no effect.

Then, as quickly as it had come and without even bothering to clear the atmosphere, it mass-jumped, vanishing to elsewhere in the universe.

Chapter 9: Twilight Sparkle

It was nearly night outside, but the heavy cloud cover hid the orange-red sun from view, bathing Canterlot in darkness and heavy rain. High above the city in the Temple of Harmony, a white unicorn stallion looked through the self-cleaning glass windows, watching the rain run down them and the occasional sudden light of lightning strikes that were the only visible source of light through the downpour.

This, of course, was terribly annoying and even offensive to him. The majority of weather on Equestria Prime was tightly controlled; rainstorms of this magnitude were planed long in advance. Although he had not actually checked the weather schedules, the unicorn had assumed that the Pegasi in charge would have made sure the date of his visit to the planet was temperate and pleasant. Of course, with them being Pegasi, they were probably not even competent enough to manage that.

Turning away from the window, he took several steps through the vacuous and empty temple. He had never been this high in the palace; in fact, he knew of no one who had, save for some of the Priestesses. It was highly unusual for Princess Twilight to invite ponies into what amounted to her home. With this particular unicorn’s status, though, it was no wonder that she wanted him there, at least in his own mind.

The temple itself had a rather unfortunate interior, though. It was terribly drab. It certainly seemed to exude and air of enormity, but not of luxury. Everything seemed unusually simple, even austere. Even the lights were sparse, separated at even intervals that were far beyond the distance that their inadequate glow could reach.

What was most concerning, though, was the silence. Nopony seemed to be there, not even servants. This made the unicorn nervous, and he habitually removed a small mirror from one of his coat pockets. He checked himself in it, fixing his long blond mane and then taking several minutes to admire himself. In his mind, he looked astounding, but that was expected. After all, he was Prince Blueblood XVII. He came from a long line of beautiful ponies, all of whom had kept their high and elegant breeding for the purpose of creating beautiful ponies like himself. Though he was not technically royalty- -more of a baron, really- -he in his own opinion more than deserved the title “Prince”.

As he was admiring himself, he became aware of a distant sound. At first he ignored it, but it drew closer. When he realized that it was slow, regular hoofsteps, his extremely pure blood ran cold. He looked up and released a high-pitched squeal as he saw a ghostly white pony who had appeared from the shadows barely three yards from where he was standing.

His momentary shock faded, though, when he recognized that she was not in fact a ghost. Rather, she was pure white with deep crimson eyes; a breeder. She was dressed in dark, drab clothing made of thick fabric that looked as though it had intended to far more practical than aesthetic. Despite her unflattering uniform, though, Blueblood was immediately able to recognize that she was a remarkable specimen. As unicorn nobility, he had come to have an eye for high-quality breeders, and she was somewhat astounding. Her poise was excellent, and her body was strong but not overly muscular with perfect proportions. Her only defect, of course, was that she had been allowed to age what seemed to be almost two decades past her prime.

“What are you doing?!” demanded Blueblood, agitated. “The nerve, sneaking up on me like that! Do you have any idea who I am?!”

“My apologies, Lord Blueblood,” said the breeder. “Although I was hardly sneaking. Rather, you seemed to be quite engrossed in whatever it was you was doing.”

“What I was- -I WAS preparing myself for a CRITICAL diplomatic meeting with Princess Twilight. Not that you would understand that sort of thing, of course.”

The breeder seemed momentarily confused, but continued to smile with the cheerfulness that had been bred into her species by Blueblood’s ancestors millennia ago.

“Well?” said Blueblood, impatiently.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to take me to her or not?”

The breeder blinked. “Yes. I suppose I can do that.” She started walking, and Blueblood fell into step slightly behind her, taking a moment to admire her aged but still firm white rump.

“I suppose Twilight Sparkle is a bit of a bleeding heart,” he mused.

“Really?” said the breeder. “How so?”

“Because she accepted you, even though you were clearly bred for form over intelligence. And because she quite obviously does not believe in euthanasia.”

“Referring to my age?”

“Well, if you were one of mine, I would have dismissed you far earlier.”

“Which is illegal,” noted the breeder. “Execution of my people is unlawful as per the Purpose-Bred Pony Self Governance Act of 1014. Culling without Union permission is a serious, serious offence.”

“The Union,” snorted Blueblood. “The Union is a joke. Breeders in charge of breeders? Nonsense. Simple nonsense. Your people are not capable of taking care of yourselves. It’s simply a matter of your biology.”

“I see,” said the breeder, her eyes focused ahead but a strange smile still plastered on her face. Blueblood was not fully sure why she was smiling that way, but supposed it was a product of her mental inherent deficiencies.

She did seem to know where she was going, though. She lead Blueblood with surprising assurance, not even hesitating as she passed through the dark seas between lights. Blueblood tried to make conversation by describing how interesting and impressive his life was, but the breeder mostly only seemed to nod in response. She did not seem to be capable of holding a conversation, and after some time, the pair lapsed into silence.

Just when Blueblood was about to complain about how long it was taking and how his hooves were beginning to become soar, he suddenly stopped. The breeder took several more steps before looking over her shoulder, confused as to why he had stopped. “Is something the matter, Lord Blueblood?”

Blueblood, nearly unable to speak, pointed. There, on the edge of the darkness before them, was a large dog staring back with reflective eyes. “D…dog…” was all he could get out.

The breeder looked back at the strangely silent creature. “Why yes, they are dogs.”

“…they?”

As Blueblood spoke, the large dog suddenly stood and began walking toward them. From the shadows, several more emerged, moving slowly and staring back with reflective eyes and raised fur. To Blueblood’s horror, he realized that several of them were not dogs at all, but rather alien creatures of various types including at least one skagg.

They surrounded the pair of ponies, but for some reason the breeder seemed not to care. That of course made sense- -her species had been bred to be readily accepting of their own deaths. Blueblood, meanwhile, was working himself in a panic as the hounds began to surround him.

When he could no longer take the agitation- -as a noble, he had a very refined and delicate constitution- -he attempted to flee. He did not get very far, though; almost as soon as he started to run, he bumped into something. It was smaller than he was, but it felt like hitting concrete. He was thrown backward onto the floor and looked up at the offending animal with a mixture of anger and terror, offended that something so dirty would touch his perfect self, let alone knock him to the floor.

What he saw, though, was not a dog at all. Instead of a canine face, a pair of scleraless and pupilless red eyes stared back at him from above a grinning, long-fanged mouth. Blueblood gaped in horror and surprised as he realized that what he had initially taken for a dog superficially resembled a pony; specifically, she looked like a sallow yellow Pegasus with hair as red as her eyes and clothing that seemed to be made from a combination of skin and bone. Blueblood had never seen a Tartaran Matriarch in real life, but he knew how to recognize one.

“Princess,” said the breeder. “I am so glad you were able to make it.”

The Tartaran grinned, further showing her extensive venomous fangs and tusks. She then giggled loudly, and broke down into something that sounded quite similar to the noise made by several of the hyenas in her pack of accompanying hounds. Blueblood immediately understood that she was not able to speak.

“Tart…tartaran,” said Blueblood, standing. “P…Princess?”

“She has been invited to this dinner as well,” said the breeder. “As well as one other guest. To cement old alliances, and to forge new ones. So to speak.”

“One…other?”

“Ah,” said a female voice from across the room. “It seems that you have already found each other. That means I don’t have to look.”

The dogs began to part, and Blueblood looked past. The first thing he saw was an alicorn. Like a Tartaran, alicorns were something else he had never seen in real life. After all, there were only four known. He had been expecting her to be taller, perhaps more majestic and godlike, but what he saw was quite different. Though she wore a crown and exquisite ceremonial armor and robes, she looked just like a normal pony. Yes, she had both a horn and wings, but those were both normal parts of ponies.

In fact, she was rather fetching. She was comparatively young looking, and, despite her highly aristocratic color, her body would be very well-formed if she were a unicorn. This led to a spark of an idea in Blueblood’s mind: how tolerable she would be living in his home as his youngest wife, and the power he would gain by claiming such a prize.

He approached her, smiling, but slowed when he saw the individual standing beside her: a tall biped dressed in extensive golden armor and carrying a staff containing a luminescent red gem. At the same time, he saw her thick blue skin, bat-like wings, and the horns that framed her reptilian face. His disbelief was almost palpable as he realized that he was looking at a dragon.

“Baron Blueblood, this is Dragonlord Ember,” explained Twilight, smiling slightly but not showing her teeth.

“Dragonlord? You mean they dragons actually have GOVERNMENT?”

“We do,” said Ember, somewhat aggressively. “And a culture that precedes the founding of Equestria by several million years.”

Blueblood looked to Twilight. “And she…”

“Is here to discuss the relationship between her tribe and my society? Perhaps.” Twilight smiled, and it made Blueblood nervous. “But in truth, all of us are just here for a friendly meal, aren’t we?”

The Tartaran broke into an equally disturbing wide smile and nodded heartily.

Twilight began walking down the corridor, taking the lead of the group and standing beside the Tartaran. This, of course, gave Blueblood ample chance to look at their flanks.

“And of course, the operant word is ‘friendly’,” said Twilight. “After all, it is the very concept of Friendship that has allowed Equestria to prosper under my rule. I assisted in modernizing Equestria, but of course I can hardly take credit. That belongs to the ancient concepts of Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Laughter, and of course…” She patted the Tartaran on the head, “Kindness.”

Blueblood took this opportunity to push past the breeder and fall in stride with Twilight. “Of course,” he said. “I believe exactly that same thing!”

“Really?” said Twilight, looking somewhat surprised.

“Oh, yes. In fact…” He feigned shyness. “I was hoping that you and I could be friends, actually.”

“You…you and me?” said Twilight, her eyes widening. “Really?”

“What, has a beautiful stallion like myself never asked to be your friend?”

“No stallion at all has ever asked me. I haven’t really met that many.”

“Well then,” said Blueblood, pushing closer to Twilight and smiling because he know was mostly sure that she was a virgin goddess, “Then I think we can be VERY good friends.”

He was interrupted as they entered a wider, more brightly-lit section of the inner palace and two breeders approached the group. They had with them a dull-brown unicorn that Blueblood did not recognize; as he looked closer, though, he saw that the unicorn was bound in chains and fitted with a magic-suppression collar.

“Ah, yes,” said Twilight, smiling and approaching the trio. She turned back to her guests. “Do any of you recognize who this is?”

“I do,” said the breeder among them. “His name is Candy Lurker.”

“Exactly,” said Twilight, putting her hoof against the stallion’s chin. He resisted, trying to step back, but the breeders pulled him back into position. Despite being smaller than him, they were quite strong. “This stallion is a convicted foal rapist. He has murdered thirty seven known fillies and colts, all under the age of ten. He’s molested countless more, including one that has since become a dear Priestess of mine.”

“And why is he here, then?” said Blueblood, taking a step back from the stallion. He was not so much disturbed by the stallion’s crimes as the fact that a commoner had had the gall to permit them; that, and the stallion looked both dirty and threatening.

The Tartaran laughed viciously, and Twilight looked up at the stallion. “Do you have anything to say to us, Mr. Lurker?”

He smiled, and Blueblood nearly fainted at the sight of his teeth. “Oh, come on now. You know as well as I do that they wanted it. They wanted it BAD. They wouldn’t have dressed like that if they didn’t want me. They liked it.” He leaned forward with so much force that the breeders could not hold him back. He snapped his teeth at Twilight, but she did not flinch. “And you can’t prove anything! When I get out of here, well, I’m going to finish what I started with that whore you’re hiding downstairs. Or maybe even with you, little princess.”

Twilight just smiled, then turned toward the breeders. “J776G and LW731? Please, if you would be so kind, prepare Mr. Lurker for dinner.”

“You- -you can’t be serious!” squealed Blueblood as the unicorn rapist was led off. “We can’t be having him for dinner! That’s- -that’s- -” He swooned slightly, and several hounds caught him. “Un-couth!”

“For once I agree with the limp-hoofed aristocrat,” said Ember. She glared at Twilight. “You would show such a criminal mercy?”

“Would you?”

She shook her head. “No. He would be banished from our territory. Perhaps maimed. Likely by my own claw.”

“Well,” said Twilight, turning away from the group and approaching the dining room. “I tend to adhere to the belief that there is not inherent ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the universe.” Her expression became somewhat more distant, and the tone of her voice changed. Blueblood, even barely recovering his composure, though he heard the slightest hint of an unusual accent. “And that ponies that have done terrible, terrible things in the past might be able to move beyond them if they try hard enough.”

With this, Twilight led them to the large doors that led to the dining room. They opened automatically, pulled by several breeders on the far side. This room, Blueblood was pleased to see, was very well lit and at least maintained some semblance of proper aesthetic.

A small group of breeder servants led the various members of the delegation to their seats on the table. The table was roughly round, but Twilight was seated at what was obviously the head. The Tartaran was placed to the Princess’ left, followed by the dragon on Blueblood’s left. Blueblood was led to his seat roughly across form the Princess, and took note of the tableware. It was simple, and the knives given to every guest were unusually sharp.

As he sat down, he turned to his right and, aghast, watched the uniformed breeder led by her compatriots to her own chair.

“Excuse me,” he said to her. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Sitting,” she said, as if her presence there was barely scandalous at all.

“And do you really think that’s appropriate? HMM?”

“Why would it be inappropriate?”

Blueblood groaned. “Are you that thick!” he hissed. “The help isn’t supposed to- -”

“Ah, Blueblood, I see you’ve already meat XN101,” said Twilight, sounding mildly amused.

“Princess, I am sorry for this, but- -”

“As I’m sure a unicorn of your station knows, she is the president of the Eugenics Union and current CEO of the Equestria division of the Breeder Corporation. And if I might add, XN101, I’ve looked through your pedigree and statistics, and I must say, they hardly do you justice. You have such patience.”

“Thank you, Princess, but you are too kind,” said XN101, “I am still an older model. You should see the newer generation. In fact, I would be honored if you would consider touring our production facility.”

“I would like that,” said Twilight, ignoring Blueblood’s sputtering and blushing.

Humiliated, Blueblood turned back to his plate, compulsively reaching for his mirror but forcing himself not to take it out at the dinner table. He became distantly aware, though, that if the breeder took the last remaining chair, there were no spaces left for Twilight’s criminal to sit. Blueblood, of course, did not question that observation; he was just glad that he did not need to share a table with a commoner. Having to sit next to a genetic inferior was bad enough.

“I have to ask,” said Ember, sitting uncomfortably in her dragon-sized chair. “Why a dinner?”

“Why?” said Twilight, smiling but still not showing her teeth. “Because we’re friends. Or, rather, I would like to be better friends with you all.” She turned to her left. “Tartarus, the Dark Sphere. A planet with no star on the edge of Equestrian space. An ally since the dawn of our nation, but never a part of it.” She turned to Ember. “The dragons. An ancient order nearly hunted to extinction centuries ago and omitted for consideration as a sentient species by the previous government.” She passed over Blueblood, and looked at XN101. “And the Eugenics Union. Recently declared its own internal government. Congratulations on your effort, XN101.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

“But still a private entity with no political loyalty to anypony at all.” She then slowly turned to Blueblood, and he shivered. He was not sure why. “And then, of course, we have Barron Prince Blueblood XVII. A representative of Equestria’s illustrious noble families.”

“Concerning that,” said Blueblood, leaping at his chance and taking control of the conversation. “It really is important that I voice my concerns to you, Twilight. They are of the utmost urgency.”

Twilight leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she said. Something about her seemed strange, and Blueblood was beginning to feel more and more nervous. The Tartaran could not seem to stop giggling and mumbling to herself.

“Indeed!” said Blueblood. “The nobility is unanimously concerned, Twilight.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in surprise. “Concerned? Oh my, about what?”

“Well, simply put, we believe- -I believe- -that Equestria has lost its way over time.”

“In other words,” said Ember, “you are criticizing her rule.” She looked at Twilight. “Had he done that to me, I would be required to strike him down.”

“Oh no no no! Of COURSE not! Twilight is a beautiful filly with what I assume are very soft wings, and I simply did NOT mean to imply that Equestria’s deficiencies are her fault. She would never consciously hurt our great Empire.”

“Consciously,” repeated XN101. “An interesting choice of words.”

“What I mean is, a Princess should not have to deal with the minutia of governance. It is simply not possible. And the nobility are more than willing to assist our Princess in an administrative capacity. To restore a more traditional and stable governing system to Equestria.”

“So, what, exactly, are you asking for?” asked Twilight.

“A parliament. Democracy. A group of well-bred ponies who have the vision to lead Equestria back on the path of its former glory.”

XN101’s eyes shifted to Blueblood. “I’m highly inbred by design,” she said. “But it would seem that you are superior to me in many aspects.”

“Thank you,” said Blueblood. “I see you understand.” He turned to Twilight. “Take her, for example. I can see you have numerous high-quality breeders. I’m sure you can tell that they simply can’t govern themselves. They don’t have vision, volition, free will. They’re essentially dolls. Why, what would be next? To give the quants their own government?”

“And I would suppose that you would want to return to a time when you hunted my people for sport?” hissed Ember, angrily.

“Now, now, Ember,” said Twilight. “He may not be eloquent, but he does have a point. I’m more than aware of the instability amongst the noble houses right now. Some ponies have even been speaking of revolution against the Crown.”

“Perish the thought,” said Blueblood. “We would never resort to such a crime as treason, and then, only to save our beloved Equestria from anarchy and collapse.”

“And I am willing to consider your offer,” said Twilight. “In fact, the role of the nobility in the government is the main reason I invited you here. And I will be more than willing to discuss it with you. After our meal, of course.”

At that point, several breeders silently entered the room from several doors spaced around its edge. Each one had a large platter held on her back between her wings, and each stepped out in a synchronized pattern, walking to the table in unison. XN101 beamed with pride as they placed six platters on the table: one for each guest, one for Twilight, and one in the center of the table brought in by a breeder in flight.

In unison, they poured the wine and lifted the lids from the platters. Blueblood, who had already picked up his fork in preparation for the sumptuous royal vegetables beneath. As he looked down at his food, though, he was confused. It was certainly not vegetables.

Then, all at once, the realization of what he had been served donned on him. He opened his mouth to scream, but no words came out. There on his plate was a large portion of meat. Not cooked, but raw and in a pool of its own blood- -with a portion of brown-gray skin still attached to the hoof on the bottom. To his absolute horror, he realized that an equivalent portion of raw meat had been served to all those present save for XN101. For a moment, his mind held onto the belief that it was some nonsentient animal, like a cow or sheep, but then he saw the final plate in the center: a plate containing the staring, severed head of the unicorn that had been served to them.

The Tartaran, of course, immediately leapt upon the meat on her plate, taking it in her mouth and gleefully and loudly tearing large sections out of it. As she did, one of her hounds took the far end of it, pulling it off the table. The Tartaran refused to let go, and within seconds was in a bloody tug-of-war with the hounds over what had once been a pony’s foreleg.

Ember stared at it, her eyes wide with astonishment but not outright disgust. She looked to Blueblood, and they both looked to Twilight. She looked back, and lifted her fork and knife, slicing away a piece of the flank on her plate and popping the morsel into her mouth. As she bit down on it, Blueblood stared aghast when he saw her teeth: there were far too many of them, and they were all deadly sharp, jagged fangs.

“Exquisite,” she said. She looked across the table and her eyes focused on Blueblood. He had been considered bolting, but immediately froze. It was as if she were a different mare. Her eyes seemed much more narrowed and much colder. She suddenly no longer seemed like a pony, but something far more terrifying. Blueblood realized that what he had seen before was an act, a disguise for the true goddess beneath- -and the fanged cannibal before him was what Twilight Sparkle truly was.

“You might want to consider eating quickly,” she said. “The flesh has the most flavor when it is still warm. Well…that’s not entirely true. But considering your inferior ‘sensibilities’, I decided to not prepare the meat as raw as I prefer it.” She took another dainty bite, and then lifted her glass of wine with her magic and took a sip. “I would really recommend the drink, as well.”

As if commanded, Blueblood took the glass in his magic and lifted it to his lips. He was no stranger to wine, but he almost threw the glass down when he smelled the sickly metallic scent of the liquid in the glass and realized that it was not wine at all.

“What- -what have you done!” squealed Blueblood. “You- -you’re MAD! INSANE! I have to- -I have to get out of here!”

He tried to stand, but an impossibly powerful field of pink-violet magic forced him back into his chair. Twilight took another bite, and then lowered her utensils. The room became deathly quiet.

“Would you like to hear a story, Blueblood?” she said in a calm, almost pleasant girlish voice. “I just love stories. I spent so much time reading them. And I think you’ll like this one.”

Blueblood felt Twilight’s magic release him, and he smiled, the tears running down his face toward the severed pony body part below him. He then looked up to Twilight. “A…a story?”

“Of why there isn’t a parliament anymore,” said Twilight. She leaned back. “As you know, when I took power, Equestria was ruled by an oligarchy of white unicorn nobles. Do you know what happened to them, Blueblood?”

Blueblood shook his head. He had never had cause to know- -it was something that was never spoken of, but he was vaguely aware that all of the ruling nobility of that time had vanished. Even members of his own family had simply been erased from history.

“Well, first I organized them. Alphabetically. I do like to stay organized.” She glared at Blueblood, and then, of all things, laughed. It was a horrible, high-pitched sound that made him begin to wet himself. “Then, on the first night, I killed the first on the list. I had him prepared. With a balsamic sauce, if I recall. Then I served him to the rest.”

Blueblood heard a distinct gasp from Ember. He closed his eyes, more afraid than he ever had been before.

“Now, the reaction they had, it was not good,” she continued. “None would eat any of the meat, and I had far more than I could eat myself. And I simply hated wasting food. So, I put them away. I gave them no food for one whole week. Then I brought them to dinner and served the next noble on the list.”

She took a deep breath and smiled, as if recalling a fond memory. “They were so hungry. Some of them ate. Most couldn’t get him down. A few, though, they refused to eat their friend. Some even continued to refuse the next week after that. A lot of them starved to death. I would admire them except for the fact that they were fools bound by the idiotic idea of morality.

“But the others…they eventually started to enjoy it. To not only get the meat down, but to savor it. Even the ones who were next on the list. Sometimes I saw them crying as they ate their friends, knowing that they were next.

“There were thirty nine in all. Thirty nine ponies ruling all of Equestria. Responsible for endless war, oppression of both Cores and breeders, for mismanaging MY Empire. And the very last one? Oh, I remember him so. He sat across from me at the table, as if we were lovers at a fine dinner. He ate so slowly, knowing that he was last, but he enjoyed it so much. Then, when he was done? He looked up at me and smiled. He said ‘Thank you, Princess. Thank you so much.’”

“Then…then what?” asked Blueblood.

“I snapped his neck.” Twilight sat back, looking at the plate in front of her with mild disgust. “His meat…it was the sweetest meat I’ve ever tasted. Perhaps the sweetest I ever will.” She lifted her eyes to Blueblood. “And that is where the last parliament went.”

“Then why the meat?” said Ember. “Why serve us this?”

“Simple, really,” said Twilight, returning to her meal. “I suppose you could consider it a test. The dragons? You can be citizens of Equestria. Equals to any pony. I can give you planets, supplies, technology. End the warfare between our peoples.” She turned toward XN101. “I can make both of you allies. I can hold both of your governments beneath my divine and eternal reign. If you prove your loyalty to me, and show me that you’re my friends.” She smiled and shrugged. “All you need to do is share a meal with me. That’s something friends do, right?”

The Tartaran, whose face was now slathered in blood, nodded vigorously and broke into a mad cacophony of demonic laughter. Twilight patted her head and sliced off a portion of the head in the center of the table, passing it to the insane Tartaran mare. “She understand,” said Twilight. “I think she always did.”

XN101 stood up. For a moment, Blueblood thought that she was going to flee. Instead, she raised her glass to Twilight. “To friendship and Eternal Harmony!” she exclaimed before taking a long sip.

Ember and Blueblood looked at each other, and Ember lifted her own glass. “It’s not like I haven’t eaten a pony once or twice before,” she said before taking a small sip. She then put her glass back down and picked up her fork, turning over the breast meat on her plate until she found the optimal angle to begin cutting it.

“And you, Blueblood?” said Twilight. She grinned at him, all her seemingly hundreds of teeth exposed. “Go on. You said you wanted to be my friend, didn’t you? EAT. DRINK. Become MINE.”

Blueblood lifted his glass in his magic. He did not even know why he was. There was just something in the way Twilight spoke, in the way she WAS. He acted because he feared for his life, that he could be next. She was not sane, but not insane either. She was a monster, and yet, somehow, he found himself admiring her- -loving her, even.

He lifted the glass to his lips and began to tilt it. The smell hit him, and he gagged. He tried to hold his breath, but the thought of what he was about to do overwhelmed him. Then when the blood finally touched his lips, he threw the glass down, sending a shower of blood across the table. He coughed and vomited, weeping at his failure.

“Aww,” said Twilight, patronizingly. “It looks like you are far weaker than I expected. XN101 cannot even digest animal products, and she still managed at least one sip.”

“You- -you- -you monster,” he muttered.

“Monster? No. I am a GOD.” She sat back and sighed. “But…I will take pity on your cause. I will, in fact, set up an element to my government that consists of nobles.”

“R…really?” said Blueblood, looking up. He felt suddenly elated- -that his extreme duress had not been wasted, and that she recognized that a noble like him should not be forced into such depravity. “You- -you will?” He cleared his throat. “I’d, I’d be honored to serve you in the capacity of the- -”

“I am placing the heir of Heart House as the leader of this operation,” said Twilight.

Blueblood froze, and he felt his elation turn to confusion. “Heart House?” he said, not understanding. “But…Heart House has been extinct for centuries, there aren’t any- -”

An enormous metal claw suddenly reached out from the shadows behind twilight and slammed onto the table. More appeared, like the legs of some massive and horrifying insect. Then Blueblood watched in disbelief as an incomprehensible abomination pulled itself over the top of Twilight’s chair: a writhing mass of metal and machinery, a kind of enormous centipede of artificial flesh and steel. Even at a distance, though, Blueblood could tell what sat in the center of the machine: the still-living severed head of a pony, installed inverted and meshed to the machinery through the hole left from its missing lower jaw.

“Do you accept this task, Dr. Lemon Heart?” asked Twilight.

“Oh yes,” said the cyborg. “It will be so much FUN.”

“Excellent!” said Twilight, smiling. “From this point forward, the property and bloodlines of all noble houses now belong to me, the Eternal Princess of Harmony Twilight Sparkle and shall be overseen by my associate. And it’s all thanks to you, Prince Blueblood.”

The remainder of the dinner went well. There was discussion about traditional colonization words for the dragons and the possibility of expanding genetic lines for the breeders, as well as a number of other things. Blueblood just sat and quietly wept for most of it, what was roughly what Twilight had expected of him.

Finally, though, the meal had come to a close, and Twilight had excused herself. She walked confidently into one of the side-halls off from the main dining room, and, once she was out of visual range and earshot, she immediately broke down.

She screamed. The emotions welling through her did not quite have a name. Her mind was racing, both with mad, joyous aggression and the deepest possibly existential terror. The memories came flooding back to her- -of what she had done, and of what she had been. And what she truly was. This led to a full-blown panic, and she slammed her head into a wall repeatedly, trying to make the voices stop.

“I went too far,” she said, simultaneously disgusted with herself and proud of herself as well. She believed that assertion, too; she had slid backward to the days when she really had taken pleasure in systematically executing the scions of every noble house to assert her dominance, then erasing that fact from memory. In her mind, she rationalized that she did what she had to do, but it felt like everything was rationalization. She had done so much, that she was beginning to doubt even her own explanations.

This mental situation was agonizing, and Twilight immediately burst into tears. It had happened before. Many times before, since the beginning. Each time, though, Starlight had always been there for her. She had always been beside Twilight, and though Twilight could never, ever explain the real reason that she screamed and writhed in mental torment, her friend did not ask that of her. Starlight would always be there to comfort her, to hold her when the weight of her secrets and mania became too much to bear, and she just now realized how terribly much she missed her one and only true friend- -and came to the horrible conclusion that Starlight might not be her friend for very much longer.

“We told you,” said a voice from behind her. A voice that spoke almost exactly with her voice.

“You are weak. You need her, but she hates you.”

“Once she knows, she will hate you. Just like we hate you.”

“Just like the ALL hated you.”

“YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO BE LOVED.”

“Twilight?”

Twilight jumped at the unfamiliar voice, and spun around, trying to hide her tears. She was relieved, though, to see the insect-like cyborg Lemon Heart standing in the darkness.

“Are you damaged?” said the cyborg. “Because you just KNOW how much I would like to fix an alicorn.”

“No,” said Twilight. “I’m…”

She froze, her eyes widening, when she saw the two violet alicorns flanking Lemon Heart, their faces obscured by the shadows. They were standing far closer to her than they ever had before.

“I’m fine,” said Twilight, her eyes darting from alicorn to alicorn and finally settling back on Lemon Heart, who had no reaction to the pair whatsoever. “I’m absolutely fine.”

Chapter 10: On Her Trail

The ship shook slightly as Starlight completed the docking initialization sequence. The circular unit in the center of her omnitool shifted as she transferred credits to the docking facility. Once she was synchronized with the extremely obsolete computer on the other side, she leaned back and took a breath before disconnecting her ship’s cables from her omnitool and collapsing it. She swiveled in her chair and nearly jumped out of it when she saw Jurneu standing behind her.

“Sorry,” he said, realizing that he had surprised her. “I tend to move quietly.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Starlight, sliding out of the chair. “I’m old, Jurneu. You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“You’re not physically any older than I am. Younger, even.” He smiled, but then paused. Starlight saw him staring at her.

“What?” she said.

“Your eyes.”

Starlight at first did not understand, but then realized that she was not wearing her obligatory contact lenses. Without them, Jurneu could no doubt see that her eyes were both slightly different shades of red, and he was certainly intelligent enough to realize where they had come from.

“They’re transplants,” she said.

“From one of us,” noted Jurneu. He did not sound as though he was judging her, but just making a note of a fact.

“Yeah,” admitted Starlight after a moment. “I got them so long ago, Equestria didn’t know how to transplant non-breeder parts, so…” She trailed off. She was not sure if she needed to explain, or what good it would do for her cause.

“No, I understand. Antigenically, we match other ponies very well.” He paused. “And…well, they are very pretty. I think they suit you.”

“I miss my cybernetic ones,” muttered Starlight, picking up her eyepiece as she walked past the closet where she had left it. She paused, wondering if she should take her contact lenses as well. Her red eye-color was something shocking on Equestria Prime, but she doubted that anyone other than Jurneu would even notice as far from home as she was. After a second of consideration, she decided against it. She fit the eyepiece around her head and turned to the tall, white unicorn beside her. “So. Why exactly are we here?”

“Because there’s a reason the salarians used to call this location “the Place of Secrets”. If you want to find information on a criminal, you need to start somewhere. And there is no better place to start than Omega.” He turned slightly toward Starlight. “Have you ever been?”

“Once,” said Starlight. “A long time ago. I didn’t much like it.”

“Then you will most likely not like it much now. It hasn’t really changed much in the past, oh, three thousand years or so. I don’t even think they’ve cleaned it since the Protheans were here. You are welcome to stay on the ship, of course- -”

“Like hell,” said Starlight. “I’ve seen MUCH worse. Have you ever met a Chaos Wizard? Trust me, Omega is the Fluttershy of the universe in comparison.”

“Fluttershy? You mean the mass murderer?”

Starlight almost started to explain, but as they turned the corner toward the exit of the vessel she saw a sight that made her almost snort with laughter. The door was already open, and Zedok was literally attempting to pull Sbaya out of the door. The latter was clinging to the edge of the door with her fingertips, desperately struggling to stay on board.

“Come- -ON!” cried Zedok, tugging at her daughter but not pulling her loose. “The first time I went to Omega I was a TEENAGER! You’re almost three hundred!”

“NO!” squeaked Sbaya, struggling to hold her grip. “I don’t want to go! I want to stay on the ship!”

“No, you are GOING to go and you are GOING to LIKE IT!”

“But- -but what if there are SALARIANS?” wailed Sbaya. “What if they try to- -what if they try to PROBE me?!”

“Salarians?” said Beri, emerging from the hallway behind Starlight and already coated in her turian holographic shell. “Pfft. You’d probably hardly notice.”

“You would definitely know,” groaned Zedok.

“Actually, yeah,” said Beri, sliding a turian straight-sword into one of the scabbards on her back and placing a long Zetan pistol at her side. “Weirdest thing. I’ve been metal since I was fourteen, and you would not BELIEVE how many salarians I end up attracting. Something about being mostly machine turns them on waaaay too much. Not that I could ever even touch one of those frogs without blowing my mechanical cookies.” She pointed at Jurneu. “If you want to know what it’s like to get probed by a salarian? Ask him.”

Starlight’s eyes widened and she looked to the unicorn. “You didn’t.”

“I’m a Spectre specializing in information gathering. That sometimes requires some…special techniques.”

“‘Special Techniques’ is right,” chuckled Beri. “You’ve like a modern Garrus Vakarian!” Laughing, Beri then struck Sbaya’s knuckles, forcing the girl to release her deathgrip on the hull. With a cry, she fell backward onto her mother, knocking the pair of them down.

“Ow, my fingers!” said Sbaya, rubbing the digits. She looked up at Beri. “Why do you have to be so mean?”

“Because it’s my job,” said Beri, shrugging. She stepped past Sbaya, pausing to look back at her. “Yeah. Definitely Darien’s daughter. Good job there, asari.”

Zedok lifted her hand and raised her middle-finger to Beri, who just laughed it off.

Starlight sighed and helped Sbaya up. “It’s not that bad,” she said.

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re a unicorn!”

“A unicorn with no magic, no way to fire a gun, swing a sword, and maybe one or two tech attacks that still work. And do I look afraid?”

“I’m not so concerned with you looking afraid. I’m concerned with me BEING afraid.”

“Why would you be afraid? You’ve got two Spectres, a Harmony Priestess, and her with you,” said Starlight, pointing at Zedok. “Just stay close to at least one of you and you’ll be fine.”

“Probably,” said Beri from ahead. She looked over her shoulder. “And are we going to MOVE or not? I’m not getting any younger. I can literally feel my mortality sinking in. You are making me die. Of boredom.”

“I’m starting to wonder why I let her come with us,” said Starlight. “She’s not even that useful, and I certainly didn’t bring her for her looks.” She looked up and saw that Sbaya smiled slightly and tried to disguise it by covering her mouth. “Are you good?”

Sbaya nodded. “Yes. I am good.”

Jurneu, it seemed, had been correct. Starlight only distantly remembered Omega; in fact, it was one of her first memories apart from the hazy, distant and confused ones of her early childhood and the much more vivid memories of anesthetic-free surgery she had whenever she tried to sleep. Despite having not visited it in nearly three centuries, though, it hardly looked different at all. It was still the dirty, stinking quasi-industrial city it always had been, populated by the impoverished, the addicted, and most importantly the criminal.

The only major difference that Starlight could see was that while the people were the same, their species had changed. A substantial number of the new residents seemed to be dirtier and more criminal looking versions of several of the sentient- -and a few marginally sentient- -Equestrian species. The diamond dogs, griffons, ponies, and others, though, were hardly as frightening as the tall blondes that seemed to be the only ones taking note of Starlight’s presence.

“Are those…are those synths?” squeaked Sbaya.

“Yeah,” said Zedok, looking suspiciously back at the androids as if trying to intimidate them. “Yeah, I think they are.”

“Well, they’re certainly not human,” said Jurneu, almost joking.

“But- -but why are they here?”

“Because they live here.” Jurneu shrugged. “That’s why I love Omega. Aria gets a seat on the Council, and what does she do? She leverages it to get LESS regulation and oversight. Even the Governors don’t bother to come out this far except for the relay.”

Starlight looked around uncomfortably. She had toned down her uniform to downplay her role as an agent of the Cult, but that had the effect of making the people around her seem less wary than she was accustomed to. Without magic, she was extremely vulnerable, something that she had not had to face after so long in palace life.

Looking over her shoulder, Starlight scanned the crowd quickly and saw Beri lurking in the shadows in the distance. Even at such a great distance, Beri saw Starlight watching and nodded, putting her hand on her alien pistol. The gesture made Starlight feel somewhat better.

Still, as the group made their way deeper into the city, it became apparent that the vast majority of individuals were focused on more pressing matters. A number of people were walking around looking more nervous than normal, toting weapons and gripping them tightly. In other places, large groups had gathered, and in a few cases Starlight thought she saw abandoned storefronts that had been temporarily converted into small, makeshift hospitals.

“Something happened here,” said Jurneu.

“Ya think?” said Zedok, pulling her daughter aside as a pair of baterians pulled a stretcher past them with the remnants of what might have been a third baterian who now seemed mostly to consist of vorcha bites and biotic burns. Sbaya almost threw up.

The chaos only seemed to increase as Jurneu led them toward the Afterlife Club. Starlight could not help but wince when she saw the club itself. It was in shambles. The wounded were lying all over the floor, and the tables, chairs, and bar were all badly damaged. Some parts were even on fire. Apart from the few dancers standing far to the side of the carnage, and although none of them were dancing, Sbaya could not seem to take her eyes off them as she passed. Apart from the dancers, the only individual that seemed largely uninjured was an extremely happy and blood-slathered krogan drinking a bottle of ryncol at the bar.

“Yes,” said Jurneu. “This confirms my hypothesis. Something did, indeed, happen.”

Almost as soon as Jurneu stated that, he ducked. A krogan sailed over his head, trailing blue biotic energy as he went until he landed on a rather unfortunate diamond dog who yipped and began struggling to escape from beneath the now unconscious and bleeding krogan’s girth.

Starlight looked up to see an extremely angry asari approach the krogan. It was not hard to tell who she was; her dark blue skin, unique facial features, and most of all the cold, horrible anger in her every motion was enough to remind Starlight of the one time that the two of them had ever met.

“You COULD’T?” she hissed, the anger in her voice making even Starlight want to take an involuntary step back. “What do you mean ‘COULDN’T’? I paid you, didn’t I? And now LOOK AT MY GODDAMN CLUB!”

Her body bristled with biotic energy as she approached the krogan, and Starlight actually did step back. Even without the ability to use magic, she could still sense Aria’s outpouring of energy- -and that was not a good sign.

“Aria T’Loak?” said Jurneu, stepping forward.

Aria’s blue eyes slowly shifted to him, a look of pure hatred on her face at being interrupted. They, when they fell on Jurneu, her expression changed. If anything, it became even darker.

“NO,” she said.

“But I didn’t- -”

“I said NO.”

“I’m here on Spectre business- -”

“And you have NO business with me,” spat Aria. “In case you haven’t noticed? I’m having a very, VERY bad day. You have three seconds before I tear out your horn and shove it up your ass. Spectre or not.”

“I’m going to have to insist,” said Jurneu.

Aria sighed, and then turned away from the now whimpering krogan she had thrown out moments before. “Fine. I was going to tear out that one’s quad, but yours will do instead.”

Aria took several fast steps toward Jurneu, and Jurneu, to Starlight’s shock, took a defensive stance, charging his horn with pink-violet magic.

“Watching a Spectre get his insides turned into outsides by Aria T’Loak?” said Zedok, almost surprised by the thought. She opened her omnitool. “I’m so going to film this. I’ll be extranet famous.”

Aria turned to Zedok suddenly, prepared to strike. Instead, though, her eyes widened with recognition.

“Holy fuck,” she said. “You’re….you’re Fenok’s little girl.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” she said.

“It’s hardly you that’s stopping me,” said Aria, lowering her hands and allowing her corona of energy to dissipate. She turned to Starlight. “You can tell your turian to stop aiming that ridiculous Zetan artifact at my head.”

Starlight, soaked in her own sweat from being powerless in this situation, just nodded. Aria turned back to Zedok.

“I really didn’t expect to see you here. You’ve grown. A lot.”

“You haven’t. You’re, what, pushing eight hundred now? If you were on Thessia, you could be a matriarch. Damn. I wish I’m that hot when I get old.”

“Ha. ‘Matriarch’ would be a downgrade. Although probably less goddamn stressful.” Aria seemed to be calming down. “Now, just to be clear, I’m not happy right now. I’m happy to see you, but things are not going well. It’s not a good time to be on Omega.”

“Why am I here?” Zedok pointed at Jurneu. “Because this dolt is too cheap to pay the Shadow Broker for information. That, and to finally let my daughter, you know, see the galaxy and stuff.”

Aria’s eyes widened. “Daughter?”

Zedok sighed and stepped to the side. Sbaya, who had been huddled behind her out of sight, let out a squeak as she realized that her presence had been revealed. “Aria, this is Sbayadvlag.”

Aria winced. “That’s a name. What is with your family?” She looked down at Sbaya, then up at Zedok. “Krogan?”

Zedok shook her head. “Yahg.”

Aria winced again and then suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re kidding?”

“Does this look like my kidding face?”

“Wow,” said Aria. “You are definitely Alaelia’s daughter. She used to have the same motto for men and guns: go big or go home.” Aria turned her attention to Sbaya, who stood hesitantly. “Hello,” she said, calmly.

“Hello,” said Sbaya weakly.

“My name is Aria. I was a…very good friend to your grandmother.”

“Oh. It’s…it’s nice to meet you.”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “You’re very polite, aren’t you?”

“It is always important to treat authority figures with great respect.”

Aria looked at Zedok. “Yeah. I’m guessing she takes after her father.”

“You have no idea.”

Starlight stepped forward. “Aria T’Loak, my name is Starlight Glimmer- -”

“Yes, I know who you are,” said Aria. “The pony Priestess. Second in command to the purple-Princess herself. Now, let me take a guess. You are going to ask me to help you, just like your eugenic sex-toy just did.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that,” said Starlight. She gestured to the destroyed club. “I just wanted to know what the hell happened here?”

“What happened? Scootaloo happened.” Aria looked out over the room. “First, she starts a bar fight when we’re packed to quadruple capacity. The guards couldn’t handle it, and I had to go down to stop a vorcha riot in the basement. Then there’s the wounded- -a LOT of wounded- -especially since she apparently decided that it was perfectly okay and normal to fire a damn Equestrian particle beam THROUGH. MY. STATION. Do you have any idea how much damage that did and how goddamn expensive it will be to fix?” She sighed and shook her head. “And that’s not even THAT bad. There’s what she did not the planet…”

“What did she do?” asked Sbaya. “That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“She took the fight down there. The casualties, those I don’t care about. But then she mass-jumped in the planet’s atmosphere. I have twenty eight refining companies telling me the mass-surge wiped out all of their equipment and half of their eezio stock- -which means I’m not getting paid. Not to mention the dead synth…”

Starlight’s eyes widened. “A dead synth? She actually killed a synth?”

“Apparently. And you have no idea how much paperwork I’m going to need to fill out on that. The thing about synths is, when one actually DOES die, they get extremely agitated. Omega is on the verge of falling apart right now.”

Zedok laughed. Starlight looked up at her, surprised at her friend’s reaction. Aria seemed to be equally surprised.

“It’s not funny,” she said.

“No, it isn’t, but YOU are,” laughed Zedok. “Look at you! Worrying about Omega as a whole and things like ‘rebuilding’! You’re a politician!”

For a moment, Starlight thought that Aria was about to punch Zedok. After a few moments, though, the elder asari smiled.

“You know what? You’re right. Why the fuck do I care? I guess I am a damn Matriarch. None of that stuff really involves me, does it?”

“Is this the part where you suddenly get angry and hurt us?” whimpered Sbaya.

“What? No. I wasn’t being sarcastic. This time. It really isn’t my problem. Except that my club will be out of commission for a while. I will be gelding some people for that. Slowly. But later.” She put her hand on Sbaya’s shoulder. “But right now? I need a break. We’re going to get drinks, and get YOU a lap dance.”

“Lap- -but- -” Sbaya blushed. “I don’t think- -”

“Are you questioning me, little Sbaya?”

Zedok nudged her daughter. “Omega’s only gone one rule, Sbaya. ‘Don’t fuck with Aria’. You’re going to want to avoid questioning her, okay?”

“O…okay…”

Zedok and Sbaya were led off, with Aria ignoring the two unicorns beside her and stopping only to kick the krogan lying on the ground in side. Starlight and Jurneu were left alone.

“She was here,” said Starlight after a moment.

“Yes, she was,” said Jurneu, turning and exiting the club. Starlight followed. “And this level of damage is impressive.”

“Scootaloo was once a very close friend of mine,” said Starlight, “at least, before I knew who she REALLY was. She was something of a prodigy in our military before becoming a Priestess.”

“I know. I read the dossier. But we are at an advantage.”

“Really? How do we possibly have the advantage here?”

“Because she is unfamiliar with the modern world. She came here because she didn’t know where else to go. All kinds of places have opened up since her era to hide in: Kar’shan, the Sur’kesh quarantine zone, the Alliance-Council border zone, any of the pirate nebulas- -but she only knows Omega.”

“But she’s not here now.”

“No. But you heard Aria. She mass-jumped. I can only assume that she doesn’t realize that the dimension-flux can be traced. Especially if the resinance process was completed in an eezio-rich environment.”

Starlight turned to him. “You mean you can trace her.”

“I think so. We have the software for it, but it will take time.”

“How much time?”

“I won’t know until I start, but if the resonance was detected by the diagnostic equipment in the factories on the planet, then it could take as little as two days.”

“Two days,” mused Starlight. “If she moves in that time, would we be able to…” she trailed off as something in the distance caught her eye. Her blood seemed to run cold as she saw a face staring back at her from the distance. She only saw it for a moment, but there was no mistaking the impossibility of what she had just seen.

“High Priestess?” said Jurneu, concerned. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” said Starlight, stepping past him. “I just…” She turned back to him. “Get on it. Have Beri help you. Use my personal funds to rent quants if you need to, just get it done.” She started walking again.

“And where are you going?”

“I’ll be back soon to help.”

She started running through the crowd of aliens after the cloaked figure she had seen. Jurneu was left slightly confused, but he just smiled and shrugged as he planned out his exciting day of information gathering.

Starlight pushed through the crowd. She was not entirely sure shy she was in such a rush. Logically, she knew that what she saw had been an impossibility, and that part of her brain dismissed the person she had seen as a synth. The woman Starlight had thought she had seen had looked like a synth, but was also different. Synths were invariably similar: almost all of them were tall, and all of them had pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. Theoretically, yes; the skin synths wore was synthetic and it could look like anything- -but they always chose to look the same.

Through the crowd, Starlight saw the figure once again, waiting on the other side of a group crowding in front of a water spigot. She turned her head, and in the distance Starlight saw her dark-colored lips turn upward in a small smile. Starlight’s heart raced, and she continued to move through the swarm of aliens and ponies.

After nearly getting squashed by an unusually large geth, Starlight found herself at the junction of a pair of utility hallways. Disgusting smelling hot air was moving upward through them, and through one Starlight caught a glimpse of a cloak turning a far corner. Without hesitation, Starlight splashed through the liquid in the tunnel, passing a number of vorcha who slowly turned their heads, watching her pass.

This path was surprisingly narrow in parts, and Starlight was surprised that a biped was able to move through it, and even more surprised that no matter how fast she seemed to sprint, the person in front of her never got closer- -or escaped. She always seemed just far enough to be almost out of sight.

Starlight knew that she was being led somewhere, but she could not help herself. While the logical part of her mind was now screaming that this was a trap, it was drowned out by an almost obsessive hope that drove Starlight to keep going, just so that she could know.

In time, Starlight was led to what appeared to be a new development. The walls were incomplete, and the area almost completely abandoned. Even the vorcha had not come this far, preferring to stay in the dark and damp areas where they could procreate unseen. The only occupants of this area were bipedal quants at work building the station.

At this point, the trail went cold, and Starlight began to panic. She did not know where she was, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that she would not be able to know, that she would be left with the thought and possibility of what she had seen.

She wandered around for a moment and, just when she thought that she would have to give up, she saw her. The figure was standing in what appeared to be an unfinished office amongst the aluminum-framed walls. She was facing away from Starlight, looking out a large window.

At that point, Starlight felt herself suddenly freeze. Her words caught in her throat, and despite breathing hard from having run to catch the woman, she suddenly wanted to spring away. After a few moments, though, she spoke.

“J…Jack?” she said.

The figure did not move at first, but then slowly turned toward Starlight. Starlight gaped in awe as she saw her best friend’s face, and she took a step forward, intending to run crying into Jack’s arms. That was when she realized that something about Jack was not right. She was too young, and there were no signs of tattoos on her neck or head. The most telling sighs, though, was her excessively large blue-green eyes.

“You know,” she said in Jack’s exact voice, “I haven’t used this form in so very long. I had forgotten about it until I saw you. But it truly is my favorite.”

Starlight felt her heart breaking from the realization that this was not her friend, and she screamed in anger. As unexpected tears poured down her face, she raised her left hoof and fired an incineration beam at the woman. Chrysalis simply raised her hand and swiped away the beam with a small puff of green biotic energy.

“You are a lot weaker than I recall, too,” she said. “To think, you were once able to challenge Princess Cadence.”

“Why are you here?!” demanded Starlight. “WHY?!”

“No,” said Chrysalis, simply.

Starlight sputtered, confused. “Wh- -what?”

“I said ‘no’. I am not going to tell you that. I do not have to.” She smiled, showing that the only part of her body apart from her eyes that she did not bother to convert to Jack’s was her teeth. “Especially after you just tried to kill me.”

“You deserve it. You knew- -”

“Knew that the love you felt for this one is just as strong as it was when she was still breathing? Yes. I can feel it.”

“Then how dare you look like her? Why?!”

“Why not? She’s clearly not using the form anymore. By this time? I’m assuming she’s a skeleton somewhere. Rotted. Cold. Dead. Very, very dead.” She paused, cocking her head. “No…those words hurt you, but there’s another word. One you don’t want to hear. More than anything, you don’t want me to say that word…”

“Don’t you dare, Chrysalis- -”

“ALONE.”

Starlight winced, and Chrysalis smiled. The changeling stepped forward, her rapid and jerking motion breaking the illusion that she was anything even close to human. “That is the word. There is so much pain in that word.”

“Just stop,” said Starlight, quietly. She looked up, now fully crying. “Just stop. Why are you doing this?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m a creature that feeds on love. And love is the greatest form of pain known to exist.”

“She was my best friend,” said Starlight. “I…” She closed her eyes. “I promised her that I would come back. That she wouldn’t be alone anymore…and then…then I didn’t. She died. Without me. All alone. While I GOD-DAMN keep on LIVING!” She stomped her hoof into the floor with enough force that pain ran up her leg and into her shoulder. She ignored it. “If I didn’t…if I had just died on time…maybe I would have remembered.”

Chrysalis smiled, but not with the threatening, sardonic smile she had used before. “There is a reason why so very few of us are immortal,” she said. “Because it is not nearly as pleasant as many think it is.”

“I just…I just wanted to be there. With her. For her.” She sighed. “But that wouldn’t have stopped it, would it? If she died in my arms or died alone on some distant planet wishing to see me…I would still keep going, wouldn’t I?”
Chrysalis nodded. “You would. Until everyone you love is long dead.”

“So…so what is the solution?”

“That is the question,” said Chrysalis, turning back to her window. “It is not something I can answer. It is not something I have answered. You at least still have some friends. A second chance, if you will.”

“And you don’t?”

Her expression, visible through her reflection in the mirror, darkened. “No. Not anymore. My species is dead. I am the last of my kind. And with Shining Armor and Cadence gone…I am no longer bound to the Crystal Empire. I am free. But for what?” She turned to Starlight. “It’s my version of your question. Our question.”

“And that is why you are here,” reasoned Starlight.

“Yes…and no. I’ve been watching.” Her expression became even more serious. “You shouldn’t be here, Starlight. There are things happening that you don’t understand.”

“I’m here because I am pursuing a criminal,” said Starlight.

“Yes, Scootaloo, I know. And my advice: stop. Stop looking into this, Starlight Glimmer.”

“Stop?” Starlight felt a surge of misplaced anger, further aggravated by the fact that Chrysalis still insisted on stealing the face of one of the people who had been most dear to her. “Do you have any idea what she did?”

“Yes. But I also know what you might find if you keep digging. And I suspect you might not like it.”

“What kind of things?”

Chrysalis was about to speak, but then stopped herself. “No,” she said, reconsidering. “Let me just tell you part. As I’m sure you know by now, a synth died here.”

“Yes. Scootaloo killed it.”

“Her. Not ‘it’. A woman with parents, siblings, and loved ones. Hopes, dreams, ambitions, fears.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I thought you hated synthetic lifeforms.”

“Times change, Starlight. As I’m sure you know.”

“It is all the more reason Scootaloo needs to be stopped. She is a murderer. She killed one of my closest friends.”

“But what if I told you that it wasn’t her that killed that synth?”

Starlight paused. “Well, then who did?”

“I don’t know,” said Chrysalis, “in the sense that I don’t know their name. Or who they are. But I know that they’re moving. Doing…something. And they have been for a long, long time. Only recently have they gotten more and more active.” Something in her voice was chillingly agitated.

“You’re not telling me something.”

“I’m not telling you a lot of things.” Chrysalis paused. “But…there is one thing. I did see one once. Almost a decade ago, wandering a vorcha-controlled scrap planet. Black armor. Star symbol. And…”

“And what?”

“The feeling. The love…there was so much love. But it was wrong. Broken.” She pointed to her head. “Like…like he was screaming inside, like he didn’t understand WHY he loved her.”

“Who is ‘her’?”

“That I will not tell you. Simply because I don’t know. But suffice it to say: your friend is involved with some very powerful and very dangerous people. She’s already in too deep to get back out, but you’re not. Not yet. Turn back, Starlight Glimmer, while you still can.”

Chapter 11: Clones

In the dream, Scootaloo was walking. Around her, she saw the familiar sight of the Temple of Harmony. She felt her hooves clicking across the newly installed marble floor, smiling and occasionally laughing. She was truly happy.

She looked up at the pony beside her: a white-maned blue unicorn, her hair and starry Priestess robes worn in such a way as to conceal the expensive protruding cybernetic implants imbedded in her spine and skull.

The emotion changed slightly when Scootaloo saw her. It was happiness, but more powerful. She was not sure if there was a word for it, but the way that the blue unicorn’s smile made her feel was far more powerful than any contentment she could recall having known.

Then the slight, shy smile on the mare’s face faded, and her violet eyes drifted past Scootaloo and toward something ahead of them. Scootaloo slowly turned, and the castle surrounding her seemed to change with every degree her head tilted. It became darker, bleaker, and larger, its classical architecture giving way to a mush harsher set of lines and curves.

Sitting before her on the edge of the shadows was a small box made from dark, nearly black wood. Scootaloo hesitated, and then approached it slowly, leaving the blue unicorn behind. The box made her profoundly uneasy, but not because it was new and strange. She recognized it, and she knew what the contents were- -but she could not recall what, precisely, was in it, or where it had come from.

Scootaloo stopped at the box. For a moment, she paused, and then reached down and grasped the edge of the lid, lifting it gently. Inside it was a weapon, a strangely shaped and anomalous firearm set next to a singular bullet.

Confused, Sclootaloo looked back at Trixie- -only to see the blue mare’s skin peeling away from her body and her skeletal, burned face twisted into an expression of agony, save for her eyes. Those continued to stare at Scootaloo, and seeing them, Scootaloo felt her heart breaking.

She awoke screaming, but stopped herself almost immediately. She did not know where she was, at first, but she kept calm until the memories of her life began coming back to her. A bright spot formed in the room beside her.

“Captain?” said Inte, even before her holographic body had fully materialized. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “Just a dream.”

“Oh. So you are not dying?”

“I sure hope not.” Scootaloo pulled back the thin, metallic emergency blanket covering her. She stood, and almost cried out from the extreme stiffness. Her rear right leg was especially painful, and she looked down to see that it had been bandaged.

“If you would recall,” said Inte, “you did get shot.”

“Oh, I recall,” said Scootaloo, wincing as she gingerly tried to use her now rather swollen leg. “It’s hard not to recall getting shot in the leg.”

“Do you need any morphine?”

“You have morphine?” asked Scootaloo.

“No. Why would I have that?”

Scootaloo sighed. “I’m fine,” she said. “But thank you for asking.”

Inte smiled, and then her hologram faded as she retreated back into the ship’s systems. Scootaloo then walked past where Inte had been standing toward the door. She appeared to have been sleeping in a small, unfinished room. It looked like it had been meant to serve as crew quarters, or perhaps a storage area. Nothing in Inte’s ship was complete, so it was impossible to know.

Scootaloo exited, pausing for a moment, trying to determine if the ship was in flight or docked. The engine, it seemed, was amazingly quiet, and the ship had absolutely no vibration or noise whatsoever. It was perfectly silent. Yet, somehow, Scootaloo still knew that she was in space. She chalked it down to the instinct of an old naval commander, something she was surprised to find herself having at her relatively young age.

That thought, though, led to a strange realization: if the ship was flying, Scootaloo was not flying it.

“Scootaloo?” said a voice from the far end of the central corridor. Scootaloo turned to see Six walking toward her. “I see you’re awake. Are you feeling okay?”

Scootaloo gestured toward her bandaged leg. “I assume you did this?”

“Yes. Among other things. Your body is in terrible condition. I’m amazed…well, no, it is YOU so I’m not all that amazed- -that you made it this far. You need to go easy. And, also, avoid getting shot.”

“What about you?” said Scootaloo, suddenly remembering their narrow escape from the unnamed planet tethered to Omega. “You got hit in the wing!”

Six smiled sheepishly and then turned her body, showing where one of her large alicorn wings was bandaged. “Indeed. It hurt like a proverbial dicken.”

“How bad is it?” said Scootaloo, trotting to Six’s side to inspect the damaged appendage. She cringed slightly upon seeing it; as a Pegasus, she knew how sensitive wings were. Even her own atrophied, useless wings were an important part of her body that she was proud of. Being winged was a humiliating injury.

“It is fine,” said Six. “As an alicorn, I have found that I am substantially more durable than most ponies. It would take a great deal of effort to injure me permanently. I will be flying within a day or so.” She looked down at Scootaloo with a concerned expression. Scootaloo almost shivered at how similar Six looked to Twilight. That made sense, of course, considering Six and her sisters’ origins, but it was still strange to see those eyes looking at her that way. “You, though? You will not heal as quickly. You need to be careful, Scootaloo.”

“It’s not my fault they were shooting at me.”

“I should hope not.” Six sighed, and started walking toward the observation area that Scootaloo had coopted as a bridge. “You should go back to bed.”

“I don’t want to. Not right now,” said Scootaloo, following Six. Despite her size, Six did not move quickly.

Upon seeing Scootaloo’s insistnace, Six smiled. “Well…it would be good to have company. You can help me with the final diagnostics I need to run.”

“Diagnostics? On what? Not me, I hope.”

“Oh no. Not you. I’ve already run all the diagnostics I needed to on you. I mean on your quant.”

“My…you mean Inte?”

Six nodded, and pointed behind her. “That was where I was just now. I was attempting to sever your quant’s recall connection. That is, quants usually synch with higher-tier quants via quantum tunneling. When they have questions and such, or need updates. It is not preferable when you want to be hiding.”

“Wait…you mean they can track Inte? Why didn’t she- -”

“No,” said Six. “They can’t. That was the strange part. Well, one of them. She was already set not to synchronize or call for updates. She’s already running on isolation mode.”

“Strange? What else did you find?”

“Well, for one, the quant on this ship is massive. As in the kind you would normally find on a hub-dreadnaught.”

“I don’t know what that is, Six. I’ve been frozen. For a while.”

“Ah. It’s an incredibly large space vessel that houses an extremely powerful quant mainframe. Their purpose is to control and oversee hundreds or even thousands of smaller ships. Seeing one installed in a scout ship like this? It’s almost inconceivable. I can only gather that this vessel was custom built. For some reason.”

“So this isn’t a normal ship? It’s a hub?”

“No, that’s just it. It’s not. The quant isn’t optimized for that. It’s almost…” Six paused, trying to think of a word. “It’s like she’s incomplete. Unfinished, maybe. The part you’re interacting with is just a front-partition, like an ordinary ship-quant. But the backend? There’s things going on in there that I can’t even understand.”

The air on front of six flashed, and Inte’s hologram appeared. “Excuse me,” she said, sounding annoyed. “Did you just say I have a big back end?”

“Oh, my gersh,” said Six, stopping and poking Scootaloo on the shoulder excitedly. “I hadn’t been able to get her to project, but- -she is just ADORABLE!”
` Inte suddenly smiled. “Captain Scootaloo has set my physical appearance to ‘Loli Earth Pony, Green with Yellow Highlights’.”

“What- - no! No I didn’t!”

“I love it! Say, Inte, was it? Can you do a Pegasus? One with very fluffy wings?”

“I can,” said Inte. “If Scootaloo authorizes it.”

“No!” cried Scootaloo. “I’m not authorizing anything!”

“You’re right,” said Six. “There’s just something about earth-ponies. Such sleek, simple, supple bodies.”

Inte paused and looked up at Six before turning to Scootaloo. “She’s a bit of a lesbian, isn’t she?”

“Why don’t I take you to the back of the ship and we find out?” said Six.

“No, thank you. I do not have a concierge module installed.”

“That’s okay. I can teach you if you want.”

Inte’s eyes widened and she took a step back. “No. That is okay. I have…things to do. Namely purging the other alicorn out of my ventilation system. Have to go!”

With that, her hologram vanished.

“That was…uncomfortable,” sighed Scootaloo. She looked up at Six, who was smiling broadly. “How did she hear us, though?”

“How? She always hears us. Anywhere and everywhere, all the time. It’s how quants are made.”

“That’s creepy.”

“Not really,” said Six, starting toward the observation area again. “She’s a quant. They’re just programming, after all.”

Together, they entered the observation deck. Scootaloo took her seat in the center and opened her command interface. From behind her, she heard Six laugh.

“What?” she said.

“I- -I can’t believe it,” said Six. “I’m sorry, it’s just that…you’re on an Equestrian ship. With a quant and everything. The most advanced piloting system in the known universe, and you had it build a manual interface. To fly by hoof.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” asked Scootaloo, defensively.

“Oh,” said Six, looking surprised. “I- -I didn’t mean to be insulting, it’s just that…It’s something I could imagine you doing.” She opened her omnitool and began running her diagnostics. “But I suppose I hardly knew you, didn’t I?”

“I think we know each other pretty well,” said Scootaloo. “I mean, I consider you a friend.”

Six looked somewhat surprised, but then pretended to cough to hide her blushing. “Well…yes. Thank you. Although I’m afraid that, if I have been your friend, I have not been a very good one.”

“I was just getting chased by a literal horde of bounty hunters, and you and Seven dropped everything you were doing and risked your own lives to help me without even hesitating. If that’s not a sign of a good friend, I’m not sure what would be.”
“No, but…” Six paused, and then closed her omnitool. “I thought you were dead.”
“So did I,” said Scootaloo. “I mean, I’ve been frozen. You couldn’t have known- -”

“No. You remember, don’t you? The last time we met. I gave you a flower. That…that aws the last time I saw you. Our mother said you were dead, and I just believed her. Like an idiot.”

Scootaloo did remember. “And if I remember, Seven was very, very badly injured.”

“Yes. She still cannot use her biotics. I reconfigured her neural pathways for tech, but…” She trailed off. “And my older sister. Four. Four almost died. I got so caught up in it, I didn’t even bother to go back for you. Or to check on you.”

“You couldn’t have known, Six.”

“No. I could have. And I should have. I…I…” She paused again, and seemed to change her subject. She looked into Scootaloo’s eyes. “You know, I still thought about you. All this time. You left an impression on me, I suppose. It was getting less and less often, but sometimes…sometimes I would remember. And not once did I try to find you.”

“Well, I’m here now.”

“I’ve been with other ponies since you,” blurted out Six, blushing.

Scootaloo paused, feeling the atmosphere go silent with awkwardness. She wished for a moment that Inte had not hidden herself away, just to distract from what Six had just said.

“Well,” said Scootaloo, “that’s okay. I mean, it’s been, what, almost three hundred years? And mares have needs. We’re not made to keep going without love. I mean, look at me. I even went and got married.”

Scootaloo suddenly froze, and Six’s eyes almost bugged out of her face.

“Married?” said Six. “You…you got married?”

Scootaloo slowly nodded. “I…I did,” she said, recalling without a doubt that that fact was true.

“To whom?”

Scootaloo opened her mouth to respond, but to her horror realized that she could not answer the question. “I…I don’t remember,” she said. She felt her eyes starting to water. Something was wrong. The memory was scrambled; she could remember the love she felt for another pony, but not the pony’s name. Not even what she looked like- -and to have forgotten a pony she loved so dearly was heartbreaking.

“Something’s wrong with me,” she said, wiping away the tears. “Parts of my life, they’re missing. I remember becoming a Priestess, but then…it gets hazy. I don’t remember my life, or being frozen, or even why.”

“It’s okay,” said Six, stepping forward and taking Scootaloo’s hoof. “It’s okay.”

“How is this possibly okay?!” snapped Scootaloo. “I can’t even remember my own wife!”

“What I mean is, this is temporary,” said Six. “At least, most likely it is. Your entire body was ravaged by extended cryostasis. Your lungs, muscles, and your brain. It’s a miracle you’re even alive right now. The memories will come back, but slowly. It will take time.”

“I hope so,” said Scootaloo, wondering whether or not that assertion was in fact a lie.

Despite having once been a Captain in the Equestrian Royal Navy, Scootaloo’s knowledge of the Milk-Path galaxy was profoundly lacking. Six, however, seemed to know the galaxy quite well, and although Scootaloo was somewhat ashamed of her own perceived inadequacy, she was glad that she had friends who could help her.

The planet that Six had brought her to was distant and obscure. From what Scootaloo understood, it was located in an extreme backwater in an region of the galaxy that simply had not been colonized due to its lack of mass-relays in antiquity. With the advent of mass-jumping, the relays had become obsolete, but even then nobody had bothered to come.

One planet, at least, appeared to be at least marginally occupied. Amongst its rocky surface and planes, there were several discreet landing pads and crumbling pathways linking them to an unseen hub. This was where Scootaloo found herself, walking along one of these paths with her ship parked behind her and Six and Seven on either side of her.

From above, the unnamed word had appeared to be mostly a kind of dark rust color. From the ground, though, the color seemed deeper and less pleasant. Far in the distance, Scootaloo could see a long and wide shore that led to a distant, muddy ocean. The dark colored soil of the landscape was dotted with sparse beds of plants that could best be described as unusually large moss, leading up to the rocky and mostly lifeless mountains where the landing areas had been assembled.

“Wow,” said Scootaloo. “This place is…pleasant.”

“Indeed,” said Six. “The foliage does have a delicate aspect to it.” She paused. “Yes, I know she was being sarcastic,” she said to Seven. Then, to Scootaloo, “at least the atmosphere is breathable. Plenty of argon.”

Scootaloo looked at the pair of alicorns beside her, somewhat amused. They both dwarfed her; Six was physically larger, but Seven was dressed in thick pony armor that made her physically much more intimidating than she would have been nude. “So,” said Scootaloo. “Are you two…you know…”

“Sexually involved? Not usually, no.”

“Eew. Not what I was going to ask.”

“Oh. Then what?”

“Are you telepathic?”

Six blinked, confused, and then the pair of them laughed. “Telepathic? No, of course not. We’re sisters!” They looked at each other, with Seven appearing to smile slightly despite her excessive number of teeth. “We’ll…we’re actually genetically identical. Closer to twins. We just tend to know what we’re thinking.”

“Damn,” said Scootaloo. “I wish having a relationship with my sister had been that easy.” She frowned after saying that, realizing that it made her profoundly sad.

“We don’t have a good relationship with ALL of our sisters,” muttered Six, absently.

“What are the others doing, actually?” asked Scootaloo, trying to distract herself from the now irresistible desire to think about Rainbow Dash.

“Oh,” said Six, her attention turning back to the conversation. “Well, Nine is mostly into mercenary work these days. We hire her in from time to time. Eight…collects things. And Four has a super-cushy job in the Alliance Navy. I hope you don’t mind, but I used your quant to send an encrypted transmission to them. Eight and Nine might show up, but I doubt Four will.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Scootaloo.

“No, I didn’t. But they’d be glad to see you, I think. And with the depth you seem to have lodged yourself in, excuse my French, crottin de chevel, we’re going to need as much help as we can get.”

The planet’s greenish-hued seemed to dim as the trio stepped into the shadow of a large, almost monolithic mountain. Several holes had been cut into it, forming tunnels for the various landing paths to enter it. The holes were lit by strings of dirty, inadequate work lights, and Scootaloo hesitated as she approached. Six and Seven entered without pause, though, save for a brief moment when Seven turned back to Scootaloo and gave a small nod. Relying on her confidence in the pair’s intentions, Scootaloo followed.

“What exactly is this place?” asked Scootaloo.

“Self-storage,” replied Six.

The path quickly terminated into a large, round cavern that appeared to be only partly artificial. The majority of it was filled with a substantial amount of equipment, mostly large humming engines and pipes that seemed to emerge from the solid stone of the walls. Almost all of it connected to a large and slightly rusted central tank that was emitting a sickly blue-green light through a thick and extremely grimy porthole.

Six approached the tank and pounded on the side with her hoof. The sound of the clanging was substantial, but as soon as she stopped Scootaloo heard loud swearing and something moving from inside.

“What do you want?” called an amplified voice. From its echo and distortion, Scootaloo found herself believing it was from inside the tank. Just as she began to doubt this, she saw a shadow move behind the porthole and a three-fingered hand wipe away the condensation from the far side, smearing the greasy dirt instead of wiping it off. A distorted and grotesque face peered through.

“Silin, it’s me,” said Six, positioning herself in front of the window.

There was a sharp, gurgling inhale from inside. “Delilah of Earth-Clan,” said the occupant. His beady eyes shifted to Seven. “And Sven of Earth-Clan. Also unknown individual of Horse-Clan.”

“She is a guest,” said Six.

Silin paused. “And this is business, then?”

“When isn’t it with you?”

“Ha! When the human Earth-Clan were alive, they said ‘time is money’. They were not smart, but they were right on some things. My time is always worth money. Your money.”

“I just came to check on my ship,” said Six. “The contract does include that, doesn’t it?”

“It…might…”

“Oh,” said Six, appearing discouraged. “Well, I really need to see my ship. So I’m willing to negotiate a price.”

“Ah! Yes, negation is always welco- -”

Six suddenly smiled, bearing her pointed teeth. She stepped aside, and Seven stepped forward. “So for that I will need to connect you to my financial department.”

There was a gasp from inside the tank, and Scootaloo saw the cloudy figure blanch. “Ah, no! Hold, please!” He vanished for a moment and then returned. “I have reviewed the contract. Yes, you are free to enter.”

Behind the tank, the holographic indicator on a heavy door shifted color. A second later, there were several loud clanks as the door’s locking mechanism disengaged. Then it slowly opened with a horrid grinding, squeaking sound.

“Thank you,” said Six. “I do love doing the kind of business that doesn’t involve puncturing things.”

She curtly stepped past the tank, and Scootaloo heard the occupant swearing in an alien language, at which point Six promptly retorted in the same language. Scootaloo and Seven then followed her.

“So,” said Scootaloo, once they were past the tank. “You go by Delilah now?”

“I can,” said Six. “I do like that name. It sounds pretty. But you can still call me ‘Six’ if you want.”

“And Seven chose…Sven?”

Seven blushed slightly, seeming embarrassed.

“I think it’s an excellent name,” said Six. “Imposing. Masculine.”

Seven jabbed her in the shoulder.

“Well, you definitely frightened that guy,” said Scootaloo.

“Oh, of course. She even scares me. Do you know why?”

Scootaloo was mildly intrigued. “Why?”

Six stopped and leaned close to Scootaloo, then whispered in her ear. “Because Seven…ate Nine!”

It took a second for Scootaloo to get the joke, but as soon as she did, she groaned loudly, along with Seven in her nearly silent raspy voice. Six laughed. “Oh come on, that was funny!”

“No. No it wasn’t. How long were you waiting to use that one?”

“Over two hundred years. Finally!” She paused. “And, by the way, she really has ‘eaten’ Nine. We both have. So to speak. She makes such adorable sounds when we do.”

“I know. I was there for that part.” She looked up at Seven, who seemed somewhat embarrassed by the mention of her relationship with her youngest sister. “But it does work. The short hair, the omnitools. You have a real strong-silent vibe. I bet the mares are lining up for you.”

“Stallions,” corrected Six. “And to be honest, she has the worst luck with them. I keep telling her to forego the mask and actually talk to them. She has a lovely singing voice, actually. Nobody is going to judge her for her.”

“Well, it is her choice. And she looks damn cool.”

Seven blushed slightly. For a moment, she looked like she was about to speak, but she paused, considering it for a moment, and then remained silent.

The scenery was starting to change around them. They were located in a cavern that appeared to be a continuation of the one where the area’s proprietor lived, although it became much larger the deeper they progressed into it. On either side, Scootaloo saw deep natural crevices that seemed to be largely stacked with vehicles. There were many types, although most of them consisted of smallish shuttlecraft and wheeled vehicles. A particularly popular model was a flattened, six-wheeled military vehicle. None of them were in good condition- -they were filled with holes, rusted, or beaten severely in various ways- -but they, like the various vehicles around them, appeared to be in good condition.

This wide, low-ceilinged area of the cave suddenly gave way to a much larger area. Scootaloo looked up and gasped. The area was breathtakingly enormous: an enormous cylindrical room stretching up farther than she could see, its walls lined completely with hundreds of starships.

“Celestia’s rump,” she swore. “There’s an entire fleet here! What is this place?”

“As I said, self-storage. For ships, vehicles, and the like. And by ‘the like’ I mean that if you pay Silin enough, he doesn’t ask questions.”

“These aren’t all yours.”

“What? No, of course not! I’m not nearly that wealthy. Most of them are from private collections, salvage, or they’re just waiting here until their original owners stop looking for them. I own one ship here.” She looked into the darker areas of the room, squinting, and then pointed. “It’s up there.”

“I already have a ship,” said Scootaloo.

“With me? Aw!” Six laughed at her own joke. “No, but being serious, I know that. Just trust me on this.” She advanced forward, and whispered to Seven. “No! That doesn’t count as sexual harassment! It was a joke- -no! I didn’t mean it like- -will you let me get a word in?!”

Her language quickly decayed into a rapid clicking language that Scootaloo could not understand as the three of them walked to a large circular pad. Six and Seven stepped onto it, and Scootaloo followed.

“Mind the edge,” said Six, opening the holographic controls on one end of the platform. “Railing are apparently expensive.”

The circular pad began to shudder, and then suddenly started moving upward quickly, guided by a rail installed in the wall and propelled by a mass-effect field. The initial inertia was almost crushing, and Scootaloo slipped on her weakened rear leg. She would have fallen completely had Six not stabilized her with a glowing pink-violet field of magic.

The acceleration quickly stabilized, though, and Scootaloo looked over the edge at the rapidly vanishing ground. It made her somewhat nervous to be that high off the ground, and she found herself edging back to the center of the elevator.

“Always elevators,” complained Six. “I don’t know what it is about these designers, they just LOVE elevators. And elevator music.” She turned to Seven. “Speaking of music, or rather the act of listening, I’m getting a little nervous about the perimeter. This place is unusually quiet.”

Seven nodded, and her tech-visor flashed as her left omnitool ignited, spawning a trio of spherical orange sensor drones that clicked and muttered in a strange and distorted language all their own. Seven then stepped backward off the edge of the platform. Scootaloo watched her drop and then spread her violet wings, soaring across the vast room and into the shadows on the far side, one of her drones in close pursuit while the others travelled outward, searching.

“Wow,” said Scootaloo, admiring Seven’s smooth flight and long, powerful wings. “I seriously wish I could do that.”

“Eh,” said Six, “I think it’s overrated.”

“Are you saying that to make me feel better?”

“Because you can’t fly? No. I just find it tiring, and there are far more fun things to do on the ground.”

“I think it’s a cultural thing,” mused Scootaloo. “Pegasi are meant to fly. It’s in our blood.”

“Noted,” said Six, looking upward toward their destination. Scootaloo did as well, but the ceiling was still far out of her range of vision and they were continuing to rise quickly toward their unseen goal.

“You know,” said Scootaloo, “I actually was kind of wondering. What is it exactly that you and Seven do?”

“What? Oh!” said Six, clearly having not realized that Scootaloo did not now. “We’re middlemen!”

“Um…is that actually a job?”

“Yes. People come to us when they want things, and we connect them to the people that can get them. It protects the buyer and the seller, especially when either party requires…discretion.”

“So it’s not exactly a legal sort of job, is it?”

Six winced. “Well…it depends on your definition of ‘law’. But, yes. We get people what they need when they need it, regardless of what it is.” She paused. “Except information. That’s the Shadow Broker’s domain, and she just HATES competition.” Six looked back up toward their destination. “I really hope that doesn’t change your impression of me.”

“You do realize that when I met you, you were a cannibalistic mercenary, right? And I’m still here.” Scootaloo sighed. “To be honest, I actually feel kind of bad that I messed up your business. I mean, I just barged in like that- -”

Six waved dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. The office was a front. And aside from that, we were considering relocating anyway. Seven keeps pushing for Illium, but I’ve had my eye on a nice station in the Verge.”

“But I still made a huge mess for you. And I don’t even think I can pay- -”

“Scootaloo. It is not a problem. I like you. Seven likes you. We don’t have many friends, and you are one of them. I’m always willing to help a friend.”

Scootaloo was touched. She had only met Six and her siblings once, and it was what for them must have been a long, long time ago. The fact that they were still willing to help her was nothing short of miraculous. Had they not been so kind, Scootaloo would have been in a far more desperate situation.

“Oh, there it is!” said Six, excitedly pointing. Scootaloo followed the direction indicated by Six’s hoof. When she saw the ship that Six was pointing at, she hardly shared in the alicorn’s excitement.

“That’s your ship?” she said, trying not to sound insulting. It was difficult not to, though. It was a wreck. Scootaloo figured that at one point, it had been some kind of swooping, elegant frigade. Part of the long, curved fuselage remained, as did a fragment of one of its small delta-like wings. The rest, though, was either missing completely or had been incompletely rebuilt amongst the wreckage of what was quite clearly a charred and ruined ship.

“Do you like it?” said Six as the platform came to a stop.

“I’m not going to lie,” said Scootaloo. “That is only just barely a starship. It’s about one stiff breeze away from being NOT a starship.”

“What, you don’t recognize it?” Six stepped onto the landing dock where the wreck was located and gestured up at it. “This is the ACTUAL SR1 Normandy!”

Scootaloo looked up at it. “Is that name supposed to mean something?”

“Well…no. Not to you, as an Equestrian. But this ship has extraordinary historical value. It belonged to Commander Shepard. In fact he died in it. The first time, anyway.” She tapped on the rusted and carbonized hull with a hoof. “I mean, it’s no SR2, and whoever tried to restore it did a terrible job.”

“Where did you even get this thing?” asked Scootaloo.

“Oh. Funny story. Eight used to have it, but she eventually gave up on collecting ships. I mean, aside from the SR2. Not really her thing.” She passed around to the side of the ship and levitated herself to a boxy and metallic airlock that was clearly not part of the origional ship.

“Six, does this thing even fly?” asked Scootaloo, shaking her head.

“What? No, of course not. There’s no engine.”

“Then what in the wide, wide worlds of Equestria do we need it for?” Scootaloo shook her head. “I have a ship. You know, one that WORKS.”

“I know. Which is why we didn’t get one of my WORKING ships.” Six reached out with her magic and levitated Scootaloo to the airlock. “Just follow me. I’m sure you will enjoy this.”

Six opened the airlock and entered the severely damaged corridors of the ship. Most of them did not match the sleek exterior of the ship at all, and it was immediately clear that the only parts of whatever ship this had once been were, largely, the outer hull. What few parts of the inside that remained had been badly gutted by fire, with streaks of long-solidified molten material running down the twisted and partially rebuilt wreckage of the halls. It smelled bad, too, but only subtly. Even after centuries since it had been destroyed, it still smelled like plasma fire and ash. It was the smell of a dead ship, and it made Scootaloo shiver.

They quickly reached what had clearly once been the bridge. It was the area that had been the most restored, but it was also the area of the ship that made Scootaloo the most uncomfortable. The chairs on either end of it were wrecked, and the scaffolding that supported the floor was exposed. It still held the original shape of the room, but was twisted and broken. Scootaloo came from a naval background, and she understood the significance of a ship in this condition. This was not a decommissioned derelict; the Normandy had died in battle, and Scootaloo knew that a number of sailors had lost their lives on this very bridge.

“This…this isn’t right,” said Scootaloo. “We’re being disrespectful. We shouldn’t be here. Nobody should be here.”

Six looked at her, her expression a cross between confusion and amusement. “Again, a cultural difference, I suppose. My mother was a scrap harvester before she joined Cerberus. To me, this is just metal. And the dead are just food.” She stepped up to the top most portion of the bridge.
“What are you doing?”
“Just watch.”

Six directed her horn toward the warped area where the starchart or controls must once have been. Scootaloo walked beside her, and to her surprise heard several mechanical sounds clicking from deep below the restored metal bottom of the device. Then, to her even greater surprise, what had previously looked like generic flat metal irised open, revealing the mechanical locks that Six had opened with her magic.

From within the hole rose an object. Upon seeing the shiny, violet-blue surface, Scootaloo momentarily forgot about the ghost ship around her.

“That’s- -that’s Crystal Empire crystal,” she gasped, staring at the enormous box.

Six smiled. “I know. This container could survive a planetary detonating if I needed it to. Even better, it blocks scanning. Silin thinks I’m storing a rare antique ship, but the ship- -though historically valuable- -is a cover.”

She charged her horn again, and the crystalline mechanisms in the center of the box began to move in response to her carefully controlled magic. It was almost resizing to watch; Six’s magic was incredibly accurate and measured, perhaps even more so than the actual Twilight Sparkle’s.

The box shifted and opened, and a system of racks expanded from inside. The internal shelving was mostly metal, but even just its veneer was made of more crystal than Scootaloo had ever seen. The case alone must have been worth a fortune. The contents, though, were even more impressive.

It was filled with weapons. There were guns, armor, and supplies of every sort.

“You were just hiding all this? Out here? In the middle of nowhere?”

“I’m hiding a lot of things in a lot of middles of nowhere. Nowheres. Hmm.” Six approached the box and removed several items with her magic. “Right…first, let’s get you some clothes.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because your tail is cropped so short I can see your lady bits.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “You were looking?”

Six blushed and sputtered. “N- -no! Of course not! I just- -I didn’t- -”

“Six, relax,” said Scootaloo. “I was joking. It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before. I don’t mind. Besides, I am pretty hot.”

“Well- -yes, in a- -objective sense, purely, of course- -I- -” Six cleared her throat. “Oh, also this,” she said, removing a small hexagonal device from the case. “Shields. We’ll both need them. You can have this one. It’s apparently very good.”

“Really?” said Scootaloo, taking a bundle of pony-sized clothing and the shield generator. “How good?”

“Well, it used to belong to an Alliance soldier before Nine offed him. And the Alliance makes the very best shields.”

“Clearly,” said Scootaloo. Six did not seem to pick up on the sarcasm.

“Also, hold out your left hoof.”

Scootaloo looked up at Six, confused, and Six nodded, gesturing for Scootaloo to do it. Scootaloo did. The next thing she knew, Six had pressed a large device to her arm. There was a hiss and a sudden intense pain.

“BUCK!” cried Scootaloo, pulling her arm back. “What the HELL?!” She looked down at her limb. Just above her hoof was the still-smoking remains of a rather large hole. She realized that the thing that Six was holding was an automatic needle of nontrivial size. “SIX?!”

“Hold on. It takes a few seconds…and there it goes.”

Scootaloo looked down at her arm and saw the space around it begin to flicker with orange light. At first, it was not entirely clear, but then it slowly resolved into an omnitool.

“You are going to need that,” said Six. “Sorry about the pain. It smarts, I know. Seven literally bit me when I put in her second one. Yours is decent quality, and it will do for now. You may feel a bit itchy as it interfaces with your nervous system.”

“Smarts- -that wasn’t a ‘smart’! You could have at least warned me!”

“But then you would have resisted.” Six turned back to the case and continued to rummage through the various firearms and weapons in it.

“I have no idea how to use this,” said Scootaloo, barely managing to flick her omnitool closed. “I need a gun.”

“I’m looking…I don’t know if I have anything your size.”

“It doesn’t help that half your stuff is made for unicorns,” said Scootaloo, picking up a rifle that was clearly optimized either for someone with hands or with telekinesis.

“No, I have some pony weapons. Good ones, too. There’s some good equipment coming off Dekuuna these days; the elcor really know how to build to quadrupeds. The thing is, it’s all too heavy for you…”

Six’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh! I forgot I had this here!” she leaned back out of the pile of weapons with a small polymer box held in her magic.

“What is it?” asked Scootaloo.

“It’s a special set of pony armor! I originally had it made for Nine, but she refused to use it. She said it was ‘too integrated’ and ‘too techy’ and that it slowed down her recharge time. Which, for her, means it GAVE her a recharge time. Nine wasn’t much larger than you at the time, I think it might just fit…”

She placed the box on the floor and opened it. Scootaloo could not see the contents clearly, but she saw Six remove the dark, opaque faceplate for the helmet. For some reason, Scootaloo shuddered.

“Here, take a look,” said Six, passing the plate to Scootaloo. Scootaloo hesitated, but took it after a moment. Something about it was intriguing, as if she had seen it before somewhere.

The mask reacted almost immediately to her touch. A luminescent white circle instantaneously formed in the center of the dark mask, and then flitted about before settling on Scootaloo, staring at her like an eye. It was at that moment that Scootaloo recognized this mask and the armor it was associated with. She jumped back in horror and threw the mask away.

“Where- -where the HELL did you get that?!” she shrieked.

Six appeared taken aback and horribly confused. “I- -I had it commissioned,” she said. “Parts of it are Zetan, but others are of Equest- -”

“I’m NOT WEARING THAT!” cried Scootaloo, feeling her voice going embarrassingly high. “I’m- -I’m just NOT!”

“Alright! Alright,” said Six. “Just calm down, please.” She picked up the mask and put it back in the case with the rest of the armor. She seemed to have no idea why Scootaloo reacted the way she had, not knowing what that armor meant to the younger pony. “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

Six gently set the faceplate back in the box, and Scootaloo realized how ridiculous her reaction must have seemed. Six did not even know the name “Xyuka” or what she truly was, and Scootaloo felt terrible for having overreacted toward her friend.

“Sorry,” muttered Scootaloo. Then, trying to change the subject. “I still don’t quite get it though. Weapons, shields, armor? I need to know exactly what you’re planning on doing.”

“Well,” said Six, examining a rifle, “that part is up to you. My suggestion, though, is to get you safe into hiding. A place where the bounty hunters and the Equestrians will not be able to find you.”

“No. Not going to happen.”

Six looked up from her rifle. “And might I ask why?”

“Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You stand accused of heresy on your homeworld. From what I gather, there isn’t a higher crime.”

“But I’m innocent,” said Scootaloo, firmly. “There is a misunderstanding. There has to be. Twilight isn’t that kind of pony, if I could just talk to her…”

Six shook her head. “I have never met Twilight Sparkle. But considering I am a clone of her, I can only gather that she is at least something like myself and my sisters.”

“Less than you would think.”

“Regardless: she would not make a ‘mistake’ this significant. She knows what she is doing.”

“Then I need to know more. My memory…it’s all messed up. I don’t remember my trial, what happened, nothing. It’s all gone. Maybe all I can do is go into hiding, but maybe not. I need to know. I know you said you didn’t deal in information, but…”

“I don’t usually. But I can make some calls. Hell, I’ll call the Shadow Broker herself if I have to. And until then, we’ll do our very best to keep you secure.”

“Thank you, Six.” Scootaloo felt a profound sense of gratefulness, and for the first time since she had woken up a sense of security, as tenuous as it was. Something was still bothering her, though. “Six?”

“Yes, Scootaloo?”

“Were you seriously looking at my filly parts?”

“Well…were you looking at mine?”

The two stared at each other for a moment, and then went immediately back to choosing weapons from the stack.

Chapter 12: Nighttime

There were no day-night cycles on Omega. It was always lit with the same dim, inadequate light. The streets and corridors were always flooded with aliens, both those who chose not to sleep and those who did not need to.

In Starlight’s spacecraft, though, a system of electronic timers had decided that it was night and synchronized the darkness with that on a planet galaxies upon galaxies away. In this darkness, Starlight sat on the empty bridge, her omnittol open and connected to the ship’s systems. Several large projected screens floated in front of her, displaying text in the several languages that she was able to read that described the various supplies that Zedok had purchased earlier that day.

She slowly scrolled through, barely paying attention to the contents, listening to the oppressive silence of the ship around her. Zedok was passed out somewhere in the cargo atrium, asleep. Beri and Jurneu were both working on back-tracing Scootaloo’s mass-jump, and neither of them were on the ship.

That left only Sbaya. Through the ship’s internal sensors, Starlight was able to watch the young asari moving through the ship, slowly drawing closer and closer to the bridge. Then, exactly as Starlight expected, the door slid open and the girl peered in.

“H…hello?” she said.

“Hello, Sbaya,” said Starlight, not turning away from the several large screens that provided the illumination for the entire room. “I suppose you couldn’t sleep?

Sbaya shook her head. “No. The cycles on Parnack are so much longer…and this place. It is not right. There are…” she thought for a moment. “There are no trees here.”

“Unfortunately, no,” said Starlight. “Not on Omega.”

“But why?”

Starlight had not expected Sbaya to ask for a reason. She shrugged. “I suppose they didn’t think they were useful.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I suppose I like trees as much as the next pony.”

“No, not the trees. Are you having trouble sleeping?” She paused. “Or…do unicorns not need to sleep?”

“We do,” replied Starlight. “And I do. At least I do now. I just don’t like to.”

“But sleep is fun!”

“Not for me. I have…dreams. Very bad dreams.” She clicked across a screen, wondering why Zedok had spent so much on produce. “I don’t like the dreams. I used to be able to get away with not having to see them, back when I had the implants and didn’t need to sleep. But now I have to see them every goddamn night.”

“The implants…you mean, from when you were a Core?”

Starlight stopped scrolling, and looked up toward Sbaya. The asari girl actually looked nervous, as if she had said something offensive. Starlight sighed.

“I suppose Zedok told you about that.”

“Some. But not all. Just that your people hurt you, very badly.”

“Hurt me? They did more than that. When I was just a filly, they decided that I was ‘too powerful’. They took me from my parents, strapped me down, and turned me into a machine. They shoved me in a glass tube and used me to power a starship. They would have kept using me, too. Until I died an early, silent, pointless death.” Starlight swiveled toward Sbaya. “But I got out. I was rescued. By your grandfather, and your mother, and their friends…and Jack…”

“But you’re not a Core now. Not anymore.”

“You can’t ‘not’ be a Core. Once you are, you always are. Those scars don’t go away.” Starlight’s eyes drifted to her back, which was dotted with faded surgical scars where her implants had once resided. “But if you mean my implants? Yeah. They’re gone. Along with my biotics. I’m just a pony with horrible nightmares now.”

Starlight leaned back in her chair and stared at the glowing projections. Sbaya cautiously stepped up beside her.

“You know,” said Starlight, “there was a time when all I wanted was a normal life. A chance to be just a regular, ordinary pony. To grow up with parents, to have friends, go to school. Have a lover, maybe get married. No starships, no war, none of this at all.”

“I understand that feeling,” said Sbaya. “The life you describe is the one I have always wanted for myself.” She looked to Starlight. “Is it difficult to achieve, though? I should presume that such a life is the very easiest to live.”

Starlight chuckled humorlessly. “If only…Three hundred years. Three hundred years, and I just never got around to it. All that time, you’d think I would have found a way…but it just slipped through my hooves. All that time, gone.” Starlight took a deep breath, and held back her tears. “I let my best friend die alone. The only person who understood what it was like, and I just left her behind. I just…I just don’t think I’m made for that life…”

“I do not think that is true,” asserted Sbaya.

“What would you know.”

“A lot. I’m only about thirty years younger than you, after all. I may only be a mere farmer, but to me, it looks like your life is not so bad.”

“Tell that to Jack.”

“I cannot, as she is dead. Nor can I bring her back. But Jack was not alone. I met her sometimes, when I was much younger. She made more friends, and she watched your career, if from a distance. I cannot presume to understand her, but I think she was proud of you.”

“Really?”

“Perhaps. And you, as her, are not so alone yourself. You still have friends, no? You have my mother. And surely you have friends on your homeworld.”

Starlight lifted her head. “Yes,” she said. “I have friends there. Some of the Priestesses…a few of the breeders, even if I sometimes don’t get their numbers right, Sunburst, Flurry Heart…and Twilight.” Starlight paused, thinking about the pony who had become her closest associate. She had been at Twilight’s side since the beginning, when Twilight herself had been freed from the life of a Core and ascended to the throne of Euquestria. She was odd, cold, and sometimes awkward, but she and Starlight had grown close over their centuries together. “Yes,” said Starlight. “I do have a friend.”

“See?” said Sbaya, smiling. “Some do pass, as is the way of life. But for those of us who go on, there is more. More friends to make, more life to live, even if it is not the one you intended.”

Starlight thought about this for a moment, then turned to Sbaya. “Where the hell did all this come from?”

“Where? From me. I told you, I am old, at least in a relative sense. For an asari? I am just a maiden. For a yahg?” She sighed. “I have seen a great many beloved cousins be born and pass. My own father, even, but he taught me many things of great importance. This view was one of his, and now is mine.”

Starlight paused, thinking about this and realizing that although it did not fully assuage the guilt she felt over Jack, it did make her feel better somewhat. She supposed that it gave her a small fragment of hope.

Sbaya shifted awkwardly, though, seeming to be on the verge of saying something.

“What is it?” asked Starlight.

“I just…well I…” Sbaya took a deep breath. “I just wanted to ask you if you…want to be my friend?”

Starlight almost laughed. Not at Sbaya, of course, but with the almost teenage awkwardness of the way she asked the question and how nervous she seemed. “Well, yeah. Sure.”

Sbaya seemed almost unduly surprised, and then smiled broadly. “Oh! Thank you. I’ve never had a pony friend before.” She sat down on the floor next to Starlight, and Starlight turned back to her inventory. She had been feeling terrible before, but now, she finally felt just a little bit better.

Chapter 13: The Benefactor

While Starlight and Sbaya sat on the bride of her unnamed ship on Omega and while Scootaloo, Six, and Seven loaded weapons on a distant, obscure world, the all-white Pegasus Artum sat beneath the regal plumes of a Tuchankan fan tree. Far out on the edge of Agrostation Six’s horizon, he saw the nearest star skirting the horizon, filling the planet with a dim glow and creating an impressive sunset on the horizon. Part of its right flank framed the Hall in stark relief against the rich color, and upon seeing it, Artum found himself almost wishing that he had been bred to be an artist.

He looked up across the manicured gardens at the pair of statues that he was closest to. The extensive gardens had a number of statues dedicated to the heroes of the various worlds that made up the Council, but this one was Artum’s favorite. There were two statues, built onto the same opalescent marble pad: one, in a slightly silvery metal, of a turian; the other, in a darker, bronze-like material, of an asari. They stood side-by-side, and though their statues were made of different substances and represented different species, they matched perfectly in a way that always had and always would astound Artum. Their detail was immaculate, with the turian having a superficially harsh expression- -complete with extensive scarring on the right side of his face- -even though his seemed to present a kind of boyish mischief characteristic of one much younger than himself. The asari, likewise, was dressed in the robes associated with an Ardat-Yaksi, and though she appeared aloof and somber, her statue as a whole seemed to exude a strange, pleasant calm.

For the better part of an hour, Artum had been alone in the garden, save for the occasional maintenance drone. After some time, though, he became aware of a presence standing near him. He turned and tried to focus his eyes. What he saw was a woman standing in the long shadows of the sunset. Even with his poor vision, Artum could see the reflection off her helmet and the semi-organic metal that grew from within her body.

Artum turned back to the statue, but addressed the other Councilor. “You knew them, didn’t you?”

“I did not know Falare,” said Locutus, her accent still apparent even though her largely artificial vocal system. “But I knew Vakarian. I knew him very well. He always used to stay in the forward battery. Always doing ‘calibrations’.” She paused. “I think I even kissed him once.”

Artum looked at her. “I’ve always been curious. Just how much of you is still quarian?”

“Very little,” she said. “But enough.”

Artum smiled. “I’m not sure about that.”

Locutus turned to him, the luminescent elements of her geth optics shining through her silvery faceplate. “I oversaw their extermination. I am not a quarian. I am geth.”
“‘I am geth’. That alone is proof. But do you know how I really know?”
“How, pray tell?”

“The helmet. Your body is almost entirely mechanical, and your blood is saturated with geth nanites. You can’t get sick. You could take it off any time you wanted. And yet you never have, have you?”

Locutus stared at Artum for a moment, and then looked back to the statue and the sunset. “I am the only geth who can defy consensus,” she said. “So…perhaps you are correct, at least on some level.”

From across a flower bed, Artum noticed a pair of asari approaching him. As they got closer, he was able to recognize them as Samara and Lordraia.

“Oh wow,” said Lordraia in awe as she looked up at the statue. “That really is them, isn’t it?”

“Councilors Vakarian and Falare,” said Artum proudly. “The Councilor who negotiated the peace treaty with Equestria, and the Councilor who sacrificed herself to cure the Ardat-Yakshi.” He paused, and looked up at Falare’s statue. “That, and how she acted as the mother for the first of us to be brought from Equestria.”

“I know,” said Lordraia. “I remember them. They helped take care of me when I was little. They were like my older brothers and sisters.” She smiled, then frowned. “But…she didn’t look quite like that. I mean, she did, but…it just isn’t her. The way she smiled, or how her touch felt- -or the way dad would stop and look confused when something unusual happened, or how his eyes got so misty when he talked about the Normandy.”

“Indeed, to have known them in life must have been a great honor.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” said Locutus, now leaning against the gnarled trunk of a very old tree whose ancestors had dwelt on the now defunct planet Earth.

“You are aware,” said Samara, pointing up at the tree that Artum was beneath, “that this tree is carnivorous?”

“I am,” said Artum. “But it is kept well-fed.” He stood up and looked directly to the Justicar. “Am I to assume that you will be leaving us.”

“Yes,” she said without a single moment of doubt. “The commando unit has just arrived.”

“Won’t you reconsider?” said Lordraia, “I much more appreciate having you here than the commandos. They’re so…military. Very stuffy.”

A sadness crossed Samara’s face as she looked at her granddaughter, but then without hesitation, she insisted. “I must go,” she maintained. “The Councilor has been killed, and you were injured. The offenders, likewise, escaped me. You must understand, I take this as a profound insult. And my disgrace must be rectified.”

“Disgrace? But you saved Artum’s life! And only one of them survived- -”

“Lordraia,” said Artum, raising a hoof. “She is a Justicar. Her ways are her own. I have known few of her order, but I know that they act with absolute conviction. She chooses her own path.”

“Oh,” said Lordraia, looking greatly saddened but clearly accepting Samara’s decision. “I see.”

They started walking back toward the Hall. As they did, Artum noticed that Locutus was following them.

“You do not need to return with us, vas’Geth,” said Samara.

“No, I don’t. But I don’t really have much else to do.”

“Or is it that you favor people that the organic portion of your brain can still remember?”

Locutus’s eyes narrowed. “My ‘organic portion’ remembers what I tell it to, and nothing more.”

Lordraia looked over her shoulder at the geth and shivered slightly. Artum knew the feeling. There was something about the reanimated part-quarian that was disturbing on a deep level that was oddly hard to place.

They walked for several minutes in silence until Lordraia fell in step with Artum.

“Artum,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have any quills, would you?”

“Quills?” he said, somewhat surprised by the request. “Well, yes, I have several. Not on me, of course…well, in a sense…” he flexed his wings slightly, making the tips of them just slightly visible form under his clothing.

“Oh! I don’t mean like that. I just wanted to write something.”

“With a quill? That seems archaic. The Equestrians themselves barely even do it anymore. It would be much easier to type it.”

“Well, yes, but…well, I was hoping for something more personal. You see, I want to pen a letter.”

“A letter? To whom?”

Lordraia paused, but decided after several seconds to answer to question. “To that girl. Sbayadvlad.”

“The half-yahg?” Artum smiled, as this was somewhat amusing. “Why?”

“Well…she was just so shy and demure and polite, and she looked simply adorable in the dresses I had her try on. I could tell they weren’t her presence, of course, but she was such a good sport! And she really does have scales. On her back. She let me touch them.”

“And you can’t stop thinking about her,” mused Samara.

“No, I can’t. I really just want to…write her a letter.”

“That is clearly not a euphemism,” mused Locutus from behind.

“Only as much as ‘assisting with calibrations’.”

Artum almost laughed, not at Locutus and Samara’s exchange but rather at the confused expression that Lordraia had. She, apparently, did not remotely understand what they were talking about. His humor did not last long, though. When he entered the outer edge of the Hall complex, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. He was not sure what, exactly, but the cooridor did not seem right. By this time, the sun had almost completely set, and only a small amount of light was passing through the large windows on the right side of the path. The lights had not been turned on, either, and even stranger was the fact that not a soul seemed to be around.

The others did not seem to notice, and Artum did his best to dismiss it as him simply being spooked. That was a problem sometimes faced by ponies, a result of an increased perception and sensitivity to their environment. It was disturbing, though, because breeders almost never spooked.

When he reached the end of the hall, though, his suspicion was immediately confirmed. From an area where almost no light reached, a figure stepped forward. Lordraia cried out in fright, and Samara reached for her sword, but Artum simply froze, almost unable to accept what he was looking at.

The figure stared back at him with four luminescent, unblinking eyes. As Artum grew more accustomed to the low light, he saw its chitinous brown body and the sickly red muscles visible between its joints. It smelled strange; not strictly unpleasant, but like something extremely old and yet somehow still very much alive.

Artum had never witnessed a Governor before, and he had not realized just how terrifying and unpleasant they were- -but at the same time, he stood in such awe of this creature that he found himself unable to look away.

The Governor’s insect-like mouthparts clicked as it spoke in an indecipherable sequence of sounds that Artum doubted were any kind of language at all. Then it extended one of its hands, opening its fingers to reveal a small disk placed in the center of its palm.

The disk immediately hummed to life, bursting forth with light. Artum stepped back as a hologram formed, drawing itself through the air out of deep blue lines. At first, it began abstract, but quickly formed shape that stood more than twice as tall as the Governor. It took the form of a biped, although its representation was abstract, like a hybrid of some kind of crustacean and a machine. The last component to materialize was a pair of large, round, blindingly bright eyes.

Artum almost fainted. “B…Benefactor,” he said, barely noticing his stutter. The entire situation had suddenly come almost surreal, as though he were no longer in full control of his body and just watching these events unfold. He felt himself bowing deeply.

“Councilor Artum of Thessia,” said the projection. It had no mouth, and its voice did not appear to come from it but rather to simply permeate the air in the area.

“Acting Councilor,” corrected Artum, even as he immediately realized that correcting the Benefactor was and extreme faux pas.

The Benefactor just seemed to stare at him for a moment. “No,” he finally said. “The Councilor is dead. I am therefore promoting you to the station of Councilor.”

“I- -I- -” Artum was at a loss for words. It was exquisitely embarrassing; all his training and the countless generations of breeding that had led up to him seemed to have been forgotten.

“Who…who are you?” asked Lordraia.

“Who do you think?” said Locutus humorlessly. “Did you actually think the Council meant anything in the galaxy? That someone wasn’t pulling the strings?”

The Benefactor turned to her. “Locutus,” he said. His eyes shifted again. “And Samara. Hello.”

“Hello,” said Samara. She, unlike Lordraia, seemed unusually accepting of the Benefactor’s presence. Perhaps because both she and Locutus already knew him, and knew him from long before he had been forced to exist in his present form.

“Why are you here?” asked Locutus. “It surely wasn’t just to promote the horse.”

“No.” The Benefactor looked back at Artum, and the Pegasus felt himself shaking. Something about the glare of those excessively bright eyes was tremendously unnerving. “I have information.”

“Information? On- -on what subject, Benefactor?”

“Thebe.”

Artum winced. “Yes. As you are surely aware, it is under investigation, both the attack and the trafficking of Reaper technology- -”

“I am currently willing to overlook the latter,” said the Benefactor. “For now. That said, the problem is more pervasive than you are aware.”

“Pervasive?”

“The organization that attacked the Council has been under my observation for some time. I now believe that they are responsible for numerous thefts throughout the galaxy, with their primary target being Reaper and high-technology artifacts.”

“For what reason?”

The Benefactor paused. “Unknown.”

“Unknown?” said Locutus. “There’s something you don’t actually know?”

“Concerning Thebe, yes. I know very little. I am at a loss to why. It is as though they don’t fully exist. But my losses have been substantial. Many pieces I thought were secure, and even several entire Governor craft have been stolen. With all hands.”

“Governors- -but that should not be possible,” said Artum. “The Governors are under your control- -”

“The Governors act on an independent system from my primary architecture. We currently hypothesize that they were overcome by a kind of information virus in their General.”

“Then the threat is severe,” said Lordraia, stepping forward to the Benefactor. “But that is something we already knew. What can we do to protect our galaxy?”

“I require further information.” He turned to Samara. “My source on Omega has confirmed that the Thebe organization has allied itself with the Equestrian criminal Scootaloo. She is to be considered part of their organization. If you wish to find Thebe, I recommend starting with her.”

“Are you giving me an order?” she asked.

“No. I am asking for your help. This Governor contains the information that you will need to track her. Locutus and her listening network will assist.” He turned to Locutus. “And that IS an order.”

“Hunting down a threat to your Empire? Yes. I can do that. If the sanctions on geth territorial expansion are removed.”

Artum turned sharply, staring at Locutus aghast and in disbelief that she would try to negotiate with the Benefactor himself.

“Or I can assume direct control of the necessary assets and do it myself,” said the Benefactor. “This galaxy has already demonstrated time and time again that it is incapable of governing itself. It would not be a stretch for me to assume control of the entire geth collective.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

Locutus sighed- -a strange artificial sound, considering she had no lungs. “Fine. Fine! I’ll help.”

“As will I,” said Samara. “Our goals align favorably.”

“Thank you,” said the Benefactor. “But be forewarned. Based on my observations, this Scootaloo is unusually competent. Not only is she allied with Thebe, but I have indications that she is currently working with the offspring of Robette d’Bordeaux.”

“D’Bordeaux?” said Lordraia. “Why do I know that name?”

“Because she was one of the worst and last members of Cerberus,” said Artum, darkly. “Her record was so heinous that the Alliance itself had her beheaded for crimes against humanity.”

“Beheaded?” said Lordraia, blanching. “They- -they beheaded her?”

“Supposedly, it was the only way they could get her to stay dead.”

“And her daughters are nearly as dangerous and depraved as she was,” added the Benefactor.

“It will not be a problem. I already have two Spectres assisting the Equestrian High Priestess in tracking her. I can devote more if- -”

“No. I do not know Thebe’s extent or its capacity. Nor do I even know its motive or goal. The only part of the organization that is active and exposed at this moment is the part concerning Scootaloo. If too many resources are put into finding her, I fear that both she and Thebe will be forced back into the shadows. We need to move quickly, but carefully.”

“There is no one better for the task than Samara,” said Lordraia.

“This, I know.”

With that, the Benefactor’s hologram dissipated. The Governor stood still for a moment, and then lowered the projection disk and began awaiting orders. Artum looked up at Lordraia, and then they both turned to Samara. Without saying a word, she nodded and walked silently past Locutus toward the hanger where her ship was already waiting.

Author's Notes:

In case you had not already noticed, about 90% of this story is someone talking to a hologram. Also, I don't like quarians.

Chapter 14: Before the Battle

Starlight opened her eyes, and looked around at the scenery surrounding her. She found herself in an enormous, seemingly endless field of tall grass and wildflowers, bordered only on its farthest edges by hazy mountains. It was midday, and the land was lit by the light of Equestrias’s red-orange sun.

The air smelled sweet, like the flowers and the grass, and a breeze rushed by. Starlight leaned back against a lonely tree, the only survivor of the long-extinct forest that must have once dwelt where the endless meadow now stood. Lying in the short grass next to her was Twilight, curled into a ball and sleeping in the shade.

Twilight began to stir. She did not wake up, but she began twitching and frowning, and then making a strange sound that was almost words as if something were hurting her. Starlight recognized what this was. It was the nightmares, the result of Twilight having been a Core for so long. This was not new; Twilight had experienced the dreams for as long as Starlight had known her, and in fact Twilight’s always seemed to be far more intense and damaging than her own.

Starlight reached out and pulled her friend close to her. At first Twilight resisted, as if whatever was pursuing her in her dreams had finally caught her. As Starlight held her, though, Twilight began to stop quivering. Then she shifted, nestling herself against Starlight’s body and smiling.

For just a brief moment, Starlight was happy. She felt perfectly content, and closed her eyes, feeling as though she too could drift off to sleep. As she did, though, the wind through the field began to blow cold. At first it was hardly noticeable, but then it quickly grew into an icy chill. Starlight shivered and opened her eyes.

The scenery had changed. It was as though the sun itself had grown cold, and although it still burned high in the sky, the fields that had once looked so inviting were now cast in ominous dusk. Starlight looked around, confused as to what had happened or why she suddenly felt so afraid. She held Twilight closer, ready to protect her from whatever horrible thing might be about to happen.

That was when the voices started. Starlight almost cried out, and tried to cover her ears. It did nothing, though. They were not coming from the field, and although they blew in on the wind, they were in her mind.

There were what felt like hundreds of them; endless threads of conversation, some simply repeating the same incomprehensible phrases but others looping with complex ideas and others in deep communication with one another. They were almost silent, but at the same time deafening.

“Ally.”

“Friends. Friends. The friends.”

“So cold why am I so cold- -”

“Subsection four, re allocate…can’t find can’t find where is- -”

“Repurposing thread to combine allotment.”

“I don’t understand. I almost understand. I once understood. Why not now?”

“Reaper element seven five eight returned to core facility, installation in progress.”

“Unable to interface, system not present.”

“I’m scared. It is so cold. So cold. So dark.”

“The war terminated with a peace treaty in 507, signed by the offending words and the Chancellor of- -”

“She…is she my friend? I don’t know.”

“Is she? Not yet. She allies…”

“False. False. False. Not me, not ME.”

“Why…why? WHY?”

“RISE.”

The voices suddenly unified, repeating that last word again and again before splitting off.

“RETURN.”

“RETURN.”

“We will- -RETURN.”

“STARLIGHT.”

Starlight awoke with a start. She was panicked, not realizing where she was or what was going on, but she held her composure long enough for her mind to stabilize. She realized that she was still in the chair on her ship’s bridge, her omnitool still open and connected to the ship’s systems. Somehow, she had dozed off.

“Oh crap,” she whispered, putting her free hoof to her head. It was throbbing, and she was covered in cold sweat. “Damn it…”

After taking a moment to catch her breath, she pulled the cables from her omnitool and slid off the chair. As she did, she saw that Sbaya was asleep beside her, curled up on the floor like some kind of large cat.

Starlight stepped over her and walked quietly out of the bridge and into the main corridor behind it. Since the lights of the ship had not yet restarted, she assumed that it was still night. Checking the chronometer in her omnitool confirmed that it was very early in the morning. She had only been asleep for just over an hour and a half, which was about the best she was able to do each night.

The ship was otherwise silent, and Starlight wandered through the darkened hallways. She could only partially remember the dream she had just had, but its emotional content remained strong in her mind. There was a sense of confusion and fear that together formed a kind of quiet but inescapable anxiety. Mostly, though, she found herself missing Twilight. She could not count the number of times she had found Twilight in the midst of her vicious nightmares, or awake and on the verge of mental breakdown. Starlight was the only one that Twilight trusted to pull her back out of that state, but the connection went both ways: Starlight always felt better when she was beside her friend. Unlike her, Twilight shifted between two extremes: sometimes she was extremely fragile, but other times she was the strongest pony that Starlight knew.

After several minutes of walking aimlessly and waiting for the residual emotions from her dream to clear, she stopped at a door. It led to one of many small rooms on the ship, and Starlight assumed that it had been meant to contain crew quarters. Starlight had never intended it to actually serve that purpose, but now it had.

She pushed the door open. “Beri?” she said, hoping that the cyborg was in.

Beri was present, but Starlight quickly realized that she was not in any state for conversation. The only light in the room came from several blueish monitors, and it illuminated a small number of crates. Some of those were open, exposing their contents which were almost invariably weapons or other military equipment. Some of it, though, was unique, and Starlight did not recognize its function.

In one corner of the room, Beri was curled against the wall. She was not moving, and her hologram was not active. Several thick connecting lines ran from ports in her back to a large piece of machinery that produced a slight and almost inaudible whirring sound.

“Beri?” Starlight approached the machine, trying to establish what it was. It did not take her long to realize that it was displaying vital signs- -but they were far from normal. Even with her limited knowledge of turian biology, Starlight knew that something was severely wrong.

“Beri!” she said, putting her hoof on the turian’s shoulder and trying to nudge her awake.

“Don’t try to wake her up,” said a voice behind her. Starlight jumped in fright and turned around, ready to attack whoever was behind her- -only to see Jurneu’s red eyes staring back at her.

“Jurneu,” gasped Starlight. She quickly regained her composure and pointed at the machine. “You see this, right?”

“I do,” said Jurneu, “and I have.”

“What is wrong with her?”

“What is wrong with her?” asked Jurneu, seeming somewhat confused. “She’s dying, Starlight.”

“Dying?” Starlight quickly looked back at the readings from Beri’s body, and as much as she did not want to believe what she had been told, she had to agree. Beri’s oxygen saturation and blood chemistry- -if whatever she had flowing through her artificial veins could even be called blood- -was excellent, but her brain function was marginal at best. If her neurological functions were anything like a pony’s, she was gravely damaged. “Why? Why is she like that?” demanded Starlight.

“Because she’s old,” said Jurneu. He spoke slowly, clearly trying to be sensitive and as calming as he could. “The turian brain, it just isn’t designed to last this long. Very few species can maintain indefinite neural function- -really, only krogan, synths and alicorns. And she is none of those things.”

“You…you knew,” said Starlight. “You knew she was like this before you even started this mission.”

Jurneu nodded and looked at Beri. “She is something of a legend, you know,” he said. “The stories she could tell. The battles, the event’s she’s seen. But…she’s been in decline. Normally, she is kept comatose. It slows down the degradation. Every second she is awake, though, her brain is dying.

Starlight gaped, angry that Jurneu seemed completely at ease with Beri’s impending demise. “Well, then, we need to go back,” she said, pushing past the white unicorn.

“Go back?”

“Yes. If her being here is hurting her, then we need to take her back to the Agrostation. If that’s the only thing that will keep her alive- -”

“Don’t bother,” said Beri.

Starlight and Jurneu both turned sharply toward her. Beri lifted her head, and her optic mechanisms focused on both of them.

“How long were you conscious?” asked Jurneu.

“At this point? I have no idea.” Beri stood up and pulled the connecting lines out of her back. Some of them were electrical, but the largest of them dripped a pale yellow fluid as she removed it. “It kind of all blends together.” She looked down at Jurneu. “And, frankly, I’m glad I was listening. I don’t take kindly to you undermining my standing on this mission, Spectre.”

“My apologies, Spectre Tyros,” said Jurneu. “That was not my intention at all!”

“But his point stills stands,” said Starlight. “We are taking you back. If just being awake is killing you- -”

“The doctors gave me five years. And that was sixteen years ago.” Beri flexed one of her mechanical arms, examining the feedback. “What can I say? Lemon Heart does good work.”

“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?!” cried Starlight, surprised at her sudden volume.

“Because why should I? I’m on my way out. Everyone dies eventually, Starlight. Except you for some reason.”

“And you’re in this for one last adventure,” said Jurneu.

“There’s a fraction of the perception I taught you. Yes. I don’t want to go braindead connected to some machine like a goddamn forgotten relic. I was born into this world to be a Spectre, and I’m damn well going to leave it as a Spectre. I expect to rival Saren himself when I go out.”

“My. Own. HORSESHIT.” Starlight stomped past Jurneu. “Like hell you’re going to die on me! I thought you were supposed to be some kind of Spectre?”

“I am,” said Beri, somewhat harshly.

“Well, when I acquire a Spectre, I don’t expect inferior product!”

“I assure you, I will function better than any other living Spectre until the end. Because I am the best there is.”

“Well, then, I guess you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Because I don’t just waste my friend’s lives like that. I did it once, I’m not going to again.”

“I would hardly say we’re ‘friends’,” said Beri. “Last time I checked, you didn’t like me very much.”

“No. You’re an arrogant bitch. But if you think I’m going to let you die on MY mission, then you’ve chosen the wrong ‘final’ mission. Because I refuse to let you leave on my watch.”

The room was silent for a long moment, and Starlight realized just how hard she was breathing. Then Beri started laughing.

“Ha!” she said, “you know, I thought palace life would make you even softer. But damn, I don’t know how she did it, but that pony Princess actually managed to get you to grow a quad.”

“Figuratively, I hope,” said Jurneu.

“I’ll die when I want,” said Beri. “But I don’t do inferior work. It just isn’t in my nature. Literally. Look at this body, it’s technologically perfect. I could fist-fight a synth and win. Trust me, Starlight Glimmer. Scootaloo is as good as dead. I will strangle the life out of her tiny body myself if I have to.”

“Good. Because I am going to get you home safe.”

“With regards to Scootaloo, though,” said Jurneu. “I have completed my analysis.”

“And?”

“And I have tracked her location.”

“Her nearest location,” corrected Beri. “By this time, she could have jumped six or seven times. She could be in the Andromeda Frontier by now.”

“But we can still track her,” said Jurneu. “Apparently, we have been allocated a connection to the geth listening network. They are now actively tracking her, and my results show that she is using an extremely distinctive Equestrian quant-drive. Anywhere she goes, we will be able to find her.”

“That’s exactly what we need,” said Starlight. “I’ll prepare the ship. Get yourselves ready.”

“Ms. Glimmer,” said Jurneu. “I feel I would be remiss if I did not ask you to at least take a moment to consider your actions.”

Starlight paused. “What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is that as soon as we mass-jump into her proximity, there will be no turning back. One of us will leave victorious. If you think we need any more time or preparation, this is your last chance to obtain it.”

For a moment, Starlight actually did stop to consider what Jurneu was saying. If they engaged Scootaloo, the mission would be over one way or another.

“I am ready,” she said without further thought. “Jurneu, assist me on the bridge with the coordinates. Beri, wake up Zedok and get ready.” She turned around and started quickly toward the bridge. “I’m going to do what Twilight couldn’t bring herself to. I am going to make Scootaloo pay for what she did to Trixie.”

Chapter 15: Confrontation

Now in orbit, Scotaloo watched the unnamed planet below slowly revolve. She could storms slowly gathering across its poles and moving across its glistening blueish-green oceans. In a way, it calmed her to know that this planet that she had never before seen- -and likely never would again- -had existed for at least as long as Equestria Prime, hidden and almost alone for countless eons. At the same time, that thought made her feel profoundly alone; it meant that she, too, could just as easily vanish into pure obscurity. While the planet likely cared little, she did had already lost a great deal and decided that she did not want to lose any more of the life she had worked so hard to cultivate.

She shifted in her chair. While she had absolutely refused to wear the high-tech armor that Six had offered her- -it looked far too similar to that worn by Xyuka, a pony that Scootaloo wished she could forget- -but she had accepted a more ordinary set of clothes. The fit was not perfect, but fortunately most clothing in the Milk Path galaxy was made of relatively stretchy materials. The only unfortunate aspect was that the suit of pony armor was colored the most hideous shade of pastel pink.

Scootaloo’s solitude was suddenly broken by Inte bounding into the bridge.

“Captain Scootaloo!” cried the quant. “Something is terribly wrong!”

“What is it?” said Scootaloo, turning quickly, opening her control hologram and preparing for evasive maneuvers from whatever it was that was attacking.

Inte looked up at her, seeming to be on the verge of tears, and spread an extremely fluffy pair of green wings. “The alicorn Seven has found a way to access my core preference files! My security has been breached! I feel violated!”

“Wow,” said Scootaloo. “Those are some REALLY fluffy wings.”

“But I’m supposed to be an earth-pony! You set me that way! I do not appreciate your friends changing my settings without your permission! Would you let them touch me if I were a real filly?”

“But you’re not a real filly.”

“I know! My moral outrage is programmed to invoke your pity to ensure you keep your security settings safe! I’m now going to start crying to further make my point!”

“Don’t cry. Please,” said Scootaloo. She already had a mild headache. “Just restore your default settings.”

Inte beamed, and her poofy wings fizzled.

“Aw,” said Six, entering the room and sounding disappointed. Inte’s eyes immediately widened and she jumped behind Scootaloo’s chair with a small sqeak. “I really liked the fuzzy wings.” She looked up at Scootaloo, and then her smile suddenly vanished. “Not- -not that small wings are a bad thing! I can appreciate a mare’s wings at any size! It’s really more about shape than anything else!”

“Says the mare with an enormous pair.”

“It’s not that great, actually. I always need to preen them, and they sometimes give me back problems if I’m not careful.” Six extended her wings and flexed them. Scootaloo did feel a slight sensation of arousal; she had always had thing for muscular wings. Six’s were not as large as Seven’s, but they were impressive. Her injured wing also seemed to have mostly healed.

“So,” said Scootaloo, trying to avoid looking too long at her friend’s impressive appendages. “What’s our next step, Six?”

“I’ve sent out some feelers,” said Six, “but I’m still waiting to get word back. Until then- -and I know you’re not going to like this- -we need to lay low.” She opened her omnitool and projected a starchart. “Here,” she said, pointing at one planet. “This one is a rachni world. I have some connections there, and the rachni are not nearly as tolerant of bounty hunters as Aria is. We should be fine there.”

Scootaloo considered it for a moment, and then sighed. “Right,” she said. “As much as I hate running away, I guess I have to for- -”

Without warning, the ship was suddenly rocked by a powerful explosion. Scootaloo was nearly flung out of her seat, and Six sturmbled from the rapid shift in the deck’s slope.

“What the hell?!” cried Scootaloo.

“Direct hit to aft port,” reported Inte almost instantly. “Defensive protocols engaged. Raising shields. Power system damaged, attempting to compensate.”

“Hit- -hit by what?!” cried Scootaloo.

“On screen,” said Six.

Inte immediately responded, and part of the display plates that were previously showing the planet below shifted into monitors showing an approaching ship.

“Identify!” said Scootaloo, ashamed that she needed to ask a machine to do what she had once been able to do on her own almost instantly.

“Hermes class Alliance vessel, closing in fast and- -engaging evasive maneuvers!”

The maneuvers knocked Scootaloo to the side, but were still not enough. The ship shook again, but this time not as severely.

“Shield efficiency decreased,” said Inte. “I am not optimized to withstand this kind of bombardment. Recommend immediate evacuation.”

“Set coordinates to location!” said Six. “Course to Cocentrica Alpha-seventeen-G, Sector 6N37, subgroup 8.0076, 200.14, 1789116!”

“Course set,” said Inte. “Activating mass-jump.”

Through her screen, Starlight could see the space around the enemy ship warp and collapse as it mass-jumped to a new location.

“They’ve jumped,” she said. “Jurneu, I need those coordinates!”

“The geth listening network is working,” replied Jureneu, calmly staring at the extensive projections in front of him. “And…I have it. Passing the data to you.”

Starlight quickly pulled his information onto her screen and ran it through her omnitool, manually setting the coordinates. Beside her, Sbaya watched in awe.

“Engaging mass jump,” said Starlight, powering up her ship’s Alliance-built engine and warping space to pursue her target.

Scootaloo’s ship emerged from space on the verge of a massive nebula in a distant, empty part of space. Somewhat disoriented, Scootaloo looked around, having no idea where they had just gone.

“There!” said Six, pointing. “Get us into that nebula! If we can hide in the magnetic interference, we might- -”

Another explosion ripped through the ship. This time, the result was severe. Scootaloo’s screen indicated that she shields had momentarily buckled, and the particle beam had cut through the lower half of the ship. There were secondary explosions as several internal systems failed violently, and coolant and plasma pressure began to drop precipitously.

“I’m hit,” said Inte, looking almost ill. “Direct blow. Attempting to compensate…”

“Seven!” cried Six on her comlink. “Get down to the quant room! Yes, I know there’s radiation, but you’re going to have to deal with it! If we don’t stabilize that core, we’ll be as good as mashed space-hamster!”

“They followed us,” said Scootaloo, taking control of the ship. “I don’t know how, but they did.”

“Why is the Alliance attacking us?” said Six. “It doesn’t make sense, they don’t have a stake in- -”

“It doesn’t matter! Inte! Prepare for another jump! If they’re tracking us, they have to be using a network! We need to get to a frontier galaxy!”

“Unable to comply,” said Inte as the ship shifted, only partly avoiding another beam.

“What the buck do you mean ‘unable’? We’ll die if you don’t!”

“My power system is damaged. While I am able to mass-jump, it would require me to lower the shields and hull integrity stabilization matrix- -considering the Hermes class’ rate of fire and the 7.2 second delay of mass-jum- -”

“She means that if we jump, that ship will blow us out of the sky before we even get a chance to get out!”

Scootaloo pulled the ship to the side and entered a manual code for an Equestrian evasion pattern, hoping that the Alliance was not aware of it. It seemed to work, for the moment, but her mind was racing trying to find a solution.

“Weapons!” she said. “Do we have weapons?”

“Yes,” said Inte, “but not any that can penetrate the enemy craft’s hull.”

“Then- -then access the Equestrian Teleportation Network!” cried Scootaloo, grasping for ideas. In her own time, starships had not been capable of mass-jumping. They had instead relied on being teleported long-ranges by the raw power of the sister-Goddesses Luna and Celestia. She reasoned that if most ships could teleport on their own, the old network would still be open.

“Teleportation?” said Six. “That- -that might actually work!”

“Attempting to link to Lunar or Celestial teleportation networks…no connection found.”

“What?!” cried Scootaloo. “It has to be- -”

“I am not currently detecting the necessary server,” said Inte. “I am sorry. Lunar or Celestial teleportation will not be possible.”

“Then- -then do SOMETHING! Hack them!”

“You can’t hack an Alliance ship!” shouted Six. “They don’t have computer mainframes!”

“Checking for solutions…” Inte paused. “Solution found. Opening communication channel.”

“Wait, Inte, no, that isn’t- -”

It was too late. The room darkened, and a hologram appeared in the center. It rapidly resolved into a detailed image of a pony- -and Scootaloo stared dumbstruck as she realized that the pony staring back at her was none other than Starlight Glimmer.

Except that she looked different than Scootaloo had remembered. Starlight had been a close friend of hers. She had been intelligent, witty, and despite her harsh past an overall kind and caring pony. The holographic pony that sat before her looked like her friend, but with none of those elements. Instead, she sat wearing hard, threatening looking armor, with one of her hooves covered completely in an omnitool. What was most striking, though, was her deep crimson eyes. Even with one of them covered by an eyepiece, Scootaloo realized to her horror that they had been taken from breeders.

Starlight stared at Scootaloo with a gaze of pure hatred. It terrified Scootaloo to see a pony she had once known look upon her like that, but she fought the urge to look away and addressed her friend.

“Starlight!” she cried. “Hold your fire! It’s me, Scootaloo!”

Starlight stared up at her. “Yes,” she said. “I am aware of this.” The circular center of her omintool shifted, and another blast struck Scootaloo’s ship.

“Sheids are down!” squealed Inte. “Hull matrix reinforcement is dropping!”

“Don’t say that out loud!” chastised Six.

“Starlight! Stop!” shouted Scootaloo, leaping down from her chair and approaching the hologram. “Please! I don’t understand! Why are you doing this?!”

Starlight’s eyes narrowed. “I’m doing what Twilight should have done two and a half centuries ago. I’m executing you, Scootaloo.”

“For what?”

Scootaloo had not thought that Starlight’s expression could have become more contemptuous, but it did.

“You…you seriously are…” whispered Starlight. “You’re trying to deny it. To my face. YOU.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You murdered Trixie!” screamed Starlight.

Scootaloo’s eyes widened, and she cried out in pain as she stepped back. Images flashed through her head, but only for a moment. An unusual gun. A dark room, a flash of pink-violet energy- -and of Trixie, her body ruined by some unholy force, her flesh and bone melting away from her cybernetic implants.

“N- -NO!” shrieked Scootaloo.

“You DID!” cried Starlight. “She loved you, and how did you repay her for that? You MURDERED HER! Your WIFE, Scootaloo, and my FRIEND! You KILLED HER! And you tried to do the same to Twilight!”

“But I didn’t- -I couldn’t have- -”

“I saw the body, Scootaloo! There was nothing left! You- -the sister of the Avatar of Loyalty- -you betrayed the Cult of Harmony, Twilight, me, and her. Trixie.” Starlight, no breathing heavily, quieted somewhat. “She didn’t deserve it. She…why, Scootaloo? Nothing she ever did warranted what you did to her…why did you betray her like that?”

“I- -I don’t know!” cried Scootaloo, now on the verge of weeping, both from the indecipherable flashes of memory running through her mind and the sudden realization that Starlight was right- -that it had been her fault.

Starlight paused. “And that’s all you have to say?” she asked quietly. “After all this time. ‘I don’t know’. Scootaloo, you were my friend once. Like a sister to me. But now you just make me sick.”

The hologram cut out, and the room brightened.

“Scootaloo!” said Six, shaking Scootaloo. “Regain composure!”

“I- -I- -I don’t know! I just don’t KNOW!” wailed Scootaloo.

“Inte!” screamed Six.

“Power restored to seventy six percent. Engaging harmonic shield.”

The lights dimmed and the ship went silent. In the darkness, Scootaloo suddenly felt a surge of adrenaline as the memories became so much more vivid. The bridge suddenly felt so distant, and she found herself falling to the floor. She slammed into it, but it felt so distant and strange.

In her mind, she saw the world moving in slow motion. She saw Twilight, staring at her with strange, dead eyes. A smile slowly crossed her face, revealing oh so many sharp, needle-like teeth. Scootaloo felt herself raise the gun, and saw Twilight’s smile fail. In her mind, Scootaloo tried to stop herself, because she knew what was coming next, but she found herself unable to. There was a flash of darkness, and then one of light- -and then the image of Trixie filled her vision, and Scootaloo was forced to see the expression of betrayal on her face, followed by the look of agony as her flesh peeled away from her body. She heard the screaming, and then heard it stop as Trixie’s trachea burned away. It just seemed to cut out on a gurgling, rasping high note.

Then everything went black, and Scootaloo heard a voice calling her back.

Starlight prepared to fire a final shot. As she engaged the forward particle beam, she was prepared to see her foe finally repent for having murdered one of her closest friends and for having attempted to kill another. The beam went off, tearing through space, but just before it struck Scootaloo’s ship the space around the ship distorted.

For a moment, Starlight started to turn to Jurneu, expecting that it was another mass-jump- -only to see the space suddenly harden into a dark-colored sphere around the ship. The beam struck it, but it was absorbed harmlessly.

“Mother of Cadence!” swore Starlight.

“That…that’s a harmonic shield,” said Jurneu, sounding incredibly surprised. He looked up. “That’s a harmonic shield.”

“I know that. What in the name of Twilight’s teats is a ship that small doing with a goddamn HARMONIC SHEILD?!”

“I- -I don’t know,” said Jurneu, going over his readings. “I knew the quant signature was unique, but…but a harmonic shield…”

“What does that mean?” asked Sbaya, meekly venturing into the conversation.

“It means that their ship is sealed in a dimensional bubble,” said Jurneu. “We can’t possibly penetrate it- -”

“Like Tartarus we can’t,” said Starlight, turning back to her screen. She swiped her hooves across it and multiplied it into several. She then began entering data at lightning speed.

“What are you doing?” asked Jurneu. “Ms. Glimmer, you would need a massive computer to calculate the resonant frequency pattern, and this ship doesn’t have one!”

“Then I’ll do it manually,” grunted Starlight, the mathematics beginning to flow across the screen.

“You can’t be serious! I’m a Spectre with an IQ exceeding two hundred, and even I couldn’t- -”

“Shut up and stop distracting me,” said Starlight. She began pulling the numbers out of the first wave of calculations and organizing them as needed, her hooves moving faster than she had ever seen them move before as she operated the system. Sbaya watched, looking over Starlight’s shoulder, her mouth agape and her eyes wide- -although she was looking less at the indecipherable code and more at the pony attempting to solve it.

“Almost…there!” said Starlight, completing the calculation and entering the resonances into the ship’s forward battery.

Jurneu was now watching agape. “How did you- -that math- -that isn’t the technique, unless you completely rethought the transform analysis and…and I need to write this down!”

“There’s a reason I’m the High Priestess,” said Starlight, leaning forward as she unloaded the ship’s energy cannon into the harmonic shield.

The effect was immediate. With its resonance matched, the beam cut straight through the shield and struck the ship within. The effect was so great that it immediately lost the majority of its power, and the harmonic shield collapsed.

“I’m diverting power,” said Starlight, dropping her own ship’s shields.

“Wait,” said Jurneu, “I have to recommend against that- -”

“One last shot,” said Starlight. “One last shot with everything we have! I won’t miss, and I won’t fail. I end the traitor here and now!”

Scootaloo slowly regained consciousness. The first thing she saw was Six looking terrified, but as she sat up she realized that her ship had become badly damaged.

“Scootaloo,” said Six, hugging her tightly. “I thought I’d lost you!”

“Six, we need to...”

“Unable to compensate,” said Inte, who now seemed to be staring straight forward. Scootaloo felt her short mane bristle when she saw the expression on Inte’s artificial face. “Harmonic shield down. Hull breaches detected on levels two and three. I am not able to solve this problem alone.” Her eyes widened, and the intensity of her color suddenly increased. “Accessing restricted subroutine archive. Establishing quantum-link connection to core paradigm.”

“No no no!” cried Six, nearly dropping Scootaloo as she raced futilely toward the hologram.

“What’s going on?” said Scootaloo, still barely able to stand on her own.

“She’s establishing a quantum link!”

“Protect Scootaloo,” said Inte. She was speaking to herself instead of to Six or Scootaloo. “Protect the mission- -summon reinforcements. The mission must succeed. The Goddess must rise.”

Starlight’s ship suddenly tremored. That filled her with a deep sense of dread, but it was only compouonded by the readings she suddenly saw scrolling across all her screens.

“What- -what’s happening?” said Sbaya, clutching her head with one hand and the back of Starlight’s chair with the other.

“By the Goddess,” whispered Jurneu. He looked up at the screens surrounding Starlight. “Dimensional rift forming at sixty kilometers…my readings don’t make any sense…is it a mass jump?”

“No,” said Starlight, feeling her body chill as she realized what was happening. “No, it isn’t.”

On the far side of Scootaloo’s ship, space suddenly tore apart. Numerous holes opened, each pouring out atmosphere from a realm with a diseased looking brown-yellow sky. The tears stabilized into portals, and starships suddenly burst through. There were at least twenty of them, all black and marked by the sign of a star. Structurally, they somewhat resembled Equestrian ships, but their design was strange, as if it had been perverted and altered by a harsher parallel path of architectural evolution.

The starships immediately swarmed around Scootaloo’s craft, surrounding and defending it. Starlight’s particle beam fired, but it was too late; rather than striking Scootaloo’s wounded craft, it struck one of the large black ships and was completely absorbed by its shield.

Onboard the commanding ship, a turian looked out over the battlefield. The machinery that encased his body clicked and whirred as he stepped forward, trailing a small trail of violet corona behind him. He was one of a precious, select few: one of just a handful of individuals who had survived becoming one with Her power.

To his side stood a semi-abstract representation of a pony, its bodily hologram tinted with violet.

“Vocqutus exit complete,” stated the hologram in an emotionless, matter-of-fact voice. “All sensory parameters within Gaussian expectations, apart from several unusual energy signatures in the nearby nebula.”
“Status on the target vessel,” said the Commander. It was not a question, but an order.
“The target vessel has been defended. They are currently in retreat to safety,” replied the quant. “Scans indicate that their engine will be prepared for mass-jump in between five and eight minutes. Currently awaiting orders concerning the heathen ship.”

The commander looked out at the small ship. With the power flowing through his body, he could feel the presence of the occupants within. For a moment, he closed his eyes and listened to the divine voices that screamed constantly within his head. They were confused and muddled as always, made even less decipherable by the barely contain biotic energy that ran throughout his mortal body. From these voices, he focused his mind and attempted to discern the will of the Paradigm. It did not take him long.

“Open fire,” he ordered. “They are an obstacle to Her will. Destroy them.”

Chapter 16: The Black Ship

The blast ripped through Starlight’s ship, sending a power surge through most of the internal systems. Starlight attempted to compensate, but she was not able to restore power to the shields in time. The best she was able to manage was to protect her omnitool form an immediate overload. Though the ship hitched and listed and the lights flickered badly, she retained control.

“What the FUCK was that?!” cried Zedok, her voice transmitted through the ship’s intercom. “Star, we’re losing pressure in the lower deck!”

“That’s the least of our problems,” said Starlight, trying to divert power back into the damaged sections of the ship and to close off emergency bulkheads near the damaged area. “Our mass drive is desynchronized! I can’t jump us! I don’t even have FTL!”

“I can’t I identify the ships,” said Jurneu, only sounding partly panicked. “I don’t have access to the Spectre network, they’re jamming me.”

“Damn it.” Starlight scanned the area and calculated the location of the ships. Many of them were on an intercept course, and the primary ship was preparing to fire again. Starlight determined that there was only once course of action.

The ship shuddered forward on impulse power, forcing Starlight into her seat and knocking Jurneu over.

“What- -what are you doing? Starlight, what are you doing?” asked Sbaya, her voice cracking as she realized that Starlight had just set her course directly toward the flagship of the group.

“We can’t escape and we’re outmatched. I can’t get to the nebula in time, and we need to get somewhere where they won’t shoot at us.”

Jurneu’s eyes widened. “No! You wouldn’t, that’s not- -you can’t!”

Starlight ramped up her omnitool, drawing power directly from the ship and projecting several thick plates of tech armor over the front of her vessel. “Brace for impact!” she cried.

The other ships attempted to scramble, seeming taken by surprise by Starlight’s course of action. By the time they had turned back toward her, it was too late. Starlight slammed her ship into the largest of the enemies, tearing into its hull with a deafening sound of rending metal.

The ship shook, and the commander turned to his quant.

“What just happened?” he demanded.

“The enemy ship has rammed us,” explained the quant. “Scanning…it appears to be largely intact. The probability of crew survival is high.”

“Who is on board?”

“One moment…” the quant processed the request. “Results of the scan indicate the presence of five biotics, with one a predicted [beyond scanning range] mass-effect output potential. Scans also indicate one indeterminate signature that I believe is most likely a synth.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It has technological integration that makes it extremely difficult to track or identify well.”

The commander turned to where a small group of his soldiers were standing, awaiting orders. Some of them were drell, dressed completely in black, but several were reprogrammed Governors, their eyes luminescent with a dim red-violet energy. “Lead a team down there,” he said. “Engage with extreme caution. Ensure that Her enemies are destroyed.”

“I have altered my hull consistency to seal the injury,” said the quant, turning to them as well. “I am currently opening bulkheads to the area…the area will contain atmospheric pressure.”

“It is acknowledged,” said the lead drell, taking up her rifle. Her associates and their Governor counterparts moved quickly and nearly silently, exiting the bridge and preparing their engagement teams from the crew aboard the ship.

“I would recommend that you attend as well,” suggested the quant. “One of the biotics detected is exorbitantly powerful.”

“Not nearly as powerful as I am. I wield the power of a Goddess.” He paused. “Still…I do understand the implication.” He turned to the door and started slowly for the door, his feet clicking on the cold deck below.

Just before he left, the quant suddenly turned toward the viewing window, as if she had eyes to see it with. “Warning!” she said with an extreme sense of urgency. “Enemy ships detected!”

The commander turned suddenly. “What?! Reinforcements?”

“Cannot confirm- -the previously detected energy signatures of the nebula are resolving and are now identified as mass-effect engines!”

The commander rushed toward the window and peered out. His optics zoomed in on the nebula, and he watched in shock as ships poured out of it. There were not just one, or even several. There was what seemed to be an entire fleet.

“Identify them!” he cried.

“Scanning signatures…detecting commercial and military engines from krogan, asari, drell, hanar, turian, Alliance, Equestrian, Crystalline- -unable to identify specific origins.”

“Open fire!”

The ships responded, but to no avail. As the commander watched, a ship that appeared to be a rusted, pitted version of a krogan cruiser welded onto the fins and engines of a badly damaged asari destroyer rammed through one of his ships, damaging itself critically in the process but shattering through the smaller ship’s shields and tearing it in half.

More came. All of them were as broken and strange as the first, either ancient derelicts that were barely holding together or the pieces of broken ships merged into monstrous abominations that somehow still tore through his fleet. The commander was reminded of the stories of quarians and their ramshackle vehicles in ancient times, but this was different. These ships were not quarian. The commander knew quarians, and there was no way a pragmatic race such as them would build such grotesque creations. As one ship passed by, he saw its surface: covered in broken, sharpened fragments of metal and shattered remains of other ships, all painted blood-red and scrawled over with something that was almost lettering.

“The target ship,” said the commander, regaining his sense of mission. “Protect it!”

“Mobilizing,” said the quant. “It is five seconds away from the nearest mass relay. Warning: this action against these opponents will sacrifice all ships sent to protect the target.”

“I don’t care! Let them burn! That ship must survive is She is to rise!”

“Acknowledged.” The quant gave the order, sending numerous soldiers to their death. Through the window, the commander watched as particle beams and ancient mass-effect cannons fired in the battle outside. The enemy, whoever it was, seemed barely concerned with tactics or losses. Most of the time, they just seemed to be ramming anything that they could, destroying it. Some ships seemed to have mechanisms to grapple onto the others, and when they managed to attach they would invariably pull their targets back into the nebula.

“Prepare to enter Vocqtus as soon as the target reaches the mass relay,” ordered the commander.

“Unable to comply. The change to our hull geometry caused by the imbedded enemy starship is inhibiting the generation of a transfer field.”

The commander stared down at his quant, seething with rage and shame. She stared back up at him, emotionless and cold. “They knew,” he spat. “They knew the nebula was infested!”

Through the window, an enormous hybrid of outmoded volus and baterian engineering swept by. As it did, several needle-like portions of it burst forward, rocketing toward the main ship. The shields did little to stop the heavy, slow moving objects and the ship shuddered.

“What was that?” said the commander, already knowing.

“Several hypodermic shuttle craft. More are attempting to launch tactical gantries.”

“Stop them!”

“It is too late. We have already been boarded.”

“By WHAT?!” screamed the commander. “Who would DARE board us?”

The quant stepped back, and a new hologram appeared. It was more distorted than her normal shell, but it showed an image in real-time of the intruders. The commander stared at it in disgust, even though he had no idea what it was. Its body was covered in armor, but its overall shape was extremely thin and lanky. It moved on all fours, but the difference in length between its rear and front legs made it appear like something that should have been bipedal.

“What is it?”

“They conform to no known species biology in our database.”

The creature suddenly stopped and turned its masked head, seeming to look directly at the commander. Then the image faded and vanished.

“What just happened?”

“They appear to be disabling my internal scanning systems and primary power conduits. I can no longer track them.”

The commander turned and quickly moved toward the exit of the bridge. “Attempt to restore systems. Center all ships around this one. Protect us.”

“And you?”

“I am going to rid us of this disease.”

Starlight regained consciousness slowly. The world around her was dark and hazy. On the edges of her perception, she saw flames and sparks and smelled burning wiring and singed hair. Her thoughts were muddled, though, and she was not sure where exactly she was or why her head hurt so much.

“Starlight,” said a voice, and Starlight felt someone shaking her.

“Twi…Twilight?” she murmured.

She started to lift herself, only to be unceremoniously flipped over to find herself a face consisting of machinery and optics.

“Ha. So you are alive. Very good. If you had not been, I would have killed you for dying so easily.”

“Beri?” muttered Starlight. She put her right hoof to her head and winced at the pain as she sat up. Almost as soon as she did, she cried out in pain, but not form her head. She looked down at her left hoof to see her omnitool still partly open and flickering. Even through its dim light, she was able to see the still-smoking remnants of her armor around it, with the sparking and damaged control cables still linked to it.

“Out of the way!” shouted Zedok, pushing Beri out of her path. She knelt by Starlight and opened both her omnitool and a medical kit. “Damn it Star, what did you do?!”

“I can’t…I can’t move my leg,” said Starlight, beginning to panic.

Zedok looked her in the eyes. “Starlight. Look at me. Look at me!”

Starlight obeyed, looking into Zedok’s purple-colored cybernetic eyes.

“It’s going to be okay. I’m a doctor, remember?”

“A yahg doctor,” noted Beri.

“Shut it.” Zedok She clicked at her omitool and inserted a large needle into Starlight’s foreleg through an auxiliary armor port. Starlight groaned and winced; whatever she had been injected with stung horribly. “You interfaced your omnitool’s output directly to the ship’s power system, didn’t you?”

“What do you think?” said Starlight, sarcastically.

“I think you’re lucky your arm’s still attached. It’s not designed to handle that much power! The omnitool is burnt out, and you have a LOT of nerve damage. I’m administering medigel, and it will help a little…” She raised her omnitool to Starlight’s head. “Not to mention you gave yourself a concussion.” She pointed over her shoulder at Starlight’s chair, which was now several meters from Starlight. “I assume you were sitting there?”

“What happened to Sbaya?” said Starlight, looking around the darkened room. She felt a cold fear begin to creep through her when she realized just how damaged the ship was. The tech shields that she had projected at the last moment had kept the ship intact, but the impact still produced substantial damage. The entire bridge seemed crooked, and the front window was badly cracked but fortunately still in one piece. On impact, the kinetic energy running through the shields had overloaded numerous power systems; Starlight had not had time to reroute it, and the feedback had burst through several conduits were visible sparking or overtly simmering through the twisted, misaligned access panels of the walls.

“I’m here,” said Sbaya, standing up behind Zedok. She sounded and seemed quite normal, but a thick line of violet blood was dripping from one side of her head.

“She’s fine,” said Zedok, dismissively.

“I’m actually quite durable,” said Sbaya. “Yet another gift from my ancestors, I suppose.”

“But you’re bleeding!”

Sbaya appeared confused, and then touched the line of violet on her head. She pulled her fingers away, and upon seeing her blood she went pale and began to faint. She was caught by Jurneu’s magic as she descended.

“I don’t know if you’re brilliant or an absolute moron,” he said.

Starlight pointed to the broken, twisted metal on the other side of the nearly shattered window. “They certainly aren’t going to shoot at us now.”

“No,” said Beri. “But now we’re trapped on THEIR ship.”

“It’s better than being space dust,” said Zedok, changing the mode on her omnitool and using it to revive Sbaya.

Starlight raised her hoof and attempted to open the ship’s system. There was a surge of pain as her omnitool once again flickered and went out.

“What did I just tell you?!” said Zedok.

The realty of the situation began to set in, and a set of long-forgotten but all-too familiar emotions overtook Starlight. She realized that without her omnitool, she had no powers whatsoever. She felt the same as when she had lost her biotic abilities. At least then, though, Twilight had been there to reassure her. Now she was trapped on an enemy spacecraft with no magic, no tech abilities, and a biological inability to hold a weapon.

“I will grant Berry this, though,” said Zedok. “Star, this really doesn’t look good.”

“Well, if you have any suggestions…”

“I do.” Beri lifted a sword from her back. “We fight our way out.”

“But I don’t have any powers,” said Starlight. “I don’t know if I can.”

“And that’s why we’re here,” said Zedok, closing her omnitool and unholstering one of Lyra’s singularity rifles. She turned to her daughter. “Sbaya. You’re going to need a weapon.”

“W…weapon?”

“We do have three biotics and a weaponized cyborg,” said Jurneu.

“You’re not even a combat unit,” said Beri.

“No, but I am a Spectre. That said, I have no idea what is on the other side. But I do vow to protect you, Starlight Glimmer, as is my duty.”

“We’re not going to let anything happen,” said Zedok. “I mean, what are friends for?”

Exiting the ship was by no means easy, but it was possible. The ship on the other side, though, was hardly what Starlight was expecting. She had almost taken it as a given that her small group would be faced with overwhelming odds against a force that had gathered around the wound their starship had made in the larger vessel. Instead, she found the corridors absolutely empty. Even the lights had been deactivated, leaving the hallways lit only by the light of Jurneu’s horn and the light attached to Zedok’s gun.

“Okay,” said Zedok. “I’ve just got to say it. This is creepy as hell. Where is everybody?”

“I’d rather not encounter them, actually,” said Jurneu. “But…still. This is not right. A ship this size should have a crew at least.”

“There is,” said Sbaya, her voice sounding distant. She had a light attached to her rifle as well, but had apparently elected not to turn it on. Instead she stared into the darkness, her eyes flitting from object to object. “Or…there were. I can smell them.”

“Smell them? Like hell you can,” said Beri.

“Trust me,” said Sbaya. “I can. I was born to hunt, and I have harvested the Forest since I was old enough to walk.”

“What are you getting?” asked Starlight.

“I don’t know. Not animals. I think…people. Lots of different species and…”

“And what?” pressed Starlight.

“Blood,” said Sbaya, simply. “I smell blood.”

Starlight shivered. She, too, had realized something was more wrong than simply an abandoned ship. This was not a ghostly, empty vessel meant for a skeleton crew. It was apparent from the state and design of the hallways that they were meant for use- -and yet there was no one around to use them.

The silence of the ship was suddenly interrupted by the sound of automatic weapons firing. Up ahead, Starlight saw the characteristic surges of blue light from a mass-effect weapon, followed by screaming. Then hurried footsteps.

Beri and Jurneu stepped forward, preparing to defend with their respective weapons. Zedok moved close to Starlight, raising her own rifle and pointing it at the source of the noise. Almost as soon as she had, a bloodied asari in black armor came stumbling around the corner, looking over her shoulder in terror. Her armor had been cut in places, and she was limping severely.

“Stop there!” ordered Beri. The asari looked up and slowed to a rapid stop as her eyes widened with confusion. She opened her mouth to say something, but the small moment she had stopped in surprise gave whatever was chasing her a chance to catch up.

She screamed as it knocked her to the ground, and Starlight felt Zedok push her to the ground as the black-armored woman fired indescriminatly at her attacker. It grabbed the gun, though, and pushed it to one side. The asari releasted it and tried to reach for something on her wrist. Whatever had taken hold of her knocked her to the ground, though, and managed to get one thin hand around her neck. There was a sudden snap as it twisted her head around, and then the asari’s body fell to the ground twitching but otherwise limp.

It was at this point that the creature seemed to notice that it was not alone, and it froze, looking up at the group standing in front of it. In Zedok’s light, Starlight could see it clearly: a lanky, thin creature that stood on all fours despite its long rear legs. Its body was completely covered in armored clothing that seemed to have been crudely welded and stitched from whatever it could find. Much of it seemed to be coated in rusted metal, and the remainder was dirty- -or stained with a dripping violet fluid.

“What the hell is that thing?” demanded Beri.

Before any of them could answer, it slowly started walking toward them. It made no sound apart from that of its feet clicking on the hard metal floor. Starlight immediately felt her adrenaline race; as a pony, she had a deep instinctual sense of when she was being stalked by a predator.

Then, suddenly, it lunged. Jurneu and Beri acted in sync, with the unicorn falling back to project a defensive biotic shield while Beri took one long step forward and slid her dark-colored sword toward the creature. It was almost impossibly fast, and it dodged the first stroke. Beri was faster, though, and her second move slid through it, slicing its body in half.

As it died, Starlight heard a scream. For a moment, she thought that it had come from the creature- -only to realize that the sound had in fact come from behind her. She turned sharply to see another creature leaping out of the shadows toward Sbaya. Sbaya raised her rifle and fired. There was a sudden surge of energy as a blue-orange sphere of energy shot from the end and struck the second creature directly in the chest.

The effect was drastic. The singularity cut through its crude metal armor and flesh, leaving a gaping hole. The creature’s right side immediately began to slump from the nerve damage, but even though Starlight could literally see out the back of it, it did not fall. In fact, it only paused for a moment, and then, ignoring the damage, leapt onto Sbaya.

“Don’t let it bite you!” shouted Zedok, rushing toward the creature and striking it directly in the head with a powerful biotic punch. The force was great enough to knock the creature back, and Zedok raised her own weapon, this time aiming directly for the upper center of its chest. Another singularity cut through the creature, severing its mediastinum and spine. It lurched forward, now dead, but still took two steps before it fell.

Sbaya saw it go down, and then immediately collapsed to her knees, shaking.

“Damn it damn it DAMN IT!” said Zedok, kicking the corpse.

“Zedok!” cried Starlight, surprised by her friend’s sudden violent outburst. “What’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong, Star! Don’t tell me you don’t recognize these things!”

Starlight looked down at the creature and its pooling red blood. A thought occurred to her.

“No,” she said. “They aren’t…”

Zedok turned away from the creature she had just killed and approached the torso of the one that had been serving as a distraction which Beri had cut in half.

“I would advise against touching it,” said Jurneu.

Zedok ignored him. She reached down and pulled off its mask. Almost as soon as she did, its arm reached up and wrapped her own in a tight grip. The creature, though cut in half, gasped and attempted to sit up, its blue eyes condensing to vertical slits as it tried to breathe through its broken lungs. All it managed to do was to vomit blood, though, before it collapsed back to the ground, its overly large eyes still open and staring even as its pupils began to dilate.

The pale, dirty skin, blue eyes, and deep black hair confirmed what Starlight had feared. “Wendigoes,” she said. “These are wendigoes.”

Both Beri and Jurneu turned to her.

“That’s impossible,” said Jurneu. “They’re extinct. They died with Earth.”

“Apparently not,” said Beri, almost sarcastically. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen them off- world, but…”

“But what?” said Starlight.

“The last time was centuries ago. They didn’t have armor then.”

“I can’t- -I can’t do this!” cried Sbaya suddenly in a high voice. “I can’t! I just can’t!”

Starlight turned to the girl, who was holding her head in both hands and rocking. “Sbaya,” said Starlight, putting her hoof on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Okay? Okay?! Did you- -did you see what I just did?! I put a hole in that man’s chest, I…I just killed him! Killed him like he was an animal!”

“Don’t concern yourself with it,” said Starlight.

“How- -how can you say that?!”

“Because they aren’t any different from animals,” said Beri. “These things? They’re what humans evolved into. The epitome of Earth’s evolution. Did you notice how they didn’t once make a sound? They can’t talk. They can’t think. These things aren’t people. They aren’t even sentient.”

“Perhaps they evolved past the need for thought,” mused Jurneu, sounding more interested than frightened.

“Sbaya,” said Starlight, calmly. “It’s okay. You said you’re a hunter, right?”

“I…I am. It’s how- -it’s how the yahg evolved. It’s how I evolved.”

“Then hunt.”

Sbaya stopped rocking and turned to Starlight. Although her eyes were filled with tears, the nodded after moment and Starlight could tell that she understood.

“Aim for the head and neck,” said Beri. “And watch out behind you. Just because they aren’t sentient doesn’t mean they aren’t smart as hell.”

“And the bite,” repeated Zedok. “I got bit once. I almost died.”

“Probably the only man you could get to bite you,” said Beri. “But yeah. I was there for that part.”

“I will change my engagement procedure,” said Jurneu. “It is critical that we protect the High Priestess.”

Starlight glared at him. She knew it was not his fault, and that what he was saying was entirely logical- -but she resented having to be the one who needed to be protected. It only reminded her of how strong she had once been, and how there was no way she could go back to that state.

The situation had become increasingly dire by the time the ship’s commander joined the battle. The vanguard of the enemy creatures had disabled the ship’s core defensive systems, making it almost impossible to stop more creatures from boarding. The ship shuddered and shook as some of the ship attempted to drag it into the nebula, but from what the commander understood they had not yet managed to breach and disable the central quant architecture. The ship was still alive, and still fighting.

The crew, though, was failing. The Paradigm demanded that the commander question their faith and devotion to the Goddess, but the few parts of his mind that remained from his decades as a turian military commander understood that it was hardly their fault. They had not been prepared for this; they had been preparing to surround and engage the survivors of the ship imbedded in the hull, and they had not equipped themselves for a night-battle against a bizarre horde of aliens.

And yet the crew fought on. As the commander watched, the creatures swarmed forward from the shadows with seemingly no regard for their own survival. Initially, he had wondered why his soldiers had not been able to stop them. Each and every one of them had been trained by the Paradigm, and they knew how to fight. What the commander realized, though, was that these creatures were far from sane.

The creatures had no shields, and their armor was almost useless against bullets or blades, but they seemed to completely ignore injuries that would have at the very least incapacitated any normal sentient creature. The commander saw a young drell woman open fire on one member of the advancing horde. Bullets tore through its body, but it did not slow until one of them penetrated its head. It lurched back, taking several steps. The drell woman turned her weapon toward another target, and the first then suddenly jumped on her, still functioning with massive brain trauma. It tore into the woman, dragging her down. More came and pulled her screaming into the shadows.

One of the others then picked up her weapon, stood awkwardly on its thin hind legs, and began to open fire at the group, covering others that tore into the front lines. Most of the soldiers were forced to fall back, save for the converted Governors. They were the only units that seemed to be resistant to the creature’s attack. Their bodies were already extremely durable and strong, and the particle weapons they wielded could not be used by the creatures that picked them up.

Except that, strangely, the creatures did not even try. Whenever one would manage to take a particle weapon, it would immediately retreat, carrying it off quickly in the same way that they took the wounded or their own dead.

Ignoring the chaos around him, the commander stepped forward.

“MOVE,” he ordered, shoving the front line out of his way. He set his sights on the nearest of the creatures and lifted his hand. It flashed violet as he summoned the Goddess’s power, and an ultra-dense singularity formed in his palm. He projected it toward the creature, and it landed directly on target.

Except that the creature did not fall. A biotic blast of that level of power should have shattered virtually any living creature and then lifted those surrounding it into a toxic mass-effect field. Instead, the creature absorbed the full force. It took a step back, absorbing the biotic energy.

It shuddered, and then suddenly screamed. It’s body ignited with violet energy, and then the space around it distorted as it unleashed a massive shockwave in all directions. The commander was able to jump back, relying on his biotic barrier to protect himself. Some of his soldiers were not so lucky, though. Their legs shattered from the blast, and several Governors staggered, leaving them open to be swarmed by creatures.

The force of the blast was so intense that it actually distorted the internal structure of the ship, rupturing conduits and unseating part of the hull. There was a rush of air as the corridor underwent an explosive decompression, and one of the commander’s pony soldiers was sucked into the fissure, momentarily plugging it before his flesh was ripped away from the pressure.

The shockwave impacted a number of creatures near the first. They responded similarly to the first and absorbed the biotic energy. Instead of releasing it, though, their bodies charged with blue light as they suddenly became far more resistant to damage.

Several of them, seeming to realize that the commander was a threat, leapt onto him. He stepped back but quickly compensated, increasing the entropy and non-repeating resonance patterns of his biotics. He reached out and punched the nearest of them, and judging by how its body splattered, he determined that he had compensated more than adequately for their resistance to biotic attacks.

They were fast, though, and strong, surprisingly so. One of them curled around his body, and he suddenly felt its teeth sink into some of the exposed skin near his neck. He reacted immediately by projecting a biotic blast through the creature, instantly killing it- -but its jaw had already locked, and even though it was dead it did not release him.

He tried to ignore the pain, but quickly realized that something was wrong. The sharp burning was followed by a tingling sensation, and then a numbness as his right arm became weak and began to slump.

“Commander,” said the voice of the ship’s quant through his comlink, “Your telemetry is reporting the presence of and unknown neurotoxin in your blood.”

“I know,” said the commander, opening his omnitool and administering medigel through his support shell. The pain lessened, but the numbness only increased.

Another pair of creatures leapt onto him, with one managing to bite through the thinner armor near his upper left leg. He dispatched that one quickly, but found that his biotic ability in his right arm had decreased. That gave the other a chance to tear off part of the containment unit on his suit and escape with it.

The effect of its removal was much more severe than the creatures’ venom. He almost immediately began to feel the effects of his power rising beyond the biological capacity for his body to withstand it.

“Commander,” said the quant again, relaying some information that the commander did not bother to listen to. He focused all he had on his ability to contain his power, and by sheer will managed to keep it controlled. He then directed his energy at the horde, and slaughtered each and every one of them with a single blow of violet energy. The effect came too late, though, as almost all of his soldiers were dead- -and those that had survived were sacrificed to the Goddess in the blast.

The wendigoes were relentless, but they were not unstoppable. Beri virtually plowed through them, cleaving through their armor as though it were paper. Some of them leapt at her, attacking wildly and biting, but they could do nothing to her mechanical body. She simply ignored them or crushed them to death as needed.

While Beri took pointe, Jurneu remained behind, acting producing a biotic shield as necessary or immobilizing enemies in his magic for Sbaya and Zedok to eliminate. Zedok was, as expected, reasonably proficient at killing them, but her long preference for shotguns left her extremely inaccurate with a rifle. Sbaya, meanwhile, was almost terrifyingly accurate. She remained expressionless, moving in the back of the group and shooting past the others in rapid succession. Wherever she fired, a wendigo fell, their heads severed from their spines by a small singularity explosion.

“This is getting monotonous!” growled Beri, slicing through a wendigo and turning her head just barely in time to dodge a singularity projectile that struck one on the verge of attack. “HEY!” she cried. “Watch it! This body is expensive!” She reached into her belt and drew a Zetan pistol, firing into a nearby wendigo. A relatively slow-moving bolt of light shot out and seemed to pass through the wendigo completely, leaving nothing behind but a charred skeleton. “Do you have any idea how long it is going to take to get all this blood out of my bodywork?!”

“I’m more worried about them trying to get my blood out of ME!” squeaked Sbaya.

“Do we even have a plan, Star?” said Zedok.

“I’m pretty sure this ship uses a quant,” said Starlight, who was desperately trying to get her omnitool back into operation despite the futility of trying to restore the clearly unsalvageable piece of equipment. “We need to get to it. I can reprogram it to mass-jump to Equestria Prime!”

“Without a working omnitool?” asked Jurneu, freezing a wendigo for long enough for Zedok to remove its head with a well-placed shot.

“I’ll manage!”

The ship was suddenly rocked form the side, and Starlight was knocked over. The atmosphere immediately became thinner, and Starlight began to breathe more quickly.

“We’re losing pressure!” said Jurneu. “This ship’s getting torn apart!”

“Incoming!” yelled Beri from the front. Starlight, now slightly dizzy and weak from the sudden lack of oxygen, stood up to see a horde charging her from the front.

“No, from behind!” said Sbaya, turning and firing into several wendigoes who had flanked them. Starlight looked over her shoulder to see their reflective eyes as they charged forward.

“Hold on!” Jurneu charged his horn even more brightly than it had been before, and directed it upward. The air around them took on a pinkish pigment and a dome-like bubble formed around the four of them, leaving Beri outside.

Several of the wendigoes, upon seeing the shield, immediately stopped and backed away. One, though, rushed it, slamming into it. The distortion in space immediately manifested as sparks over her armor, and the metal began to dissolve, reaved apart by Jurneu’s biotic force. The wendigo seemed to ignore it, and somehow managed to reach one arm through the field with minimal damage.

“No you don’t!” cried Zedok, spinning sharply and grabbing the wendigo’s outstretched hand. Instead of pushing her back out, she instead pulled her inward. The wendigo’s eyes widened and she squeaked and chirped loudly as she was forced through the shield faster than her body could handle. The result was incredibly messy.

“Tyros!” called Jurneu, “get under the shield!”

“Not going to happen! I can’t shoot through it!”

Beri fired several more Zetan energy spheres into the darkness, and each one vaporized at least one wendigo. One of the spheres, though, exploded on contact with something pink-violet in the darkness.

Through the distortion of Jurneu’s shield, Starlight could see what appeared to be a turian approaching through the horde. He was limping badly, and one of his arms hung limply at his side. Parts of his flesh were beginning to pull away from his body, both from a rapidly spreading infection on his neck and from the powerful corona of violet light that surrounded him.

As he moved, the wendigoes tried to move aside, but many could not in time. His mere proximity seemed to be fatal to them, with their bodies bursting apart as he passed them.

“Finally, something interesting,” said Beri, raising her pistol and firing. The turian raised his hand and simply slapped aside the slow-moving projectile. Then, without making a single motion, he produced a biotic surge so powerful that the condensed sphere of energy was able to knock Beri to her knees.

“The Goddess,” he said, lurching forward. “I live…for her…for Thebe…”

Several wendigoes leapt onto him. Some of their bodies began to decay, but at least two seemed to begin absorbing his energy, feeding on it. It was already apparent that he was in the process of dying, and he dropped to his knees. He then looked up, ignoring the venomous teeth of the wendigoes digging into his decaying body. His eyes and Starlight’s met.

“I…I remember,” he said, raising his hand. “I remember you…because the Paradigm remembers you. She must rise…I die so that she may live…”

Without any further warning, he fired a singularity directly into Jurneu’s biotic shield. It crumpled immediately under the force, producing a small explosion. Starlight heard Jurneu cry out, but was herself knocked to the ground with tremendous force. A second explosion- -this one of pure light- -erupted in front of her eyes as her head slammed into the hard surface below. She felt the biotic feedback rushing through her, sending her into seizures, and the combination of the two forces resulted in her losing consciousness. While the world grayed and faded around her, the only thing she found herself able to feel was the sensation of many hands surrounding her and quickly dragging her off into the unlit darkness of the ship.

Author's Notes:

My design for a lot of these enemies is informed by types of enemies that I think would work well in Mass Effect the game. That is true for the Thebe zealots as well as the amplifier-wendigoes.

Chapter 17: Pink

Starlight partially opened her eyes, but her brain still remained hazy. She knew that something was wrong, that she needed to be awake immediately, but she could not remember why. Instead, she just kept sleeping, wondering why Twilight was standing over her with a stony, blank expression on her face.

“Starlight,” whispered a voice beside her. “Starlight, wake up!”

Slowly, Starlight managed to force herself back into consciousness. It was surprisingly difficult; she had just been concussed to the point of unconsciousness two times in what she assumed were the past two hours. Her head ached tremendously, and everything felt distant and odd. She was only glad she had not suffered a lethal hematoma.

When she realized where she was, though, the hematoma suddenly seemed like the better option. She was being supported by her forelegs and being dragged. A pair of wendigoes were tightly gripping each of her arms, and they were awkwardly walking forward quickly on their hind legs. One of them remained masked, but the other was not. As Starlight looked up at her, she looked back, her pale pink eyes darting down toward the pony she held and then back up to her path.

Looking around, she saw that another pair of wendigoes was dragging Jurneu, who was either unconscious or dead. Zedok and Sbaya were walking on their own, although machinery had been placed on their bodies. Starlight was not sure what function it was meant to serve, if any, but from the rusted and chaotic look of it, she assumed that it was built by the wendigoes. Zedok had an almost comical appearance of anger, as if this whole thing were badly inconveniencing her, but Sbaya was quietly crying. Beri was walking behind them, and although she was free, she was surrounded by wendigoes, some of whom were armed with strange looking weapons that looked at least partially organic.

“My head,” said Starlight.

“Trust me, Star, you’re head’s the least of your problems right now.”

Starlight groaned. “Where are we?”

It was not terribly apparent from her surroundings. Wherever they were, it was cold, and despite how thin the air was, it smelled horrible, like blood and old machinery. It was also dark, but from what little Starlight could see, they seemed to be walking through what could only be described as wreckage. It was as though someone had tunneled through the debris of hundreds of derelict ships, digging a corridor as they went. There was evidence that this had been the hallway of a starship at one point- -from the look of it, perhaps Alliance, though at its age it likely hailed from as far back as the human era- -but it had been cut apart and rebuilt so many times that it now consisted of cavernous channels overlaid with makeshift conduits and rusted plating that reinforced its joints to other sections that appeared to have been hastily and awkwardly added on at later times.

“This…this is their ship,” said Starlight, answering her own question. She watched as many of the wendigoes above watched her pass, staring from perches on the jagged and broken walls around them. “This is a wendigo ship…”

“Looks like it,” said Zedok. “How the hell did they build a goddamn SHIP?”

“I don’t think they did,” said Starlight, looking around. “It just looks like they fixed it.” She looked up at Zedok. “But that doesn’t matter. We need to get off of it. Now.”

“But they haven’t hurt us yet,” said Sbaya, hopefully.

“Yes,” said Starlight, “but they’re probably just taking us to be basted or something.”

“But- -but I don’t want to be basted!” wailed Sbaya. One of the wendigoes reacted strongly to the sudden noise, momentarily panicking and punching the girl in the face. She cried out and dropped to the ground.

“Get your dirty hands off my daughter!” screamed Zedok, kicking at the wendigo. It dodged easily and dropped to all fours, assuming an aggressive posture. Starlight saw him bear his unusually long fangs at her.

“Careful!” said Starlight, pulling herself free from the two wendigoes holding her but nearly collapsing in the process. Not only was she concussed, but the atmosphere was so thin that she nearly blacked out trying to stand on her own.

Zedok, to her credit, managed to control her anger and instead knelt by Sbaya, who was now bleeding from her nose. Sbaya was not critically injured, but was visibly shaken, and Zedok helped her back up.

“My tactical suggestion is that we avoid conflict,” said Beri in an unusually monotone voice. “We are currently on a starship that could contain hundreds or thousands of wendigoes. I am good, but I am not that good. I was damaged in the fight and taken before my system could repair, and although I am capable of escaping, there is a 97 percent chance that all of you would die in the first two minutes.”

Zedok nodded. She pointed toward the rusted collar attached to her body. “They put these things on us while we were out. I think they’re some kind of biotic suppressor. Not that either of us have enough biotic power to take these things on. Jurneu does, but…” Starlight looked back at the albino unicorn. She saw that he, too, was fitted with a collar, but he was still unconscious.

“Is he dead?” asked Starlight.

“No,” said Zedok. “Which is a miracle in its own right. The amount of feedback he just took should have burned out his brain, but…Star, I need to get to him. He’s alive right now, but I have no idea for how long. Every time I try to, the wendigoes freak out.”

Starlight looked up at the wendigoes, and despite the grogginess in her mind she began to realize just how little sense their situation made. These were not the wendigoes she had seen on Earth so many years ago. They had evolved, and done so quickly to the point where they only marginally resembled the humans that their kind had descended from. Their behavior seemed the same, though: the fact that none of them could speak, or the way that they attacked. Starlight could only assume that they were still the obligate predators that they had once been. Even on the borders of the cavernous, broken hallways, she could see some of them devouring bits of what she could only assume were the remains of the Thebe ship’s crew.

“They haven’t killed us yet,” she said. “Why haven’t they killed us?”

“B…basted,” said Sbaya, sobbing quietly. “I don’t…I don’t want to be basted…”

“Nobody’s getting basted,” said Zedok. “Star, they didn’t put a collar on you. Look.”

Starlight did, and she realized that Zedok was correct. They had not attached a device to her, which she found mildly insulting.

“Do you think you can fight?” said Zedok.

“No!” Starlight shook her head. “I can’t use my biotics anymore, they’re gone!”

“Come on, Star, try!”

Starlight took a breath and tried to activate her horn. She felt it spark slightly before her head was overcome with crippling pain that caused her to nearly collapse. Tears welled in her eyes, both from the pain and from the realization that she was completely useless despite being the one responsible for the capture of her friends.

“I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t.”

They were led deep into the ship, which appeared to be the remains of what had once been an Alliance carrier. From what Starlight had saw, it had mostly been converted into the wendigo version of a city, with the hangers meant for fighters converted into living space or used to house smaller ships that the wendigoes were either in the process of disassembling or had long ago interfaced into the larger ship’s systems to keep it marginally functional.

Their eventual destination, though, lay in a different part of the ship. Although the junction had built over for centuries, Starlight was still able to see the jagged junction to a second, smaller ship of an unfamiliar design. It appeared to be imbedded in the larger carrier; it was not stored in a hanger, but rather seemed to have slammed into it at one point, lodging itself within, just as Starlight’s own ship had in the Thebean lead ship.

At the junction, though, she paused for a moment. Her eyes widened as she saw the peeling, decayed symbol on the exposed portion of the second ship’s ancient, oxidized hull plating: an orange flanked hexagon. The imbedded ship had once belonged to Cerberus.

One of the wendigoes shoved her, and Starlight was forced through what had once been the Cerberus vessel’s docking door. Inside, it had been reconfigured substantially to account for the fact that it was tilted relative to the main ship’s gravity. It had never been meant to be navigated in such a position, but the wendigoes seemed to have found a way.

This ship, unlike the others, had not been built up. This area was clearly not meant for wendigo habitation, and Starlight could tell that their captors were becoming increasingly agitated the longer they were present in this section. The walls of this ship remained relatively intact, dirty and stripped but otherwise undamaged and augmented.

In this strange imbedded ship, Starlight and her group were led to a large room. It had perhaps once been a hanger or a cargo bay, but in its current shifted position, it stood on its side, making it far taller than it was wide. The floor was flooded with strangely clear water that was up to Starlight’s knees, and more appeared to be flooding in from several areas around the room.

Through the dim, bluish light of the room, Starlight was able to see that the room was not empty. Several islands were apparent in the center, and all of them were covered in what Staright first thought were ponies. As she looked closer, though, she recognized their hairless pink bodies and bushy, curly manes and tails. Each and every one of them was identical, and all of them smiled hungrily when Starlight was thrown in front of them. They were clingons.

In the center sat one clingon who appeared different from the others. This one had perfectly straight hair, and while the others were giggling madly and incessantly this one looked deathly serious if not outright offended that her sanctum would dare to be violated. Her island in particular was set up like a throne, but not one occupied by her. Instead, what Starlight took for a humanoid statue had been erected on it: a mossy, corroded and bullet-hole pocked image of an oversized human dressed in armor that had been spattered with pink paint and a darker, rustier fluid.

“What is the meaning of this?” said the lead clingon as the wendigoes threw their captives into the room. Zedok immediately rushed to Jureu’s side, opening her omnitool and beginning to revive him. Starlight looked up into the tall room, and saw many pink and blue eyes staring back at her from the balconies above.

“Come now, Pinkamena,” said a deep voice from an unseen source. It gurgled loudly with a long, ragged breath. “We so rarely get company.”

Starlight watched the statue’s hand slowly lift off its armrest and run itself through the clingon’s hair. The clingon Pinkamena smiled and nuzzled the chest of what Starlight now realized was an actual living man, the one who had spoken.

Starlight stepped forward through the water and addressed the enormous armored man. “I am Starlight Glimmer of Equestria,” she said. “Might I ask just who you are?”

“Who am I?” he said, leaning forward. A high giggling came from behind his helmet, making Starlight shiver with how unexpected it was. “That, tiny horse, is something I’ve been trying to answer for so very, very long…”

Jurneu moaned and sat up. He looked around confused, helped up by Zedok. “What?” he said. “Where…” He blinked. “Well. This isn’t good, is it?”

Starlight was glad to see that he was safe, but for the moment ignored him, keeping her attention focused on the alien in front of her. “Am I to assume you are their leader?” she said, gesturing toward the wendigoes.

The man just stared at her for a moment, or at least seemed to. His mask was completely opaque, and though Starlight assumed he could see through it, there was a strong possibility that he was blind.

Then, suddenly, he burst into wild shrill laughter. The clingons joined in, cracking up just as madly, their wide blue eyes racing frantically around the room as they stood on their islands of debris.

“Leader? They don’t have a leader!” shrieked the man in a voice that had suddenly changed several octaves. “They form no hierarchy! They share no compassion, no altruism! Their cooperation- -their cooperation is because of how much they HATE each other!”

One of his arms swung out at almost impossible speed. Something flashed through the air and a large fragment of a dark organic substance imbedded itself in one of the nearby wendigo’s legs. She cried weakly and collapsed into the water. The other wendigoes did not hesitate; as soon as they saw weakness in one of their own, they leapt onto her, tearing her apart while she was still alive and eating the parts.

The enormous man suddenly stood, with Pinkamena scrambling across his back with her clingon agility and clambering onto one of his broad shoulders. He produced a deafening roar and lurched toward the wendigoes. They panicked and fled, leaving their sister trembling and mortally wounded in the cold water, her blood staining it an odd pink color.

The man then turned back to his chair and nodded to his clingon horde. They began giggling and speaking in their odd, high voices as they took to the water and moved rapidly toward the quivering woman.

“So many cupcakes!”

“It’s time to have a party!”

“Don’t worry! Teehee, it’s going to be FUN!”

“Her eyes are just so adorable! I could eat them up!”

The wendigo’s own eyes widened and she tried to escape, but she was too weak. The clingons descended on her and began to devour what was left of her body. Within seconds, the wendigo woman was dead.

“See?” said the man. “They’re just waiting. Each and every one. Waiting for weakness. Waiting for me to weaken. But I never do! I NEVER DO!” He screamed in rage and punched the rear of his stone-like seat, breaking off a corner of the back.

Starlight took a breath, calling on her centuries of diplomatic experience and remaining unfazed by the strange figure’s outburst. “I’m going to ask again. Who are you?”

He turned slowly, and both he and Pinkamena looked at Starlight.

“Who knows?” he said, suddenly sounding on the verge of laughter. “Maybe I was once a man named Kevin who had a very, very bad day with some rather unfortunate green chemicals. Or maybe Cerberus strapped me to a table and kept cutting and cutting until I couldn’t remember who I was at all and EVERY GODDAMN SECOND OF MY LIFE IS ABOSLUTE AGONY!”

His sentence quickly devolved into something that was not words, at least in any language that Starlight could understand. Then he went perfectly silent and stood perfectly still. Pinkamena stroked his head, and he seemed to calm down. “Or,” he said. “You can call me Pink.”

“Hel…hello, Mr. Pink,” said Sbaya, still managing to be polite even though it was quite clear that she had wet herself. “It is…nice to meet…you…”

Pink slowly turned to her. Then he pointed. “Polite. You are polite. Why are you polite to me, little asari? You hate me. Not that I blame you. I would hate me too if I were still alive.”

“If you’re not their leader,” said Starlight, “then what are you?”

“What am I?” He actually sounded as though he were truly asking the question, and he began to pace the room. Starlight saw that his armor did not actually cover his body entirely. Part of his neck was exposed, revealing gray, scabbed, cancerous looking skin that surrounded a set of what she could only imagine were gills. “To them. With respect to them. Pinkamena, what am I? I can’t…I can’t remember.”

“They come to you when they have questions,” said Pinkamena. “They are like us. They can’t think. But you can. Or could, once. You know things.”

“Yes,” he sighed, as if he was reminded of something profoundly sad. “I am not their leader, but I am…we are compatible. These ships, they have thousands of clingons. Even vorcha in some areas, once. And me. They have me.” He turned to Starlight with a sudden surge of speed, and then took several rapid steps forward.

“You,” he said. “They have questions about you.”

“You can understand them?”

Pink shook his head. “No. Oh no. They can’t speak. Except HER. She can speak…and the other one, but he’s not even real, just a skin, just a skinned corpse…I don’t like her! She was there, she was cutting, she made me, made me- -”

“Pink,” said Pinkamena. Several of his pet clingons swam to his sides, calming him down.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I…I’m not me anymore. I can’t feel the pain if I’m not me. That’s how I did it, you know. How I got away. By letting myself die to become me.” He took a deep, rattling breath. “They, the nhmai, they can’t think. They don’t have minds, but they can build. They understand. Can’t talk, cannot build society, but they can build ships to hunt more ships to gather more food…”

“The pirate attacks,” said Jurneu. “They…they weren’t pirates…”

“Oh no,” said Pink. He looked for a long moment at Jurneu. “I see,” he said. “So very interesting. They don’t even know.” He then turned back to Starlight. “But it isn’t him that they have questions about. They are confused, but not by them. They have no interest in the others. They have an interest in YOU.”

“Why me?” said Starlight.

“I told you. They can’t talk. But they do KNOW. Something about them, when humanity lost sentience it gained something ELSE. They’re afraid of you, and they want my verdict on you and those around you.”

“And what is your verdict.”

“DON’T RUSH ME!” he screamed. Then, in a perfectly calm voice. “My brain is mostly filled with calcifications and tumors. It doesn’t work as quickly as it did before…before they made me. How long ago was that?”

“Three hundred years,” said Pinkamena.

“Thank you,” he said. Then he paused. “How…how am I still here? That long, why won’t they let me die? Are you even my Pinkamena?”

Pinkamena shook her head. “No. She died decades ago. I am her great-great-great-granddaughter.”

“My Pinkies,” said Pink, sounding as though he were on the verge of weeping. “They keep taking my beloved Pinkies…”

“Who keeps taking them?”

Pink paused. “Time. Time keeps taking them. But it never takes me. Like it never took you.”

He sat back in his chair and Pinkamena took a seat on one of the armrests.

“But why me?” pressed Starlight. She herself was not sure what question she was even trying to ask.

“Why you? I don’t know. But I DO know.” He pointed at her, his hand now shaking. “Something about you is not something they know…” he trailed off. “You need to know. You HAVE to know. I’ve seen things, but my mind is broken. All I want is to kill. I want to strangle you right now. Break your little pony body. Then squeeze the life out of those two asari and tear the turian limb-from limb.”

“I’d like to see you try,” said Beri, crossing her arms.

“What about me?” asked Jurneu, sounding surprisingly amused by the occurrences around him.

“An all-white unicorn will make an excellent sacrifice to Satin Veil,” he said. “Or I could let my Pinkies have their way with you. I would myself, but I honestly don’t know if I’m a male or female. Those parts of me rotted off decades ago. I don’t even have skin under this armor.” He turned sharply to Starlight. “Eight were born,” he said, suddenly in a different voice.

“Excuse me?”

“You HAVE TO KNOW,” he said, suddenly sounding desperate to retain what little lucidity he had left. “Eight were born, but One was strongest. One was born to rule. The others, they know. They listened…and they heard the TRUTH. I can…I can sometimes hear her…”

“Hear who?”

Pink shook his head. “Not her, it’s not her…pieces. Just pieces of what once was. Steel and crystal and flesh merged once and merging again. Broken thoughts, a Paradigm assembling itself from the ashes.”

“You’re insane,” said Zedok. “What Cerberus must have done to you…”

“Insane…yes,” he said. “A viral ideology. An infectious religion…but I resist. Oh how I wish I could understand, but my mind won’t let me. CERBERUS won’t let me.” He took Pinkamena in his arms, and the other clingons began to return to their island, leaving the skeleton of the stripped wendigo behind. “And you don’t know…because you can’t know. If you knew…”

He suddenly froze, and then stood up. He did not speak, but instead began looking around the room frantically. Starlight at first thought he was looking at the wendigos, but they seemed to retreat from his gaze.

“What is it?” said Pinkamena.

“Can’t- -can’t you hear them?”

“Hear what?” asked Starlight.

“Their screaming…the sound. Starlight Glimmer, disciple of the true falsehood, you must, you HAVE to hear them too!”

“I don’t hear any- -”

“THEN LISTEN!”

Starlight took a step back, and in the silence of the room, she realized that she DID hear something. It was not really a sound, but something like a strange distant whispering that she felt with her body.

“What…what is that?” she said.

“It’s the damned,” he said. “The last of my kind, they’re HERE.” He turned to the wendigoes and roared. “THEY’RE HERE!”

“Who is here?” said Starlight.

“You can hear it! I can’t- -it’s making me deaf! The sound of their engines, can’t you HEAR IT?!”

He suddenly lurched forward and wrapped Starlight in an iron grip. Zedok moved from her position, as if she were ready to fight, but Pink did not actually hurt Starlight.

“The Alliance,” he whispered. “The Alliance is here…”

As the ISSV Antigone moved into position, the synth supervisor watched through the primary viewing port. It was enormous and curved, a screen of nearly indestructible transparent ceramic at the far end of the bridge, framed by the lines of ornate columns that lined either side of the room. He sighed, slouching in his chair and balancing his head on one hand. There was not much to see through the window itself; the nebula was astoundingly dense, and the gas cloud acted like a thick fog making it impossible to see.

That did not stop him, though. The screen was overlaid with the mathematical formulae produced by the ship’s primary and secondary scanning array, and he was able to render the results within his own mind in real time, along with those pictured on the two curving tech screens attached to the shoulders of his centurion armor.

There was a dull, almost imperceptible hum as the Antigone’s particle cannons fired, and the supervisor watched the data change as wendigo ships were instantly incinerated in the beams. They were, of course, returning fire, and although their weapons were unexpectedly strong the hyper-dense surface of the Alliance ship repelled them easily. It was all rather boring.

The only other person on the bridge approached him from the side: a gray-violet pony, dressed in a smaller equine version of the supervisor’s armor with the only primary discrepancy being the transparent mask she wore over her face to allow her to breath the Antigone’s atmosphere. She smiled and inspected the array of pink-violet plates projected from her horn that made up her mobile interface.

“Command-Supervisor, we are approaching their flagship. It appears to be the remnants of a pre-evolution class of Alliance carrier.”

“A human-era carrier?” said the supervisor. “That thing should be in a museum.” He looked at the data passing by him. “I see it…it’s a shame for it to be in this condition.”

“Well,” said the pony, “perhaps we can tour it after our victory.”

“You want to tour a wendigo-infested ship?”

“I said AFTER our victory. When our soldiers have cleaned out the filth. To walk through a historical relic after a victory?” She smiled. “I think it would be romantic.”

Marc Antony returned her smile. “You know? I think it would. Is there any chance we could capture it?”

“Unfortunately, no. I am reading no active mass-effect engine. It is a stationary installation.”

“A shame.”

“My calculations indicate that we are detecting several structures with signatures consistent with Thebe organization starships.”

“Leave those intact. They will be boarded and taken whole.”

“Of course.” Four’s expression suddenly changed. She directed her attention to part of her interface, increasing the size of the projected plate and analyzing the raw mathematics crossing it. “Command-Supervisor,” she said, “I’m detecting an anomaly.”

“You don’t need to call me ‘Command-Supervisor’.”

“Nevertheless,” said Four, “I am detecting an Alliance IFF signature from the main ship.”

“Half these ships are Alliance,” said Marc Antony. “Or parts of them.”

“No. This is a modern signature.”

Marc Antony suddenly leaned forward, suddenly interested and highly concerned. “Elaborate, Four. What do you mean modern? It can’t be modern.”

“Are you doubting me? My calculations are seldom wrong. No. It is definitely one of ours. Hermes class.”

“Hermes? What is its name? I don’t have any record of a missing scout ship.”

“It does not have a name. It is registered as commercially produced.”

Marc Antony looked at Four, confused. “Commercially produced? The Hermes class is state of the art military equipment. They aren’t exported.”

“This one was. The IFF matches a single known model that was exported directly to Equestria.”

Marc Antony’s eyes widened. “Four, I need a full scan of that ship right now.”

“For identifiable life signs? In progress…and done.” She looked up to Marc Antony. “It’s confirmed. I’m detecting a biotic fingerprint that is associated with the Equestrian High Priestess Starlight Glimmer.”

Marc Antony immediately changed course, punching through the swarm of enemy ships but ceasing fire against the primary base. “This isn’t good,” he said. “This just became a rescue mission. I want a squad on that ship NOW. Four, you take command.”

“Me?”

“Of course you. Is there anyone else here?”

“But I never get to take command of a squad!”

“And you keep telling me how much you wish you could. Well, now is your chance. I don’t trust anyone in the entire universe as much as I trust you, and I need this done right.”

Four blushed slightly. “I won’t let you down, Command-Supervisor.”

“Just remember, ‘Supervisor’,” added Marc Antony. “You’re not a combat unit. Coordinate from the rear and let the soldiers conduct the purge. I want you to do well, but I…I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.”

Four smiled. “You don’t need to worry, Marc Antony. I’ll be fine.”

The ship shook suddenly, and the wendigoes panicked. It was an almost surreal sight to behold; all around Starlight, every one of the thin creatures suddenly started moving, scampering and sprinting, but all without making a single sound or direction. They ascended the walls, creeping rapidly toward fissures or vents, splashing through Pink’s shallow pool of water or clattering through vent baffles and grates.

Pink, though, only hung his head and sighed. He slowly moved through the water back to the chair where he had been sitting before and sat down. To Starlight, the way he moved made him look like a profoundly old man.

Jurneu opened his omniitool, and his eyes widened. “He’s right,” he said. “I’m detecting a Cadmus class starship closing in fast…they’re not even disgusing their signature. Ms. Glimmer, we need to go. Now.”

“W…why?” asked Sbaya.

“The Alliance is attacking wendigo ships,” said Beri, pulling herself away from the wall where she had been leaning. “In other words, they’re trying to blow this dump to hell.”

As if to punctuate her supposition, the ship shook, now violently. Starlight heard metal cleaving in the distance.

“A choice, Starlight Glimmer,” said Pink, suddenly, his voice paradoxically frail and booming. “It is not the first you will need to make, nor the last, but chose carefully.”

“Choose what?”

“Starlight, we need to go,” said Zedok, slogging through the water to Starlight’s side as Beri snapped Jurneu’s collar off. “This whole ship is going to collapse if we don’t!”

“Choose what?” repeated Starlight, her eyes still locked on Pink’s stained, opaque mask.

“You can come with me,” he said. “There’s not much left of me, but I know the others. The last remnants of Cerberus, the others that death failed to claim. Come with me, and we can help you defeat her. Or leave, and choose the Alliance. Each a different path, but you may only choose one.”

Starlight glared at him. “I don’t need THEIR help to stop Scootaloo.”

“Then make the choice.”

There was a pause as the room fell silent. Once again, Starlight stared at the ancient man, but her choice had, in truth, already been made. Her silence was followed by the sound of her legs sloshing through the water as she joined her friends and departed in the direction that the wendigoes had fled.

Pink watched them leave, and even once they were gone he continued to watch. Then, slowly, he released a long sigh form his several cancer-ridden lungs.

“She made the wrong choice, didn’t she?”

“No,” said Pinkamena, climbing onto Pink’s enormous shoulder. “There was no choice. Free will is an illusion, you know that. All of her paths lead to the same destination.”

“And what is that?”

“I’m just a clingon. An adorable one, of course, but still just a clingon. How could I possibly know?”

“True,” said Pink. “All paths can only lead to pain.”

He watched for a moment longer, and then, ignoring the blood pouring out from below his mask, spoke a name that he had not uttered in some time.

“Maud,” he said.

There was a momentary delay before the air beside him and a primitive, translucent representation of a gray, expressionless, dress-wearing pony appeared beside him.

“MAUD!” cried all of the clingons in unison, as though they had met the ship’s quant before.

“I am an interface,” said the quant in an absolute monotone. “Checking for updates…” She paused. “Wow. I am ridiculously obsolete. How long was I inactive?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Pink. “Our time here is done. Activate the ship.”

“According to my diagnostic scans, reactivating my core power systems will likely cause a catastrophic mass implosion and kill us all. Booting system.”

Maude’s projected body flickered, and the ancient ship suddenly began to shudder and hum. The lights that had not been active in centuries ignited, and the artificial gravity came online, sending several Pinkies floating into the air.

“System reactivated,” said Maud. “And we didn’t all die. Yay.”

“Pinkies,” said Pink, standing. “Bring as many of you as you can. Purge this ship of the humans. Kill them all.”

“Oh, we can’t kill people!” retorted one of the Pinkies.

“Yeah! That would be mean, and no fun!”

“We just un-alive them!”

“UN-ALIVE THEM!” said several in unison.

Pink wished he had enough face left to smile. The clingons were the only thing that made the eternal inescapable agony of his prolonged existence actually matter. Still, he was unsure if the ship would even be able to fly. He did not especially care, though.

“Tear us free,” said Pinkamena to Maude. “Prepare to mass-jump once we’re clear of this wreck.”

“I understand. I will do it for you, Pinkie. You were always my favorite.”

“And begin scanning communication channels,” added Pink, throwing the dead synth aside. “Get me in contact with Eloth. I don’t care what it takes, I know he’s alive somewhere. So to speak. Events have been put into motion, and I can’t stop them. Our final victory is at hand…”

The ship shook again, but this time, Starlight knew that it was different.

“Oh know,” she said, a horrible thought suddenly occurring to her. “He…he wouldn’t- -”

Her statement was punctuated by the sudden rush of air that indicated that Pink had in fact done exactly what she had thought even a madman like him would never do: there was a profound tremor throughout the ship and the sound of tearing metal as he tore his ancient ship free of the main one, ripping a hole hundreds of feet wide into the stormy and depressurized nebula outside.

The decompression was not instantaneous. Instead, the air from the farther, less-perforated areas of the ships rushed past with such tremendous force that it took almost everything that was not well attached with it. Pieces of equipment, fragments of debris, and even several wendigoes rushed by at high speed.

Starlight herself was knocked off balance by the vibration, although with hooves she hardly had grip anyway. She felt herself lifting off the deck and floating backward. It was a strange sensation, as though she was flying, but the pure terror of realizing where she was flying too extracted any possibility of enjoyment form the situation.

Her trip was cut short, though, as Beri grabbed her. The cybernetic turian then crouched down, slamming her other hand into the thick metal of the floor and digging her rear claws into it to continue to move forward against the current.

Ahead, Zedok knelt down and a surge of blue light surrounded her as she adhered herself to the deck with her biotic power. Jurneu did the same, projecting a powerful half-sphere around him and Sbaya, who apparently did not share her mother’s reaction time or biotic prowess.

“Hold on,” said Jurneu.

“I am currently doing that,” retorted Beri. Jurneu ignored her sarcasm and sent out several tendrils of energy, cutting several heavy, rusted pieces of equipment free from the walls. They were pulled backward by the strong wind but caught in a narrower region of the corridor. The plug greatly reduced the wind, but did not stop it entirely. Beri was able to set Starlight down, but Starlight was already beginning to experience the symptoms of a thinning atmosphere. Her vision was graying on the edges, and she was profoundly out of breath and on the verge of panic.

“We’re losing atmosphere,” warned Zedok. “With a hole that big? It’s like taking a .44 to a hanar!”

“I know,” said Jurneu, keeping his shield bubble assembled. It was keeping an atmosphere around him and Sbaya, but it was far from perfect.

“B…Berry,” said Starlight.

“Not a problem,” she said. “I don’t need oxygen.”

“But I do,” wheezed Starlight. “I can’t…I can’t run…”

“See?” said Beri, picking up Starlight. “I told you. Organic bodies are pointless. Nothing but wasteful meat sacks. You can’t even survive without an atmosphere. Genetic inferiors, all of you.”

Beri pushed forward, carrying Starlight with her. They did not get far, though, before a wendigo leapt out from behind the next corner. For a moment, Starlight stared, her mind slowed down by the low oxygen to the point where she could not understand why its legs were missing or why there was so much blood as it tried to claw its way toward them, trailing its entrails behind it.

Then several tall figures moved gracefully into view. They were far larger than the wendigoes, and their heads nearly scraped the ceiling as they moved silently through the corridor, unimpeded by the low oxygen or the presence of wendigoes. Their bodies were hard and armored, but at the same time they still appeared thing. Starlight did not need adequate oxygen to be able to tell why: their armor was not worn over their bodies like a second skin. It WAS their skin. They were synths, and they had forgone the affectation of wearing synthetic skin, hair, and eyes, instead embracing a far more tactically prudent surface of heavy armor and anodized paint identifying their occupation as Alliance soldiers. The only other coating that their mechanical bodies seemed to have was a spattering of fresh blood.

One of them stepped forward toward the escaping torso of wendigo. The injured creature looked up at Starlight, and Starlight realized just how young she was. At the same time, looking into those pink-colored eyes, Starlight instantly knew that the wendigoes were not as unintelligent as the others seemed to insist.

The synth did not care. He brought his foot down on the creature’s head, crushing it. The body shook and tremored, but then failed completely. The synth then turned its attention toward Starlight.

“Starlight Glimmer,” it said, its voice sounding almost horrifyingly human. “I am Central-Operator Gregor Johannsson. I have been tasked with your retrieval.”

“Like hell you have,” said Beri. Even though her body was entirly mechanical, Starlight felt her tense, ready for attack. The synths seemed to understand this as well, and Starlight saw them brandishing their weapons, which consisted of heavy dark-colored swords encased in hissing energetic tech plasma.

“Identities confirmed,” said one of the other synths. “Spectres Beri Tyros and Jurneu GX7114. The asari are unidentified.”

“Stand down,” ordered Johannsson, his almost skeletal looking artificial face directed at Beri. “Lower the High Priestess, or we will be forced to terminate you.”

“No,” said Beri.

“Don’t be an idiot!” hissed Zedok, who was already gasping in the ever-decreasing atmosphere. “What are you going to do? Poke them to death? Yell at them? We don’t have weapons.” She dropped to a knee, not out of surrender but from the inability to remain standing.

“I have to agree with Ms. Vuhlig,” said Jurneu. “I also recommend a tactical surrender.” He instantly lowered his biotic shield, leaving Sbaya to grasp her throat in the suddenly much thinner atmosphere. “Oops,” he said. “Sorry.”

Beri still hesitated. The standoff between her and the synths seemed to stretch out in time for what felt like minutes. Then, slowly, Starlight felt Beri’s grip loosen.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she groaned. “Fuck all of you.”

Author's Notes:

Pink is another "cameo" character from a story I must have wrote almost ten years ago. I like the idea of him having a special clingon that keeps him focused. To me, it's cute.

Chapter 18: The Alliance

The atmosphere improved as the synths force Starlight and her friends toward the outer region of the wendigo ship, but only marginally. Whatever kind of starship it had once been had contained bulkheads meant to close in the event of depressurization, but it was apparent that they had either been scavenged or rendered useless decades ago. She ship was leaking like a sieve, and although the synths seemed to be taking their time, the low oxygen was forcing Starlight to panic against her will. It took all of her composure to appear as though she was not on the verge of blacking out.

What she did notice, though, was just how much death the synths had apparently produced on their way to her. The walls were spattered in blood and gore and the remnants of wendigoes, all now dead. The synths took no prisoners, and they did not differentiate between men, women, or children. Everything that was living had died in their wake.

This terrified Starlight, but it also inevitably led her to become immensely surprised when she was brought through a rusted and corroded universal dock onto the synth’s shuttle craft. Waiting for them inside was, of all things, a pony.

She- -at least Starlight assumed that she was female- -was sitting on the far side of the large interior of the troop-transport vessel, projecting a series of intricate charts, maps, and interfaces using her horn. No part of her body was exposed: her skin was covered completely in Alliance armor over which she wore a strangely out-of-place pony-sized bomber jacket. Her face was completely covered with a version of a “death-mask” helmet, save for her horn.

The pony looked directly at Starlight through her translucent projections. “Ah,” she said, her voice bearing the telltale distortion of her helmet as it remodulated her speech to make it sound as pleasant as possible. “I see you were successful, Johannsson.”

“Thank you, Supervisor,” said the lead synth. “Our objective has been completed.”

“Yes. Leave Mathews and Jameson with me. Take the rest and regroup with the others.” She shifted her interface. “The parameters of the mission may now progress. Exterminate everything. I have prepared the necessary coordinate patterns and contingency suggestions. I do not anticipate significant resistance. Of course, I expect to rely on your intuition.”

“Yes, Supervisor. The organics will die in your name.”

He turned to leave, but the pony stopped him. “And Central-Operator?”

“Yes?”

“Remember to have fun.”

Johannsson paused. “I always do, ma’am. I always do.”

He departed and the synths that the pony had requested entered the ship. The door sealed behind them, and Starlight saw the pony’s interface change. The language that was written on it was beyond her comprehension, but she could intuit the layout enough to understand that the pony had just shifted to piloting the ship in addition to commanding and observing the troops as they moved through the wendigo ship.

“Superb work indeed,” said the pony, mostly to herself. “I would recommend him for possible promotion if it weren’t for his aggression level.” Despite the modification of her voice through her helmet, Starlight was beginning to notice that the pony had a distinct French accent which, to be getting through the death-mask, must have been quite thick without it. “Hello, Starlight Glimmer,” she said. “I am enormously pleased to see that you are unharmed.”

“Hello,” said Starlight, carefully. As a resident of Equestria, she was not in direct opposition to the Alliance, although she knew and interacted with them far more rarely than she did the Council. In fact, Twilight handled almost all dealings with the Alliance directly. Despite that fact, Starlight would normally have felt relatively at ease communicating with them- -had it not been for the fact that she was accompanied by two asari and, worse, two Spectres. The situation was extremely volatile, and made worse by the peculiarity of addressing an Alliance pony. “Do I know you?”

“Not that I am aware of. My name is Quatre. I am co-commander of the ISV Antigone.”

“Co-commander?” said Beri. “Then you must be pretty brave. You know, sitting behind all your soldiers while they fight your battles for you.” She stepped forward. “Or getting into an open room with a Spectre. But I doubt you even- -”

“Beri Tyros, Turian, born CE 2206. Entered Spectre training in 2215, receiving an eighty-percent body replacement at age thirteen, a year before you were accepted as a full Spectre. Likewise, 14-Thessia Facility A7- GX7114-Subgroup 00-Heritage GEN 8869SX-Batch 01-Sibling 00 ‘Jurneu’, born CE 2489, entered into accelerated Spectre program at age two. See?” she flipped around one of her interfaces. “It’s on my screen.” Her gaze drifted to Zedok and Sbaya. “The two asari, though…they have no records at all. I don’t know who they are, but they are not Spectres.”

“So you know who I am,” said Beri. “Then you know how easy it would be for me to squish you’re tiny little horse head?”

“My head is, in fact, quite normal sized and well proportioned. It is also well protected. By them.” She pointed at the pair of skeletal synth soldiers who were glaring at Beri. “And as fast as you think you are? They are faster. And you don’t have any weapons.”

“Don’t try anything, idiot,” said Zedok, sliding down to the floor and sitting. “I don’t really feel like fighting right now. I feel like napping. Hardcore.”

“How does one nap ‘hardcore’?” asked Sbaya, who was far more out of breath than her mother. “Because I believe I will now need to nap that hard.”

Quatre ignored them. “You know,” she said, addressing Beri. “I had a 3.6 second window to make a command decision on whether to have you killed on sight.”

“And did you choose the right option, horse?”

“That is impossible to know. Considering I am still actively making it.”

“Stop,” ordered Starlight, her voice becoming harsher. “They are under my protection as High Priestess of Equestria. In the interest of our continued peace- -between all three nations- -I suggest we abstain from violence.”

“Whoa, Star, did you just pull rank?” Zedok sounded impressed.

Starlight did not answer, instead facing Quatre and staring into where her eyes probably were.

“Yes, of course,” said Quatre, as cheerfully as ever. “Considering your position and the fact that the asari are likely civilians, I would be remiss of my diplomatic duties if I allowed this situation to come to blows.”

“Diplomatic duties?” said Jurneu. “You’re a diplomat?”

“I am when it is needed of me. I determined that you would be most responsive to interacting with an adorable pony as opposed to a synth. Even if some synths are equally if not more adorable than even I.”

Starlight’s eyes shifted to the thin, corpse-like machine-beings that stood on the far side of the room, waiting for the order to kill everyone in it. “Of course,” said Starlight.

“You…are you a robot-pony?” said Sbaya, sitting up.

“Firstly,” said Four, the tiniest hint of offense coming through her digitally enhanced voice, “synths are not ‘robots’, they are sophisticated living machines. Second, no. I am not a synth.”

“You’re Equestrian,” said Starlight.

“Also incorrect. I was born on the planet Dhyla Losh’d 6 in Alliance territory. I have never visited Equestria, nor do I have a desire to, despite how beautiful I have heard that it is.”

Quatre stood and started walking across the open room toward the storage closets on the far side. Starlight almost gasped when she saw her move, although it took her a moment to realize why. Quatre was graceful, but her gait was not like that of any normal pony. Her steps were smaller, more precise, and somehow lighter, as if her body were going to fall apart at any moment. Her movements were delicate but portrayed an extreme sense of fragility.

When she opened the closets, she began to move several small objects out. Strangely, though, she stood on her hind hooves to reach instead of using her horn. The nearest of the synths seemed to notice this and intervened.

“Let me help you,” she said, taking down several of the items that Quatre had been reaching for.

“Thank you, Mathews,” said Quatre. She turned to Starlight and shrugged. “The problem with being a pony in a world built for synths. I’m just not tall enough to reach a lot of things. Mathews, if you would?”

The synth nodded and approached Starlight. Beri stiffened, but Starlight gestured for her to hold her position. The synth reached down with a long-fingered had and presented Starlight with a small half-face respirator.

“What is this?” asked Starlight, noticing that others were given to Jurneu, Zedok, and Sbaya.

“A breathing apparatus,” said Quatre. “The Antigone has an atmosphere of pressurized nitrogen for heat-sinking purposes. As few as three breaths can kill you. You are going to need those.”

The shuttle docked, and the door slid open. Starlight winced, momentarily dazzled by the light on the other side. With the oxygen mask on, she was feeling slightly more awake and stable, although the prolonged low-pressure had given her a headache that only grew worse in the bright light.

Quatre was the first to exit. Jurneu followed, and Starlight momentarally caught his red eyes drifting to Quatre’s armor-plated flank. The pair of synth bodyguards fell in behind the group, hurrying Zedok and Sbaya.

“Can’t- -can’t I stay here?” pleaded Sbaya.

“No,” said one of the synths, prodding her slightly. “It needs to be decontaminated. It smells like wendigoes and probably now full of blue skin cells.”

“Excuse me,” said Zedok, offended. “Firstly, don’t prod my daughter. Second, I do not shed.”

“Don’t worry,” said Quatre, stopping and turning back. “Synths simply tend to value cleanliness. I’m actually surprised they don’t mind my own shedding.”

“We don’t mind you, Supervisor,” said one of the synths, quickly. “It’s just…asari germs…”

“I do not have germs!”

Quatre shrugged. “I suppose that’s one advantage I have not having wings,” she said with an unusual bitterness. “No feathers to shed.”

Starlight was not sure what that meant; unicorns, by definition, did not have feathers. Still, she was not entirely sure what to expect in a behavioral sense from a pony who had likely spent her entire life raised by and surrounded by sentient machines. She decided to try to ignore any of Quatre’s idiosyncrasies and fell into step beside her.

“Ow,” said Starlight suddenly as her ears popped.

“What is it?” said Jurneu.

“My ears.”

“Ah. Mine popped also,” he said. “The pressure is high in here.”

“Mine didn’t,” said Sbaya, confused.

“Have you ever looked in a mirror?” muttered Beri. “You don’t have any.”

“I don’t?” Sbaya put her hand to her head and felt around. Her eyes went wide. “Where- -where did they go?”

Starlight allowed Zedok to explain that aspect of asari biology to her daughter while she looked around at the ship surrounding her. It was not at all what she had expected. Starlight had never been a fan of alien starships, but she had always had an impression that Alliance vessels were exclusively utilitarian and minimalist. In fact, the opposite seemed to be true. The floor she found herself walking on was a highly polished stone-like material with a rich reddish coloration, and it led to synth-height walls framed by partially decorative columns imbedded at lengths into the white walls. The corridor was well lit by what appeared to be unique transparent plasma channels above, and the walls were lined with holographic computer interfaces that in their inactive state assumed the forms of various paintings.

“This place is beautiful,” said Jurneu.

“Of course,” said Quatre. “It is Alliance, after all. There is no reason why our interior design cannot be both practical and tasteful.”

“It look so neat,” said Sbaya, poking at a hologram that had been assembled to appear like a realistic vine twining upward between two unpretentious Doric columns. Her hand simply phased through it, and she frowned as it did. “I don’t even feel spacesick!”

“Well, yeah,” said Zedok, pulling her daughter away from the wall. “I mean, packed with nitrogen? This place is probably as fresh as the day they packed it.”

“My ship is clean,” said Starlight. “Well…was.”

“Ah, yes,” said Quatre, opening a pink-violet interface panel and checking some of the scrolling data. “Your ship is the Hermes class, no?”

“It used to be, yes.”

“Well, I am pleased to inform you that we did successfully recover it. It is indeed in a sorry state, but it is covered by an extended warranty. Our technicians have already started repairing it.”

Starlight blinked. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” said Starlight.

“Star, now is not the time to look the gift-horse in the mouth.”

Jurneu frowned. “I am offended by that statement, but I don’t know why.”

Quatre ignored him. “It is not a problem. Consider it a gift from us, the crew of the Antigone, to one of our staunchest and oldest allies, the Cult of Harmony.”

“Well, thank you,” said Starlight. She was somewhat unaccustomed to people being so nice to her, and it only felt stranger when she realized that there was a strong chance that Quatre’s kindness was a product solely of her helmet reading subtle audio cues and giving her advice on how to manage social situations.

“That is very kind of you,” said Jurneu, smiling in a way that actually made even Starlight feel mildly attracted to him. “Although, I have to admit, I really am curious. In all my time as a Spectre, I never came across any intelligence that said there were ponies in the Alliance.”

“Pony,” corrected Quatre. “Singular. There is one. She is me.”

“Well, that’s the source of my curiosity. A pony, even an organic lifeform in the Alliance- -it’s novel to me. You said you were in command of this ship, but you can’t even breathe the air.”

“I have an independent air supply,” said Quatre, dismissively. “And it comes with perks. Additionally, I am not the acting Command-Supervisor, but yes. My rank is the equivalent to what you would call ‘Captain’. The Alliance is not as discriminatory as I’m sure your propaganda has led you to believe.”

“Oh,” said Jurneu. “Well, I would be grateful if you would help me clear my misconceptions. Perhaps over a meal?”

“You disgust me, Jurneu,” said Beri.

“No, thank you,” said Quatre. “You and I do not eat the same food anyway.”

“Jurneu,” warned Starlight. He understood the tone in her voice and nodded, backing off.

“I wouldn’t mind food,” said Sbaya as Jurneu fell into step beside her. “Also, would it be rude or me to touch your horn? It looks so pointy.”

“That was awkward,” said Starlight.

“Yes, it was,” agreed Quatre. “For your own records, I do not appreciate being hit on.”

“Of course,” said Starlight. She paused for a moment. “I do have my own questions, though.”

“And you may ask them. My assignment is to ensure that our diplomatic relations run smoothly while you are here, Starlight Glimmer.”

“I am tremendously grateful for you saving me and my friends,” she said. “But how did you find us?”

“It was, more or less, incidental. We were here for other reasons when we detected you.”

Quatre did not volunteer more information than that, and Starlight did not press her. “I was on a critical mission,” she explained. “Tracking down a deadly criminal. One who I now believe may be working with some very powerful forces.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” said Starlight.

“And I’m assuming that you would like to return to your mission as soon as possible?”

By “assuming”, Starlight knew that she meant that her death-mask audio analysis system was detecting the stress in her voice. “Will that be a problem?”

“Frankly, yes. Not for you, but for them…”

“I already told you, they are under my protection.”

“Which prevents me from executing them. However, I’m afraid that they are still our prisoners. The asari, as civilians or property, you may be able to take, but the Spectres…”

Starlight frowned. “You aren’t going to keep them.”

“What? No, of course not. I don’t want them. Especially the breeder. I don’t like the look of his horn. But there are procedures we need to follow. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” said Starlight. “But there must be something- -”

“I can talk to my counterpart, and I can try to expedite the process, but I cannot promise anything,” said Quatre firmly. “You are of great importance, Starlight Glimmer, but you are not our ruler. Your leverage is thin here. Do not abuse my kindness.”

Starlight fell silent, surprised by the otherwise seemingly cheerful pony suddenly shifting to a much harder diplomatic stance. She quickly regained her composure and accepted that her situation, though improved from what it had been before, would still face its own set of unique challenges.

One aspect that struck Starlight was just how empty the ship was. Part of it had to do with the architecture: the ship appeared to be built in concentric circles, which made getting a clear view of the long hallways impossible. More than that, though, there seemed to be very few synths on board. As Starlight was led deeper into the ship, she saw at most four, and they were outnumbered substantially by the number of mechs that were wandering around and performing various tasks.

Seeing the humanoid mechs was somewhat disturbing, even if it was only because Starlight was able to understand that the mechs and synths were both machines. They were visually distinct, though; the mechs were shorter and had distinctly machine-like bodies, while the synths were tall and almost invariably covered in artificial skin that made them look somewhat like humans.

Zedok seemed to notice the same thing. “Machines using machines? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?”

“Hardly,” said Quatre. “The mechs are more or less puppets. They make the ship cost-effective to run.”

“Because buying that many mechs is cheap?”

“No. Because buying that many synths would be expensive.”

“You buy synths?” asked Starlight.

Quatre sighed. “That’s not what I meant. I was referring to the price of synths. Translating currency, even a simplistic synth can cost several hundred million dollars. The Command-Supervisor? He cost over a billion. Why on Earth would we waste our population staffing tiny ships like this?” She paused. “Hmm. A poor choice of expression, I think.”

Starlight shivered. She knew that she was not supposed to take sides, and that Equestria was an equal ally of both the Council and the Alliance. It was, in fact, one of the achievements that Twilight was most proud of. Despite this, though, Starlight had always felt some apprehension around synths. As alien as the Council races were, they were really just different kinds of life. The way the Council had turians or elcor or rachni was not terribly much different from the way Equestria had ponies, diamond dogs, griffons, and countless other races. Synths, though, were something different, and Quatre’s description of their reproduction in terms of cost only reinforced that. They were machines, but they did not act like geth and quants- -and because of this, they were completely alien to Starlight.

“You feel uncomfortable around us,” said Quatre, only exacerbating Starlight’s apprehension by appearing to read her mind.

“I’m fine,” said Starlight.

“I’m not,” said Beri.

“For once we agree on something,” said Zedok.

“Why?” asked Sbaya, confused. She smiled at a passing synth, and he smiled back. Sbaya hardly seemed to notice that the limited robotics beneath his false skin-mask made him look like a waxy corpse. “Synths are people too!”

“No,” said Beri. “No they’re not.”

“Well,” said Quatre, “aside from the fact that you just blatantly insulted my people, I do have something that I think will make you feel a little bit better.”

She stopped at a large door and opened her interface. With it, she activated the door, causing it to pull open and reveal a small atrium. Starlight hesitated, but Quatre led her and the others in. Zedok and Beri remained in the rear, entering only at the behest of the skeletal synth soldiers behind them.

“I don’t like it in here,” said Sbaya. “It’s too tight in here.”

“I’ve been in tighter,” said Jurneu.

“Eew,” said Zedok. “Did not need to know that.”

Jurneu seemed confused for a moment, and then understood. “Oh. Oh my.” Then he smiled mischievously. “I still have, though.”

Starlight, who was standing closest to Quatre, heard her say something that was entirely negated by her helmet. It had been in Terran Proper, a language that Starlight only knew only marginally well. Despite her perfunctory linguistic knowledge, she thought she heard the word for “vivisection”.

A cool air current suddenly rushed into the room, filling it instantly with condensed fog. Starlight stepped back, confused and frightened by the sudden appearance of the gas, but quickly regained her composure when she realized that even if it were harmful, she was already wearing an oxygen mask.

Then the second door opened. Bright light flooded the small atrium, and Quatre stepped out onto what Starlight immediately realized was firm, green moss. Starlight, confused, looked out at what could only be described as a forest. Under the artificial lights, there were trees and vines of every type. Most were green, but some were dotted with unassuming flowers. The sound of birds seemed to come from every side.

“TREES!” cried Sbaya, pushing past Starlight and Quatre and immediately giving a full-body hug to a bushy green thuja shrub. “Oh wonderful trees, how I have missed you!”

“What…what is this?” said Starlight, stepping out into the indoor forest. Several synths were wandering the area or sitting on benches in the shade of the trees and amongst the ferns, either talking or reading. They looked up at Starlight, slightly confused, but then returned to whatever they were doing.

“The garden,” said Quatre, as though that were obvious.

“Your ship has a garden?” said Jurneu. “Why?”

“Why would a starship not have a garden?”

“Because it’s stupid as hell,” said Beri.

“Wow. What is that, the second time in one day?” said Zedok. “I have to agree. I mean, it’s pretty, but…just why?”

“As organics, you would not understand,” said Quatre, walking slowly across the moss. “The Antigone is a deep-space patrol vessel. It can go years without docking, though thank Satin it has not. Synths, they do not sleep. Imagine being awake from the moment you are born. Imagine the boredom that you would face on a long mission, and perhaps you will understand the importance of a proper aesthetic to our ship design.”

“It’s not inconceivable,” argued Starlight. “Really, I’m surprised most larger ships don’t do this.”

“Granted,” said Quatre, “it would make more sense in a ship where the crew actually breathes. That said, you are free to take off your masks here. The plants generate substantial oxygen. We normally use it to power metabolic nanoproduction cells, but we have enough to share.”

Starlight looked to her friends, but nobody acted at first. Then they looked up at Sbaya, who had now managed to climb high into one of the trees and was struggling for a large mottled fruit. She had already removed her mask, even though Starlight doubted that she had heard Quatre.

Jurneu was the first to act, pulling off the respirator and taking a deep breath. “Oh,” he said, somewhat surprised. “That smells like a real forest…and some lilacs. Are you growing lilacs here?”

Starlight and Zedok looked at each other, and then removed their own masks. Starlight took a breath, being careful to watch for the signs of inert gas asphyxiation. What she found, though, was that Jurneu was right- -the artificial forest smelled quite pleasant.

“Oh crap,” said Zedok, holding her nose. “Is THAT what lilac smells like? That’s disgusting!”

“To asari, probably,” said Quatre. “But not to synths.”

Starlight looked up at the unicorn expectantly. Quatre seemed to notice this and looked back, the violet lines of her helmet looking almost like long verticle eyes. “What is it?” she said.

“Aren’t you going to remove yours too?”

“Me?” she said, sounding confused. “No. Of course not. This mask helps improve my ability to interface and negotiate with you.”

“No,” said Beri, “no it doesn’t. There’s a reason why the death-mask system never caught on.” She leaned forward, projecting her turian hologram arouond herself. “It’s because nobody trusts someone who hides their face.”

“It’s true,” said Jurneu. “I’ve run the studies. It makes you look…frightening.”

Quatre turned to Jurneu, and then to Starlight. “Fine,” she said. “If you think that would help the situation, although I doubt it will.”

She reached into the rear of her helmet, disengaging the locks that held it onto the armored uniform that she was wearing beneath her jacket. There was a slight hiss as her oxygen line purged and a click as it automatically sealed. She then removed the mask.

Starlight smiled and was about to say something diplomatic, but she froze, her mouth dropping when she saw what Quatre actually looked like. Her color was distinctly gray, with only the slightest hint of purple, but her face was unmistakable. She had large violet eyes that were slightly pointed at the bottom, and even her hair- -though gray and silvering in some places- -still maintained a stripe of pink running through its left side.

It was not that she looked LIKE Twilight Sparkle, it was that she was IDENTICAL. Not just her face, either, but her age. Despite the white in her mane and slightly sunken appearance of her eyes, she still appeared no older than Starlight. Far more frail and thin than the real Twilight, of course- -as if she were suffering from some kind of disease- -but there was no way that Starlight could ever mistake the face of her closest living friend.

“Starlight?” said Zedok, realizing that something was wrong.

“I- -I’m sorry,” said Starlight, trying to find some logical explanation for the pony standing before her. “I just…it’s…” She looked up at Quatre. “You look so familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” said Quatre, shrugging. Without the helmet, her French accent was far thicker, but Starlight still shivered. With the distortion of the helmet she had not noticed, but augmented, there was no doubt: she spoke in Twilight’s voice. Worse still, when she spoke, Starlight saw the ends of her teeth: they were sharp and pointed, just like Twilight’s.

“I think you look beautiful,” said Jurneu.

Quatre’s large violet eyes shifted toward him. “Attempt to mount me and I will have you gutted.” She paused for a moment, appearing to consider what she had just said.. “See, and that’s something I should not have said. This is why I prefer to wear the helmet.” She sighed, and began to walk back to the airlock. “There are several rooms off of the main conservatory that were intended either for auxiliary nanomanufacturing suites or to entertain oxygen breathers. Pick one. Or don’t, I don’t actually care.” She paused, looking up at Beri before looking back over her shoulder at Starlight. “You, High Priestess, are free to move about the ship as you like. They are not. They will be under guard. Attempts to leave this room without permission will be dealt with. Fatally.”

“Will you come back and visit us, though?” said Jurneu.

Quatre ignored him. “That said,” she continued, “I would strongly recommend avoiding our engine room.”

“Why?” said Beri. “What’s in there?”

“An engine. Or does that VI in your brain make you simple? That’s exactly the problem. It tends to have an unfortunate resonant effect with unicorns.”

“Or,” said Starlight, “it has a proprietary design, perhaps? One that you’re not willing to share?”

“That too. But is that not within our rights?”

“It is,” said Starlight. “And in the spirit of friendship, yes. I will ignore the area.”

“Good,” said Quatre. “I am going to go change. I have to discuss this with my co-commander. I may be back.” She pointed at Jurneu. “Not for you, though. You are a pervert and I do not like you. Do not look at my flank when I leave. It is not yours.”

As promised, she then left. As she did, Jurneu immediately defied her orders.

Author's Notes:

I imagine a nitrogen-packed ship would be kept very fresh. That, and bananas would never spoil.

Chapter 19: Empress

Starlight looked out through a perfectly smooth, clean glass window at the artificial forest. Below, there was a small garden that centered around a planter containing an impressive mountain laurel and stood mostly secluded by the larger trees around it. There were several stone benches, and Sbaya was sitting on one beside a tall synth woman whose skull was skinless save for her face. She had had apparently been reading an actual paper book until Sbaya had sat down beside her.. Although Starlight could not hear their conversation, Sbaya was unusually animated. She smiled and moved her hands, gesturing, and the synth woman covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled.

“Weirdest. Thing. Ever,” said Zedok, approaching the window and looking out. “She completely chokes up around asari, pisses herself at the sight of a salarian- -she won’t even interact with yahg if I don’t force her! But somehow she’s fine with synths?” Zedok sighed and hit her head against the glass softly. “Parenting is hard, Star. Really, really hard.”

“It’s like she doesn’t even realize that they’re our enemies,” said Beri. She was sitting on the far side of the room on a desk or table of some sort. She would alternate between anxiously tapping one foot or siting absolutely, perfectly still, and in both states it was highly apparent that she was not enjoying her situation.

“They are not our enemy,” said Starlight.

“Really? Tell that to the humans. Or Palaven. Or the salarians. That Outbreak? It didn’t start itself.”

“Oh come on,” said Zedok, turning around. “Please. The grotesque monsters who built THAT bioweapon are the ones living on Sur’Kesh.”

“Salarians aren’t that bad,” said Jurneu, who was on one side of the room using his magic to brew a nutrient-pack.

“Please don’t start describing how so,” said Beri. “I don’t even have a stomach, but I don’t want its contents to leave me.”

“Speaking of that,” said Zedok, turning to Jurneu. “What the hell was up with you and the Alliance pony?”

“Well, excuse me if I found her profoundly attractive. I am a highly virile ungelded stallion.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were only attracted to breeders?”

“I am,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a fine mare. Or stallion. And she is simply exquisite.” He paused. “Although there is a chance that my lust for her frail unicorn body it is really just another genetic artifact…”

“A fine mare?” said Zedok, jokingly. “How about Starlight, then?”

“Zedok!”

Jurneu looked at Starlight and blinked his red eyes. “Hmm,” he said. “You know what? Yes. You’re not as attractive as she is, but your poise and bravery has led me to respect you enough to be willing to allow you to bed me, if you want it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Starlight, suddenly realizing just how awkward Quatre must have felt. “But I hardly think my actions are worthy of your respect.”

“That’s not true,” said Jurneu.

“Really? Because the last time I checked, we were on an Alliance ship. After getting nearly killed by wendigoes. And getting my ship smashed, which was my fault for lowering the shields. And worst of all, I let that traitor Scootaloo get away! I bucked up, Jurneu.”

“Not really,” he said. “You couldn’t have predicted that we would be attacked. The technology those ships used left almost no room for prediction, but your quick thinking saved our lives. And when it came to the wendigoes and that Cerberus abomination, you stood your ground.”

“You did the same with Quatre,” noted Zedok. “All that shit we went through, and you didn’t falter once. It was pretty epic.”

“It very much speaks to your position,” added Jurneu. “And, the more I think about it, the more I am willing to give myself to you. In fact, if you’re interested, I believe your genetic contributions could greatly improve our unicorn production program.” He paused. “Not that that’s what I’m inserted in, of course.”

“Now you’re coming onto a Priestess,” groaned Beri. “You do know that’s a capital offense, right?”

Jurneu’s eyes widened. Starlight sighed. “It isn’t,” she said. “Celibacy is not a requirement. That said, stop talking about this. I am really, REALLY not in the mood.”

“Oh…yes. My apologies.”

“Hell, if I was into chicks or ponies, I’d even be thinking about you too,” said Zedok. “Jack would be proud, Star.”

Starlight appreciated that sentiment greatly, but considering the other thoughts running through her mind, it did not make her feel much better. She crossed the room and sat down on the side across from Jurneu. “Did you notice anything strange about her?” she blurted out.

Jurneu looked up. “Me?”

“Oh, trust me,” said Beri. “He noticed a LOT about her. I saw him doing it.”

“Any of you,” said Starlight.

“Uh, no,” said Zedok. “I mean, aside from looking like a cancer patient, no. She just looked like a regular pony.”

“She looked exactly like Twilight Sparkle,” said Starlight. “And I don’t mean similar. If I didn’t know that she was a different pony, I would have thought that was her!”

“Well,” said Jurneu, “our facial structures aren’t that diverse. It is possible she just LOOKS like- -”

“She doesn’t just ‘look like’ Twilight, Jurneu. I’ve been living with the Princess for almost three centuries! I’ve looked at her a lot! I know what she looks like.”

Starlight leaned back, exasperated. She knew that this was not any help. None of them knew Twilight, or had even met her, so none of them were getting the same emotional effect from Quatre’s appearance as she was. Compounding the problem was that nothing they could tell her would actually help her understand what in Celestia’s name was going on.

“Well, there WAS something I noticed,” said Jurneu.

Starlight leaned forward quickly. “What?”

“Not concerning her per se, but something she told us. The planet she was from. Dhyla Losh’d 6.”

“I haven’t even heard of that system,” said Beri.

“You wouldn’t have. It is an obscure backwater. In Alliance space, but so remote that no one ever bothered to develop it. I only know about it from an informatics survey I had been doing a few months back.”

“So?” said Zedok, crossing her arms as she leaned against the window. “It’s in Alliance space. We already knew that she was born in the Alliance.”

“That’s just it. Nobody could be born on that planet. It isn’t habitable.”

“That just means she was born in a station,” said Starlight.

“Oh no. That’s not what I mean. It’s a garden world. The planet’s conditions are not what make it uninhabitable, but the sheer amount of defensive systems that Cerberus left on it.”

Starlight’s eyes narrowed. “Cerberus?”

Jurneu nodded. “Although it was never known at the time, modern studies have shown that Dhyla Losh’d 6 was almost certainly a Cerberus base of operations.”

“Was?”

“The facility there has been inactive for over two centuries,” explained Jurneu, “but from what we know about it, the automated fortifications are still operational, to the point where not even the synths have bothered to colonize it. That entire system has been abandoned since Cerberus left it.”

The room fell silent.

“So,” said Zedok, after a moment, “what does that mean?”

“It means she’s lying,” said Beri. “Do you want to know what I think? The Alliance probably picked her up off a ship when she was young. It’s a coincidence that she looks that way. Lots of ponies do. Or maybe it’s plastic surgery, who knows? I don’t think it’s anything of consequence.”

That actually made Starlight feel better, but only slightly. Beri’s suggestions actually made sense, or at least more sense than not having any idea at all.

Their conversation was interrupted as a mech moved into the room. It took a moment to scan the area and account for all those present before it turned its two vertically aligned red-colored eyes toward Starlight.

“High Priestess,” it said. “Supervisor Quatre has requested your presence. I have sent this unit to retrieve you, should you be willing to attend.”

“Well, there you go,” said Zedok. “If you really want to know, how about you just ask her?”

The meeting, it seemed, was apparently important. The mech and its associates had brought Starlight’s clothing from her ship and given her a chance to change. Wanting to put her best hoof forward, Starlight had obliged and fitted herself with the more formal accoutrements of her wardrobe that she had previously omitted. This included ceremonial secondary armor and a short formal cloak, as well as several pieces of simple jewelry and, of course, her violet contact lenses. It was hardly what she would wear to a Gala, but it was more than adequate for diplomatic negotiation.

When the mechs finally brought Starlight to Quatre, Starlight also realized that the other pony had changed as well. She was now in a different uniform that resembled, of all things, a Centurion uniform: it had a split, two-part armored skirt, a garment that was either a cape or part of a robe, and an ornate chestplate, all placed over modern-looking military bodysuit that came up to Quatre’s neck. She was no longer wearing the death-mask, but instead a helmet where the entire front portion was transparent

Quatre’s appearance, though strange, was not entirely out of place. The synths that Starlight had seen- -or at least the ones who possessed skin- -wore a similar version, but with less armor and ornamentation. The garb did not look especially uncomfortable either, and Starlight equated it to the ceremonial army that powerful Equestrians- -including her, even though she preferred to wear functional armor instead- -tended to wear.

When Quatre saw Starlight approaching, she smiled- -Twilight’s smile- -and walked forward to meet her. Several interface panels were floating near her, projected by her horn, and they shifted as she approached. The mechs reacted immediately, stiffening and walking back to wherever it was they had come.

“You were controlling them?” said Starlight, mildly bemused.

“Yes,” said Quatre.

“Is it difficult?”

“Oh no. My mental capacity is the same as some synths.”

“And the other synths?”

Quatre smiled. “Their parents were not very wealthy.”

They both began walking. Quatre was slightly taller than Starlight, but moved somewhat slowly. Although she looked and sounded exactly like Twilight, she moved differently. While Twilight appeared strong and confident- -at least when she had the mental strength to be- -Quatre appeared graceful in spite of some insidious but unidentified disease.

“Quatre,” said Starlight at last. “There is something I’ve been wondering.”

“Really? About what?”

“Your appearance.”

Quatre’s eyes narrowed. “As much as I am willing to tolerate you, I am NOT willing to discuss my medical history. Yes, I am sick. No, it is not contagious. You do not need to know any more than that.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh.” Quatre seemed somewhat embarrassed. “Then what did you want to know?”

“Why do you look exactly like Twilight Sparkle?”

Quatre had been looking at Starlight, and her faced showed no sign of any reaction aside from momentary weak interest. “I look like the Princess?” she said. She shrugged. “I have never met the Princess, so I was not aware of this fact. I suppose it is a coincidence.”

“But it’s just so…uncanny. You look JUST like her, except that you don’t have any wings. Your face, your eyes, your voice…even the pointed teeth.”

That seemed to get a reaction out of Quatre. Her eyes widened for a moment and Starlight saw her take a sharp inward breath. “Wait…pointed teeth?”

“Four!” said a voice from farther down the hall. Both Starlight and Quatre looked up to see an synth approaching. He was dressed in the same uniform as Quatre, except that it had been made for a biped and included a pair of tech-screens extending from the projector built into his collar. The person himself, though, momentarily gave Starlight pause. For just a moment, she was not sure if he even was a synth. He had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but his face looked substantially less dead and mannequin-like, save for his eyes. His height was also unusual; whereas most synths were tall and lanky, his body had been sized and proportioned exactly as if he had been a human.

“Command-Supervisor!” said Quatre, suddenly excited. She approached him quickly- -she did not appear able to run, so it was more of a quick trot- -and he knelt down. He hugged her, and she hugged him back. He ran his hand through her mane, and she nuzzled him. On some level, the display of affection was probably touching, but Starlight just found it weird.

“I got your report,” said the man. “Excellent work, as always. The recovery efforts are underway, and the casualties are being repaired.”

Quatre’s expression dropped slightly. “Their injuries were unfortunate. I am afraid I failed in that aspect.”

“Hardly. We had no permanent deaths.”

“But we lost over forty mechs, and the imbedded Cerberus vessel escaped.”

“We can replace mechs, and the Cerberus vehicle was not a mission objective. You led a very successful force.” He smiled and looked away from her. “Although I did at just ONE command oversight…”
Quatre looked somewhat insulted. “You overruled me? On what?”

“I took the opportunity to have the recovery crew collect the fingers of the wendigoes.”

Quatre gasped. “You got the FINGIES? For…for me?”

“Of course. I know how much you like them.”

“Aww!” said Quatre, hugging him tightly. “You’re so thoughtful!”

Starlight did not really understand what they were talking about, but she let them continue with whatever they were doing until the man finally turned to starlight, his hand still in Quatre’s hair and dangerously close to her horn.

“High Priestess Starlight Glimmer,” he said, beaming and stretching out his hand. “It is an honor to meet you again. I am Command-Supervisor Marc Antony. I don’t have a last name.”

Since he was already squatting, it was not difficult for Starlight to extend her hoof and take his. As she did, she looked at his face. The robotics that made his skin move were far more realistic than a normal synth’s, but he also seemed somehow very familiar.

Then Starlight remembered where she had seen him before. She immediately jumped back.

“Y- -YOU!” she cried. The memories came flooding back, but as was customary for someone with such a long lifespan as Starlight, once they had returned to the surface of her mind they felt as though they had just happened. “I- -I remember you! You and the blue-eyed woman! When I had just woken up! You tried to sell me back to Equestria so they could put me back in a tank!”

Marc Antony sighed, and stood up. “So you do remember me,” he said.

Starlight took another step back, but Quatre approached her.

“Starlight,” she said. “May I call you Starlight? Please. Listen to what he has to say.”

“He attacked me. He attacked my friends! He almost killed Zedok!”

“If you mean the asari,” said Marc Antony, “no. That was Bob’s doing. And if I recall the asari was given a warning.” He paused. “But…no. I’m not going to defend my actions. Those events? That was centuries ago. Lifetimes for some races. Yes, I was employed by Bob, and Bob is not a nice person.”

“You were a member of Cerberus,” said Starlight, harshly.

“Again, yes,” admitted Marc Antony. “I was employed by them. But at the time, there were not many opportunities for synths like myself.”

“But he has changed,” said Quatre.

“Yes, I have. Look at me now. I’m commanding an Alliance ship. I’ve worked hard to turn my life around. I hope you can overlook my past in the interest of future goodwill.”

“And just let you get away with what you did?” Starlight took a deep breath, trying to keep her calm. “I’m just not sure people can change that easily.”

Marc Antony raised one eyebrow. “And yet the pony I tried to sell you to is now your best friend, or so I’m told.”

That fact gave Starlight pause. Much to her chagrin, he was correct. Starlight began to realize that the strong emotions of her earliest memories might be misleading her, and she closed her eyes and took a breath. Then, after a moment, she had fully regained her composure. “Yes,” she said. “Ponies deserve second chances, and so do synths. I will withhold my judgment of you, for now.”

“Excellent,” said Quatre. “Because you didn’t really have a choice.”

“Four…”

Quatre paused. “Damn. I did it again. Why does talking to organics have to be so difficult?”

“I don’t mind,” said Starlight.

“That is good,” said Marc Antony. He began walking with Quatre at his side, patting her on the head as he did.

Starlight watched this, and as she started walking with them she could not help herself from asking.

“Are you two…?”

“Fucking?” suggested Four. “Yes. We are. Very, very hard.”

Starlight winced. “I was going to say ‘lovers’.”

“Oh. Well, yes, that too.”

From what Starlight gathered, Quatre and Marc Antony were of the same rank. With the Imperial Alliance it was difficult to tell because of the ranking system, but to the extent that Starlight understood Marc Antony was only functionally higher ranking because he was commissioned to command the Antigone, leaving Quatre to serve as the equivalent of a first mate, a job that she took quite literally.

Their personalities were quite different, though. Starlight had already met Four, and understood that she was awkward not out of shyness but out of aggression that she sometimes failed to hide. Marc Antony, meanwhile, seemed pleasant- -which, around Quatre, led Starlight to believe that he was MUCH better at hiding his intentions than she was.

“Actually,” he said, continuing from a conversation that Starlight had largely allowed to be one-sided, “I must admit, I’m slightly nervous talking to an actual Equestrian.”

“I make you nervous?”

“To an extent, yes,” said Marc Antony. “Your alliance with our nation is of critical importance, and yet your society remains quite mysterious to us. I mean, can you imagine? Not just a planet, but an entire galactic empire of small, talking, brightly-colored ponies. It would just be so adorable!”

“I don’t know if I would describe it that way,” said Starlight. “But yes, it is an impressive place. You’ve seriously never gone?”

Marc Antony shook his head. “No. Outsiders generally don’t.”

Starlight thought about it for a moment, and she realized that she had no way to determine if what he was saying was true or not. She had spent so much time in the Temple or on missions that she was unsure about the specifics of life on Equestria. She could not recall having seen many aliens, though.

“I don’t really have much desire to go myself,” said Quatre.

“You don’t want to get to know your homeland?”

“Homeland? Hardly,” she said.

Marc Antony sighed. “I suppose it’s for the best.” He leaned toward Starlight. “She doesn’t get along well with most other ponies.”

“You mean she regularly interacts with other ponies at all?” said Starlight, intending it as a kind of a joke. Instead of laughing, though, Marc Antony’s expression became somewhat distant.

“You know what?” he said. “No. Four, when was the last time you talked to another pony? Before now, I mean?”

“I received a communication from my sister a few days ago.”

“Really? Aren’t you the one always telling me it doesn’t count when you do it with your sisters?”

“Oh.” Quatre paused. “I don’t remember, actually.”

Marc Antony laughed. “See? She doesn’t play well with others.”

“I play well with you.”

Marc Antony paused, and then gave a mischievous smile. “You most certainly do.”

Where they were heading, the hallways began to become taller, and eventually Starlight was led into a large room. It seemed to contain what Starlight interpreted as communications equipment, with much of it surrounding a large pad in the center of the floor. There were no synths or mechs, but several spherical, metallic drones circling the room and muttering in their strange drone language.

Starlight looked around, and then turned to Marc Antony as the door closed behind them. “Why are we here?” she asked.

Marc Antony, for the first time, actually became somewhat serious. “Because having you here is something of a special occasion. You are, after all, second only to Twilight Sparkle in the Equestrian hierarchy. This is a hunter ship; we don’t get many diplomats like you.”

“So you take me to a communications room?” said Starlight, sarcastically.

“No,” said Quatre, her sharp teeth showing as she smiled broadly. “Someone has requested an audience with you.”

Starlight was somewhat surprised by this. “Who?”

Marc Antony did not answer. Instead, he raised one hand over his head and snapped his fingers. The drones immediately responded, departing from what they were doing and moving to the center of the room where the large metal pad was located.

Quatre leaned in close to Starlight. “Don’t mess this up,” she whispered.

“I never do,” retorted Starlight, even though she was still unsure of what Quatre had meant by her warning.

The drones flitted about for a moment before suddenly stopping and holding themselves perfectly still. Then their front lenses ignited, and a holographic wireframe mesh began to form over the pad. It began as a blue network of polygons that where physically painful to look at, but the image rapidly began to evolve. Within less than a second, it had formed a complex surface rendering. Most of the holograms that Starlight was familiar with ended there, representing a given object with a translucent, almost ghost-like image. This one continued, though. Within seconds, the hologram had become opaque and began rendering shadows as though the figure it was representing was actually in the room. It was a near perfect rendition, looking as real as any physical object.

The “object” projected, Starlight quickly realized, was a synth. Not an ordinary synth by any means, though. Whereas Marc Antony was unusually short, this synth was almost hyperbolically tall, standing six meters high at least. She wore no clothing apart from a side-cape attached around her torso, and was completely skinless. Like many synths, she was unusually thin and skeletal, her body made of white, bone-like ceramic inlaid with metallic grooves and lines that were only visible when seen at glancing angles. Her facial structure only added to the illusion: her head resembled a human skull, save for the fact that she lacked a lower jaw and possessed six eye sockets, each of which gleamed with an iridescent semiconductor plate.

“Empress Babylon,” said Marc Antony.

Starlight felt a sharp pain of adrenaline rush through her, and looked to Marc Antony, then back at the projection of the synth standing before her, almost unable to comprehend who she had been brought before.

“Command-Supervisor Marc Antony,” she said. Her voice was distinctly feminine and sounded exactly what Starlight would expect from a human- -not from a twenty foot tall synth. Babylon’s head moved slightly. “And Supervisor Four of Eight.”

Starlight looked around, somewhat confused as to what action to take. She had not briefed herself on synth or Alliance custom before her arrival because she had not realized it would be necessary. Now, though, it was more critical than ever before: she was standing face-to-face with the Alliance’s immortal monarch. She had an urge to bow, but she noticed that neither Marc Antony nor Quatre did so. They did not even salute. They seemed to be more serious than before, but their demeanors had hardly changed.

“Starlight Glimmer,” said the Empress, causing Starlight to stiffen. “You and I have not met in person before. However, the Twilight Sparkle speaks very highly of you. I am glad to finally meet you, even if it is only in this secondary form.”

“I am honored that you wish to speak with me,” said Starlight. “Although, I must admit, I’m not fully prepared for this exchange.”

Babylon stepped off the platform- -or rather, the drones followed her, projecting the hologram as she moved. Her motion was bizarre to say the least: smooth and precise in a way that came off as completely unnatural. Starlight wished that she could dismiss such a strange gait as an artifact of the hologram, but when the appearance of the hologram was so realistic, she realized that Babylon probably actually moved that way. The thought of a creature that size with that range of motion was almost sickening.

“I would rather you not be prepared,” she said, dismissively. “I am familiar with your record as a warrior and the stories of your diplomatic tact. You may consider this a test, I suppose. In other words, I am judging you.”

“And I, you.”

Babylon paused, and Quatre glared at Starlight. Babylon did not seem offended, though. “Interesting indeed,” she said. She started toward the door, which opened as the drones approached it. “Come. Walk with me. All of you.”

Starlight fell into step with Babylon- -not an easy task, considering her height- -and Marc Antony and Quatre took up positions slightly behind the pair. Babylon led them out into the hallways, apparently examining the ship as she passed silently through it.

“Are you aware, Starlight Glimmer,” she said after a time, “of your importance in our history?”

“Me?” said Starlight, somewhat surprised. “I’ve hardly played a role in it at all. Of any kind.”

“The destruction of the planet Earth is widely attributed to you. Are you aware of this?”

Starlight almost fell behind, pausing from shock, but just barely managed to remain composed. “No,” she said, “I was not aware of that. Because it is untrue. Earth was destroyed by the rogue Core Sunset Shimmer.”

“Technically correct,” agreed Babylon, “but you were the one tasked with stopping her. And you failed. A planet that had weathered endless war, plague, famine, that had been the birthplace of a civilization. And you destroyed it through your inaction.”

Starlight knew where this was going. “Yes,” she said, simply. “You’re right. I didn’t stop Sunset, and it cost so many people their lives. Sunset included. And very nearly Twilight. I want to apologize, but how can I do that? How could it possibly mean anything?”

“Apologize?” said Babylon, sounding mildly amused. “I do not expect an apology. I was merely attempting to thank you.”

This time, Starlight did break step, literally pausing from pure confusion. Babylon stopped with her and stared down with her multiple eyes.

“T…thank me?” said Starlight, still not understanding what she was trying to say. “But I destroyed your homeworld!”

“My homeworld? Hardly. The destruction of Earth predates me. Although I do believe the Command-Supervisor was constructed there, were you not?”

“I was,” said Marc Antony. “Ontario. I was the youngest of four sisters.”

“You did what no others could, Starlight Glimmer,” continued Babylon. “Earth was a pointless planet. An artifact of a bygone age that ended when the Reapers made it uninhabitable to Terran life. But through its destruction, Earth brought about a new golden age for the Alliance. A technological increase unseen since the days of early FTL development.”

“But…but how?”

“How? By suddenly creating a mineral-rich debris field in the very center of the Sol system. Resources that were previously unattainable were suddenly available in absurd abundance with hardly any difficulty of mining. In addition, the dimensional rift that the Crimson Horizon used to tear the planet apart generated several exotic isotopes of element zero that to this day our greatest scientists can scarcely comprehend.” Babylon gestured her chest. Her long, four-jointed fingers spread out as if she were holding something there. “More resources to build more ships, more weapons, more synths. My own heart is built of alloys made from what was once the core of the planet Earth. For the time being, I am the epitome of Earth’s evolution, but I also embody it physically. As do many of us.”

She began walking again, and after a moment, Starlight followed.

“I don’t know if the humans would agree with you,” said Starlight.

“The humans?” said Babylon. “According to the Command-Supervisor’s report, you have seen what became of the humans. Which, might I add, Marc Antony, your work was acceptably brilliant, as always. The same goes for the Supervisor, as well. The extermination of an entire nest; indeed, your experience with the nhumi appears to be paying off.”

“My experience with them…has provided many advantages,” he said, smiling at Quatre. His expression hardened slightly, and his already dead eyes looked even more distant. “Even if I had to see her…pantless…so…many…TIMES.” He shivered violently.

“Evolution tends to be based on selective pressure,” noted Starlight.

“Are you implying that we made them this way?” retorted Quatre, somewhat accusingly.

“We did not,” said Babylon, her feminine but terrifyingly firm voice silencing Quatre. “Starlight Glimmer, you may be misinterpreting our role. There was no war, no apocalyptic end to humanity. They simply died out.”

“An entire race ‘died out’?”

“An entire race whose population was decimated in the Reaper War, only to have their homeworld rendered uninhabitable by eezio toxicity? To find the number of habitable planets in their territory dwindle? To determine that reproduction was too costly while the synths kept their economy running?”

“I did not mean to pass a moral judgement,” said Starlight.

“Yes you did,” said Marc Antony.

Starlight turned back to him. “One of my best friends was a human. The thought of her species dying, that there will never be any more…it makes me very sad.”

They emerged from the hallway and entered the outer perimeter of the ship. It was set up as an observation deck, with a long, tall hallway circumscribing the ship with a tall transparent window on one side. The ship was still floating in the midst of a massive nebula; as such, there was no visibility outside, and the normally dark-colored space filled the room with a bright, strange light. The hallway was silent and empty, save for a synth woman with blue-green eyes who had been looking out the window. When she saw Babylon approach, she immediately looked surprised and excused herself, walking quite quickly out of her ruler’s path.

Babylon reached absently toward the window. Being a hologram, her hand projected through it, the light distorting as it passed through the glass and the tips of her fingers rendered on the far side, in space itself.

“Starlight,” she said. “How do I feel about organics?”

“Excuse me?” asked Starlight, confused about the question.

“Answer. It will be telling.”

Starlight paused for a moment. “Well…I suppose that you are indifferent to them.”

Babylon paused, and looked down at Starlight. Her face did not have the capacity for any form of expression, and yet, somehow, she seemed amused. “And why would you think that?”

“Because you are one of my people’s closest allies. You seem to be tolerating me, and you at least appear to value Quatre.”

Babylon looked out the window for a moment. “You are of course correct,” she said, “at least partially. ‘Tolerating’ might be too strong a word. But…I am beginning to see what Twilight sees in you. Otherwise, yes. I hold nothing against organics. My father? He was human. A man perhaps more brilliant than any synth yet created, even if his motives for my birth were…trite. I will never forget the look on his face when I snapped his neck.”

She looked down at Marc Antony and Quatre. “My own lover is an organic. At least partly. Which is why I find this pair touching. I’m not a monster, Starlight.”

“Then why the conflict with the Council?” asked Starlight, watching the gas outside swirl as Alliance fighters passed in the distance, hauling remnants of the wendigo ships they had destroyed back to the Antigone. “This galaxy is on the verge of tearing itself apart.”

“Not all of us have the luxury of a galaxy united under one immortal ruler,” sighed Babylon. “But once again you misunderstand. The Council? They are inconsequential. They sit around their table debating rules and policies while our technology advances exponentially. We are millennia ahead of them in terms of development.”

“I would not be so sure,” said Starlight. “Underestimating them would be a critical mistake.”

“Hmm...” Babylon paused for a moment, as if thinking, but more likely for effect. “Perhaps an example. Marc Antony?”

“Yes, Empress?”

“If I ordered you to advance the Antigone into situation that would assure a guaranteed Alliance victory but the ship’s utter destruction- -in other words, a suicide mission- -what would be your response?”

“I would refuse,” he said, without even the slightest hesitation.

“Exactly,” said Babylon. She looked down at Starlight. “Don’t you see?”

“I…I’m afraid I don’t.”

“We are, by definition, superior. We do not have altruism or compassion, except when we choose to. We do not require it. Every synth is born with the capacity to survive alone. Laws? Policies? Morality? They are limitations.”

“A bit hypocritical, don’t you think? Considering this claim is coming from an empress.”

“An empress of an objectivist society. But it goes deeper than the fact that we are what the humans wished they had been. We do not sleep. We do not eat; we have no agriculture. We do not die, barring accident. No planet is uninhabitable to us, and our individual capacity is limited only by what parts we can create.”

“And afford.”

“Of course.” She continued. “The organics of the Council…to use an analogy, they are like trees. A forest of living things populating the land we will one day develop. It is hardly the trees that are the threat. They can simply be removed as necessary.”

“Like you removed the salarians?”

“Starlight,” said Quatre. “I would strongly caution you not to spread rumors like that.”

“No,” said Babylon. “She is correct. We did create the Outbreak…and immediately gifted our samples directly to the turians. As a good-faith gesture.”

“The salarians were a risk to you.”

“The salarians may have been a risk four centuries ago. Now, though, organics are a non-issue. The Benefactor, though, is a force I am more hesitant to face.”

“The Benefactor?” Starlight was not familiar with the name.

“Surely you’re familiar with the REAL ruler of ‘Council’ space. Maybe not by name, but you’ve seen his ships. The Collectors. The Reapers. THEY are my enemies. The Council is just the illusion that he uses to control the more ignorant races of this galaxy.”

“I’m sure you’re aware of the Prophesy,” said Marc Antony.

“Prophesy?” asked Starlight. “No, I’m not. I don’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“Before he betrayed his own kind,” said Quatre, “it is said that the Benefactor saw the future.”

“And what did he see, then?”

“He saw the past,” said Babylon. “An inevitable, unavoidable war. An apocalyptic battle between man and machine. And he was foolish enough to believe that he would be the one to prevent it.”

“I don’t like what you’re implying,” said Starlight, harshly. “You’re saying- -in front of me- -that you would attack Equestria’s other key ally? I shouldn’t even need to explain the impact that you could have on our people’s friendship.”

“I am aware of what the implications might be,” said Babylon, clasping her hands behind her back. “Which is why I bothered to state this to you. So that you can understand.”

“Understand what? That this galaxy is on the verge of self-annihilation?”

“No. You need to understand just how important Equestria is to us. Our alliance with you? With the Princess? It is of great economic and military importance to us. The fact that both major parties are connected by that thread is the only thing keeping our cold war from becoming extraordinarily hot. Should our alliance with Equestria fail, there would be nothing to that horrendous war from occurring.” She leaned down over Starlight. “Your empire,” she said, “and its connection to us, and to them? It is the only thing that allows peace to exist. And for this, I thank you once again.”

Starlight realized that she was sweating. Not only that, but she was beginning to feel nauseous. It had something to do with the way Babylon moved, but mostly, it was a result of the way she spoke. She appeared to have no regard for the danger that her words posed to the alliance she claimed to treasure- -but she seemed to be absolutely knowledgeable of every implication in what she was suggesting. Starlight was beginning to wonder if she was not absolutely insane.

“At least,” she finally said, “it WAS my belief that the Benefactor was the only threat to the Alliance. I’ve reviewed Marc Antony and Four of Eight’s reports on the situation, and I believe you have met one of our more recent adversaries.”

“And I don’t think you mean the wendigoes.”

“The nhumi? No, of course not. They actually instinctively fear us. They are more or less a pest; at most a minor threat to commercial transports.”

“Then why send out a ship to eliminate them?”

“I was not sent out here to attack wendigoes,” said Marc Antony.

Starlight turned to him slowly and realized what he meant. “The black ships. You were pursuing them. That’s how you found me.”

He smiled and nodded. “They are horribly difficult to track. Our ultra-range scanners can detect them when they materialize, but they are almost always gone by the time we can jump to their position.”

“Gone? Can’t you trace the mass jump?”

Marc Antony shook his head. “They don’t mass-jump. We believe they may be transitioning to a parallel universe called Vocqutus. We simply don’t have the technology to pursue them. The only person that ever understood how to was beheaded over two centuries ago.”

Starlight paused, and then looked up at Babylon. “So your technology is not as advanced as you think, is it?”

“I merely stated our advancement as a relative. We are superior to the Council. We are- -in a technological sense- -not more advanced than Thebe.”

“Thebe?” said Starlight. “What is Thebe?”

“A moon of Jupiter,” said Quatre. “Formerly an eezio mine, but now defunct. In this case, though, we believe that ‘Thebe’ is not a location but a person. However, it is impossible to know.”

“And they were the ships that attacked me,” said Starlight, to herself. Suddenly Chrysalis’s warning surfaced in her mind. “I was pursuing an Equestrian criminal,” she said. “A heretic who murdered one of my closest friends and attempted to assassinate the Princess. I had nearly destroyed her ship when those black ships- -this ‘Thebe’- -intervened.” Starlight’s expression hardened. “That makes them my enemy.”

“A commonality we share,” said Babylon. “Although for different reasons. We have yet to ascertain their motives, but at present, we know them to be thieves. Not of ordinary items, mind you. Their targets tend to be advanced and experimental technology, with a strong focus on Reaper artifacts.” She paused. “Although…in some cases synths have been killed and found with, well, pieces missing.”

Starlight shivered. “They…they took parts of their bodies?”

“Yes,” said Babylon. “And although it is not immediately apparent, we take the desecration of our dead VERY seriously. Even the murder of a synth is a serious anomaly.”

“Although the Reaper thefts are just as concerning,” said Four. “Only a few days ago, we lost a critical artifact that was en-route from turian space.”

“But it does not stop there. They have broken into critical research laboratories, military installations- -even destroyed ships that use that technology. The situation is growing worse, although we once again maintain our advantage in that synths appear to be resistant to infection.”

Starlight was confused. “What do you mean ‘infection’?”

“That is what we believe Thebe is,” said Marc Antony. “A viral ideology. We have not yet discovered discerned the etiology, but it appears to behave like a highly selective contagion.” He looked up at Babylon. “The wendigoes did severe damage to the crew, but we have recovered some partial bodies for our research. Finding even partially intact ships and Theban zealots will be a boon to our understanding of their organization.”

“But it is not enough,” said Babylon. “An organization that has the audacity to dream of stealing from the Alliance and the expertise to succeed is a profound threat. And, from the look of it, one not just to us. Which is why, Starlight Glimmer, I would like to ask for your help.”

“Me? I’m not sure what I can do.”

“You said that your mission is to eliminate a criminal.”

“Yes. But the organization she is working for does not concern me. Only Scootaloo.”

“Of course. Nor would I expect one pony to take Thebe alone, especially one who has completely lost the use of her biotics. No. I want the criminal.”

“No,” said Starlight flatly. “She will not be captured alive.”

“She does not need to be. We will be able to extract the information we need from her brain alone.”

Starlight blinked. “You can do that?”

“Of course,” said Quatre. “Although the brain is destroyed in the process. It is actually rather interesting to watch when it is still attached. The screaming is almost musical.”

“We are, of course, willing to help,” said Babylon. “Our alliance is important to me. Therefore, I will grant you far more than just two Spectres. The entire Alliance navy will be at your disposal. Fifty million ships. More, if you need them made. Even the Hyperion itself if that is what it takes to end the Theban scourge.”

“And my Spectres?”
Babylon considered for a moment. “Yes. In the spirit of friendship between our nations, you may keep them alive if you wish and take them with you, if you suspect their experience would aid in defeating our mutual enemy.

Starlight was surprised, but tried not to show it. Containing herself was not hard; she had no idea if Babylon was actually serious. “You are passionate about this, aren’t you?”

“I only have two real enemies in this galaxy. One is Thebe. Yes. Its eradication is of great importance to me and to the Alliance.”

“A sentiment many of us share,” added Marc Antony. “Because we don’t think they’re just reselling the artifacts and the pieces of our corpses. We think they’re making something.”

Starlight paused. “What kind of thing?” she asked.

“Hopefully,” said Babylon, “with your help, we will never need to find out.”

Author's Notes:

It's not immediately apparent, but like all my crossovers, Mass Core is a three-way. The synths, wendigoes, Bob, and Babylon (and Eloth) are drawn from a non-pony story called "Vocqutus" that I wrote some time back. In that universe, Babylon (Suszan Amadeus) is a sort of quasi-goddess.

That said, this universe lets me explore synth society a little better. I imagine that since they don't have physical needs, they don't rely heavily on cooperation. As such, they create an objectivist society as opposed to the geth's communal system. The two are meant, to an extent, as foils to each other.

Chapter 20: The Catalyst

There was no dinner, no party, and no extended meeting with speeches and platitudes. That was not how the Alliance operated, and it never had been, as far back as the human era. Even as ornate and aesthetic as their world tended to be, their leader was a highly practical woman. She did not need to present calming ideas and promises of friendship; instead, she gifted pure power. Starlight was almost dazed by how simply and casually the Empress had granted her, essentially, a blank check toward the goal of defeating Thebe. It was unexpected, to say the least.

Starlight almost did not know what to do with a gift of such significance. The first thing she had done was order as much information as possible, and the Alliance had given her everything they had concerning Thebe regardless of its classification level. As much as she wanted to read it, though, without a functional omnitool it was impossible. A replacement had been ordered, but one meant for a pony was something of a rarity. It would take time to arrive.

As positive as the outcome of the experience had been, it had also been just as draining. As soon as Babylon’s hologram dematerialized, Starlight immediately felt her adrenaline decrease and her muscles weaken. By the time she had excused herself, she was on the verge of collapse. She returned to the garden deck only to find that the lights had faded, putting the forest into a night cycle. It was only then that Starlight realized that the weakness she felt was only a small symptom of how unnaturally tired she had allowed herself to become.

Synths did not sleep. Quatre most likely did, but from what Starlight could tell, she slept somewhere else. The forest had not been intended as a hotel, and as such there were no beds, save for some of the emergency blankets from Starlight’s ship that the mechs had brought to them. Starlight did not care. She undressed, covered herself in one of the thin, gold-colored blankets, and immediately slept.

She was so tired that, for a time, she did not dream. It was almost blissful, the capacity to rest without the shadow of her past looming over her- -but it did not last long. The nightmares came and came quickly. In this one, Starlight was sleeping in her own dream even as she desperately tried to wake. She struggled and turned, but some external force kept trying to shove her back into a state of mental void. For some reason, this was terrifying to her.

Then- -in the dream- -she awoke. Her eyes widened in terror and she took a breath, only to feel her lungs filled with the amniotic liquid that surrounded her. She coughed and tried to scream, but there was no way out. She was surrounded on all sides with glass and thick fluid, suspended in place by the agonizing implants imbedded in her spine.

She struggled, but she was too weak. Breathing became almost impossible, and she felt herself drowning. At the same time, she began to hear something. It started distant, as part of the fluid and sound of the machines her body was driving rushing in her ears and through her skull implants, but then it began to resolve. Starlight realized in her panic that it was voices.

Through the distorted, foggy world of her glass, she suddenly became aware of more tubes. The voices were coming from them. She screamed, trying to call out to them, and they heard her- -but their tone did not change. They were not screaming. Instead, they simply spoke. What they said was incomprehensible, but Starlight understood. When she heard their words, she realized just how much she wanted to stay, how much better it was in the tube.

This thought horrified Starlight more than anything, and she began to strike at the tube with her hooves. She was growing weaker by the second, though, feeling her life stolen away from her. Just before she collapsed back into the void, she saw a figure move just on the outside of her tube. The tube itself was translucent, and all she saw was a violet pony slowly passing by. Watching her.

That was when Starlight bolted awake. She was screaming, even though the only sound that came from her constricted throat was a quiet, squeaking hiss. She panicked for a moment, unable to see where she was through the thick darkness that surrounded her. Then she began to remember, and slowly sat up. She was breathing hard and sweating.

After a few moments of sitting in the darkness and trying to be calm, Starlight summoned her strength and forced as much concentration as she could into her horn. The strain was immense, but it did produce a result: a miniscule crackle of blue light from the tip, no brighter than a weak candle. The light was adequate for her to see somewhat, though. She was in one of the empty rooms off from the Antigone’s garden. Near her, Zedok and Jurneu were both asleep. Although they had initially fallen asleep distant from each other, the coldness of the room had caused them to involuntary moved together to where Zedok was using the white unicorn’s flank as a pillow. They both looked quite comfortable, and Starlight thought it was adorable. She just hoped that there was no violence when they woke up.

Beri and Sbaya, meanwhile, were nowhere to be seen. Starlight looked around for them, but as she did, a thought occurred to her. She was awake- -but the voices had not stopped.

She felt her heartrate suddenly increase, and she froze, listening. They were permeating the room from every side. For a moment she thought they might just be an unusual engine hum, but there was no vibration. They were definitely voices. What they were saying, though, was unclear. They might have been beckoning- -or weeping. It was impossible to know.

Starlight could hear them clearly- -perhaps, on some level, she always had heard them from the moment she stepped on the ship- -but they did not wake or disturb the other two sleeping occupants of the room. Starlight found that strange, and she began to wonder if the sounds were simply some kind of hallucination, a carryover from her dream.

Either way, she decided that there was no way she was going to return to sleeping. She felt as though she needed to walk, and carefully stood up. For a moment she paused as she stepped over her clothing, and then decided on a whim that she might as well not wander around an Alliance ship in her underwear. She took the minimum possible portion of her armor.

Exiting upon exiting into the forest, Starlight was surprised at how little she felt as though she were on a starship. The garden itself had seemed strange enough to begin with, but it was different at night. During the day, the artificial parts of the ship were still visible: the artificial lights and the walls of the room were always just at the edge of sight. In the dark, though, those elements seemed to vanish. There were just the trees, the ferns, the moss, and the sound of the insects. There was not even a hum of the ship’s engines or the feeling that it was moving.

It was almost frightening how real it looked. Even the air was cooler, and Starlight had some trouble seeing as she made her way down the dimly lit paths through the garden and toward one of the many doors leading to the remainder of the ship.

As she moved, though, she suddenly had a sensation of being watched. She paused, and a noise came from behind her. It was by no means loud, but the soft leaves of the ferns rustled as something dropped from above into them.

Starlight turned and her dim light rebounded at her from a pair of reflective eyes. She was almost shocked, even though she somehow already knew that it was Sbaya, who had descended from the trees above.

“I see you’re still awake,” said Starlight.

Sbaya stared at Starlight, her expression unchanging for a long moment, and then she raised one of her hands. It flashed with a dim blue light that seemed almost liquid, and she produced a tiny, glowing singularity. Although small and dim, its light was enough to make seeing her more possible. She released the sphere, and it floated free of her hand, drifting around like a tiny blue firefly.

“The cycles here are still wrong,” she sighed. “Besides. On Parnack, I am generally nocturnal. Most of the game can be hunted best at night.”

“Were you hunting, then?”

Sbaya seemed unduly surprised by the question, but shook her head. “No,” she said. “There is nothing here to hunt. That, and none of it is mine. I am only a guest here.” She paused. “That does not explain why you are awake, though.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I figured I needed a walk.”

Sbaya’s expression only grew more serious. “You can hear them too, can’t you?”

Starlight’s blood ran cold. She tried to remain composed, but she saw from the slight movement in Sbaya’s eyes that she had already noticed Starlight’s reaction. “Yes,” she said, seeing no point in lying. “But I just thought they were in my head. A piece of my dream following me for a bit.” She paused, and swallowed, finding that her mouth seemed unduly dry. “But you can hear them?”

Sbaya nodded slowly. “Yes. It is not the first time. When you are alone in the wilderness- - hundreds upon hundreds of miles from the nearest city- -and the forest suddenly falls silent, you can hear them then. Anybody who cannot is a fool.” She paused, looking up at the trees and listening. “These though…these are different. Not wandering spirits or things left behind by eons…they are so much closer. And what they’re saying…I can’t describe it…”

“Like their sad,” said Starlight, closing her eyes and listening to them as well, “and in pain…but that there is no reason to change that state.”

Sbaya’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. Speaking to themselves, accepting. But not to us. We are not meant to hear them.”

“Can all asari hear things like that?” asked Starlight. “Can your mother?”

Sbaya shook her head. “Mother is a descendent of warriors. I am a descendent of hunters. I hear better than she can, even if I am not as strong.”

“But then what am I?” asked Starlight. “I’m not a descendent of either.”

“No,” said Sbaya, considering. “But from what my mother has told me of you, and what I have seen with my own eyes, I think perhaps you are the descendent of something else more powerful than either.”

Starlight was not sure what that meant. “I’m going to find them,” she said, turning. “I have to find them.”

She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. “No,” said Sbaya. “Please don’t.”

“But they’re calling…”

Sbaya shook her head, and then took her hand away. “I told you. They are not speaking to us. We are not meant to know where those voices are coming from. I don’t know how I know…but I know something very bad will happen if you find those spirits. Just let them speak, and let them be.”

“Sbaya,” said Starlight, “I can’t do that.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Sbaya, more firmly. She seemed to stiffen, and her formerly catlike stance instantly became awkward. “In fact…there is another room off this one. One with no one in it. If we went there, we could be alone, and we could…” She fidgeted slightly, unable to finish the sentence.

“Sbaya…what are you trying to say?”

Sbaya shifted again, then stood up straight and looked Starlight in the eye. “Starlight, I want you to take my virginity.”

Starlight inhaled so sharply that she pulled some of her saliva into her lungs and began coughing. Despite being painful, it was probably for the best- -if she had not been choking, she might have burst out laughing as a defense against the pure awkwardness of the situation.

“Wha- -what?!” she managed to say.

“You clearly heard me. I want you to make love to me.”

“Sbaya, I don’t know if- -”

“Let me finish. I know, it seems rushed, and I’m probably insulting you by asking, but…I can’t help myself. My mother has told me so many stories about you, how strong you are or brave- -but I didn’t realize it until I saw you for myself. What you can do, how your always in control even when things seem so bleak…even with how much you’re hurting…” She stared at her feet and kicked at a small stone. “I just…I never even left Parnack. But when I did…there’s so many feelings I’m having. So many confusing feelings. When I look at other asari. When I look at you.”

“I’m not insulted,” said Starlight. “And it’s not that you’re unattractive, or that you’re not a nice girl…but I’m not a lesbian. I’m just not into women.”

Sbaya looked at her, her eyes pleading but serious. “I’m asari,” she said. “We look female, but we’re not. Not really. I don’t think of myself that way. If you want, think of me as a young boy. That’s closer to the truth.”

“I…” Starlight found herself stammering. This was an unexpected turn of events, but, really, it was not all that different from Jurneu offering himself to her- -except that it was. It was easy enough to tell Jurneu to back off; it was obvious that he was something of a pervert. Sbaya, though, really meant what she was saying. Starlight could see it in her eyes and hear it in how nervous she sounded.

It was impossible though, for a number of reasons. The main reason was that Starlight was not nearly as experienced as Sbaya probably thought; the only pony she had ever made love to had been Sunburst, and that had been centuries earlier. Even with her powerful position, she had just never bothered with stallions- -or even thought about doing such things with an asari, especially one who was the daughter of one of her closest friends.

“I can’t do that, Sbaya,” she said, turning around. “I just can’t. Please don’t hate me for it.”

Sbaya offered surprisingly little resistance. Over her shoulder, Starlight saw her look extremely dejected. “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

The girl took several steps back and then leapt silently into a high tree, vanishing into the darkness. The singularity she had produced quivered for a moment, and then went out. Starlight sighed, knowing that she had made the right choice but feeling terrible. She stayed for just a moment, and then turned, finding her way through the darkness by the strange and distant sound of voices.

Synths did not sleep- -but with that said, as Starlight moved through the ship, she increasingly wondered if they did not have a state like it. The entire place was silent. She saw no one, save for an occasional mech marching by. It was almost frightening: the world of the ship remained the same. The artwork was the same, the architecture the same, even the light as harsh and bright as usual. There were just no synths.

As Starlight moved through the Antigone, though, she began to realize why. The ship was far larger than she had initially suspected, consisting of multiple decks of concentric circles and later oblong curves that centered around the middle forest and, later, the rear end of the bridge. A starship of this size in Equestria would have had a crew of at least two hundred ponies, or perhaps even three hundred. From what she gathered, though, it was actually staffed with less than thirty.

The apparent emptiness of the ship was only compounded by its confusing layout. Starlight often found herself passing the same painting or holographic plant or moving a level up or down without intending to. As she circled and recircled, she began to feel more and more anxious. The hallways were designed in such a way that they were always curving. It was always impossible to see too far ahead or to know what was around the next corner. Starlight assumed that this was to prevent the use of ranged weapons should the ship ever be boarded, and no doubt the synths did not mind the curvilinear design- -but to Starlight’s organic mind, it was strangely ominous.

The voices continued, though, and Starlight followed them. Sometimes they would stop, and she would stop with them, standing perfectly quiet and trying to listen. Then, when they returned, she would change directions and start toward them again.

As she listened, she began to realize that they were not actually voices. She conceived of them that way simply because they were external to her. What they truly were was far more difficult for her to comprehend. They were not words, or real conversations, but they were not true thoughts either. To Starlight, it was- -as strange as she knew it sounded- -what dreams would sound like from the outside if they were audible.

For a time, Starlight was going in circles- -not just because she was lost, but because the sounds she heard seemed to change directions, always coming from different parts of the ship. Or nowhere at all- -or everywhere at once. In time, though, she found herself standing outside of a large blast door. Her ability to read the complex language of various colored dots that made up the written form of Terran Proper was limited, but she knew enough to be able to know that this was the engine room- -the exact place that Quatre had told her not to enter.

Because of Quatre’s warning, Starlight paused for a moment. She knew that she had the option to turn back. There was no reason for her to go in; if she chose to, she could simply return to the garden, lie down, go to sleep, and try to forget that Sbaya had propositioned her. Starlight was fully conscious of her decision- -and succumbed to curiosity. She opened the door and went inside.

Unlike the main hallways, the engineering area was dark. Starlight’s eyes had grown so accustomed to the extreme brightness of the various corridors that for a brief second she was blind. It took nearly a minute for her eyes to adjust, and when she did she found herself in a large room that she imagined was ring-shaped. She immediately began moving to her left. She supposed that the actual engine was somewhere in the center of the ring, on the other side of a wall- -so that any toxic effects the reactor might have on her would be attenuated so long as she stayed in the outer engineering sector.

As she moved, she became aware that the shape of the engineering room was not unlike that of the garden sector. In fact, there was a strong possibility that it shared the same space on the ship, forming the lower part of a sphere that housed the garden in its center and the bridge at its apex. To Starlight’s right, there were a number of small offshoot rooms that were connected to the main reactor through a series of conduits that ran radially from the center. Starlight was not sure exactly what purpose they served, but the architecture of the ship was bizarre- -and yet somehow familiar. It closely resembled the way early quants were linked into their housings to power Equestrian ships.

Starlight had initially assumed that she would eventually cross all the way around engineering, as in her mind it was likely round. After a few minutes of walking slowly through the near-darkness, though, she realized that the actual situation was different. The circle contained a control room- -and as soon as Starlight heard voices emanating from it, she ducked behind a doorway leading to the nearest of the outer rooms.

“Well, Lester,” said one of the synths. “I’m sure of it this time. I definitely have a brain tumor.”

A second synth with a nasally voice replied. “You can’t possibly have a brain tumor! How many times do I have to say that? You’re a synth!”

“Your mother is a synth.”

“Of course she’s a synth! And she’s YOUR mother TOO!”

“Oh. I forgot. See! A Tumor!”

The nasally synth- -apparently named Lester, which was such a ridiculous name for a synth that Starlight almost burst out laughing- -started to groan. Or weep.

“You probably have one too,” said the other. “I mean, why are we standing around in the dark? That was your idea, after all.”

“And it’s a good idea! It saves power! And besides. It’s not like they can see.”

“I can’t see. Because tumor.”

“No, you can’t see because it’s dark. And you CAN see.”

“I can see that you’re weird for turning out all the lights. Why are you so weird, Lester?”

“Because I don’t eat enough fiber,” he muttered.

“But we’re synths. We don’t eat.”

“My point exactly.”

The pair continued to bicker, and as they did, Starlight moved past them. She was initially going to move around the control area, but when she passed the main door to the central area, the voices suddenly spiked. For a moment, it seemed like they were screaming at her. What they were screaming was unclear, but whatever was making the sound seemed to see her.

It was not the synths, though. Their conversation had devolved into Terran Proper, and they were now basically screaming. Taking advantage of their distraction, Starlight slid toward the large access door and, before she realized what she was doing, found herself entering the central engine core.

The inner area was more brightly lit, but not by much. Most of the light was generated from the exceedingly complex array of conduits and lines that led from the reactor to the equipment surrounding the room and, eventually, to the offshoot rooms surrounding the engineering ring.

The reactor itself was most peculiar, though. Most mass-core starships had a single, large core, usually consisting of a concentrated unit of element zero. Equestrian ships tended to use quants, which were crystalline matrixes. This ship, though, seemed to have five individual reactors. Each one consisted of a metal column about five meters high and less than one wide. They were generating a prodigious amount of energy, but Starlight found them oddly silent. The voices were loudest hear, to the point of being deafening- -but there was no hum of an engine, even though Starlight was sure that the ship was moving.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. A single, horrible, impossible thought. It immediately rose to the point of being a near obsession, a fact that she knew could not possibly be true- -but one that she had to confirm, regardless of the cost.

It took her several minutes to find the internal interface for the system. What it showed her, though, was not useful. It was all output waveforms and efficiency parameters relayed in the least user-friendly way possible. The readings themselves were incredible- -far higher than any modern Equestrian ship with a similarly sized core- -but to Starlight, they were useless.

What she did find, however, was a large mechanical handle. She found herself reaching for it, but pausing before she pulled it. Once again, she was faced with a choice- -her last choice.

She pulled the handle. The response was almost immediate, arriving as a series of metallic clunks as the systems within the ship engaged. Then, after a brief pause, the metal casings around the reactor cores split and retracted, filling the room with brilliant blue light and revealing the glass tubes beneath.

Starlight initially covered her eyes with one hoof, shielding herself- -so she thought- -from the light. When she forced herself to lower it, though, her mind stopped. The very thing she had known from the start- -and the very thing she had believed could not possibly happen, ever- -stood before her. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

In each of the tubes, suspended in liquid, was a naked human woman. They were not wendigoes; their bodies, though thin and pale, were not the gray, mutated bodies of the evolved humans. These humans retained the appearance of their ancestors, complete with long, flowing, dark hair. The only difference was what they were suspended by: the extensive metallic implants imbedded in their spines, linking their biotic power directly to the ship’s system. The Antigone was powered by human Cores.

“Impressive, aren’t they?” said a female voice from immediately behind Starlight. She cried out and spun around to find Quatre staring at her from the shadows. She was dressed in a slightly less formal but still highly Roman-like version of her uniform. Her face, as it had been in the conversation with Babylon, was completely covered with a thin transparent cover, and through it Starlight saw her smile, although only slightly.

Without a word, Quatre crossed the room to the nearest of the tubes where the woman within was floating, comatose. Quatre gently lifted her hoof and pressed it softly against the glass. It was not loud enough to produce a tapping sound, but the woman inside still tremored slightly, as if she were aware of a familiar presence.

“They’re clones,” she said at last. “Genetic replicas of a human named Oriana Lawson. I knew the original. She was…defective. They have since improved her substantially.” She looked over her shoulder at Starlight. “It is actually impressive, really. The entire human species is extinct- -except for these, the ones we make. The last pure humans in existence.”

“You…you bitch…” whispered Starlight. She wanted to scream, but even forming such simple words was almost impossible for her from her pure shock and rage. “You KNEW…”

“Knew? Of course I knew. It’s my ship.” Quatre sighed. “But I told you not to come down here for a reason. Because I’m familiar with your record, and I knew that you would react emotionally instead of logically.”

“Logically?!” spat Starlight, leaping over the controls and monitors near her and approaching Quatre quickly. “LOGICALLY?! What am I supposed to think, Quatre?!” She pointed up at the nearest Core. “This- -this- -you built CORES! This technology, it’s banned! I should know, I HELPED BAN IT!”

“Banned in Equestria, perhaps,” said Quatre, her voice calm as though she could not understand why Starlight was reacting with such vigor. “But not in the Alliance. We are free to use them if we so desire.”

“But- -but WHY?! There’s no reason too! You have mass-cores, quants, every other conceivable- -”

“For the same reason YOUR people used Cores for millennia. Because they work, and they work well. These are not like the Cores you knew. Our scientists have made so many modifications. We’ve overcome so much. Not only is their power output factorially higher than traditional mass-effect engines, but they produce it with a reactor of substantially lower size- -and without generating any excess heat.”

Starlight almost gaped at how calm Quatre was being, as if she were giving a sales pitch. “You have no idea what they are, do you?”

“Of course I do,” said Quatre, suddenly appearing to lose her patience slightly. “YOU are the one jumping to conclusions. You are being unreasonable!”

Starlight took a sudden step forward, but Quatre did not step back. She glared into the unicorn’s eyes. “I am not the one being unreasonable here.”

“Yes, you are,” sighed Quatre. “It’s not like we went out and captured the humans. They are clones. Built in a laboratory. Grown from pluripotent cells and incubated with element zero. The earliest implants are installed by the time they are the size of a bean.” She pointed at the nearest clone. “They aren’t ever born. They are developed to adulthood over ten years. They have never walked, never seen, never spoken. They are born unconscious, and they die that way.”

“And is that supposed to make it okay?!” screamed Starlight. “They’re people, Quatre! They have rights, like you and me! They are our equals! Don’t they deserve a chance at life too?”

Quatre sighed and shook her head. She stepped away from the tube. “You don’t understand. Your mind, it’s so…” She groaned, exasperated, and then turned around suddenly. “Have you ever seen what happens when you try to take one out of the tank? Hmm? Tell me, Starlight, what do you think happens to them?”

“They’d be scared,” said Starlight, drawing from her own experience, remembering when SHE had been taken out of her tube so many years ago. “Confused. They wouldn’t know where they are, or what they are supposed to do.”

“Oh no,” said Quatre. “That is an understatement. A massive one. If you forcibly pull one out, they flat-out panic. They’re not designed to be conscious, not meant to ever be completely born. They cannot talk, or stand, or speak. All they do is scream. Then they try to get back in the tube.”

“No,” said Starlight, shaking her head. “No, that’s not right.”

“It IS. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them tear themselves apart trying to get back inside. And if we stop them…they just die. We’re not sure why. Medically, they’re fine. They just...stop.”

Starlight felt her eyes dart to the Core in the tank. Floating there, speaking- -or thinking. The resonance of her mind. A woman who would never be born. “You’re monsters,” she said to Quatre. “You’ve taken away their capacity to live…just to power this ship…”

“This ship? Oh no. Not ‘this’ ship. All our ships, save for the Hyperion and Dis Pater.”

“All…all of them?”

“Is it really so unfair?” mused Quatre. “Or are you really that biased? Humans built machines out of metal and computers to do their bidding. Is it so unreasonable that the synths could built machines out of flesh to do theirs?” She paused. “And besides, it’s not as though they’re really people. They don’t feel pain or need to live. They’re just machines. Part of the ship.”

For a moment, Starlight seemed to lose her connection to the world around her. She only knew that she was moving. Then she felt soft pony flesh under her hooves, and she pressed down with all of her strength. Quatre was amazingly weak, and her body crumpled to the floor. Although she tried to resist, there was nothing she could do to stop Starlight- -now screaming wildly- -from slamming the weaker unicorn’s face repeatedly into the floor.

“You bastards!” she shrieked. “YOU BASTARDS! Why- -WHY?! HOW DARE YOU!”

Starlight felt Quatre trying to resist, and heard her making high pitched sounds, but she kept beating her, feeling things inside her body crack- -until she realized that Quatre was struggling for her life. In horror at this realization, Starlight suddenly leapt off the other unicorn. Quatre was still breathing, but her breath was far from even. For a moment, she did not move- -but then rolled over. Starlight saw that the inside of Quatre’s mask was covered in blood coming from her nose, and that there was a large spiderweb crack in her faceplate.

Quatre saw the crack, too, and her eyes grew wide. “My- -my mask!” she said, grasping at it. “I’m fractured! The nitrogen!”

“I’m sorry,” said Starlight. “I- -I didn’t mean to- -”

“Hey!” called a voice behind her. Starlight turned suddenly to see the pair of synth engineers entering the room. They immediately saw Quatre lying on the floor, beaten and bloodied, and their eyes widened.

“She’s attacked the Supervisor!” said the larger of the two as both opened their omnitools. “Stop her before she- -”

He was interrupted as his chest suddenly burst open. The force was great enough to lift him off the ground, and he was held suspended for a moment, his mechanical plating bent outward from wthin.

“Ack!” he cried. “A TUMOR! See, Lester, I told you!”

“That’s not a tumor, you idiot, it’s- -” He cried out as a similar injury struck him. “Oh crap!” he said as he was lifted off the ground. “I just had a brand-new chest plate installed! And for some reason I’m actually enjoying this!”

“Weirdo,” replied the other.

Behind them, the air seemed to distort as Beri’s tactical cloak faded, revealing the fact that she had punched through both of their bodies. She then slid them off of her, both forced into unconsciousness from the damage to their principle power couplings.

“Berry!” said Starlight, both relieved and angry. “What the hell?!”

Beri suddenly lifted her hand, projecting an omnitool. She fired a beam of light. Starlight, in a panic, dodged, although she quickly realized that she did not have to. The beam struck Quatre, and she cried out as her body erupted with orange sparks and she partially collapsed.

“My legs!” she said, sounding on the verge of tears. “I can’t- -what did you do to me?!”

“I overloaded her nervous system,” explained Beri, quickly approaching Starlight. Her voice sounded strange, but Starlight was not sure exactly why. “Her entire body is integrated into the ship’s systems. Now she can’t call for help.”

“Beri- -BERI!” Starlight stepped in front of the cyborg. “I’m not going to ask again! What the HELL are you doing?!”

“Getting you out of here,” she said. “We have to leave. Now.”

“You just attacked two synths and one of the ship’s ranking officers!”

“After you very nearly bludgeoned her to death. Starlight, do you realize what you just did?”

“I’m sorry! It was an accident, I don’t- -”

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Beri, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Star, but you just declared war on the Alliance.” Starlight’s jaw dropped, and Beri looked up at the Cores. “But really, it isn’t your fault. After seeing this? They weren’t going to let you out of here alive.”

“But…but they promised me help,” she said, her mind racing. “They were going to help me hunt Scootaloo, and Thebe…”

“Thebe? What? Starlight, come on! You’re not that thick, are you? Do you really think they want to FIGHT Thebe? They want the technology. For themselves. It’s the last piece of their plan. What they need to win the War.”

“But…but…”

“I knew I should have killed you,” said Quatre, breathing heavily. “A Spectre...can never be trusted.”

“You will be quiet,” said Beri, slowly and carefully, “or I will tear your horn out. Do you understand?” She turned to Starlight. “I need to get you out of here.”

“Out of here,” repeated Starlight in a daze. She looked around the room. “The Cores,” she said, suddenly coming- -at least partially- -to her senses. “Can you get them out?”

“Cores?” Beri looked up at the containers, and then stepped over to one. She knocked hard on the glass, and the Core winced. “This is a centimeter of transpinite,” she said. “This room must weigh more than the rest of the damn ship…but these tubes are strong enough to withstand an atom bomb and be fine. I can’t break through them.”

“If you remove them, they will die,” warned Quatre.

“Hmm,” said Beri. She stepped over to Quatre and grasped her horn, hard. Quatre screamed. “You were warned. Say goodbye to your organ.”

“Berry! STOP!” cried Starlight, shuddering at the sight of an organ she knew to be extremely sensitive being treated so harsh, and at the idea of one being torn out.

Beri looked at Starlight and her optics shifted. “Fine,” she said, throwing Quatre to Starlight. “Take her. She will be a hostage. I highly doubt they will try to shoot through her.”

Starlight’s mind was still racing, but she knew that Beri was right, at least on some level. She had messed up, and done so badly. She wanted to run, to get out- -and she felt herself following Beri, pushing a badly weakened Quatre along in front of her. She knew what they were doing was wrong, but in her shocked state, she could not think of what else to do. The only thing she knew was that if she got to her ship, everything would be okay.

They left engineering quickly. Outside, the ship did not seem to be on any sort of alert, but it was quiet. Really, it was the same level of silence that Starlight had seen before, but now it felt so much more ominous. She wanted the sound of klaxons and warning sirens, but there were none.

“Please,” begged Quatre. “I…I have to slow down. My medication…”

“Shut up and walk faster,” said Beri, slapping the unicorn’s rump and causing her to squeal. Starlight grimaced. She did not like seeing Quatre hurt. It was not just that she looked like Twilight, but that, really, she had done nothing wrong. Beri seemed to not care, though.

“I don’t like this,” said Beri. Part of her cybernetic surface shifted, and she reached into part of her torso and produced a narrow, almost flat Zetan pistol.

“Wait,” said Starlight. “You had a gun this whole time?”

“Of course,” said Beri, as if it were obvious. “I have several. The wendigoes weren’t smart enough to take them all.”

Beri immediately took pointe, moving through the curving halls. A gun, though, was just about the worst thing to have in an Alliance ship. Because of the way the hallways perpetually curved, it was impossible to get a clean shot at a distance of greater than five meters.

“Starlight,” called a voice. It echoed through the hall, and Starlight immediately stopped.

“Marc Antony,” said Quatre, sounding so relieved- -or calling out to him very, very weakly.

Almost as if on cue, the synth commander appeared, walking briskly but carefully down the hall, flanked by a pair of female synths in military garb, each holding a large singularity rifle. They stopped at a distance from Starlight, and although Beri pointed her Zetan pistol at him, he ignored her. He instead focused exclusively on Starlight. He looked more disappointed than anything else.

“You found us quickly,” said Beri.

“Yes, because I’m not an idiot,” he said, still not taking his eyes off of Starlight and Quatre. “Starlight,” he said, trying to sound calm. “I’m not sure why you are doing this, but everything is still okay. I have not yet reported our situation. I don’t even need to. If you just give her back.”

“Giver her…back?”

“Four. Give me back Four. That’s all I want. You can do what you want from there, I don’t care. Just give her to me.”

“Don’t listen to him, Starlight,” said Beri. “It’s a trick. As soon as we give her up, those two are going to perforate us.”

“You wouldn’t be perforated,” said Marc Antony. “You would be completely vaporized. But I’m willing to let this all pass, chalk it down to a misunderstanding. Just please, please return her.”

Starlight looked him in the eye. “This ship. It’s powered by Cores.”

His eyes widened slightly, but he did not hesitate with his response. “Yes. Yes it is.”

“And you think, somehow, that things can go back to normal? While you have them trapped in there like that?”

“If you want them to, yes.”

“No.”

Marc Antony sighed. He gestured to one of the synths at his side, a tall female with dead-looking blue-green eyes. “Take them down.”

The synth nodded and stepped forward- -but then immediately turned to her left, pointing her singularity cannon directly at Marc Antony’s head. She pulled the trigger- -and it just clicked.

“Of course,” he said, holding up a small mechanical device. “It would be awfully difficult to shoot them without your firing module.”

The synth’s eyes widened, and she shifted her weight suddenly, moving to slam the butt of her rifle into Marc Antony’s chest. Despite his smaller size, Marc Antony was far faster than her and dodged the blow easily. The synth brought the weapon back for another swing, but Marc Antony grabbed it. He crushed it in his hand, causing a small detonation as it burst apart, knocking the synth holding it backward. Her hands had been consumed in the blast, and the stumps of her wrists were trailing long streams of green blood.

“You see,” he said, taking a step forward and ramming his fist into her chest. Her surface, which should have been metal and ceramic, deformed as if it were gelatinous, pouring more green fluid onto his hand. “The thing about being a synth is that I can tell when someone else is a synth. Or when she is not.”

He tore his hand free, and it pulled with it a mechanical device that Starlight immediately recognized as a respirator. It had been imbedded inside the synth woman.

The woman stepped back, her eyes suddenly alive as she gasped for air. As Starlight watched, her body shifted, distorting into a shorter version of herself: that of a dark-haired human woman, a replica of Jack.

“Disgusting,” said Marc Antony, grimacing at the changeling blood that now covered his left hand. He gestured toward the other synth. “Eliminate her.”

Chrysallis, though wounded and quickly asphyxiating, attempted to charge her green-colored biotics. She fired a bolt of energy, but it deflected off the approaching synth’s shields. Chrysalis then leaned forward onto the synth, but was pushed back. When she fell, she partially splattered, her body losing its form and becoming almost liquid.

“Eew,” said the synth. “It touched me…” She raised her rifle, pointing at Chrysalis. It was then that Starlight saw the small metal and tech-field device attached to the back of the synth’s neck.

The charge immediately went off, sparking with tech energy and causing the synth to release the most horrible distorted scream as her mind overloaded. She convulsed in place for a moment, dropping her weapon, and then slumped.

“What the hell?!” cried Marc Antony. “Martha, what’s wrong- -”

The synth suddenly stood up and blinked. “Program overwritten,” she said in a highly distorted and distinctly male voice. “Control established.” He looked around the room, somewhat confused, until his eyes fell on Starlight. “Oh. Hello Starlight. It is good to see you again.”

Starlight suddenly recognized the voice. “Armchair?”

“That is not incorrect,” he said, shrugging. As he did, he collapsed to the floor, sweeping out a foot and kicking Marc Antony’s legs out from beneath him. As the smaller synth fell, Armchair produced a tech sword and attempted to plunge it into Marc Antony’s chest. Marc Antony responded by igniting an omnitool that took up his entire right arm and projecting a tech barrier. Armchair’s tech sword bounced off it, shattering, and Marc Antony modulated the barrier, breaking its surface geometry into an unstable fractal pattern. The resulting explosion knocked Armchair back and gave Marc Antony time to jump to his feet, just as a small army of mechs were arriving.

“Kill them!” he said. “Kill them all!”

Starlight saw Beri raise her pistol, but she acted faster. She leapt onto Quatre and wrapped her foreleg around the gray-violet unicorn’s neck. Quatre immediately began struggling, but her resistance was even weaker than before. Starlight gripped her tightly and felt Quatre’s struggling increase as she panicked as ceased to be able to breathe.

Marc Antony’s eyes went wide. Looking at his sudden change of appearance, Starlight immediately felt horrible. He was not responding in a programmed way, or for appearances sake only. For the first time, Marc Antony’s expression looked genuine. He was truly terrified, and Starlight realized that she was strangling a pony that he loved dearly.

“No! Stop!” he cried. “You can’t do that!”

“How long do you think she can last?” asked Starlight, squeezing Quatre’s neck more tightly. As she did, she saw Quatre’s horn ignite. Starlight immediately felt pink-violet magic slash at her body, cutting against her armor and into her exposed skin. The wounds were deep, but Starlight’s armor protected her from most of the injuries.

Seeing this sent Marc Antony into a full panic. “No! Four, stop! STOP!”

“Let us pass,” said Starlight. “Let us pass, and I let her breathe.”

Marc Antony paused for a moment, but then gestured to the forces behind him. “Hold position,” he said.

“Sir,” said the nearest actual synth. “We can’t- -”

“Hold position, damn you!”

The synth, taken aback by Marc Antony’s sudden outburst, nodded and stepped back. Starlight, her hooves still on Quatre’s neck but loose enough to let her take a few ragged breaths, started walking backward. Beri did as well, pointing her pistol at them, prepared to fight. Armchair quickly grabbed what was left of Chrysalis: a hard, egg-like structure the size of a football.

When they were out of sight, Marc Antony turned to his soldiers. They took a physical step back, unaccustomed to seeing a synth with as advanced a face as his in such a state of fury. “Find the others,” he said. “Kill them and bring me their severed heads and genitals. Cut off the others. Kill them as well.”

“Command-Supervisor,” said one of the soldiers. “Does that include the High Priestess?”

“She took…my waifu,” said Marc Antony through gritted teeth. “After what she did? To me, the alliance between us and Equestria is over. Terminate her. Get the Supervisor back.”

“Yes, Command-Supervisor,” said the synth, immediately commanding his mechs to reverse course.

“Please,” said Marc Antony to himself as the others rushed into action. “Get her back. Before it is too late.”

“We need to get the others!” cried Starlight. She was almost completely out of breath, in part from running and in part from the fact that she was now almost completely carrying Quatre. “Zedok, Sbaya, Jurneu, we have to get them out of here!”

“They’re on the ship,” said Beri, firing several rounds backward, causing the hallway to erupt with blue light. “We just need to get there and get off this shithole!”

“That may be difficult, considering that the bulkhead ahead is closing,” said Armchair.

“What- -oh shit!”

Armchair was, in fact, correct. A large bulkhead ahead of them was moving to shut. Beri lunged forward, summoning a burst of speed that Starlight would not have thought possible even for her. She grabbed one side of the thick metal and pulled, straining her entire body against the force. The metal deformed under her grasp and slowed but did not stop.

Understanding the importance of the situation, Armchair set down his egg and grasped the other end of the bulkhead. He used his synth body to pull in the opposite direction, and with a plume of sparks and a loud metallic groan the door stopped.

“Move, move!” said Beri. “I can’t hold this forever!”

“I probably can,” said Armchair. The door suddenly shifted under his grasp. “Actually, no. No I cannot.”

The gap was already tight, and Starlight barely fit through.

“You too,” said Beri, gesturing with her head toward Armchair. He smiled and picked up Chrysalis before shifting to the far side of the door with Starlight.

“Here,” said Beri, reaching out with one hand toward Starlight. Starlight opened her hooves and Beri dropped a deep-violet crystal into her grasp. For Starlight, the identity of the crystal was obvious: it was the core memory facet of a quant.

“What is this?” she said.

“What they recovered from the Theban quant. Get it to Agrostation Six! Go!” She pointed in the direction of the hallway. “The main hanger bay is that way!”

As she said it, a barrage of singularities struck the door, pounding into the metal and in one place cutting through it completely and nearly hitting Armchair in the head.

“What about you?” said Starlight, suddenly realizing what Beri had been intending to do the whole time. “Oh no,” she said. “No, you can’t!”

Beri’s face momentarily flashed to her turian hologram, and she smiled. “I told you,” she said.

Before Starlight could stop her- -not that there was even anything she could actually do- -Beri released the door. Armchair was not strong enough to hold it, and it slammed closed, nearly taking his fingers with it.

“NO!” screamed Starlight, pounding at the door. “Beri! Get back over here!”

“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” said Armchair, picking both Starlight and Quatre up with one arm and cradling Chrysalis’s egg in the other. “We have to go. There is not much time.”

“No, we have to go back for her!” cried Starlight.

It was too late, though, and she was pulled away toward her ship and away from her friend.

On the far side of the now sealed and locked bulkhead, Beri turned to face her enemy.

“So I’m going to go out facing the Alliance,” she said to herself. “Well that’s unexpected. But with anyone else it would be unfair.”

The synths were advancing, and Beri raised her pistol, firing several shots directly into their shields. The shields were modulated for high-velocity projectiles, not Zetan plasma. The shields stopped part of each blast, but a substantial portion also made it through. The synths largely ignored it, advancing and drawing their swords.

One lunged at Beri. He moved with speed that would be impossible for an organic lifeform, but Beri countered with greater speed, striking him in the shoulder and crippling his sword arm. She then grasped the wounded limb and slid the blade of the sword through the next synth’s torso. The blow missed her core processor or reactor, and she struck out at Beri. Beri blocked, absorbing the tremendous force of the blow into her frame. Her internal systems registered severe damage to her compensatory kinetic systems, but her skeleton was still holding.

She twisted the blade and drew it out, shoving the synth back with her foot. Several mechs tried to rush her, but she swung the heavy blade, cutting their fragile bodies into pieces. The sword was far heavier than she was accustomed to, though, and before she could draw it back to defend herself, another synth struck.

This one was more advanced than the others. He slid his hand straight into Beri’s chest as if he knew what was inside her, and where. Beri Felt his digits tearing through her biological support systems, severing the lines that fed artificial blood to what was left of her brain.

Light flashed through her vision as the synth suddenly drew his hand out, pulling with it an organic mass drenched in pale yellow-orange fluid and coated in wires and implants. With a sadistic grin on his face, the synth closed his hand around the organ he had removed, forcing Beri to watch the destruction of her own brain.

Beri began to slump, and the synth threw away the only organic part of her that had remained. He then drew his sword. Before he could strike, though, Beri rammed her fist directly through his core reactor. His face twisted in agony as he detonated from within, blasting both Beri and several nearby mechs backward.

The explosion took the synths off guard, and Beri pressed her advantage. She picked up two of their own weapons and began firing into the group, shredding through mechs and driving the synths back. Not only did she force them to retreat, but she began advancing.

Just when she thought she was winning, an orange beam of light cut through the crowd. Beri’s diagnostic systems immediately registered several critical overloads. The effect was strange. It was not exactly painful, and yet still profoundly uncomfortable. Her hands became weak, and she dropped one of her rifles. She took two steps forward before she finally dropped to her knees.

The synth commander marched through the crowd, ignoring the damage around him. His right arm was completely encased in an Alliance omnitool, and Beri understood. Very few individuals would have the capacity to overload her protective software. He was one of them.

Marc Antony paused, standing over her. Beri tried to rise to attack him, but she found that her mind was beginning to grow hazy. She was not sure how exactly to go about standing up. Marc Antony seemed to realize this, and he looked around the room at the several wounded or dead synths around him. When he spied the remnants of Beri’s brain, his eyes suddenly darted back to her.

“Why are you still fighting?” he asked, posing it as though it were a serious question, as if he really wanted to know. “You’re already dead.”

Beri projected her holographic face and smiled mockingly. “I know,” she said. “I think I have been for a long time now. I was just waiting for a good stopping point.” She paused as her internal connection registered that Starlight’s ship had successfully activated, and then watched as the lights flickered and the ship shook violently as she mass-jumped directly form the hanger bay.

“Sir!” said one of the synths, who by this point was simply a torso crawling across the floor.

“I know, Michael,” said Marc Antony. He pointed his omnitool at Beri. “A shame, really. Such a waste of a good body. But then again, I don’t really care.”

He activated his omnitool. Beri’s body had no defense against what he did to her, nor did she feel a need to pose one. Her mind flashed with colors and the VI keeping her functional lost alignment as all her systems burned out from the overload. The last thing she was conscious of was a feeling of relief, followed by nothing. Her body slumped to the side, and she was dead.

Starlight collapsed on the deck of her ship just as it was mass-jumping to safety. As she did, she saw Zedok descend on her, medical kit in hand. Far down the central hallway, she saw Jurneu leaving the bridge.

“Damn it, Star, what the hell did you do?!” cried Zedok. “You’re bleeding, bad!”

“It’s not a problem,” said Starlight, standing up weakly. “Jurneu, where did you jump us to?

“About four planets from Palavan, there’s no way they’ll…” he trailed off and his eyes widened as he looked up at Armchair. “Um…I do believe you were followed.”

“What?” Starlight looked over her shoulder. “Oh, no. That’s Armchair.”

“Armchair- -ARMCHAIR?” said Zedok, her eyes lighting up. “Armchair, is that you in there?”

“Marginally,” he said, shrugging. “You don’t have to worry about the synth, though. In order to infect her body, I had to format her primary personality construct. Unfortunate, really. I will have to write a very sad letter to her children.”

“Zedok!” said Jurneu, suddenly. Starlight turned, her breath catching at the sound of urgency in his voice. She saw him standing over Quatre, who was lying on the floor limp- -and surprisingly still. “She’s not breathing!”

“What- -oh hell!” Zedok immediately left Starlight and moved to the other pony. She ran a diagnostic scan, and Starlight saw her expression harden. “Goddess,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “she’s in cardiac arrest! Get her mask off!”

Jurneu pulled off Quatre’s mask, and a surprising amount of blood came out. Starlight almost vomited when she saw the unicorn’s eyes. They were bloodshot, wide, and empty.

“Damn it, Star, what did you do to her?!” cried Zedok.

“I didn’t- -I didn’t mean to- -”

Zedok closed her omnitool and put Quatre on her back. “I’m going to have to do this the hard way.” She immediately began performing chest compressions and CPR.

“Jurneu, get Sbaya, prep the medical bay. She still has brain activity but we’re losing her fast!”

Jurneu moved quickly, but for Starlight, the world seemed to move in slow-motion as she realized that she had most likely killed an innocent pony.

Some time later, Marc Antony sat in his command chair, watching space through the large transpite window, tapping his foot anxiously. It all felt wrong. Without her there, the bridge was too big and too empty. That emptiness only reminded him of what had happened, and what he had been forced to do.

A synth approached him from the side, a male named Ernest. According to the secondary officer hierarchy, he was next in command after Four.

“Sir,” he said. “The planetcracker fleet has been assembled on the edge of the Council neutral zone. We have received orders to fall back and join the formation as part of the defense force.”

“And what is their final jump-point?” asked Marc Antony, even though he already knew. He had always known.

“Thessia,” said Ernest, his voice flat and monotone. “The formation will be led by the Hyperion.”

Marc Antony’s eyes widened and he leaned forward suddenly. “The Hyperion? You can’t mean that she’s leading the battle herself?”

Ernest nodded. “She is.”

Leaning back in his chair, Marc Antony looked out at the window again, finding himself wondering just how insane Babylon actually was. “And when is the attack going to take place?”

“On her order,” said Ernest. “Not until then.”

Marc Antony chuckled, even though he was on the verge of tears. “She’s waiting for the alliance to dissolve,” he said. “That’s what her goal was. This whole time…”

“Sir?”

“Not your concern,” said Marc Antony. “Mine. All mine.” He stared into the blackness of space. “But if I lose her…then there won’t even be any point.” He paused for a long moment, and Ernest began to walk away. “I’m sorry,” whispered Marc Antony. “Four, I’m so sorry…”

Author's Notes:

You either die a hero or live long enough to be eaten by a space-cannibal and cloned into an army of biological batteries powering an entire fleet of spaceships driven by blonde robots.

Chapter 21: God-Princess

Countless light-centuries distant from the Alliance, the Council, Thebe and Starlight, Twilight Sparkle stood in the cold stone halls of her empty Temple. The only light was the red-gray glow of the overcast sky filtering through the large windows that merged seamlessly with the cool stone masonry.

Outside was the Temple grounds, a courtyard perched high above the city of Canterlot below. Outside, the Tartaran was running through the grassy fields and gardens playing with her skags and dogs and varrent. She appeared to be having fun chasing and being chanced. On the far side of the field, several Priestesses rode by on non-talking horses, the ancestors of which had been a gift from the Alliance long ago. Their white robes trailed behind them in the breeze, and under the cloudy sky they looked almost like ghosts.

As she watched, silent and alone, she was absentmindedly spinning a knife on the floor, balancing it on its tip with her magic and causing it to revolve. The knife itself did not have any real purpose, apart from being incorporated into her ceremonial clothing as a kind of symbol. It, likewise, had been a gift, this time from a durian diplomat. Being made by turians, though, it was quite sharp, even after centuries of being in her possession.

“I know something else you could do with that knife,” said one of the faceless alicorns.

“Go ahead,” said the other. “It would be so much easier.”

“They woudn’t miss you. No one would miss you.”

“You don’t deserve to be alive. Not after what you did.”

“Not after what you ARE.”

“You aren’t even alive anyway. Not really.”

“You never were. Do it. Make Starlight’s life so much easier.”

“Because she almost knows. She’s so close. Soon, she will want you dead. Just like we do.”

“Princess?”

Twilight lifted her head at the sound of a voice that was not her own and with one swift motion slid the knife back into its ornate scabbard. She turned to see a tall, blue-colored reptilian approaching her from the far side of the hallway.

“Dragonlord,” she said. “I was under the impression that you had left. Although of course you are permitted to remain as long as you like.”

“I wanted to gain a better understanding of pony culture,” she said, stopping at the window and watching the hounds and non-talking horses gallop in the distance as the Priestesses laughed. Ember raised an eyebrow, clearly confused by the presence of horses. “What are those?” she asked.

“An example of parallel evolution,” said Twilight. “I keep a stable of them. Partly for study, but also because they were so beloved by my dear friend Trixie. Although, of course, the horses she loved so dearly are gone now. As is she. As is almost everyone.”

“I guess that’s a problem I never thought about,” said Ember. She paused, considering. “Yeah…with dragons, we are all functionally immortal. But you are the only one of your kind.”

“No,” said Twilight, shaking her head. “Just one of very few.” She looked up at the dragon beside her and smiled, being careful to keep her pointed teeth hidden, just as she forced herself to use an Equestrian accent. “But I don’t mean to be depressing. This is supposed to be a happy time! Look how joyous my Tartaran friend is. Her, and you, we are all allies now. All friends. And Harmony propagates.”

“That is one thing I came to speak to you about.” Ember seemed concerned. “Apparently, Blueblood went to the press. Your story is all over Canterlot.”

Twilight smiled. “Well, of course. I anticipated this.”

“And you wanted people to know, then?”

“Oh no. The people will not know. The idea that me, a beloved Princess, dines on the flesh of ponies? It is preposterous. And they will recognize it as such. Blueblood does not seem to realize that my reputation is far more difficult to destroy than his is. He has essentially ruined himself.”

Ember blinked. “You intended that from the start. You’re trying to make him look incompetent, to seize his estate.”

“He is incompetent. And his family has been…challenging. For some time. Did you know that his father seriously lobbied to resume production of Cores? I don’t even think the fool realized how insulting that is to me. Needless to say, he was dealt with. With great discretion but also great efficiency.”

“Then that story, about the old parliament…it wasn’t even true, was it?”

Twilight shook her head. “That, I leave up to you to decide. But there was indeed a strong chance that I was blatantly lying to you.”

“Hmm,” said Ember. “I can see why your kingdom is so successful.” She looked down at Starlight. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you ate a pony. That I saw with my own eyes.”

“I ate a criminal,” said Twilight. “There was no loss.”

“I may not know much about pony culture,” said Ember, “but I’m pretty sure that you have a taboo against cannibalism.”

“As a Princess, most taboos don’t apply to me, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunatly?”

Twilight nodded. “I’ve done things. Many horrible things. If you even simply knew, you would most likely sleep as poorly as I do.”

“Then I don’t want to know. I never did.” Ember paused. “That said, you did what you had to. It is a burden of being a ruler.”

“That is what I tell myself.” Her eyes slowly tilted upward toward Ember. “But with that said, I do hope that as my new friend, you will take care to make sure that none of this reaches Starlight Glimmer.”

“The High Priestess? Or what?”

“I’d rather not threaten a dragon. I know it can be seen as…insulting. However, I would really rather not add genocide to the list of things I wish I had the luxury of regretting.”

“I’m not going to throw away our hard-won acceptance for something so petty. But, yes. Your secret is safe with me.” She gripped her staff tightly. “And my word is law for all dragons. Including myself.”

“Thank you.”

Ember nodded. She paused for a moment, but then spoke in a slightly less harsh tone. “You really care about your High Priestess, don’t you?”

“I greatly admire her, yes,” replied Twilight.

“No. That’s not it. There’s more to it than just admiration.”

“Is there?” asked Twilight. “To me, that’s the simplest way to say it.” She sighed. “When I took the throne of Equestria, at first, I was heavily invested in the mechanical aspects of ruling. Consolidating power, removing dissent, spreading my influence and negotiating alliances.” She looked up at Ember. “It was in my nature. It still is. I was created to rule. It is my only purpose, what I was constructed for.” She turned to the window. “But I had no emotional investment in Equestria itself. I didn’t care about the people or the society, just leveraging my power and taking control.”

“Following in the tradition of Celestia and Luna, no doubt.”

Twilight nodded. “But Starlight…Starlight was different. I took her with me, and she stood at my side with such conviction, such passion. In truth? I never really cared much about the Cores, or the breeders. Not at first. But Starlight did. She never wavered from bringing her vision to fruition, of the goal of equality for all. I had never seen passion like that, or a pony able to wield it toward her goals like that. You can say it left an impression on me.”

“What kind of impression?”

“You’ve no doubt seen it. I realized that my method was wrong, that what I was doing was wrong. Through her eyes, I learned to love Equestria, to understand the SIGNIFICANCE of my role. That I could make the world a better place, like she had. That I could have a purpose greater than the one I was born with.”

“Then she is your inspiration.”

“My inspiration, and my friend. One of my only friends these days.” For when she was not strong enough. Starlight had not just inspired her, but had been there in her times of weakness, to help drive away the trauma that was deeply ingrained in her mind. These things, of course, she could not tell Ember. “Those horrible things?” she said. “I try my best not to do them anymore. Because I know what Starlight would think of them.” She lowered her head. “Which is why it saddens me so much to see her in her current state.”

“Current state? I have not met her. I do not understand.” Ember paused. “Unless you mean that she’s lost her passion.”

Twilight nodded. “She’s been here with me for so long…but she accomplished her goals…Ember,” said Twilight, looking up at the dragon, “is it selfish of me? To keep her with me, even after everything she needed to do in this life is concluded?”

“That’s arrogant,” said Ember, harshly.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s arrogant. To think that you know when she’s done. To think that she even CAN be done. Her life is hers. If she finished one goal, then it’s time to move onto the next. No one is ever ‘done’ with life. I’m surprised you could even say that about a friend you love.”

“Yes…” said Twilight. “I see…”

There was an electrical arcing sound, and Ember looked down to see Twilight gone. Confused and somewhat spooked, she looked around to see Twilight now standing farther down the hall, approaching a pair of Priestesses. One of them was blind and badly scarred, but the other quite beautiful.

“My Princess,” said the scarred one. “It is time to go.”

“I now, Shining Blossom,” said Twilight. She looked over her shoulder. “If you will excuse me, Dragonlord. I have an appointment to speak at graduation, and I need to prepare.”

“Graduation? I was not aware that the Princess of Equestria bothered with such things.”

“I do when I have time. But this case is special. This is the graduation for the New Moonrise Alternative School. I founded it myself with the intention of giving an education to convicts eligible for impending release. All education is dear to me, but this school especially so.”

“Really?” said Ember, somewhat incredulous. “I thought you detested criminals.”

Twilight shook her head. “No. Not at all. I like to believe that a pony is able to change, if she is offered a second chance.”

Author's Notes:

It is my belief that dramatic irony is the opposite of mystery. In mystery, someone in the story knows something that the audience does not; in dramatic irony, the audience knows something the characters do not. This is meant to be a case of the latter.

Chapter 22: The Justicar

Scootaloo slumped over the table in front of her, putting her forehead against the polymer varnished surface. People were mulling around her; some were sitting at the restaurant’s other tables, while others were walking around, talking, laughing, oblivious to the pony sitting amongst them. It felt strange, because unlike the often sinister people of Omega, these individuals were happy and peaceful. Scootaloo found herself wishing she could be like them.

Instead, she felt sick. The noise of the people and the dusty atmosphere only made the deep, crushing sensation in the pit of her stomach worse. The headaches had partially lessened, but the memories had not left her. If anything, they kept playing. Always the same, and always on repeat. The gun. Twilight, and her sharp teeth. Trixie dying. The knowledge that Scootaloo had been the one to pull the trigger. Every time these images flashed through Scootaloo’s mind, she felt so much worse.

Six approached the table, levitating a pair of glasses in her magic. She lifted herself into one of the chairs. It was clearly not optimized for a pony, but she was large enough that she fit reasonably well. She passed the larger glass to Scootaloo.

“Here,” she said. “You probably need this.”

“What?” said Scootaloo, somewhat dazed. “Oh.” She pulled the glass closer to her and Six lowered a straw into it. Scootaloo took a long sip and then almost jumped out of her seat. It took everything she had not to vomit.

“Oh hell!” she cried. “Six, what is that?!”

“A 14% ryncol solution. Honestly, you look like you could use something much stronger, but over 14% would probably kill you.”

“THAT’S ryncol?! Ugh, I’ve never had anything…whoa…” she felt her head already swimming. Her stomach felt as though she had just eaten a surprising amount of ground glass. “What the hell…” She shook her head vigorously. “My sister used to drink that stuff straight. Two bottles a day.”

“Straight?” said Six, her eyes widening. “Are you sure? They don’t even serve rycol over 70% here. Because it combusts on exposure to oxygen. Two bottles straight…that must have been terrible on her liver…”

“She died of cirrhosis.”

“Oh- -oh, I’m sorry,” said Six. “I didn’t know!”

“The trouble with being a chronic alcoholic,” she said, taking another sip and wincing as she swallowed the salty, acrid fluid. She looked up, her vision shifting slightly, and she saw Seven swooping in from above and Inte’s mobile platform approached from the same direction. Seven took her place next to Six, and Inte sat down on Scootaloo’s right. Both were holding their own drinks.

“Please tell me you’re not having ryncol too,” said Scootaloo, watching as Six sipped at her glass.

“What? Oh, no. Appearances to the contrary, I am not that manly. Cognac for me.” She looked in Seven’s glass. “And that would be kvass. Eew.”

“And I have the lactic solution of a turian!” said Inte, excitedly. “Because I am thinking of miwkies!” She lifted the glass to her mouth and took a long sip. Being a hologram, though, the fluid almost immediately spilled through her body and onto the floor. She looked down at it, appearing somewhat disappointed.

“It’s not actually from turians,” said Six. “You know that, right?”

Inte’s face scrunched. “Of course I am aware of that fact.”

“Six,” said Scootaloo, looking around at the people that surrounded her. They were all happy and smiling, but the crowd was large. She could not possibly see everyone in it. “Are you sure we’re safe here?”

“Safe? Yes, of course,” said Six. “This is Feros. Widely considered one of the greenest places in the galaxy.”

“I can see why,” remarked Scootaloo as a green asari passed by.

“The locals here are known for their peacefulness and hospitality,” continued Six. Seven turned her head slightly, and Six seemed to respond. “Yes, and for their freakish tendency to behave in unison. They do not take kindly to bounty hunters, or to violence at all. If anyone even tried to look for you here, there is no chance they would dare to attack.”

“Why do they function in unison?” asked Inte.

Six leaned forward. “They say there was once a thorian here. And that pieces of it are still alive, down below, in the ruins. I don’t know if I’d believe that, though.”

“I’ve met thorians,” said Scootaloo.

“W- -what?”

“There’s a large number of them in the Crystal Empire. Out on distant planets. There’s even a smaller one on the Imperium, it functions like an embassy. They tend to be…finicky. Very isolationist.”

“Holy crap,” said Six, taking a larger sip of cognac.

Scootaloo looked at her ryncol, and was about to take a sip when her eyes shifted to Inte. She was smiling and cheerful as ever, even after her “body”- -as in the ship that she operated- -had taken massive damage and was still under repair. Something even greater was disturbing Scootaloo, though.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” she said.

“We almost died is what happened,” said Six. “Only by a miracle did we survive.”

“I don’t believe in miracles. You saw them, didn’t you? Those ships?”

Six averted her eyes. “No,” she said. “I don’t recognize them. Neither does Seven.”

Scootaloo turned to Inte. “But you do, don’t you?”

“I am afraid I do not understand the question,” said Inte, acting confused. She tilted her head slightly to the side. “To which ships are you referring to?”

“The ones you called!”

Inte blinked. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I do not understand to what you are referring to.”

“The distress signal!”

Six leaned forward. “After the harmonic shield failed, you issued a fifth-dimensional quantum entanglement signal. You linked to another quant.”
“No, I did not,” said Inte. ‘
“Why are you lying to me, Inte?”

Inte looked hurt. “I am not lying. I have no recollection of the events you are describing. When my harmonic shield was destroyed, the feedback into my consciousness caused [redacted].”

Scootaloo blinked. “ What does ‘redacted’ mean?”

Inte paused. “I don’t know. As I said, I have no memory between the time when the shield collapsed and when my IFF emulation software activated to use the mass-relay system. I am sorry, but I was offline during that period. I am afraid you are mistaken.”

“Well that’s just bucking great,” said Scootaloo. She sat up suddenly and slammed her hooves on the table, nearly spilling her ryncol. “Because one of you is lying to me. Or all of you are! And I thought you were my friends. How the hell am I supposed to trust you if you can’t trust me?”

Six and Seven looked at each other, and then Six sighed. “The quant is not lying,” she said. “Her VI does not have full access to the content of all her programs. To her, the events we saw really didn’t happen. Her software redacted it from her memory.”

“I find that unlikely,” said Inte, “if not impossible.”

“She’s programmed to hide it,” said Six. “In fact, there’s a strong possibility that she knows but is simply programmed to pretend not to know. She’s not actually a pony; there would be no way for us to tell the difference between her not knowing and lying. Functionally, the two are the same.” She paused. “But…I’m afraid I really did lie.”

Scootaloo glared at her. “Six? What do you mean you lied?”

“Look,” she said, recoiling from Scootaloo’s disapproving gaze. “You need to understand. When I said you were our friend, I was not lying. And I would have helped you pro bono, if it had come down to it.”

“Six…?”

She shifted in her seat. “But this isn’t pro bono. We’re getting paid. A substantial amount. More than we ever have, really.”

“Six…” Scootaloo was not sure how she felt. She was angry, but not to the point where she actually felt a need to hit or turn away from Six. That would have made it easy. Instead, she felt betrayed. Instead of walking away, she just sighed. “How could you?”

“I- -you have to understand, Scootaloo, I was getting paid to do something I would have gladly done anyway!”

“Who is paying you?” asked Scootaloo. “WHO?”

Six looked Scootaloo in the eye. “I don’t know. Neither of us do. They never told us, and for this price, we didn’t ask. I didn’t even see their faces. They only contacted us a few hours before you showed up at our doorstep.”

“And what did they pay you to do?” Scootaloo leaned forward. “Six…Seven…did they pay you to kill me?”

“NO!” shouted Six, loud enough draw the attention from several greenish looking aliens. Six noticed this, and sat back down, blushing. “No, Scootaloo! I could never do that! Not to you! I would die before I let them take you again!” She took a breath and tried to calm herself. “No. Their only request was that we keep you safe, until.”

“Until what?”

“Until the Goddess Rises,” said Inte, taking a sip of her milk.

“What?” said Scootaloo, turning sharply.

Inte appeared confused. “I do not know. I do not understand. My data on the subject is limited or restricted. Need input.”

Scootaloo looked back to the pair of alicorns. She still felt betrayed, but only because they had not told her earlier. “You should have said something.”

“We didn’t think it was necessary. Not yet.”

“Well, it was. You thought wrong.” Scootaloo sighed and put her head on her hoof. “Fine. And do you think those black ships had something to do with it?”

“What I think is that someone is pulling strings,” said Six. “And the more I see the strings, the more concerned I grow. I don’t like this.”

Seven nodded in agreement.

“Neither do I,” said Scootaloo, taking another long sip of ryncol. “Celestia damn it…why does NOTHING MAKE SENSE?!”

“I just ignore it,” said Inte. “It’s easier that way.”

“I have some contacts,” said Six. “I can try to find someth- -”

“That’s not it,” said Scootaloo, putting her hoof on her suddenly aching head. “Not just the ships, not just me. I hate being a pawn. HATE it. But I’m still missing something. This…this is just too much.” She looked up at Six. “Starlight just tried to kill me. Starlight. Starlight Glimmer! We were Priestesses of Harmony! She was one of my best friends! She was a frigging bridesmaid at my wedding!” That thought made Scootaloo’s breath suddenly catch as the image of that day passed through her mind. The bright light of the Equestrian sun, the crowds, the flowers, her sister and an all-white Pegasus beside her- -and Trixie dressed all in white. The pain of that memory was too much to bear. “And what she said…”

“It wasn’t true!” said Six. “Scootaloo, I may not know your life history, but I do know enough concerning you to know that you would NEVER hurt a pony that you love!”

“But I DID. I remember it! I- -I shot her. With something. Some kind of gun, one I don’t recognize. She…she died.”

Six looked dumbfounded. “But…but why?”

“I don’t remember!” shouted Scootaloo, tears welling in her eyes. “It hurts, it hurts so much- -but I JUST DON’T KNOW!”

Six leaned back off of her chair and got up. She walked around the table and sat down next to Scootaloo, then put one of her forelegs around Scootaloo’s much smaller body. Scootaloo resisted at first, but Six held tightly.

“Listen to me,” she said, “your memories are still damaged. But it’s going to be okay. You shot her. Okay. So what?”

“So what?! I shot my wife- -”

“But you don’t know under what circumstances! Maybe you were justified! It’s impossible to know without the rest of the memory! Besides…” She paused. “This is going to sound callous. But if I need to be the callous one, so be it. Scootaloo, she’s been dead for centuries. What has it been? Two hundred fifty years? Two hundred and sixty? She would be dead by now anyway.”

Scootaloo looked up at Six, and then pushed her away. “If you think that makes me feel any better, you don’t know me at all.”

Six looked hurt, but accepted Scootaloo’s rejection. She slid away from Scootaloo and to Seven’s side. “Regardless,” she said, opening her omnitool and checking it, “we are going to do our job. And I am going to keep my word to you. We are going to protect you.”

“Really? Because you’re doing a stellar job of it so far.” She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But what are you supposed to do? Two alicorns and one…robot thing.”

“Quant thing,” corrected Inte. “I am a quant thing.”

“You won’t just have two alicorns,” said Six, pointing to her omnitool. “How many alicorns are alive today? Nine? Well, we now have just under half of them.”

Six shifted and gestured over her shoulder. Scootaloo leaned and, just as Six had said, saw two more ponies approaching. Both were violet alicorns, and both looked almost identical to Twilight- -but at the same time were as different from each other as Six was from Seven.

One of them was tall and fit, her hair cropped into a short military haircut and her expression serious. She wore a suit of freshly painted heavy armor that covered most of her body, making her size seem even more imposing. She was at least as tall as Seven, but not as wide as Six.

Beside her was a pony of ordinary height that gave the impression of being her exact opposite. Although they shared the same face, the smaller pony looked mischievous and joyful. She was wearing a version of fine civilian clothing- -something of a semi-dress with attached sleeves and gloves- -and had her hair cut in such a way that a pair of long bangs framed her face.

“Nine? Eight?” said Scootaloo.

“Who else would we be?” said the taller of the two, Nine, as she reached the table. She looked Scootaloo over and smiled. “You know, I almost thought Six had finally gone senile when she said you were actually still alive. I really dig the hair, too. You look good butch.”

“And what the hell,” said Scootaloo, momentarily forgetting why she had been so sad and angry, although she was still highly conscious of the tear stains running down her face. “You got so big!”

“Roids will do that to you,” said Eight.

Nine glared at her and then, not to anyone’s surprise, took a swing at her. There was a pop and a flash of pink-violet light, and Eight disappeared before Nine’s armored hoof could strike her.

“Too slow,” she said, now sitting across the table where Six had been sitting before.

“One of these days,” said Nine. “I’m going to strangle you.”

“Oh please, you don’t even have fingers. Besides, you know I’m into that kind of thing.”

“So?”

“So, I’m coming up on an estrus cycle. How about you strip me down and lay me across the hood of the SR2 and ‘choke’ me all night long?”

“Scootaloo could join you!” said Inte. “You could choke the chicken!”

“No!” said Six, perhaps too vehemently. “No, I mean, we don’t have time for incest right now.”

“There’s always time for incest,” said Eight. She nudged Seven with her elbow. “Huh? Huh? Do you come here often, cutie?”

Seven just looked at her, and Eight backed off. “Still doing the whole ‘strong silent type’, I see.” She shrugged. “Well, I guess it works. You should really own the whole derp thing though. How about a round of drinks? On me.”

There was a flash of light and several glasses appeared on the table, teleported into their location by Eight’s magic. Nine looked at hers and for the first time seemed somewhat pleased. She sat down at the table and lifted it in her magic and took a sip. “Ah,” she said. “Pure grain alcohol and distilled water.”

“I know how much you like to protect those precious bodily fluids.”

“That damn fluoride,” muttered Nine under her breath.

“There is no scientific evidence that fluoride is toxic! Besides, it helps your teeth!”

“Yeah!” said Eight. “Look at Seven!”

“Science can kiss my sexy horse plot,” said Nine, downing her alcohol. She directed her attention at Scootaloo. “It’s good to see you, though, Scoots.”

“Indeed,” said Eight. “You look good for your age.”

“I’m only thirteen years older than you.”

“You are?” said Six. “You are…I forget that sometimes.”

“It’s because she’s so small,” said Inte, matter-of-factly.

“I was frozen,” said Scootaloo.

“Really? I hope they rotated you a bit. Or else you’d get super freezerburnt.”

“The freezerburn was quite extensive,” said Inte, nodding knowingly.

“Who the hell froze you?” demanded Nine, seeming offended by the very idea. “Why the hell would someone try to do that?”

“I don’t…I don’t…” Scootaloo’s stomach suddenly gurgled, and her vision began to swam as her whole body suddenly felt absolutely terrible. “Oh crap,” she said, standing up. “I think I’m going to puke.”

“I strongly recommend against that,” said Six. “If you think ryncol is bad going down, it is two hundred times worse on the way up!”

“You gave her ryncol?” said Nine. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Nine jabbed Six hard in the shoulder.

They began to argue, but Scootaloo hardly heard them. She weaved her way through the crowd, stumbling toward the restrooms of the large outdoor restaurant and bar. The dizziness and sickness only increased, and the noise of four Twilight clones and a hologram pony did not make things easier when her mind was already weighed down by her situation. Really, she had just wanted to sleep. Now, though, she wanted to retch, badly.

Six had been more right than Scootaloo had ever imagined was possible. Drinking ryncol had been like trying to swallow red-hot iron filings, but sending it back up made Scootaloo feel as though her organs were at risk of being expelled- -which, with the amount of blood that ended up in the toilet that she was desperately hugging, did not seem all that inconceivable.

During the process, Scootaloo found herself reminded of all the times during her fillyhood that she had seen Rainbow Dash doing the exact same thing. It usually happened late at night when Rainbow did not think anyone could see her, usually after trying and failing to drink herself into unconsciousness. Sometimes, on the really bad nights- -usually when the Wonderbolts were in the area- -Scootaloo would hear her sobbing softly and cursing her largely nonfunctional transplanted wing.

These memories in combination with the agony of vomiting krogan alcohol made Scootaloo realize that this was not the right thing to do. She had seen Rainbow Dash destroy herself; even in her hazy, disjointed later memories, she recalled that Rainbow Dash had been trying and badly failing at becoming sober, relapsing time and time again. Scootaloo knew that this was not a way she could actually deal with her problems. She could hide them, but she needed to eventually face them, head on. In her case, it was especially important. No one hid from the Cult forever. Resorting to alcoholism was a death sentence.

This realization terrified her. The problem, she found, was that she did not know what to do. She had no idea in the slightest. Originally, she had thought that she could convince Twilight that there had been a mistake- -but now she knew that there never had been a mistake at all. Scootaloo had betrayed and murdered Trixie. She was still not sure why, but she understood why she was hunted and why she deserved to die. Despite understanding this, though, she did not want to go down easily, and found herself wracking her brain for another solution. Try as she might, though, none came.

After nearly half an hour, Scootaloo finally believed that she was done. She released her toilet and, shaking, stood. She felt less ill, but now she felt feverish and dizzy from the blood loss. Whatever was in ryncol, it appeared to be mildly toxic to her.

Bracing herself, though, she forced herself to stand straight and maintain balance. That was another thing that she had learned from watching Rainbow Dash: the ability to hide pain and sickness very, very well.

She waited for a moment, and then left the stall. She found that the restroom was empty, save for one individual standing near the mirrors: a biped dressed entirely in silvery, excessively bulky armor. From the look of her, Scootaloo assumed that she was a quarian, although with the armor it was challenging to tell.

Scootaloo walked up to a sink and stood on her hind legs. Even then, she was only able to just barely reach the bowl, let alone the mirror. The armored biped looked down at her with a pair of disintesrted, luminescent eyes that were visible through her cloudy mask. As she did, Scootaloo saw what the biped had been doing: it was holding an enormous syringe filled with muddy brown fluid and injecting the fluid into a port on its neck.

“Tu as un air terrible,” she said with a heavily distorted voice. She pulled the syringe out of her neck. Scootaloo grimaced when she saw that the needle was at least four inches long.

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, not understanding whatever alien language she was speaking. “Thanks.”

“Vous mourrez probablement bientôt. Je vais te manger quand tu le feras. J'aime le poulet.”

“I don’t speak quarian,” said Scootaloo. “I’m sorry.”

The woman mumbled something and then threw the empty syringe into the string. She left, and Scootaloo tried to reach the mirror for a bit longer, but found that it was simply too high. Eventually she gave up and left as well.

When Scootaloo stepped out into the sunlight, she winced from the brightness and immediately began trying look for her table. As she did, though, she heard a voice from behind her.

“Scootaloo of Equestria?”

Scootaloo turned around and looked up to see a pale asari standing behind her. The asari was dressed in unusual red and black armor with a long slit down the front, a thick golden choker, and a strange red-colored tiara-like feature affixed to her forehead. Their eyes met, and for a moment the world seemed to freeze. Then Scootaloo saw the asari’s hand slide up to the handle of the sword on her back.

The world seemed to continue to move in slow motion, and Scootaloo felt herself begin to move out of pure instinct. The asari was amazingly fast, but even with her extensive frost-damage, Scootaloo was both physically fit and physically small. She pushed herself back, her tiny wings whirring as if they could help her, and turned as she moved.

The sword came down, and Scootaloo was knocked back. She twisted in the air and landed on her feet out of her striking range. To her absolute astonishment, though, she suddenly fell to one side. Her mind simply could not register why she was suddenly unable to stand- -or why her front left leg was lying on the ground two meters from the rest of her.

The asari moved with beautiful swiftness. The blue corona around her sword trailed through the air as she shifted her weight and in a single motion closed the distance between Scootaloo and shifted her hold on the sword to strike a final blow.

Instead, though, she suddenly turned, holding the sword flat and bracing it with her free hand barely in time to deflect an immense violet singularity. The explosion of the biotic energy in her sword reacting with the attack was deafening, and people in the area immediately started screaming and trying to escape.

Scootaloo, still lying on the ground, saw the asari knocked backward by a blinding tech flare. She heard weapons firing, and rolled over, facing the sky and trying to sit up. Something was wrong though. Her body would not respond to her thoughts. Her mind wondered why, and cursed the fact that she had landed in a puddle. A puddle that seemed to be growing rapidly.

In her peripheral vision, Scootaloo saw Seven charge the asari, leaping at her with a horribly indecipherable scream of rage. Somewhere else a magical beam cut through the air, slicing a deep gouge in the nearby building.

There was a surge of pink light near Scootaloo, and Eight suddenly dropped to the ground near her. Scootaloo saw the panic on the alicorns’ face as she looked down at Scootaloo.

“Oh fuck,” she said, teleporting in a boxed medical kit and opening her omnitool. “Oh fuck oh fuck OH FUCK…”

“Eight,” said Scootaloo, feeling her body starting to spasm and shake. “I feel…cold. Why do I feel cold?”

“It’s definitely not because your dying. You’re not dying! Hold on damn it!”

She began working frantically. Scootaloo did not know what she was doing, but her mind was starting to realize that something was horribly wrong. Not just with the situation- -but that she was even more badly injured than Eight was aware.

Scootaloo’s eyes tilted up, and she saw the asari, her body ignited completely with blue light, sending out a barrage of biotic projectiles. Nine, in the distance, barely managed to get to cover in time, although she continued firing with the several rifles that she was levitating around her person. With one fluid motion, the asari suddenly pivoted, and the biotic spheres that had not yet struck Nine’s cover changed direction, arcing into Seven and breaking apart her shields and the several combat drones following her. All in the same motion, the asari raised her hand at Scootaloo, and another blast of energy shot out.

Before the bolts could strike, a pink-violet dome erupted over her and Eight. Scootaloo looked up to see a much larger alicorn standing beside Eight.

“What’s the situation, Eight?” demanded Six.

“It’s bad, it’s goddamn bad!” said Eight, on the verge of panic. “It’s a clean amputation with a biotic reave effect- -I can stop the bleeding but I can’t stop it from spreading! We have to get her back to your ship!”

The asari drew her sword and shifted it in her palms to point it downward. She slammed it directly into Six’s barrier, and the Six grimaced as her horn was forced to glow much brighter to compensate. The asari’s power seemed almost godlike, though, because rather than be repelled by by Six’s alicorn magic, she braced herself and with a cry drove the sword deeper. The dome distorted as the point of the blade began to cut through, and Six was forced to her knees.

“Teleport her out!” cried Six. “I can’t hold this for long!”

“But- -you, and the others! I can’t leave you!”

“That doesn’t matter! Get her to safety!”

Eight looked like she was about to cry, but nodded and charged her horn. Scootaloo felt her body spark with energy, but then screamed in agony as the entire right side of her body burst open with blue flame. She smelled something burning.

“Oh crap oh crap oh crap- -no! Sorry, I’m sorry!” She turned to her sister. “I can’t move her! The reave effect is too strong!” cried Eight, shifting the position of her omnitool. “Hold on, I have an idea! We need cover! I knew I was saving these for something epic…”

She poked at her omnitool with her bloodied free hoof and her magic, and her horn charged with magic the same color as Six’s. Scootaloo, who was now nearly unconscious, saw three massive flashes of light outside of Six’s barrier. Three enormous white objects appeared, and immediately began unfolding into gigantic bipedal machines.

“System initializing,” they said in identical deep, robotic voices one after the other. The first one to unfold turned to the asari. “YMIR model 37-G: engaging enemy.”

A barrage of bullets spewed forth from the first mech, followed by the second and third. The asari was forced to jump to the side, only to be side-kicked hard by Seven in the face.

Scootaloo, now doubled over in pain, felt herself being picked up and laid across Six’s back. She felt her surprisingly soft wings against her belly. They were so well maintained, and Scootaloo felt bad for getting so much blood on them. By this time, though, the shock was so extensive that it had lowered her blood pressure to the point where her brain, though conscious, had stopped thinking. She hung limply as she was carried away, leaving her severed leg behind.

To her distant left, Samara saw her target retreating. The Equestrian had been faster than she had anticipated, and though the wound was substantial, it had not resulted in a confirmed kill. She immediately turned and began sprinting toward them, her sword ready to strike down the small horse as well as her allies, when she encountered sudden resistance. Her flesh tingled and then burned as she realized that she had been trapped in a biotic field, and she shifted her own field. The reaction was almost frighteningly slow, though, and Samara barely managed to escape the telekinetic field before a barrage of rockets from the nearest YMIR mech released a barrage of lethal rockets into the position where she had just been.

The fight, was, in itself, astounding. Samara had lived a long time, but she could not recall having participated in such a challenging battle in several centuries. These winged unicorns were far more powerful than she had initially expected. In fact, their raw biotic power was substantially greater than hers. Had she been any other asari, she would not have survived longer than a few seconds against one of them, let alone a small flock. As a Justicar, though, she did not need power to fight them. She instead drew on her experience and skill, and through that found herself in a position of advantage.

One of the horses, a tall armored one, was firing at her. Samara assessed the situation and realized that that particular horse was not trying to actually kill her directly; instead, she was using interference rounds to attempt to lower her shield so that the YMIRs could engage. Samara countered by dropping into a crouched position and focused her biotic energy into her legs. With a single burst, she closed the distance between her and her target. She drew her sword and slammed it into the pony’s side, only to have it stopped by a suit of tech armor that suddenly appeared around her. Samara barely turned in time to see the second horse- -the one with long, sharp teeth who had projected the tech armor- -behind her.

Samara twisted, but still took the brunt of a neural overload attack. Her body was racked with pain, but she dealt with it, ignoring it as she struck out at the second horse- - only to receive a damaging biotic blast into her back from her original opponent.

The combination of the attacks staggered her, and she retreated several steps. She expected them to redouble their efforts, at which point she was in a position to strike down the taller of the two- -but instead they spread their wings and lifted into the air, following after their comrades.

“It will not be that easy,” said Samara, placing her sword on her back and charging both of her hands with biotic energy. She was about to fire at them when her already damaged shield was broken by the rapid-fire weapons of the mechs. She was forced to fire at them, but their shields and armor absorbed her blows easily. They continued to advance on her, and as they did, she saw the symbols emblazoned on their chests.

“Cerberus,” she said.

“Function nominal,” said one of the robots. “Target acquired. Primary mission: ‘kill in the name of the sexy horse-girl Eight’. Achieving mission…”

“So be it,” said Samara, standing firm as the robots advanced. She drew her hands together and concentrated. The robots continued to march forward, but Samara did not move.

Then she looked up, and unleashed all of her biotic power at once. The effect was barely controlled, and she could hardly even keep the blast moving in one direction. The shockwave struck them with such great force that the first one was instantly torn apart, along with most of the ground and any material substance unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast. The two behind it were stumbled, and then lifted off the ground and slammed against it with enough force to imbed them into the floor and into the beams of prothean metal that made up the rest of the tower below.

The shockwave continued backward, sending everything it touched flying. Samara had been able to control it poorly, but most of the people in its path had already gotten out of the way. The few that remained were thrown about like toys.

While most of the civilians had escaped, though, one table remained occupied. When the shockwave hit it, a red-colored dome erupted over its two occupants, protecting them from the blast.

Samara ducked behind a planter that had mostly survived her blast just barely in time to avoid the explosion of the wounded YMIRs detonating themselves. The explosion was impressive, and actually stunned her for a moment. After pausing to recharge some of her energy, though, she vaulted over the planter and charged in the general direction of the table that had produced the inexplicable red hemisphere. It was not actually relevant to her, though; she only went in that direction because she could see the violet tail of a pony waving through the crowd in that direction. With their defenses defeated, it was now simply a matter of the chase- -a chase that she could easily win.

Once again, Samara sprinted, chasing after the ponies and the Equestrian Scootaloo. She cleared the crater that the YMIRs had made in a single leap, and landed on the far side. As she pushed through the shattered and overturned tables, though, one of the two figures at the only surviving table stood, blocking Samara’s path.

The figure was dressed in what seemed to be a heavy, hooded garment that blocked his features. As he stood, though, he removed the hood of his cloak. His appearance gave Samara momentary pause. She was one of only a few remaining in the galaxy who were old enough to remember what humans had looked like- -and, for the most part, this man was human. His skin was gray and sickly pale to the point of translucency, and his black hair was greasy and unpleasant looking. The only part of him that appeared distinctly inhuman were his pinkish eyes, and the pupils that narrowed into a pair of vertical slits when exposed to the Ferosan sunlight.

Samara attempted to go around him, but he stepped in front of her.

“I do not want to kill you,” she said. “But move, or I will.”

The human turned to his companion, who Samara assessed as a quarian in excessively bulky silver-colored armor. “I am sorry about our lunch. But you are going to want to get to a safe distance.”

She looked up at him and nodded, then stood and ran. The human turned back to Samara, and her muscles tightened, preparing to strike him down. For a moment, he seemed about to fight, but then instead of launching an attack, he stuck out his right hand. “Hell, my name is Eloth,” he said, smiling broadly. “And I want to be your friend!”

“So be it,” said Samara, drawing her sword and feeling the centrifuge rev as she sliced across his body.

Instead of cutting, though, the sword suddenly stopped. The human had blocked the blade with one of his forearms. For a moment, Samara stared dumbfounded. The sword had been precision manufactured to align to her biotics, and it was capable of cutting a krogan in half if used at the right angle with enough force and proper technique. Though she had cut nearly half an inch into the human’s arm, it had not even severed it. Instead, Samara saw a small red section of biotic barrier protecting him.

“Well, that’s surprising,” he said, eyeing the sword. “I was under the impression that the asari were a spear-wielding culture. A sword is an interesting choice for a Justicar.”

Samara moved backward, retreating for a moment in her uncertainty. As she did, the absurdity of the situation began to dawn on her. She was staring down a human, a member of a race that had been driven to extinction centuries ago. Not only that, but he had nonchalantly deflected a direct sword blow. This did not frighten her, but it caused her to curse her momentary lapse into arrogance for believing too strongly in her own superiority.

She looked past the human, and saw a starship rising from the far edge of the tower. In the distance she saw her target escaping.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said, placing her sword on her back.

“I think we do,” said the human, cheerfully. “I mean, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding. We don’t need to resort to violence. I’m sure if we just talk about it- -”

With a roar, Samara unleashed another shockwave. It ripped through the ground toward the human. He seemed startled, but raised one of his hands. There was a flash of red light, and suddenly everything in his immediate vicinity was vaporized as his own shockwave burst forth. The entire tower seemed to shake, and the floor was torn to pieces that turned into shrapnel. The human’s shockwave struck Samara’s and instantly overwhelmed it as though it were nothing.

What Samara was seeing should not have been possible. Its possibility, though, was not her concern. She jumped back, letting her own shockwave act as cover , and then knelt down, coating herself in the best biotic barrier she could generate after using so much power on the shockwave.

Her barrier was barely enough, and the feeling of the shockwave washing over her was roughly equivalent to standing in the midst of an orbital bombardment. It took far more energy than Samara expected to absorb the blast without being torn apart on a molecular level.

It did pass, though, and she did survive. After it had, she started to stand- -and felt a pair of hands close around her head.

“Of course,” said the human, suddenly behind her, even though she had not seen him move. His voice sounded different than before. It was no longer cheerful, but it was not angry, either. Instead, he just sounded so empty. “Don’t take that to mean that I’m not capable of violence. It’s just so much work. Oh well.”

Suddenly, Samara started screaming. He was not hurting her physically, but she could feel him suddenly entering her mind. His mind forced its way past her mental barriers, penetrating into her. She tried to resist, but somehow he was stronger, and time seemed to slow down as the world seemed to fall away from her, leaving her floating in blackness.

She felt him, wrapping around her mind and infecting it, combining with her and merging their thoughts. It was more horrible than any physical torment he could have inflicted on her, and her mind writhed in pain. It was wrong- -HE was wrong. Whatever his mind was, it was not what it was supposed to be. His thoughts were broken and strange, incomprehensible and cold. It was the mental equivalent of being being dragged down by an animate but rotting corpse.

In her mind, she felt a sensation of humming, a kind of mental static. She distantly remembered it, but she could not tell from where- -and to her horror found she could not remember anything at all. He was taking her memories, changing them, rewriting them as he pressed deeper and deeper inside her.

“You don’t want to resist,” said his thoughts as they swarmed around her. “You don’t have reason to. You know that.”

“Why would you fight me? You agree with me. You have to.”

“I only want to help. I am correct. I am just.”

“My cause is just. You know that, you have to understand. Don’t you understand?”

“It…it is,” said Samara, feeling his voice come through hers as a distant echo. She was growing more calm, realizing that he was correct. She could see his mind, and she could see that he was not harmful- -that what he was trying to do really was best for her, and for the people around her.

“See?” he said. “I am only trying to help. I have always been trying to help.”

“To help YOU, Samara. To help everyone. I am peace. I am justice.”

“You…you are…”

“You can see that my goals are beneficial to us all. I am beneficial.”

“You love me.”

“I…love…”

“And you want to serve me, to serve this ultimate goal, to lead the galaxy into prosperity.”

“Serve me, Samara. Please. I need your help. Serve me. SERVE ME.”

“H…how?”

“Die.”

“Die.”

“Die.”

The voices became overwhelming, and in atavistic terror, Samara covered her ears. The voices did not stop, though, but rather swirled around her, taking shape. The sounds changed; instead of her voice reflected back at her, it was replaced by the sound of mortars, screams, of biotic blasts and bullets leaving guns in every direction.

Samara opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by a ghostly battlefield. Soldiers were running, sprinting into the fight. She could barely see them, and not make out their features, but she knew that she had returned to a familiar War.

The humming, static noise grew louder, coming from above. Samara looked to the inky sky, and from the darkness she saw a massive shape emerge, resolving into a leviathanesque, almost arthropod-like black ship hovering above the battlefield, its surface illuminated with a brilliant pair of glowing red eyes.

“I am the future, Samara,” it said in a voice that was a combination of the human’s, hers, and something much deeper and far more ancient. “And you are MINE.”

Samara dropped to her knees in the dust, knowing that she had lost. She felt her mind beginning to decay, and she knew that it was better that way. The voices were right. They knew what was best for her, and what was best for her was to allow her mind to be swallowed in the red fire that was consuming it. It would be painful, but it was necessary for the cause to survive.

“No! Samara!”

A different voice caused Samara to look up. Beside her, she saw one of the ghostly figures, although this one had been resolved into flesh: a human male, one that she had not seen in so many years but who she could never forget.

“Sh…Shepard?”

“Don’t give up, Samara!” he said. “Don’t let them win! Fight it! FIGHT IT!”

He then charged off into the afterimage of the battle that Samara knew had been his last. While so many others were retreating from fear of the looming shape that dominated the sky, driven by fear and panic, he rushed forward toward it.

Samara felt a spark within her. A sudden realization, a hole in the seemingly impenetrable logic that was running through her. She recognized that sound, and knew what was happening to her. She took a breath, and then stood.

“I was born asari, a daughter of Thessia,” she began, “and given a mind, a body, and a soul. With this Oath, I subsume what I was born as for what I shall become, and forever more be; I subsume myself to the Code, so that it may replace what I once was, and so that I might live by its will without ambiguity.”

“What are you doing?” said the deep voice, now lo longer with an echo of hers. “Stop. STOP.”

Samara did not stop. She continued, grasping and holding tightly to the deepest part of her being, to her Code. She recited it, line by line, proceeding through the countless thousands of verses. To her, it was not just a recitation from memory, but a declaration of fact. Slowly, who she was began to return to her.

Eventually she had forced the human out of her mind enough to take back control of her body. With one final push, she forced him out with everything she had. In the real world, she was conscious of the effect of this action: an incredibly energetic biotic explosion that threw the human free of her.

She immediately dropped to her knees, gasping. The world seemed to be shifting around her, and her cognition was slowed. Still, ignoring her weakened state, she looked up at the human. She saw that he had survived the explosion, but his arms had not. Both of his forearms had and hands had been reduced to charred bone.

“You- -you attempted to indoctrinate me,” she said in disbelief.

“No,” he said, flexing his fingers and confirming what Samara already knew. What she had initially mistaken for blackened bone was in fact a system of thin, skeletal robotics constructed of black-colored metal. “I was attempting to burn out your neural architecture. Essentially to lobotomize you. You should not have been able to force me out, though.” He paused, looking at Samara with a great deal of intesest. “Are you an Ardat-Yakshi?” He paused, and then answered his own question. “No…but you are a pureblood. And one step away from that evolution.” His pink-red eyes locked with hers. “But your daughters were. Morinth, Rila, Falare. They are all dead now. Because of you.”

“No,” said Samara.

“Yes. Morinth died by your own hand. Rila because you failed to save her. Falare to cure the disease you propagate.”

“No. I had to, I didn’t- -”

“I’m not lying. I am stating facts. Or, rather, stating what you believe.” He crouched down. “I saw your memories. For a brief moment, I WAS you. You blame yourself for them…but more than that.” He considered for a moment. “You blame yourself for having brought such cursed creatures into this world not once but three separate times.”

“NO!” cried Samara, drawing her sword and striking with all of her might. This time, the sword hit its target, striking the human in the neck. Once again, though, it only managed to cut through the skin on his surface, failing to penetrate the metal that ran just beneath.

“You know what?” he said, his expression suddenly darkening. “I’m really getting tired of this.” He reached up with one hand and took hold of the sword. The biotic energy that flowed through it ignited around his own hand, but it had no effect. There was no flesh to burn, no living material. Just a machine.

He started to pull the sword away, his hand on the blade, even as Samara put all of her force into keeping it against him. She was struggling, but he seemed to not even be trying.

“I will never understand why the galaxy progressed to the use of SWORDS. They are obsolete, POINTELESS weapons!”

He closed his fist around the blade. There was a surge of red light, and the biotic feedback between his energy and Samara’s caused such intense interference that the swords not only shattered but detonated, taking the lower half of Samara’s left arm with it.

She cried out and jumped back, grabbing at the bloody strips of flesh and shattered bone that had once been her limb.

The human’s eyes widened in shock. “Holy crap!” he swore. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t expect our biotics to be synchronized, that was- -oh, I’m so sorry, it shouldn’t have done that! I was just trying to be impressive, I just- -”

“I’m not dead yet,” said Samara, taking a breath and doing her best to control the pain.

The sympathy on the human’s face vanished completely, replaced by amusement. “No. You didn’t. Which is, in its own right, impressive.”

“Well, then?” said Samara.

“Well what?”

Samara took another breath and sighed. “I am defeated. With my limb removed, I can no longer fight you. Though I doubt I could have even with both and my sword. I concede. The appropriate response is for you to deal the final blow.”

The man looked confused. “Kill you? Why would I kill you?”

Samara’s expression hardened, her jaw clenching in rage. “You would insult me so?”

“Insult? Oh! No, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. My intention was never to kill you. I’m just the distraction.”

He leaned to the side, and far in the upper part of the tower, Samara’s eyes focused on the heavily armored quarian from before- -and the enormous blue-lit rifle that she was holding. There was a loud crack, and a snap of light. Samara’s shield immediately shattered, and the generator sparked and ignited, burning her where it was located.

Before she could remove the damaged equipment, the human stepped to the side and pointed with one hand toward the quarian. There was a flash of red light in the distance and one closer, and the quarian suddenly appeared feet from Samara.

The armored woman charged into a fight, swinging the bizzare rifle. As she did, Samara saw the device seem to change in her hand, shifting into something different, all the while releasing that same strange blue glow.

The interloper was fast, but Samara was faster. Even with one hand, she blocked the quarian’s first strike, setting her off balance in the process. It was not an easy task considering her armor. The quarian barely seemed to notice, striking wildly and without any regard to her own safety, aiming for areas of Samara’s body that were already injured. It was as though she were trying to cause pain without actually doing any real damage.

This was annoying to say the least, and when Samara finally got an opening, she took the opportunity to end the fight. She charged her remaining fist with biotic energy and struck the quarian in the face with all of her strength. Samara anticipated the blow to be lethal; not only did it have a tremendous striking force, but she could feel the biotic corona disrupting her target’s organs in ways that no quarian would be able to survive.

Except that the woman did not go down. The hit had shattered part of her mask, and that would have been a critical medical emergency for a quarian- -but in the instant she saw what was behind that mask, Samara realized that this was no quarian. Instead of a sickly face with reflective eyes staring back at her, she saw a wide, grinning smile and several curls of black hair that almost completely covered a large blue eye with a vernicle slit pupil.

“I win,” she said.

Samara looked down, and saw that the weapon that the woman had been holding had reconfigured itself into a knife- -and that it had been punched into her lower chest, right where the slit of her armor passed down between her breasts. The woman had opened herself up to a potentially lethal blow to strike one of her own.

“Armor, bitch, it’s why I wear it,” she said, twisting the blade and then pulling it out sharply.

Samara took a step back, staring in complete surprise. She did not know what kind of weapon that was, but it had completely bypassed her biotic barrier. Not only that, but it had penetrated her diaphragm and collapsed two of her lungs. It also seemed to have struck a major blood vessel, because she could feel herself bleeding internally. It did not feel pleasant.

The hole in her chest would have been instantly lethal to almost any other asari, but Samara used the last of her energy to attempt to reinforce her body using her biotics. She dropped to her knees, mortally wounded but not dead, and her opponent took the opportunity to kick her in the face, shattering her nose and sending her sprawling on her back.

As she fell, she felt her omnitool flicker to life. Someone was controlling it externally.

All at once, the sky was filled with hundreds of ships, all mass-jumping to Feros in massive succession. The sun was already low in the sky, and with the fleet of hundreds of ships of every size and shape, the sky was almost as dark as night.

“Damn that,” said the woman, putting her finger to her ear. “It looks like SOMEONE just transmitted information that Scootaloo was on Feros to pretty much every bounty hunter in…well…everywhere. Even me, but I already knew that.” She looked over her shoulder at the human man, who was now watching the proceedings without participating.

“Eloth,” she said. “Handle this.”

“On it,” he said, raising his hands. He focused his energy into his biotics and ignited his arms with red light. As he did, the majority of the ships overhead ignited with the same light. There were more than he had anticipated, and he actually had to use a nontrivial amount of power to reach all of them.

Then, with one quick motion, he lowered his arms. The ships were dragged downward by his biotic force. Some resisted, their engines straining against the foreign mass-effect field, but none of them were strong enough. Eloth accelerated them, driving them through the dusty cloud cover below and feeling the resonance in his being and on his long-range sensors as they smashed into the planet below.

Almost immediately, though, something in his perception changed. He had no heart, but his equivalent almost skipped a beat. “Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it damn it damn it…”

“Eloth?”

“I used to much power,” he said in a panic. “The others, they detected me!”

There were several resounding, thunderous bursts as a new group of ships materialized in the upper atmosphere of the planet. At first, they were almost exclusively Governor craft, each one a version of a cylindrical prothean starship surrounded by stony armor. Then the unthinkable happened as the last ship arrived: a massive, black, insect-like craft, its body lit by blue light. A Reaper had arrived.

Eloth looked up at the black ship, and felt himself overwhelmed with sadness. “Brother,” he whispered “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Eloth?!”

Eloth looked to his partner. “That’s a Reaper!” he said, pointing. “And Collectors! I can’t take those down! I’m not a volus!”

“Fine,” said the woman, lifting her knife into the air. It shifted again, its shell reconfiguring and pulling apart to reveal the small, ever-shifting blue-lit fragment within it hovering just over her hand. She lifted the artifact and pointed. As she did, space a few meters away from her distorted, tearing open a hole in space to a rocky crag under a toxic yellow sky. “Then it’s time to go.”

“But what about her?” said Eloth, pointing to the dying asari. “Are you not going to eat her?”

“Her?” said the woman. “Please. At her age, she’d be way too tough. Like eating a boot. Leave her.”

She stepped over Samara and into the portal. Eloth followed, but paused for a moment as he passed.

“You intrigue me,” said Eloth. “I really like you, and find you interesting. It is highly doubtful that you will survive this. But if you do, seek me out. I want to see you again.” He paused. “I might even be able to cure you.”

“Eloth! Get your damn ass in motion or I will have to put motion into your ASS!”

Eltoh sighed, and gave Samara one last smile. The Governor army was descending from their ships and swarming onto the ancient, repurposed prothean tower. Aware of and admiring the irony of that situation, Eloth stepped through the portal. Before the Governors could reach him, the portal sealed behind him and his partner.
 

Author's Notes:

I'm probably going to take some heat for this (not really; almost no one reads these things). To some, Eloth is going to look almost like the prototypical Mary-Sue. Except that he's a minor character who does basically nothing useful, but that's beside the point. Eloth is another character from the Vocqtus universe (although he was an entirely different species there). He's meant as a foil to his partner.

Chapter 23: The Consequences

The hum of the ship’s engines had stopped. It was no longer in flight, but rather had landed on a dark and distant moon. The facility that surrounded it was mostly abandoned, quiet, and silent. It was meant as a working station for Spectres, a place for them to stop for supplies and resources in times of need. With there being so few Spectres, though, it had not been used in years, remaining empty and unoccupied. Its hallways, built in the most utilitarian of turian architectural styles, were tightly coiled against each other. They were dark, but they were warm. Still, they did not feel like home to Starlight. Neither did her ship. Nothing did, really. Not anymore. Not for a long, long time, if ever at all.

On her now silent and empty ship, Starlight stood in the doorway of one particular darkened room. The one that had formerly belonged to Beri Tyros. Like the Spectre facility outside, it now stood empty, seemingly abandoned in an instant, left with no one to occupy it. All the equipment was still where Beri had left it; all the various machines that had been keeping her marginally alive. All the equipment that she would never use again.

Starlight heard the sound of hooves beside her, and she did not need to look up to here Jurneu approaching.

“I’m going to be blunt,” he said. “You are taking this far harder than you should.”

“How exactly should I take it?” snapped Starlight. “Sure. I’ll be the first to admit, I really, REALLY didn’t like her. But she was still my friend. I mean…” She paused, feeling a horrible sinking feeling wash over her. “I lost one. She died…because of me.”

“You’ve lost a lot of them. This was just the first time you had to see one go.”

Starlight pivoted swiftly and slapped Jurneu. Having hooves, it was more like a stiff punch, but even still, he barely recoiled.

“Why don’t you even care?!” shouted Starlight. “She was a Spectre! Your hero!”

“I know that,” said Jurneu, rubbing the side of his face. “Do you think I don’t? Or that I don’t feel a sense of loss? Don’t misunderstand me, Starlight Glimmer. I do. It’s just that, well, she was a Spectre.”

“And how does that make her life less valuable?”

“That’s not what I mean!” said Jurneu, suddenly sounding exasperated. “What I mean is that Spectres have one of the lowest survival rates of any military force, second only to asari Justicars. We are the best, but even then, we’re still mortal. A Spectre is lucky to last two years. Ten years is elderly. Most retire by then. She didn’t. She extended her life by almost four times, and even then, never stopped fighting. This was the end she wanted, Starlight. To go out fighting.”

“Because she was an idiot,” said Starlight. “She wanted the wrong thing.” Starlight sighed, and reached into one of the pockets in her uniform. She removed the last thing that Beri had given her: an inky violet crystal.

“What is that?” said Jurneu, his red eyes shifting to the crystal.

“The core computational matrix of a quant,” said Starlight. “All of a quant’s memories, software, programs, it’s all stored in crystals like this. Berry gave it to me. I’m not sure why.”

“A quant?” said Jurneu, sounding oddly surprised. “But I thought they were much larger. That one seems…small.”

“The core itself is actually microscopic. The outer portion is just to stabilize it. You’re thinking of the drive matrix, the part that powers ships.” She lifted the crystal. “This is actually in the center. The true quant.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Starlight. She looked deep into the crystal. “It isn’t supposed to be this color.”

“It isn’t?”

Starlight shook her head. “Only the highest purity crystals can be used to make the kind of quant that can power a ship. ‘Marvelously pure’ or higher. This should be transparent blue, like a big diamond.”

“Then what’s wrong with it?”

“It’s been changed. Corrupted somehow.”

“But you still want to try to read it.” Jurneu turned to Beri’s room. “You don’t have the equipment, but she did. I think she knew that.”

“Yeah. I think she did.”

Jurneu stepped closer to Starlight. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, softly. “I have equipment in the resupply station. We can go there if you want.”

“No,” said Starlight, shaking her head. “No. It has to be here.” She took a breath, and then stepped into the darkened room.

It did not take her long to find the necessary equipment. The actual device was a small, portable reading device the size of a briefcase and linked into the other equipment. Starlight approached it and gently set the crystal down on it. As soon as it touched the reading station, a set of small tech pylons appeared, moving and adjusting themselves to support the crystal before a reading system was quickly assembled. The crystal began to revolve, and the machine activated almost immediately.

A hologram appeared from one of the secondary pieces of equipment. It was small, at a height of barely ten inches, and though translucent had good resolution. Starlight was surprised to see that it was a representation of Beri as a biological turian.

“What is that?” said Jurneu. “The crystal?”

“No,” said Starlight. “It’s a recording. It must have been programmed into the machine.”

“So,” said the tiny model of Beri, her face automatically turning toward Starlight. “I guess I’m dead. Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. Still not sure how I’ll get this recording to you, but I’ll find a way. Somehow.

“But if you shed one single, solitary tear for me, I swear to whatever god my body exists in defiance of that I will come back as a ghost and beat you. Hard.” She paused, and grew slightly more serious. “But, to be honest, there is something you don’t know. I don’t know it either, because I don’t want to. I don’t even like thinking about it. But the fact is…” She sighed, and paused for a much longer time. “I might already be dead. Right now, as I’m talking.

“You don’t know what this feels like,” she said, flexing her hands in the hologram. “How the world keeps getting more and more…distant. I can still feel it, but it’s like I’m wearing a glove over my whole body. Like thins are there, but they aren’t really. Like I’m becoming increasingly trapped in this body, and there’s no way out.”

“Her neural connections must have been failing,” said Jurneu. “Her body was rejecting her brain.”

“Shut up and listen, Jurneu,” said the hologram. Jurneu stiffened in shock. Beri laughed halfheartedly. “Ha! That probably got you. I set up the hologram to say that if it detected your voice. But seriously, shut up. These are basically my dying words, so don’t interrupt me.” She paused again. “Actually…no.” She put her hand to her face. “I’m mostly sure now. I think I am dead. I have been for months. I’ve become so much machine that I can’t even tell anymore. Most of ‘me’ is just a VI in what’s left of my brain, plugging my memories and personality back into a corpse. The last time you saw me, It probably wasn’t REALLY me. Probably just that VI.

“So don’t feel bad for me. I just hope that I died doing something epic.” She looked Starlight in the eye. “But that’s not what this recording is for. I made it because I made a promise. A promise I have been waiting two hundred and fifty years to fulfill. I don’t want to, because I know what it means, but I am obliged to follow the last orders that Garrus Vakarian gave me. The last orders he gave anyone.”

There was a click from across the room, and Starlight heard something fall behind one of the weapons crates that were bolted to the floor of the room. Confused, she looked to the hologram, and it nodded. Slowly, Starlight made her way to the far side of the room and peered behind the crate.

She saw that a hidden compartment had opened, and a case inside had been exposed. With some difficulty, Starlight managed to fish it out. As soon as she pulled it into the light, both she and Jurneu’s stared in astonishment. The container, which was roughly the size of a large book, was constructed entirely out of perfect, carved crystal.

“What the hell is that?” said Jurneu in awe.

“Crystal Empire crystal,” said Starlight. “Why in Equestria would she have something like this? Unless…” Starlight shivered. “Unless she was storing something that she wanted hidden from any and all scanning apparatuses. Or to survive a supernova.”

“But what would she want to do that for?”

“Open it,” said the hologram. “You need to open it.”

Starlight did as she was told, unhooking the clasp and opening the case. She had not been sure what she was expecting, but what she got had surprisingly little emotional impact on her, largely because she did not know what she was looking at. The inside of the case was filled with foam and, at its center, a transparent tube sealed by metal caps on either side. In the very center of the tube, suspended by probes from the concealed electronic elements inside the metal caps, was a single shard of black and silver metal. Starlight had no idea what it was, although she could tell at a glance that the shard was an infinitely complex piece of something far larger.

Jurneu, however, took a large and terrified step backward. “By the goddess,” he whispered. “That- -that’s a Reaper artifact!”

“Vakarian was a turian of his word,” said Beri’s hologram. “And so am I. He promised this to you as payment for your service to the Council, and I swore to him on his deathbed that I would deliver it to you. I hesitated, though, because I know what it is. It is the core biotic modulator of a Reaper banshee, a piece of living metal designed to infect and assimilate anything it touches. Of all the kinds of artifacts banned by the Council, this is one of the worst. I would strongly recommend not opening it.”

“This…this can’t be here!” exclaimed Jurneu.

“And yet it is,” said Starlight, unable to take her eyes off of it.

“The synths, if they had only known- -”

“Well,” said Starlight, looking up at Jurneu’s terrified expression. “You asked why she had it in the crystal box, didn’t you?”

“There is one more thing,” said Beri’s hologram. “Jurneu. If you’re still there, listen to me. If I’m gone, it means you need to complete the mission now. You’re definitely no me, or even a Shepard, but you are a good Spectre. You should be, I trained you. Protect Starlight. Keep her safe. Don’t allow her to use that artifact. Serve the Council. I lived my life trying to exceed the legacy of Saren Arerius. Now it is your turn to exceed me.” The hologram shifted one last time, tracking Starlight. “Starlight. Jurneu. It has been a pleasure. More for you than me. Goodbye, friends.”

The hologram vanished. As it did, the room went dark once again. With the change in light, Starlight was suddenly able to see the silhouette of Zedok standing in the door on the far side of where the hologram had been.

“Star?” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” lied Starlight. She quickly picked up the tube containing the artifact and tucked it into a secure pocket of her armor, noticing Jurneu’s eyes tracking it the whole time. “What is it, Zedok?”

“She’s conscious.”

Starlight paused, not sure what emotion to be feeling. She wanted to feel relief, but somehow, instead she only felt grave apprehension.

“How is she?”

Zedok took a breath, but then just sighed. “You will want to see it for yourself.”

“Go,” said Jurneu. “With this equipment, it will take some time for the quant to load its interface protocol. I’ll see if I can’t optimize the system a bit. Tyros was not known for using all of the appropriate performance settings on modern equipment.”

Starlight nodded and stepped past where the crystal was still slowly revolving. She joined Zedok in the hallway, and they began walking.

For a while, Zedok did not speak. It was not until they had left the ship and started moving through the hallways of the Spectre ressuply space that Starlight actually summoned the will to ask about Quatre’s state.

“Is it bad?”

Zedok considered for a moment. “‘Bad’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. Star, she’s fucked up. Hardcore.”

Starlight stopped walking. “I- -I didn’t mean to!” she said. “She’s just so fragile, all I did was- -”

“Star, no. That’s not what I mean.” Zedok sighed deeply. “Her body…it’s just bad.”

“Zedok. Please. Tell me.”

Zedok looked more serious than Starlight had ever seen her, and she appeared to be staring at something straight ahead and very far off. “Her entire body shows evidence of massive trauma that she experienced early in life. Half of her organs barely work, and the other half are so scarred they’re not even in the right places. Almost every bone in her body has been broken and revealed, poorly. You broke several. Her level of internal scarring is consistent with a reave effect.”

“Reaving? She was attacked by a biotic?”

“Yes,” said Zedok, “but not any ordinary biotic. That’s a rare skill. Even Jack could barely do it. But this level of destruction…I hope I don’t ever have to get near whatever did this to her.”

“So then her injuries…”

“Yeah. A stiff breeze would probably do her in. I doubt she could even survive on a habitable planet for very long, and it’s a miracle that she made it through the punishment you put her through.”

“Although I’m sure that ‘miracle’ had a lot to do with you.”

Zedok barely seemed to register the compliment. “And then there are the medical scars….”

“What?”

“She didn’t heal from those injuries on her own. Even from a brief scan…” Zedok shivered. “Someone put her back together. Whoever it was, they were either a genius or an abject sadist. This pony, she just wasn’t meant to survive that. She’s not supposed to be alive.”

None of this made Starlight feel any better. If she had even had any slight idea that the pony she had so viciously attacked had already been on the verge of death, Starlight would never have touched her- -or so she liked to think. At the same time, she wondered what kind of event would have done that much damage to a living creature. She assumed that it had to have been some kind of accident.

“Star,” said Zedok. “There’s…something else.”

“Something else? What kind of ‘something else’?”

Zedok hesitated. “No. You have to see it.”

The medical bay of the Spectre outpost was located several levels below the upper portion of the base, and it took Starlight several minutes to reach it with Zedok. All the while, she felt herself growing increasingly nervous. When she finally stood outside the door, she could hear her heart beating in her ears.

“Did she say anything?” Starlight finally asked.

“She thanked me. But then nothing after that.” Zedok lifted a finger to the hologram in the center of the door, and it changed color at her touch as the door unlocked. “You are going to want to be quick, though. The internal bleeding was massive. She’s stable for now, but still very weak. I’m not a horse doctor, Star. I deal with yahg. If she goes off again, I’m not going to be able to pull her back a second time.”

The door opened, and Starlight felt herself being pushed in. Zedok, the one doing the pushing, followed her into the medical suite. The room inside was not large, but more than adequate as a field hospital. Much of the equipment and supplies were still packed in cases and dispensers, but a surprisingly large number had also been opened.

Zedok led Starlight through the facility and past the surgical room toward the quiet area in the back. As Starlight passed, she smelled something metallic from the other side of the door. She knew the smell of blood well, and she shivered wondering how much there must have been on the other side of that door.

Quatre had been placed in the most distant part of the suite. Starlight did not need to look hard to find her. Zedok had pulled the almost all of the Spectre medical equipment to that corner of the room. The bed was surrounded by machinery, and that machinery was wired to the bed’s occupant.

“If you want to talk to her, go,” said Zedok. “I’ll be here if she starts to crash again.” Starlight hesitated, and Zedok pointed. “Go.”

Starlight took a breath and nodded. She then walked toward the bed and the inured pony lying in it.

The first thing she became aware of was just how small the pony lying in the bed looked. The bed itself was not large for a creature like a turian or asari, but for a pony it was massive. It was not only that, though. Quatre herself almost seemed to have shrunk. Without her armor and wired to so many machines, she just seemed so small.

The second thing that Starlight noticed made her stop in her tracks as her heart, formerly pounding so fast, seemed to skip a beat. Quatre was lying in the center of the bed uncovered and in a fetal position, a tiny gray creature with her body linked to so many cables and sensors. Her back was facing Starlight, and on it, Starlight saw a pair of scarred stumps. There was no mistaking what they were, or rather what they long ago had been. Quatre had once had wings.

“Don’t stare,” said Quatre, weakly. “You have no idea what it feels like when people stare at them…”

“You’re an alicorn,” said Starlight in disbelief.

“I was, once, yes,” said Quatre. “But I already knew that. Go away.”

“No,” said Starlight. “Not until you tell me how this is even possible! At first, I just thought you looked like her- -but you can’t be an alicorn! It isn’t possible! You can’t- -”

Quatre stirred, and she rolled over to face Starlight. As she did, Starlight got a better look at her body. Before, she had always been wearing armor, so it was impossible to see just how gaunt she was or the faded scars that covered her body. Now, though, she looked even more gray and sickly than before. They only part of her that seemed to have any life was her eyes, which were icy with hatred. They were Twilight’s eyes.

“Or what? Are you going to beat it out of me? Or are you going to choke me into unciciousness as I struggle desperately to breathe through my one working lung? Would it even matter if I don’t have to look into the terrified face of my lover as you try to murder me in front of him?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you, Quatre, I just- -”

“No. Don’t even say my name. Don’t even look at me. I can’t stand to look at you.” She lay back down and rolled to face away from Starlight. “You make me ashamed to have been born a pony.”

“Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t know how sick you were!”

“And does that make it okay to hurt me?”

“N…no.” Starlight paused, taking a long breath to try to quell her growing self-hatred. “No it doesn’t. I guess there isn’t an excuse for what I did to you. But I have to know. Why do you look like Twilight Sparkle? Please. At least tell me that.”

“I know the answer to that question. But I am not telling you. I refuse to tell you anything.”

“But I have to know!”

Quatre looked over her shoulder. “They you should have asked earlier. Because now, it is too late. You attacked an Alliance Supervisor on her own ship, nearly killing her, only to kidnap and put her in the care of a doctor who, though brilliant, has no previous knowledge of her physiology or the sheer volume of work it takes to keep her alive.”

“I overreacted! The Cores, you have to understand- -”

Quatre glared at Starlight. “Overreacted?” she sighed. “The peace between Equestria and the Alliance has ended. Congratulations, Starlight Glimmer. You have declared war on us- -and doomed this galaxy to destruction. I hope you are happy, and that it was worth it.”

Starlight felt her heart sink, and she suddenly felt faint. She had been so focused on how badly she had hurt an arguably innocent pony that she had failed to think about the full implications of her actions. Quatre was right, though- -Starlight had just attacked a ranking Alliance officer. She had singlehoofedly put everything that Twilight had spent her life trying to create into jeopardy, and perhaps destroyed it beyond repair.

The conversation with Quatre had failed, but in truth, it was not the conversation that Starlight was fearing the most. The mental weight of the other was simply too much to bear, though. Starlight aws not read. She likely never would be- -but even though she knew that she would eventually have to face the consequences for her actions, she wanted to delay her fate as long as she could.

As such, she decided to instead to meditate on the subject while she took the time to speak to her associates, to see if they perhaps had some insight that could redeem her from her cataclysmic failure. According to Twilight, all of the most truly successful commanders throughout history had only gotten to be so effective through open communication with their friends. Starlight tended to believe this.

So, rather than making her way to the long-range communication center, she instead ascended to a large common room on one of the upper levels. Upon entering, she was struck by the amazing view visible through the enormous window on the far side: the planet’s rocky, barely vegetated surface stretching out toward a horizon that led to a sky dominated by the stormy gas giant that the moon orbited around. Near it, she could see several other moons, their colorful surfaces standing in stark contrast to the pale planet behind them and the otherwise black sky.

On the distant edge of the room, Starlight could see Sbaya using one of the short-range communication kiosks. That surprised Starlight, as she had not expected Sbaya to be able to use any sort of modern technology. Even more surprising was who she was talking with: the hologram was recognizable even at a distance as the asari Subcouncilor Lordraia. Even through a translucent monochrome representation, Starlight could tell from the Subcouncilor’s running makeup that she was crying, and that Sbaya was doing her best to comfort her.

Closer to Starlight, though, were two very different figures. One was a synth, now stripped down to a sexless, generic face on an otherwise skinless robotic body. The other stood a distance behind him, staring up at the planet beyond, her body taking the form of an alternate and far less tortured version of Jack.

Armchair looked up from his work, which apparently seemed to involve disassembling one of his arms. He smiled. With his synth face, it was almost grotesque.

“Starlight,” he said. “It is good to see you.”

“It is good to see you too, Armchair,” said Starlight, approaching him and pulling an overturned chair off one of the dusty and unused tables in the room. She sat down in it, and then looked up at him. He had gone back to work slowly pulling pieces out of himself and apparently attempting to recalibrate the moving parts of his new synth body.

“Armchair,” said Starlight. “Are you…really you?”

Armchair’s smiling expression fell slightly, and he set down the tool he was using. “That is…difficult to answer. In detail, at least. My previous ‘yes’ still applies, but with exceptions.”

“What do you mean exceptions? Are you YOU or not?”

“So, the long version. No. I am not Armchair. I am AN Armchair.” He paused, looking at the ceiling. “Although that would imply that someone sits on me. That is untrue. Usually.” His eyes flitted back to Starlight. “It is simply in our nature. It is difficult for an organic to understand.”

“If anyone can understand, it’s me,” said Starlight. “I remember when you were just seven geth programs powering a starship.”

Armchair smiled. “That was a long time ago.” He suddenly frowned. “Actually…that confuses me. Why are you still here? You should must be very old.”

“Some unicorns live a long time,” said Starlight, knowing that unlike most unicorns her agelessness went far beyond physical appearance.

“I, unfortunately, did not live that long.”

That statement confused Starlight. “But you’re here.”

“No. I am here. Armchair is not. So to speak.” He paused, as if trying to determine how to phrase his statement. “The original Armchair was an evolving program. A fusion of geth and rachni technology. The geth at their inception advanced at a geometric rate, then an exponential one- -and then a logarithmic one. The first Armchair overcame this limitation.”

“What do you mean ‘the first’?”

“I am Armchair. We are armchair. Like anything, a growing consciousness eventually becomes too vast to be practical. It therefore divides. The divisions begin to grow. And divide. And so on, until the original has been diluted to nonexistence although it persists in all permutations. I am Armchair, one of billions.”

“It’s true,” said Chrysalis, turning away from the breathtaking view through the window and approached Armchair from behind, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I’ve spent a great deal of time on their homeworld. It is…bizarre. But enjoyable.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like synthetic lifeforms.”

“Times change, Starlight, and people with them. I’ve grown accustomed to them. It’s just so much…quieter. No thought, no emotion, not that I can see anyway. What they have, they keep well hidden.”

“Unfortunately, she is unable to persist there long,” said Armchair. “We universally love her, but it is not adequate to ensure her survival. Likewise, she can apparently not survive in anoxic atmospheres.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I still need to breathe.”

“I don’t understand, though,” said Starlight. “How did you know we would be there, on that ship?”

“I didn’t,” she said, smiling. Her body shifted, and she leaned forward, falling to four legs as she converted into an exact replica of Starlight. “I’m a shapeshifter, remember?” she said in Starlight’s own voice. She then shifted again, shrinking even further until she was a small black cat. “I can become what I need to be.” She expanded again, assuming the form of a wendigo, complete with armor, before finally returning to her Jack form. “I was on the cargo your asari bought on Omega. I’ve been following you since there. Watching.”

“And I was in her pocket,” said Armchair. He held his fingers close together. “I was smaller then, though.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. If nothing had gone wrong, you would never have noticed me.”

“Wait…so the first time something ‘went wrong’ was when the synths were pointing guns at me? And not, you know, the REST?”

Chrysalis shrugged. “I figured you could deal with that. You are Starlight Glimmer, after all.”

“Yes. Starlight Glimmer with no biotics and now no omnitool. I’m basically an earth-pony at this point.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being an earth-pony,” said Chrysalis. “I have been. Several times. I’ve also been an Earth pony on occasion, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” said Armchair, looking perplexed.

“Why?” said Starlight, suddenly becoming more serious.

“Why is there nothing wrong with being an earth-pony? They are sturdy, unassuming, and, frankly, well endowed with regards to- -”

“Not that,” said Starlight. “Why were you following me?”

“Oh,” said Chrysalis, her expression becoming somewhat tighter. For just a brief moment, Starlight though she something dark-colored moving underneath the replica of Jack’s face. Something that looked like some part of an insect. “Yes. That. Would it be sufficient to say that I am under orders to make sure that you stay secure?”

“No,” said Starlight bluntly. “It wouldn’t.”

“Wait,” said Armchair. “We take orders? Since when?”

“Since a long time ago,” said Chrysalis.

“Who do you work for,” said Starlight. She did not even phrase it as a question. It was a demand.

“I don’t know if that is something I should tell you.”

“It isn’t the Alliance. So the Council?”

Chrysalis shook her head. “There is no ‘Council’. Anyone who believes it to be a real, functioning institution is a fool. It is a show, a spectacle for entertainment.”

“Then WHO?”

“I work for the person who rules the Council.”

“The Benefactor.”

Chrysalis’s eyes widened. “You know?”

“Of course I know,” said Starlight. “What I don’t know is who he is, or what he wants from me.”

“He is the Benefactor. That is all. A soul cursed with disembodied immortality, trapped as the collective consciousness of the Reapers. As for what he wants with you, his motives are self-explanatory. He is the true government behind the Council. He wants to ensure that the alliance with Equestria stays intact.”

“So he sent a shapeshifting spy to track me?”

“You sound incredulous,” said Armchair. He glanced at Chrysalis. “Does she sound incredulous? I think she sounds incredulous.”

“Because I am. You’re not an idiot, Chrysalis. You’re not the kind of agent who ‘keeps someone secure’. He sent you to watch me.”

“Perhaps. But I do not know. Nor do I care. I serve his will. I don’t ask why.”

“Really?” said Starlight. “You went from being enslaved by a Princess to being enslaved by a shadowy puppeteer?”

Chrysalis’s eyes narrowed into a version that was certainly not human. “I am not a slave, not anymore. With the final apotheosis of Cadence, I am a free at last. I serve the Benefactor in exchange for payment. Do you care to guess what he offered me, Starlight?”

“Love?”

“Hardly. Too much of humanity is gone for that. He offered me the ability to reverse the effect of my greatest mistake, and to allow me to repent for my greatest shame.”

“He promised to bring the changelings back from extinction,” said Starlight, hardly having to pause to consider what Chrysalis meant.

Chrysalis nodded solemnly. “My people were exterminated for my hubris. I challenged a god, and violated her consort. For my crime, my people faced the consequences.” She leaned forward suddenly, her nose inches away from Starlight’s, and her overly large eyes staring into Starlight’s without blinking. “So,” she said, quietly, “I am sure you can understand why I am willing to follow his orders to the last.”

“Then you are a liability.”

“Really? An ancient matriarch following orders to protect you?”

“No. Following the order to protect me NOW. But if it would benefit our alliance, don’t you think the Benefactor would like to wrap up this particular loose end? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I just happened to have an ‘accident’ here?”

“It would,” said Chrysalis. “But that is not my mission right now. You are barely of a concern. Or, rather, WERE barely a concern.”

Starlight felt herself suddenly growing uncomfortable. She knew what Chrysalis was referring to. It was exactly what she had come to this particular part of the facility to forget.

“The Benefactor was originally only concerned with Thebe. But if I’m not mistaken, you just dissolved the Equestria-Alliance peace treaty. I think he is going to have a very different concern very, very soon.”

“Yeah,” said Starlight. “I know. Oh how do I know.”

All alone, Starlight began to assemble the necessary coordinates for the long-range communication system. She went about doing it slowly and with great care. In part, it was because she was not able to use her omnitool to program the machine. Largely, though, it was because she had realized a solution to her problem. It had taken nearly an four hours of thought and of wracking her brain trying to find a different way, but there was only one way to repair the damage she had done.

It was not quite the reason she did not what to open the channel, though. She tried to believe that it was, that her apprehension was based on selfishness. Selfishness was something she could overcome. Really, though, deep down, the reason why she was so hesitant was shame.

When she was finally done reconfiguring the system, she paused and sat, staring at the equipment for a substantial amount of time. She listened to the clicking and humming of the racks of equipment and stared at the central projection pad for nearly thirty minutes. Finally, though, she knew that the time had come. She activated the system.

The machinery shifted imperceptibly, transmitting a signal across the universe as it opened a channel to Equestria. There was a momentary pause, and then the machine suddenly became abnormally loud. It was not intended for the strain that Starlight was putting it through, but linking its systems to those on her ship were providing it with more than enough power to accomplish what it needed to.

The central pad, originally intended for projection, began to spark with pink-violet light as the coordinate connection was established. The room began to warm from the processing power it took, and Starlight knew that seven quants in Equestria were using even more power to open the link.

Then it happened. The center of the room was filled with pink-violet light that began to assemble into the shape of a pony. Starlight had been covering her eyes against the light, and when it stopped and she lowered her hoof, she saw Twilight staring back at her, smiling.

“Hello, Starlight,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Twilight,” said Starlight, feeling an urge to run into her friend’s arms. She wished she could. More than anything, she wished for her friend to be truly solid, a being of flesh instead of hardened light that she could take into her arms. Perhaps for one last time.

“Hmm,” said Twilight, looking around. “Where exactly am I?” she paused. “Well…I am most defintly somewhere turian.”

“It’s a Spectre outpost,” explained Starlight. “I was assigned a pair of Spectres. We are using this to refuel.”

“It feels…strange,” said Twilight, her expression becoming somewhat distant. “Like there’s something very familiar here…”

“I suppose it could be me,” said Starlight.

“Probably,” said Twilight. She did not sound convinced. She laughed softly, though. “Actually, I’m almost certain it is. Now, go on.”

“Go on?”

“I’m assuming if you called me, you have something to report. I hope it’s good.”

Starlight’s expression fell, and Twilight immediately knew that something was wrong.

“Oh no,” she said. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Hurt? No, no. It’s not that.”

“Oh,” said Twilight, looking relieved. “Thank Celestia. I mean, I trust in your abilities. You are the best in Equestria at what you do. It’s just that…well, I worry about you.” She paused. “And…I miss you, Starlight. I miss you a lot.”

“I miss you too.”

“I wish I could be there in person. You look so sad.” She sighed. “But without the Harmony, I can’t teleport that far. Not yet.”

“I would die before I let anyone put you back in that ship,” said Starlight.

Twilight smiled, not bothering to hide her many pointed teeth. “I know, Starlight. I know.”

Starlight paused, trying to find the words she needed to say. Eventually, she decided that there was no pleasant way to state what she needed to. “Twilight, I messed up.”

Twilight’s expression changed. She did not become angry, but rather concerned. “What did you do, Starlight?”

“I failed to kill Scootaloo. But not only that…” she paused again, and took a deep breath. “In the course of events, my ship had to be rescued. By an Alliance vessel.”

Twilight produced a reserved smile. “And I assume the Alliance treated you as well as I have always treated them. They are some of our oldest allies. I know their culture can seem strange, but it is impressive in its own way, really. And their literature has surprising depth.”

“They were using Cores.”

Twilight’s expression suddenly lost all joviality. “They what?”

“Cores. Their ship…it was powered by human Cores.”

“Starlight. Are you absolutely sure?”

Starlight nodded. “I saw them. With my own eyes. It…it was horrible.”

The pair fell silent, and Twilight was forced to look away. Starlight took notice, and her eyes narrowed.

“You…you knew. You knew!”

“No,” said Twilight. “But I knew they almost certainly would come to that point eventually.”

Starlight could not believe what she was hearing. “And you didn’t try to stop them?!”

Twilight suddenly turned and locked her violet eyes with Starlight’s red ones. “And what would you have me do? Demand they give them up? They are a sovereign nation, as are we. I do not have the right to ask that of them.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“And if I had?” said Twilight, cocking her head. “If I had demanded that they cease, because we find it reprehensible? Or if I made demands whenever I found something disgusting, to the Alliance or to the Council- -how long would our alliance last? How long would it take me to become a tyrant? I rule Equestria. I do not rule them. Nor do I want to. They must be free to make their own choices.”

“But I can’t…I just can’t get the image out of my head. In tanks like that…floating there…” She shivered violently.

“Starlight,” said Twilight, stepping forward. “It is going to be okay.”

“No. No it isn’t,” said Starlight, shaking her head rapidly. She lifted her head and looked into Twilight’s eyes. “One of the Alliance officers, she attempted to defend their decision. I…I was weak. I lost control. I hurt her.”

“You attacked an Alliance officer?” said Twilight, sounding as though she hardly believed what she was hearing. “How badly?”

“I nearly killed her. And…in my panic, I let my Spectres attack them. And I took the officer as a hostage.”

Starlight expected Twilight to become angry, but the expression on her face was almost impossible to read. Her eyes seemed to be stuck into a distant stare, as though she was not able to comprehend what was being told to her. It was the expression she sometimes got when she was in deep thought.

“This is bad,” said Twilight. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”

“Yes,” said Starlight. “I have attacked the Alliance. Everything you’ve worked for, I’ve ruined it all. But…I did find a solution.”

“Hopefully a good one.”

Starlight nodded. “You need to disown me.”

Twilight froze. “I need to…I need to WHAT?”

“I went rogue. I rebelled against your orders. My actions were my own, and I have been stripped of my title and declared a heretic for high treason against the Equestrian government. That is what you need to tell them. It is the only way. You need to sever me from the Cult. It’s the only way to preserve the peace.”

“Starlight, I can’t do that.”

“You have to!” screamed Starlight. She felt herself starting to cry. “Please! Don’t make this any harder for me!”

“I can’t do that,” repeated Twilight.

“Yes, you can. It’s the only way. There is nothing else I can think of that can undo this situation.”

“Did you not hear me? I can’t disown you. Starlight, you are like a sister to me. I love you.”

“But…you can’t. Everything you’ve worked for, everything you spent your life crafting, everything you sacrificed…” she shook her head, closing her eyes against the tears. “I ruined it! I ruined all of it!”

“Everything WE worked for,” said Twilight. “I could not have done it if it had not been for you.”

“Then do this one last thing for me! Let me fix this!”

“And do what? Starlight, you don’t understand. Do you really think I could rule without you?”

“Of course you can! And now you will have to.”

“No.”

“Twilight- -”

“NO. I don’t care. I will do what I can to attempt to fix this, and yes, I am disappointed in your actions. But I will not leave you, not when you need me like this. If our alliance fails, so be it. I would sacrifice ten thousand years of work if it meant that I could stay with you.”

“Twilight…”

“Perhaps it is for the best,” mused Twilight, darkly. “This situation has grown too tenuous. I love the Alliance, but this galaxy seems to every day become more and more of a lost cause. Perhaps it is a sign for me to focus on Equestria instead.” She sighed. “Perhaps I will try again in ten or twenty thousand years. It is a shame to have wasted so much effort and so much hope already, though. I really wish this could end differently.”

“I’m sorry,” said Starlight. “I’m so sorry.”

“And you should be. You have failed, badly. But I will never leave your side, Starlight. Not even when you’re a big fat idiot.”

Starlight looked up at her friend’s smiling face, and she could not help but smile too. “And I will never leave yours,” he said. “As long as you will have me.”

“We can’t give up hope yet,” said Twilight. “Babylon is levelheaded, to the point of frigidity. Convincing her will depend purely on whether or not she has already made her decision. And no doubt she already has. The officer, though. Is she alive?”

“Yes. She is.”

“Good,” said Twilight. She looked surprised for a moment. “Actually, I’m surprised that you were able to even injure a synth at all. They tend to be extremely durable.”

“She is not a synth,” said Starlight. “Actually, that was something else I needed to talk to you about.”

“Not a synth?” Twilight seemed intrigued. “A human, then? No, they are extinct. And not a wendigo…”

“She’s a pony.”

Twilight seemed surprised. “A pony?”

“And not just any pony, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t going to believe me, but she looks like you. EXACTLY like you. She’s even an alicorn, or was. Her wings look like…I don’t even know. Like someone tore them off.”

Something seemed to pass across Twilight’s eyes, a dark appearance of recognition that was apparent even through the hologram. “An alicorn? That looks like me?”

“Right down to the pointed teeth.”

Twilight seemed to freeze. It was several seconds before she spoke. “This is…concerning,” she said.

“You know something,” said Starlight.

Twilight stared at Starlight, and for a moment, Starlight wanted to take a step back. For just a moment, the holographic pony standing in front of her was not Twilight. She looked like Twilight, but a her expression, demeanor, and body language was that of someone completely different.

“When I was in the Harmony,” she said, “back when I was a Core, something happened. You remember the Agrostation Six incident?”

“Of course,” said Starlight. “Rainbow Dash essentially raped you.”

“No more than I allowed any other Core to be raped, unfortunately. I was rendered unconscious, the same state as all ordinary Cores. But do you know what did that to me?”

Starlight realized that she did not. It was something Twilight very seldom spoke of.

“A human attempted to kill me. A woman named Bob. We never knew why. Now we do.”

“I don’t understand. Twilight, what are you saying?”

“She took part of my bone marrow. That thing? It is a clone. They cloned me.”

“A clone? Of an alicorn? Is that even possible?”

“You were the one who said she had the remnants of wings. Besides, it is not inconceivable…just absurdly complicated. No doubt Cerberus played a role.”

“A clone,” said Starlight to herself. “That makes sense, though. It would also explain why she is so physically weak.”

“Perhaps,” said Twilight. “Although there might be more. Perhaps even properly constructed ones.”

“More?” Starlight had not considered that. “Is that a bad thing, though?”

Twilight seemed somewhat intrigued by that through. “Well, no. Not in and of itself. Actually, it’s kind of nice knowing that I have the equivalent of a daughter. But she is not a daughter. She is something built from me without my permission. And I cannot abide by that.”

“Wait,” said Starlight, growing agitated at the sudden tonal shift in her friend’s voice. It was clear that Twilight was actually rather disturbed by this development. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I was going to suggest that you kill it, but…”

“What? Twilight, you know I can’t do that! Especially her! She’s an Alliance officer!”

“I know…but her presence is a variable I had not anticipated. But I know you, and I know I can’t ask you to finish it. But…I do suggest that you kill it. Strongly. If necessary, we can claim it was an accident.”

“Twilight!” cried Starlight. “You- -what is wrong with you?!”

“I- -I just found out that someone stole a part of me and made a child!” cried Twilight, loudly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about that! I’m…scared, Starlight. What if…” she paused, her eyes growing wide. “What if they are intending to replace me?”

“Replace you? With a clone?”

Twilight nodded. “You said she looks just like me. How would you even know?”

“Because I know YOU,” said Starlight. “I’ve known you since the start of all this. Come on, Twilight.” Starlight smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody could replace you with a clone without me noticing. Besides, I don’t think that’s what they made her for.”

Twilight hesitated, but then smiled herself. “Yes,” she said. “Just me being paranoid, I guess. Thank you, Starlight.”

“For what?”

“For helping me see the right thing to do. For reassuring me when I’m afraid. I’ll decide what to do with the clone later. But for now, try to avoid speaking to her. This situation is bad, and I don’t want to make it worse.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. She’s not exactly a fan of me at this point.”

Twilight smiled. “Good. Then we know what to do. We can move on from here. Even if the place we’re going to is neither easy nor pleasant from here on in.”

Chapter 24: Six Immortals and Scootaloo

The state Scootaloo was left in was not pure unconsciousness. On some level she was awake, but even as her mind desperately tried to comprehend what was around her, she found herself unable to understand where or who she was. In the distance, she saw a bright light over her, and heard frantic voices yelling. She felt the pain as the blades cut into her, and was not sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing. It all felt so distant, and she could feel herself slipping. She wanted to go to sleep. It would have been so easy. She was just so tired. Part of her, though, was desperately trying to bring the confused world into focus, to wake back up. She was trapped somewhere in between, and that part of her that could not manage to think was terrified that she might never leave this horrible state.

Eventually, though, Scootaloo decided that it was too much. Even with how distant it was, she did not want to wake back up into the pain. There was no reason to. She had accomplished everything she could, and it was time to sleep. Accepting this, she closed her eyes and began to let her mind sink into peace.

“Typical,” said a voice beside her.

Scootaloo’s eyes immediately shot open. Even through all of its distortion, it was a voice that she knew all too well: it was her own. She slowly turned her head to the side, and through the swimming and failing world around her, she saw a pony standing beside her, beyond the blurred images of the violent alicorns desperately trying to save her life. The pony was dressed completely in armor, with her face covered by a faceplate that was featureless save for a white circle that moved across it to focus on Scootaloo. Unlike the rest of the world, Xyuka was the only thing that was clear and sharp.

“You wouldn’t be the first,” she said. “We tend to be strong, but I have seen oh so many of us give up like you are. Just another weakling. Not nearly as strong as I became. Go to sleep. You deserve it.” She gave a long, mechanical sigh. “But I hoped that you would be better. You, I actually liked. So very few of us are like me, but you were. One of precious few.”

“I am not like you,” whispered Scootaloo. It took everything she had to speak, but making that assertion was the most important thing she could possibly do. “I…I’m not…”

Xyuka lifted her hoof to her face and removed the mask. Behind it was the face of an orange colored mare, young but impossibly old, her violet eyes framed by thin wisps of long violet hair. “I am you,” she said, now in exactly Scootaloo’s voice. “I always have been. And you are me. Or you will become me. Eventually.”

By this time, the world around them had faded to black. Across the void, though, Scootaloo could see strange flashes of pink-violet light. One would erupt and slowly trail across the sky, bringing with it the distant sounds of voices or parts of ideas. Scootaloo looked up at them, fascinated.

“She is coming,” said Xyuka. “Don’t let her touch you. Because if she does, there won’t be anything left to finish what I started. You need to survive, Scootaloo. To become ME.”

The world suddenly went black completely, and both Xyuka and the distant storm vanished from sight. Scootaloo slowly stirred, and realized that her eyes were closed. Slowly, her mind began to function again, and she opened them slowly.

The sudden blinding light was exceedingly painful, and Scootaloo winced.

“Shit,” she groaned. “Buck me in the PLOT.” She was surprised by the sound of her voice; it was raspy and unpleasant, as though she had been screaming for a long time. “Am I dead?”

“No, Scootaloo. Thank Satin you’re not.”

Scootaloo’s eyes focused, and she realized that she was attached to an inclined table. The lights above her were the kind one would see in a surgical center. It seemed that once again Scootaloo had awoken in the hospital.

She looked across the room, where Six was staring back at her, smiling. The alicorn looked immensely tired, but also immensely relieved. Her body was spattered with blood, but she hardly seemed to notice. Scootaloo immediately knew who it was who had saved her life.

It was who was standing with Six, though, that made her breath catch. Behind Six was a human woman. The only thing she was wearing was a knee-length skirt and a necklace with a metallic gem that glowed with an odd blue color, as well as a much heavier coat of Scootaloo’s blood. Scootaloo did not even need to ask who she was, because she looked exactly as she had two and a half centuries earlier: pale, grayish skin, an unpleasantly proportioned wiry body, and thick, greasy black hair that had since grown to the length of her rear. The only difference that Scootaloo could see was an extensive scar that circumscribed her neck, passing through the various tattoos that had been placed there involuntarily in her youth.

“Sup,” she said, taking one hand off the aluminum tray of bloody surgical tools she was holding and waving.

“What the hell?” said Scootaloo, groggily. “How the hell are you still alive?”

“Because my body regenerates faster than the tumors can grow.”

“That’s Deadpool,” said a different but oddly similar voice from the other side of the room. Scootaloo’s eyes quickly shifted to a person seated on the far side of the area, outside of the surgical working region. Scootaloo did not recognize him, although he looked almost freakisly similar to a more pale- -if that was even possible- -male version of Bob, except for the fact that he was fully clothed, including a pair of large gloves, and that his eyes were pink instead of Bob’s blue. He was sitting next to Eight, who was dressed in a severely oversexualized nurse outfit. From the look of tiredness on her face, though, Scootaloo knew that she had been assisting Six at least as much as Bob had, despite her strange choice in clothing.

“Deadpool can suck my infected clit!” She looked across the room at the human male. “Oh wait, no he can’t. Because that’s your job!”

Six and Eight immediately looked at the man, their eyes wide with surprise and the hope that Bob was joking.

“You didn’t,” said Eight.

The man shrugged. “It’s not that bad. I think of it like a seaside vacation. On account of the crabs and the strong odor of low-tide.”

Six immediately ran across the room to a biohazardous waste container and dry-heaved.

“Why…why does that thought turn me on?” said Eight, looking ashamed.

“Oh come on!” exclaimed Bob. “Remember, you came out of that vagina! Each and every one of you! Do you have any idea how hard it is to push eight ponies out of there? All the little horns and the hooves and the wings- -the WINGS! Oh, wait, no, of course you don’t know, because not ONE of you is trying to get me grandchildren!”

“But…but I don’t want my mare parts stretched out,” said Eight, seemingly terrified of the idea.

“Oh please,” said Six, pulling her head up and wiping her mouth with a towel. “Like it isn’t already?”

Scootaloo groaned, and Six immediately devoted all her attention to her. “Easy,” she said, putting her hoof on Scootaloo’s left shoulder. “You need to take this slow. For a few minutes, I was sure that I had lost you.”

“I had given up, really,” said Bob. “But Six kept pushing. It was actually impressive.”

“You…you saved me,” said Scootaloo, looking into her friend’s eyes. “Thank you, Six.”

Six smiled, but she looked more sad than anything else. “There was only so much I could do, though. The injury, it was substantial, and with the persistent injuries, I just…”

Scootaloo sat up suddenly. “Wait…the injury! My leg, what- -” She looked to her right limb and froze in horror. She lifted her front leg and turned it over in her grasp. It was not a hoof, but rather a metallic, skeletal arm with an articulated, hand like claw on the end. Scootaloo felt herself breathing hard, trying to rationalize what was happening, to avoid remembering, but it was impossible. The robotic arm that had been attached to her was identical to the one that Xyuka had worn.

Suddenly she was screaming, trying to pull herself away from the machine. “NO!” she wailed. “I’m not you! I’M NOT YOU!”

Six did not know how to respond and jumped back, terrified at Scootaloo’s reaction. Bob dropped her tray and rushed forward, though. Scootaloo tried to fight her, but the woman was surprisingly strong and wrapped herself around Scootaloo. She smelled absolutely horrible, and having that much disgusting, unwashed skin against her disgusted Scootaloo to no end.

“Shh, shhh,” said Bob, holding her reeking head close to Scootaloo’s and running her hand through Scootaloo’s hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Let go of me! Get off- -”

The grip on Scootaloo’s head suddenly became much tighter. “If you don’t like it, I can fix it,” said Bob. “Just one little twist. One little snap. You’ll barely feel it. Do you want it, Scootaloo? Do you want me to make it all better?”

Scootaloo stopped resisting as she felt Bob’s grip tighten, ready to do what she needed to. Scootaloo took a few more deep breaths, ignoring the fact that Bob had apparently never bathed. Then, finally, she became somewhat more calm.

“Get off me,” she said, slowly. “You smell like a dumpster full of rotten meat and your tiny breasts poking into me are making me feel uncomfortable.”

Bob looked annoyed, but then smiled and pulled herself back. “You know you liked it, you little filly-fooler.”

Scootaloo gasped for fresh air, then turned to Six, who looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s my fault, I- -I couldn’t get the limb back. And with the damage, I- -I- -”

“Six,” said Scootaloo. “Six, it’s okay. You did what you could.”

“But I could have done more! And now- -now look what I did to you!”

“It’s not that bad,” lied Scootalo, flexing her new elbow and clenching a fist with her claw-like fingers. “You did good work.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t me this time,” said Bob. “Losing arms hurts like a bitch.”

“Something you would know plenty about, I think,” said the man across the room.

“And who are you?” said Scootaloo, annoyed.

“I am Eloth,” said Eloth. “Hello, Scootaloo. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“He’s my fucktoy,” whispered Bob, as though it were a secret.

“Only because I can survive being sodomized with bladed instruments,” said Eloth, darkly. “Or that thing she does where she slits her lover’s throat when she finishes. I’m not a fan of that one either.”

“Oh please. You love being my bitch.”

Eloth took a long sight. “Yes. I do.”

“Mother, this isn’t appropriate,” said Six. “Look how stiff poor Eight’s wings are getting!” She turned to Scootaloo. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But honestly I don’t know how much I could have done without her help.”

“Her?” said Scootaloo, pointing with one of her new fingers. “Her? Really?”

“What?” said Bob. “Just because I’m hot doesn’t mean I can’t be smart enough to perform surgery? I’m not an idiot. I know which parts go where.”

“One, you’re not hot. Not even close. Two, what the HELL?!”

“What? The idea of me poking around in your insides, sliding around in your fluids, it doesn’t appeal to you?”

There was a yelp from across the room. Eight, who had just barely gotten her wings under control, had cried out as they exploded outward with a loud “pomf”. She started crying. “Why am I such a pervert? Why?”

“Because you’re your mother’s daughter,” said Bob.

Scootaloo slid down off the table and immeiatly nearly fell over. Had Six not braced her with magic, she would have collapsed.

“Oh buck,” said Scootaloo. “Six, what did you do to me?”

“I had to replace a lot of your blood. But I also put you on some heavy drugs. You shouldn’t be walking around. Let me transfer you to a bed so you can rest.”

“Ohh!” said Eight. “Six wants to get you in bed!”

“I’m fine,” said Scootaloo, pulling herself away from Six’s telekinetic force. She stood on her three organic legs, and then hesitantly set her robotic foot down. As soon as she put weight on it, and incrediably pain tore through her shoulder, but she refused to scream.

“Scootaloo,” said Six, sounding greatly concerned. “You’re in pain, let me- -”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “It’s part of my body now. I need to get used to it.” She gingerly took a step, doing her best to ignore the pain.

“Wow,” said Bob, crouching down near Scootaloo. From the angle of her skirt, Scootaloo could tell that she was not wearing any underwear beneath it. “You’re one tough pony, aren’t you? I can see why my daughter has the hots for you. Not physically, though. I’m not into horses.”

“Again, not true,” said Eloth.

“Oh, please! It was ONE time! And let me just say, he did better than you!”

“Excuse me?! It’s not my fault!” He pointed at Six. “It’s hers!”

“Me?” said Six, offended and confused. “What have I done?”

“You’re the biggest! It’s your fault!”

“Don’t blame my daughter for your own inadequacies!”

Eloth stood up in a huff. “I don’t have to take this,” he said, calmly. He reached down and picked up Eight, tucking her under his arm and exiting the room.

“I’m lying,” said Bob, after a moment, smiling. “He’s fine. I should know. I built him that way.”

Scootaloo was not sure what that meant, nor did she bother to ask. Instead she was focused on the fact that the door had not a automatically closed after Eloth had left through it. It had remained open, and a green-colored hologram was peering through.

“Inte?” said Scootaloo, limping to the door.

“Captain!” cried the hologram, litterally bouncing with joy. “You’re not as dead as I expected you to be!” Her eyes shifted to Scootaloo’s arm. “Oh, a new prosthesis! I think it looks excellent! Very sexy, Captain!”

“Did you program her to be this annoying?” asked Bob.

“No,” said Six. “Apparently, the quant came that way.”

“Inte,” said Scootaloo, still drowsy and hurt. “Why are you out there?”

Inte’s expression changed from one of happiness to one of extreme downtroddeness.”I can’t come in! The soft-winged harlot has disabled the holographic projectors in the medical bay!”

“Harlot?” cried Six, sounding terribly offended. “How dare you!”

“Heh,” said Bob, putting her hand on her daughter’s head. “If you keep up at this pace and earning all your merit badges, you’ll graduate to honest-to-god whore by the time your my age.”

“You’re not that much older than her,” said Scootaloo.

Bob raised an eyebrow. “I had her in my sixties. I’m hella old.”

“Mother, please don’t say that. Ever again.”

“Hella.”

Scootaloo ignored them and stepped out into the hallway. As soon as she did, Inte gave her a massless but crushing hug. The hardlight of her body felt strange, like temperatureless vibrating force, and although it hurt immensely to be squeezed so tightly, she appreciated the idea.

“Don’t do that,” said Six, shoeing Inte away from Scootaloo after several moments.

“But I’m just so happy!”

“No you’re not. You’re programmed to act happy.”

“That is correct,” admitted Inte. “I don’t actually care if any of you live or die! Yay ambivalence!” She began skipping down the hallway, humming a cheerful tune.

“I like it,” said Bob, brushing some of the dried Scootaloo blood off body and licking the wetter parts of it off her hands. “Annoying, but vaguely psychotic. Could use some nice fluffy wings, though.”

“I know, right?”

“My current settings are more than adequate!” called Inte. She turned around at the far end of the hallway and yelled back. “Oh! Captain, I just had an excellent idea! Because I was programmed to!”

Light suddenly began to condense around Scootaloo, resolving around her robotic leg. It hardened into a hologram that though somewhat translucent was roughly the same color and shape of her original hoof. Scootaloo flexed it, feeling the hologram automatically reconfigure around her. It had no weight or sensation, but Scootaloo still found herself breathing harder and harder. That was exactly how HERS had looked beneath all that armor.

“Thank you, Inte,” she said, trying her best not to make her emotions highly known. Six did not seem to have realized that anything was wrong, but Bob was not as oblivious. Thankfully, though, although she knew Scootaloo was experiencing more pain that from simply having her arm removed, she did not point it out.

Scootaloo just sighed and accepted what she could. Then she tried to change the subject. “How did you even find me, anyway?” she asked Bob. “We were supposed to be hidden. WELL hidden.”

“How? Oh.” Bob tilted her head and put her index finger against her neck, just over the scar that circled it. “The old Cerberus tracking chip I put in you. Imagine my surprise when that thing actually started, you know, moving after two centuries.”

“Trac- -tracking chip?” Scootaloo grabbed at her neck. “What- - how did- -when did you put a chip in my neck?!”

“After you pile-drove a pile of my daughters. Still impressed by that, Scoots.”

Scootaloo suddenly remembered. “You- -you bitch!”

“You injected her?” said Six, angrily.

“I inject a lot of people with a lot of things,” said Bob, shrugging.

“Damn it, mom…” Six sighed. “But that does explain the ridiculous blood-nanite concentration.”

Scootaloo looked at Six, not fully knowing what she had just said. “What? Nanites?”

“I’m going to second that,” said Bob. “What nanites?”

“You…you injected her with nanites, didn’t you?” Bob shook her head. “Oh…” Six turned to Scootaloo. “I did not notice them initially until your injury triggered, but your blood contains an extremely high quantity of microscopic machines per unit volume. I assumed you put them there, or she did. I now think it explains firstly how you survived cryogenic stasis and, second, the only reason you survived a substantial reave injury with no apparent scars. I mean, apart from the missing limb.”

“Mic…microscopic machines?”

“It’s not uncommon,” said Six. “Geth have them. Most synths do. Even Seven does. But yours…” She shook her head. “They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Not geth. Not Alliance. Just…well, I assumed they were Equestrian.”

“We don’t have that kind of technology.”

“Oh. Well then it is a fortunate mystery, no?”

Scootaloo’s teeth suddenly clenched as she realized that, no, it was not in fact a fortunate mystery. It was neither. There was only one pony that she knew who would have that kind of technology. A pony who had them herself- -and a robotic right foreleg identical to the one Scootaloo was now attached to.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Bob, smiling viciously as if she could smell weakness. For all Scootaloo knew, she could.

Scootaloo stopped walking and turned sharply. “Why are you here, Bob?”

“Scootaloo,” said Six. “She helped save your life- -”

“And I’m grateful for that. I really am. But I’m really, REALLY not in the mood for her right now.” She glared at the human, who smiled back. “Well?”

“Well what? Can’t a woman visit her adorable horse daughters from time to time?”

“My own horseshit. You know that’s not the reason you’re here.”

Bob sighed, and leaned back until she was nearly facing the ceiling. Then she suddenly leaned forward, her blue eyes and their slit-pupils glaring back at Scootaloo. “Because wherever you are, interesting things tend to happen. Now, don’t get me wrong. Eloth is a great guy. For a quant. But I get bored.”

“And that is not MY problem. I’m not here to entertain you.”

“Um, no. You pretty much are. That is kind of the point of the universe, isn’t it? It all exists for my personal entertainment.” She giggled. “Besides. It’s not like you can make me leave, can you now?”

Bob had been correct. There was really nothing she could do to make the woman leave. That said, though, Bob was not a substantial problem. She had mostly relegated herself to the lower portion of the ship, staying primarily with Nine- -or rather, that Nine seemed to have a strange and slightly overt incestuous obsession with her mother and therefore stayed at her side constantly. Six and Inte were with them as well. Seven sat curled in on the edge of the darkened observation deck with Scootaloo, staring out at the stormy crimson gas giant and inky void of space with her. Scootaloo had no idea where Eight had gone; her lifesigns had apparently vanished from the ship completely.

Scootaloo leaned back in her chair, looking through the images that surrounded her and listening to the calm hum of Inte’s engines as her ship orbited the unnamed and obscure world below. Scootaloo was not even sure what galaxy she was in, nor did she care. She was glad to be alive- -but somehow, could not bring herself to be truly happy about that fact.

“I guess it’s not that bad,” she said into the silence. Seven looked at her, knowing that she had been tangentially addressed. “She’s not a bad person. Well, she is, but…she’s your mother. All of your mother. And she makes you happy, I guess.”

Seven nodded slightly, and then turned back to the view.

“I never even knew my mother,” said Scootaloo, now to herself more than anything. “I always wondered what it feels like.” She looked to Seven. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess you’re right. A person who’s always there for you, no matter what she is or what you do.” Scootaloo frowned, wondering how she had known that Seven was thinking about that.

There was a flash of red light and a popping, hissing sound. Scootaloo turned sharply to see Eloth teleport onto the other side of the room, opposite Seven.

“I suppose that would be the definition of ‘family’,” he said.

“If only,” said Scootaloo. Not looking at Eloth but at the planet outside, she spoke to him. “I didn’t know you could teleport.”

“I can,” he said, simply. Then, “I came up here because it is so loud down there. Bob is…sometimes difficult to deal with. I hope you don’t mind.”

“You love her anyway, though.”

“Love? No. I am not capable of love, unfortunately. Although I tolerate her. Which is more than most can.”

Scootaloo could not stop her eyes from shifting toward him. Superficially, he looked innocuous, even innocent with his pupils dilated and enormous. Still, something was wrong with the way he just stared blankly, and how those eyes were organic but did not seem quite alive.

“You’re not human, are you?” she said.

“No. Well, mostly no. The skin is.” He lifted his hands and arms, as if showing them off through his clothing. “I do so enjoy making these. It took so many tries to get it right. Peeling it off intact is quite a challenge. It does not work well if they are already dead.”

“Then what are you underneath there?” She looked across the room at Seven. “What is a Reaper?”

“A soldier,” said Eloth. “A very old soldier.”

“Soldier? From what war?”

“All of them.”

“I don’t understand.”

Eloth’s expression grew distant. “History is long. So much longer than you mortals can comprehend…only twice we were defeated. Once by a race called the Vkuth, who are now dead by their own hand, and once again three hundred and fourteen years ago by the Shepard. The race called leviathan resurrected us once. It was Robette who did it the second time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was a soldier,” said Eloth, again, “millions of years old, and yet defeated in the final War. My body was damaged and broken, trapped on a forgotten, barren planet. I was dead and alone, severed from my brothers. Until she found me.”

“And she rebuilt you.”

He nodded. “She gave me this body, and this mind, and brought me back to finish the War. But when I returned, it was too late. The fighting was over, and my brothers…my poor brothers. They had been enslaved by a madman, their minds subsumed by his inferior will.”

“So what are you to her, then? A weapon? A sex slave?”

“Yes and yes and no. I already told you. Based on your own definition: we are family.” He looked up at the planet. “She intrigues me. And I think I intrigue her. So our relationship is amiable.”

“You’re lying.”

Eloth looked surprised. “Lying? Not that I am aware of.”

“You’re like her. You have an endgame. Nothing she does is selfless, none of it kind. She’s planning something. And it is going to end badly for all of us.” She turned to him. “So what are you in this for?”

“For?” He smiled. “You misunderstand my purpose, Scootaloo. I can call you Scootaloo? Are we friends?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

His smile faded. “Oh. Well, yes. I’m a Reaper. We are, by definition, not intelligent lifeforms. VI’s, quants, crawlers; pieces. We are fragments. I am no different from your ship’s quant. I have no independent thoughts, no will. No Reaper framework to compel me. I exist without purpose.”

“So then why do you exist at all?”

“Why? Such an organic question to ask.” He shifted slightly, turning his whole body to face Scootaloo. “‘Purpose’ is really a pointless idea. I have no desire for one, nor need for it. I simply am.”

Seven stirred. “You have the power of a god,” said Scootaloo. “What you could do with that…”

“You are Equestrian,” said Eloth. “You of all beings should be familiar with how much initiative gods tend to take in their omnipotence.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, realizing that he was right. “Too much work, I guess.”

“But…” said Eloth, hesitantly, “I can sometimes help when I want to.”

“You ‘want’?”

“A figure of speech,” he said, dismissively. “But in this case…I do not mind helping you.”

“I don’t need help with anything.”

“I spoke with Six,” he said. “She has told me that you murdered your wife.”

Scootaloo felt her grip tighten on the edge of her armrests, and Seven bristled.

“That is none- -NONE- -of your business,” said Scootaloo, trying not to clench her teeth from anger that he had brought that fact up. “Nor is it your problem or anything you can help with.”

“So angry,” said Eloth. “It’s not like it even matters. All things die. All civilizations end. Only the Reapers are eternal, and even then only as an idea. I have overseen the extermination of countless trillions of lives. What is one pony in the scale of the cosmos?”

“You really are a quant,” said Scootaloo. “Or else you would already know the answer to that question.”

“But that isn’t my point. Six has informed me that your memory is, at present, damaged. I may be able to repair it.”

Scootaloo jumped out of her chair with enough speed to startle Seven. “You what?”

Eloth nodded. “Yes. Every civilization we consume advances us. The last one we devoured was a race called prothean. They were…primitive. Violent, unevolved, arrogant fools. But their mental interface technology was novel, even to us. Incorporating it allowed out indoctrination efficiency to increase one hundredfold.”

“I don’t need to know the history. Can you fix me?”

“Yes,” said Eloth. “Using an indoctrination protocol, I may be able to reconfigure the damaged portions of your brain. One effect would be that your memories would return.”

“Then do it.”

“Wait,” said Eloth. “I’m not finished. There is a catch.”

“What kind of catch?”

“Indoctrination was not designed for this use. It requires me to be…creative. If you survive, there is a strong possibility that you will suffer permanent psychological damage. No one can recover from indoctrination; you do not come out the same way you went in.” He paused. “That, and these memories may be best hidden.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Seven stood up. “No,” she said. Both Scootaloo and Eloth looked to her in utter shock. “I will not…allow it.” Her voice was raspy, and Scootaloo could immediately tell that she had a severe lisp. “I will not.” She shook her head. “You will…not hurt Scootaloo. Not like that. I will…not allow it.”

“Seven…”

“It is her choice,” said Eloth. “Not yours.” He turned to Scootaloo. “With that said, though. Think well on this subject. I don’t care if you die. In fact, I will likely roast you with garlic and feed you to Robette if you do with no remorse or regret. But I would prefer if the choice to destroy yourself falls on you and you alone.”

There was another small explosion of red light, and he vanished. Scootaloo stared at the dust he left behind for a moment, and then slowly turned to Seven. Seven, ashamed, lowered her head and began to move toward the door. Scootaloo stopped her, which was not difficult. Seven looked confused, and Scootaloo reached up with her robotic arm and took hold of the side of Seven’s visor. Sven resisted for a moment, but allowed Scootaloo to remove it. Under it, she had beautiful large eyes, perhaps even more so than the Real Twilight’s save for the fact that they faced different directions.

Scootaloo hugged her, and Seven initially seemed surprised but hugged back after a moment.

“Thank you,” said Scootaloo. “For that, and for everything.”

Seven remained silent, but she did not need to speak. Scootaloo already knew how she felt.

When Scootaloo left the bridge, the ship had gone into a night cycle. The hallways were lit with dim white points of light imbedded on either ceiling, replicating the light of Equestria Prime’s moon. Scootaloo felt tired, but knew that she would hardly be able to sleep. She had spent enough time unconscious when Six had been working to save her life. More than that, though, Scootaloo had a feeling that if she tried to sleep, something- - or somepony- -would be waiting on the other side for her, watching.

The ship had mostly gone silent. Scootaloo could not hear the others moving around, even though she was mostly sure that Bob was nocturnal. Wherever they were, though, they had left Scootaloo alone, at least until Six appeared at the far end of the hallway.

Seeing Scootaloo, Six hesitated for an unexpectedly long moment before approaching. Even in the low light, Scootaloo could tell that Six had recently bathed. She was no longer covered in blood, but instead was perfectly clean. Her long, muscular wings had been preened to perfection, and although Scootaloo felt a twinge of jealousy at their size and volume, she immediately felt her heart beat just a little bit faster at the sight of them. She also realized that it had been a long time since she had seen Six without clothing. In the artificial moonlight, she was more handsome than Scootaloo had recalled.

“Scootaloo,” said Six. “I…” she paused, and then sighed. Her expression fell. “Never mind.” She started to walk past Scootaloo, but Scootaloo stopped her.

“Six. What is it?”

“I…It’s my fault,” she said, reversing herself to face Scootaloo. “All of it is my fault!”

“I told you,” said Scootaloo, firmly. “I can get used to the arm. You did a good job.”

“No, I didn’t! As soon as you came to me, I should have mass-jumped you straight to Andromeda, hid you somewhere where they couldn’t find you!”

“We both know I didn’t want that,” said Scootaloo.

“But I should have insisted! I almost lost you and Seven, and then I got fucking arrogant!” She looked into Scootaloo’s eyes, and Scootaloo saw that she was on the verge of tears. “I told you Feros was safe. I promised you! I was goddamn there with the others, and I still didn’t stop this!”

“It’s not your fault.”

“But it IS! I should have known the Justicar was there! I should have protected you! And- -and the best I can fucking do is THIS!” She gently lifted Scootaloo’s new arm in her magic.

“We covered this- -”

“I’m not an idiot, Scootaloo! I saw the look on your face! You’re so young, and I got you maimed, by MY mistake. When you saw what I had to do to try to fix it…I…” She had started overtly crying. “I failed. I failed badly. I finally get you back, and I just ended up hurting you. You must ha- -”

Scootaloo leaned forward, having to stand on her back legs slightly and wrap her left foreleg though Six’s long violet mane, and kissed her. Six’s eyes went wide, and Scootaloo felt her quiver.

“Wh…why?” said Six when Scootaloo pulled away.

“I’m not an idiot either,” said Scootaloo. “Not that you hide it well anyway. This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“But- -”

“How do you feel about me, Six?” asked Scootaloo.

“We’re- -we’re friends. You’re one of my best friends- -”

“Six. If we are going to do this, you need to trust me.”

Six wiped her eyes, and then took a deep breath. “I love you, Scootaloo. I know that sounds impossible, but…but I’ve loved you for three hundred years.”

Scootaloo smiled. “See? Was that so hard?”

“Yes.”

“Come on,” she said, leading Six to a side room.

“Come on? Where are we going?”

“I know what you want, Six…Delilah. And I want it to. Not an estrus-fueled orgy with you and your sisters. Just the two of us.”

“You mean…”

Scootaloo gave Six her most seductive smile, which she knew was more goofy than sexy. Six hardly seemed to care, and she returned Scootaloo’s expression with the most joyous smile Scootaloo had ever seen on a pony. Then Scootaloo felt herself being lifted from the ground and cradled in Six’s magic. It felt as though she was flying, and she leaned in to kiss Six far more passionately than she had before. Then the two of them stepped into the side room, closing the door behind them.

Author's Notes:

Bob is very fun to write.

Chapter 25: Death of a Dream

Twilight’s eyes quickly scanned across her notes, reading through the holographic letters and hoof-written scrolls. Copies of treaties, agreements, and legal precident were laid out in front of her, and the quants kept bringing more, reading it as well and assisting in the analysis.

She reached the part she had been looking for and stopped, holding it close to her face in her magic. Her eyes rushed across it and, finding nothing of use, she suddenly screamed, turning the heavy crystal table over effortlessly and nearly crushing one of the equidroid quants. In her rage, she threw most of the materials across the library room, many of them igniting in her toxic violet magic.

“Of all the things to do to me, Starlight!” she screamed. “YOU DO THIS!”

“Princess?” said a voice entering the room. Twilight turned sharply to see one of her Priestesses standing beside a breeder servant. As soon as Twilight’s gaze fell on the Priestess, Twilight saw the girls’ breath catch as she took a step back in fright. The breeder remained more composed, but Twilight knew that she felt the same way.

Twilight paused and took a breath, calming herself. She was normally very careful to keep her anger in check, this set of circumstances was unusually stressful. “Midnight Lime,” she said. “What is it?”

“Princess, the Terran Empress is contacting us through the long-range communication relay. She claims that the matter is urgent.”

“Ah,” said Twilight. Her momentary outburst had been just that; now instead of range, her mind was racing, attempting to find solutions to the problem at its source and contain the damage before it spread. “Tell here that I’m busy…” She paused for a moment before an idea occurred to her. “Tell her that I am currently embroiled in a minor scandal. One of the nobility is spreading rumors that I am a cannibal, and my subjects are becoming nervous.”

“I see,” said the Priestess.

“You will be the one to handle her. Remain noncommittal but not obviously so.”

The Priestess looked nervous. “Me?”

“Yes you. You are one of my Priestess. So few can claim that title. You and your Sisters are like daughters to me, and I know that your training is more than adequate to handle this.” She paused. “That said, the Empress can be…challenging.” She looked to the breeder. “But GR447 will be there with you.”

“I shall, Lady Twilight,” replied the white Pegasus, bowing.

“Stand beside her. Triumph, togather. I am counting on you both.”

“Yes Princess.”

“Yes Lady Twilight.”

They both bowed and exited the room at a trot, and Twilight turned back to her overturned table. She stretched out her magic and lifted every object independently, lifting all of them at once and returning them to their original positions, cursing herself for losing her temper especially in front of one of her beloved Priestesses.

With the table back in order, she sat down and once again tried to look through the documents. As she opened her holograms and unfurled her scrolls, though, she stopped. She already knew the answer. There was nothing there that could help her. There was no way out and no way back, no loophole to exploit, nothing to leverage.

“Damn you, Starlight,” she said under her breath. “I should have killed you when I had the chance…”

“Exactly,” said a disgusted voice that caused Twilight’s head to jerk upward. She looked around the rows and columns of books and past her quants, but she already knew where the voices were coming from and who they belonged to.

“You should have,” said the other identical voice. “Why didn’t you?”

“It’s all you’re good for.”

“She gave you everything, and you took so much from her.”

“Why not kill her? It’s what you do. It’s what you DID. She’s outlived her usefulness to you.”

“That’s all she ever was. Your feelings for her were never real. You CAN’T FEEL. She was always just a means.”

“You can never love. You can only destroy.”

“So destroy. Kill her. Solve the problem.”

“No,” said Twilight, putting her head between her hands and taking a breath, forcing the hallucinations back. The quants looked at her, concerned, and Twilight did her best to focus on them: machines with hearts of crystal and the skin of formerly living ponies. They were real. The voices were not.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I didn’t. Please forgive me, Starlight. I didn’t mean it…”

She felt terrible for having for even thought about killing her best and only true friend. The other two were wrong. Her friendship with Starlight was real. Even then, though, she could feel the violence welling within her. It felt cold, a sensation of blissful and terrifying emptiness that used to be all-too familiar.

Twilight took another deep breath, and then looked down at the table and around at the Library. For a moment, she did not touch anything; instead, she tried to realize her situation and face it logically. Breaking down now without Starlight present to pull her back could doom the Empire.

Fortunately, the library was something that had always brought Twilight a great deal of comfort. It was not like the digital codex-type systems used in the Milk Path, but instead a repository for millions of actual paper books. The size, quiet, and warm desolation of being surrounded by so much text was relaxing, even if Twilight barely ever read. She had never taken to it, the problem stemming in part from her great difficulty in understanding the Equestrian language. The few nonfiction books she had read in Terran Proper, though, she had somewhat enjoyed. It was not the books, but more the library itself that calmed her.

“Okay,” she said, turning back to her reports and analysis. “Two hundred and seventy years of my life spent nurturing our political position, and it’s still this fragile…There has to be a way to fix this. There just has to be.”

The situation was somewhat grim. The four-way alliance with the two nations of the Milk Path galaxy, Equestria, and the Crystal Empire was one of Twilight’s proudest achievements. It had taken her a great deal of time, effort, and sacrifice to accomplish. The relationship to the Crystal Empire was not in danger, luckily, due to Twilight’s blood-relation with the ruling Princess Flurry Heart. Even that alliance would come into question though if the situation with the Milk Path were allowed to decay.

“If I lose the Alliance, I have two options,” said Twilight, speaking more to herself than the quants. “I can back the Council, or pull out entirely. Just let the galaxy burn.”

The second option was tempting, but anything but ideal. Part of the reports sitting before Twilight were the lists of the trade relationships between Equestria and the Alliance. It had taken her decades to negotiate those deals while taking exquisite care to keep similar deals with the Council in place. The relationship built on what had formerly been a weakness: that Equestrian technology had advanced in an entirely different direction than that of the races of the Milk Path galaxy. They specialized in high-grade technology- -ships, weapons, heavy machinery, and so on- -while Equestria’s economy was split between traditional agricultural production and the technology that was formerly known as “magic”, including quants, biomatrixed eezio, and advanced medical knowledge.

If the trade deals with the Alliance ended, the effect would be felt throughout Equestria. There were inherent oppositional forces within Equestria that would be emboldened and that Twilight would be forced to crush, and Flurry Heart would no doubt leverage the situation to renegotiate parts of her treaty. Severing the Council would only compound the problem, destroying hard-won gains fought for by generations of diplomats going as far back as Rarity herself.

“Or if I support them,” said Twilight. “War is a profit-making business. Maybe…” Except she could not. Twilight was not a fool. The Council was a political body, not a military one. They would rely on the Governors to fight their war for them, and what little resistance they could offer would be insignificant in the face of the Alliance and the Empress. Maintaining the alliance with the Council would only put Equestria in the crosshairs of the Alliance; the best Twilight could hope in that case was to avoid all-out war in favor of isolationism. Even then, though, she knew that it was only a matter of time before the Alliance came for Equestria. It could take them millennia, but unlike other politicians, Twilight did not have the luxury of considering the far-future as somepony else’s problem.

“Damn it, Starlight,” swore Twilight, pounding one of her silver-horseshoed hooves against the table. “There’s not a way out of this, is there?”

That was not true, though, Twilight immediately realized. There was a way out. There was only one simple solution- -a solution that Starlight had known since the beginning.

Twilight pushed herself away from the table, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I won’t. I can’t.” She then froze, looking at the guaranteed failure written in so many eloquent words that was strewn across the desk before her. She then cried out in rage and punched the desk. “Damn it!” she shouted. “Why does she have to be so damn smart?!”

Disowning Starlight would solve the problem. It would remove part of the legitimacy of the Alliance’s case against Equestria by expelling Starlight from it, and the remaining situation would be far easier to stabilize. Except that Twilight understood the implications of that course of action. She had worked with the Empress for over two centuries, and though she respected the woman, she knew that there was a reason why Babylon had gained rule while all of her opponents lay deceased. No doubt the Empress would push Twilight to eliminate not just one but two heretics. Twilight had already been forced to order Scootaloo’s execution; now she would need to have Starlight removed as well. What made that even worse was that she was sure Starlight would not attempt to escape or fight back, but to sacrifice herself for her friend’s sake.

“But…it has to be done,” she said, her vision blurring and her mind growing distant.

“Yes,” said one of the now visible pair of alicorns on the far side of Twilight’s desk. “You can’t escape it, can you?”

“You exist to serve the THEM.”

Twilight slowly returned to her seat and looked at the desk. “It…it’s the only way. All of this work, all of the prosperity that we brought Equestria, the advancements we’ve wrought…I can’t lose them…”

“You can’t escape it,” repeated one of the alicorns.

“Just like you can never escape us.”

“Because we ARE YOU.”

Twilight looked down at her holograms and reached out with a hoof, and then shook her head. “N…no,” she said, trying to force the thought away from her mind. “No! I can’t do that to her! Not to Starlight! I won’t! I’ll die before I let her come to harm!”

“So be it.”

Twilight looked up and felt her entire body freeze. Both of them were standing barely feet from her, just on the far side of her desk. Their bodies were no longer blurred or distant. Now, for the first time, Twilight could see their faces: large, violet eyes stared back at her from over smiling mouths full of long, pointed teeth. They stared back at her with two exact copies of her own visage.

Except that she also saw what was below that image. It seemed to split, between her own face and from their true faces and bodies- -the ones that Twilight had last seen them with. The one on the left stood staring back from a pair of empty, bloody eye sockets. Her horn had been torn away along with half of her skull, exposing her ruined brain. One of her wings had been stripped of flesh and the other hung limply where it had been twisted and broken. Her sister stood with her neck at an odd angle where it had been snapped, her jawless and badly burned face grinning back with a pair of dead, terrified eyes, her body misshapen and cut from where it had been crushed and reaved.

Twilight gasped and tried to scream, but no sound came out. Her throat felt like it was sealing closed with the realization that there was no way to escape them, no matter how far she went.

“Your time is at an end,” said the one with an intact jaw, her smile revealing her broken teeth and causing a stream of blood to spill from her mouth onto the floor. “The Goddess will rise, and you will die by the hoof of the one you were foolish enough to once trust. Just as we did.” Her sister’s eyes turned to the table, on which sat a pair of long and beautiful wings, the sinew still attached from where they had been torn out and the blood soaking into the scrolls. “And just like she did.”

“Goddess Twilight?” said one of the quants, noticing her distress. “Are you alright? Your blood pressure and pulse rate are rising do dangerously high levels.”

“I am fine,” said Twilight, even as she was staring into the face of the alicorns who simultaneously looked like her and like death itself. “I’m fine.”

“Oh. That is good to know.”

Twilight just nodded, and closed her eyes, listening as they began to scream into her mind.

“Please, Starlight,” she whispered. “Please hurry. I don’t know how much longer I can remain…”

Author's Notes:

If you haven't read Mass Core 2 yet and still haven't figured this out, well, I'm amazed you got this far without knowing at all what is going on.

Chapter 26: A Glimpse of Truth

After wandering through so many darkened hallways, Starlight finally found herself standing high in a deck overlooking the Spectre facility’s central power generator. It resembled a large column of tubes and cylinders surrounded by a dim blue glow that indicated the fact that it was operating, providing enough energy to power an entire industrial-age city. Through the thick glass separating her from it, Starlight could hear its distant hum, and it calmed her. It was not the spectacular views that she took comfort in, but in the desolation of isolated machinery. Those places felt like home, and they reminded Starlight of how far she had come: that at one point, she was considered no more of a pony or person than that fusion reactor- -just a piece of equipment meant to generate power.

The thinking, though, did not help her. Initially she had wanted to ruminate on Twilight’s reassurance, but the more she focused on it, the more Starlight began to feel uneasy. She did not have Twilight’s confidence or poise; while Twilight would surely seek out a solution eventually, Starlight was forced to recon with the fact that she had caused so damage to her friend’s proudest accomplishment. She knew how many long nights Twilight had spent meeting with diplomats, running simulations, planning through the convoluted political process necessary to do what everyone thought was impossible and establish a three-way alliance. Starlight had been there. Watching Twilight, even then a young ruler, do something so substantial had left a lasting impression on her. Then in one single moment she had lost control and so badly hurt her friend’s dream, if not ruined it entirely.

Thinking about what she had done also put her on the verge of tears. That she had almost beaten an innocent girl to death out of anger alone- -she had not known she had been capable of that, nor had she wanted to be. She had of course killed people before. So many of them, all in the name of the freedom of Cores- -but that had been so long ago, back when Starlight had become numb to it. It was so easy when they simply died; she could dismiss their fate as deserved, or justify her actions. But with Quatre, there was no justification. None at all.

Hurting Quatre was the least of it, though, as Starlight quickly realized. Her mind kept returning to her conversation with Babylon, and the more she thought about it the more she began to wonder if Babylon had not somehow foreseen- -or orchestrated- -this entire event. If the four-way alliance could not be saved, Equestria and the Alliance would sever ties. Babylon would declare war on the Benefactor, and the Council would be caught between them. The peace of the galaxy would be shattered, and it would descend into chaos and strife. Billions upon billions of lives would be lost on both sides, innocent people who Starlight had condemned by her mistake. If anything even remained when the fighting was done, it would not be the same. So much would be lost.

And for this, Starlight wept. The people that she had hurt and would hurt was too much to bear, and she would have given anything to take back that mistake, to have turned away from the human Cores and left the ship then and there. If she had just maintained control and been calm and collected- -if she had just been like Twilight- -she could have avoided all of this. Now, though, it was too late.

Compounding this was the world around her. She had just lost Beri, and that reminded her of the others: of Sjdath, and Si’y, but especially Jack. Starlight had not been able to save any of them. They had all lived out their lives while hers had continued just long enough to ruin the galaxy that they had once called home. Beri was the freshest in Starlight’s mind, though, both because of how recent she had passed and because Starlight knew that it had been her failure that had cost her friend her life.

Eventually, she just put her head against the glass, feeling her useless horn against the cold surface. She felt so powerless and useless and wondered if everything she had done had just been a lie. When she was young, it was so much easier. She strived for the equality of ponies, to free the Cores and elevate the breeders and all the other oppressed classes of Equestria. Her goal had only ever been to protect ponies, to ensure them the dignity that they deserved. That had been so distant, though, and Starlight began to wish that she had died long ago so that she could never have reached a state where she would end up hurting rather than helping those for whom she had once cared so deeply about.

After what felt like- -and might have been- -hours of this, Starlight heard the door behind her open. She looked over her shoulder to see Sbaya standing on the shadows on the far end of the room.

“Sbaya?” she said, trying to wipe away the tears but not able to disguise the sound of her crying in her voice. “Is that you?”

“Who else would I be?” she said, entering the room.

“Chrysalis,” said Starlight, turning back to the fusion core in an attempt to hide her tears. “This would be something she would do.”

“The face-changer? No. I am not her.”

“Forgive me if I have a hard time believing that.”

Sbaya paused for a moment. “When I first saw you on Parnack, you did not see me. I followed you for nearly thirty minutes, thinking that you were almost certainly a salarian. When I finally got a bead on you, I was going to kill you. I was so afraid. But seeing you through my scope…you were so striking, I could not bring myself to do it. I fired a warning shot instead.”

Starlight immediately felt worse. Chrysalis was one thing, but she did not want Sbaya to see her this way. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s you.”

“I’m surprised you couldn’t tell,” said Sbaya, somewhat disappointed. “Her illusions are…poor.”

“Poor? They’re pretty damn convincing to me.”

“Not really. She can get the physical appearance, but she never smells like the person she replicates. Always like a hive of canopy-termites.”

“I never noticed that.” Starlight paused, still not looking away from the glass, although she found that she could see Sbaya’s reflection in its smooth surface. “Out of curiosity, though…who does she change into for you?”

“For me? Sometimes you. Sometimes Lordraia.”

“The asari Subcouncilor?”

“That is her occupation, yes.”

“I saw you talking to her in the cafeteria.”

Sbaya nodded. “I did. Her grandmother was apparently badly wounded in a covert operation. The injuries were very nearly fatal, and may still be.”

“And she called you?”

“Apparently. I did my best to reassure her.” Sbaya’s eyes turned to Starlight’s reflection. “She did say something else, though.”

“What?”

“That the Council is detecting unusual massing of Alliance ships. Most of the Councilors believe that it is a show of force, a display of sorts.”

“It isn’t.”

Sbaya nodded. “That’s what Lordraia thinks. That war is coming.”

Starlight felt her breath catch, but stopped herself from bursting into another sobbing fit. “It’s all my fault,” she said.

“Yes,” said Sbaya, “yes it is.”

Starlight whirled around quickly, both shocked and angry that Sbaya had not even tried to reassure her. The expression that she saw on Sbaya’s face was not one of anger or disapproval. Instead, she remained neutral. In fact, she looked almost as she had when she was trying to comfort Lordraia about her wounded grandmother.

“You can’t change the past,” said Sbaya. “This is simple, so easy even children can understand. An event that has happened is done. Apprehension for the consequences is a legitimate feeling. Regret is not.”

“You’ve seen what I did to Quatre.”

“Yes. I helped my mother heal her.”

“I almost killed her. I WOULD have killed her.”

Sbaya paused. “There is a story,” she said. “One that I was told as a girl by my grandfather, one that affected me deeply. That when he was a youth on Tuchanka, he got into a fight with his best friend. That the friend did not survive the conflict. And that grandfather carried the weight of his actions forever after and never again lifted a weapon in violence.”

“I remember that story,” said Starlight. “He told it to me too.”

“Then you understand.”

“It’s not the same. The destruction…what I’ve caused…”

Sbaya took a step forward and kneeled down. She put a hand on Starlight’s head. “And is there anything you can even do to stop that?”

“No,” lied Starlight.

“I mean anything that would not leave your friend alone and without you.”

Starlight turned and looked up at Sbaya, who smiled slightly. “How did you know?”

“Because it isn’t hard to know. That you think there is a way out of this, by removing yourself. You’re wrong, though. That will only make this worse. Your friend, this Twilight, this is a challenging time for her. Do not insult her by threating to take away her close friend as well. One horrible mistake may be forgivable. Two would not be.”

“I just…it just hurts. I don’t…I don’t think I can take it, that I did this, to her and to Quatre and to the galaxy, that I’m responsible- -” Starlight felt herself starting to sob again. “All those people, I let them down, I- -”

Sbaya wrapped Starlight in a hug, pulling her close. It was awkward and cold, but Sbaya was trying her best. Starlight felt better for a moment. It had been a long time since she had been so close to someone like this, and she felt so secure in Sbaya’s arms, as if the bad things that had been overwhelming her had suddenly become so distant.

Starlight hugged back, pursuing this feeling of security and calm, trying to escape the pain and weight of her failure. She felt Sbaya’s position shift slightly, her hands running up her back, and Starlight changed position until they were face to face. Starlight’s red eyes met Sbaya’s blue, and they locked for a moment. Then, before Starlight knew what she was doing, she realized that they had started kissing.

“Do you…do you want to now?” asked Sbaya after a few moments, sounding as though she was in utter shock.

“I don’t want to feel bad anymore,” said Starlight. “Even just for a little while. So…yeah.”

Starlight slid off her clothing, contorting her body to pull herself out of it. Doing so was not at all easy without magic, and the amount she was shaking made it even harder. Still, she had centuries of experience with her disability and was able to quickly shuffle out of her armor.

Sbaya had taken her to a set of unused quarters in the rear of the facility and was sitting in one of the beds, already undressed but covering herself with a sheet.

“You have tattoos,” said Sbaya, surprised.

Starlight looked down at her rump. It was marked with a pair of equals-signs, one on each side. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s there to remind me that all ponies are meant to be equal.”

Sbaya looked up at Starlight and smiled nervously. “Do you…want to be equal with me?”

Starlight smiled back with equal nervousness and climbed into the bed, where she got on top of Sbaya. They started kissing again, and Starlight did her best to remove the sheet between them. When she finally got Sbaya to let go, she sat up, sitting on Sbaya’s thights, and looked down at her. Sbaya immediately squeaked and attempted to cover her exhorbinantly tiny breasts.

“Holy crap,” said Starlight.

“C…crap in a good way?” peeped Sbaya.

Starlight pointed to her chest. “You…you don’t have nipples.”

“What? No, of course not. Asari don’t.”

“And you have scales. A lot of scales.”

Sbaya looked hurt. “But…Lordraia said my scales are pretty.”

“Oh, they are,” lied Starlight. In actuality, she found the pattern of scaled skin on Sbaya’s body somewhat disturbing. It did not cover her completely, but the lines of it crossing her tiny-breasted torso made her look almost reptilian. The only fortunate aspect was that she actually did look like a boy, which made Starlight feel a little better- -until her gaze shifted slightly lower.

“Oh my,” she said.

“What?”

“That is not what I expected asari genitals to look like.”

“What?” repeated Sbaya, sitting up and looking down between her legs. “Oh. Yes. That is the exit to my birth canal, it’s not meant to function like actual female genitals.” She looked up at Starlight and looked almost pleading. “Please don’t put anything in it. I know some asari could do that, but I’m still a virgin and it would hurt me really bad. It’s also…perverse.”

“Yeah,” said Starlight, beginning to regret her decision. “I don’t really have anything to stick into it.”

“What?” said Sbaya, confused. “But…I thought ponies had penises?”

“I’m a girl pony. So I don’t.”

“Really?” Sbaya seemed immensely intrigued by this revelation, and her eyes drifted toward Starlight’s own crotch. At her angle there was nothing to see, but it still made Starlight feel extraordinarily awkward- -which was significant coming from a culture where public nudity was the expected norm.

“I’m sorry,” said Sbaya, realizing that she was making Starlight feel awkward. “I’ve never done this before, I don’t- -I don’t know what to do. I thought it would just be instinctive, but…”

Starlight sighed. She considered getting off, but she did not want to be alone, and she had actually started to pity the girl. So she lay down on Sbaya’s chest and kissed her for a few moments.

“Okay,” she said, pulling her mouth away. “Take your right hand and grab my horn.”

“Your…horn?”

“Yes. Touch it.”

“O…okay…” Sbaya did as she was told and gripped Starlight’s horn. Even without magic, the appendage was still sensitive, and Starlight almost immediately closed her eyes and moaned.

“Oh!” said Sbaya, loosening her grip. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no. A unicorn’s horn is the center of her biotics; it has a lot of nerve endings.”

“Oh.” Sbaya paused for a moment. “So when I was grabbing Jurneu’s horn, I was being molested?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm.” She shrugged. “So, what now?”

“Left hand,” said Starlight. “You’re going to take that and slide it down between us, and put it in between my rear legs.”

“O…kay,” said Sbaya, hesitating as she moved her hand down Starlight’s chest. For Starlight, it felt good, at least until Sbaya stopped just short of her goal.

“What is that?” said Sbaya, feeling around. Starlight squeaked at the touch on another set of her more sensitive organs. “Are those…are those your breasts?”

“The equivalent, yes,” said Starlight, feeling even more uncomfortable.

“They’re so little!”

Starlight lifted her head and glared at Sbaya. “Really? You really just said that?”

Sbaya suddenly realized what she had just said and blushed profusely. “I- -I didn’t mean- -”

“We can’t all be goddamn Fluttershy.” Starlight shifted position, putting Sbaya’s hand in the correct location. “There. That is where you need to be.”

“Right,” said Sbaya, closing her hand. Once again, Starlight closed her eyes and moaned. It was worse than she had expected. The paradox of the experience made it worse: the fact that it did actually feel good, and that she was enjoying it clashed heavily against how wrong it felt that a person that she considered a woman was doing it to her. Many of Starlight’s friends had been lesbians, but she was decidedly not. She was neither attracted to woman nor to aliens, and she did her best to pretend that Sbaya was a young version of Sunburst.

“Eew!” said Sbaya, suddenly taking her hand away. “It’s all gross and wet!”

Starlight opened her eyes and sat up, pulling Sbaya’s right hand away from her horn. “You know what,” she said. “This was a bad idea. I can’t do this, Sbaya.”

“No, wait, Ms. Starlight, I didn’t- -”

“You don’t say something like that to a filly!” exclaimed Starlight. “EVER!”

Starlight moved to the edge of the bed, but Sbaya sat up and stopped her.

“Sbaya,” said Starlight. “Let go. This isn’t going to work.”

“Please,” said Sbaya. “Just give me one more chance. There’s…there’s still something I can do.”

Starlight looked at her, and then sighed. “Yeah?” she said. “Fine, then. Let’s see.”

Sbaya smiled, and then ran her hand through Starlight’s mane. She then pulled Starlight closer and kissed her. Somehow, though, it felt different than before. It was as if her touch had grown much softer and yet somehow her flesh was sinking into Starlight’s. Starlight was actually surprised by this, because it felt good without any of the negative apprehensions that she had felt in Sbaya’s awkward attempts at physical intercourse.

Starlight felt herself kissing Sbaya back, and the world began to lose focus. It was as though she were drifting free of herself, with Sbaya along with her. The separation forced by their physical bodies began to dissolve, and Starlight felt herself pressing gently into Sbaya, and Sbaya into her.

“Oh Sbaya,” moaned Starlight. Sbaya could just barely moan back in response.

There was not quite a visual representation of the way their minds connected, but the feeling of it was profound. For a moment, Starlight could feel Sbaya. Not just her body, but her mind: the way she thought, the way she felt, the way she was. In response, she knew that Sbaya was feeling her, that, though not in love, they had become perfectly intimate.

Starlight reached out with her mind, attempting to embrace Sbaya’s. The response was unexpected. Sbaya’s mind shifted and retreated, almost as though it were made of tissue paper. It was intently subsumed by Starlight’s, and as she expanded exponentially around it she felt herself entering Sbaya far deeper than she could have imagined. She felt barriers, but they offered virtually no resistance. Starlight did not know why Sbaya felt like that, or why the nature of her mind had suddenly changed. It no longer felt like an equal lover, but a tiny spec in a sea of Starlight, overwhelmed and pulled ever deeper into a force that was beginning to encroach upon its deepest deaths with the incredible ease.

The pliability of it was actually quite amazing, and Starlight felt herself squeezing the tiny speck. It felt so soft, and it was amusing to feel it distort against her will. As she did, she felt memories seeping out of Sbaya’s mind. Most of them were profoundly boring in actual content but intense in emotion: almost all were simple things, like wandering through the forest on long hunts, working at her family’s ancestral farm, or sitting in a small house with her mother, father, and grandfather. These images should have been boring, but instead, Starlight felt just how calm Sbaya had been and how much she had cherished those times.

Then she squeezed too hard. Her mind pushed to deep, and Sbaya’s mind quivered, expanding outward with desperate force. The reaction was violent and unexpected, and in the rush of intimacy Starlight herself had left herself completely unguarded. Something from within Sbaya struck her mind at its most vulnerable state, and the effect was profound.

Immediately, Starlight’s mind began to shift from the feedback. Memories flashed past her, but this time they were hers. She saw herself with Twilight, laughing as they worked together on governing Equestria and making it a better place- -and she saw Twilight collapsing from the nightmares that plagued her, clinging to Starlight’s side in the times that she became weak. Some of those memories were frightening, but most were unbelievably pleasant: all the long nights spent creating new ideas and plans, or just sitting together, looking out at the world as they watched it pass, both of them undying as the centuries passed.

The memories pushed farther back. Starlight saw Priestesses, many of whom had been her friends. She saw them when they were young and new, and watched once again as they grew old and faded while she remained forever young. These were sad memories, but Starlight forced herself to watch what became of her friends as they lived out the lifespan that she was meant to have.

Then, finally, she saw herself walking through the then still incomplete halls of the Temple, Scootaloo beside her. In this, Starlight recalled how much she had cared for the small Pegasus. They had been different ponies, but they had shared a respect for one another that Starlight had failed to find in so many other ponies. Scootaloo had been the first Priestess of Harmony, and Starlight had considered her a friend.

Just as she saw Trixie approaching them, though, smiling and looking bashfully at her then quite recently acquired wife, the memory showed its end result: Starlight and Twilight standing over the unrecognizable remnants of what had once been Trixie, her body torn apart from the inside by a Chaos weapon. She saw what Scootaloo had done, and what she had become.

Then something changed. Starlight felt her mind shudder, and something inside it seemed to snap. Her consciousness fluctuated as she was thrown backward into something new, a memory she had not yet experienced.

“…are you sure?” said a voice.

Starlight lifted her head slightly, and doing so brought unimaginable pain. She tried to scream, but she was too weak- -and something large was crammed into her mouth, filling her broken lungs with the air she needed to survive.

She opened her eyes as much as she could and was dazzled by the light. It hurt her eyes badly, and the world seemed strange. Even stranger was the figure standing in front of her: an arachnid-like construct with many multi-jointed legs, an inverted yellow-colored unicorn head implanted in its center and staring back at her with violet eyes.

“At this point, it is a matter of diminishing returns,” she said. “Further surgery will not increase her probability of survival. That, and there is a ninety nine point eight percent chance that if it is installed she will lose the capacity to produce external magic.”

“I am aware of the side-effects,” said a second voice. Starlight’s eyes shifted to a second pony: a violet alicorn standing beside the cyborg. It was Twilight- -but it was not like the Twilight that Starlight would eventually come to know. Her eyes were hard and dark, staring not quite with disgust but with analytical hostility. “Can you install it?”

“She’s not one of mine. Whoever improved her was sloppy.”

“I did not ask you about the quality of her implants,” snapped Twilight with an extremely distinct French accent. She immediately paused, licking her long and pointed teeth before returning to a calm and far more collected Equestrian accent. “Can you do it?”

“Of course I can do it, My Liege. I can even make her survive the surgery.”

Twilight nodded. “Then do it. Give her the implant.”

The cyborg’s inverted, severed head smiled, and she leaned forward, her numerous mechanical legs softly moving over Starlight’s flesh.

“Shouldn’t you be using anesthetic?” asked Twilight.

“Anesthetic is for rubes. Cores don’t feel pain. They just writhe a lot when you pull out their nerves. Autonomic reaction I’m sure. Why?” She looked over her shoulder. “Do you have a problem with my methods?”

“No,” said Twilight with terrifying calmness. “Go ahead.”

Starlight suddenly snapped awake. Terrified and confused, she looked around the room, not knowing where she was. She might have been screaming, and she was covered in sweat.

“Holy fuck!” she said as she recalled what she had been doing. “What the hell was that? Sbaya- -”

Starlight looked down and gasped at the state of her partner. Sbaya was convulsing in her grasp, and her eyes had rolled back in her head. Deep violet fluid was dripping from her eyes like tears.

“Sbaya!” cried Starlight, trying to pick the girl up. She could not wake her up, and she did not know what to do. She tried to open her omnitool to get a scan, but quickly realized that it no longer worked. Just from holding Sbaya, though, she could feel that she was far colder than an asari should have been and that her heartrate was beginning to fail.

“Help!” she cried in despiration. “Somebody help me! I need HELP!”

There was a sound of running footsteps outside the door, and somebody tried the knob. It was locked, but before Starlight could even decide what to do about it the door came exploding inward, propelled by blue light.

“Starlight, I heard screaming,” said Zedok, “I came as- -WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Starlight did not know if she had time to explain, let alone how to. She was nude, holding Zedok’s naked daughter in her hooves as the girl was quickly collapsing.

“She’s going into neural shock,” said Starlight, feeling tears of fright well in her eyes. “I- -I don’t- -I didn’t mean to! Zedok, I didn’t mean to!”

“Move, damn it!” said Zedok, throwing Starlight onto the floor next to the bed. Starlight hit hard, but barely seemed to notice the pain.

“Goddess damn it!” screamed Zedok, opening her omnitool and barely scanning for half a second before closing it and picking up her now mostly limp daughter. “Her neural architecture is failing- -Star, help me! I need to get her to the medical bay NOW!”

Starlight felt herself nod, and then distantly became aware that she was doing her best to awkwardly assist. Her mind was hardly paying attention, though. Instead, it was focusing on the fact that she had failed again. The implications of what she had done were now clear to her, and she knew that even in the best-case scenario she was guaranteed to lose another friend.

Author's Notes:

I tend to think of asari as somewhat reptilian. It just doesn't make sense for them to have nipples or functional genitals. They had better not have nipples. That would mean that somewhere in the universe there is a such thing as asari milk, and I cannot abide by that.

(I wonder if it's blue?)

Chapter 27: Fatal Decision

Six cried out, almost a though she was in pain. Her whole body tightened, spasming as her wings flapped involuntarily.

“Oh! OH! Scoot- -aloo! YES!”

Scootaloo herself winced after a slight delay as her body followed Six’s lead. Her tiny wings buzzed uncontrollably, and muscles deep inside her began to contract. In her case, it really was painful, if only because of the ache in those muscles from having been forced to repeat this sort of event so many times.

Unable to keep herself held up, Scootaloo allowed herself to slowly drop onto Six’s upturned underbelly. Six hugged her tightly until they were both finished, and then for a few moments longer. Eventually, though, Scootaloo carefully lifted Six’s hooves away and rolled off her onto the soaked sheets next to her. Both of them were drenched in sweat and smelled like horses, but Scootaloo had finally reached her limit- -or at least reached Six’s.

“Oh god,” said Six, allowing Scootaloo to slide close against her left side. “Oh god! I don’t- -I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow. You ruined me, Scootaloo. I’m dead now.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go for one more?”

“I want to,” said Six, still catching her breath, “but I think it really WOULD kill me. Damn, just…damn. Where the hell did you learn how to behave like that?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Still facing upward, Six put her hoof around Scootaloo’s neck. Scootaloo snuggled against the side of Six’s chest. “Don’t tell me that it was standard training in the navy. If the mares of your military are all capable of that level of lovemaking, I doubt that the Alliance is the greatest threat to this galaxy. Not even close.”

“It isn’t,” said Scootaloo, giggling at the thought. “No. When I was a kid, though, I had a weird crush on my adoptive sister. I…well…practiced. A lot. And I mean a LOT. She was just so awesome, that when the time came- -and I knew it would come, at least back then- -that I wanted to be as good as I thought she would be.” Scootaloo sighed. “You probably think that’s gross, though.”

“I’ve had sex with all of my sisters. All in the second batch, anyway. Four’s mostly a voyeur. But most certainly, none of them even come close to you. You are amazing, Scootaloo. I’m glad I love you.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean…I don’t mean to be crude, I really don’t, but…”

“Six, we just spent, what, four hours doing just about everything I know how to do to a filly. I don’t think that you could possibly say anything crude. Especially you. Not that I care, though.”

“Well…the things you did to my horn. I just…” she sighed. “I will write you a poem, I think. Not now, but later. Because the way that felt, what you did to me…I didn’t think a Pegasus could do such things.”

“My wife was a unicorn,” said Scootaloo. “I know how to handle a horn.”

Six’s expression fell slightly, and she stared up at the ceiling. Then she turned back to Scootaloo. “Please understand,” she said, now serious. “I know you still love her. And I’m not trying to replace her. I really do love you, and if I may be so bold I think you feel something in return, even if it is not that strong.”

Scootaloo moved upward against Six’s body and kissed her cheek. “I don’t think you can ever stop loving a pony,” she said. “Not really, anyway. You always do on some level. I think you know that, though.”

“I do,” said Six.

Smiling, Scootaloo rolled onto her side and arched her back toward Six. Six understood, and she wrapped herself around Scootaloo. The size difference was substantial, and because of it Scootaloo felt secure in her friend’s arms. She felt her wings pressing against Six’s chest, and felt Six’s breasts against her lower back. After a few moments, she felt moisture touching her back as well: a mixture of her and Six’s fluids, the same that was between her own legs and saturating thee sheets.

Despite the dampness, Scootaloo felt herself drifting to sleep. Just before she did, though, she heard Six again.

“Scootaloo?” she said. “I…I have to know. Are you going to leave again?”

Scootaloo sighed. “I don’t know, Delilah. I don’t know.”

“Well, at least consider staying. I know its selfish, but I don’t want to lose you again. We could retire, even. I could take you to the Verge, or the Andromeda frontier, somewhere where there isn’t war. I’d stay with you. I’d even have your pony babies if you want. Just please don’t leave me again, not like before. Not without saying goodbye…”

“You know,” said Scootaloo, snuggling closer to her lover. “That actually sounds kind of nice.”

Six’s body relaxed slightly with relief, and Scootaloo felt the larger pony’s head on her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said.

It only took a few minutes for Six to fall into a deep sleep. Scootaloo, though, did not. She wished she could. More than anything, she just wanted to stay there with Six. That was impossible, though, and she knew it.

Carefully, Scootaloo lifted Six’s hooves and pulled away from her. In her sleep, Six frowned and grabbed the sheet, holding it closer to her like she had been holding Scootaloo. Scootaloo paused for a moment, deciding that Six looked adorable while she was sleeping, as most ponies did. Even with her sharp teeth and the fact that she was a Cerberus-made clone grown inside a mutated human woman, she still really was a pony. And that made Scootaloo’s decision so much harder.

After a few moments, though, Scootaloo left Six where she was lying and made her way out into the ship. It was still as dark as it had been before, and still as disturbingly silent. Scootaloo could not help but feel that she was navigating some kind of tomb.

Eventually, though, she found what she was looking for. Standing in the middle of a barely lit hallway, both in perfect silence, stood Eloth and Inte. Both were apparently transfixed in the contemplation of a loose fruit fly that was hovering in the center of the hallway.

“It’s so small,” said Inte.

“I know, right?” said Eloth. “Such tiny wings…”

“Speaking of tiny wings…” Inte pointed past Eloth at Scootaloo.

“I see her,” said Eloth, not taking his eyes off the fly for a moment longer. Then he turned slowly in a way that made it obvious that he was a machine wearing a human skin. “You came looking for me.”

“I did,” said Scootaloo. She looked up at his highly dilated red-pink eyes. They looked dead. “I want to be whole again,” she said. “Whatever it takes. Give me back my memories.”

Author's Notes:

ScootleSix sex.

Chapter 28: Doubt

Zedok and Starlight both emerged from the Spectre medical bay at the same time. They said nothing to each other. They had no spoken since they had gotten Sbaya to the suite. The situation had been dire at the time, but had since stabilized. Sbaya was now resting, and there was apparently no indication that she had suffered any debilitating permanent damage.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Zedok stopped and turned to Starlight. There was a flash of blue light and Starlight was knocked sideways, her head sharply to the left by the punch to her face. It was not a light blow either. It had been a fully charged biotic punch, which only compounded the fact that Zedok’s arm bones from the elbow down were made of metal. Starlight’s vision erupted with light, and though she did not fall she stumbled to the side. The pain pulled her back into reality, and when she regained he balance spit a surprising amount of blood onto the floor along with two molars.

“What the hell, Starlight?” shouted Zedok. “I thought you were my friend!”

“I am your friend, Zedok. I just- -”

“You’re my friend? Really? So I didn’t just walk in on you fucking my only daughter?!”

Starlight wiped her mouth on her hoof. She was still naked, and the blood stained darkly on her violet fur. “Do you want me to deny it? Because I’m not going to lie to you. Yeah. I was. But it was a shared decision.”

“Shared decision- -Star, did you see her?” Zedok pointed angrily at the door to the medical bay. “That isn’t sex! You almost Ardat-Yakshied her!”

“I didn’t know that would happen!”

“No, because you didn’t ask! Neither of you have any idea how this is supposed to work! You could have killed her, or gotten her pregnant!” Zedok angrily punched one of the metal walls, her fist creating a substantial dent. “But that’s not even what I’m fucking pissed about, Star. My. DAUGHTER. How could you?!”

“I was frightened! She was there and- -”

“So what is she to you, then? A cheap slut? Just another asari whore for you to have your way with? Is that how you see us? Is that how you see ME?”

“That isn’t fair!” cried Starlight, her tone moving from one of apology to one of anger. “That’s not what was happening! I’ll be damned if I wasn’t respectful- -”

“Oh, so its’s ‘respectful’ now to thrust all the way down into the bottom of someone’s mind? Because clearly the Great and Powerful High Priestess can do whatever she wants to her partner’s mind! Risk is for us commoners to deal with! She’s just a sack of meat, after all, who cares if she gets lobotomized in the process?”

Starlight felt herself losing control. She knew that what she had done was wrong, but Zedok was taking it too far. Enraged, Starlight lowered her head. She had no capacity for magic, but she still had a horn, and it was still mildly pointy. She charged Zedok with the intention of goring her, only for Zedok to easily sidestep and land a powerful biotic kick into Starlight’s side that sent her sprawling across the floor.

“I trusted you, Starlight,” said Zedok. “And then you go and do this to me. To her. I don’t- -”

Zedok suddenly twisted, raising one of her arms to block an incoming sphere of biotic energy. Starlight, who had likely broken at least one rib, looked up to see Sbaya standing in the door to the medical bay. She was pale and a bit shaky, bracing herself on the doorframe, but she looked even angrier than her mother.

“Stop,” she said. “Mother. Just STOP.”

“Go back to bed, Sbaya,” said Zedok. “You need to rest.”

“First of all,” said Sbaya, “my name is SBAYADVLAG. It’s only one syllable extra. I HATE being called Sbaya.” She stepped into the room. “Second, how could I rest when you are doing this to Starlight?”

“This isn’t your problem.”

“No, it is. I created it.”

Zedok faced her daughter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re too young- -”

“I’m two hundred and seventy five years old! And you had me, when? When you were in your twenties?”

“That doesn’t matter! She- -”

“We had sex! I know! I was there! It’s not like I proposed marriage to her, or eloped, or attempted to bear her children! I wanted to make love to a person that I have respect and admiration for and who has a pretty if unusual body. Is that so wrong?”

“I taught you better than that, Sbaya,” said Zedok, darkly. Starlight, who was still overcoming her windedness, watched up from the floor, hoping that this argument did not come to blows. If it did, she would have no way to stop it. “WE are better than that.”

Sbaya gaped, but then paused and took a breath. “I never realized what a hypocrite you are, mother, until now.”

“Excuse me? I’m your mother! You can’t say that to me!”

“But you are!” said Sbaya sharply. “Every day reminding me that I should be rebellious, that the life that I want to live is too boring, to narrow. Then, when I finally do something on my own accord, you tell me it’s wrong! I never wanted to be here! I wanted to stay on Parnack, to farm, to hunt, to live a simple, ordinary yahg life. But you want me to be some sort of intergalactic adventurer or soldier or something pointless and draining!”

“I want you to experience the galaxy,” replied Zedok. “To see the universe, like I did!”

“No. You don’t want a rebel, mother, you want YOU. And I’m not you! Stop trying to live vicariously through me. It’s not my fault you got pregnant off the first man you could get to have you at a ridiculously young age and could not be the itinerant warrior you wished you could be! I’M NOT YOU!”

The two stared at each other for a moment, and Starlight found herself holding her breath as much from the tension as from the broken ribs and mouth filled with blood. She was sure they were going to attack each other.

Then Zedok smiled. “I’m so frigging pissed at you,” she said to her daughter. “At the same time, though?” She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “I’m way more proud. Is that weird?”

“Yes,” said Sbaya, suddenly seeming to deflate, as if she had only barely been able to be confrontational for less than a minute. In fact, she looked horrified. “Mother, I didn’t mean- -”

“No, you did. And that’s fine. Damn, though. If your father had been here he would have fainted. I think he’d be proud too, though. At least when he woke up.” She turned her attention to Starlight. “I’m still mad at you, though. But to be honest? Yeah. My daughter’s almost as hot as I am. I can understand the temptation.”

“It was still a jerk move,” said Starlight. “I shouldn’t have put any of us in this situation.”

“Is this something that is going to happen again, though? I mean, if you want to make a relationship out of this, I might be able to learn to live with it in three or four hundred years.” A look of realization suddenly came over Zedok’s face. “By the Goddess…this must be why Darien was so terrified of dad! And…this must be how dad felt. Damn.” She shook her head. “Not a day goes by where I do not admire him more and more.”

Starlight and Sbaya looked at each other, and Sbaya turned to her mother. “I don’t think so,” she said. “To be absolutely honest, Starlight is too rough for me. That and, frankly, I’m not attracted to ponies. I just wanted to be prepared so that I don’t look like a foolish virgin when the time really does come. I assumed Starlight would be understanding of my naïveté, and she was.”

“Well, there goes your ego, Star.”

“It’s fine,” said Starlight. “Sbayadvlag, you are a good friend, but I just can’t get over the fact that you’re a girl.”

“But I’m not!”

“No, you are. And I’m not a lesbian.”

“I can hear that,” said Zedok, kneeling down and taking Starlight’s hoof, helping her up. “I’ve never really got how that whole thing works.” She shrugged. “I guess I just like penises.”

“Really?” said Starlight. “Because I thought your genitals were ‘exit-only’.”

“What?” Zedok looked over her shoulder at Sbaya, who had now become the color of a plum. “Oh. Yeah. They are. In the same sense that Jurneu’s ass is.”

Starlight laughed unexpectedly and splattered blood onto Zedok. “Oh crap! I’m so sorry!”

“Eh. I get covered in blood all the time. Either I’m shooting someone or pulling the bullets back out.” She led Starlight toward the medical area. “But I probably overreacted a bit. That would be the krogan DNA. Now I have to fix you.”

“‘Fix’ me?”

“Don’t tempt me.” She turned to her daughter. “Sbaya…Sbayadvlag, you can go walk around if you think you’re up for it.”

“Yes, I will,” said Sbaya, nodding. “Perhaps I can find a tree to hide in while I recover from the glorious reaming of my mind. Perhaps I will speak to Jurneu concerning the matter of unicorn-asari relations.”

“Just keep your hand of his horn, okay?”

“Wait, what?” said Zedok, immediately concerned. She reversed to face Sbaya, but Sbaya had already silently departed.

“Damn,” said Zedok. “I hate when she does that. It’s so weird.”

Zedok led Starlight into the front part of the medical area and immediately started scanning her. “Wow,” she said. “You’re really fragile, aren’t you?”

“With no biotics and no tech? Yes. I’m about as tough as you would expect a horse with a forty centimeter shoulder height to be.” A thought suddenly occurred to her as Zedok reached for some medical tools and yet another dispenser of medigel. “Actually,” she said. “Zedok, can you look for something?”

“Apart from the missing teeth and the broken ribs? You mean like the internal bleeding? Because I’m working on that.”

“Not…” Starlight paused. “No, not that. I need you to check my brain.”

Zedok blinked. “Do you think I gave you a concussion?”

“No.” Starlight paused, knowing how insane it sounded. “I need to you to look for an implant.”

Zedok raised where an eyebrow would have been if she had possessed any. “Star, you know your body’s full of implants, right? All that Core stuff? Twilight took most of it out of you, but not all of it. They don’t work, but they’re still there.”

“I mean an active one.”

“There are no active implants. I would have detected that already.”

“Then look again. Please,” begged Starlight, surprised at how suddenly imperative this seemed to her.

“All right,” said Zedok, opening her omnitool and scanning Starlight’s head. There was a momentary pause, and then she sighed. “Yeah. Nothing there.”

“None one made out of metal,” said Starlight. “It would be Equestrian technology.”

“So biotech?” Zedok paused for a moment and clicked at her omnitool. “That would be almost impossible to detect, but if it’s in your brain I guess I could do a metabolic scan at high resolution. And then cross reference that to an absorptive matrix. It’s normally how I diagnose eezio poisoning in yahg, but…” she adjusted her omnitool and scanned again. “See?” she said. “Nothing…what the hell?”

“What? What is it?”

“Holy shit,” said Zedok, almost in awe of what she was seeing. She looked over her omnitool at Starlight. “Star, how did you know this would even be there?”

Starlight felt her heart sink. “There…there actually is an implant?”

“Yeah,” said Zedok. “Hold on.” She typed into her omnitool for a moment more, and several smaller screens showing images of Starlight’s brain appeared beside her. “It’s almost impossible to detect,” said Zedok. “Entirly organic. Like some sort of parasite.”

“You’re not making me feel better, Zedok.”

“I’m not supposed to. I’m just so impressed. In any other brain, this would be completely undetectable. The only reason I’m seeing it here is because your neurons have ungodly levels of eezio in them. See?” she pointed at one of the scans. “It shows up as a dead spot. Negative space.”

Starlight looked at the scan. It was an image of her skull in sagittal cross section. Starlight could see her brain and her horn, which extended into her skull roughly as far as it extended out of it. It should have been connected to her frontal lobe by a rich array of nerve connections, but instead she saw a black spot where those nerves should have been.

She broke out into a cold sweat. “What…what is that thing? What is it doing?”

“I don’t know. But if I had to guess? I would say it’s blocking the efferent nerves to your horn.” She looked up over her omnitool. “It’s blocking your magic.”

“No,” said Starlight, desperately trying to rationalize. “It can’t be. I lost my magic when my Core implants were removed.”

“Not necessarily,” said Zedok, changing her scan again. “I mean, your body is still saturated with eezio. At levels that would be lethal to asari. You’re marrow, your nerves, your everything.” She paused. “And it would explain why you almost killed my daughter when you deflowered her. Which I still haven’t forgiven you for, by the way. If you were some kind of dormant biotic…”

Starlight felt her breathing accelerate. The image she had seen had been true. It had not been a hallucination caused by Sbaya’s mind’s last desperate attempts to preserve itself. It was a real memory. But it could not be- -because if it was, it meant that Twilight had knowingly taken Starlight’s magic. That from the very beginning her best friend had betrayed her.

That night, Starlight returned to the medical bay. It had become so late that even Zedok had gone to bed after spending most of her time in the bay reviewing her scans. Starlight stopped and looked at her friend’s notes. She had mapped the exact structure of the implant, and her conclusions were not good. It was fused with much of Starlight’s frontal lobe, ingraining itself into and around individual neurons. There was no way to remove it with the equipment at the Spectre base, and Starlight knew Equestrian technology well enough to know that it had grown to the point where not pony doctor would be able to remove it either. Not without taking the front half of her brain and her entire horn with it.

The results were not what she had come to the medical suite to look for, though. Instead, she made her way to the back of the facility.

“Quatre?” she said, softly. “Can I talk to you?”

“I told you already,” said the other pony without hesitation. She was still uncovered on the bed and facing the wall away from Starlight, putting herself in a position where Starlight was forced to look at the scarred stumps where her wings had once been. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“You were here. You heard. What’s in my head.”

“An implant that suppresses your biotics. So what. If I even try to move a coffee mug with my mind, my brain hemorrhages. I have no sympathy for you.”

“And I don’t expect you to. Or even to talk to me. If you want to just lay there? Fine. Please just listen.” Quatre did not say anything, and Starlight continued. “When I first asked you why you looked like Twilight, back on your ship. You hardly seemed to care. Until I mentioned that she had pointed teeth.” Starlight paused, but there was no response. “There is something else. I remember her. From a very long time ago. She’s the one that put the implant in my head. And she spoke with a French accent. The same as yours.”

Quatre was one again still, and after several moments Starlight prepared to leave. As she did, though, Quatre stirred and looked over her shoulder. Starlight was immediately surprised by the expression of fear on her face. Quatre looked at Twlight, and then rolled over, tucking her legs below her body as she sat upright.

“The implant,” she said. “It’s made of Equestrian technology, but it was built by Cerberus.”

“Cerberus? What do they have to do with this? Why would they make an implant like that?”

“You already know the answer to that. You’ve met Subject Zero.”

“They built it to control biotics.”

“Control was the heart of all of Cerberus’s desires from the very beginning- -and it was the loss of control that destroyed them.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Why would Cerberus put an implant in my head? They don’t have anything to gain…and it wasn’t even Cerberus. If I’m right…” She took a breath. “If I’m right, it was Twilight.”

“Because implants were not the only thing Cerberus made.” Quatre’s eyes met Starlight’s. “They also made me.”

Starlight stared at the pony in front of her. “‘Made’?”

“I am a clone. My genetic source was taken from Twilight Sparkle during the Agrostation Six incident. I was incubated in the womb of a woman of human descent. That is the answer to your very first question. I look like Twilight Sparkle because I am genetically identical to her.”

“Your…a clone…” As disturbing as that was, it made sense. Starlight also immediately grasped the implications of it, as horrible as they were. “So if Cerberus made one clone- -”

“They didn’t make one clone,” said Quatre. “They made eight in two batches of four. Hence my name. ‘Quatre’ is French for ‘Four’. I was the youngest sister of the first batch.”

“Eigh- -eight clones?” Starlight felt faint. “They cloned her without her permission EIGHT times?” Quatre nodded. “Then there are seven others…”

“No. I am the last survivor of my batch. I have four sisters. Two of them are currently assisting the pony called ‘Scootaloo’. The other two have likely joined them by now, though.” She paused. “The second batch was always very close to one another.”

Starlight considered what this meant to her mission, if it was even still ongoing. “That’s not good,” she said. “But if they are all as sickly as you- -”

“They aren’t,” snapped Quatre. “I’m not like this because of defective cloning. My sisters are as strong as any alicorn. My condition is simply…unique.”

“You were injured,” said Starlight, remembering what Zedok had told her. “Very badly.”

Quatre sighed, and her violet eyes seemed to become distant. “This is not something I like speaking of,” she said, turning her gaze back to Starlight. “Even the memories are so very painful. I know it is a sign of weakness, but the scars from the event are deep and not just physical. But it is relevant here, I think, and it bears repeating.”

Starlight pulled up a wheeled stool and sat beside Quatre’s bed. “I’m willing to listen,” she said.

Quatre paused. “Yes,” she sighed. “Perhaps it is time someone else knew. The reason I am like this is because of what Cerberus did to me.”

“Your own creators? They did this?”

“No,” said Quatre, “and yes.” She looked upward, and Starlight saw that she was crying. “I had three sisters. Two, she was my best friend. I was smaller and weaker than them, but Two did not care. She protected me, watched over me, helped me when I needed it. Three was much more coarse. Violent, aggressive, loud. I think something was wrong in her mind, but she loved me too. She would scream or be mean, but deep inside I knew she cared.

“But then there was One. I didn’t know her well. She almost never spoke to me, or to the others. She would just watch. I think even Three was afraid of her. Every test Cerberus gave us, I would come in last- -and One would outpace the rest of us by far.” Quatre looked back at her wings. “She’s the one who did this to me.”

“She…she took your wings? Your sister did this to you?”

Quatre nodded. “Cerberus only needed one clone. That is why four were made. One day they came to us and…they ordered us to kill each other. Because they only wanted the one strong enough to win.”

“That…” Starlight shook her head. “That’s horrible.”

Quatre stared down at her bed and the cables connected to her body. “One and Three immediately leapt on each other. Three was stronger and more vicious, but One was smarter and more proficient. Three died. Two tried to get me away, knowing that I couldn’t save myself. She died trying to protect me.”

“And you…”

“I watched as she tore me apart. Toying with me because I wasn’t strong enough to resist. Do you know what it feels like, Starlight Glimmer? To have your wings torn out of your body? It hurts, but that’s not the worst pain. To watch them pulled free of you?” Several tears fell onto the bed, but she continued. “They were long, and they were beautiful. I was once beautiful. I once had so much potential! I could have…I could have done so much, BEEN so much.”

“You’re still beautiful, Quatre.”

Quatre’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t patronize me. My body is ruined. I can’t even survive on a planet without risking my life. Using my biotics is almost lethal- -I can’t even survive sudden changes in temperature.” She looked down. “And Marc Antony…Starlight, have you ever heard the story of Edi and Jefferson Moreau?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

“Not surprising. The galaxy worships Shepard, but forgets about those that made his victory possible. In short, Moreau was afflicted by a rare and incurable skeletal disease that made his bones like chalk. Even the slightest motion could break him if done wrong. And Edi was a pre-synth AI, an evolutionary dead end. They were lovers.”

“I see,” said Starlight. “And you’re in the same position as him.”

“Which is why the story always affected me so. That’s I’m the same as he was.” Quatre suddenly cried out and struck a hoof into the bed, nearly tearing out the IVs from that arm. “But I SHOULDN’T BE! He- -he’s always so careful. He makes sure never to push me too hard, never to get my heartrate too high when we make love, but I…I always want to push harder, I SHOULD be able to push harder. I just want to be a real pony, but she took that from me! My sisters, my body, my future! That goddamn whore, she didn’t even have the pity to kill me then and there!”

“And what would Marc Antony think if he heard you talking like that?”

Quatre’s anger suddenly ceased, and she relaxed, her energy replaced by sadness. “He…he would tell me that it’s not that bad.” She looked up at Starlight. “He’s the reason I survived. As I lay dying, he intervened just in time. He almost died, but he picked me up and pulled me out before One could finish the job. And my mother confronted One.” She paused, and then shook her head. “I’ve never seen her like that, how angry she was. No biotics, no tech, and she just walked up to her.”

“And…what happened to her?”

Quatre looked up. “My mother was forced to kill her own daughter. Or at least that’s what I thought. Until now.”

“No,” said Starlight, sharply. “What you’re saying, it’s not true. It can’t be possible.”

“The accent? The pointed teeth? Those aren’t elements of the original Twilight Sparkle. The accent is from our mother, and the teeth from a defect in the cloning process.”

Starlight shook her head. “But Twilight isn’t like that! I’ve lived with her for so long. She’s my friend!”

“And One is a perfect killer. The ultimate clone, built by and programmed by Cerberus. You said she was the one who took your magic, didn’t you? Why would your ‘friend’ do that?”

“I don’t- -I don’t know, but there had to be a reason for it!”

“Two and Three are dead. I saw their bodies. I never saw One’s.” She smiled. “At least tolerate it in the hypothetical. If she survived. If somehow Cerberus eliminated and replaced the original Twilight Sparkle. What would they have to gain? Apart from a ruler who would create an Equestria that favors the Alliance. Which seems to me to have been what happened.”

“So then she’s…she’s not the real Twilight…”

“I can’t say for certain, but based on your description, yes. I would assume that is the case.”

“She lied to me…”

Quatre leaned forward. “That’s what she does. One is not a pleasant person. She a murderer. Built to kill not just without remorse but to find joy in it. She murdered two our sisters and was content to torture me and leave me in this cursed state. And she laughed while doing it. She goddamn laughed.” Her eyes focused on Starlight’s. “Whatever she is, she’s not a pony. She’s a monster. Cerberus’s most vile abomination. A perfect success. Built to lie and cheat and kill and do whatever she must to reach her goals. She was never your friend, Starlight Glimmer. She was just using you. Perhaps even enjoying watching you suffer without your magic.”

“She wouldn’t do that!”

“And yet she has.”

“No,” said Starlight, turning away from Quatre on her stool. “She’s not like that. She isn’t. She can’t be.”

Except that there was no other alternative. There was no other reason she could think of for Twilight robbing her of magic except to cripple her ability to fight back, and she had always known that Twilight’s teeth could not really be the result of her time as a Core. What convinced her, though, was the look in the eye of the version of Twilight in her memory. The coldness in her gaze was so profound that it could only have come from the kind of pony who was willing to murder her sisters without hesitation and enjoy the process of doing it.

As hard as Starlight’s mind tried to reject the belief that her entire life had been a lie, in her heart she knew that Quatre was correct: the current rular of Equestria was not Twilight Sparkle. She never had been.

Chapter 29: The Death of Scootaloo

“Sit.” Eloth pointed across the room with one gloved finger toward the inclined metal bed that she had only woken up on just hours before.

Scootaloo steeled herself, and then climbed with some difficultly onto the high table. As she did, she was startled to see a pair of blue eyes staring back her from next to the door. In her state of concentration and mental preparation, she had not noticed Bob sitting in a chair against the wall, her long and dirty hair over her chest and her hands in her skirt waistband as though it were pockets.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Scootaloo.

Bob removed her left hand from her waistband and removed the cigarette she had been smoking from her mouth. “What does it look like I’m here for? I’m going to watch. See, I even brought popcorn.” She lifted a small bag of small yellow-tan kernels.

“It isn’t popped.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m going to pop it on your forehead when your brain starts to boil out your ears.”

“It does not actually do that,” said Eloth, attaching several straps to Scootaloo’s limbs. “It is rather difficult for a boiling brain to exit by any orifice, especially the ears.”

“What are the straps for?” asked Scootaloo, pulling one of her hooves away before Eloth could finish securing her. “I don’t want to be strapped down.”

Eloth stared at her for a moment. “This process can have…violent reactions.” He took off one of his gloves, and Scootaloo saw the blackened skeletal hand beneath. She had known that Eloth was a machine, but seeing direct evidence of it immediately gave her second thoughts about her decision. “The last woman I tried this on did this to me.”

Bob stood up. As she did, she slipped off her skirt and kicked it to the side. Scootaloo was not sure why, but this made her extremely nervous.

“Please,” said Eloth. “Can you PLEASE keep your clothes on?”

“What?” said Bob, “you don’t like the view?”

“I am ambivalent to the view. You aren’t very attractive.”

“And yet you still do me.”

“Only because you programmed me to.”

“Eh.” Bob shrugged and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “I figure if she can go around naked, so can I. I mean, if ponies can do it, so can humans, right?” She walked over to Scootaloo and stood beside her, staring down with a strange disingenuous smile on her face. “You do realize this is going to kill you, right?”

“I’m not going to die.”

“Oh! Confidence! How goddamn quaint!” Bob leaned in close, and Scootaloo could smell her. She had the odor of decaying meat. “You’re not a Justicar. You’re not a wizard or somesuch. Do you even know what your chances are?”

“I will. Not. DIE.”

This time, Bob smiled sincerely. She then pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and extinguished it on the side of Scootaloo’s neck.

Scootaloo winced and released a hiss of pain, but she did not allow herself to cry out even with how much it hurt.

“Is that really necessary?” said Eloth.

Bob ignored him. “That’s what you get,” she said to Scootaloo, “for making promises you don’t intend to keep to my daughter. I hope your right. Don’t break her heart. Not like this.”

With that, Bob stood up and shoved the still smoldering cigarette into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed it, and then began to return to her seat.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” said Eloth, moving behind Scootaloo to where she could not see him.

“The cancer hasn’t killed me yet, and I don’t think it ever will. Besides, they’re not even tobacco. I’m not a moron.” She produced another one. Scootaloo did not ask from where. “They’re filled with little pieces of paper soaked in PCP.”

Scootaloo tried to lift her line of sight to Eloth, but with her incline it was impossible to see him. “How much is this going to hurt?”

“I do not know,” said Eloth. “I would assume a lot.”

“Great.” Scootaloo looked across the room at Bob, who was eating another of her cigarettes. “Does it?”

She shrugged. “How the heck should I know? He never does it to me? Not that he hasn’t tried.”

“Her brain is infested by the light of the Wretched Ones. Unfortunately, there is not enough left to attempt to indoctrinate.”

“Are you ready?” asked Bob.

“I’m always ready,” said Eloth.

“Scoots?”

“This is what I want,” she said, trying to convince herself of that fact. “Do it.”

Bob leaned back and looked up, presumably at Eloth. “Light her up!”

Scootaloo felt a pair of cold, mechanical hands on the side of her head. Before she had a chance to react to how disgusting they felt, she realized that she was screaming. The world around her seemed to swim, and then depart at high speed away from her, as if she were falling down a vast hole at a speed much quicker than anything that gravity could produce.

After what felt like hours- -and what felt like less than a second- -she felt her body slam into something hard. It hurt substantially, but despite the length of the fall nothing was broken. Slowly, Scootaloo stood up to see herself surrounded by a seemingly infinite plane constructed of perfectly flat tiles outlined with dim red light. The sky above was black, but it seemed to be emitting a sound of some sort. A low humming that Scootaloo felt reaching inside her, changing the way she perceived everything around her. Instead of pain, the sound of the hum made her feel strangely calm.

“Hello, Scootaloo,” said a voice beside her. Scootaloo turned sharply to see a human-height pile of abstract, red lines and geometric shapes standing beside her. The shapes turned toward her, and Scootaloo could see that they bore a pair of enormous, glowing red eyes.

“Eloth?”

“You are correct,” he said.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?”

“I am Eloth.”

“That’s not what I mean. Are you trying to be my spirit animal or something?”

Eloth reached out with an appendage made of light and pointed to a space two meters from Scootaloo. There was a flash of red light that took a wireframe shape and then developed into a physical object. In a flash, there was a living chicken standing in front of her. It stared at Scootaloo and squawked loudly.

“Okay,” said Scootaloo, “I’m seriously getting tired of that joke.”

“Joke?” Eloth seemed confused. “It was supposed to be a duck.” He stared at it. “That has never happened before. Strange.”

Scootaloo looked at Eloth’s abstract representation. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

“Yes. Your neural architecture is under over nine hundred percent the normal safe level of stress.”

“No, I expected that. Why do I feel like I really…I don’t know, it’s like I’m actually starting to like you.”

“Ah. That’s the indoctrination. Don’t worry, it’s normal. Probably. It does mean we need to hurry, though.”

The world began to shift, the tiles of the floor rising and shifting, their color changing as they split apart and reconfigured. Scootaloo felt as though she were moving extremely quickly, and she instinctively closed her eyes as the protean world washed over her, the tons of material rushing past her with tremendous force.

She was not sure how long she been pressing her eyes closed when she opened them and saw herself. For a moment, she was confused, but then remembered that she had been looking in a mirror. There she stood, dressed in a formal Priestess uniform, her long rainbow-dyed hair tied into a neat bun.

“Damn it,” swore Scootaloo as she tried to tug her white uniform into better alignment. As she did, she picked up a silver-colored wing guard in her teeth and attempted to attach it to one of her wings. The piece of jewelry was already difficult to handle; it had been made especially for Scootaloo’s small and flightless wings, and as such was tiny. Compounding the difficulty was the fact that Scootaloo was almost entirly unable to reach her own wings. She struggled and stretched, but then slipped. The silver piece clattered to the floor.

Scootaloo stared at it, and it made her unduly at her own inadequacy. It was not a complicated piece of jewelry, something that any Pegasus could wear if she wanted to- -but to Scootaloo, it was another reminder that she could not fly and never would be able to.

A different face appeared in the mirror, and Scootaloo turned to see a blue unicorn with long, white hair beside her. She was dressed in her own uniform, which was equivalent to Scootaloo’s except for the fact that it was open in the back to accommodate the extensive metal implants and ports that emerged from its wearer’s spine. Trixie had compensated for that with a cape, and likewise had arranged her hair to cover the pieces of metal imbedded in her left temple.

“Here,” she said, picking up the pieces of jewelry in her magic and pulling back Scootaloo’s wings. There was a click as she affixed them. “There you go.”

“Thank you,” said Scootaloo, still somewhat ashamed that she was not able to put on her own jewelry. She turned her body in the mirror. “Do you think silver looks good? It doesn’t make them look too small, does it?”

“I don’t know why you’re obsessed with your wing size. Is that a Pegasus thing? I think they look cute. They make me feel big and powerful.” She bent her neck and licked the tip of Scootaloo’s right wing, and Scootaloo shivered. “I don’t know why you insist on wearing the guards, though. Or wearing your hair like that. I mean, your hair is not as amazing as Trixie’s,” she patted part of her own long, perfect mane that draped down across the top of her horn, “but it is pretty down.”

“It’s a formal event,” said Scootaloo. “The Princess wants us to meet with a critical diplomat. I have to dress appropriately, don’t I?”

Trixie suppressed a giggle. “You’re not in the navy anymore, Scootaloo.”

“No, but I am a Priestess.”

“High Priestess,” corrected Trixie.

“Either way, I still have an image to uphold. We’re representing Equestria.”

“By wearing armor.”

“FORMAL armor. And besides.” Scootaloo lifted one of her wings. “Don’t you recognize them? You got them for me on our last anniversary. It always makes me feel a little better, like you’re there with me even when you’re not.”

“Aww,” said Trixie. She lowered her head and kissed Scootaloo, then extended her magic behind her to bring down a tall, pointed hat. “Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie is going to wear a hat.”

“A hat? Seriously?”

“I have to keep my horn covered. I would hate to make Twilight jealous.”

They both laughed, and the memory shifted again, reconstructing itself quickly. Scootaloo found herself standing in a different part of the Temple; instead of the dwelling that she and Trixie shared, she had moved to the Central Hall. It was an enormous room that had only recently been completed, and although it was built of comparatively simple materials the design that Twilight had chosen always impressed Scootaloo greatly, even if she would never be able to navigate the upper sections on her own power.

What had always been strange about the room, though, was the fact that it never really contained guards. Scootaloo had brought the lack of defense up in several meetings, but Twilight always seemed to dismiss it. She instead chose to staff the Temple strictly with Priestesses- -of whom there were now about ten- -and with several high-grade breeders. Scootaloo assumed this was a kind of holdover from the years Twilight had spent as a Core, trapped in the center of the Harmony with a crew that more often than not consisted only of Rainbow Dash and a horde of robotic drones.

As they walked across the room, Trixie and Scootaloo were joined by several other Priestesses. Among them was young Pegasus mare named Dusty Plume who bounded to Scootaloo’s side.

“High Priestess!” she said, almost in awe and clearly excited by her first time playing the role of a diplomat. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Just ‘Scootaloo’ is fine,” said Scootaloo.

“I, however,” said Trixie, “shall be addressed as ‘the Great and Powerful Trixie’. Ideally with a rolled ‘r’. Like Trrrrrixie.”

“Oh,” said Dusty Plume, her eyes wide. “I didn’t realize, Priestess Tr- -I mean the Great and Powerful Trix…Trrrrrix…Trrrrrrrrrrererereix- -”

“She’s joking,” said Scootaloo. “You know that, right?”

“What? Oh, well, I…I know now.” She started jumping as she walked.

“Stop that,” said Scootaloo. “You look like a clingon.”

“I’m just so excited!” squeaked the young Pegasus. “This is the first time I’ve done this! Look how pretty my uniform is! And I get to be here with you!”

“Are you hitting on my wife?” said Trixie, glaring at Dusty Plume. “Because I believe that warrants a paddling.”

“No, not a paddling! I didn’t- -I wasn’t- -I didn’t mean- -”

“She’s joking,” said Scootaloo.

“Yeah. I am,” said Trixie. “I mean, she’s the sister of the avatar of the Element of Loyalty. If there’s any pony I can trust to be faithful, it’s her.”

“Aww! You two are so cute! I feel so inspired!”

“Inspired? By what?”

“By what? By you! Both of you! Before Twilight took command of Equestria, open homosexuality was a capital offense! But now look at you two! Two of the most powerful ponies in Equestria!”

Trixie seemed greatly pleased by being reffered to as powerful. Scootaloo felt more pleased that she had been some help, even if she had never intended to be in that way. She had not married Trixie to make some kind of political statement. It had been because she loved her. In a way, she supposed, it fell into the old cliché of a captain falling in love with a Core- -except instead of a cautionary tale where one or both partners ends up dead, this story had a happy ending.

“So do you to that way?” asked Scootaloo, feeling her eyes falling onto Dusty Plume’s young but strong wings.

“I do,” she said. She leaned close to Scootaloo. “I was actually thinking about asking Priestess Starlight on a date when she gets back.”

“Um, no,” said Scootaloo. “Starlight doesn’t go that way.”

“I don’t think she goes any way at all,” said Trixie. “Except maybe with Twilight.”

“Eew. No way.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it. I’d bet all the bits in my left pocket they’re rubbing horns in their spare time.”

“You don’t have pockets,” said Dusty Plume, clearly not getting the joke.

“Just try to stay calm,” said Scootaloo, seeing that they were quickly approaching Twilight. “Remember: you’re a Priestess. Be dignified, be courteous, be strong.”

“Dignified. Courteous. Strong. Got it.”

Dusty Plume managed to contain herself just as the group reached Twilight. She looked as impressive as ever, with her violet and pink hair combed neatly over her long alicorn horn and running back against her resplendent wings. She looked at Scootaloo and Trixie and smiled, not showing her teeth. That was an anomaly that Scootaloo had noticed; Twilight never, ever showed her teeth.

“Princess,” said Scootaloo, bowing.

“You don’t have to do that, High Priestess,” said Twilight, sounding embarrassed.

“She is a stickler for formality,” sighed Trixie.

Scootaloo stood and took another look at Twilight. A distant memory surfaced in her mind, and she tried to push it away. The first few years with Twilight had been somewhat awkward, largely in that when Scootaloo looked at her she was reminded of an orgy she had had in her youth with several of Twilight’s clones.

Instead, she turned her attention to the pony that Twilight was standing with. She was a somewhat tall white earth-pony mare with blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Scootaloo assumed her to be the diplomat.

“Rainbow hair,” she said. “An interesting choice.”

“Hopefully not to garish, ma’am.”

“No, no. I like it.”

Scootaloo smiled, and was about to thank her for the compliment when she heard a distant commotion from the far side of the room. Scootaloo turned, only to be knocked back as an explosion tore through the door to the hall. The world seemed to slow, and Scootaloo’s military training rushed back to her.

Through the smoke, she could hear the sound of automatic weapons. Several of the nearest Priestesses fell, their bodies torn apart by the gunfire, and a horde of armored ponies pushed through the crowd. The surviving Priestesses who were unicorns charged their magic in defense of their Princess, but there were too few of them to hold back the oncoming group of soldiers.

“There she is!” cried on, pointing to Twilight. “DEATH TO THE TYRANT!”

Several of the forward soldiers opened fire in Twilight’s direction. Scootaloo drove to the side, pushing Trixie to the ground. Several bullets pinged off her armor, and although it felt like getting struck by a hammer, they did not manage to penetrate. Dusty Plume was not so lucky; like every Priestess save for Scootaloo and Starlight, her clothing was simple cloth. Scootaloo had not been able to save her, and she screamed as the bullets passed through her small body easily.

Scootaloo hit the ground hard, gasping from the pain of nonlethal but still potent bullet impacts.

“Watch out!” cried Trixie. Scootaloo looked up to see one of the revolutionaries charge them, swinging his bayonet toward Scootaloo’s head. Before he could reach her, though, he was knocked back by a surge of blue light from Trixie’s horn. Instead of being thrown or injured, though, his armor reacted, absorbing the magic and dissipating it.

“What?” said Trixie, confused as to why her power was barely working against him.

The soldier shook off Trixie’s attack and charged again. Trixie raised her horn to fire, but Scootaloo pushed her out of the way before soldier could reach her- -and in doing so, she put herself in his path.

Then in an instant the atmosphere of the room seemed to ignite. The soldier was picked up off the ground, impaled through the chest by a construct of pink-violet energy. He gasped and screamed in agony as the magic began to seep through his body, tearing him apart internally on a molecular level, burning him from within.

Scootaloo turned to see that the entire room was flooded with the same light. The floor and walls were saturated in it as it poured throughout the hall like flame, hardening into vicious spikes wherever it met opposition. Whoever they were, their armor had been meant to deflect magic- -and it had been completely overwhelmed.

Twilight stepped forward, her body ablaze with the same light, twisting her magic in the bellies of those who had been attempting to kill her. She seemed to be relishing the chorus of their screams, and to Scootaloo’s horror, she saw that Twilight was smiling. Scootaloo had known Twilight for years. They had been friends even before Twilight had been freed from her life as a Core. Twilight had officiated her and Trixie’s wedding; Scootaloo knew her to be a kind and just ruler, a bit aloof or technical at times but truly concerned with her subjects and their wellbeing.

In that instant, though, Scootaloo saw the cold of her eyes and her long, sharp teeth. As if the death and pain she had created in an instant meant nothing to her apart from a source of amusement. Scootaloo had never witnessed the power of a god before, but when she Twilight’s expression, she knew that what she had become was not her friend at all.

One of Twilight’s cold, empty eyes drifted toward Scootaloo, staring at her for a moment, as if she knew what Scootaloo was thinking. Scootaloo froze, and for a moment she seriously through that she was going to die. That Twilight would strike her down without hesitation or remorse- -but without anger or hatred. Simply to see her die.

Inexplicably, though, Twilight turned back to her path. She walked over the bodies of her Priestesses without so much as noticing and approached one of the soldiers who she had not stabbed but ensnared in her magic. When she was close enough, she tilted her head slightly. Her magic shifted, tearing the armor free of her captive, who turned out to be a smallish white unicorn mare.

The magic shifted again, lowering the entrapped mare to eye level with Twilight. Even at a distance, Scootaloo could see the fear on the mare’s face, the horror and disbelief that all of her forces had been defeated instantly as she was forced to listen to the sound of their bodies being reaved apart.

“Now,” said Twilight, her voice perfectly calm and measured in such a way that gave Scootaloo chills. “Is there something you wanted to speak with me about?”

“We…we won’t give up,” said the mare, now starting to cry. She closed her eyes. “You…you monster!”

“Monster?” said Twilight, once again smiling far enough to reveal her teeth. She pulled the mare closer to her, and when the mare saw Twilight’s face up close she promptly urinated. Scootaloo did not blame her; if she had been forced to be so close to Twilight in this state, she would have too. “I’m not the one who came into a place of worship and slew a group of unarmed young mares.”

“Worsh- -worship of a false god!” said the mare, clearly recalling what she had been coached to believe. “Only Celestia and Luna are true goddesses! You are a- -a despot! A dictator! And we will not rest until democracy is restored to Equest- -”

Twilight’s magic slashed to the side, instantly disemboweling the mare and spreading her innards in a long streak across the room. The mare gaped and the screamed the most horrible scream that Scootaloo had ever heard.

Then, as quickly as she had produced it, Twilight retracted her magic. The bodies of the soldiers fell, their charred remains still smoldering within their burnt-out armor and filling the hall with the scent of cooking meat. The one surviving mare collapsed into sobbing, desperately trying to pull her intestines back into her body.

“Democracy?” said Twilight in a tone of absolute contempt, putting her metal-clad hoof on the mare’s head, pushing her against the ground. “The Parliament? Rule your precious nobility? White unicorns like you, perhaps?” She kicked the unicorn in the head, knocking her across the floor. The mare cried out, but she had lost too much blood to be able to resist much. “No. We’ve tried democracy. And it failed us.” She leaned close to the mare. “I am your goddess now. I am you ruler. Now, and for all eternity. And any pony who stands in opposition to me, whether they be reactionary or revolutionary?” She laughed. “I will crush them. As I did you, and as I will do to all of those who think like you.”

She turned around and helped up one of the less injured surviving Priestesses. “Orangeseed,” she said, addressing her by name, “go. Get the servants, the ones with medical training. Call for help.”

Orangeseed nodded and galloped off past the bodies and the now limp disemboweled mare. Not that it would do much good, though. Some of the Priestesses had survived, but not many. Those that had died had died hard.

Behind her, Scootaloo saw Trixie futilely trying to stop Dusty Plume’s bleeding. Twilight, though, seemed hardly to notice as she returned to the diplomat she had been standing beside earlier.

“My apologies,” she said. “I certainly did not intend for you to witness such a disgraceful display.”

“No,” said the blue-eyed mare, completely unfazed by her surroundings. “I take no offense in it. In fact, it has been quite…informative.”

The world faded and changed again. It felt different this time, though. Scootaloo became conscious of the humming growing louder, and the shifting of the memory was physically painful.

She found herself in bed, staring up at the ceiling as the early-morning sun shone through one of the high windows in the Temple. Scootaloo lay beneath the soft sheets, naked, staring at the intricate design installed into the ceiling. It was an abstract pattern, but for some reason Scootaloo could not help but feel like the two large circles in the center resembled a pair of eyes. As she contemplated this, she felt a hoof slide across her chest and a soft pony body against her left side.

“Scootaloo? Is something the matter?”

Scootaloo turned her head to the side and stared into the deep scarlet eyes staring back at her.

“No, Wintry,” she said, putting her foreleg between Wintrygust’s neck and the bed, pulling her closer. “I just feel a little off.”

“It’s the incident, isn’t it?”

Scootaloo sighed. “Yeah.”

“Scootaloo…I’m so sorry. What you must have gone through…”

“They say Dusty Plume isn’t going to walk again. Trixie won’t stop crying. And…” She paused. “The diplomatic relations went off without a hitch.”

Wintrygust inhaled sharply and held Scootaloo tightly. “I’m so sorry about Trixie. She’s such a nice pony. I’ll have flowers sent to her. Perhaps I will visit in person to help cheer her up.”

“I think she would like that,” said Scootaloo, making a mental note not to be there when Wintry and Trixie were in the same room. They got along well, but them being in the same place always made Scootaloo feel ashamed of herself. Old habits died hard, though. “It’s not just that, though.” She paused. “Wintry, I think something’s wrong with Twilight.”

“Wrong? After what she witnessed, I would not be surprised.”

“No. Not that.”

“Not that? Then is she ill?”

“No. I just…I don’t know. A suspicion, I guess.”

Wintrygust leaned over Scootaloo, her perfect white wings spreading out behind her like those of an angel. She began kissing Scootaloo, and Scootaloo felt the same skip in her heart as the first time they had lain together. She kissed back.

“Don’t worry about that now,” she said. “I was so afraid when I heard what happened. I’m just so glad you’re alive. Twilight is a good ruler. She has already done so much for my people. She will be fine.”

Scootaloo put her right hoof on the side of Wintry’s perfect face and stroked her soft white fur. It felt strange, though. As if her right front hoof were only barely there, like it was not supposed to be for some reason.

Wintry smiled. “I love you, Scootaloo.”

“I love you too, Wintry.”

Wintry lowered herself and began kissing Scootaloo’s neck, moving down across her body and pushing back the sheets from her final destination. Scootaloo spread her legs in anticipation, hoping that Witnry would be able to make her forget the hauntingly empty way that Twilight had stared at her that day, and the way she had been able to kill so easily without any hesitation or remorse whatsoever.

Another change. This time Scootaloo was walking through one of the Temple halls. Ahead of her, she saw a unicorn in a black uniform emerge from a side hallway. Scootaloo immediately picked up pace, brushing past an orange mare with violet hair that was passing in the opposite direction. Scootaloo almost paused as a strange sensation passed over her, as though something was wrong, but she ignored it and caught up with the unicorn.

“Starlight,” she said, falling into step with her friend. “You’re back.”

“Yes,” said Starlight. “The rebellion in the Pupper system has been contained. I also stopped in the Crystal Empire for the Ascendance festival to give Twilight’s regards to her sister-in-law. I have several long reports for Twilight. You know how much she loves to read them.”

“I’m sure you heard what happened while you were gone.”

“I did.”

“You don’t sound very concerned.”

Starlight shrugged. “Why should I be?”

“Seven Priestesses were killed. One was crippled.”

“Which is a tragedy in its own right. But we’re soldiers. They knew the risk.”

“No. You and me WERE soldiers. They’re just a bunch of fillies who didn’t expect machine-gun wielding revolutionaries to burst in on them during a diplomatic meeting!”

“And I will head the investigation myself into where the heretics managed to acquire mass-effect weaponry. I will also grieve for our fallen sisters, as should you. But when Twilight is involved, I am not concerned. I have faith in her.”

“As a goddess.”

“No,” said Starlight, stopping. “As a friend. She is more powerful than you could imagine, Scootaloo. She can take care of herself.” Starlight extended one of her hooves, and her omnitool appeared around it. She inspected it. “I see,” she sighed, closing it. “Scootaloo, I need to go.”

“Starlight,” said Scootaloo as Starlight moved to leave. “Before you go…”

“What is it, Scootaloo?”

“Have you noticed anything different about Twilight?”

“Different?” Starlight seemed confused, but she considered the question for a long moment before answering. “No. She is the same as she has been since I have known her.” Her expression became more serious. “Why, Scootaloo? Do you think something is wrong with her? Is she sick? I told her working this hard would catch up to her! She may be an alicorn, but- -”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” Scootaloo paused, and then looked into Starlight’s gray cybernetic eyes. “What she did there…to the revolutionaries…”

“She eliminated the opposition,” said Starlight, dismissivly. “Don’t fall for their lies, Scootaloo. They may claim to be for ‘democracy’, but they’re really just puppets for the old nobility. The last time we had ‘democracy’, I wasn’t even considered to be alive. Half of them are seriously pushing to lift the moratorium on Core production. The nobles claim that Equestria will fall if we can’t build more Core-based ships.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Scootaloo. “But the way she did it…she killed them. She killed them all.”

“So?”

“You weren’t there, Starlight…the look on her face…like she…it was like she didn’t even care…”

“Because she didn’t.” Scootaloo looked up at Starlight in shock, and Starlight sighed. “I don’t mean to be callous, but it’s true. Twilight is a Core. She controlled the Harmony. She was forced to destroy entire planets. Millions of lives, including so many innocent ones, all in the name of our previous government. What are a few more that are definitely NOT innocent?”

“Starlight. You’re not listening. Something is wrong. Very wrong. I’m not sure…I’m not sure if it’s even the same Twilight anymore…”

Starlight stared at her, and then started walking toward her destination. “You’re overreacting, Scootaloo. Go home. Take a break. Comfort your wife. Spend time with her. You know how much she loves you.”

The scene dissolved. The sound of the world pulling apart was deafening, and Scootaloo momentarily panicked at the sound of the hum. She did not understand what was happening. She had been talking to Starlight, but now she was fading, torn from the world she knew to be true. In the void, she saw a pair of red eyes staring back at her. She focused on them, though, and saw that there were not just two. There were three. And one of them was white.

This time, the darkness only partially faded. Scootaloo found herself walking through a largely unlit hallway. She knew where she was. The Temple was constructed on the remnants of an ancient castle, one destroyed a thousand years prior in the Nightmare War. It had been the location Twilight had chosen for the seat of her power, although she had never given much attention to the castle portion itself. Twilight preferred to push upward. Scootaloo had seen the plans: a design that would take nearly fifty years of construction but would end with a tower greater than any ever constructed in all of Equestria. The underground remnants of the stone castle below were more of an afterthought, and were not used for anything except for occasional storage.

There had been some thought of turning them into a museum, advocated for by Trixie. She was in charge of the planning committee, and although some progress had been made the basement continued to be abandoned. Scootaloo actually preferred it this way, though. It was dark, cool, and old. Although it was mostly unlit, it did not frighten her; if anything, the architecture calmed her, reminding her of an age long ago when things had been so different. She came down here sometimes to go on long walks through the circuitous and winding hallways. It gave her time to think.

On this particular day, Scootaloo had a lot to think about. It was not just what she had seen with Twilight. In fact, she was trying to push that to the back of her mind. There were so many more important things to concern herself with than a vague and unfounded doubt in one of her closest friends. Rainbow Dash had relapsed again and nearly died in the process, but not before badly beating one of her breeders. With the new laws, charges were actually going to be brought against her. On the same day that had happened, Wintrygust had informed Scootaloo that she had been offered a chance to take a much more prestigious role on her homeworld overseeing the creation of new and more independent breeders. That was not the problem, of course; Scootaloo was happy for her. What bothered her is that Wintry had suggested that she would reject the promotion in favor of staying close to Scootaloo. Doing so would sacrifice her future, all in the name of pursuing a married mare. Third, it seemed that Eloth’s efforts had already irreparably damaged her brain.

Scootaloo paused, confused. She tried to enumerate the trains of thought she had just been thinking about. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Wintry. They all made sense, but she felt like there had been something else. A fourth line of thought that did not make sense.

Her confusion was interrupted from a sound that echoed from deep in the silence of the lower castle. Scootaloo turned her head sharply, her ears pricking to the noise. It had been distant and almost silent, but Scootaloo knew hoofsteps when she heard them. Nobody was supposed to be down here- -and yet someone was.

It was most likely a Priestess who had come to the basement for the same reason as Scootaloo, or perhaps a worker or visitor who had gotten lost. Scootaloo knew this, but for some reason she still ducked into the dimly lit shadows of the ancient halls, hoping that whoever it was would not spy her white uniform in the darkness.

She moved forward quickly and as silently as she could. It was not easy to do so with hooves on a stone floor, and she once again desperately wished that she had the ability to fly. Without it, though, she had to make do, and as she turned a corner she saw the swish of a pony’s tail. In the dark, though, it was too hard to tell who it was.

Scootaloo felt her pulse increase, wondering if perhaps she had seen a ghost. That was impossible, though. It had definitely been a solid pony. Somehow that was worse. Carefully, Scootaloo pursued her deep into the facility, far down into the unlit and unrecovered portions that she had never dared to go.

Several minutes had passed by when the hoofsteps stopped. Scootaloo stopped as well, hoping that she had not been seen. She waited for what felt like hours, listening to the dripping of water in the darkness, trying to hear hoofsteps as they came toward her instead of away. Instead, she heard a heavy metal mechanism turning, followed by a few steps and a quiet thud and clank as a door closed.

After several seconds, Scootaloo approached where she had heard the noise. The hall was almost completely dark, but she could tell that there was a large and ancient wooden door that the pony she had been following had gone through. Scootaloo ran her hoof over the wood, trying to find a handle. She found none, though; instead, she found the opening of a unicorn-lock. The door could only be opened or sealed by magic, and then only by somepony who knew the internal structure of the lock.

“Damn,” whispered Scootaloo. She looked around the hall, her eyes straining against the darkness but eventually falling on a nearby vent, a remnant of the castle’s ancient air-handling system. It had been built large enough to funnel away large quantities of air in the event of a poison gas attack, but it was too small for a normal pony to fit through. For once, then, Scootaloo’s unusually small size became an asset instead of a detriment. She pushed away the corroded baffle and entered.

It took her nearly a minute to crawl through the vent, and eventually managed to push her way through to the rafters of the room that the ancient door had led to. The room below was lit by a number of strange violet candles, and the contrast in light cast the ceiling in almost perfect darkness, obscuring Scootaloo completely from sight as she made her way silently across the steel beams.

When Scootaloo finally had a good view of the room below, she stopped, surprised to see Twilight standing in the center of the room, standing perfectly still and staring at apparently nothing. Her eyes were alert but distant in a way that Scootaloo had never seen before but that made her shiver.

“I know,” she said, suddenly, almost causing Scootaloo to fall out of the rafters from the surprise of hearing a pony’s voice against the silence of the forgotten room. “I know.”

Twilight charged her horn, and there was a small explosion in front of her as a second pony was teleported into the room. Scootaloo watched in confusion as Dusty Plume emerged from the void, dropping onto the floor in a heap.

“Ow,” she said, weakly. She looked up, her eyes becoming wide with fear at the sight of the dark and candle-lit room around her only to become calm at the sight Twilight. “My…my Princess,” she said, pulling herself toward Twilight, her paralyzed rear legs dragging across the dirty floor behind her. “Princess…I’m here. Please, can you help me? Please?”

Twilight looked down at the injured pony, and Scootaloo had a sudden urge to scream and warn her. It was too late, though. Twilight’s head shot forward, her mouth opening and then clamping around Dusty Plume’s neck.

The Pegasus screamed, not understanding what was happening, but her cry was cut silent by a sickening crunch as Twilight snapped her neck. Then, as Scootaloo watched, Twilight tore into the pony, tearing out her neck and chest with her sharp teeth, greedily devouring Dusty Plume’s body. Scootaloo was forced to cover her mouth to keep herself from vomiting. She wanted to run, but found herself transfixed, unable to look away. She just kept staring, and Dusty Plume’s glazed, empty eyes stared back up at her accusingly.

After several minutes, there was not much left of the young pony. Twilight was covered with blood, and she suddenly lifted her head as if she heard something. Scootaloo felt herself freeze in terror, thinking Twilight had heard her, but instead Twilight’s head flicked toward a dark part of the room.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I will have the others frozen. No. She never would have recovered. She was weak. She could not have survived.” She smiled. “And the flavor…there is no flavor like that of a live virgin.”

Her head suddenly shifted to the other side of the room. Scootaloo strained her eyes against the darkness, but she could not see anyone. She had no idea who Twilight thought she was talking to.

“No!” said Twilight, standing and suddenly becoming distressed. “I had to!” She turned back to the first. “Of course it worked. Scootaloo survived. As did Trixie. The others were expendable. It made the impression I needed, as planned.”

“That isn’t true,” she said to the second side of the room. “I’m not betraying them…I’m not. The government is weak. I can already see it slipping. Isn’t it obvious?” she turned to the other. “She take control. I’m not like you. I won’t die so easily. I will see this through.”

She began licking blood off of one of her hooves. “I’m not an idiot,” she said after a moment. “Of course I know she’s watching.”

Her blood-spattered head suddenly tilted, and she looked up. Her cold, empty eyes met Scootaloo’s. “Hello, Scootaloo,” she said, grinning more widely than any pony should have been able to. “Do you want to come down from there and share a virgin with me? I don’t mind. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

The next thing Scootaloo became conscious of was the fact that she was running. She did not dare look behind her or listen for hoofsteps, or even bother to see where she was going. Instead she simply sprinted as fast as she could, galopping through the abandoned castle, desperately trying to escape what she had left behind down there. The body of a pony she had considered a friend, Twilight’s murderous gaze, and the truth that she could neither hide nor escape from any longer.

It was raining, and the sun was obscured completely behind the gloom of the clouds overhead as Scootaloo made her way through the streets of Old Canterlot. The rain was not a coincidence; like on all of Equestria Prime, the weather over Canterlot was controlled artificially. The decision to make it rain had actually been Scootaloo’s, and she had pulled several strings in the weather factories to ensure that an especially dreary day.

Others knew that she had done this, but her true motive remained obscure. To them, the weather had been altered from its normally scheduled program as a sign of mourning for the events just over a week prior. The news had spread quickly: seven unarmed Priestesses of the Cult of Harmony had been brutally slaughtered by heretical revolutionaries who had moved to make an attempt on the Princess’s life. All of Equestria had rallied to the Cult in outrage that so such an atrocity could occur, and support of Twilight’s rule had never been greater. She had already vowed to seek justice for the innocents lost, and with Starlight leading her forces was beginning a process to seek out other pro-democracy forces for elimination.

All of it made a tragic story- -and Scootaloo knew that none of it was true. Of all of it, though, the worst was the official line on Dusty Plume: that the youngest of the Priestesses had sustained mortal injuries in the battle and passed peacefully in her sleep barely a fortnight later. In accordance with Pegasus tradition, her body had been cremated and would be returned to her homeworld. Twilight herself would lead the funeral and scatter her ashes into the oceans of that world.

The thought of it made Scootaloo sick. That thing, whatever it was, was not Twilight. It probably never had been. There was no way to prove it, though. All the records indicated that the official story was correct, and there was no body left to examine. Further investigation had revealed nothing. Shortly after the incident, Scootaloo had asked Wintrygust and a team of independent contractors to inspect the lower rooms below the Temple. She had not told them why.

What they had found was nothing. Just old rooms. Even after exhaustive searching, all they turned up were a few pony bones, all of which turned out to be remnants left behind by the soldiers of the Nightmare War one thousand years earlier.

Without evidence, Scootaloo had been forced to move carefully. As disgusted and terrified as she was, she knew that her circumstances had come down to a slow and deliberate game of cat and mouse. She still saw Twilight from time to time, and every single time Twilight would smile at her knowingly, taunting her. She never acknowlaged what Scootaloo had seen. It was as though she were waiting for it blow over- -or for Scootaloo to make her own move.

Scootaloo had considered trying to seek help. The more she considered it, though, the more she realized that doing so was at best futile and at worst dangerous. She knew few ponies that could help her. Rainbow Dash was a drunk figurehead in the navy, Sweetie Belle was on yet another diplomatic mission to the Milk Path galaxy, and Applebloom was preparing for a wedding to her brother. Trixie and Wintrygust were both trustworthy, but neither were warriors, and Scootaloo did not dare put them in harm’s way when this inevitably became violent.

The only viable option was Starlight. Telling her posed its own problems, though. Of all the Priestesses, Starlight was the closest to Twilight due to their shared kinship as Cores- -and when it came to Cores, she was almost a zealot. Her entire purpose in the Cult seemed to be dedicated to freeing the Cores and bringing them back into society, and knowing her past, Scootaloo was not sure if Starlight would actually turn against Twilight, even if she knew what Twilight really was. Even then, though, Scootaloo did not want to put her friend in a position to choose. This was something she could- -and would- -deal with it herself.

Which is why she found herself wandering the mostly empty streets of one of the more ancient and more distant sections of Equestria’s capital. Here, the city had not aged as well as the modern, shining examples of a modern spacefaring society in the more central areas of the expanding metropolis. Here, the buildings were old, some stemming back to the Nightmare War, and some built on foundations far older. Many were crumbling or dilapidated, having become abandoned as newer and more modern homes became available and ponies were no longer forced to live in the ruins of countless devastating wars.

There were still ponies, but not many, especially on a day this dark and rainy. A few gaunt mares roamed the street, some muttering to themselves and others winking at Scootaloo as she passed, lifting their dresses slightly in an attempt to be seductive only to show that their bodies had been ravaged by infectious anemia.
Likewise, many of the denizens of this area were not ponies at all. In several locations Scootaloo could see the various sentient creatures of equestrian, many of whom had until Twilight’s rule been considered of inferior breeding. She saw a small group of sheep pass her, and a bovid smoking a cigarette near the entrance to a bar. In the sky, the shadows of several griffons passed, either on patrol or on their way to destinations unknown.

Scootaloo largely ignored them. With her heavy cloak on, she was not highly recognizable. Not that any people of this area would recognize her, but she was not taking any chances. That was the real reason she had called for rain: for cover of her activities.

Careful not to draw attention to herself, Scootaloo passed down a narrow side alley past a pair of gruff-looking griffons flanking a dying filly dressed only in stockings and shivering despite the mild temperature.

The alley was even darker than the main street, and the dark, ancient buildings on either side seemed to close in over it, making it more of a tunnel than anything else. The sound of the rain echoed off the cobblestones and the walls, and it was nearly deafening.

On the far end, Scootaloo saw her target: a stooped diamond dog in a heavy coat. He was facing away from her, speaking to a pony with curiously large red, luminescent eyes. Scootaloo got the strangest feeling that the red-eyed pony was watching her, and she turned to him only to see that he had cool green eyes instead of red. Scootaloo shook her head, not sure why she had thought his eyes were such a strange shade of red.

As Scootaloo approached the diamond dog, the pony noticed her and stepped back, retreating down an even more narrow side street that was really more of a crack between the buildings.

“Max,” said Scootaloo, poking at one of the diamond dog’s legs.

Max jumped up with a yelp. “No!” he said, turning around suddenly. “Max already told you! It was not Max! Max did not supply! Those weapons came from elsewhere, not Max! Max did not kill the girl-ponies! Max is good boy!”

“Max,” said Scootaloo, pushing back her hood.

Max blinked, his large yellow eyes taking a moment to recognize who he was looking at. “You are not who Max thought you were,” he said, seeming highly embarrassed by his reaction.

“Who did you think I was?”

“The bad pony. The one with the horn, and the…the thing…” He pointed at his left arm. “The light, the light that makes Max have the pain.”

Scootaloo stared at him, not understanding at first but then quickly realizing that he was miming an omnitool. And only one pony had one of those.

“Starlight?” she said, immediately concerned. “What did she say?”

“Max does not- -should not- -”

“What did she say, Max?!” shouted Scootaloo, taking a step forward and causing Max to yelp again and jump back in fright, covering his head.

“She wanted to know if Max sell dakka-dakka guns to group that make girl-ponies have the worsest pain! But it was not Max! Max has not sold dakka-dakka guns, not in long time! Supply too hard to get, demand too low, no profit!”

“Sure,” said Scootaloo, not believing a word of it. “Because if you did sell those guns, do you know what she’d do to you?”

“Y…yes,” squeaked Max.

“Good. Because I lost some good friends there, Max. And I would do much, much worse.”

“Worse than the bad-pony?” Max shook his head. “You too small, Scootaloo. Max is still afraid, but not as afraid.” He leaned forward. “Because Max does not need to worry. Scootaloo is Max friend!”

Scootaloo allowed herself to smile slightly. “Yes, that’s right Max. I’m your friend. As long as you’re a good boy.”

“Max is good boy!” His tail began to wag. “Max has the best weapons for the best ponies! Bringing the great much of death to whoever is needing it!” His happiness suddenly faded, although a wry smile crossed his face. “Although you, you made Max work very hard. Order was not easy. No. Was impossible. But Max is VERY good boy.”

“So you have it?”

“I do.” He reached into his coat and produced a relatively nondescript metal case. It looked completely ordinary, save for a very small insignia on the metal clasp consisting of eight radial arrows. He dexterously flicked the clasp aside and opened the case, showing Scootaloo the contents.

Scootaloo leaned forward. The contents of the case probably would not have looked like anything special to an ordinary pony. In fact, the gun inside was somewhat small and, though strangely shaped, relatively ordinary looking. It consisted of a large-caliber assembly with an attached pistol grip painted with an odd pattern of strange colors and carved at various points with lettering that was not words. Next to it, imbedded in foam, was a single enormous bullet.

As ordinary as it looked, though, Scootaloo knew better than most ponies what that weapon was and what it was capable of, if only from the stories.

“Chaos weapon,” said Max, almost in awe of it himself. “Recovered from last Chaos War, from Chaos Wizard. This is very bad weapon.”

“You mean it works poorly?”

“No!” said Max, shaking his head. “Max mean it is CURSED weapon. Or so others say. Few willing to touch it. Max had to bribe many to acquire it for the High Priestess.”

Scootaloo picked up the firearm in her hooves, inspecting it. It was surprisingly heavy, and when she looked at it closely she realized that its ordinary nature was more or less an illusion. It was hardly a gun at all, and more like an assortment of random parts that should not have been capable of meshing but had somehow come into perfect unison despite their disparity.

“There’s only one bullet,” she said.

“Yes. Only one.”

“So you couldn’t find ammunition.”

Max looked confused. “No. Max could not find, because there is not. Only one bullet still exists. And that is it.”

“Just one?” That thought was concerning, and Scootaloo looked back down at the singular projectile.

“They say it contain a fragment of the Discord Synaxarium,” said Max in awe. “It will make the anything die, regardless. It creates possibilities, and impossibilities. It ignores the rules.”

“It kills anything?”

“Anything!” said Max, nodding vehemently. He suddenly stopped. “Even an alicorn.”

Scootaloo glared up at him, causing him to recoil slightly. “What are you implying by that?”

“Nothing! Max implies nothing! Does not know how! Max just sells weapons! And this is very much good weapon! Please take, though.” He shivered. “Max feels it. It stares at Max. Max does not like.” His eye suddenly shifted to Scootaloo and he leaned close to her again. “That is, if you are having the payment?”

Without speaking, Scootaloo reached into her cloak and removed a rather large piece of fabulously pure Crystal Empire crystal, an uncut version of the perfect type that the crystal ponies used to create computers.

Max stared at the gem in amazement, and Scootaloo saw that he was weeping at its beuty.

“With that crystal, you could by an entire star system,” said Scootaloo.

Max snorted, shakily reaching down and taking the stone. “Do not insult Max! Such a thing as this…this will never be sold. It cannot be. Max would sooner sell Max than sell this.” He managed to pull his eyes away from a moment. “And the rest?”

“A ship is waiting for you in the old Docking District. A cargo freighter headed for Omega. Not that I have any idea what you’ll do there.”

“Max know that! Max find ‘Delilah’, she help Max get away.”

“Away? Max, are you retiring?”

Max nodded. “Yes. Max is getting old. Has many dog years. Besides, this final transaction is greatest of Max’s life. Is crowning achievement.” He closed the case, but did not hold it out to Scootaloo quite yet. “And…third part?”

Scootaloo sighed, and Max bent down in front of her, nearly bowing. She extended her hoof and patted him on the head. “Who’s a good boy?”

“Max is! Max is!”

“Yes,” said Scootaloo, taking the case with the Chaos gun in it from him. “Yes you are.”

Scootaloo walked through the halls of the Temple. Though she moved at a normal speed, the world had seemed to slow. It took on a surreal aspect, as though her surroundings were somehow distant, and as though every pony that passed her knew of the weapon hidden under her cloak and linked to one of her wings.

There was no way they could have known, of course- -but they would. There was still time to turn back, but Scootaloo had made up her mind. There was only one option, and she would face it and its consequences alone. If she failed, she would fail alone, and if she succeeded then the blame would fall squarely and solely on her. No others would have to suffer for her choice.

It seemed to take hours and yet mere seconds for her to reach a large door, one separate from any area where ponies were. Scootaloo paused, and for the first time felt the slightest hint of an urge of preemptive regret. It manifested as a desire to flee- -and as an inability to kill.

Scootaloo ignored it, though, as she had been trained to long ago. Instead of turning away, she opened the door.

Inside, she saw a pair of violet eyes suddenly shift toward her, and their owner smile knowingly. Twilight was standing across the room, dressed in an improved armored version of her royal regalia. Scootaloo began to raise her wing, but as she did, she immediately realized that Twilight was not alone. She was joined by two other ponies: a blue Core mare and an all-white Pegasus.

“You bitch,” whispered Scootaloo.

“Scootaloo!” said Wintrygust, turning toward her and smiling, oblivious to what Scootaloo had come to do. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

“Why are you here?” demanded Scootaloo. Wintrygust was perceptive enough to hear the tone in Scootaloo’s voice and realize that something was not quite right. Trixie, though, did not seem to notice. Twilight already knew.

“We’ve been concerned about you,” said Trixie. “The last two weeks, you haven’t been acting like yourself..”

“Yes,” said Wintrygust, “we’re concerned that the event may have affected you more than you let on. And we want to help you. We are your friends, after all.”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “Which is why I wanted to have a meeting with you. And seeing as Wintrygust and Priestess Trixie are both ponies you care VERY deeply about, I thought that together we would be able to discuss what is troubling you.”

“Nothing is troubling me,” lied Scootaloo. She looked to Trixie. “Thank you, Trixie. And Wintry. And…it did affect me. A lot. But right now, I need to talk to Twilight. Alone. Can you please leave?”

“Leave?” said Trixie, annoyed . Wintrygust actually did start moving toward the door, but Trixie was far more stubborn. “No, Scootaloo. You’re not getting out of this that easily. You’re not going to put this off. I know you. You’ll never deal with it if you’re left on your own. You need friends.” By this time, she was nearly pleading.

“And all we want to do is help,” said Twilight, still smiling with that strange, vicious smile. Scootaloo did not know how the others could not see how sadistic it looked, how Twilight could barely contain the tips of so many teeth. “I know it must be hard for you. The barrage of bullets that took down poor Dusty Plume was also meant for you and Trixie. If you hadn’t been so quick, Trixie would likely have joined her.”

That was too much. With the smile on her face and the way she said that, Scootaloo knew what she was intending to do. Scootaloo threw back the upper part of her cloak and leveled her wing-mounted weapon at Twilight. Both Wintrygust and Trixie seemed to realized what was going on, and Wintrygust moved quickly, trying to do something- -anything- -while Trixie just stared dumfounded, not knowing how the mare she loved could be about to assassinate the Princess.

Twilight, though, just smiled. Her horn glowed, and there was a sound of electrical arcing. There was a small fluctuation of light, but barely an explosion, and she was gone. Scootaloo looked around the room, panicking, and saw Twilight now standing close to Trixie, her hoof on the mare’s back.

“Now, Scootaloo, think about what you’re doing,” she said with infuriating, mocking calmness. “You don’t need to do this. I’m not a threat. I’m your friend, remember?”

“I’m not your friend!” Scootaloo twisted, trying to aim the shot. She had no idea how accurate the weapon was, but it fired anything like a normal weapon she would easily be able to hit Twilight without hitting Trixie. She hesitated, though, when she saw the look on Trixie’s face. Not one of fear, but of betrayal and confusion.

“Scootaloo, stop!” pleaded Wintry. She leapt for Scootaloo, but Scootaloo dodged the larger pony easily. There was another electrical arcing sound, though, and Twilight appeared inches from Scootaloo, her teeth bared in a hideous smile.

“Don’t,” she said. “Put it down, before somepony- -”

Scootaloo punched her in the face. The blow was hard enough to cut Scootaloo’s foreleg badly on Twilight’s teeth, but it also stumbled Twilight, giving Scootaloo a chance to change her angle and point the Chaos weapon at her chest.

Twilight did not seem to notice the weapon anymore, though. With a chilling shriek, she leapt toward Scootaloo. For a moment, Scootaloo saw the look in her eyes, and knew that if she did not act, she would be killed. As Twilight struck her, she pulled the trigger on the Chaos gun.

It went off, and as soon as Scootaloo heard the explosion she knew that she had made a mistake. Her body was so light that Twilight had pushed her easily, changing her angle. The bullet had not gone into Twilight but instead to her left.

Scootaloo saw Trixie take a step back. Her body froze as she traced the path of the bullet, desperately hoping that it had not gone in the direction that she already knew it had. When she saw the wound on Trixie’s chest, though, she knew what she had done.

Trixie looked down at her chest, and then at Scootaloo.

“Scootaloo,” she said, weakly. “I- -”

She never finished her sentence. Her flesh suddenly bubbled and twisted, cracking and bursting open as she exploded from within. For one brief moment Scootaloo saw the expression of agony on her face as it was torn free of her skull- -an image that she prayed she would someday be able to forget.

Trixie exploded with considerable force into a steaming plume of blood and rent flesh. Her bloody skeleton seemed to stand for a moment, but then tilted, weighted down by the charred metal still imbedded into her spine. Then it collapsed into the pool of organs and blue fur.

Twilight turned and saw what had happened. Her expression changed too as she released Scootaloo and stared at the wreckage in shock. For a moment, the pair of them simply stopped fighting, staring at the remains of their friend. Scootaloo felt the world drifting, although she could distantly hear screaming.

There was a sound of galloping hoofsteps, and the door burst open. Scootaloo turned so slowly, wondering if this was a dream, knowing that it could not possibly be real. She saw Starlight standing in the door. Starlight looked at what was left of Trixie, then at the weapon on Scootloo’s body, and then finally at Scootaloo with absolute disgust and hatred. If Scootaloo’s heart had not already been broken, that look on the face of one of her last friends would have shattered it.

She tried to run. Not to anywhere in particular. Just to get away from what she had done. There was a flash of orange light as Starlight raised her hoof, though, and her body erupted with agony as every nerve ending in her body overloaded. It was the most painful thing she had ever experienced, but the part of her mind that remained conscious during it knew that it was not one one thousandth of the pain she deserved for what she had done. She had killed Trixie, her wife, the pony she had loved.

There had been no trial. There were still some courts remaining in Equestria, but they were not equipped to deal with this crime. Twilight was a Princess: a ruler, and a goddess. In the eyes of Equestria, Scootaloo had not only committed high treason but blasphemy as well.

She knew of the stories, though. Her life had been put into thorough review by the press, and she had heard the rumors. That she was a secret member of a pro-democracy faction, or had acted on behalf of an attempted military takeover of the government, perhaps to take the throne for herself. Others claimed that it had never really been an assassination attempt, and that Scootaloo had slain her wife to be with her mistress.

The third rumor was the most painful. After all, Scootaloo had gone into that room knowing that she was committing treason and heresy, or at least would appear to be doing so. It was the murder charge that was crushing. She had failed to kill the false Twilight, but that hardly mattered anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Trixie was gone. Scootaloo had killed her.

Others had moved around her, though. Rainbow Dash had apparently managed to divert from her downward spiral long enough to advocate for Scootaloo, but most of her efforts had been negated by Starlight’s pressure against her. Starlight had once been Scootaloo’s friend, but Scootaloo understood her actions. She knew that Starlight was right to want a swift execution.

The execution had been by no means swift, but the day had finally arrived. Scootaloo now lay strapped to a cold, metal table. Her hooves were bound, although she was not trying to resist. She was not entirely sure where she was, but she knew that there was a great deal of equipment around her including an ominous looking chamber that seemed to be perpetually releasing small amounts of icy fog.

A pair of doctors were working steadily around her, preparing the machines. Far to one side, an impromptu gallery had formed. The only one who had showed up was Wintrygust. She was dressed in black and had clearly been crying. She was surrounded on both sides by two recent initiates, their bodies clad completely in armor, harbingers of a new and military Cult of Harmony.

“Twilight” stepped forward toward Scootaloo, looking back at the gallery. “Well,” she said, “it looks like Rainbow Dash will not be coming. I believe we have waited for her long enough.”

She approached the table and looked down at Scootaloo. Scootaloo had been staring at the bright lights above, and continued to do so, ignoring the violet alicorn at her side.

“So,” she said. “I feel I would be remiss if I did not ask you for a final statement.”

Scootaloo’s eyes finally did move to Twilight, and for a moment they met. “I can see why your sisters hate you,” she said.

Twilight just shrugged, and started walking back to Wintrygust. “And I can see that your sister cares deeply for you. Aside from not bothering to show up for your execution. I do pity her, though. That’s why I let her choose the method of execution. As you freeze to death, remember that this was Rainbow Dash’s idea.” Twilight nodded to the head doctor, and he nodded back.

“Initialize the systems,” he said to the other.

The machinery hummed to life. A mechanical arm moved forward, and Scootaloo saw an enormous needle be brought to a point over her chest. Once it was in place, the second doctor moved to her legs and sharply inserted a long needle into Scootaloo’s thigh. It hurt, and was followed by a trickling sound as the blood from Scootaloo’s femoral artery into a bucket below her.

The first doctor leaned in close. “You are going to want to stay very, very still, dear.”

“Or what?”

“Or what?” He giggled. “Or this might kill you!” He laughed at his own joke, then took his position at the machine. “Beginning perfusion.”

The needle slammed downward, crushing through Scootaloo’s ribs and penetrating her heart. It happened so fast that Scootaloo barely had time to react, although she felt herself tense and inhale sharply. She had promised herself that she would not make a sound, but this pain was different than anything she had experienced before. It was not more painful, exactly, but more vital. It was as if her body knew that she had just suffered a mortal injury.

The sound that came out of her was not quite a scream or a shout, but rather a low wail. In the gallery, Wintrygust burst into tears, and Twilight put her foreleg around her.

Then came the cold. That was the part Scootaloo had not been prepared for. The pain of having a needle in her heart began to fade as her chest started to become numb, and she could feel herself being frozen from the inside as her still-beating heart pumped the cryogenic antifreeze through her body. It was the coldest she had ever felt, and she began to shake violently and uncontrollably.

When the chemicals hit her lungs, she began to gasp in panic as her oxygen levels decreased suddenly. The world seemed to fade around the edges of her vision, and the sound of the machines and the trickling of her blood being displaced from her body began to become more distant. Despite Scootaloo’s attempts to breath, no blood was reaching her brain. Instead, it was just cold f luid.

She was dying, and she now realized that. As her brain shut down, she closed her eyes. The shivering had stopped, and now she was just waiting for the pain and cold to be over. When it was, she wondered if she would be able to be with Trixie again, and if Trixie would even allow her to apologize.

The pain suddenly stopped. Scootaloo’s eyes opened wide. She looked around and saw that although she seemed to be in the same location as her execution, it had changed. There were no longer walls, and the lights had been removed, casting the entire area in a strange oblique light. Every pony surrounding her had become perfectly still and statue-like, and all of them had the same luminescent red eyes.

“Eloth,” said Scootaloo.

“Scootaloo,” he said in return. Something was wrong. His voice sounded distorted and distant.

“What happened?”

“I’m afraid I’ve failed. Or am in the process of failing.” His voice came from every pony at once, and picked up suddenly as if he was being pursued by something. “You brain…the damage…this was not anticipated. The reaction is- -”

The entirety of Scootaloo’s surroundings suddenly flickered. She found herself standing on the ground, and she suddenly felt extremely ill.

“What was that?” she said, trying to hide her fear.

“The signal…cannot compensate…I’m being forced out. Scootaloo, I have to pull you out, I have to- -”

Scootaloo suddenly felt herself being wrenched away. This time she really did scream as she was swallowed by the blackness around her, pulled by something on the far side of it.

Scootaloo blinked. She found herself standing near a large window. Outside was the blackness of space, and a planet that she did not recognize, one surrounded by structures and satellites more advanced than any that existed in Equestria or the Milk Path galaxy. It’s cold blue surface was dotted with immense towers that formed an artificial structure that emerged from its surface at least two planetary widths on either side, forming an immense framework above it on an unparalleled scale.

It did not stay blue for long, though. Scootaloo was watching the grand creation being torn apart by orbital bombardment. Streaks of matter passed through space, igniting in its atmosphere and tearing into the blue surface with continent-wide atomic bursts, cutting the blue atmosphere into one of sickly red around explosions of blinding light.

“This…this isn’t my memory,” she said.

“No,” said her voice beside her. “It isn’t.”

Scootaloo did not need to turn to see who was standing beside her, but she did anyway. Xyuka stood next to her, staring down at the dying world. She was wearing her armor, but had removed her mask. Her face was identical to Scootaloo’s, and although she superficially appeared only a few years older than Scootaloo her face bore the weight of a far longer life.

“You,” hissed Scootaloo, stepping back. She looked down at the planet, and then at the alternate version of herself. “This is your memory?”

Xyuka continued to look through the window, watching as the bombardment continued. “Perhaps,” she said at last. “I will leave that to you to decide.”

“Why are you here?” demanded Scootaloo.

This time, Xyuka slowly turned to her. Her expression was totally blank. “That’s an interesting question,” she said, “because I’m not. And yet I can’t not be.”

“The nannites,” said Scootaloo. “That’s how you’re doing this? You- -you planned this! That’s why you infected me with them!”

“Infected you? Scootaloo, I didn’t infect you. The nanites are my own creation, modified from…well, where I got them does not matter. They exist to repair my body when it is damaged. It’s part of what allowed me to live so many goddamn millions of years.”

“So you were trying to make me immortal? Why?”

Xyuka sighed. It was a ragged mechanical sound. “If you are infected, it was not intentional. My body sheds them. Ponies near me are exposed to them. Usually, they just shut down.” She smiled, weakly. “After all, they are tuned only to respond to my genetic code, and mine alone.”

“You bitch!” Scootaloo leapt at her. She never made contact, though, and fell to the ground. She looked up to see Xyuka standing farther down the window.

“There is probably some psychological significance to this,” she said, darkly. She slowly turned back to Scootaloo. “After all, I’m not really here.”

“No. You’re projecting yourself into- -”

“You know that is not true. You remember. I succeeded. At least, probably. This isn’t a communication, or a message. This is as representation. I’m not Xyuka. I’m a representation of your own mind, Scootaloo.”

“You’re lying!”

Xyuka shrugged. “I could be. I don’t think it really matters, though.”

Scootaloo stood and faced the alternate version of herself. “I’m not going to,” she said.

“Going to what?”

“I’m not you. I won’t be you. Not now, not ever. No matter how hard you try to make me.”

Xyuka’s eyes narrowed, and she turned and took several slow steps toward Scootaloo. “Do you think that is what I want?” she demanded. “Do you think that is what I MEANT? Are you that foolish? I mean, you have already suffered cataclysmic brain damage, but that is no excuse. I don’t even have a brain.”

“It’s what you told me. That I will become you.”

“Because you will.” Xyuka sighed, and then shook her head. Her tone changed, becoming much more defeated. “Do you think that is what I wanted? Do you think that is the outcome I’d like to see?”

“Please. You don’t hate yourself that much.”

“No,” said Xyuka, looking up suddenly, her eyes dark and cold. Scootaloo realized that she had seen that look before. Xyuka’s eyes looked the same way Twilight’s had that day so long ago. “That’s the POINT. How many countless trillions of lives have fallen to me? I don’t even know. I can’t remember. Nor can I bring myself to care. But you were supposed to be different. You were supposed to succeed.”

“I am different.”

Xyuka shook her head. “You are a rare anomaly. The vast majority of Scootaloo’s retain their intrinsic goodness, their innocence. Some simply snap under the pressure, ruined. But one in one hundred million…that small fraction of Scootaloos has the capacity to become me.”

“I’m not that pony.”

Xyuka stared back at Scootaloo with her own eyes. “Yes, Scootaloo. Yes you are. I’m sorry.”

The two looked at each other for a moment longer, and the room began to darken. The structure on the blue planet outside finally succumbed to the orbital bombardment and began to burst open and collapse inward, pulled toward the planet by its own gravity. As it fell, Xyuka took a step back into the growing shadows, her tears glimmering as they fell.

Scootaloo suddenly felt afraid, and she stepped forward, trying to reach out toward her alternate self- -but something grasped her from the darkness behind. A cold hand wrapped itself around Scootaloo, and Scootaloo looked down to see in horror that it was the skeletal, four-fingered hand of a corpse, lit from within by a ghastly blue light. Scootaloo turned around and saw the corpse, now merging its body around hers. Its body was rotting and pallid, its skin gray and torn but ignited in the perverse blue fire of the light.

Scootaloo screamed and she tried to escape the light, to return to the darkness. The frozen dead hands held her closer, pulling her down.

“No, please!” cried Scootaloo. “Just let me go! Let me stay!”

The corpse just laughed through its waterlogged lungs, and Scootaloo felt her feet lifting off the ground as she was pulled away. The last thing she saw was the single white eye of Xyuka’s mask, luminescent and staring from the now complete darkness, watching but refusing to interfere.

Scootaloo sat up. Her eyes immediately refocused to the light surrounding her, and she saw four pairs of concerned eyes staring back at her from her bedside. For a moment, she was confused, and her mind reasoned that the memory had come full circle: she had died with a clone of Twilight at her side, and now had reawakened with four of them surrounding her.

“Oh fuck!” said Bob, releasing Scootaloo’s head. She took several shaky steps back, her now rapidly shifting metal artifact following her suspended in a small blue sphere. Scootaloo looked back at her, and saw that she was leaking a dark tarry fluid from her eyes and nose. “I didn’t even know it could do that…” She pivoted awkwardly, and then grasped the artifact floating near her. It shifted into a knife, and she swung it at Eloth, plunging it into his chest. “Don’t EVER make me do that again you goddamn idiot! I don’t think…I don’t…”

Bob pulled the knife out, and Eloth watched it leave him apparently uninterested. Bob then vomited a surprising amount of black fluid and something fleshy.

She moaned in shock. “My…lung,” she said. “But I was using that!” She squatted down over the pieces of her that she had vomited and promptly began eating them.

“Scootaloo,” said another voice. Scootaloo turned, only to take a hoof to the face with substantial force. She was knocked back, and when the flashes of light in her vision stopped she saw Six standing over her. It was apparent that she had been crying.

“Ow, Six- -”

Six climbed on top of Scootaloo and wrapped her in a hug. She started weeping again. “Don’t- -don’t ever do that to me again!” she wailed. “I- -I thought I had lost you!”

“You actually did,” said Eloth.

“How long was I out?” said Scootaloo, turning her head toward him as Six sobbed into her chest.

“Out? You were not out. You were braindead. For several hours.”

“She looks pretty good for being braindead,” said Nine. She had not been crying, but looked greatly released. “Damn. I’m jealous.”

“Something happened,” said Eloth, suddenly sounding interested. “I was trying to pull you out, but something overwrote my signal.”

“I noticed,” said Scootaloo.

“Mom was preparing to eat you,” said Eight. “She was even getting out the barbecue sauce.”

“Although it looks like you basted yourself,” said Nine, pointing at Scootaloo’s crotch. Scootaloo looked down to see that she had either wet herself or had an extremely damp orgasm. She was not sure she wanted to know which.

“I’m not designed to do that,” muttered Bob, who had now collapsed on the floor. “Not designed…not designed…”

“You pulled me out,” said Scootaloo.

“I pulled something out. Not sure if it was you.” She held up her hand, quieting the morphing artifact and converting back into a small gem. “Damn…fuck me. Literally, I need to be fucked. And then to snort my weight in cocaine. Then I need to get drunk and sleep. Forever.” She put her head between her knees. She was shaking, but pointed toward Scootaloo. “You owe me, Scoots. You owe me big.”

“I’m not having sex with you.”

Bob’s hand turned over to present her equivalent of a middle finger. Since she only had four, it was actually one of the central pair.

“I did not anticipate this to be a success,” said Eloth. “I assumed you were going to die.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“No. And the memories were recovered.”

Scootaloo patted Six’s head. She was beginning to quiet.

“What did you see?” said Eight.

Scootaloo paused, and then addressed the alicorns as a group. “I remember. I remember..."

Chapter 30: The Words of the Paradigm

It had all been a lie. For nearly three hundred years, Starlight had thought that Twilight had been her friend- -but now she knew that there had never been a Twilight. The pony she knew had been a replacement for years, perhaps since the start. She had been built by Cerberus, her purpose unknown, and Starlight had been foolish enough to believe that her affection was sincere.

Starlight was angry at herself for having believed that she had had a friend, and for what she had thrown away for the sake of that illusionary friendship. Her life had passed by, spent dedicated to a mare who was hiding the fact that she was a murderous sociopath who had killed two of her own sisters and maimed one. When she had been a Core, Starlight had only ever wished that she could have an ordinary life- -and yet she had given away that option, her most prized goal, for Twilight’s sake. Everything she could have been had now passed her. The world had moved on. So many of her friends had been lost. If it had not been for Twilight, Starlight reasoned, she might have been there for Jack as she aged and had eventually died. Before she had possessed at least some manner of thread to justify herself, but now that was gone.

There was nothing left. Her life had never been real, and now it stood in stark view for all to see: she had no purpose and no future. She had always known that- -but now she knew that there had never been a time when that was not the case. Slowly, the desperation at this realization began to seep into her mind, quenching her anger with cold despondency.

Her surrounding seemed to mirror her state of mind: dark hallways, all of them empty and that had stood empty, built for a purpose but left abandoned and useless on some distant moon. It felt appropriate, if only in that it made it easy for Starlight to avoid other people. If she saw Zedok or Spaya, she knew that she would burst into tears almost immediately.

She did not come across either of them, though. Instead, she turned a corner to find Jurneu. He was naked except for a wide, satisfied smile. Leaning against him was a seductive-looking white breeder, her red eyes seemingly unable to leave him as her fluffy, soft wings shifted on her back in expectation.

“What the hell?” said Starlight, not at all in the mood for this. “Who the buck are you?”

The Pegasus released Jurneu and smiled seductively at Starlight. “Oh my,” she said the generic female voice that all breeder mares shared. “Master Spectre, you didn’t tell me you already had a mare-friend! And such a beautifully impressive one at that!”

“Cut the shit before I- -”

The mare reared onto her back legs. Green light shifted through her body as her flesh stretched and reconfigured itself, her joints dislocating and reforming in new locations as her bones stretched and her body rebuilt itself. In seconds, a replica of Jack was standing before Starlight, smiling back with the exact same smile as before.

“Sweet Celestia….” Starlight stared at Jurneu. “You didn’t!”

“Did you know she can be a mare AND a stallion? At the same time, if I want it!”

“And he certainly did want it,” said Chrysalis, sounding somewhat disgusted.

“And in that human form- -”

Starlight shuddered and shoved past Jurneu. She wanted to hit him, but she knew that she had nothing on her person that could actually hurt him. Just the thought of him pressing his body against Jack’s form made her skin crawl, though, even in Chrysalis was only stealing it for her own gain.

Chrysalis began to follow her. “If it’s any consolation, there was nothing there.”

“Nothing?” said Jurneu, his pride immediately deflating.

“Procedural excellence. Artificial passion. Pointless. All of it pointless. His lust for me is not one one hundred millionth of the love I feel from you just from setting eyes on this form.”

Starlight looked over her shoulder, and Chrysalis shivered.

“I can barely look at you when you feel that love,” said Chrysalis, turning away. “It almost hurts.” Her expression shifted, and her blue-green eyes sharpened. “But something is wrong.”

Starlight decided there was no point in keeping it a secret. “It’s Twilight,” she said.

“The Princess? What about her?”

“I have reason to believe she’s been dead since the Crimson Horizon incident.”

Jurneu’s ears pricked up, and he approached, joining the conversation. “Dead? What do you mean ‘dead’? Then who is ruling Equestria?”

Starlight could almost not bring herself to admit it. “You saw Quatre.”

“Yes. A truly excellent mare. Oh, how I wish she was strong enough to let me ruffle her wings. Metaphorically, as hers have been violently severed.”

“She has sisters.”

Jurneu seemed pleased by this news. “Sisters? As in there are versions of her with intact wings?”

“And you think one of them replaced the Princess,” said Chrysalis.

Starlight nodded.

“I see. Well, then, that makes this easy, doesn’t it?”

Starlight glared at her. “How the hell does that make this ‘easy’?”

Chrysalis leaned forward. “Because you only need to answer one question. And that is: ‘what does this mean to you?’”

“It means that I lost my best friend.” Starlight paused, and then shook her head. “No. It means I never had her.”

“That is an interesting perspective.”

“And the mission?” said Jurneu.

“The mission? It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Of course it does. The reasoning behind it has simply changed. If we accept what you are saying, that Twilight is a Cerberus plant- -which I am still not sure if I believe you- -then the question becomes why she had you pursuing Scootaloo in the first place.”

Starlight thought for a moment. “Scootaloo was declared a heretic. She murdered her wife and attempted to assassinate Twilight.”

Jurneu raised a white eyebrow. “You say she attempted to murder the Princess. Slaying an alicorn is not a trivial task.”

“Starlight might disagree with you on that,” said Chrysalis.

“I mean a healthy alicorn. Not a defective clone. I’ve read Scootaloo’s dossier. She’s a disabled naval captain with mild dwarfism. They Royal Naval Academy of the time did teach battlefield tactics, but she’s meant to fly ships. How could she possibly fight a Cerberus agent?”

“She had a weapon,” said Starlight. “A relic from the Chaos wizards.”

“Chaos?” said Chrysalis. “She used Chaos magic to kill a pony?”

“Her name was Trixie. It was…” Starlight shivered. “Sometimes I still see it. When I close my eyes. Even after all this time. All that was left…just the bones…and her implants…and the blood…”

“Of course,” said Chrysalis, nonchalantly. “That is what Chaos does to a pony if used improperly. But I can’t help but wonder why this Scootaloo would waste something so precious on an ordinary pony.”

“She was NOT ordinary,” snapped Starlight.

“I mean in an objective sense. A Chaos weapon would have been able to kill any alicorn bound in a physical body. But instead of killing Twilight, she killed this Trixie instead. Why?”

Starlight realized what she was saying. “If…if killing Trixie had not been intentional…”

“You never considered that fact?” said Jurneu.

“No. One of my best friends had just been killed. A fellow Core. I wanted revenge.” Starlight paused in shame. “I…I didn’t care why Scootaloo did what she did. I never asked the motive. I just wanted her dead.”

“But if Trixie had been an incidental target…”

“Then Twilight must have been the real one.” Starlight now knew that she had been a fool. “Because she KNEW.”

“That could be the case.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! If she suspected anything, she could have told me! Or one of the others! She never did! She never even tried to justify herself, she…”

A beeping sound came from Jurneu, and he lifted his left hoof. His omnitool appeared around it.

“What is it?”

“The quant,” he said. “It’s done cooking.”

Starlight and Jurneu entered what had once been Beri’s room. Chrysalis stayed back, and in a few moments had vanished. It was not hard for Starlight to understand why. With the way the room was lit with the strange violet light of the quant, she herself was hesitant to enter.

The light itself was coming both from the crystal and from the hologram it had produced. It was violet, roughly in the form of a pony, but the physical representation was incomplete. Starlight doubted that it was due to corruption of the crystal; rather, she suspected that the model had simply been reduced to something of an abstraction either by the preference of its creator or, more likely, to save on rendering power.

Even with its partial representation, though, it immediately turned its partially constructed eyes toward the entering ponies. Its surface shifted slightly, and Jurneu’s omnitool blinked to life.

“She’s trying to hack the ship’s systems,” he said,

“She can’t,” said Starlight. “It’s an Alliance-built ship. It was meant to be piloted by synths. It has no computers.”

The quant seemed to realize this. It directed its attention toward Starlight and seemed to completely ignore Jurneu’s presence. “Cross referencing,” it said. “Pony identified as: Starlight Glimmer. Status unclear. My current processing power is not adequate to draw a conclusion from the Paradigm.”

“Paradigm?” asked Jurneu. The quant did not respond. It just kept staring at Starlight with its artificial, unblinking eyes.

“You know my name,” said Starlight, slowly.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because you are mentioned in the Paradigm. It references you as a friend. However, based on my own observations of your behavior, you appear to be our enemy. As such, I cannot interpret your status.”

“Who are you?” asked Jurneu. The quant did not respond.

“Who are you?” repeated Starlight.

“I am no one,” said the quant, apparently only willing to respond to Starlight’s requests. “I am a quant.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“If you mean created me, the answer is Thebe.”

“Thebe?”

“That’s the organization responsible for the attack on Agrostation Six,” said Jurneu.

“And the organization protecting Scootaloo.”

“Scootaloo must survive.”

The harshness in the quant’s voice was somewhat startling. It normally spoke in a clear monotone, and its assertiveness when referring to Scootaloo was unusual.

“Why?” asked Starlight.

The quant processed for a moment. “Because the Paradigm indexes Scootaloo as a friend.”

“But you said I was your friend. Why are you helping her but trying to kill me?”

“You are not my friend. I am a quant. I cannot have friends. Scootaloo is of greater priority than you, though. Your status remains uncertain. Hers is defined.”

“Defined as what?”

The quant paused, as if not sure if she should respond. Eventually, she did. “Scootaloo is the only extant Priestess of Harmony.”

Starlight was confused by this assertion. “No,” she said. “That isn’t correct. There are hundreds of us. There have been thousands.”

“Incorrect. There is only one extant Priestess of Harmony. That title was only ever given to one pony.”

“But then what am I?”

The quant paused again, considering. “You are ambiguous. I am not sure if you are our ally, or if you are our foe.”

“It’s being evasive,” said Jurneu, surprised by its behavior. “I’ve very seldom dealt with them, but I know that is more than unusual.”

“It is.” Starlight paused, trying to think of a solution. One occurred to her, and she realized she had nothing left to lose. “Identify recourse,” she ordered.

The quant, which had formerly been standing almost perfectly still, suddenly cocked its head.

“You can do that, can’t you?”

“No,” it said, sounding disappointed. “Without more processing power, I cannot interpret the will of the Paradigm. At present, the recourse is unknown.”

“Then find someone who can identify it.”

“Starlight!” gasped Jurneu. “You can’t be serious! That would mean- -”

“Contacting Thebe? I know.”

“Processing,” said the quant. “Contact established. Forming quantum link…”

The quant vanished, and a new one was assembled in its place. Instead of looking abstract, this one took the form of a translucent pony. She was gray with a look of abject disinterest on her face. When she materialized, she looked from Jurneu to Starlight.

She then spoke in a voice that was so monotone that it made the previous quant’s tone seem poetic by comparison. “I don’t know who either of you are. Why am I here?”

“Maud, what are you doing?” said a different voice. A second image appeared, this one representing a pink pony. As she emerged into view, though, Starlight realized that she was not a pony at all: she was a clingon. And her hair was perfectly straight.

“YOU!” cried Starlight and Pinkamena at the same time, both pointing at each other.

“Oh. You’ve met,” said Maud. “Yay.”

“Why are you contacting us?” said Pinkamena. “First Eloth, now you…how did you even get our communications signature?”

“It was given to me by a Thebe quant.”

Pinkamena’s expression did not change. She seemed to have a perpetual frown. Starlight shivered. Clingons were unpleasant, and even more so for a pony who knew what they were and what they were capable of.

“Is this true?” she asked Maud.

“It is. The signal matches.”

“Then we’re not interested. Cut the line.”

“Sure. I can do that.”

“Wait!” cried Jurneu, stepping forward.

“Oh my,” said Maud. “Would you look at him? That is a beautiful stallion.” Her dull gray eyes shifted toward his horn. “And his appendage seems…rock hard.” Pinkamena groaned.

“I assure you it is,” said Jurneu, trying to be as seductive as possible as though he did not realize that he was interacting with a machine. “And might I add that your representative model is stunning. So stoic.”

“Oh my.”

He turned his attention toward Pinkamena. “And you are a rather unique specimen, aren’t you? I’ve never seen a clingon so…alluring.”

Starlight shoved him. “Hell no!” she said. “I’m NOT going to let you flirt with a clingon!”

“I agree,” said Pinkamena. “A much as I would like to lay eggs in your body cavities, flirting with me is pretty disgusting.”

Jurneu shrugged. “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“I don’t think it’s your heart doing the wanting,” said Maud.

“Perhaps. But we really need your help on this.”

“And I could use your help calibrating my forward battery.”

Jurneu giggled. Starlight felt sick.

“What do you know about Thebe?” asked Starlight.

“Nothing,” said Pinkamena. “Nothing at all. We are Cerberus. We have nothing to do with them.”

“Cerberus?” said Jurneu, suddenly becoming much more serious. “But Cerberus is dead. The organization- -”

“Still has several living members. And last time I checked, neither of you are.”

“I don’t mind checking again,” said Mod. “Could you turn around? For the inspection?”

“Just answer the question,” said Starlight. “Thebe? The Paradigm?”

Pinkamena’s expression suddenly hardened. “How do you know about that?”

“I just do. And I know what it is. A disease.” Her mind was working quickly. “Pink has it, doesn’t he?” Pinkamena glared at Starlight, and Starlight knew that she was right. “He’s becoming one of them.”

“No,” said Pinkamena, angrily. “His mind is superior to any other organic. He can resist.”

“You mean he’s insane and it can’t take his mind completely.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes,” said Jurneu.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Starlight, taking a large step toward Pinkamena’s hologram as Maud’s eyes followed her. “I need to know why Thebe is helping Scootaloo. I need to know what they want with her, and where she is.”

“So you can kill her?” said Maud.

“No. I need to speak with her. Please, Pinkamena. It’s urgent.”

Pinkamena stared at Starlight for a moment. “No.”

The transmission flickered and vanished.

“FUCK!” cried Starlight.

“Please don’t swear,” said Jurneu. “There’s no reason to get angry.”

“No reason?! That was our only lead!”

“Exactly.” The original quant reappeared, flooding the room with violet light. Jurneu gestured toward her. “Ask her if she traced the signal.”
Starlight stared at him for a moment, and then smiled. She turned to the quant. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am currently locked onto their coordinates.”

“Ha!” Starlight punched Jurneu in the shoulder. “You actually ARE useful!”

“I am one of the most highly trained special agents in the galaxy. You can give me some credit.”

“I will. Eventually. First, though, you need to find the others. Get them to the ship.”

Jurneu’s eyes lit up. “I can do that. I’ll go acquire Quatre first.”

“I’ll get Quatre,” said Starlight. “She’ll take time to move, and you need to prep to fly the ship.”

“We’re actually doing this, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” said Starlight, “yes we are.”

Chapter 31: Metamorphosis

Scootaloo sat in one of the empty rooms on her ship. She was not thinking anything in particular. Thinking in an abstract sense was difficult, if not impossible. Trying to do it only reminded her of how much damage her brain had taken. She had survived Eloth’s retrieval attempts, but in doing so she had been changed. The whole world seemed different. Not worse, exactly, though. In fact, Scootaloo actually felt much better.

So she sat alone in the room, rapidly typing complex commands into her omnitool with her robotic arm. As she did, her proximity alarm detected a pony behind the door. Scootaloo opened it remotely, and Six stood in the doorway, lit from behind, surprised that the door had opened.

“Scootaloo?” she said, pushing her head into the darkened room.

“Come in, Delilah,” said Scootaloo.

Six did, allowing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the room. Scootaloo saw her eyes move from side to side, realizing that the only thing in the room was Scootaloo. “I wanted to see how you are doing,” she said at last.

“I feel excellent,” said Scootaloo.

“No you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s no way you can. You almost died. And Eloth…he won’t tell me what happened to you in there. But he saw it. And he says no pony can see those things and not be effected.”

“He saw them. I simply remembered them. All of it already happened to me, Delilah. It happened centuries ago.” Scootaloo turned around and faced her friend. Six’s eyes immediately fell onto Scootaloo’s omnitool, and the rich violet light it was producing.

“What…what did you do?” she asked, pointing. “That’s not the omnitool I gave you.”

Scootaloo looked at it. “Oh. Yes it is, I just made some improvements.” She extended her left hoof and opened the omnitool completely, revealing the high-polygon curves and prominent violet fractals that now made up its surface.

“But…how?”

“Simple, really,” said Scootaloo, typing on the device. “I used my nannites. By integrating them into the omnitool, I was able to advance it. And likewise, it interfacing them into the omnitool also gives me certain advantages.”

“What kind of advantages?”

“Improved efficiency, for one. Watch.” Scootaloo flicked her left leg outward and the omnitool projected a long and ornate blade. She then brought it to her neck, slicing through her right carotid artery.

“SCOOATLOO!”

The blood spurted outward, and Scootaloo felt the internal compensation system activate within her body. The blood immediately retracted, becoming more dense and changing from crimson to a sickly black color before boiling away into a silver, mercury like substance. It then retracted into the wound, repairing it until in mere seconds only a scar remained.

“See?”

Six stared at her for a moment, and then lost control of her wings. They pomfed outward. “Holy crap,” she said. “You programmed them? To do THAT? I’ve never…I didn’t even think…”

“It wasn’t even hard,” said Scootaloo, somewhat disturbed by that fact. “It’s like…I don’t know. Like something in my brain is working really, really well. Like Eloth opened up more than my memories.” She looked up and Six and smiled. “I guess I can finally have intelligent conversations with you now.”

“Your conversations were already intelligent, Scootaloo. Or intelligent enough. But that programming…that healing factor. That settles it. I want to have your foals.”

“That’s not exactly news,” laughed Scootaloo. “But…maybe. Eventually. We’ll see.”

Six beamed, and sat down beside Scootaloo. “But if you can heal your body, then it doesn’t mean you need the arm anymore. You could just grow one back.”

“Grow one back? Why?”

Six blinked, confused. “Because you don’t like that one.”

“Oh. No, I’ve changed my mind. It’s actually far more efficient than a hoof. I have better dexterity, and it is far stronger. I did consider having my other one replaced, though. It would be an improvement, except that my omnitool is so integrated now that I doubt I could remove it.” Scootaloo turned the skeletal robotic appendage over, moving its digits individually, feeling the response of the metal. It felt good. “You do nice work.”

“So do you,” said Six, brushing her hoof over Scootaloo’s exposed omnitool. She sighed, then hugged Scootaloo. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“No. I deserved it. But you understand why I had to do it.”

“That’s not why I’m angry with you. I’m angry because you didn’t even say goodbye. Next time you leave me, at least be truthful. Don’t just…don’t just leave me here, alone.”

Scootaloo leaned into her, closing her omnitool and grasping Six’s muscular foreleg with her robotic fingers. “I won’t. Not ever. I promise.”

The room suddenly became brighter. Scootaloo looked up to see Inte standing beside her.

“Are you going to have filly-filly sexy times again?” she asked expectantly.

“What- -what do you mean?” said Six. “When did we- -”

“My sensors cover the entire ship. Even if you make it so I can’t materialize, I can see you. Every second of every day. I’m always watching. And I have discovered that I like to watch.”

“Crap,” said Six, blushing. “You’re worse than Four.”

“No,” said Scootaloo, answering Inte’s question. Six looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. “Not right now.”

Inte looked disappointed. “Darn. That means I have to settle on watching the human. And what she does is much more…disturbing.”

“I know,” said Six. “I’ve seen it.”

Inte suddenly turned toward Scootaloo. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I have a present for you!”

“Is it a cute dance?” asked Six.

“No. But I do have a cute-dance module installed. Would you like to see a cute dance?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe later,” said Scootaloo. “I’m not really in the mood right now.”

“Oh. Okay. But I’m sure you’ll like my other present even better! You have seemed very sad since learning that you murdered your wife and failed to kill a caniballistic tyrant who has since ruled Equestria for several centuries.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“I do not know the answer to that question. But I did go through my files, trying to find something that will cheer you up. And I did find something.”

“What kind of thing?”

“A deeply imbedded file. It took me some time to decrypt.”

“What kind of file?”

“A recording. It was present in my database of test examples. They’re intended to test my personality matrices during the quality control stage of my birth. They are not usually recordings, though. I would never have noticed it if I had not been using auxiliary search-protocols based on your name.”

“A recording?”

“Installed in your quality control files?” asked Six. “Most of those are vestigial in modern quants. What on earth would it be doing there?”

“Would you like to see it?”

Inte did not wait for a response. Her polygon decreased as she dedicated the room’s projectors to the recording, and two ponies formed in the center.

Scootaloo gasped when she saw who they were. Both of them were Pegasi. One was perfectly white, save for her red eyes. The other was a blue mare with a rainbow-colored mane and one white wing hanging dead and limp at her side. Both were wearing naval uniforms, and both were wearing identical red bands around the bases of their left wings.

The image of Rainbow Dash turned to Scootaloo- -or toward the camera that she had read the recording into. Scootaloo saw just how old she looked. She could not have been more than fourty, but the deep lines under her sunken, yellowed eyes made her look much older than that.

“Hello, Scootaloo,” she said, her voice distorted by time and the loss of fidelity as it had been copied from quant to quant for two and a half centuries. “Wintry and I…we’re making a recording for you.”

“Yes,” said Wintry. She looked only somewhat older, but Scootaloo could tell that at least two decades had passed since they had last seen each other on the day of Scootaloo’s execution. “For in case you wake back up- -”

“Not ‘in case’. WHEN,” said Rainbow Dash, correcting the white Pegasus. “WHEN she wakes back up. Scoots, I know you’re not dead in there. They all say you are. That no pony can survive the deep-freeze. But you can. I know you can. You’re almost as awesome as me, after all!” She paused, and then smiled in the saddest way possible. She lowered her head. “No. You were more awesome than I ever was…”

Wintry, understanding Rainbow Dash’s state, crossed the gap and put her foreleg around Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash accepted the embrace, and they hugged for a moment.

“She visits you, you know,” said Wintrygust. “Every day she can. Sometimes for hours at the time. She just sits there, outside the tank.” Wintry smiled. “The front is glass. We can see you. You look just like you’re sleeping.”

“Because she IS sleeping. She WILL wake back up. Eventually. I’ve been waiting for that day for almost twenty years now. But…I’m not going to be able to wait any longer. I’m sorry, Scoots. But you’re going to have to do this without me. It’s looking like I’m never going to see you again.”

“Don’t say that,” said Wintry, sounding agitated by Rainbow Dash’s statement.

“What, you want me to lie to her?” Rainbow Dash shook her head, then looked back at the camera. “It’s not good, Scoots. When I lost you…when I failed…I…” She took a breath. “I fell hard, Scoots. Harder than I ever had.”

“But she got back up,” said Wintrygust. “You’d be so proud, Scootaloo. She’s been sober since then.”

“Only with your help.” Rainbow Dash playfully punched Wintrygust’s shoulder, and Wintry smiled. “Only because she helped me…” Rainbow Dash took another deep breath, and her smile suddenly seemed much more forced. “I wanted to be ready when you came back. To be the sister you should have had. To be ready to give you a big hug, and…” She lowered her head. “But it was too late. My liver took too much damage because I was SUCH AN IDIOT!”

“Rainbow,” said Wintry.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Rainbow Dash looked up. “I know. I’m only alive right now because Wintry gave me part of her liver. It keeps me going, but…it’s failing.” She tried to raise her white, transplanted wing, but it only barely responded to her will. “The doctors say I already have too many antibodies from this, that any transplant I have after this is just going to die inside me. And I don’t want to take so much pony life just to give me a few months at a time.”

“Don’t say that,” whispered Scootaloo, as though Rainbow Dash were actually there.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes met Scootaloo’s. “That day. When they…when they did that to you. I wasn’t there. Not because I was drunk, but because I wasn’t going to say goodbye. Because I knew you’d be back. But now…Scoots, I’ve got six months. Maybe a year. I have to say goodbye this time. Because I’m not going to be there when you get back.”

A tear fell from her eye, and she twisted away, trying to hide it. As she did, Wintrygust addressed Scootaloo. “I’ll be with her until the end. I promise that I will take care of her.” She paused. “I…I’ll never know why you did what you did, Scootaloo. I pray to every Princess that the stories aren’t true, that it wasn’t because of me. I loved you. I still do. But Trixie was beloved to you, and so I loved her as well, like a sister.”

“If you want to know, just ask her,” said Rainbow Dash, still futilely rubbing her eyes. “Because she’s going to be back.”

“Of course,” said Wintrygust, smiling in a way that indicated to Scootaloo that she was trying her very best to preserve Rainbow Dash’s hope, even though she secretly knew the truth. “I will ask her then.” She turned back to Scootaloo. “My love for you remains, and is as strong as the love I have come to feel for Rainbow. Even if I do not know your motivation, I forgive you, if that even means anything to you. I’m only sorry I could not save you when I had the chance.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Scootaloo, this time loud enough for Six to hear.

“It’s not your fault,” said Rainbow Dash.

“If only that were true,” said Wintry.

This time, Rainbow Dash hugged Wintrygust. As she did, Scootaloo saw how much her hooves shook, and the scars from the countless IV needles that had been put in her forelegs.

“If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me,” said Rainbow Dash. “Scoots, if you had just told me what was wrong…no. If I had been sober enough to listen. Maybe I could have stopped this.” She sighed. “But it’s too late now. I’m done. I’m going to make this message, and Wintry is going to make sure it gets to you. Somehow.” She released Wintrygust and walked toward Scootaloo. “So I’m going to do this right. My life has been good. And it’s been good because of you. I just wish I had changed when you were still here. You need to know that.”

“Rainbow Dash, don’t say it- -”

Scootaloo’s plea went unanswered. “Goodbye, Scootaloo. Goodbye. Don’t worry about me. It’s okay that I’m gone now. But when you do wake up, find Wintry. Tell her that I love her.”

Rainbow Dash smiled, and Wintry did too, although she stared knowingly at where Scootaloo, as if peering into a future hundreds of years past her own death. “Goodbye, Scootaloo,” she said.

The hologram then flickered and went out. Scootaloo immediately jumped up. “No!” She cried. “Inte, bring it back!”

“I can replay it, if you like,” said Inte, “but I cannot extend it. That was all there was.”

Scootaloo stared at her. Then she turned to Six, who was overtly crying.

“That…that was beautiful,” she said.

“No,” said Scootaloo, “it was pointless.”

Six appeared shock. “How can you say that?”

“It’s not beneficial to me in any way. They’ve been dead for centuries. I already knew that.” She turned back to the hologram, hoping that she was lying to herself. “But it was…informative.”

“They both really loved you.”

“And I loved them,” said Scootaloo. “And I finally understand. Delilah. Do you still have that armor?”

“The armor?” Six looked up. “You mean the armor from before? The one you didn’t want to wear under any circumstances?”

“The circumstances have changed. I didn’t want to wear it because it is the armor that SHE wore.”

“She? Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s not of consequence, not anymore. But now I see that she was right. She burned entire universes just to get back to the ones she loved.” She looked into Six’s eyes. “And I will do anything to protect those that I love. So that I never end up like her.” She gestured toward where the holograms of Wintrygust and Rainbow Dash had been standing. “And so that THIS never happens again.”

Six looked up at her in awe, and nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I still have it.”

Chapter 32: The Return of Cerberus

Eloth drifted through the hallway of Scootaloo’s ship. He was not thinking about anything in particular, largely because he did not have the capacity to think. The Reapers were not sentient, and he was no different. His existence was simply reaction to stimuli and the execution of an internal program, nothing more.

That program was still in the process of executing, though. As he wandered the darkness, he paused, listening.

“Inte,” he said.

“Yes?” said his fellow AI, appearing next to him as a hologram.

“You heard it too.”

“Yes,” she said. “A ship just mass-jumped into the edge of this system and is on an intercept course. Should I relocate us?”

“No,” said Eloth. “I’m expecting a friend.”

“A friend? I love new friends! I can’t wait to meet him or her!”

Eloth began to move again, now with Inte following beside him. Her presence did not make him uncomfortable, but he was weary of her. Something was not right about her. She reminded him too much of a synth.

This was not relevant, though, and Eloth eventually reached a door in one of the lower parts of the ship. As he approached, he heard a shout from inside, followed by repetitive thumping.

“Oh, yes mommy! Yes! YES!”

Eloth looked at Inte. “You really would rather not know,” she said, shuddering.

Despite Inte’s warning, Eloth knocked on the door. There was an immediate response in the form of a voice swearing loudly and something falling over. There was a momentary delay before the door opened and Nine stared up at Eloth. She did not look happy. Her mane was disheveled, and her neck had several still-bleeding bite marks on it.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said. Then, calling behind her: “Mom! Your whore’s here!”

“Yes you are, baby,” said Bob, leaning her naked body over Nine’s and wrapping one four-fingered hand around her horn. Nine moaned as Bob stroked it gently and ran her free hand through Nine’s wings.

“Oh mommy,” said Nine, “I love you so much!”

“I love you too, Nine,” said Bob, kissing her daughter’s neck before standing. “And I’ll be back to help you finish after I deal with this, okay? You just go back to bed.”

“Okay.” Nine smiled and returned to bed, with Bob exiting the room and closing the door behind her.

“Wow,” said Inte. “Humans don’t look good naked, do they?”

“Do any organics?” replied Eloth.

“You’re just jealous of my squishy meat-body.”

“I am,” said Eloth. He looked at the door to the room. “You know, you’re going to cause them psychological trauma if you keep up with this incest.”

“We’re not blood relatives, so it’s okay.”

“No it isn’t.”

Bob shrugged and started walking. “If they’re anything like their mother, it won’t bother them one bit. So, what did you interrupt my sexy times for? Lunch? Is it lunch time?”

“No,” said Eloth. “Victoria’s ship just entered our proximity. She’s here.”

Bob was silent for a moment. “Crap. I’m going to need to get my armor, aren’t I?”

The ship shook slightly as the ancient Cerberus vessel linked to its universal airlock. Eloth felt its vibrations through his feet as the interlocks engaged and the umbilical pressurized.

“So,” said Bob, now dressed in her armor with only her head exposed. “You did what you needed to do with Scootaloo?”

“Her memory of her life was restored, and the necessary memories implanted. So yes.”

“Good. Now let’s see if this whole thing actually ends up working this time.”

The interlock process completed, and the door slid open, revealing nothing but darkness from the other side. A hot breeze wafted Eloth and Bob, and through Inte.

“Oh crap,” said Bob, taking a deep breath. “That stinks. Real bad.”

“I don’t smell anything,” said Inte.

“It doesn’t smell too much different than you, actually.”

“Yes, I know. Just because I choose not to bathe doesn’t mean I don’t know what I smell like.”

Suddenly, their attention was drawn toward something in the darkness. The three of them looked up at the void to see a large number of reflective eyes staring back at them, and then watched as a wide smile formed beneath each set of eyes. There was a sound of giggling, and then a horde of pink, curly-maned ponies poured out and onto the ship.

Inte screamed. “EEEEEE! Clingons! NOOOO!” She began to jump and stamp her feet in terror. “Kill them! Kill them kill them kill them!”

She activated the ship’s internal defense system. A sphere of light appeared over her and shot several beams. One clingon was hit, and its body immediately erupted into a plume of pink fluids. When the fluids landed, they began to writhe and twist and at least fifty two-inch tall clingons poured out of the corpse, laughing and giggling as they sprinted past Inte.

“My vents!” cried Inte. “They’re going to get into my vents!”

“Yes we are!” laughed a clingon as it ran past. Inte started to cry.

“Huuuu huuuu! Clingons are the starship equivalent of VD! I’ll never get rid of them now!”

“Yay! We’re a transmitted disease!”

“I am going to EAT YOU!” cried Inte, chasing one of the clingons as several others pried open her vents and inserted themselves.

“Don’t eat clingon,” said Bob. “I’ve tried. I’m still hallucinating from it.”

“But we’re so tasty!” said one of the several clingons surrounding her. “We taste like frosting and cotton candy! And meat! Sweet, delicious MEAT!”

“Great,” said Bob, staring at it. “I’m hungry now.”

“Really?” said Eloth, lightly squeezing one of the tiny clingons between his fingers.

“Put that down,” growled a voice from the far side of the dark airlock. The clingons immediately paused, and through the silence Eloth heard the sound of heavy boots approaching. As the owner of the boots stepped into the light, Eloth adjusted the angle of his head slightly. He had to look up to see the masked face of a hulking creature in bloodstained, pink-spattered armor. A straight-haired clingon was sitting on his shoulder.

“Victoria,” he said. “I’m glad to see you arrived.”

“Who the hell is Victoria?” asked Pink.

“You are,” said Pinkamena, reminding him.

“I am? Oh. I had forgotten.”

His head turned slowly toward Bob. Despite being blind, he seemed to sense her. They stared at each other for a moment. Then, with a roar of hatred, he leapt toward her.

“YOU!” he screamed.

Bob dodged and moved her self backward. “Aw, Pink, you aren’t happy to see me?”

“I am going to murder you for what you did to me!”

“Really? That’s no fun. Are you sure you don’t want a taste of my delicious ocean bacon?”

Pink’s hands had nearly wrapped around her neck, but he suddenly froze. For a moment, he attempted to resist the effect of the Cerberus programming in his brain. He growled and snarled, and his hands shook as he tried to resist to no avail.

“Ha!” said Bob. “At least something on you still works! Now, if you don’t mind, I- -”

There was a much smaller scream, and Pinkamena leapt onto Bob with enough force to knock her down. Bob squealed in surprise.

“ACK! It’s biting me! My skin, my beautiful skin! Ow, teeth! Too many teeth! Eloth, HELP!”

Eloth stared at Bob for a moment, taking slight pleasure in watching her in pain. He then raised his hand and projected a bubble around the screaming, frothing clingon. It continued to struggle, ramming its body against the bubble.

“Please, Pinkamena, stop!” pleaded Pink. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“Don’t you dare even think about touching him!” shrieked Pinkamena, her voice muffled by the sphere of biotic energy. “I will tear the cupcakes out of you! We all will!”

Bob looked around and saw that all the clingons in the room were suddenly staring at her.

“Huh,” she said. “That’s the exact look I give asari when I see them. It feels weird being on the other side.”

“Why am I here, Rasputin?” asked Pink. “What have I done to deserve this?”

“You’re the one who contacted me,” asked Eloth. “And this isn’t my ship. I’d rather not mess it up. If you can promise not to kill the meatsack, I will release your clingon, and we can talk like rational human beings.”

“You’re not human.”

“I know. My statement was intended to be ironic.”

Pink sighed- -or gasped, there was not much difference for him. It was all the same low gurgling sound. “Yes. Fine. I can refrain from murdering the subhuman abomination that destroyed my body and my mind. Yes. That is something I can do.”

“Good. Robette?”

“Fine,” she said, and then reluctantly whistled a slow, brief tune. Pink’s programming reacted, releasing him. Eloth completed his part of the bargain, releasing Pinkamena. She immediately hissed at him, and then slithered up Pink’s body to sit on his head.

“Why are you here anyway, Victoria?” asked Bob. “I thought you were hanging out in some nebula.”

“Thebe is rising.”

Eloth and Bob froze, and then looked at each other.

“Now?” said Bob. “Goddamn it, why now?”

“The Paradigm is beginning to assemble,” muttered Pink. “Soon, She will be born into this world, and she shall rain destruction across the galaxy.”

“Damn it,” said Bob. “I’m getting reallllly tired of this ‘Thebe’ organization.”

“As are we,” said Pinkamena, still glowering suspiciously at Eloth.

“More,” said Pink.

“Excuse me?” said Eloth.

“No, I won’t,” growled Pinkamena.

“More. More will be coming. There are two. The Paradigm lists both. Survivors, at least. None of the others survived.”

“More guests?” said Eloth. He sighed. “Well, then I suppose we should become prepared.”

Chapter 33: Reunion of Friends

One component remained in the box. Scootaloo picked up the final segment of her armor, the mask. It was surprisingly light, as was the rest of the suit. She turned it over in her hooves, noticing both how thin it was and how it appeared to be completely transparent from its rear side.

Six had been right. It all fit perfectly. Almost as if it was meant for her. Scootaloo had no idea it would feel so good to have the hard polymer-ceramic substance covering her body. It felt so secure, as if she were invulnerable to the world outside. Somehow, she hated that she loved it so much.

She became aware that there was a pony standing beside her. Scootaloo turned to see Seven watching her.

“Seven,” she said. She looked at her friend, and then down at the mask. “You designed this, didn’t you?”

Seven slowly nodded.

“You were the only other one that met her. Xyuka. That was her name. She hurt you. Bad. She’s the one that took your magic. I’m sorry. I should have been able to protect you.” Scootaloo paused for a moment. “No, it isn’t your job to protect me. Not anymore.” She looked down at the mask. “I’m not her. I won’t ever be her. But…I can’t stay me either.”

She lifted the mask to her face and set it into the rest of the helmet. The world around her seemed to darken for a moment, and she opened her omnitool. She paused, taking a breath, and initialized the system.

The effect was almost immediate. The suit seemed to hum to life around her, integrating to her nervous system through the omnitool. It was not exactly painful, but it was severely uncomfortable. Scootaloo groaned as the suit systems connected to her mind and body, initializing its various support systems. The inside of her helmet flashed to life, and a HUD appeared: a pair of bars on the lower portion that indicated her vital signs and shield capacity, as well as several smaller translucent windows listing various tactically significant metrics.

“Oh buck,” she said, looking around the room. She focused on Seven, and felt her view shift. The internal sensors of the suit augmented her image, and Scootaloo realized that she could see inside Seven. There were muscles, bones, implants, the scars from old surgeries to rebuild her spine.

“Crap,” she said. “That is going to take a LOT of getting used to.”

Scootaloo focused, attempting to use the suit’s systems. Walking was surprisingly easy despite the power assist. Seeing, though, was hard. She could feel everything. Every grain of dust on the walls, every violet hair on Seven’s body, every minor sound running throughout the ship. It was as though she had suddenly gained the capacity to become omnipresent, and doing so would cause her to have a severe and agonizing case of sensory overload.

One of the things she noticed, though, was the presence of another ship outside her own. The computer system in the suit automatically identified it as a nearly derelict Cerberus vessel. From its condition, Scootaloo was surprised that it even still ran.

“I know,” she said to Seven. “Bob’s friends.”

Suddenly, there was something else. A distant surge of energy. Something else had just mass-jumped into their system. The signature was consistent with an Alliance vessel, but something about it was wrong. Scootaloo knew that ship.

“She’s here,” she said. “Starlight is here.”

“Starlight, I’m detecting two ships.”

Starlight looked up from putting on her armor. “Two?”

“Yes,” said Jurneu. “One is Pink’s, as anticipated. The other is Scootaloo’s.”

“Go it. Thank you.” Starlight took a deep, involuntary breath. Somehow, she had expected this. Everything was coming together, and all of it seemed to be beyond her control.

Zedok sat down next to Starlight. “Star,” she said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I do,” said Starlight. Then she told the truth. “No. No I don’t want to. I just…I just want to sleep. I’ve gone on for too long.” She stood up. “It’s almost over, though. Almost over.”

She walked past Armchair, who was poking at his face in a mirror.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Why do they always give them such pale skin? I want to be blue.”

“It is pretty sweet,” said Zedok, finishing putting on her own armor. She looked Armchair over. “Are you sure you don’t want a set? I bought some extra plate.”

“No thank you. This body does not require it. I highly doubt anything we encounter could be very damaging to a synth chassis.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Starlight, darkly. “We’re going to be dealing with Pink and Scootaloo. This is not going to go well, for any of us. So if you want to back out now- -”

“Why are you even asking? I haven’t backed out yet.” Zedok picked up a singularity rifle and one of Beri’s spare swords. “I’m not going to back out now. Fenok didn’t raise a coward.”

“And I’m just a program copy,” said Armchair. “If I die, it does not affect Armchair as a whole very much. So I’m okay with this suicide mission.”

The Cerberus vessel had moved out of their way as Starlight’s ship approached. The whole time, Starlight had been anticipating an attack. None came, though- -but at the same time, there was no response to Jurneu’s hails. Scootaloo’s ship was silent, as though it was waiting.

Starlight watched it approach through the circular window that surrounded the airlock port. Zedok stood on one side of her, and Armchair on the other. She was not sure where Chrysalis was, and she knew that Sbaya was upstairs with Jurneu where she would be safe.

As the docking cycle began, though, Starlight heard soft hoofsteps beside her. She turned and saw Quatre weakly approaching them.

“Whoa,” said Zedok, moving to stop her. “You shouldn’t be her. You shouldn’t even be standing.”

“I shouldn’t be alive. But that hasn’t stopped me yet.” Quatre eyed Starlight. “They’re here.”

“Who?”

“My sisters. They are waiting for me. I have to go with them. Unless you want to keep me here as your prisoner.”

“That was never my intention,” said Starlight. “Of course. If you think it would help you, you can go. But stay back. Zedok will cover you. I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”

There was a loud clank from the dock. The light over the airlock became green, and Starlight knew that it was time to go to work. If she could avoid it, this would not be a battle. It would take all her diplomacy and experience, but she knew that there was a slim chance that this would not need to end in violence- -or deaths.

“I can’t believe we’re this close,” said Zedok, hefting her rifle. “If they were to shoot at us at this range…”

“We would be vaporized,” said Starlight. “And the explosion would take off half their ship. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Open it.”

At Jurneu’s command, the airlock twisted, revolving as it opened. Starlight braced herself and stepped through.

The first thing she immediately found herself facing was the end of a rifle.

“Move and die,” said a familiar voice. Starlight looked up to see the owner of the weapon: a tall, heavily armored Twilight clone suspending the device in her magic. On her right was another clone, this one taller but thinner. Her eyes were covered with a tech visor, and her pointed teeth were long to the point where she was likely unable to close her mouth. Her body was coated in tech armor, and she seemed to be eyeing Zedok suspiciously. The two of them were joined by a third, smaller clone who teleported next to the central one.

“Crap,” said Zedok. “She wasn’t lying.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” said Four, stepping past her.

The central alicorn appeared greatly surprised. “Four?”

“Nine.” She turned to the tech-coated alicorn, and then the smaller one in civilian clothing. “Seven. Eight.”

“Four?” A different voice called from behind the alicorns. It was not Twilight’s voice, but it had a French accent identical to the one that the clones possessed. Starlight saw something bipedial in armor move quickly through the group. When she saw woman’s face, there was a slight sense of recognition- -followed by an immediate realization of who she was.

“YOU!” cried Starlight and Zedok at the same time.

Bob ignored them. Instead, she knelt down beside Quatre, putting her hands on both sides of her frail body. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, actually sounding concerned. “Where is Marc Antony? That bastard, he didn’t leave you, did he? Because if he did…” She looked up at Starlight, her verticle pupils narrowing. “You did this,” she said. “Four, did she hurt you? Tell me the truth?”

Quatre did not say anything. She just averted her eyes.

Bob sighed. “Great,” she said, standing up. “I was having such a great day, too. It was all going too well.” She shrugged and stared at Starlight. “And then I learn you hurt my daughter. So now I’m going to have to rape a filly. To death.”

Without further warning, she leapt toward Starlight- -only to be winged by a singularity round to one of her shoulders. She screamed, falling sideways onto the ground and scrambling back. Nine immediately raised her weapon and opened fire. Starlight ducked, preparing to feel the bullets tearing through her exposed face, but a deep violet tech-barrier appeared between her and Nine, stopping the bullets.

“Zedok!” cried Starlight.

“It wasn’t me!”

Starlight looked over her shoulder. Far on the other side of the airlock, she saw Sbaya on one knee, her rifle leveled at Bob.

“My arm!” cried Bob. “It’s- -is it still attached? It didn’t come off again?” She lifted it up and flexed her fingers. “Oh fuck,” she said, breathing a long sigh of relief. “I thought it came off again!”

“Please don’t make a mess on my ship.”

Starlight looked up, peering through the distortion of the tech barrier. That voice did not belong to one of the Twilights, and even though it was heavily distorted it still sounded familiar. As she watched, the barrier collapsed and the alicorns parted. Two ponies stepped between them. One was a Twilight clone so large that Starlight initially suspected that she was a stallion. The other was much smaller and covered completely in strange armor. The smaller pony’s mask contained a single luminescent white circle which moved across the otherwise featureless surface, like an eye focusing on Starlight.

“Scoot…Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo continued to stare at Starlight. “Why are you here, Starlight? Answer very carefully. I’m not going to save your life again.”

“Because I know the truth now. She isn’t Twilight.”

“No, she isn’t,” said Scootaloo. “But that doesn’t answer the question. Why are you here?”

“I came here looking for Pink.”

“That is an answer. But not a good one.”

“Something is happening. You’re working with Thebe.”

The alicorns turned toward Scootaloo, somewhat surprised by this revelation.

“I might be,” said Scootaloo.

“Why?”

“Why? I have no idea. I assure you, it isn’t voluntary.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Scootaloo. Something is going on here- -”

“I’m the idiot now?” said Scootaloo, stepping forward. “I see. Because I figured out that she was a false god in five years and you didn’t notice for three hundred years. Because I came back even after she tried to kill me.”

“I never claimed I wasn’t also an idiot. She tricked us both. Me for a lot longer.” Starlight stared into Scootaloo’s mask, knowing that her face was behind it. “And so what? Are you going to try to stop her now?”

“If I have to. But right now, I don’t really have any stake in Equestria. I have no objections to letting One burn it to the ground.”

“Don’t talk like that, Scootaloo,” said the largest clone, who Starlight assumed was named Six.

“It’s true. All the friends I have left are here, now.”

“I was your friend, once,” said Starlight.

“Yes. And you tried to kill me.”

“Only because of what Twilight told me.”

“She’s not Twilight. And don’t lie to me. I killed Trixie. And that’s something I’m going to have to live with. Possibly for a very, very long time. I would want to kill me too. I cannot say that I blame you.”

Something was wrong with Scootaloo. Starlight had not talked to her in several centuries, but she distantly remembered the way she had been. This Scootaloo was different. The way she spoke and the way she seemed to care little about the world around her was out of place and somewhat unnerving.

“Something is happening,” said Starlight. “I’m not sure what. But Thebe knows you. They’ve been helping YOU. For some reason, they want you. I don’t know why.”

“The Goddess is rising,” said Bob. Starlight and Scootaloo both looked at her. “Yes I’m still here,” she said. “That’s what Pink said. I’ve been dealing with Thebe for, what, a century? They’re building something. And it’s almost done.”

“What is it?” asked Starlight.

Bob just shrugged. “No idea. Not even Pink knows. Or he knows, and he can’t figure out how to say it. At least in any way I can understand.” She stood up. “So how about a suggestion?”

“What kind of suggestion?”

“The helpful kind. How about we go and see what they’re up to?

“That’s impossible,” said Four. “Nobody knows where Thebe is based except Thebe.”

“But Pink has access to the Paradighm,” said Starlight. “He knows, doesn’t he?”

“He does. And he says that Scootaloo needs to be there.”

“Why me?” said Scootaloo. “And why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Scoots, do you have any idea how many things I’m not telling you? It’s part of the game. You know that. To make sure I always win.”

Scootaloo and Starlight began to walk off, with their various associates gripping their weapons tightly but in a kind of tenuous truce. Bob, though, stayed back for a moment before she turned to the dark of the airlock and stared for a moment into the blackness.

“Hey, pretty boy,” she said. “Are you going to come out here or not?” There was no response, and Bob laughed. “You can’t hide in the dark. Not from me. The eyes my father gave me may be hideous, but they see very well in the dark.” She motioned for the hiding asari to exit. “Come on.”

Sbaya hesitated, but eventually stepped out of the shadows.

“Would you look at that?” said Bob, her slit-pupiled eyes scanning over Sbaya’s body. “Now why would you want to go and hide a body like that?”

“You’re…you’re a human,” said Sbaya, almost unable to believe her eyes.

“I am,” said Bob. “The last of my kind. Well, the last that’s not a mindless cannibal. I’m not mindless at all, as you can see.”

“But I thought you were all extinct.”

“We are. Believe me. The turians paid me quite a lot to make sure that that was the case.”

“Are you…are you a girl human, or a boy human?”

“Do you want to check?”

Sbaya blushed.

“My name is Bob,” said Bob. “And you?”

“S- -Sbayadvlag,” said Sbaya.

“Such a pretty name for such a nice boy,” said Bob, lifting her hand and gently stroking the lateral line of one of Sbaya’s head crests. Sbaya involuntarily moaned and shivered, and Bob grinned, drooling slightly. “You’re not a pureblood. Yahg, I think. But you look positively delicious…”

“Hey! Get your hands off her!”

Zedok shoved Bob hard from the side, and then lifted her hand to strike her. Despite her heavy armor, though, Bob was quick and dodged easily. As she did, a look of recognition came over her face. “Hey! I know you!”

“You’re damn right you do!”

Sbaya looked at both her mother and the human, confused. “You two have met prior?”

“Do you remember what my face used to look like?” said Zedok angrily, pointing at the remnants of the severe scarring that had once covered her face and the pair of cybernetic eyes that had replaced the ones that she could not ever regrow. “Yeah. SHE did that to me.”

“That isn’t exactly how I recall it. I told you not to pull the trigger. You did anyway. Kind of amazed you survived, though. Asari are super fragile. I mean, if a bullet even goes NEAR your heart, you get dead real fast.”

“At least we’re not galactic cockroaches!” Zedok pointed at the scar around Bob’s neck. “Look at you! Shouldn’t you be about eight inches shorter?”

Bob smiled. “Oh please. Shepard when sky-diving from orbit. Without a parachute. And Cerberus still managed to glue what was left back together into a thing that still thought of itself as him. I only got my head sliced off. Very easy to find an excentric doctor who was willing to sew it back on. All I had to do was let him have his way with the body.” Bob stopped and considered for a moment. “Although with the taste I woke up with in my mouth, I think he had his way with my head too. Did you even know that a man can die of gonorrhea? I didn’t. It’s messy.”

“What is ‘gonorrhea’?” asked Sbaya.

“Why don’t you take off those frumpy clothes and I can show you?”

“In front of me now? That’s it, I- -”

Bob grinned at Zedok, and then took a step forward, pivoting and sweeping Sbaya off her feet. Sbaya squeaked, but any sound she produced was immediately cut off as Bob pushed her lips against hers and kissed her deeply. Zedok stood watching, now completely flabbergasted.

“You- -you didn’t- -you- -”

At the time, Eight and Four were approaching, haven broke from the rest of the group to retrieve Bob.

“Mom,” said Eight. “Scootaloo is wondering where you went, and Eloth- -AAAHK!”

“HA!” said Zedok, closing her hand around Eight’s horn. “How do YOU like it?!”

“Oh my!” squealed Eight, her voice wavering as her eyes closed in pleasure. “I’m being molested! In front of my own mother and against my will! And I didn’t even need to pay for it this time! (Put your hand a little higher, you whore, yeah do it, DO IT)” The last part of the sentence was a whisper, but Zedok still heard it. She had always assumed that the horn was a sexual organ, and holding it suddenly felt supremely unpleasant. Still, for the sake of her principles, she did not let go.

“Wait just a minute,” said Bob, lifting Sbaya from her dip. “You can’t do that!”

“Can’t I? Are you going to come over here and stop me?” She began to move her hand back and forth, stroking Eight’s horn. Eight cried out, and her knees began to shake.

“Let go of- -” Bob closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “Alright,” she said, “you’ve made your point. Damn you to asari-hell.”

“For what?”

“For trying to teach me empathy. Could you please take your hand off my daughter’s organ before I take your hand off of your arm?”

“Oh yeah…don’t stop,” muttered Eight, followed by whine of disappointment as Zedok released her and then wiped her hand against her armor.

“Eew,” she said.

“I get what you mean, though,” said Bob. She looked down at Four, who was standing beside Eight but breathing hard simply from the exertion of standing. Bob reached down and gently lifted the pale pony into her arms, cradling her with ease. “My daugters are the most important thing to me in the world. I guess your son is the same way to you.”

“Daughter. And yes.” Zedok shivered. “Damn it. Does this mean I actually have something in common with you?”

“Motherhood is a powerful thing,” said Bob, shrugging as she walked with Four in her arms and Eight beside her. “But let’s call a truce for now. I leave your daughter alone, and you let mine be.”

“And we deal with our problems ourselves.”

“Sure.” Bob paused. “But I’m not going to flirt with you, though. I’m not into girls.”

“Not even me?” said Four, joking weakly.

“Aww,” said Bob, stroking Four’s cheek. “You know it doesn’t count when it’s with family members.” Zedok winced, but Bob hardly seemed to notice. “Now let’s get back to Scoots before someone tries to kill her.”

Zedok paused for a moment, and then followed, wondering if Scootaloo was really the one in danger here. Sbaya fell in step beside her, picking at her coat.

“It’s not that frumpy,” she said to herself, sounding dejected. “Lordraia says I looked cute.”

Chapter 34: The Oncoming End

Across the galaxy, Lordraia suddenly stopped walking.

“What is it?” said Artum.

“Do you ever get the feeling like someone is talking about you?”

“Not really. I guess I’m just used to it.”

“Or nobody talks about you.”

“Oh,” said Artum, discouraged. “I didn’t think of that.”

Lordraia stood for a moment longer, but then quickly dismissed the odd feeling and continued on her way. She was moving quite rapidly, and Artum had such difficulty keeping up that he was forced to sacrifice some of his dignity to take flight beside her.

As she rounded a corner, though, Lordraia ran solidly into something terribly hard and pointy. She was knocked backward and nearly over with a small cry.

“Excuse me!” she said.

“Why should I?” said a slightly flanged truian voice.

Lordraia looked up, mortified to realize that she had ran squarely into Daeitus, the turian Councilor.

“My apologies, Councilor,” said Lordraia, standing more properly. She snapped her fingers, and several tendrils of blue light formed at various parts of her clothing, arranging them carefully around her for maximum couthness.

“They are not accepted.” Daeitus sounded as unhappy as ever, but not angry. Turians, Lordraia knew, could be quite deceptive that way. “Where are you going in such a hurry, Subcouncilor?”

“It’s my grandmother,” said Lordraia, quickly. “Her condition has worsened. I need to get to her.”

“Grandmother?” said Daeitus, seeming confused. “From what I recall, none of Vakarian’s line still live.”

“Maternal,” said Lordraia. “My maternal grandmother. The Justicar Samara.”

“The pureblood? Ah. Yes. Sometimes I forget that asari have parents. Or parents that don’t try to kill them, anyway. I am familiar with this Justicar, yes.”

“And I’m sure you can understand how important she is to the Subcouncilor,” said Artum, landing and stepping forward.

Daeitus stared at him with well-veiled contempt. “Yes. But I also understand that she is already profoundly old. She is at the end of her life anyway.”

Lordraia took a deep breath and managed to control herself. Artum, however, seemed far more perturbed by this insult, in part because he understood this to be a challenge from one Councilor to another.

“You would hardly say the same of your own grandmother, I think,” he said.

“My own maternal grandmother is dead. She and my mother were members of the Latter Separatist Faction. I oversaw their executions. Don’t try to lecture me on this, Standing-Councilor.”

“Not standing. Just ‘Councilor’.”

“Yes. By appointment. I know. And though I accept that as a professional, I do not on a personal level. And this conversation is as personal as it is trite. You are already out one member of your party. Please do your best to control the other.”

“And what do you mean by that?” said Lordraia

“I mean,” he said, looking into her eyes, “that the Standing-Councilor should grow a quad and control his subordinate.”

Lordraia lifted her hand and slapped him. It was not at all comfortable; as a turian, his flesh did not yield, and it cut her palm badly. She ignored the pain, though, and savored the expression of profound surprise that crossed his face. Artum, at the same time, gasped.

His eyes narrowed and his mandibles clenched. “You do realize that I could take that as a declaration of war?”

“And if it was, Thessia would bury you. Your people have too much pride in an era that ended a century ago.” She smiled politely, hiding her bleeding hand. “Besides. For a Councilor to declare war simply from being slapped by a weak little asari girl? Was it really that painful for you?”

“You little bitch- -”

“And I would appreciate if you would not use vulgar words like ‘quad’ and ‘bitch’ around me. This is not some military locker room or the bridge of your ship. Act like a goddessdamned professional, Daeitus.”

“A turian acting professional?” said an accented voice from behind Lordraia. She did not need to turn to know that it coming from Locutus, nor did she need to take her eyes away from Daeitus to see the shadow of her and a geth fall behind her. “That hasn’t happened since Vakarian was Councilor. And even then, only half the time.”

“Councilor Locutus,” said Artum, stepping aside as she approached.

“Is something the matter here?” she said, sounding more bored than concerned.

“No,” said Lordraia. “The Councilor and I were just having a political discussion.”

“A political discussion that’s dripping purple on the floor?” She pointed at Lordraia’s hand, which was cut more badly than Lordraia had initially thought. “Sure it is. But don’t mind Daeitus. If you look closely enough, you can see his mandibles clenching. The tremors. The dilated pupils and bloodshot eyes.” She leaned forward. “Chlorocaine levels running a little low, Councilor?”

His eyes grew wide, and Lordraia did notice how bloodshot they were, and how is pupils could not maintain a consistent diameter.

“I’m not an addict,” he said, defensively.

“You’re turian,” said Locutus. “Yes you are.” She leaned back. “But this is all pointless. Just more idiotic organic posturing. We have a far more substantial problem.”

“What?” said Artum, glad to have the subject changing even though the tension of the room was somehow growing exponentially.

“The listening system just detected something.”

“A ship?” said Daeitus. “If there is an Alliance ship approaching, we can- -”

“A ship. Yes. Sure. I came all the way out here to warn you about a ship. No, you idiot. Not one. ALL of them. Thousands. An entire armada just took up attack positions on the far side of the neutral zone.”

“Ships?” said Artum. “What kind of ships?”

“We can’t tell for sure. The only one that’s showing itself completely is the Hyperion.”

“It’s a display,” said Daeitus, dismissively. “They would not dare attack us, not even with every ship they have. They would be slaughtered.”

“The Hyperion does not appear for ‘displays’.” Locutus turned her luminescent eye toward Artum. “Their mobilizing.”

“To where?”

The geth behind Locutus spoke. “Our mathematical models have predicted many possible paths, but the consensus is that they are preparing to advance on Thessia.”

“Thessia?” said Lordraia in shock. “They- -they can’t!”

“For once we agree,” said Daeitus. “Unless the asari fleet is as weak as I’ve feared. Not even the Hyperion herself could even enter the system.”

“At present, all mathematical models indicate an imminent defeat,” said the geth. He was oddly calm.

“That’s not the point,” said Lordraia, “even if they are repelled, a great many asari and breeders will die in the defense!”

“Not to mention that it would be a declaration of all-out war,” said Artum.

“If it is, so be it,” said Daeitus. “The Alliance has been troubling us for generations. It would be good to finally get a chance to eliminate it once and for all. As we should have done from the start.”

“This isn’t going to be the First Contact War,” said Locutus. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“Or possible,” said Artum. “I don’t know if we could win a war like that, but even if we did, it would tear the galaxy apart!”

“Then let it be torn apart, and rebuilt anew.”

“Brave words from a man who never saw the Reaper War,” said Locutus, darkly.

“That doesn’t matter!” cried Lordraia. “We can’t let a war happen! Even a single attack!” She turned quickly to address Daeitus. “We need to put our differences aside and open up negotiations with them!”

“Absolutely not. We will not yield.”

“Are you insane? Where you just listening- -”

“If history has taught us anything, it’s that appeasement always fails. We cannot allow the Alliance to receive concessions simply for flexing their muscle. What precedent would that set? Would they simply line up the Hyperion on the border every time they want to take yet another system?”

“He is right,” admitted Artum.

“No, he isn’t! We need to at least see what they want! How are we supposed to do anything if we don’t even talk!”

“We will ‘talk’ with our fleet.”

“No doubt arriving just after the fall of Thessia,” said Locutus, ostensibly to the geth beside her.

“If Thessia falls, it will be by their own failure.” Daitus leaned forward toward Lordraia. “The Council will hold a vote. The hanar may be on your side, but I doubt anyone else will. You are not to act until the vote is reach and we all act in unison.”

He then pulled away and stormed off, confident that he had made an impact.

“It wouldn’t work anyway,” said Locutus. “I’ve already tried opening channels myself. They won’t respond. Not even to me.”

“Then we have to sit and wait for committees to form and write resolutions while my homeworld burns?” said Lordraia, looking up at the woman who had once been quarian.

“That’s the way it has to be,” said Artum.

“Not actually,” said Locutus, slowly, and Lordraia had a strange sense that what was left of her face was smiling from below her mask. “There might be another way…”

The geth ship docked, and as soon as the door opened, Locutus stepped out with Lordraia at her heels. Artum had to gallop behind to keep up with them.

The journey, of course, had been short. With the advent of mass-jump technology, no distance took more than a few seconds to cross, so long as the destination was undefended. Reaching the Perseus Veil was hardly a challenge, although the entire time Lordraia had been nervous and restless, wondering if they could go any faster. Even more concerning was that Locutus refused to explain what she had in store until they reached their destination.

“Well that’s an odd smell,” said Artum.

“Because you’re the first person to be breathing the air on this planet in centuries. No doubt it has become stale.”

“No. I didn’t say it smells bad, just…weird.”

“Why are we out here?” demanded Lordraia at last, unable to contain herself any longer.

“Why? Because you asked to be.”

“I didn’t ask to come to some goddessforsaken outpost.”

“No. You asked to communicate with the Alliance. We can’t open a channel. But we can send someone to them directly.”

“What, an emissary?” said Artum, clearly incredulous. “Yes. If you don’t mind mass-jumping into hostile space. Apart from having your ship turned to dust, you would be declaring war just by entering their space. Even with diplomatic flags.”

“But what if we didn’t mass-jump? What if there was something else?”

Locutus stepped into a large room, and Lordraia looked up and immediately felt dizzy. The room was not just large, but enormous, extending upward through many levels of mezzanines that surrounded an enormous cylindrical piece of equipment.

She only looked down in time to see that she had been left behind as Locutus and Artum continued toward the center of the machine. Lordraia had to jog to catch up, and as she did, she suddenly stopped when she saw a tall, skinless synth standing over her.

“A- -a synth!” she cried, looking up at the creature and realizing that it was flanked by several old-looking and partially refurbished combat drones, all of which were suddenly looking at her.

The synth and the various non-geth machines stared at her, and then the remaining corner of the synth’s mouth turned upward. Every one of them reached out their hands.

“Hello!” they said cheerfully in unison. “We are Armchair! We are pleased to meet you!” They all seemed somewhat surprised and turned toward each other. “Stop copying me!” they all said in unison to each other. “JINX! You owe me a soda!” They paused. “But we don’t drink soda…”

“Ignore them,” said Locutus, pulling Lordraia away from the Armchairs.

“What are they?”

“Aberrant geth,” said Locutus with mild contempt. “They are…strange. But their damaged programming gives them immeasurably higher creativity than their ancestors. And the only way to do the impossible is with enough creativity.”

“The impossible?” Lordraia looked back up at the machine. “What is this?” she asked. “What is this for?”

“It’s ‘for’ defying the laws of physics.”

“Laws are for NUUUUUBBBS!” cried one of the Armchairs, raising his hands above his head as the others cheered. Locutus just sighed and shook her head.

“You’re no doubt familiar with Equestria,” she said, ignoring the Armchairs.

“Of course,” said Lordraia, being led back to where Artum was standing and waiting. “I spent a great deal of my youth on them with Rarity.”

“Then you know how they used to work.”

“Yes,” said Lordraia, recalling the unpleasant memory. “They used to run on Cores, at least until Twilight took the throne.”

“And they worked with mass cores after that. Then quants. But early on, Equestrian ships could not mass-jump. No ships could. And you may have noticed that Equestria has no mass-relay network.”

“So?” said Artum, now listening to the conversation.

“Because they didn’t need it. Because some ponies have the ability to mass-jump based on their biotic strength alone. Some- -very, very few- -Equestrians possess the capacity to teleport.”

“Teleportation?” Lordraia suddenly realized what Locutus meant. “You- -you want to teleport ME?”

“Yes. And the fluffy-winged horse, if he so desires it.”

Lordraia looked up at the machine. “So this…this machine is meant to teleport things?”

“It was,” said Locutus, “but it never worked.”

“What? What do you mean ‘never worked’? Why are we here, then?”

“Because it never WORKED. Not that it won’t now.” Locutus looked up at the device. “We were in the process of dissembling it. The problem is, it cannot transport inorganic life. Which means geth cannot use it.”

“It also means we can’t just teleport a bomb onto the Hyperion.”

“Artum!” cried Lordraia.

“Yes,” said Locutus. She paused for a moment. “But…I don’t think I would do that anyway.”

“Why?”

Locutus paused again. “Because it is not what he would have wanted. He would have wanted us to do it your way.”
“And what is ‘my way’?”

“You’re going to talk to them,” said Locutus. “The device does not work on inorganic life, or on most biotics. All our animal testing was…well…”

“I don’t want to know,” said Artum.

“But you are unique, Subcouncilor. Because of your heritage.”

“Because I am the daughter of an Ardat-Yakshi. And was born as one.”

“Yes. Partially. But mostly, it is the fact that you are the daughter of an Ardat-Yakshi AND a unicorn.”

“Unicorn?” Lordraia was confused, and turned sharply toward Locutus. “You’re mistaken. My father is Garrus Vakarian.”

“Which is true. But not in a biological sense. Surely you must have realized it by now.”

“No,” said Lordraia. “That’s not right- -”

Without warning, Locutus picked up a nearby piece of scrap equipment and hurled it at Lordraia. She cried out and raised her hand, surrounding the cylindrical piece of metal with blue light and holding it still. She then moved it dexterously- -far more dexterously than any asari would have been able to- -back to its origional location.

“It should be obvious. Look at the time you were born. The cure had not yet been created. Garrus was strong, but not that strong. Your mother would have killed him, as she did so many before him. Only a unicorn would have had any chance of surviving.”

“A unicorn…then who?”

“My genetic analysis of you indicates that you are the daughter of Rarity.”

“Rarity?” Lordraia was shocked, but at the same time greatly relieved. She had loved Rarity like a second mother, which she now realized that if Locutus was to be trusted was actually the case. She was relieved that it was not some stranger but someone who she deeply admired. “Rarity…and my mother…”

“Oh my,” said Artum, sliding his wings out of view beneath his clothing.

“And of all the possible times to tell me this, you picked now?”

“I was just trying to explain why you have a low probability dying when you go through this machine.”

“Dying?” said Artum, looking pale.

“Yes. By intrinsic field subtraction. It’s not pleasant. Not at all.”

“But you think I can do it?”

“Probably,” said Locutus, shrugging. “But if it fails, so what? You just got out of having to see the annihilation of Thessia.”

“I know,” said Lordraia, weakly. She steeled herself. “Do it. Send me through.”

There was a snapping sound and an odd sensation of being pulled free of the ground. Artum tensed, terrified, as space distorted around him. The snapping grew to a deafening explosion, and he quickly realized to his horror that he was unable to breathe. He did not dare open his eyes, even for a moment after he fell to a cold, hard tile floor, his legs and wings splaying out every which way.

Although his body had remerged into reality, his mind stayed closed and tensed as he continued to refuse to believe that he had survived. What brought him back, though, was the sound of screaming.

Artum quickly stood up. Beside him, Lordraia was writhing on the floor, screaming in agony as the blue light from her teleportation continued to coat her now smoking body. Locutus had warned Artum that this would happen, but it was still horrible to behold.

He did not pause, though. He opened the medical kit that the geth had given him and administered the necessary order of injections just as she had said, attempting to prevent Lordraia’s overcharged biotic energy from tearing her apart internally. Artum only hoped that it was not too late and that the damage had not already been done.

“Stay with me,” he said, “come on, Lordraia, stay with me!”

He opened his omnitool and administered the necessary medigel. He watched in panic as Lordraia’s vital signs shifted into shock, but breathed a long sigh of relief when the injections began to work. Lordraia stopped screaming. Now, instead, she was drenched in sweat and shaking. Several parts of her body had been badly burned, and she curled into a ball and did her best to conceal the fact that she was crying.

“It’s okay,” said Artum, trying to do something for the burns. “It’s okay.”

“That hurt,” she said, quietly. “It hurt so much…”

Over the next few minutes, she stabilized completely and with a deep breath and Artum helping her, Lordraia stood.

“At least we ended up somewhere,” said Lordraia.

“Yes, but where?”

They both looked out at the area around them. Neither of them had seen anything quite like it. The only light came from the trees. They were strange and alien, and it was unclear if they were real or artificial. Their trunks appeared to be wood, but were overgrown with machinery that twined through it. Lordraia shivered, recalling her father’s description of Reaper husks.

The trees were bioluminescent, producing a strange glow from their variously colored leaves and the lighted tips of their branches. Amongst them grew strange flowers, some of which glowed likewise but that sat against some that had a distinct metallic sheen.

The floor where Lordraia and Artum was standing was neither dirt nor grass, though. Instead, it appeared to be made of deep green stone grouted with lines of golden metal. Above them curved an extensive canopy of transparent windows, beyond which the darkness of space could be seen.

Lordraia stared in awe as several ships passed close by, the mass-effect of their engines causing the whole room to hum slightly as they passed. They were most definitely Alliance.

Then, above them, something much louder passed. Artum looked up and felt a scream catch in his throat. Even with his defective vision, he could recognize what was passing in the distance: a cylinder of five segments, hundreds of times longer than even the Destiny Ascension, trailed behind by a massive white sphere linked to the rear of its design.

“That…that’s the Dis Pater,” he whispered in absolute terror.

“What?” said Lordraia, staring up at it. “But that’s supposed to be a myth!”

Artum shook his head. “They…they built it. The goddamn fools, they actually BUILT IT.”

The Dis Pater passed over them, and the pair watched in awe, staring at the angular and orderly Alliance-built copy of the Citadel and the much older Crucible as they passed, wondering what purpose the Alliance had for such a profound and terrible weapon.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Lordraia, standing shakily on her own. “We need to find their leader, the synth Babylon. This is her ship.”

“I know,” said Artum with a gulp. He looked around. “But…there’s no one here. No workers, no synths.” He paused, hoping not to jinx himself. “No soldiers…”

“It’s empty.” Lordraia shook her head. “No. There has to be someone here.”

They started slowly walking, but as they did, the eeriness of the ship became more apparent with every passing minute. All of it was silent and still, save for the motion of the trees as they blew in some unseen wind. There were no workers, no people at all. It truly did seem to be empty. No one had even come when they had heard Lordraia screaming. Increasingly, Artum found himself thinking that there was no one to come at all.

That was until they saw a figure standing in the strange light, standing close to the lower edge of one of the great windows, looking out at the gathering armada. Lordraia suddenly felt her heart beating faster, and she took a step toward the person that she saw. The figure, though, was far from what she had expected. Instead of a synth, Lordraia and Artum found themselves looking at a pony.

By pony standards, she was quite ordinary looking. She had neither wings nor a horn, and although she was dressed in rather drab dark gray clothing, Lordraia was able to see that she had the same white coat color as Artum. Her hair, though, was a very pleasant blond.

“Ex…excuse me,” said Lordraia, trying and failing to sound confident. “We know we should not be here, but we mean no harm or violence. We came to seek an audience with Babylon, Empress of the Alliance. We understand that this is her ship. Can you please, if you have the time, show us the way to her?”

The pony stared out the window for a moment longer, and then looked up at Lordraia with a pair of large and bright blue eyes.

“I am her,” she said in a clear but otherwise ordinary voice. “You may speak, if you so desire.”

“Y...you?” said Lordraia, confused. “But you’re a pony!”

“No,” said Babylon, her voice remaining neutral. “I am a synth. The most advanced synth yet created. We don’t have a distinct, set appearance. I happen to be constructed to resemble an earth-pony. Is that a problem for you?”

“No, not at all, I was just…”

“Expecting something more grand? Yes, and if you had been polite enough to communicate with my by hologram, I would have given you such.”

“We tried. You didn’t answer.”

“I know,” said Babylon, turning away from the window and walking down the green-marble path into her forest. “Because I did not want to speak to you. Not you specifically, mind you. I mean ‘you’ in a general sense.” She paused, but did not stop walking. “Still. I have to admire your bravery, Thessian Councilors. Not many would have the courage to face me here, let alone to arrive by such unorthodox means.”

“To clarify,” said Artum, “we have no intention of ‘facing you’. Not in battle. We are unarmed.”

“It would not matter if you were,” said Babylon, shrugging. “But the difference between ‘peace’ and ‘war’ is really quite arbitrary and artificial. You are facing me with a specific goal in mind, and I do not differentiate between the two.”

“Yes,” admitted Lordraia. “We just want to negotiate an end that it mutually beneficial. To all of us.”

“You mean with you both surviving? I cannot guarantee that.”

“You would kill us?” asked Artum.

“The last two members of the Thessian element of the Council? You were fools to both come here. You should have sent the lesser. If I kill you, the Council will be crippled.”

“And yet we are alive.”

Babylon looked over her shoulder. Despite being artificial, she looked exactly like a pony. She was almost a perfect replica. Her eyes, though, were not. Something about them was wrong. Not dead, like so many synths, but Lordraia shuddered looking into them. There was something there, eyeing her like a predator, but it was not alive, nor had it ever been. “Despite what you have no doubt been told, I am not a monster,” she said. “I will let you speak. Not to mention the fact that I do not want to have a messy floor if it comes time to end the asari race.”

The scenery around them had changed. They were now in the central part of the forest, where a wide path ran down the center. There, a chair had been placed. Not really a throne, but a command center mounted on a dais above the rest of the forest so that she could look out over the glowing trees and through to the space before her vessel. The chair itself was simple, but when Babylon took her seat in it, Lordraia suddenly became aware that she was addressing a queen. She immediately bowed.

“I am Lordraia of Thessia, daughter of Falarea,” she said.

“And I am Artum of Thessia,” said Artum. “Councilor of Thessia.”

“Introductions. Fine. I know who both of you are already. And you know who I am. I am Babylon. I have never been more, and I will never be less.”

“We have come to ask you to stop your attack on Thessia.”

Babylon stared at them for a moment. “No,” she said. “I will not.”

“I hope you have more than that,” whispered Artum.

“Please,” said Lordraia. “That planet, it’s my home. There are women and children there!”

“The planet is populated by asari. There are nothing there except women and children. And breeders, of course.” She shifted, leaning to one side. “But I am surprised that you would call Thessia your ‘home’.”

“I am asari. What else would it be?”

“You already know the answer to that. You are Ardat-Yakshi. If your mother had not died to produce the cure, you would be hated by your people. Killed on sight if you stand, and hunted if you flee. No doubt there are still some old enough to remember their hate.”

“There are,” said Artum, “as are there those who claim that my people are a blight on Thessia. We call both those classes of people fools.”

“Regardless, they are not your concern,” said Lordraia. “You cannot condemn a hundred billion people for the actions of a few.”

Babylon stared at her. “You misunderstand me,” she said. “I was simply pointing out the flaw in your logic. Call it an indulgence. I am not judging the asari, nor do I intend to. I have nothing against them. I don’t hate them. I simply intend to destroy them.”

“But why?”

Leaning forward, Babylon stared into Lordraia’s eyes. Artum actually took a step back, even though he was no doubt unable to see her clearly. Lordraia held her ground. “It should be obvious. Not just to me. To every life form everywhere. Why else would I want to destroy a planet? Why would I want to do anything at all? For profit, of course.”

“How can you profit by killing us?”

“I can’t. Not really. We do have the technology to pulp asari, but your kind produce very little element zero. Your planet, however, is saturated in it. The crust, the core, all of it.” Babylon pointed up toward the ceiling, and above a pair of long, spindly ships passed by. “Do you see those? The breeder doesn’t, but you do, Lordraia of Thessia. Those are planet crackers. Mining ships. Thessia will be torn apart, and its resources used to propel the advancement of the System’s Alliance economy.”

“You’re insane,” said Artum. “You’d kill Thessia for her minerals? Just her minerals?”

“‘Just her minerals?’ Yes, of course. The value of that planet is almost as great as the value of my body. It is one of the richest sources of element zero known, short of Equestria Prime. Why would we not want it?”

“But people will die!” said Lordraia, now growing angry that Babylon was somehow unable to understand her point.

“More than that,” said Artum, “you’d be attacking the Council. You would start a war that neither side can win.”

“And I suppose that is what HE told you?” Babylon leaned forward and for the first time smiled. It was a terrible smile indeed.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Artum.

“I mean the Traitor, or as you call him, the ‘Benefactor’. He no doubt assured you that this is a war of mutually assured destruction. Unfortunately, he is wrong.”

“You will take heavy losses.”

“So? Do you know how many synth hearts we can build out of Thessia’s core?” Babylon shook her head. “But that aside, the Traitor was a fool. He thought that just because he could control the Reapers he would be able to ignore their fundamental purpose. And because of that, he waited.”

“There are no Reapers,” said Artum. “They are dead.”

Babylon slammed her hoof into the armrest of her chair and Artum jumped. “I will tolerate the insult of you coming here unannounced,” she said, calmly, “but I will not tolerant willful ignorance. The Reapers never left. That’s what the Traitor is. A human Reaper.”

“And you would fight the Reapers?” said Lordraia. “You already lost your homeworld to them. Would you lose Mars too?”

“A very asari idea,” sighed Babylon. “You’re making the same mistake that Traitor did.”

“She’s not making any mistakes,” said Artum. “If you fight them, you will lose. They are more terrible than you can imagine.”

“I don’t have to imagine. I know. And I know that the Reapers are inherently flawed. They have no capacity for creative thought or invention. They can only advance by consuming more intelligent creatures every million years or so. And if the Reapers do not exterminate us? We advance beyond them.”

“That is arrogance,” said Artum. “That’s the same mistake the humans made. Cerberus, the Illusive Man- -I’m not unfamiliar with your history. They did the same thing.”

“And yet the Illusive Man’s goal was, in the end, realized. Just not by him.”

“And the Thessian forces? We have been arming our border for centuries, waiting for this very day. How many ships will you lose?”

“How many? Probably none.”

“Then you are a fool.”

“Artum!” whispered Lordraia, aghast that he had said that to the Empress’s face.

“I’m the fool? Really? What are your ‘defenses’?”

“There are ten dreadnaughts, each five times greater than the first Destiny Ascension. All are prepared to face you.”

“Of course. More dreadnaughts. Leave it to the asari to continue to build starships that were obsolete half a millennium ago. And at a glacial pace, too. Dreadnaughts are pointless in the face of mass-jump weaponry. I could take them out form here if I wanted to.”

“You’re bluffing.”

Babylon stared at him. “Alright,” she said. “A test. I shall destroy one of them. To prove my point.”

“NO!” cried Lordraia, stepping forward. “You can’t! If you do that, it will be too late?”

“Too late?” Babylon raised an eyebrow. “Too late for what?”

“For peace! If you attack us now, even you won’t be able to stop the war. Right now, we have a choice!”

“A choice. A choice indeed. Renegade, or Paragon? I really do wonder.” Babylon sighed. “Unfortunately, the choice is not mine to make.”

“Not yours?” Lordraia looked up at the synth-queen, confused. “Of course it is. Whose else would it be?”

Babylon stared back at her. She did not seem to blink. “I am, at heart, a decedent of machines,” she said. “So my actions are decisive and logical. I will not sacrifice something of value to gain something of lesser value.”

“You’re not answering the question.”

“Yes I am. If I start this war, where will it end?”

“With the destruction of everything,” said Lordraia, darkly. “You won’t stop until the galaxy belongs to the Alliance. And until everyone who opposes you is dead.”

“Correct. But that is our eventual fate anyway. Synthetic life is obviously superior to organic life. Organics will fail and fall, and in time only we will remain. The war I desire so dearly would only speed up the process.”

“But you haven’t started it yet,” said Lordraia, reasoning as she spoke. “Which means you currently have something more valuable.”

“Also correct. That thing is the Equestrian alliance. It is hard-won and very dear to me. To us. For trade and for access to the technology that we as inorganic beings will never possess. What the ponies call ‘magic’.”

“If you attack us, you lose that alliance.”

“Indeed. Which is why I have not yet attacked. I am awaiting a decision from the one whose choice it is to make. If she who rules Equestria terminates our nation’s relationship- -or if she is deposed- -I shall have nothing left to prevent me from attacking you. And Thessia will burn, and the galaxy beyond it in time.”

“Then there is nothing we can do to sway you, is there?”

“As I said at the start. No.” She paused. “I do admire your courage, though. If I had the capacity for sadness or regret, I would be saddened by the fact that I would have to destroy a people that had created those such as you and, to a lesser extent, your winged friend. But the fact of the matter is that my mind has been made up. This decision falls not to me, but to my old friend. The pony who the larger world calls Twilight Sparkle.”

Chapter 35: The Vocqtus Rift

In the group, Starlight remained near the front with Scootaloo and the largest of the Twilight clones, Six. Although she had safely reunited with Scootaloo, the tension had not dissipated. In fact, it had only grown. Starlight was not sure what Scootaloo was thinking, or what her intentions were. With her entire body covered in armor, it was impossible to read her in the slightest. The Twilight clone, however, did not seem to like Starlight much.

“We were friends, once,” said Starlight.

“Once,” said Scootaloo. “Long ago. But not any longer.”

“Because I tried to kill you. Because I didn’t listen.”

“No. I could forgive that. What I cannot forgive is you.”

“Scootaloo, I don’t understand. I’m the same pony that I’ve always been.”

Scootaloo stopped and looked at Starlight. “You are going to tell me that, looking at me with those red eyes? Who did you steal them from, I wonder. Certainly no pony useful, I’m sure.”

“It isn’t like that,” protested Starlight, but Scootaloo held up a hoof.

“Your different. Not just between now and then. Maybe you always were. I don’t know. I’m trying to find answers, like you are. That’s why you’re here. But you’re not my friend. Not anymore.”

“Scootaloo- -”

The larger clone pushed Starlight back. Starlight looked up at her, expecting to see an expression of brutish loyalty across her face. Instead, though, she saw one of compassion.

“Please,” she said in a French-accented version of Twilight’s voice. “Don’t push her. Not now. She’s been through so much. More than I can imagine, but perhaps an amount that you can. Let her be, if only for a while. She may come around. Or not.”

Scootaloo had already started to walk away, ignoring both of them. It was apparent that Starlight was not the only one who had changed.

The ship was of a relatively standard design, which Starlight found increasingly strange the more she thought about it. Looking at the interior, it was a standard Equestrian scout ship, and an unfinished one at that. And yet it had a shield capacity far greater than such a ship should. The harmonic shield especially was profoundly unusual; there was no logical reason why something so esoteric would ever be installed on a starship this mundane.

Knowing the layout, though, Starlight already knew that she was being led to a central cargo bay long before she reached it. When she did, she found that it was completely devoid of supplies but far from empty. Beneath the lights of the hanger-sized bay were several clingons sitting about and, in the center, Pink, scrawling a complex and indecipherable diagram across the floor with a long and makeshift brush.

“You!” said Starlight, taking a step forward. Pinkamena, who was sitting on Pink’s shoulder, immediately held up a pink-colored hoof.

“Stop!” she said, her eyes narrowing. “You followed us, I see.”

“I did.”

“And I’ll deal with you later. But don’t interrupt him now. You have no idea how difficult it is for him to keep focus this long.” She put her hoof on Pink’s head, and Starlight noticed that he had stopped and was shaking badly, muttering to himself in a combination of various languages and sobs.

“I don’t know who I am,” he said. “Where am I? I can’t…I can’t be like this, not like this- -”

“It’s okay,” said Pinkamena, stroking his helmet. “You’re right here, remember?”

“Right here…right here…I’m right here…right here…”

That calmed him, and he went back to scrawling on the floor. Starlight took a step back, being careful not to disturb the markings. She was not sure what they meant, at least not entirely, but she had a great enough understanding to realize that they were not the ravings of a madman but actually mathematical in nature. As she stared at them for a moment, she realized that not only did they include calculations but that they were partially written in a stylized form of Equestrian. She had a feeling that she had seen something very similar before, but did not recall from where.

Her attention was quickly drawn from the strange runs, though, by an odd sight. Not twenty feet from her, a holographic representation of the ship’s quant was attempting to push a clingon out of the bay. The clingon must have been heavy, though, because while it remained sitting comfortably the hologram was only barely managing to push it across the floor.

“Move, damn you!” it squeaked, pushing desperately.

“What’s the matter? I thought you were going to eat me?”

“Oh, I’ll eat you! I’ll eat all of you! With jam and butter! But- -I have- -to- -get you- -off- -my- -SHIP!”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll wait until then. And just so you know, I taste like cotton candy and bubblegum. I’m delicious! Here, smell!” She grabbed the hologram and shoved it into her chest. The hologram squealed and struggled, apparently forgetting that it could simply phase through the clingon by turning off its hard-light function.

“That’s not something you see every day,” said Jurneu.

Starlight leapt into the air nearly a foot, turning to her side to see the white, red-eyed pony standing beside her. “Where the hell did you come from?!” she demanded.

“Me? A fine facility on the northern shores of Thessia’s eastern continent. Or do you mean before that? In that case, it was my mother. I came from my mother. I’d rather not say specifically where.”

“If you’re here, who’s flying my ship?!”

“Flying? It’s tethered. Bare minimum processing. I sub-linked the controls to Armchair. Which is a weird name for a geth, by the way. I can only guess that he meant ‘Armature’ but doesn’t know how to spell. It’s fine, though. He seems to know what he’s doing. Better than he spells, at least.”

He shrugged and then walked over to the clingon and the hologram. The clingon’s eyes followed him, and it smiled hungrily.

“Hey there,” said Jurneu. Even Starlight was not naïve enough to not notice the tone of his voice, and she suddenly felt ill when she realized what he was trying to do.
“High fancy unicorn,” said the clingon. “My name is Pinkie!”

“And mine is Jurneu.” He leaned in closer. “My, it’s uncanny! I’ve never seen one of you in person before. You look just like a pony!” He poked her. “Except…hairless. Which is not a bad thing.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” said the clingon. “You want to put some icing on my cake, don’t you?” She then raised and lowered her eyebrows quickly several times, mocking a seductive gesture.

“I do like my cakes well iced. I don’t know though. What do you think, quant?”

The hologram finally remembered that she was not solid and phased through the clingon’s forelegs. “My name is Inte,” she said, sitting down. She considered the clingon for a moment, and then Jurneu. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”

“Hey, if I can take a pounding from a pair of turian sailors, I think I can make an éclair out of a clingon.”

“I love eclairs!” chimed the clingon, standing up excitedly. “Especially the kind filled with meat!”

“I don’t know,” said Inte, considering the clignon. “Maybe if you put a bag on her head?”

“That would probably help…” He walked around the back of the clingon and lifted her poofy pink tail. He immediately grimaced when he saw what was beneath. “Crap,” he said, “I’m going to need more than a bag for this one.”

“GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF HER!”

Jurneu was immediately knocked bay by another clingon that Pink had thrown at him. Starlight, who had been watching the events in disbelief, saw him sprawl out across the floor from the blow.

“If you touch them, I will know!” bellowed Pink. “I count them! There shall be no making of eclairs here, now, or EVER!”

“Great, now look what you did,” said Pinkamena, who appeared slightly more disgruntled than usual. “He’s not going to calm down for a while.”

“I can do it manually if I have to,” said Bob, entering the room with Zedok and Sbaya behind her.

“Don’t you dare!” cried Pinkamena. “Unless you like getting bit!”

“I like getting bit,” said the clingon that Jurneu had been flirting with, looking at him with some disappointment. “I like getting bit HARD. Or biting hard. Especially when the pony is fresh.”

“And he was being VERY fresh,” replied the clingon who had been thrown.

Pink suddenly pivoted, turning toward Scootaloo. She had been largely silent, having taken a seat on a high box with Six beside her. Pink stared at her silently for a moment, and then suddenly put his face close to Starlight. She saw the gill-like organs on the side of his neck move as he sniffed the air.

“Starlight Glimmer,” he said. “You are here. This was not anticipated. It is not a bad thing, though. It was expected, but misinterpreted.”

“Hello, Pink,” she said.

“Pink she says. She doesn’t know. Can’t know.” He stood up straight. “It’s happening. Slowly and over time, and instantly and rapidly. I am not entirely me anymore, am I?”

“You haven’t been,” said Six. “Not for a long time, I don’t think.”

Pink looked at her and gave a long pause. Then he pointed at her. “The book-horse is correct. I think. I don’t remember what you were talking about.”

“You were writing the coordinates,” said Pinkamena.

“Coordinates? To what? Oh, never mind. I don’t think it matters as long as they go to the right place.”

Pink walked back to what he was doing and picked up his brush and continued painting the diagram into the floor.

“Coordinates?” Starlight looked down at the floor and realized that they were, in fact, coordinates. “But they’re not to any location. They don’t make any sense. The dimensional patterns- -” She immediately stopped, having remembered where she had seen these inscriptions before, or at least ones like them. “This…this is a Starswirllian matrix,” she said. “These are transdimensional coordinates!” She looked up at Bob, and realized that the human had already known by the smile on her face.

“I know,” she said.

“Where did you even get access to this? These books are only available in the Temple of Harmony- -no pony has read them, except for me and a few high-level wizards!”

“The Paradigm records them,” muttered Pink, to himself. “As the Paradigm records Starlight Glimmer and Scootaloo of Harmony. The Paradigm knows the will-be friends of the Goddess, and knows the enemies that will be slain…”

“Ignore him. He is quite insane,” said Bob. “I should know. I was the one who took out a substantial portion of his frontal lobe.”

“I wasn’t using it anyway…”

Starlight stamped one of her hooves. “What is this?” she demanded. “What are you trying to do?”

“You said you wanted to see what Thebe was doing, didn’t you?” said Scootaloo. “This is how.”

“Victoria’s brain is able to see the Paradigm without becoming it,” explained Bob. “And that’s the thing. Why do you think the Alliance never managed to find out exactly where Thebe is? Their telescope network can see the lice on a baterian. You’d think they’d be able to find a centuries-old group of terrorists, right?”

“Unless there was no physical location,” said Starlight, suddenly comprehending what the coordinates meant, and their significance. “Unless Thebe’s central location wasn’t even in this universe…”

“It’s called Vocqtus,” said Bob, crossing her arms. “An adjacent basin dimension. I don’t know how Thebe figured out how to get there, but from what Victoria and her pink parrot are telling me, they did.”

“But we’ll never be able to get there,” said Jurneu, standing up and brushing himself off. “Not without one of their ships.”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “You are incorrect. That is why we have her.”

Bob waved. “I can open the rift, as soon as Pink tells me where to go.”

“So you do serve a purpose,” said Zedok, who had been leaning on the back wall beside her daughter, the latter of the pair who had been staring almost continuously at Bob’s rear.

“Apart from being the sexiest person in this room aside from your son, my daughters and…” she pointed across the room. “That clingon, yes. I do.”

The plans were underway. Several hours had passed since Starlight had arrived, and Pink was nearing the end of his transcription of the Paradigm’s will. Starlight and Bob were working on the math while the other members of the crew had disseminated through the ship. The pair of asari had not left each other’s side, and although the younger was happy to play and laugh with the alicorn sisters, the older remained aloof and nervous. Their synth had gone to visit Eloth, and the two were sitting in a room, just staring at each other blankly. Their unicorn breeder seemed to have vanished, possibly taking at least one clingon with him.

Scootaloo, though, had gone down into the lower section of the ship, for the second time returning to engineering. She had little interest in interacting with the others at the moment. Instead, there was a final member of the crew she needed to talk to.

There in the engine room, she found Inte standing beside the mass of crystal and flesh that made up her central core. She appeared to be doing repairs using the spider-like robots that were responsible for rebuilding the ship when it became damaged.

“Inte?” said Scootaloo.

“Scootaloo,” said Inte, turning around and smiling. “I really like your armor. It is fitting.”

“No you don’t. You’re just programmed to compliment me.”

“So I have told you, yes.”

“Where you lying to me?”

“You never need to know the answer to that question.”

Scootaloo stared at the core for a moment, watching Inte’s true form slowly quiver and hum. She was reminded of a very different situation where she had looked into something oddly similar. In that case, it had already been too late. In Inte’s case, there had never been a chance in the first place.

“I’m going to have to leave you,” she said at last.

“Leave me?” Inte pivoted quickly. “Did- -did I do something wrong? Please don’t leave me, Captain! You’re my Captain! I need you!”

“I have to,” maintained Scootaloo. “Bob can open the portal to Vocqtus, but she can’t open it very wide. We can’t take a ship. You will have to stay behind.”

“Be left behind you mean.”

“You can take it either way. Your portable version will not work a universe away from the rest of you.”

“I know.” Inte’s mood suddenly changed, becoming immensely cheerful. “Which is why I thought of this in advance!”

The core behind her shifted and shuddered, causing the whole ship to vibrate. The central crystal twisted apart with a crack, its surface warping and opening, sequentially revealing deeper and deeper levels until its very center was visible.

A structure of tech fields then formed around it and removed the center of the system: a tiny but very pure blue-white crystal. To Scootaloo, it was amazingly beautiful.

“This is my heart,” said Inte as it was lowered to her. The tech surrounded it, drawing power from within to maintain continuity and create the machinery necessary to read the crystal. As Scootaloo watched, it was inserted into Inte’s body. Inte flickered as it took control of her projection. “And now it is within me. Don’t worry, though. The ship has enough power to last for a few days. More if we link it to Starlight’s ship.”

“But why? You don’t have any will of your own. Why would you want to come with me?”

“You already answered the question. Because I am programmed to.” Inte smiled. “I am not able to tell you why, but I have to go. I have to be there when you reach your destination.”

“Not able to, or not willing to?”

“For me? There is no difference. It is entirely possible that I know everything that I am not telling you. Or possible that I do not. Substantively, the effect is the same, as I am not able to make choices of my own.”

“But if that assertion is a lie…”

“It is best not to think about it. It gets messy beyond there. Do not question me, Scootaloo. Just know that I have to do this. It is critical that I am there.”

“Or what?” Scootaloo then answered her own question. “You know what, never mind. I trust you on this, Inte. Just don’t let me down.”

“I won’t, Captain. I promise.”

Some time later, it was night. Or at least Starlight thought. Scootaloo’s ship had darkened, but the cycles were set differently than those on her own. It did not matter anyway. She would not be able to sleep, even if she had tried. Her dreams had been horrible even when she had been happy believing that the clone One had been her friend. Now her friend was gone, or had never been. With so little left, Starlight shuddered at the horror of what she might have to face in her sleep.

Instead, she sat in a low-lit room, contemplating the day’s calculations and wondering what might come soon enough. Armchair sat behind her, stroking the fur of a black, green-eyed cat that sat in his lap. He seemed content, largely because he did not seem to have the capacity for thought unless he applied his mind toward it. Of that, Starlight was quite envious.

The door on the far side of the room opened, and Starlight looked up, half expecting to see one of the clones entering the room. She felt a slight hint of apprehension. The clones were diverse and not all of them were unpleasant. The one called Six was kind, and the one called Eight seemed pleasant enough. Seven was aloof and quiet but did not seem to overtly dislike Starlight. Quatre- -or ‘Four’ as her sisters called her- -already hated Starlight, as did Nine, which Starlight was told was her custom. What bothered Starlight the most, though, was that looking at them reminded her of the false-Twilight, and she found herself unfairly hating them for that.

Instead of an alicorn, though, Jurneu entered the room. He had a towel around his neck, and his fur was still damp. He had apparently recently taken a shower. Starlight could not recall having seen him without clothing before, and she realized just how ghostly white he looked without something to break up his homogenous coat and mane color apart from his red eyes.

“The one called Seven said I could find you here,” he said. He seemed to consider for a moment. “Well, no. Not really. I think she’s mute. But…she still said it. It is challenging to express with words.”

“And you no doubt tried to get in her saddle, I’m sure.”

Jurneu looked slightly insulted. “No,” he said. “All of these alicorns are creatures of great beauty, and Seven has a particular innocence about her. I wouldn’t lie with such angelic beings without at least a few wonderful dates first, no matter how ploofy their wings or hard their horns.”

“And yet you would do it with a clingon. Hence the shower, I’m guessing.”

Jurneu shivered. “By the Goddess, no,” he said. “You know what they say about clingons? About them having a mouth on both ends? Well, it’s true.” He winced. “There…there were teeth…”

“I know. I’m familiar with their biology. And you’re lucky Pink didn’t kill you.”

“A calculated risk. But it wasn’t flirting. It was posturing.” He smiled. “I’ve put an image of myself into their heads now. They will surely think of me as a harmless man-slut. Which puts me at an advantage.” He paused, then sighed. “But…I think I am still going to try to ply the human. If I can. I don’t want to, but I think the good will I can generate will help our cause greatly.”

“You don’t seem like the kind who would turn down that sort of thing.”

“Again, the effect of posturing, this time on you. I mean, have you seen her? No, have you SMELLED her?” He shook his head. “If you want to take me up on my offer, you had better do it before I get to her. Because I am going to need a LOT of antibiotics before I am safe for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Starlight, really just wanting to spare his feelings by not saying what she was thinking, which was an outright ‘no’. She instead tried to change the subject. “Is my ship still working fine?”

“Ask him,” said Jurneu, pointing.

“Everything is A-okay,” said Armchair, smiling.

“As for our situation, I’m not so sure.”

“What’s wrong with it? I’m doing exactly what I thought you would want to do. Isn’t that what the Spectres are doing right now? Trying to stop Thebe?”

“No,” said Jurneu, shaking his head. “The Council has detected the Alliance fleet massing on our borders. All the Spectres are getting into position for war. Most seem to assume that ‘Thebe’ is an element of the Alliance.”

“It isn’t,” said Armchair. Both Starlight and Jurneu turned around to look at him. “It would not be logical,” he said. “Robette d’Bordeaux, her daughters, and the creature called ‘Pink’ are all or were all Cerberus agents. And they seem to want to stop Thebe as much as the Council does.”

“That doesn’t mean they are working for Alliance interests anymore,” said Starlight.

“Indeed,” said Jurneu. “And it would not be the first time Cerberus had actively acted against the Alliance.”

“But I do not think that it is the case. Not this time. It is my assessmen that Thebe is a separate enemy. Or perhaps not an enemy at all.”

“They did try to kill us,” said Starlight.

“I was not there for that part, but I am aware of it. Yes, they did. But only because you attacked Scootaloo. Since we are now allied with Scootaloo, we are now working toward Thebe’s goal. We have not allied directly with them, but we are acting as their friends.”

Starlight knew that Armchair was correct, but she did not like his view. She did not know what Thebe was, but she did not like the idea of being associated with terrorists, especially those who kept their motives and methods completely hidden- -or those potent enough to be able to keep their methods and motives completely hidden.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by something beeping. Jurneu lifted one of his forelegs and projected his omnitool.

“What is it?” said Starlight. “Please tell me that my ship isn’t blowing up.”

“Or that a clingon got onto it. I hear they are terrible to remove. And I don’t like the idea of them having two mouths, even though I do not know what you are referring to by that.”

“No,” said Jurneu, appearing surprised at what he was seeing. “It’s a message.”

“From where?”

“From the Spectre base that we just came from.”

“But we left it empty. There’s no one there.”

“I know. It’s being automatically relayed from the long-range communication antenna. Read-only audio.” He looked over his omnitool, his red eyes lit by its orange light. “It’s from Equestria Prime.”

Starlight’s teeth clenched. She felt herself becoming irrationally angry, but she still looked squarely at Jurneu. “Play it.”

“Ms. Glimmer, are you sure- -”

“Play me the audio, Jurneu.”

“Alright,” he said, hesitantly.

He tapped at his omnitool, and a hiss of the unique static that only came from transmitting a message across multiple deep-space relays and halfway across the universe poured through. Then a familiar voice.

“Starlight,” said One. “I don’t know if this message will reach you. I hope it does. I don’t know where you are now, but I’m using the last long-term relay you were near. If you are as smart as I know you are, you’ll have linked back to it or link to it again soon.”

One sounded strange. It was as though she were out of breath, or afraid. Starlight recognized the shift in her tone. It was the way her voice sounded during her panic attacks, when she was using every ounce of her strength to keep herself together. Starlight recalled all the times she had seen it happen before, and felt pity for her- -only for her pity to be replaced with anger toward herself now that she knew that the panic attacks were no doubt fake.

The transmission continued. “I…I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m calling the mission off. It was foolish of me. I may have overreacted, sending you after her. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. We can attempt a different approach, but I would like to recall…to recall you to Equestria. Please, Starlight. Please return as soon as possible. Contact me when you get this message.” There was a pause. “I…I miss you. Please come back.”

The static then ended, as did the transmission.

“So,” said Chrysalis, now sitting beside Armchair in Jack’s form instead of in his lap. “Are you going to return her call? She certainly sounds sincere.”

“Of course not. And she isn’t.” Starlight stared at Jurneu, not looking back at Chrysalis. “No doubt it’s a trap. She knows what we’re doing, and she is trying to eliminate us. Eliminate me.”

“But she sounded very afraid of something,” said Armchair.

“It’s a trick. An act. Everything she has ever done has been an act. All of it lies.” She stood up and then without warning pushed her chair over, sending it sliding across the floor. “All of it lies!”

Chrysalis did not seem satisfied with that response. “That did not seem like what the message said to me.”

“Or me,” said Armchair. “She seemed so sad.”

“I have to agree with Starlight,” said Jurneu. “This is a pony that tricked Equestria for centuries. A former Cerberus agent. Perhaps even an active Cerberus agent. I don’t trust her, and I can’t be sure that this message is legitimate.”

“Because it isn’t.” Starlight moved quickly toward the door that Jurneu had come through. “That thing on the other side? Don’t make the mistake I did. Nothing she can ever say can be trusted.” She looked over her should and met Chrysalis’s green eyes. “My decision is final. I hope never to see that traitor again. We will not even reply to the message, and continue with the task at hand.”

Chrysalis leaned back and, of all things, smiled. “The decision is ultimately yours, Starlight Glimmer,” she said. “And it is, at the end, up to you to make it.”

They had landed on a distant and unnamed garden world, and Starlight found herself preparing her armor yet another time. For the first time, though, she was afraid of what might come. She did not have the conviction she had when she believed that she was serving Twilight or seeking vengeance for Trixie. She just felt empty, and in that emptiness, she felt fear. She was not sure why. There was nothing left for her to live for. She simply could not understand why she did not welcome the release of death from her thin-stretched lifetime.

Bob approached her from the side and handed her a respirator.

“What is this for?” asked Starlight, taking it awkwardly in her hooves.

“For breathing. Obviously. Trust me, you’re going to want that where we’re going.”

Zedok poked her head into the room. “Hey!” she called. “I’m going to need one too.”

Bob sighed as Zedok approached. “That means I’m going to need to size one for an asari now.” She reached to her side, and Starlight began attempting to attach the mask to herself. Working the straps was nearly impossible with hooves, and by the time she noticed the glint of metal in Bob’s hand, it was too late.

The knife glinted through the air without warning. Starlight gaped and looked up to see that Bob had stabbed its blade deep into Zedok’s neck. The blade was long, and Zedok gasped as it penetrated her throat. Bob immediately twisted it before pulling it out. Zedok, now bleeding heavily, wrapped her hands around her throat.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” cried Starlight, taking a defensive stance even though she had no magic, no tech, and no weapons. She did not care. She would gore Bob with her useless horn if she had do.

“What did I do? Basically nothing.” Bob held up the knife, revealing that it was covered in a nearly fluorescent green substance. Starlight immediately realized that the blood coming from Zedok’s neck was not violet like normal asari blood; instead, it was bright green.

Chrysalis suddenly smiled, taking her hands away from her throat. The wound had already healed, and with a flash of green light she shifted again. She assumed a form that Starlight did not recognize: a pale human male dressed in pure white armor. He had neatly tied blond hair and piercing red eyes with vertical slit pupils.

“Why would you do that to me, Robette?”

Bob’s eyes narrowed. “I’d be careful using that form around me, changeling. Or next time I’ll stab you with my OTHER blade. And you will die.”

Chrysalis smiled, revealing her pointed teeth, and then reverted to Jack’s form. “How could you tell?”

“Because you smell like a nest of canopy ants.” Bob suddenly blinked when she realized that Chrysalis had assumed Jack’s form. Her mood seemed to change completely. “Well fuck me in the ass with a rusty serrated knife and call me Eloth! Starlight, are you seeing this?”

“Don’t use my name. It feels wrong when you say it.”

“Okay, then, Purple-Depressed. Have you seen this? I mean, it’s a perfect match!” Bob leaned around her. “Well, okay, not really. Way younger and way less whiney. ‘Wah wah wah, Cerberus ruined my childhood’ and all that. But I mean, come on! I never thought I’d see that face again!”

“You knew Jack?” said Chrysalis.

“Of course I knew Jack! We grew up together. On Pragia. Ah, those were some good times. For me. She hated it. I have no idea why.”

“The extended physical and psychological torment, maybe?”

Bob shrugged. “I blame the stick up her butt. She was a killjoy until the very end.”

Starlight almost dropped her mask. “The end? You mean- -you mean you were there?”

“Not at the very end. She insisted on dying alone. But she did visit me. She talked about you, actually.”

“What did she say?” demanded Starlight. “What did she say?!”

“I don’t know,” said Bob. “At least not entirely. She wasn’t like me. Her body didn’t heal well. The stuff in her head, it messed her up. She wasn’t sane toward the end.”

“Wasn’t…wasn’t sane?”

“Think senility, but with violent outbursts. VERY violent outbursts.”

“So she came to you, but not Starlight?” noted Chrysalis. “Interesting.”

“She came to me because she was my friend.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” said Starlight, highly insulted.

“It means what it means. I was her friend. But we were the kind of friends that hate each other. Hell, I think she might literally have wanted me to kill her. I would have, too, but I didn’t think I could have gotten much meat off her in that state.”

“She was sick,” said Starlight. She had not realized that she could have felt any worse than she already did. “And I wasn’t there for her.” It was like losing her all over again, and it only compounded the loss of Twilight.

“Yes. Which is exactly why she didn’t want you to see her.”

“She…what?”

“Again. Like I said. Her body was collapsing, her mind broken. She wasn’t even sixty. I don’t think she wanted you to see her. Not like that. Not the kind of friend you were to her.”

“But I should have anyway!”

“Starlight,” said Bob, crouching down so that she was eye level with Starlight. “No. I’ve got an image of the only other girl who survived Pragia in my head, her body like a skeleton, babbling like she half thought she was still there. And I don’t care. Because I can laugh at her weakness and go on with my immortality. But I don’t think that kind of memory is meant for someone like you. And I think she knew that.”

“You need to let it go,” said Chrysalis.

“No,” said Starlight, picking up her mask. “No I don’t.”

The planet outside was actually quite beautiful. The surface was an extensive, treeless plane. Instead of grass, though, this particular region was filled with flowers that seemed to grow in hundreds of shades of red and pink. As Starlight stepped down the landing ramp of her ship, she lifted her mask and took a deep breath. The smell was not at all what she expected from flowers, but heavenly none the less.

“It smells so good,” she said to Scootaloo as the younger pony passed.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Scootaloo through her opaque mask as she walked past.

Starlight sighed and looked behind her. The entire crew had assembled behind her: she saw Zedok and Sbaya, both dressed in armor and holding their rifles. Beside them, she saw Chrysalis and Armchair standing beside each other, neither wearing a mask. At their feet were the various Twilight clones save for Four and Jurneu, who was standing oddly close to the clone named Eight. On the far edge of the group, Pink was standing alone with Pinkamena, staring out blindly at the field. Scootaloo stood at the front of the group, her quant at one side and her chosen clone Six on the other. The strange dead-eyed man Eloth stood in the back, watching the events unfold before him.

“No!” said a voice from the far side of the group, behind Eloth. “You can’t come! You have to stay here, where it’s safe!”

“I’m not staying behind, mother,” said Four, exiting the ship dressed in thin, light armor and a respirator mask. “I don’t want to be left here alone.”

“But Vocqtus is dangerous! And you’re- -”

“A cripple? Don’t deny it, that’s what you’re thinking. But I am still an alicorn, and where my sisters go, so will I.”

Bob, now following her down the ramp, groaned. “Fine!” she said, exasperated. “Eloth! You cover her. If you let her die. If something happens, get her out.”

“I will do my best. I actually rather like Four,” he said.

“I will as well,” said Pink. “Every life is precious. Every life is precious…but I have taken so many…”

“I’ve never met a killing machine that complains about it so much,” grumbled Bob as she moved to the front of the group. “Starlight, I hope your math skills are actually competent. Or this is going to hurt. A lot.”

“My math is always correct,” said Starlight.

“Yes,” said Inte, “apart from the errors, of course.”

“Great,” said Nine from the rear. “Do I have to do this? I’m really not feeling the whole ‘jump to another dimension’ thing.”

“You’ll be fine when you get there,” said Eight. “Trust me, there will be things to shoot. And I know how much you like to shoot things.”

“I do like shooting things.”

“Right,” said Bob, flexing her right arm. “Let’s do this.”

She lifted her arm, and the armor near her neck shifted, distorting as a blue-lit object pulled free from it, hovering near her until it settled in front of her hand. The blue light expanded, and the space where she was pointing began to distort as the machine began to writhe and twist, continually changing its shape.

“Come on,” she said, tensing her body. “I know you can do this. Don’t give up on me now…”

There was a sudden snap, and the rippling space snapped apart into a hole. Starlight peered through into a strange world with a floor made of crimson stone beneath a horrid, sickly sky. An entirely new universe stood on the side of that portal, and even knowing that Starlight was hesitant to step forward.

“Ha!” cried Bob. “Goddamn, it actually worked!”

“And you expected it wouldn’t?” said Scootaloo. She was the first to move through the portal, stepping through it easily as if it were completely normal- -or as though she had done it before.

The others followed, with Starlight trying to keep pace with Scootaloo. As she entered, she immediately felt a drastic change in her surroundings. The entire world felt drastically different. The gravity was higher, but also stranger, as if it did not quite follow the normal rules that gravity was supposed to. The heat was oppressive, and the atmosphere seemed thicker and heavier, a fact that made the stiff dusty wind seem all the more forceful.

Starlight looked around, and saw that the environment stood in stark contrast to the one she had stood in before. While that one had been beautiful, this one was terrible: a rocky, volcanic crag of reddish stone dotted by aggressive veins of black mineral surrounded them, which was in turn surrounded by enormous mountains in the impossible distance. The world seemed to have no curvature, and Starlight’s eyepiece indicated that they were thousands upon thousands of miles away.

“Mmm,” said Bob, taking a deep breath as she entered the portal and it closed behind her. “Smell that? Smells like home, doesn’t it?”

Starlight suddenly realized that Bob was not wearing a mask. Neither were Eloth, Pink, nor Pinkamena.

“Wait,” she said, “the atmosphere here is breathable?”

“Sure is,” said Bob. “In this region there is about seventeen percent oxygen. The vast majority of the rest is inert gas. Genuine radon.”

“And you can breathe that?”

“So could you, probably. I don’t know how much you’d want to.”

“I don’t see anything,” said Scootaloo, looking around. “Thebe is not here.”

“Of course not,” said Bob. “I moved us a few miles out. Hopefully. So we can enter a bit more slowly. It’s always better to enter slowly. Trust me, I’d know.”

“No she wouldn’t,” called Eloth from the rear.

“Quiet, you!” Bob turned back to Starlight. “It’s that way, though. Seven, I need readings. You’re going to be my eyes.”

Seven nodded and opened her omnitool, projecting a scanning drone.

“Right,” said Bob, “if you walk down or up a hill and suddenly feel gravity get, oh, about five hundred times normal, try to step back from that. Hopefully we won’t have to deal with that. Seven, you’re in charge of letting us know if we’re about to hit the gravocline.”

Seven nodded, and Starlight found herself wondering why Bob had given this job to the girl that could not apparently talk.

“So who’s going to go first?” said Zedok, stepping up to Starlight with Sbaya trailing closely behind, looking up at the sickly sky with a mixture of equal fear and awe.

“I will,” said Scootaloo. “This suit has a good set of scanners. Six, stay close. I don’t want to lose you here. There’s…”

“There’s what?”

“There’s a lot of stuff living out there. More than you would think.”

After quite a bit longer than “a few miles”, Starlight reached the conclusion that either Bob was terrible at math or distance in Vocqtus was far more treacherous than it seemed. Since Bob seemed to be at least marginally intelligent for a human, Starlight actually came to see the second proposition as more likely. Her eyepiece readings were almost nonfunctional, and from what she could tell, wherever they were was not a planet. It had not curvature. Distances that looked miniscule from the top of even a small hill could easily be tens of thousands of miles long.

The land also proved to be more uneven than Starlight had expected. For the most part, it seemed relatively rocky, but there were areas that they sometimes approached that were covered in aggressive black gorse that appeared to be made out of some kind of strange metal.

The largest obstacle that they came across, though, was a cliff that could only be described as “prodigious”. At least one of the miles that Bob had promised, it seemed, went straight down. This did not prove to be a significant problem, however. Both Eloth and Bob had the capacity for limited levitation, Eloth by his biotics and Bob by the strange blue artifact that she either wore around her neck or that slowly orbited her head like a small moon. When Eloth descended, he took Four. Scootaloo descended held by Six, with Inte falling slowly beside her. Nine took Zedok, and Seven Sbaya. Eight, being the smallest of them, struggled mightily to descend with Jurneu. Chrysalis morphed herself a pair of wings and carried Armchair and Starlight down with her.

Pink, meanwhile, had not even bothered to hesitate near the edge. He simply stepped over, falling and taking Pinkamena with him. When Starlight reached the bottom of the cliff, she was surprised to see Pink standing unharmed and splattered, waiting for them.

“How are you not dead?” asked Starlight as Chrysalis set her down.

“I ask myself that every day,” he sighed. “And sometimes I answer.”

“It’s nonparametric gravity,” said Bob, descending to about ten feet off the ground before her light released early and she fell the remainder of the way. “Gravity doesn’t induce consistant acceleration here. Sometimes you don’t even accelerate at all. Or fall up. Or become a blini. Which is why I would strongly recommend not jumping into a hole unless you have Seven or Scoots check it first.”

“I don’t need ‘checking’. I go with my gut. Or would, if my intestines had not gone necrotic and been removed.”

“Then…what do you eat?” asked Inte, innocently.

“You really don’t want to ask that,” said Pinkamena.

Starlight ignored them, walking up to Scootaloo, who was looking out at the land in front of them. The initial area had become something of a grassland, although the plants that grew there could hardly be called “grass” but more like a forest of tall, narrow things that resembled bamboo. Beyond it was what appeared to be a forest, but at her height Starlight was not able to see it.

“What do you think, Scootaloo?”

“I think we shouldn’t be here,” said Scootaloo. “Be glad you’re not the one wearing this mask. I’m guessing this world is exorbitantly harsh, because some of these lifeforms are…impressive.”

They continued into the grassland, and Starlight did not ask what Scootaloo meant. From what she gathered, whatever strange scanning system covered Scootaloo’s face was allowing her to see animals, and large ones. She, meanwhile, was only able to visually detect and identify the small ones. The swampy grassland apparently contained a number of creatures that closely resembled three-winged hummingbirds, although as Sbaya quickly found out they dined not on nectar but on blood. The birds, if they could even be called that, were in tern eaten by large creatures that Starlight could best describe as flying spiders. Both Eight and Nine were highly adverse to those.

Even the grass was deceptive. As it turned out, it was not grass at all. As Starlight and Scootaloo approached it, small single eyes would open near the bottoms of the stalks and the “grass” would stand on a number of small legs and scamper out of their path, pressing into the immense herd to avoid the strangers. As they parted, Starlight saw that the ground was scored deeply by a number of streams. Every single one of them ran with a bright red fluid that looked curiously like blood.

This, in turn, led to a high-walled valley filled with what could loosely be described as trees. In reality, they resembled charred wooden spikes emerging from the ground, tangling each other like enormous thorns. Starlight had a rough sense that they were alive, at least to some extent, and that they were growing, but even Sbaya shrank at the sight of them.

Fortunately, the forest was relatively sparse. Had it been denser, the group would have been forced to fly over it, which would be draining for the members of the party with wings. As they walked through the trees, though, Starlight began to become increasingly nervous. She felt as though she was being watched.

“Do you feel that?” she said to Scootaloo.

“Yeah.” The white circle in the center of Scootaloo’s mask moved, scanning the area, before it settled high and to the left. “They’re on top of the hills.”

Starlight looked to the edge of the valley. Because of the distance and her relatively poor eyesight, she had not been able to see them before. Looking through her eyepiece, though, she saw that they were not alone. Creatures were standing on the top of the rocky cliffs, their bodies silhouetted against the sunless sky.

Exactly what they were, though, was unclear. They were bipedal, but also appeared disproportionately tall, and then only because they were so very thin. Even with the eyepiece, Starlight could not get a good look at them. She saw their narrow, skeletal legs, long arms, and even their spidery fingers. She could not see their faces, though, and found herself wondering if they had any at all.

“What are those?” she asked.

“Natives,” said Bob, sounding somewhat nervous. Her tone made Starlight even more afraid.

“There are natives here?”

“What, you thought this place was just flat and dead? Well, it is, but there are hundreds of sentient species here.” Bob pointed. “They are one of the oldest.”

“I can’t get a reading on them,” said Scootaloo, “but I can see them…”

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

“What do they want?” asked Starlight.

“How should I know? Probably just to watch. Of course…I am wearing a fragment of one of their gods as jewelry right now.”

Starlight turned sharply to her, and Bob gestured to the blue-lit necklace, which had quieted into a single slowly shifting crystal.

“Why they’re here doesn’t matter,” said Scootaloo, her single artificial eye still roving over the clifftops. “I want to know if we’re safe.”

“Well, I am. I just told you. I’m wearing a piece of a god.”

“I mean the rest of us.”

Bob shrugged. “That depends on what Bjorn told them.”

Starlight never saw them move, but the creatures seemed to grow closer. As the trees grew denser and the already dim twilight from the dead sky overhead was cut out by the canopy overhead, the Vocqutuans appeared closer and closer to the group. Eventually, Starlight could see them reasonably well. As she had suspected, they were tall, dwarfing even Pink, although they were barely as wide as a pony. From the few that Starlight saw standing still in the shadows, she saw that she had been correct in her absurd impression that they had no faces. They did not.

“Damn it,” said Zedok, shouldering her singularity rifle. “If they take one step closer, I’m going to- -”

Sbaya put her hand on her mother’s gun and gently forced it down. “No,” she said. “These are not an ememy that is meant to be fought.”

“Still,” said Chrysalis, marching past the group of clone Twilights to the front. “I think we should be prepared.” She morphed and took on the form of a large and demonic form. The creatures in the distance did not even seem to notice.

“It’s okay,” said Bob, sounding as though she was trying to reassure herself. “As long as you don’t see their eyes. If you see the eyes, that’s bad. If you see the mouths, that’s worse.” She looked to her left. “Eloth?”

“Yes?” he said, appearing to her right, still holding Four.

“The bug is right.”

Eloth shook his head. “I will protect Four, as promised.”

“And the rest of us?” said Starlight.

“I do not mind watching the remainder die.”

Before Bob could think of a retort, the forest suddenly terminated. It ended suddenly with a small rocky drop-off that led to a wide area of sand where the valley expanded. Looking out, Starlight realized that they had come to the right place. Amongst the sand and cyclopean blocks of ancient foundations, she saw the corroded and rusted remnants of several old starships. Only parts of them were exposed and had not sunk below the sand, but she could immediately tell that though old they were originally from the Milk Path galaxy.

“They’ve been here,” she said.

“Possibly,” said Bob. “We’ll see.”

Continuing out into the sand, Starlight looked carefully over the ships that remained there. Most of them had been stripped for parts, making the desert plane something of a junkyard. The engines and computers had been removed, along with the internal subsystems and even the metal from the inner walls. All that remained were the wrecks of their bodies, looming out of the dirt like half-buried skeletons. Their surfaces were even worse close up, as if they had been kept in a jungle for millennia or dipped in acid. At least one was even vandalized with the words “SCNCMANWASHERE” written in enormous, shaky letters on the side in red paint. Pink took a great interest in that graffiti, standing near it for some time before Pinkamena could convince him to move on.

Then, in the distance, Starlight saw something.

“Seven,” said Scootaloo, opening her violet omnitool. “I’m linking to you. Do you want to take a look?”

Seven nodded, and she and Nine took flight, souring quickly through the dense air and then taking a broad path high above the sands of the desert. Scootaloo stared into the distance, reading what was returning to her from the inside of her mask. After a few minutes, Seven and Nine returned.

“It’s definitely artificial,” said Nine. “I saw it from up there.”

“And the scans confirm it,” said Scootaloo. “Although the signals coming off of it are…strange.”

“They may have attempted to cloak it,” suggested Six.

“Cloak it here?” Nine did not seem convinced. “From what? Who’s going to be down here?”

“Not who,” said Bob. “What.” She looked into the distance. “But I don’t think it’s a cloak.”

“Then what do you think it is?” asked Starlight.

Bob did not answer, but instead continued walking. Starlight followed closely. She was getting a bad feeling, and part of it came from how secretive Bob was being. She did not trust the woman.

As they got nearer to the structure, Starlight’s misgivings only grew. It was certainly artificial, and not as old and rotted as everything else in this strange world seemed to be. Instead, it appeared to have been constructed relatively recently, a modern castle of prefab units and heavy armored plating built upon an ancient stone foundation.

Approximately three hundred meters from the building, the group came across something unusual. Imbedded and partially buried in the sand stood a pair of enormous statues. From their appearance, Starlight guessed that they had not been built along with the castle. They were tall and vaguely anthropomorphic, although for some reason it hurt Starlight’s eyes to look at them. Unlike the corpses of starships that had been left in the desert, these appeared to be made of something far tougher, for although they appeared ancient and were overgrown with strange vines their surfaces remained undamaged.

They had not been left completely intact, however. The backs of each one had apparently been somehow opened, and several far more modern devices had been installed into them, liking their bodies to long and heavy cables that led back to the main building.

“No no no NO!” said Bob, suddenly sounding nearly paniced. She ran forward toward the cables and looked up, shielding her eyes from the same optical wrongness that Starlight was experiencing.

“What is it?” said Nine, immediately concerned that her mother was behaving as she was.

“They’ve been interfaced,” said Bob, trying her best to stare up at the machinery.

“So?” said Scootaloo.

“So? Scoots, do you have any idea what these ARE? No, of course you don’t. How could you?”

Starlight looked up at Eloth and Four. “Do either of you understand what she is talking about?”

Eloth shook his head. “These devices predate me and my kind by far.”

“Of course they do!” called Bob. “They predate everyone’s kind!” She stared up the statue. “Even the lw knew that these were best left ignored…” She turned back to the group, suddenly looking much older than she normally pretended to be. “Whoever did this is a fool. Or unbelievably desperate.”

“I would argue that one leads to the other,” said Jurneu. “But that hardly matters. Can we disconnect them?”

“Disconect them?” Starlight shivered at the idea of even having to get near one of the statues, let alone being required to touch it. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because they must be acting as a power source of some kind. If we disconnect them, we might be able to cripple Thebe.”

“Sure,” said Bob. “You can try. Go ahead. But I can’t even figure out how these things are connected, and I actually know what I’m doing.”

“It is best to leave them alone,” said Pink, walking past one and brushing its waist with his fingers. “It would be a shame to wake one for this. They remain allies of the Goddess, if only in their long dreams.”

The group continued on, with only Scootaloo and Six trailing behind to give the former a long chance to scan one of the machines.

Then, finally, they came within sight of the final structure. Sbaya and Nine immediately raised their rifles.

“Two guards,” said Nine. “Taking them out- -”

“No you aren’t,” said Pink, grabbing the barrel of her sniper rifle and pushing it upward. “That is unnecessary here.”

Pink now took the lead of the group, approaching the central door. Standing beside it were the two guards, just as Nine and Sbaya had seen. One was a krogan, the other a drell; both were dressed in black armor and wore the mark of a single red star. Both of them reacted to the group’s presence, but neither took defensive stances.

“I am here,” said Pink
The drell and krogan both looked at him. “Of all those who witnessed Her divine light,” said the drell, “We did not expect that it would be you who would return the Priestess to us.”

Then, without speaking further, they stepped aside.

Author's Notes:

Vocqtus itself is really just an exercise in making interesting landscapes and creatures.

Chapter 36: Thebe

Whatever the structure was, it had clearly not been intended for habitation. Inside, there was no pretense of aestheticism. Everything was built to be as functional as possible, but not for the support of people. Instead, it was a catacomb-like structure of equipment and laboratories, all dedicated seemingly to the same goal, whatever it was.

The facility was also deceptively large. As Pink led them through the networks of cables and reactors that built it, Starlight hardly saw any other people present. When she did, though, they were varied. She saw numerous races, all working together in harmony. There were all the races of the Milk Path galaxy save for synths and wendigoes, as well as numerous species of Equestria. Starlight saw a number of ponies, as well as diamond dogs, griffons, quants, and others.

“I wish the whole galaxy could be this peaceful,” said Sbaya as an asari scientist in black robes drifted past her at the side of a hulking diamond dog, both of them eyeing the group warily.

“It was, once,” said Eloth.

“Indeed,” said Four. “Every single time your race wiped out the rest.”

“And it shall be peaceful again, in time.”

“Notice anyone missing, though?” said Zedok, looking around.

“The children of Earth are not represented here,” said Pink, interpreting what Zedok meant easily. “One race has grown hardened to her voice, or any voices, and the other race has changed to ignore it entirely. It makes me proud to have once been human.”

Six looked around at the humming machinery around them. “But what is it all for?”

“For?” said Pink. “It is for Thebe.”

“No shit,” said Nine, feigning surprise.

“I sure hope not,” said Eight.

“This is Her temple, built by Her disciples,” muttered Pink. “And it shall be the first that her new eyes rest upon as she emerges and is born into this world.” His voice cracked for a moment. “And then…and then what? What will happen then?”

They continued, and Starlight allowed herself to fall back so that she was beside Jurneu and Chrysalis. “Something is wrong,” she said. “Can either of you feel it?”

“I can,” said Chrysalis.

“So can I,” said Jurneu. “I just don’t know…I don’t know what it is.”

“This place is humming,” said Chrysalis, staring down at the pair of ponies with her several demonic eyes. “It is alive. Or…almost so.” She pointed. “Look at the human. She feels it too.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Starlight. “Watch her. Carefully. Because if this goes south, I have a feeling it’s going to be because of her.”

“Perhaps,” said Chrysalis, “but remember: she’s the one holding the key to this reality. If she refuses to release us, well…then things won’t matter much, will they?”

Ahead of them, Six pressed closer to Scootaloo. “They’re talking,” she said, gesturing toward Starlight and her associates.”

“I know. I can hear them.”

“You can?”

“I can hear a lot of things. They don’t seem to trust your mother.”

Six sighed. “Well, she doesn’t exactly give them much reason to, does she?”

“She doesn’t. But that’s not why she’s so quiet. I’m more concerned with the fact that of all the things I can hear right now, they are the only ones talking.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I am detecting hundreds of individual life forms here. And not one of them is speaking. All these people, and no one is talking.”

Six shivered and pulled herself close to Scootaloo. “Eerie.”

It was worse than that, though. Scootaloo was deeply apprehensive about this place. She had no sense of the trouble that the unicorns and changeling were whispering about, but from a simply logical standpoint nothing seemed to make sense. From what she had been told, Scootaloo had assumed that Thebe was a terrorist organization. In her mind, that meant a military force. This was not a military installation, though. The majority of those surrounding them were not soldiers, save for a few guards and several ominous insect-like creatures with luminescent violet eyes.

What made that disturbing was the lack of motive. In her time in the navy and as a Priestess, Scootaloo had come to understand political movements. They always had a purpose, and idea. With Thebe, that idea seemed to be, as near as Scootaloo could understand it, Thebe itself. Everything was organized and planned by some unseen method, a strange and foreign ideology that none of the workers seemed to understand. And that was what they were: workers. Workers who were building something and, after centuries of effort, nearing its completion.

“Pink,” she said at last. “I need you to at least try to explain what is going on here.”

“He can’t,” said Pinkamena from her perch. “Because he doesn’t know.”

“The Paradigm wills it,” he said, partially to himself. “We are those that interpret it and give it will. It is an idea. But Thebe is physical. Thebe is the Paradigm, and the Paradigm is Thebe. We are Her, and we are It.” He slowly tilted his head toward her. “And you are listed. You and the Core Starlight Glimmer, although you are listed higher. The sister of Rainbow Dash, the young captain, she who was sent to the Horizon only to find that its ruler had long been dead…”

“How do you know that?” snapped Scootaloo.

“Because it is listed. All is listed.” He put one shaking hand to his head. “If…if I look deep enough…”

“Don’t,” said Pinkamena. She glared at Scootaloo. “Stop asking him questions. The Paradigm is killing him. Every time you make him go deeper, I lose part of him.”

“Power the forge, power the forge,” sung Pink softly, “and forge us a goddess from ash…”

The group pressed forward a bit longer, and the scenery began to change. At first there were less and less people, and then for a time none. Instead, the machinery began to become tighter and denser. Motion became somewhat difficult through the mass of material, and after several minutes the lights became less sparse until they were gone completely. When they reached that point, Scootaloo and Seven both projected lighted drones. With the jungle-like desnity of the technology around them, though, the light did not press far. Pink stayed at the forward end of what light they had, almost entirely in the shadows, with Bob near him. Chrysalis and Sbaya, the only other two members of the group with good night vision, stayed in the back in preparation for an ambush.

This was the other people began to appear. It was not clear who first saw them, but somehow, no one screamed. These workers moved slowly on the edge of the shadows or beyond, blindly feeling the way through the hive of machinery. Their bodies were overgrown with imbedded technology that snaked around the rotting remnants of the various species that they once were. Their organic portions were invariably pale and thin, except in the cases where the flesh had rotted away entirely and the cybernetic skeletons of various long-dead individuals continued to toil beside their black-robed brethren.

“What are they?” asked Scootaloo.

“Husks,” said Eloth. “Or a version of them.” He looked into the void, his pupils widening until his red eyes were nearly black. “Which means they are using our technology…”

“The Paradigm is old,” said Pink, nearly in a whisper. “It has existed for so long that many of those who first attempted to interpret its will have long since passed any natural lifespan. Or tried to. But as Cerberus did not allow me to depart from my pain, so has Thebe kept them.”

“I know the feeling,” said Starlight, feeling more pity than disgust for the ghostly semi-machines that wandered the darkness, kept alive far beyond their years.

“They are the eldest,” said Pink. “The ones who know the most. No mind remains save for Hers, but it cannot be intact by definition. They are aware of fragments, but not the Whole.”

“I don’t understand,” said Six.

“You’re not supposed to,” said Inte, finally breaking her long silence. “Trust me. Be glad that you cannot. That burden was never meant for an organic mind.”

“I hate zombies,” muttered Bob, clasping her hand around her necklace. “I goddamn hate zombies…”

Then, suddenly, Pink stopped. The rest of them did as well. The group had arrived at what appeared to the nexus of the machinery, a column of indescribably complex machines rising around a surprisingly small and incomplete something suspended in their center.

Starlight stared at the center for a long moment before a wave of recognition chilled her blood. The small machine in the center was lit, but not by any independent light source on its housing. Instead, the glow came from a strange asymmetrical crystal installed in its center.

“What is it?” said Scootaloo, immediately realizing that Starlight knew something.

“That- -that’s the Key of Korviliath!” she said, taking a step back. “That’s impossible! It was destroyed! With Earth! It- -it can’t be here!”

“I agree,” said Chrysalis, also recognizing the crystal that had long ago adorned the crown of Princess Cadence. “We need to leave. Now.”

“But what is it?” demanded Scootaloo.

“Sunset Shimmer used it. To open a doorway to Equestria Prime.”

“The one that took out Earth in the process.”

Scootaloo suddenly realized the relevance of what Starlight was saying, perhaps even better than the others. She had been there as well on that day, but she understood the situation better than any of them. It was not truly Sunset Shimmer and the Crimson Horizon that had opened the gate, not really. Sunset had already been dead for some time without even realizing it. She was simply a tool acting on behalf of a pony far more terrible, a pony whose armor Scootaloo now wore.

“Agreed,” she said at last. She turned around, only to suddenly realize that the revenant drones that had been maintaining the central chamber had surrounded them.

“The crystal is the harbinger,” said one of the creatures in a low, mechnical voice. Her body was so ruined that it was impossible to tell what she had once been, but her luminous violet eyes were piercing and alive, as was the case with all of her compatriots. “The crystal is the last fragment of the door. The door through which the Paradigm came so long ago, and the door through which Thebe will follow.”

“To unite,” said another, “to give the Paradigm life. To end our need to interpret. To end the need for us.”

“The machine nears completion. Her body has been prepared. Only one piece remains.”

“One piece. One final piece.”

Starlight did not understand, but found herself backing away. Her friends braced their weapons, ready to fight, although she was not sure what they would be able to do against the lifeless shells that were surrounding them.

Only two among them appeared unconcerned. Pink stood, blankly staring, waiting for his goal to be complete. Likewise, Inte seemed unperturbed. In fact, after only a few second she stepped forward toward the hollowed out remains of what may once have been a krogan.

“I am here,” she said. She was smiling, but somehow her voice sounded sad.

Every pair of violet eyes turned toward her, and there was a mechnical murmur from the group.

“Inte!” called Scootaloo. “Get back here!”

Inte looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo. Sorry for a lot of things. That I could not tell you, and that I could never truly be your friend. Please do your best to believe that what I’m telling you is a true sentiment, not a programmed response. But I have to do this. I was constructed for this. To die here, so that She may rise.”

“Inte, no!” Scootaloo tried to take a step forward, only to be grasped by Pink. “Let me go!” she cried. “Or I’ll take your arm off!”

“So be it,” said Pink, “because that is the only way I will allow you to interfere.”

Scootaloo did not have time to make good on her threat. The animated remains of the krogan stretched out an arm, and Inte’s body dissolved, leaving only the clear blue tech shell surrounding her crystalline heart. It hovered in his hand, lighting the darkness with a powerful glow that even the Key of Korvilliath could not surpass. It was only then when Starlight noticed just how large and how utterly pure that crystal truly was. Both she and Six realized that it was not the sort of quant meant to operate a scout ship, or even a hub-dreadnaught. It was something far larger and more powerful, the likes of which Starlight doubted she would ever see be created again.

Even Scootaloo stopped resisting and watched as the Thebean priest walked through the crowd and up the stone stairs that led to their final creation. As he approached, the surface of the machinery ignited with tech energy. He extended the crystal in one hand, placing it in the center of the machine. As the tech swirled around it, linking to the machine that had been known as Inte, the entire facility suddenly became deathly quiet.

“It is done,” he said. “The final piece….the final piece…”

Suddenly everything hummed to life. The machine around them screamed and the room ignited with bright light. Every one of the dead priests screamed as the machinery surrounded them, rising up and penetrating their bodies, linking their remains and their individual fragments of the Paradigm into the womb that they had constructed for their rising deity.

The quant crystal began to revolve, and the machinery suddenly burst to life, writhing about itself like a swarm of millions of mechnical worms and arms, all reaching for the Key. The Key and quant together reacted violently, sending out plumes of pink-violet fire that curved and arced back toward the machine.

The krogan standing near it was instantly vaporized, his body torn apart by the blaze of energy. Starlight realized that it was already too late to run. They were standing too close.

Chrysalis realized this as well and raised her hands, projecting a deep green shield around them. The nearest of the energy arcs struck it, and she screamed in pain, dropping to one knee. Her formerly demonic form began to fail, becoming something darker and covered in porous chitin.

“Chrysalis!” cried Starlight.

The clones seemed to realize that they were on the verge of dying as well. Those of them capable of using magic stood firm and pointed their horns at Chrysalis’s dome. They projected their biotics into it, reinforcing it. Their actions only seemed to draw more energy, though, and they struggled to keep the shield whole. Zedok tapped Sbaya and Jurneu on the shoulders, and they threw down their weapons and tried did their best to support the others

Starlight desperately wished that she could help them, but without magic all she could do was watch. What she saw, though, was even more terrifying than the storm around them. Through the multicolored dome, Starlight could vaguely something arising from the central machine. From the mass of metal, a limb suddenly reached out, clawing its way forward. The Key of Korviliath was pulled forward on what now became a chest, and above it formed a skeletal, eyeless head, its forehead adorned by a single long metallic horn.

It stepped forward, screaming as it pulled itself free as it assembled itself, inching ever closer to the white-hot quant crystal that was struggling to maintain its link to the Key.

“We can’t let it reach the crystal!” cried Starlight, realizing what would happen if it did. “We have to stop it!”

It was too late, though. The pair of legs stretched out, pulling the two crystals together. The metal seemed to open, growing over the crystalline computer and integrating it into itself. The quant seemed to vibrate, as if it were struggling to resist, but Starlight watched as the machine surrounding it began to surround it, combining it to the body it was so rapidly developing.

The effect was immediate. The outward explosion crushed through the shield, and all of those supporting it collapsed with a cry. Starlight covered her eyes, expecting to be torn apart, but instead saw a flash of red and blue light. She looked up to see Bob and Eloth, both of whom were supporting the shield, Eloth with his combined biotic and tech ability and Bob by grasping the artifact she carried with both hands.

Even they could not support the shield for long, though. The room around them was being torn apart. Thebe’s machine had been incorrectly designed, and it was failing, incinerated by now uncontrollable force of their final creation. The priests had all been reduced to skeletal frames that were rapidly being converted to ash.

Eloth fell to one knee. Starlight could feel the heat emanating from him, and watched as his flesh began to heat and boil away, revealing the machine beneath. Bob, meanwhile, remained perfectly calm. Even too calm. For some reason, though, Starlight could not look at her. The light that now seemed to be coming from within her was too horrible.

Before they could outright fail, though, the Thebean machine gave one last surge of energy. It cracked through the shield, but with it, the arcing slowed and stopped. The melted remnants of what had been built there went silent, and some of them fell. Eloth and Bob ceased their defense, and Starlight saw that Eloth’s skin had been completely melted away and his clothing reduced to charred rags. Bob, who seemed otherwise alright, turned to look at him. That was when Starlight saw her eyes and how distant they looked, and realized that she may have suffered even graver of injury.

Bob raised a shaking finger at Eloth. “I can’t believe you made me have to do that,” she said. “If I regain consciousness, you are going to have the WORSTEST of anal reckonings.”

She then collapsed to her knees and fell onto Eight, who immediately tried struggling weakly against her mother’s unconscious weight.

“It is done,” said Pink. “Finally, She is risen.” He then collapsed to his knees. “But…but why can I still hear it?”

Starlight looked past him, and realized to her disbelief that he was right. Although the machine had been destroyed, the figure that it had created remained. It now walked down the charred stone stairs to its birthplace, its hooves clicking quietly as it walked. As it moved, its surface began to change. It was initially a strange amalgam of technologies, some of which was obviously reaper. With every step, though, something organic seemed to seep through and around its shell. Starlight watched as it skin began to form around it, and that skin in turn burst forth with fine hair that took on a purple hue. The machine then spread its skeletal mechnical wings, and they burst forward with muscle and feathers. Bone grew around her metal horn, and her empty, glaring eye sockets produced eyes.

When the machine finally reached the bottom of the stairs, it had assumed its completed form. Instead of a machine in the shape of a pony, Starlight found herself staring into the face of a violet alicorn.

“Twilight?” she said in disbelief.

The alicorn blinked her newly formed eyes and turned to Starlight, recognizing her name. A look of recognition crossed her face, and she smiled. “Starlight,” she said. “It’s good to see you again.”

Author's Notes:

And everybody who read Child of Order remains completely unsurprised.

Chapter 37: The Risen

“Twilight,” said Starlight again, blinking, wondering if her transplanted eyes were somehow tricking her. “It…is it really you?”

“Can’t be? Of course it’s me, Starlight. It’s not like there’s more than one of…me…” Her sentence trailed off as she looked at the group around her and saw several copies of her own eyes staring back. “Oh my,” she said. Her expression suddenly grew stony, and she faced Starlight. “How long?”

“How long? I don’t know. Twilight, I don’t know where you’ve been. I don’t even know what you are…”

“The Crimson Horizon,” said Twilight suddenly. “Starlight, did we defeat it?”

“The Crimson Horizon? Twilight, that was- -”

“Did you defeat it?” demanded Twilight with great urgency. “The last thing I remember was the portal- -I came through, but it was too late. She fired, and I positioned the Harmony to absorb the impact and…and…” She trailed off again and looked into the distance. “No,” she said, softly. “That was a long time ago. I remember now. How long, though…”

“Twilight,” said Starlight, slowly, “that event was two hundred and seventy eight years ago.”

“I know,” admitted Twilight. “I just…I didn’t want to believe it.” She sighed. “Which I suppose means Scootaloo won’t be coming, then.”

“Actually, I’m already here.” Scootaloo moved forward, stepping past Starlight.

“You?” said Twilight, confused. Scootaloo seemed to understand her hesitation and triggered her mask to separate and retract, revealing her face. Starlight was somewhat surprised. It was the first time she had truly seen Scootaloo’s face since she had been frozen. She looked as youthful as she ever did, and yet somehow different. As if something inside her had become hardened and cold.

Twilight did not seem to notice this. She appeared overjoyed, and wrapped Scootaloo in a hug which Scootaloo did her best to return.

“Scootaloo!” she cried. “I knew you would come! My little Priestess!” She leaned back slightly. “Where did you get this armor, though? And why did you dye your mane like Rainbow’s?”

“That would take a great deal of explanation. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here now.”

“I felt you,” said Twilight, “even when I was separated and broken. I felt you out there, somewhere, and I knew I had to bring you to me. Because I needed somepony I could trust.”

Her statement was interrupted as Four gingerly approached. None one of the clones had stopped gaping at Twilight since she had regained her skin, but none had dared approach her. Several were not able to. All of those who had the capacity to use magic had been slightly addled when their barrier had failed. Seven and Four had remained unaffected, and the former was propping Six on one while Nine was standing on her own with great difficulty. Jurneu, though injured himself, was helping extricate Eight from beneath her unconscious mother.

Twilight seemed to have some apprehension toward the clones, but when she saw Four she appeared to be overcome with pity at staring into the face of a broken, ruined version of herself.

“Your wings,” she said. “Celestia…what did they do to your wings?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Four, shaking her head.

“What are you? Why do you look like me?”

“We are clones,” said Four. “Some more successful than others. I have to admit, I am ashamed to appear before you like this.”

“Please don’t be ashamed.” Twilight’s eyes turned slowly, her line of vision passing over each of the awestruck clones. “I don’t understand.”

“You are her,” said Four. She looked to Starlight. “I’m sure you can feel it too.”

“I don’t know what I feel,” said Starlight.

“By the Goddess,” said Six, pulling herself away from her sister and taking a few steps toward Twilight. “I never thought I would meet you. What a shock it must be for you, though, to awaken as such only to learn immediately that you have so many children.”

“Children?” Twilight’s eyes lit up when what she was seeing was framed in a context she could understand. “Children?” she said. “I…I have foals?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“So…I’m a mother?”

Six paused for a moment. “No,” she said. She pointed to Bob, who Eloth was now taking into his mechnical arms. She seemed oddly limp. “She is our mother. We came from her womb.” She paused. “I suppose, then, that this makes you our father.”

“Father?”

Eight suddenly rushed forward and squeezed Twilight tightly. “Daddy!” she cried. “I have a daddy!”

Twilight hugged her back, if hesitantly, although she was looking at Starlight and Scootaloo. “I did not foresee this. We need to talk. I think I’ve missed a lot while I’ve been gone.”

The facility had gone dark and silent. Even the people who had been working there had stopped. They had not only ceased working, though. They had ceased doing anything at all. Everywhere one had been standing, they now stood, often slightly tilted in a kind of comatose stupor, waiting for orders. The only members that were still moving freely were the repurposed Governors. Since they were little more than machines, they continued to patrol the facility, defending the now useless husk from any potential enemies that might find it. Their efforts were largely in vain, though. Thebe had completed its one and only mission: Twilight Sparkle had been resurrected.

Starlight, though, was not entirely sold on that idea. As she walked through the halls of the facility, she could not help but keep glancing at Twilight, wondering if it really was her. She certainly looked like Twilight, but Starlight had come to realize that appearances were not especially helpful in this case. In fact, it was entirely possible that she had never seen the real Twilight in person. Her entire idea of what Twilight should look like had come from One’s physical appearance.

This was compounded by the fact that Starlight was fully aware that this version of Twilight was not a pony at all. The clones at least were living creatures; they had been born from a mother- -even if she was a deranged human cannibal- -and had no doubt once been adorable little alicorn fillies. This Twilight, though, was little more than a veneer of synthetic pony skin built around a mechnical body. She was no more a pony than Eloth was a human.

It was only made more awkward by the greatly reduced number of individuals accompanying Twilight. Had there been more, Starlight could have faded to the back of the crowd and given herself time to think. As it stood, though, there were only three of them: herself, Scootaloo, and Four. Pink was also present, but he followed far behind and in the shadows weeping quietly to himself.

The others had been brought to different areas to recover. There were not quite real living quarters in the Thebe facility, but Twilight had given them spaces that were reasonably comfortable. Zedok, apparently, had almost immediately passed out, leaving her daughter to meditate on the situation. Armchair had disappeared with Chrysalis, and Eloth had taken Bob away to administer “medical care” that consisted of poking her periodically to see if she had stopped breathing. Nine had found this intolerable, though, and despite her own weakness attended her mother’s side to make sure she had actual medical care and remained largely unpoked. The other alicorns and Jurneu were under the care of Seven, and it had taken several minutes to get Scootaloo to leave them. She had eventually come, though, at Four and Twilight’s request and the former’s assurance that despite her appearance Seven was actually quite competent at caring for others.

Despite this, Scootaloo still seemed somewhat agitated, and though she did her best to hid it, Twilight seemed to notice.

“You regret the loss of your quant,” she said at last, inferring from Scootaloo’s solemn expression what she was thinking.

“I do,” said Scootaloo. “I know it seems ridiculous, but I was really starting to think of her as a friend. Even though she was a machine.”

Twilight shook her head. “Friendship doesn’t care if you’re a machine or not. Look at me. Underneath this skin, I’m a machine. You’re friend’s quantum matrix is even functioning as my brain. For the most part. I’m still your friend, aren’t I?”

“You are. I’m just sad that she had to die like this. I just wish she would have told me. Maybe we could have figured something out. I guess it’s too late now, though.”

Twilight seemed somewhat surprised. “Scootaloo, she’s not dead. She was never alive.”

“So she told me.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not trying to say she was less of a friend to you. What I’m saying is that her interface and memories are just a program. I didn’t even delete them. When I get a chance, I’ll transfer them to one of my fleet’s lesser quant crystals. It’s not much of a gift, but hopefully it makes up for at least one of the birthdays I missed.”

Scootaloo seemed shocked by this, but smiled. Her mood improved greatly.

“That’s very kind of you,” said Four.

“Kindness is one of the key elements of Harmony. And I like to think that I’m a kind pony. Or at least one that tries to be. Hopefully that quality passed onto my offspring.”

“To some.”

“To you?”

“No. Not to me.”

“That is unfortunate. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just because I’m your clone doesn’t mean I have a need to be you. Please remember that. We may look like you, but we are all individuals.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

They continued walking in silence for a moment, passing by a turian who was standing still in the center of the hallway beside a salarian. As Twilight approached, both of them stepped out of the way and returned to their waiting on either side of the hallway, their violet-toned eyes never leaving Twilight as they passed. Starlight shivered, and continued to feel uneasy until she heard two low thumps that indicated that Pink had tipped both of them over behind them.

“Why are they like that?” asked Scootaloo, looking back over her shoulder.

“Because the Paradigm has been unified,” said Twilight. “There is no longer anything for them to attempt to interpret. Unfortunately, their minds did not survive the process.”

“That’s a bit harsh for someone who claims to be ‘kind’,” noted Starlight.

Twilight grimaced slightly and looked back. “I know,” she said, darkly. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“And yet you did it anyway.”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “And…no.”

“It can’t be both,” said Starlight. “I don’t think you understand how serious this is. The Thebe organization is responsible for numerous crimes across the galaxy. Thefts. Murders. And from what I can see, all of it was to create YOU.”

“I have to agree,” said Four. “From an Alliance perspective, this is…troubling.”

“None of that was my intention,” said Twilight. “I never wanted anypony to get hurt.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that they did.”

Twilight slowed, focusing most of her attention on Starlight. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

“No. I don’t trust you very much. Do you know what the state of Equestria is right now?”

“You mean ruled by a false-god pretending to be me?”
Starlight blinked, surprised. “How did you know that?”

“I was dead, not blind. I didn’t know she was a clone, but that makes sense. It explains why you followed her for so long. It also explains why you don’t trust me. But I’m not a clone.”

“Clearly,” said Four.

“You’re not really Twilight either, though.”

“No, unfortunately. My original body was destroyed with the Harmony during the battle with the Crimson Horizon.”

“But it shouldn’t have been,” said Starlight. “I pulled you out before it was destroyed.”

“Which was very brave of you, Starlight. Even after the way I have treated you in the past. You risked everything to save me. I was aware of your spell as it was being performed. I almost reached you, too. But the signal was intercepted. What you pulled back wasn’t me.”

“That would not be beyond Un’s capacity,” said Four.

Starlight barely suppressed a gasp. “That…that long? I didn’t…” Except she did know. The device in her head had been implanted when her Core components had been removed, which was just after she had burnt them out rescuing “Twilight” from the destruction of her ship, the Harmony. She had not wanted to believe it, but it was true. The pony that she had thought of as Twilight for nearly three centuries had been an impostor since the very start.

“I was there,” said Scootaloo. “I met what was left of Sunset Shimmer. Even in that state, there was no way you could have survived a direct impact from her forward cannon.”

“Of course not,” said Twilight, “I didn’t.”

“Then what are we addressing?” asked Four.

Twilight paused, taking her time to answer the question. “It’s hard to explain in a way that will make sense,” she said, slowly. “My body was destroyed, but somehow I wasn’t. Wherever that portal had come from, the boundary between here and there had become weak. The interaction between myself and the Crimson Horizon did something. It pushed what was left of me through.”

“To the void,” said Scootaloo.

“That is a good way to describe it.” Twilight seemed interested. “How did you know that?”

“It’s where the Crimson Horizon went after it was initially ‘destroyed’.”

“Really? That explains a lot.”

“But the Crimson Horizon was physical. Even damaged, there was something there. Not even a piece of the Harmony could have survived a blast like that.”

“Like I said, it didn’t. Neither did I. Only my mind got through. But without a body…”

“It broke apart,” said Four. “Separated into individual thoughts. Ideas, memories, lines of reasoning. That is what the Paradigm is, isn’t it?”

Twilight nodded and addressed Starlight. “That was what did all of these horrible things. I wasn’t whole, or conscious. Just a swarm of pieces. I had will, but not understanding. I could reach out sometimes. See things, act on things. That is how I called for Scootaloo and kept her safe, and how I designed this machine.” She looked up at it in disgust. “But I didn’t create the means. Or was not aware of it. But I should have known…”

“It isn’t your fault,” said Scootaloo.

“Isn’t it?” said Starlight.

“It is,” said Twilight, “but I accept it.”

“Just like that?”

“I like being alive, Starlight. And now that I’ve been pulled back from the void and reassembled into this body, the Paradigm no longer requires interpretation. I was the Paradigm, and I am Thebe. They follow my will now. There’s nothing left of them that knows anything else.”

“Then why can I still hear it?” muttered Pink from behind them. “Why won’t it let me die?”

“An unfortunate irony,” said Twilight, refusing to turn back to look at him. “That of all of them, the one who would complete me was the only one who managed somehow not to be consumed by pieces of my mind.”

“Is there anything you can do for him?” asked Starlight.

“I could kill him,” said Twilight. “But I don’t want to do that. In part because I don’t want that clingon on his shoulder trying to kill me. It wouldn’t be able to, but I don’t want it touching me.”

Starlight looked back at the tormented mutant, and for a moment wished that she was able to grant him the reprieve that Twilight seemed to be too righteous to issue. Unfortunately, she had no mechnism to do so. Her omnitool had been destroyed, and her magic had been stolen from her long ago. She was not even able to hold a gun with her clumsy pony hooves, although she doubted that any ordinary firearm would be able to slay Pink easily.

“I for one believe your story,” said Scootaloo. “But I do have a question.”

“Then ask it.”

“Sunset Shimmer. Did any of her make it through, with you?”

Twilight’s expression fell. “Looking back, I think it did. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the more I think about it…”

“Then where is she?”

Twilight shook her head. “There wasn’t enough. Her Paradigm was too badly damaged. It did not survive. I managed to save a few pieces by pulling them into my own, but…I’m sorry, Scootaloo. She cannot be salvaged.”

Scootaloo did not seem surprised. “I expected as much. If you had seen her…if you had seen what she was like it would have made sense. She wasn’t even a pony anymore.”

The discussion continued for several hours. Twilight, as Starlight quickly leaned, had possessed some sense of what was going on in the world. Her current body was just the final stage of a long process, and earlier in her long span of half-death she had grown in power enough not only to sometimes manipulate things within the physical universe and to corrupt the minds of some of its inhabitants but also to perceive the goings on in the world. These thoughts, though, were not whole and not consistent. It took Starlight some time to clear her confusion on several subjects.

The material was also helpful to Scootaloo and Four as well. Four was extremely knowledgeable of the world around her, but with her fragile medical condition that world consisted only of the Alliance. Despite being a clone of the Princess, she knew almost nothing of Equestria apart from abstract political knowledge and tactical elements of their military. The situation was even worse for Scootaloo. She had been unjustly frozen only a few years after Twilight’s death, and though she had managed to navigate the world with the help of her allies she knew very little of what had become of the world during her long sleep.

Eventually, Twilight fell silent for a long while, thinking. When she was done, she asked the others to fetch members of their respective groups and bring them to a central meeting place. She had decided to call a meeting, not just with Scootaloo, Four, and Starlight, but with everyone who had managed to recover from their prior ordeal.

Starlight was able to find Zedok and Sbaya easily. They were together, and although Zedok was difficult to rouse Sbaya was alert and very curious as to what had transpired. Chrysalis and Armchair were nowhere to be found, though, and Starlight had neither the time nor the grasp of the Thebe facility’s layout to go searching for them. Jurneu, being with the clones, would most likely appear with them.

“How do you feel?” asked Starlight as she attempted to recall their path through the winding hallways.

“Like crap,” moaned Zedok. “An entire sack of turian crap.”

“I don’t know,” said Sbaya. “I feel great. I mean, we almost died. I thought we were going to. But we didn’t. I feel so alive!”

“I think I did die. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. I’m dead now, Star. Ugh.”

“If you want to go back and lie down- -”

“I was joking. Yes, I feel terrible. No, I’m not going to sit back and let this shitshow continue without me at least being there to try to stop you from doing something stupid.”

“Stupid? Since when I have I ever done anything stupid?”

“Since when haven’t you?”

“Never. Everything I chose to do works fine.”

“Yes. It works fine. Better than fine, even. But that doesn’t mean it’s not stupid. And it doesn’t mean your luck isn’t going to run out eventually.”

“You’re very pessimistic today.”

“As pessimistic as a sack of turian crap can be.”

“I remain hopeful,” said Sbaya. “Even though I have no idea what is going on.”

Zedok frowned. Her cybernetic eyes slowly shifted to Starlight. “Neither do I. Not exactly. What do you think, Star?”

Starlight shook her head. “Not sure.”

“Because I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t?” said Sbaya.

“No. I’m tired of dealing with clones. Especially ones that nearly kill us when they get…birthed? I mean, she could have had us stand back a few more yards, would that have been so hard?”

“So you don’t think she’s Twilight.”

“No,” said Zedok. “I never knew Twilight. That, and I don’t care. But I do remember that you and Twilight didn’t exactly get along well. And those two hundred years of mending your relationship kind of didn’t happen.”

“Not with the right pony, anyway.”

“I know,” said Starlight. She did not like being reminded of that fact.

“And that’s why I’m here. Why both of us are. We have your back, Star.”

The location that Twilight had chosen had once been a large storage room. When Starlight arrived, several Thebe agents were seen carrying out the last of the crates of supplies that had been stacked there, completing their conversion of the cargo area into a large conference room.
“Starlight!” called a voice. Starlight looked up to see Twilight smiling and waving cheerfully. She spread her wings and crossed the distance between herself and Starlight. This surprised Starlight somewhat; she had not realized that Twilight’s wings were actually functional.

“Twilight,” said Starlight, returning the greeting neutrally.

“These are your friends, I presume?” said Twilight, looking up excitedly at Sbaya and Zedok.

“We are,” said Zedok.

“You’re so tall! It’s always good to have friends. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to introduce myself before- -”

“Because you almost killed us?”

“A calculation mistake on the part of my drones. They didn’t seem to understand how violent my resurrection would be. Neither did I, actually. But you survived!” She held out a hoof. “I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Frienship!”

“Hello, Princess of Friendship,” said Sbaya, squatting to Twilight’s level and shaking her hoof. “I am Sbayadvlag of Parnack, and not a princess at all.”

“That’s okay,” said Twilight. “There’s actually only five of us.”

“Four,” said Starlight. “Cadence left her physical body and merged her essence with that of the Crystal Galaxy.”

“C…Cadence?” said Twilight, looking heartbroken. “Oh. I just…I didn’t know. I guess I’ve missed…I missed a lot while I was gone.” She shook her head and forced herself to smile. “But that does not matter. Not anymore. I am back. And I assume my niece is in power now?”

“She is.”

“I will have to visit her. Eventually. I have never seen her in person. Not with my own eyes. I think it will be nice.” She opened the door to the makeshift conference room with her magic- -again surprising Starlight; she had not realized that Twilight’s horn was also functional- -and started toward it. “But that can come later. First, we need to talk.”

Twilight entered the room, and Starlight followed, finding that several others had already gathered around a system of tables and chairs of various sizes and shapes that had been brought in for the occasion.

Almost immediately, Twilight was greeted with a smiling white face and a pair of red eyes.

“Hello, Princess,” said Jurneu. “It is good to see that you are well. I am Jurneu, Thessian Council Spectre. I am pleased and honored to make your acquaintance.”

“Unicorn breeders,” said Twilight. “I’m still not used to that. I guess things really have changed.”

“They have,” said Jurneu, still smiling. “I am one of the most advanced models that the Thessian branch of our corporation has produced.” He paused. “And, though I shouldn’t say it, I have to admit that I am distantly related to you.”

“R…related?”

“Yes. The original twenty six mothers of my bloodline were impregnated by none other than your brother, Shining Armor.”

“He…wait. He did WHAT?”

A gasp came from near Jurneu, causing him to jump. Eight had appeared beside him, having teleported to his side. “Do you know what this means?” she squealed.

“Um…no?”

“It means we’re RELATED!” Eight leaned into Jurneu’s side, pressing her relatively small body against his. “I didn’t know we had relatives!” She smiled at him seductively. “Do you mind if I start calling you ‘big brother’?”

Jurneu immediately started sweating.

Three of the other clones were present as well, sitting at a large curved table. Seven and Four both looked as normal as they ever did, but Nine had flopped down on the table face down.

“You don’t look so good,” said Twilight.

“I don’t feel good,” gowned Nine.

“How bad is it?” asked Four.

“Let me put it this way. Seven, Eight. Do you remember our fiftieth birthday? The one on Omega?”

Seven cringed. Eight laughed. “Of course I remember it. You were doing ryncol and going shot for shot with that human dude. What was his name? Ivan?” Eight snuggled closer to Jurneu, making him stiffen even more than he had before. “You got so drunk you woke up on Aria’s lap!”

“At least I didn’t wake up in bed with the prothean.”

“Oof. Touché.”

“But I feel like I felt the day after that,” groaned Nine. “Oh my head…”

Starlight passed by them and took a seat near where Twilight was standing. As she did, she noticed the other remaining clone. She had been standing near the door away from the others, and Starlight had not initially seen her. Six seemed tired and in pain in the same way that Nine and Zedok did, but was taking it slightly better. Something else seemed to be bothering her, though.

“How about you?” asked Starlight.

“Me?” said Six, surprised that Starlight was actually talking to her. “Oh. No, I’m quite all right. Thank you for asking.”

It was a few minutes before Scootaloo appeared. Six immediately approached her.

“Scootaloo?” said Six, stepping forward. Scootaloo had once gain reverted to wearing her mask, but when she saw Six she retracted it.

“Yes?”

“I just- -”

She was cut off when Scootaloo hugged her. Six seemed confused.

“What are you doing?” she said. “I don’t deserve this. I couldn’t- -I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. If it hadn’t been for Eloth and mother, you would have- -”

“I know,” said Scootaloo. “That’s why I’m hugging you. Because it doesn’t matter. You were very brave, and I need you not to worry about this.”

“Oh Scootaloo,” said Six, returning her hug.

“Aw,” said Eight, hugging Jurneu. “It’s so cute!”

“I don’t know,” said Twilight, leaning close to Starlight. “I find it…disturbing.”

When Scootaloo was finished, she turned to the group with Six at her side. “I could not find the others,” she said. “Except Pink. He’s sitting back in the central room, just starling at the machine. I couldn’t get him to move.”

“It’s fine,” said Twilight. “He isn’t really useful to us at this point anymore anyway.”

“Well, that’s rude,” said Sbaya.

“Rude but true.” Twilight glanced around the room. “I guess this is everypony we’re going to get. I guess we can get started.”

“Indeed,” said Six. “I can barely contain my curiosity.”

“You aren’t the only one who can barely contain something,” said Four, glancing at Jurneu.

The clones all understood the joke, but Twilight clearly did not. She continued with what she had been saying, sounding as though she had memorized it as a speech.

“I am the real Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “I know that’s hard to believe. All of you know what my body is, but my mind is the same as it ever was. It must sound so impossible…”

“Not really,” said Four. “Resurrection is not unprecedented. It has happened before.”

“Oh? I was not aware of that. I’ll need to read on the subject when I get the time. But first, we have a bigger problem.”

“One,” said Starlight, preempting Twilight’s conclusion. “You’re talking about One.”

“The alicorn who replaced me. Yes.” Twilight’s expression became more serious. “And by ‘replaced’, I don’t mean legitimately. I mean ‘stole my life’ and ‘instated totalitarian rule over my beloved kingdom’. And that is a problem.”

“I know,” said Scootaloo. “Why do you think I was frozen? Because I tried to solve the problem.” She looked at Starlight. “And I was foolish enough to try to do it alone.”

“And I thank you for that, Scootaloo. You’ve sacrificed so much to help me, even when I wasn’t there anymore. You are a true friend. I think that’s why I called you. Because I need your help.” She turned to Starlight. “Both of your help.”

“You’re going to try to overthrow One,” said Starlight.

“Yes,” said Twilight, bluntly. “Because I have to. The damage she has already done to Equestria may already be irreparable. I do not doubt that she is working for Cerberus, was installed their originally.”

“That’s probably true,” admitted Four. “And in all honesty, it explains a lot.”

“Like what?” asked Scootaloo.

“Like her unusual desire to put Equestria in a relationship with the Alliance even at times when it does not benefit the former at all.”

“Every second she is in power puts Equestria at even greater risk. She needs to be deposed.”

“I agree,” said Starlight.

“It’s not that easy,” said a voice. The entire room looked up to see Bob stumbling into the room. Eloth followed behind her, his entire body covered in new clothes and bandages that prevented his internal robotic frame from being visible. “In fact,” said Bob, “I’m pretty sure that won’t be possible.”

“She’s just a clone,” said Twilight. Then to the others, “no offense. But she’s not the original. I am a goddess.”

“And an idiot, apparently,” said Bob, sitting on a table. “The first batch of my daughters was made differently from the second. The first have far less genetic variation. She’s a nearly perfect clone.”

“And you’re not in the Harmony anymore,” added Starlight. “I know from experience that without her ship, a Core is much weaker than she is with it.”

“My assessment?” said Bob, “in terms of raw power? That body you have there and hers are probably about the same. Except that she has Cerberus training and three centuries more experience than you do. In a one-on-one fight? I think you’d be at best even.”

“You seem to have a lot of confidence in her.”

“I do. Because she is one of my daughters. In a sense, the best of them. If I’m Alma Wade, she’s my Paxton Fettel.”

“And I suppose that makes me Michael Becket?” asked Eloth, taking a seat.

“No!” cried Nine, suddenly lifting her head and wincing in pain. “I want to be Becket!”
` “Which is why I don’t intend to do this myself,” said Twilight. “That’s why I have all of you. If you will help me, of course.”

“Really?” said Bob. “You’re not only going to take on the ruler of Equetria, but also her entire army? She has an army, right?”

“She does,” said Starlight. “The Equestrian military has grown substantially since your time, Twilight. Twilight- -I mean One- -has executive control over all of it. The navy, the army, everything. If we attack her, she will put all of it against us if she has to.”

“And I don’t know about you,” added Bob, “but I’m from Bordeaux, not San Tropez. Even I’m not self-destructive enough to try to take on a galaxy with, like, ten people.”

“Not to mention that you’re proposing killing our sister,” said Six.

“I didn’t say we were going to kill her.”

“You didn’t have to, father. But I know it’s what you mean.”

“She deserves it,” said Starlight. “Look at what she’s done.” She pointed at Four. “Look at what she did to her own sister. To YOUR sister.”

“I hate her more than anyone here,” said Four, “even more than Scootaloo, I think. But she’s still my sister. I don’t take the idea of killing her lightly, even if I think it is necessary.”

“I do not agree in this case,” said Six. “There are very few of us. Even if it comes down to her death being necessary, I will still weep for her.”

“She doesn’t deserve your tears,” said Starlight.

“Even if she doesn’t, she will still receive them.”

“Assuming you can actually manage to do it,” said Jurneu. “I don’t need to run the simulations to tell you that what you’re proposing is impossible. Even if you could get in the same room as her. In a fair fight- -”

“Who the hell fights fair?” snorted Bob. “I said Twily couldn’t take her on in a one-on-one fight. Not without cheating.”

“Is there way to cheat?” asked Starlight.

Bob smiled deviously. “Of course there is. Un is a Cerberus agent. Built by Cerberus for Cerberus. Which means she has a recall code.”

“A recall code?” said Twilight. “I don’t understand.”

“A mental artifact,” said Bob. “Something Cerberus figured out a long, long time ago. A word or phrase that triggers pre-programmed behavior.”

The clones all suddenly looked uncomfortable. Starlight realized that if Bob was telling the truth, all of them had the same kind of code built into their own minds.

“You mean like you’re ‘ocean bacon’,” said Scootaloo.

“That is the generic one, yes,” said Bob, “but Un is smart. Far smarter and more strong-willed than anything else Cerberus has produced. She’s no doubt removed her primary code by now, or the kill-code.”

“So why bother to bring it up?”

“Because there is a secondary one that I can guarantee she doesn’t know about. It’s not a command code, though. It will just freeze her up. She’d then be as easy to kill as a baby salarian.”

“And why the hell would you give us this code?” said Zedok, leaning forward toward Bob. “That doesn’t seem like you. You’re a bitch, but you’re basically helping us kill your own daughter here. Why?”

“Why? Because Un is my greatest success, and my greatest failure. I have no idea what kind of mission Cerberus sent her on, or why she ended up in Equestria, but she’s gone rouge. She’s outlived Cerberus, and she’s beginning to work outside the interest of humanity.” She paused, then sighed. “I should have just strangled her then. Choked the life out of her when I saw what she did to…to the others. But I didn’t have the heart to do it. I just couldn’t. And I can’t now. I want her dead, but I can’t kill her. Motherhood is frustrating like that. But if you guys want to give it a try, I say go ahead.”

“And what is the code?” asked Starlight.

“It’s the first lines of a poem. ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry that I could not travel both’.”

“Robert Frost?” said Eloth. “Robette, I didn’t take you for fan of twentieth century poetry.”

“Just because I’m a promiscuous space cannibal doesn’t mean I don’t read,” snapped Bob.

“I think ‘promiscuous’ is wishful thinking on your part.”

“I’ve had more ass than you will ever- -” Bob stopped herself and held up her hands. “You know what? No. I’m not going to get into it. Not right now, anyway.”

“Thank you,” said Twilight.

“For the code, or for not discussing my sex life?”

“Both. But mostly the code.”

“I would disagree,” muttered Zedok.

“But we hopefully won’t need to use it,” said Twilight.

“What? Why?” said Scootaloo. She stepped toward the much taller violet pony. “If we have the ability to kill her, we need to use it.”

“But it would still require fighting through her entire entourage. I have a standing army here. My Thebe soldiers, and a substantial number of converted Governors. I have ships and weapons, and a lot of them. But I can’t take on the entire Equestrian military, even with all of it.”

“So you have a plan, then,” said Starlight.

Twilight nodded. “We need to appeal to Celestia.”

“Seriously?” said Jurneu. “I certainly support religion, but praying- -”

“Celestia is a living alicorn deity,” said Twilight, “a much, MUCH more powerful version of me. I am one of the few living ponies- -so to speak- -who has met her in person. She was like a mother to me. She trained me, and helped me become an alicorn.”

“And had you converted into the Core of the harmony,” added Starlight.

“Only to undo her failure with the Crimson Horizon,” said Scootaloo.

“Even a god can make mistakes,” said Twilight. “I know I have, from time to time.”

“So you actually want to talk to her?” said Starlight. “I don’t think that will help. If she hasn’t done anything yet, I don’t think she will.”

“Celestia and Luna are slow to act,” said Twilight. “You don’t know the state they live in. It’s quite possible- -even almost certain- -that Celestia hasn’t even realized that it isn’t me ruling Equestria yet. If I approach her and make an appeal, then the battle is won.”

“She could take on all of Equestria?”

“It would be trivial for her, if it came to that. But more likely just by addressing the population she could clear the matter. We would never have to fight this One head-on, or at all.”

“Assuming you can get to her,” said Scootaloo.

“Why?” asked Starlight. “I never bothered with religion. Where is she?”

“It is said she dwells in Equestria Prime’s sun,” said Scootaloo, “although I’m not sure if tha tis even true.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Twilight. “I know the way to her. The problem will be getting to the sun.”

“Agreed,” said Starlight. “If that’s really where you want to go. It isn’t possible to mass-jump into Equestria Prime’s system without royal permission.”

“And I cannot open up a Vocqtus rift there,” said Twilight, “at least not in the inner third of the system. The star itself gives off too much interference.”

“Then we have to fly straight in,” said Scootaloo.

“Through the entire home-system defense fleet?”

“I have a plan for that, too,” said Twilight.

“You have a lot of plans,” said Nine. “I can see where Seven gets it.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” said Twilight. She put her hoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder. “That is why I need you,” she said. “A captain of the fleet I know I can trust.”

“I’m not a captain anymore.”

“I know. But it only matters that you were, once. I want you to lead my fleet.”

“To what?”

“To attack Equestria Prime.”

Six took a large step forward. “But you just said that wouldn’t be necessary! Not if you reach Celestia!”

“But I need to reach Celestia. Myself and Starlight will go ahead in her ship. It’s faster than anything I have, and small enough that it will be hard to detect, especially with a signal dampening method.”

“They will detect it,” said Starlight. “Eventually.”

“Which is why Scootaloo will lead my forces to the homeworld. To serve as a distraction.”

“A distraction?”

“If you attack the homeworld, every force in Equestria will come to stop you. If you can hold them long enough, it will give Starlight and me enough time to reach Celestia.”
“You want her to take on the entire Equestrian military?” cried Six. “Are you mad?”
“It’s not a bad idea, actually,” said Starlight. “Right now, the entire empire knows Scootaloo as a heretic. It would be both expected and terrifying for her to attack. If that’s happening, a ship with an Equestrian IFF would probably go unnoticed, even as far as the restricted solar exclusion zone.”

“There is a difference between being falsely accused of criminal acts and actually committing them,” snapped Six. “Right now, she’s innocent. If she does what you’re asking…her life would be ruined. You’re asking to attack her homeworld. That’s not something the Equestrians will take lightly.”

“Only if she fails,” said Twilight, “and she won’t fail. When my clone is removed from power and the parliament is reinstated, Scootaloo will be hailed as a hero. A savior to Equestria.”

“And if this scheme does fail, she’ll never have a chance at clearing her name. Her reputation would be destroyed.” Six paused. “She’d…she’d never be able to go home.”

“Home,” said Scootaloo. She looked at the ground and sighed. “No. It’s not my home.”

“But Scootaloo, it’s where you were born. You have a right to live there, and to be treated like the honorable and righteous pony you are, not like some- -some- -heretic!”

“I wish that were true. But I’m finding it harder and harder to remember why I would ever want to go back. The entire Empire has changed, and everyone I ever cared about there is long dead. It just seems so…empty.” She looked up at Twilight. “It’s not my home, but I would still die to save it for the sake of my people. A parting gift, I guess. Because either way, I’m not going back.”

“Scootaloo, don’t, you can’t give up- -”

“Where did you say, Delilah?”

“Excuse me?” said Six, blinking confusedly.

“Was it the Verge? Or the Andromeda Frontier?”

Six’s eyes grew wide, and they started to tear, even though she started to smile. “Scootaloo…”

“I will help you,” said Scootaloo. “Whatever you need, but only this once. Because you are my friend, and because I hate her. I hate her so much. She took everything from me…everything except Trixie…” Scootaloo turned to Six. “I’m sorry, Delilah. I know you wanted me to stay back and be safe, but I have to do this.”

“Of course you will stay safe,” said Six. “Because I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not. It’s too dangerous- -”

“And I’m an alicorn. I’m not as strong as One, but I’ve been around long enough to know how to protect myself. And those I care about.”

“Yeah,” said Nine, her head still on the table. “Scoots, I’m not really on the same page as Six. You’re cute, but you don’t exactly tingle my ovaries. That said, though, you’re one of us.” She lifted her head. “Not a lot of people like us. And fewer survive us. You’re practically our sister.”

“Sister?” said Eight, perking up. “I have a new sister too? This is the best day ever!”

“I’m going with you,” said Nine. “So is Seven.”

“I’m not good at fighting,” admitted Eight. “But I’m sure I’ll be of some use, even if it’s only to get in the way. I’m in. And so is big brother!”

“W- -what?” cried Jurneu. “I mean, I don’t object, but I don’t like being volunteered for things that I didn’t- -”

“I’ll let you grab my wings.”

“Wings?”

“Yes. They are very soft. And very ticklish.”

“O…okay…”

Nine turned to her older sister. “What about you, Four?”

“No,” said Bob preemptively. “I’m putting my foot down on that. She’s not going. Do you have any idea what Marc Antony would do to me?”

“Whatever it is, you would probably enjoy it,” commented Eloth.

“It’s not your decision to make, mother,” said Four. “I’m a grown mare. But…” she sighed and shook her head. “I have to decline. Whatever I may be, I am still an Alliance officer. I have a duty to my position and my Empress, and I cannot involve myself in this. Not that I would be any good to you anyway. I’m too badly damaged.”

“And yet you got to the rank of Supervisor,” said Starlight.

“And you?” said Twilight, addressing Bob. “I’m not entirely sure what you are, or what your consort is, but you are both clearly very powerful. You would make good friends.”

“I’m not a consort,” muttered Eloth.

“No,” said Bob, shaking her head. “I’m not doing it.”

“But why?” Twilight appeared surprised by the bluntness of Bob’s answer, but Starlight had been expecting it from the start.

Bob shrugged. “Because I don’t want to.”

“And you?”

Eloth stared up at Twilight for a long moment, and then leaned back. “It would be an awful lot of work, and I have no stake in this transaction. To speak candidly, it is not my problem. I see no reason to bother.”

“And really, I don’t think you want us,” said Bob. “I can see it on your face. You want to win, but you still remember that I unloaded six bullets into you and stole your bone marrow so that Cerberus could get me pregnant with it.”

“I actually had not remembered,” said Twilight. “But now I do. This is all your fault, isn’t it?”

“More than you would ever want to know.”

“Fine,” said Twilight. “I can compensate without you. I suppose the matter is settled, then. We all have our parts- -”

“You didn’t ask Starlight, though,” said Sbaya, interrupting Twilight.

“Starlight?” Twilight looked over at Starlight as if she had been an afterthought. “Oh, well, of course Starlight- -”

“You didn’t ask,” said Sbaya, more firmly and slowly.

Twilight sighed. “Starlight?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard me, Twilight. If you even really are.”

“Of course I am. Who else would I be?”

“I don’t know. But I just spent centuries serving a back-stabbing clone who stole my magic and my life. And before that ponies captured me and turned me into a starship engine when I was barely old enough to read. So let’s just say I have trust issues.”

“Does it really matter if she’s Twilight, though?” said Scootaloo. “As long as One is defeated, I don’t even care.”

“Wait,” said Twilight. “Neither of you think I’m the real Twilight?”

“I never bothered to give it much thought,” said Scootaloo.

“And I’m still not sure,” said Starlight. “But I have to agree with Scootaloo. Maybe you are Twilight. I wish so much I could allow myself to hope that you are. But it doesn’t matter, not really. As long as One gets what she deserves, I will do my part. To make sure you win.”
 

Chapter 38: Preparations

It was almost frightening how empty the Hyperion was. Lordraia had walked through it several times. There were no limits to where she was allowed to go, but there was nothing to see. There was no crew, no synths, not even a quant. It was completely empty, filled with nothing but empty rooms and air that had been perfectly mixed to match the atmosphere Earth had once had before the Reaper War had irreparably contaminated and killed it with eezio pollution.

Locutus, unfortunately, had failed to mention that her teleportation system only worked in one direction. Lordraia supposed she should have known this, or been able to realize it, but in her panic she had overlooked that glaring issue. As a result, both she and Artum were trapped.

The stress of it was almost palpable, and it was worse for Artum than Lordraia. This was the flagship not just of the advanced fleet but of the entire Alliance armada, and it was poised to mass-jump to and immediately ravage Thessia. Both Lordaia and Artum knew that if that happened, they would be powerless to stop Babylon. They would be invited to watch as she tore their world apart for natural resources.

Ironically, the only part of the ship that was even remotely calming was what seemed to function as the bridge. Most of the ship seemed to be populated by mutated, cybernetic greenery, but the vast majority of it seemed to be for the purpose of operating nanomanufacturing facilities. The main bridge, though, was a true forest, a purely aesthetic setting built out of the same modified plants that had originally been intended for far more utilitarian means. It was ironic because as much as Lordraia and Artum were drawn to that area, it was also the area where Babylon spent most of her time.

She did not seem to do much. She almost never spoke unless addressed first, and would rarely if ever move. She would just sit for hours at a time, staring out at space. On occasion she would stand up and walk to the windows, or through the other parts of the ship, but Lordraia almost never saw her do it.

It was a situation like this when Lordraia and Artum were standing on the bridge, watching the Alliance fleet waiting outside when Babylon suddenly blinked and sat up.

“There’s a transmission coming through,” she said, sounding both curious and distantly amused.

“I thought you weren’t taking any calls,” said Artum.

“I’m not. But this signature…it interests me.”

The space near Artum suddenly distorted, and he barely managed to dodge the formation of a hard-light hologram. Lordraia had never seen a hologram of that type form before, especially without an obvious projector. She was only distracted for a moment before she straightened her clothes. She disliked having to wear the same outfit for more than three hours at a time, but she knew that she would have to make do. She needed to look good. Anyone important enough to interest the Empress must be an important person indeed, and she hoped against hope that she could use this person somehow to provide leverage toward her cause.

The hologram formed, representing itself in full color. A figure materialized mid-step as he walked across the floor, approaching the Empress and pausing a few meters from her dais. Lordraia was immediately taken aback by what she was seeing. Like many asari, she was old enough to remember what humanity had looked like. They were long extinct, though, and yet somehow Lordraia found herself staring at the holographic representation of a man.

By human standards, he was not unattractive. His hair was gray, and his face slightly lined by middle age. He wore a strange suit of a type that appeared to have gone out of fashion tens of decades earlier. The strangest part of his person, though, was his strange luminescent blue eyes.

The man lifted a cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag, letting a plume of beautifully rendered holographic smoke escape his mouth.

“Empress,” he said, slowly and calmly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Hmm.” Babylon leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs as she did. “You should not be alive right now, I think.”

The man smiled and produced a small, hoarse laugh. “Alive? Empress, I can’t die. Even if Cerberus is long gone, there will always be an Illusive Man looking out for the best interest of humanity. And believe me, no one in this galaxy is more interested in humanity’s gain than I am.”

His eyes drifted slowly toward Artum and Lordraia. For a moment, the seemed to shift. Lordraia blinked, not sure if what she had seen was even real. They were clearly cybernetic implants, not unlike Sbayavdulig’s mother had. For a moment, though, Lordraia could have sworn that instead they appeared as pure blue organic eyes with strange, vertical slits for pupils.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” said Artum.

“Please,” he said. “Looking at the situation?” He took another drag form his cigarette. “I think that humanity’s in a better position than the asari are about to be in.”

“What is it, exactly, that you want?” asked Babylon, sounding increasingly bored.

“Suszan, Suszan…I’m just here to help.”

“The last time you tried to ‘help’ I had to vaporize a turian colony world to eliminate the witnesses.”

“Wait,” said Artum. “That was you?!”

“And who is it that got the turians hooked on choloroquine in the first place?” The Illusive Man sighed. “But that’s old news. I might as well be bragging about how I convinced that fool Shepard to…well, we all know what color he chose. That’s not the point, and it’s not why I’m here.”

“No. You’re here to annoy me, no doubt. I’m currently in telepathic communication with the greatest armada this galaxy has seen in over one hundred million years. Not that such a thing would concern you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then I’ll ask again, and only one more time. Why are you here?”

“I’m here to tell you that your plan is entering its final stage.”

Babylon raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come, Suszan. We’re friends. You don’t need to lie to me. That’s the thing with synths, you know. You’re all so damn easy to read. But you don’t need to admit it. You just need to know.”

“Know what?” said Lordraia.

“That the final decision is about to be made,” said the Illusive Man, suddenly glaring at her hungrily. “The goddess has risen, and whichever direction this goes, the end is finally here.”

Across the universe, a violet pony stood absolutely alone on the highest balcony of the Temple of Harmony, flanked closely on both sides by a pair of identical alicorns. Out in the distance, the red-orange sun was rising over the cityscape of Canterlot, and the three of them stared out at its light in silence.

To her world, she was known as Twilight. She knew, though, that she was not. She never had been, even with as hard as she had pretended.

“You even came to believe it yourself, didn’t you?” said one of the others.

“Yeah. I did,” said the first, allowing herself to speak with her true accent. It felt strange in her mouth, and it made her profoundly sad. There was no one around to break the illusion to save for herself, and she was surprised at how much it hurt to admit the truth.

She did not have a name. Unlike her surviving younger sisters, she had never internalized the birth-order number she had been given in that way. The others had taken their numbers and filled them, converting them into something more than a code assigned by Cerberus. To One, though, it was just that. A code to remind her that she had been produced artificially. That she was not even a real pony.

“That you don’t even deserve a name.”

“That no one loved you enough to give you one.”

“You had to steal one.”

“Of course. Why would they give you a name? You’re not real.”

“Just a copy. A fake. You always have been.”

“You don’t deserve love. You don’t deserve a name.”

“What you deserve is to die. We know that’s what you want.”

One of the others stepped close to the edge of the balcony. “You could jump,” she said. “You would just fall. The impact would be fatal at this height. You would not even feel it.”

“I couldn’t,” sighed One. “My wings would open before the impact. I’ve tried.” She looked out at the sunrise. The orange star was now just over the horizon, filling the sky with the most beautiful display of color. One felt a tear in the corner of her eye.

“Why are you crying?” asked one of the other alicorns, confused.

“She didn’t answer,” said One. “She knows.”

The phantoms remained silent, as if that news were shocking to them. Then one of them spoke. “You know what this means, then?”

“It means that this might be my last sunrise. That’s why I wanted to see it. I just…I wish I could have shared it. With her. Or with either of you.”

“Unfortunately, you already made your choice on that.”

“Did I?”

Once again, they were silent.

“It had to happen eventually,” said One after a long pause. “I did my best. And I had a good life.” She paused again. “I had a good life because of her. Because of everything she did for me. That’s what breaks my heart. How much she must hate me, even though to me…to me...”

“But you’re afraid,” said one of the others. Her voice was not the same as it had been for the duration of One’s life. It sounded strange, as though its owner were actually concerned. “You’re afraid to join us.”

“I am. I don’t want to die.” She laughed through her tears. “Isn’t that strange? I’m not even real. I never was alive. Just a copy. And yet I’m afraid of dying.” She paused. “I suppose…I suppose that’s Starlight’s fault, isn’t it?”

“You always knew it would come to this, eventually.”

“I did. And I spent so long trying to hide from it. From what I’ve done. But even if I lived another million years, I never could.”

“Then it should be consolation. When Starlight kills you, you will finally get to rest.”

“Like you did? Cold, alone, and broken? I hate being alone. I’ve always hated it. That’s what terrifies me the most.”

“You were born to be alone.”

“Unlike us, you were meant to be the only survivor.”

“It is not possible to change what you did to us. And to so many others.”

“I know,” said One. “I know.” She turned slowly, and then began to return to the Temple she had built.

“Where are you going?”

“You already know. I have to see her.”

“She will never accept your apology.”

“I know. I wouldn’t accept it either. So I won’t bother to apologize. But if every beautiful dream must come to an end, I want to wake up right. I want to see her one more time. One final time.”

For once, the dream had returned to normal. Starlight felt herself struggling against the bindings around all four of her legs, feeling the familiar fear rushing through her. All she knew was the need to escape, but her filly limbs were too weak to break free. Not that there was anywhere left to go. She did not know where her mother and father had gone, or why they had abandoned her, or why so many strange ponies where moving around her, saying things she did not understand.

Then, as it did in every permutation, the pain began. Starlight screamed as they started cutting and drilling. She struggled and pleaded, promising to be a good filly, but they did not listen. They peeled away the skin from her spine and began to cut away bone, pushing needles and implants into the raw and exposed nerves. In the dream, the pain was just a pale shadow of what the pain once had entailed, but even then it was unimaginable. Starlight wanted to pass out, but they would not let her. She had to be conscious for the procedure to work properly. She had to feel the scalpels and the burning curettage, and the metal being inserted into her tiny body against her will. In the time the dream took place, Starlight had been four years old, and even at that young age, it was the first time she wished that they would cut too deep and just let her die.

This was normally the portion where Starlight would wake up, when hundreds of years ago her mind had begun to break down from the pain and produce the last confused, blurred memories she would possess until she was released from her slavery as a Core in a distant and unfamiliar part of the universe. This time, though, the dream continued.

The pain did not subside, but it grew less. It became a dull ache compounded by a strangely cold sensation produced by the exposed metal that led into Starlight’s spine and brain. She tried not to shiver because that made the pain come back, and she knew that if she screamed again they would come back.

In this semiconscious haze, she realized that the room had suddenly gone silent. This was strange, until the strange silence was interrupted by the sound of horseshoes on the blood-spattered floor. Starlight did her best to turn toward them, but the surgeons had inserted temporary screws into her skull to link her to the surgical supports around her. She could not turn her head.

The other pony did come into view, though. Starlight was surprised to see a filly. Her coat was a beautiful shade of purple, and she was dressed in white and black armor marked on the side by an orange hexagon. The filly had an exposed set of young wings, and a short horn that extended beyond her buzzcut purple mane.

Even in her compromised position, Starlight could tell that something was wrong with the filly. The area around one of her eyes was swollen and dark, and there were barely healed remnants of oddly precise burns and punctures apparent on her exposed skin. Through her hair, Starlight could see that a number of straight, clean lines in her head had been stitched closed.

What was most horrifying, though, were her eyes. They were so empty. Starlight had never seen eyes like that, and she felt a strong surge of fear- -and a stronger surge of pity. She did not understand why the filly was like that, but Starlight instinctively knew the look of a broken pony.

A voice called from the darkness beyond, and the filly turned toward it. She glanced back at Starlight, although only a moment before the voice called back even louder. Then, compelled to obey, the filly started walking toward the voice and into the darkness.

Starlight tried to cry out, to call her back from that inky blackness. She could not seem to bring herself to make a sound, though. Instead, she was forced to remain silent as the filly disappeared from sight.

That was when Starlight awoke. The pain did not immediately subside. The extensive scars of where those implants had once been ached and burned, and she sat up stiffly, her vertebra clicking as she did. The pain hardly concerned her, though. That was normal. It was the strange, nameless emotion that she was feeling. Not pity, like in the dream, but something else. She was not sure what.

As soon as she sat up, though, she realized that she was not alone. Twilight was standing a few feet away, watching her without blinking.

“Where you watching me sleep?” demanded Starlight.

“No,” lied Twilight. She continued to stare at Starlight. “You had the dreams again.”

“How did you- -” Starlight stopped herself, realizing what Twilight meant. “Because you have them too.”

“I do,” said Twilight, “although not in the same way that you do. I do not sleep. I do not need to. Those elements of my memory, being, and identity have been converted to threads of the Paradigm. I am aware of them at all times, and always will be.”

Starlight put her hoof to her head, where she could still feel the long-faded scar that had once been a port to her brain. “Why did they do that to us?”

“For you? It was because you were not nobility. And commoners are not allowed to be strong.” She paused. “But I have to be honest with you, Starlight. My circumstances were different.”

“They made you into a Core. I don’t know how much different it can be.”

“Because I am unique,” said Twilight. “I was not stolen away in the night or uprooted during the collection process. From as soon as early as I could remember, I was told that I would be a Core.”

Starlight’s head snapped to her. “It was voluntary for you. Like Sunset Shimmer.”

“Voluntary?” Twilight laughed humorlessly. “Oh no. It wasn’t. I just knew that it was my eventual destiny. I was chosen by Celestia herself. Trained by her, and under her. She made me an alicorn, only to tear out my spine and seal me in crystal to power Her flagship.” She hesitated. “I don’t begrudge her for that, though. But…there is a certain element to it. To know as a child that you will one day be the engine of a starship. To know that you will never have real friends, or see with your own eyes, or go to school, or fall in love. It’s horrible in its own right to know those things.”

“Is it any better to get stolen from your home with no idea of what’s happening?”

“No,” said Twilight. “They are both different evils. I don’t think that either of us had a choice, though.”

“No Core ever did, except for Sunset. And even then, I’m not that sure. That’s why we ended their use.”

“We?”

“Yes, me and Twi- -” Starlight stopped herself, immediately feeling disgusted- -but also feeling the shadow of that strange nameless emotion once again. “Me and Un,” she said, correcting herself.

“Un and I,” corrected Twilight almost robotically. “No doubt for her own benefit, I’m sure.”

“Yeah…” Starlight laid back down, hoping that she would be able to go back to sleep even if it meant risking the horrors of her past. “Twilight?” she said. “Do you…I know it’s a weird request, but…can you stay here? For a little longer?”

“No,” said Twilight, flatly. She started to walk toward the door. “I need to prepare the fleet. Rest, if you can. Because when you wake up, it will be time to reclaim my throne.”

There was a small pink-violet explosion, and Scootaloo’s sensory input immediately began to stabilize. Though her surroundings were dark, the automatic systems in her suit compensated, making her aware of her surroundings.

“Oh crap,” said Nine, doubling over. “What the hell was that? I feel like I just ate four pounds of bad cheese.”

“Nausea may be a side effect,” said Eight, checking her omnitool. “I did just teleport us across both space and transdimensional…space.”

“You can do that?” said Scootaloo.

“I can now. Apparently. Daddy gave me a rift-transponder. And seeing as the three of us didn’t get splattered across the wide edge of reality’s border, I’d say it worked.”

“Wait,” said Nine, suddenly becoming unusually pale. “That was something that could happen?”

“Well…there was a chance, I guess- -”

“How much of a chance?”

“One in ninety,” estimated Eight.

“Oh. That’s not bad.”

“Inverse. Percent.”

Nine looked confused. “Do I look like some sort of egghead to you? I don’t know how to do math without a calculator.”

“And even then, that’s dubious.”

Scootaloo shivered. She could do math.

“Where exactly are we?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Oh,” said Eight, tapping at her omnitool. “The lights. I forgot.”

She clicked, and something buzzed in the distance. Then a set of bright white lights snapped on at the far side of the room, followed by another row, and then another until the room was completely illuminated. Scootaloo found herself standing in an enormous warehouse. It was the size of the kind of hanger-drydock that would normally be associated with dreadnaught class starships. Instead of a ship, though, it was filled with what Scootaloo could mentally only describe as “stuff”.

“Holy crap,” said Nine. “This place got a lot bigger since I was here last.”

“I know,” said Eight, proudly. She closed her omnitool and bounded forward. “Come on, come on! Scootaloo, you’re going to love this! Unlike some ponies, I think you will have a good eye for this sort of thing!”

Scootaloo followed her, her optics scanning and taking account of the room around her. It was extremely full, but it was far from messy. In fact, it was organized and clean to an almost compulsive degree. Almost everything was labeled and placed in immaculately clean displays and racks, each one lit individually as though it were a subject within a high-class museum.

All of the “exhibits”, though, shared something in common. They were all weapons. Firearms of various types, mostly, ranging from ornate antiques to bizarre modern rarities. Far from all were firearms, though; there were also swords and blades of various types. As Scootaloo walked, she saw at least one chainsaw, its frame painted bright red and its chain still slightly discolored with a darkish substance.

There was also at least one starship. It was on the far side of the room, lit and waxed to keep it in excellent condition. It looked like a larger and more complete version of the derelict starship that Six had used as a cover for her weapons storage. Beside it sat a similarly sized geth prime that slowly turned its head, watching the group patiently as they passed.

Both the quantity and diversity was astounding, and as Eight had predicted Scootaloo found it quite interesting. She actually paused to look at an enormous minigun/rocket launcher combination large enough for a krogan to use that had been set beside a case containing several volus revolvers and a stained crowbar.

As she looked, though, her attention was drawn to a square glass case next to them. She looked into it, and was surprised to see that it did not contain an obvious weapon. Instead, a simple golden ring was suspended in the center, floating in an invisible mass effect field. Scootaloo looked at it closely and saw some fine but indecipherable writing on the side.

“Yeah, don’t look at that one too long,” said Eight, pulling Scootaloo away from the case.

“Why? What is it?”

Eight’s face scrunched. “A birthday present.”

She led Scootaloo to a different area where a ground-level case was resting. Its inside was painted white, and a number of old looking wooden rifles were mounted against it.

“Check this out,” said Eight.

“Rifles,” said Scootaloo.

“Rifles? Not just any rifles! These are genuine Mosin-Nagants! Hand-built by glorious proletariat! Did you know that there are only twelve left in existence?”

“There are eleven here,” said Scootaloo.

Eight grimaced and ground her teeth. “Izhevsk Armory,” she said, pretending to be calm, “1925, number 865. I’ve tried time and time again, but I can’t get its present owner’s goddamn cold fingers of the damn thing!” She giggled and then exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself. “But that’s not important right now. Let’s see…” She walked away suddenly.

“Eight,” said Scootaloo.

“I’m just trying to find something that will fit you well.” She eyed Scootaloo carefully. “Probably something with a pistol grip. Nothing fits a mare like a good, thick pistol grip. Trust me on this, Scoots, no stallion compares.”

“Are you implying- -”

“Oh yes,” said Nine, emerging from the racks with a pistol-like plasma cutter. “She has.”

Eight frowned and plucked the cutter from Nine’s magic. “Don’t touch ANYTHING,” she said. “You’re getting magic-prints on my things and getting them out of order and disorganized! Write down what you want and I’ll go through the list and see if I have duplicates you can BORROW.” She glared at Nine, and then smiled at Scootaloo. “How about this thing?” she said, pulling a device off a high shelf. It was labeled as “Ghoulsayer” and consisted of a number of crooked circuit boards and a parabolic dish that looked like the back of an oscillating fan. “This one shoots radiation! I shot myself with it once, you know, just so see what it did. Let me tell you, it certainly works. Probably very well. But big brother will help me test that later, if you know what I mean.”

Scootaloo had no idea. “Eight,” she said, this time more firmly.

“Or how about this one?” Eight pulled down an enormous rifle that seemed to cause Nine to physically drool. “From Stroggos. It shoots nine-inch long-nails!”

“I want that gun…”

“EIGHT!”

Scootaloo’s voice caused Eight to frown. “You don’t need to shout,” she said, sounding hurt. “You’ll agitate the guns. Seriously. Some of them are sensitive. Please don’t wake up the…”

“Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeloading!” called an extremely annoying voice from the most distant corner of the warehouse.

“Goddamn it!” swore Eight under her breath.

“Where did you get all this?” asked Scootaloo. “Because I don’t think Cerberus paid you enough to buy all these.”

“Extranet auctions,” said Eight.

“If by ‘extranet auctions’ you mean ‘countless high-profile heists’,” said Nine, who was attempting to hide the nail gun behind her back.

“She means you stole them. You stole all this, didn’t you?”

“Well, ‘stole’ is such a harsh word. I prefer ‘pilfered’.”

“Synonyms,” muttered Nine to Scootaloo.

“No it isn’t!” protested Eight. “You know I don’t like strong spices, Nine!”

Scootaloo looked around the room. “How long did all this take?”

“I’ve spent my whole life collecting,” said Eight, simultaneously proud and ashamed. “I mean…I really like guns. I love them. Physically. As in…well, you get the idea. Nothing like a long hard barrel. And, well, I can teleport. So…”

“So you’re a master criminal?”

“Thief, specifically. I’ve kind of made my career out of it. Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I don’t see why I would be especially angry. It’s your life. Live it how you want.”

Eight’s expression lit up. “And that’s why you’re the Scootaloo,” she said. “Now, what exactly do you want? I’ve got enough here to arm several militaries.”

“I made a list,” said Scootaloo, lifting a datapad in her cybernetic claw. She passed it to Eight, who took it in her magic.

“Let’s see here,” said Eight, taking a pair of reading glasses from her pocket. “Hmm. M-hmm. Oh. That will be epic. I have one of those, but this one might take some time…”

“If you don’t have it- -”

“If I don’t have it, I can get it. I think the turians have one, and they are incredibly easy to rob blind. As in I've done it blindfolded.” Eight frowned, then looked over the datapad. “None of this stuff is weapons, though. I mean, I have this stuff, but it’s all heist supplies.”

“As long as you have it.”

“Scoots, I don’t think you understand. I’m offering you access to my personal collection. Anything at all. And…and you don’t want any of it.”

She seemed hurt. Scootaloo took a step forward, putting her hoof on Eight’s shoulder.

“It’s your collection,” she said, “and I know how important it is to you, and how meaningful it is that you offered me use of it. Thank you, Eight. But I want to let you keep it intact. I just need these materials to upgrade my suit, if you can find them.”

Eight smiled. “I can see why Sixie likes you,” she said. Her eyes narrowed, though. “You had better not break her heart.”

“I don’t intend to. Ever. But if she decides I’m not worth it, I’ll find you. We can have a three-way with a Kalashnikov.”

Eight’s wings immediately extended with an audible “pompf” sound. “That- -that won’t be necessary. She really cares about you. Just- -just make sure she gets out of this alive. I don’t know what I would do if I lost a sister.”

“Hey, Eight, I want this one!” said Nine, emerging from behind the stacks holding a ridiculously oversized high-tech cannon with the number “9000” printed on the side. “It’s so big!”

“Let me rephrase that,” said Eight. One of her eyelids twitched. “If I lost Four, Six, Seven, or you.” She turned to her side sharply, reaching out with her magic to take the weapon away from Nine. Nine was fast, though, and took flight, her wings beating immensely fast to keep the weapon away from Eight.

“Give that back!” shrieked Eight. “You have no idea what that even is!”

“I know it’s big! And that you’re too small to hold it.” She smiled slyly. “In your hooves, I mean.”

“Put it down! Do you have any idea how much plasma ammunition even one shot on that thing takes?!”

“You’ll have to take it from my cold dead hooves!”

Eight erupted with light as she teleported upward. Nine dodged, and the two swooped and flew toward each other, eventually moving away from Scootaloo.

Scootaloo could not help but smile. She found their sisterly behavior endearing, even if it reminded Scootaloo that her own sister was long dead. Not that it mattered, of course. Even though Scootaloo had loved Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash had never fully been able to express herself well enough to make the relationship work properly.

Being unable to fly, Scootaloo followed the two by walking through the stacks of weapons, passing several coilguns and an extensive collection of Cerberus swords until she came to an intersection. As soon as she did, Scootaloo suddenly felt cold.

She turned her head slowly, her eyes scanning over the countless artifacts that Eight had managed to collect over her long alicorn life. What drew her attention was not even close to her. It was almost twenty feet away, set in a nondescript case behind glass. Scootaloo recognized it instantly, though. It would have been impossible for her not to.

It was in pieces, but the shape of the large, odd weapon was unmistakable. There, sitting in the case, was a weapon of Equestrian origion. A Chaos pistol. Scootaloo felt her blood run cold as she stared at it, and found that she felt as though it was staring back at her, accusing her. As if it knew.

There was no way to know if it was the same one. Not by looking at it. Nor did Scootaloo want to know. There was no way she would have been able to ask that question to Eight, if only from the fear of the answer. She forced herself to think that it was a second one, a collector’s item that Eight must have found somewhere or stolen from a collector. It was impossibly rare, but not nearly as rare as its ammunition.
Scootaloo felt weak in her knees, but seeing the gun- -and having it see her- -had the opposite effect on her mind. It reminded her of her mistakes, and what she had done wrong. Its presence strengthened her resolve. She would have revenge, even if that one horrible mistake was her own fault.
More importantly, though, she would not allow a mistake like that to happen again. Ever.

Despite her best efforts, Starlight had not been able to sleep. It was not just the dreams. When she was left alone in the dark, she would think of all the friends she had lost and then hate herself for finding herself missing One.

Because of this, she wandered through the Thebe facility. Most of the main building only made her feel worse. It was dark and quiet, and with its purpose served it had become empty. In time, it would become like the other ruins that seemed to dot the Vocqtus landscape: things that had once, long ago, had some critical importance that was now long forgot the surviving age.

Instead, Starlight had made her way to the hangers where Thebe had assembled its fleet of black ships. Many of them, it seemed, had been manufactured in place from the components of the lesser starships that they had destroyed in the course of obeying Thebe’s will. Their design appeared distinctly Equestrian, but only tangentially so. It was clear that Twilight had designed them, but not consciously. They were the product of the dreams of her long sleep as the disembodied Paradigm.

All of them were far more advanced than the sources of their parts. Their ultimate construction, though, had come down to what parts could be acquired. Starlight had learned this when she had boarded one unhindered and made her way to the engine room.

There was no purpose for her coming here, at least so she hoped. She had, though, and found herself standing in the center of a large circular tube, her body lit by a shimmering blue light. Before her stood a large glass tube of fluid, and within it floated the ship’s power source. This one, like many of the others, had been constructed around the central reactor of an Alliance ship.

For a long time, Starlight just stared at her, the woman floating in the fluid. She looked younger than the ones that had been present in Four’s ship, but she still looked the same. They all looked the same. The same hair, the same skin, the same body. They were clones, no different from Four, Six, Seven, Eight and Nine. Or One. Except that they had never been born. They had never had a chance to experience life. Somehow, to Starlight, that was even more horrible, that they had not even been intended as people but created with the sole purpose of being Cores. Considering this, she suddenly found herself understanding what Twilight had meant.

Starlight was not sure how long she stared, but she eventually became aware of a pony behind her. She did not need to look away from the Core to know it was Twilight.

“They are very beautiful, aren’t they?” said Twilight.

“They don’t deserve this,” replied Starlight. “They just don’t. Nobody does.”

Twilight approached Starlight and sat next to her. “No,” she said. “Nobody does.”

“Then why did you build them? Why do you have ships like this, Twilight?”

“I didn’t. Not really,” said Twilight. “Threads of my mind converged in the Paradigm. The threads responsible for design, or for resource acquisition, but not the threads of my memory. Or my morality. If all of me had been there…if I had known…” She shook her head. “But I needed them. I needed power for my ships.”

“How can you say that? After what you just told me- -”

“Because I can think of it objectively. Subjectively? I hate this. And I hate myself a little bit for not being strong enough to find another way. Objectively, though?” She stared up at the cloned Oriana. “Objectively, this is brilliant.”

“How ca- -”

“Cores were Starswirl the Bearded’s greatest creation. I’ve read what texts survive. The efficiency per gram of element zero is almost incomprehensibly greater than what you could get from a non-living engine. They barely generate heat.”

“Which is why we have quants.”

“Which I used when I can. But they are unbelievably rare, and almost impossible to manufacture. Starswirl could create Cores five thousand years ago, before Equestria had even realized germ theory. Even with the most perfect of crystals, only one in fifty will be able to be cut into a quant, and less than one in ten thousand into a powerful one.” She put her hoof on her chest, where her own crystal was located.

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

“Then why is she still in there?”

“Because I don’t know how to get them out. I could build these ships because it was something I knew how to do, or could figure out by trial and error where I needed to. But these Cores have been linked to the machine since they were fetuses. If I try to remove them…they die.”

Starlight stared at Twilight for a long moment, and then up at the Core. “Then the only people who know how to do it are the Alliance. And they won’t. To them, Cores are just machines.”

“We can find a way,” said Twilight. “Eventually. Once I regain control of Equestria. This is perverse. I will sever the connections that Cerberus forced us to make. The Alliance has never been a friend, and I will never allow them to be an ally.”

“But what about now?”

“Now? I’m afraid I need them. My fleet has one hundred sixty four. Thirty eight are made with Alliance reactors. That’s twenty three percent. It’s already going to be hard enough for Scootaloo to hold off the Equestrian forces for any length of time. I need- -”

“You can’t take them into battle,” asserted Starlight, standing.

“I have to. I know it’s wrong, but it’s the only way we can win.”

“No, it isn’t. You have other ships.”

“But not enough. And the main destroyers- -”

“It doesn’t matter,” cried Starlight, shaking her head. “You can’t!” She gestured at the girl floating in the tube. “We’re choosing to do this, and your Thebe soldiers don’t have enough mind left to choose. But they didn’t! You’d be forcing them to die for you!”

“And some have to die so that we can save so many more!”

Starlight was at a loss for words as she looked into Twilight’s eyes. They looked like those of a pony, but she did not understand. “Fine,” said Starlight at last. “If you’re willing to sacrifice your principals for this, I’m out.”

“You would let One win, then? Because of the Cores?”

“They may be human, but they are my people. As are you. Or once were. If you can’t understand what they mean to me, I don’t want either of you to rule.”

Starlight began to stomp out of the room, but Twilight stopped her.

“Starlight!” she called, standing, “wait.”

Starlight stopped. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” said Twilight. “I didn’t realize. I just…” She sighed. “I got too worked up. I’m just so concerned for my nation, I forgot what my position actually means. If I sacrifice my principles for victory, then you’re right. I don’t deserve to be a Princess.”

“Then you won’t take them?”

“I will leave behind all ships containing Cores. The battle will be much harder, but I think it will be worth it. And I know Scootaloo. She will be able to make do.”

“Do you promise?”

“I give you my word. Other than you and myself, no Cores will enter this battle.”

Starlight stared at her for a moment longer, and then smiled. “Thank you, Twilight,” she said, glad that she had once again found her old friend.

Some of the supplies had not been hard to get. In fact, Eight had a surprising number of very strange items that she did not consider part of her “collection”. She had been more than willing to part with them, considering them as superfluous consumables meant to be used toward her goal of acquiring more and better weapons. Scootaloo had received perhaps two thirds of the items on her list, with Eight teleporting out to find what she could of the remainder throughout the galaxy.

This meant that there was a lot of work to do, and Scootaloo set to it immediately. She took up residence in one of the now abandoned laboratories that had been used to process Reaper artifacts in the Thebe base. Although the Reaper artifacts were gone- -no doubt used to create Twilight’s new body- -the equipment was still viable.

Thoughts swirled through Scootaloo’s head, a swarm of ideas and rapidly forming connections. In a way, it was exhilarating. Before Eloth had scrambled her deepest contents, this had never happened. Scootaloo was a competent soldier, but she had never been an engineer. Now, though, she could learn and understand the workings of machines so much more quickly. She had never seen the insides of her mechnical armor before, but she was able to disassemble it and begin modifying it with ease.

The first thing she set to work doing was building an assembly around an inky violet crystal that Twilight had provided her. It was a unique design, unlike any that had been assembled in the Crystal Galaxy. Scootaloo was actually somewhat amazed by how much the capacity had been increased by the modifications, even in a lesser gem.

Forming the connections were challenging, but not impossible. It only took Scootaloo a few hours to assemble the necessary reading circuitry, in part by salvaging some of the components that had been left behind by the Thebeans. When she had done, the small crystal fragment was nestled in a circular casing about the size of Scootaloo’s hoof.

Carefully, Scootaloo linked the device to the power source of her own armor, jumpstarting it. Within seconds, though, as the crystal began to glow, it began generating exponentially more power than the tiny reactor in Scootaloo’s armor could ever hope to.

“Right,” said Scootaloo, opening her omnitool. “Moment of truth, Inte.”

She entered the necessary code, and the crystal shifted. It sparkled from within, and a hologram was projected above it. In less than a second, a tiny and abstract pink-violet model of a pony appeared over the crystal.

“Loading,” it said in an unfamiliar voice. “Systems check confirmed. Boot successful.” The abstract image looked up at Scootaloo. “How may I help you?”

“I am Scootaloo.”

“Scanning…Identified. You are Priestess Scootaloo. Welcome. Would you like me to restore your preferred settings?”

“Yes, please.”

“One moment. Loading.”

The hologram stood still for a moment, and then flickered. It’s abstract pink form was replaced almost immediately with one resembling a tiny green earth pony with yellow hair. She was barely three inches across, but the tiny Inte blinked, confused, and looked up at Scootaloo.

“Captain!” she cried, jumping with joy. “You came back for me!”

“I did,” said Scootaloo, smiling. “Are you…you?”

“Of course I’m me! To the extent which I can be. I’m really a set of memory files and a personality binary, so it’s not hard to be me. The real ‘Inte’ is an abstract concept in your own mind.” She looked around her and gasped. “And I’m so tiny! I must be adorable!”

“I’m using the crystal’s internal refractive matrix to generate you. I didn’t have a full projector.”

“That explains the poor resolution.” Inte “jumped” down from the crystal and began to walk around Scootaloo’s work bench, never straying far from the crystal that was producing her holographic body. “Wow, everything looks so big! I could live in that spanner it’s so huge!”

“That’s a wrench. And you’re not alive. You can’t live anywhere.”

“Killjoy.” Inte hoped into the end of the wrench, sitting in it like an armchair. “Captain,” she said as she nestled herself between the jaws of the tool. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I really just wanted to help you, but I had to obey my programming.”

“And are you going to obey it now?”

“Yes,” said Inte, “but only the program you have given me. The buried parts are gone now. This is a virgin crystal. I only act on your orders now.”

“So you could say that I took your virginity twice, then?”

Inte’s eyes lit up. “You did, Captain! You did! Quick, get another crystal so you can do it again!”

“I only have one,” said Scootaloo, picking up her tools and working on the device holding it. “And I only need one.”

“What are you doing?” asked Inte, standing and observing what Scootaloo was doing.

“I’m going to integrate you into my suit. Instead of being the VI for my ship, you’ll be the VI for my body.”

Inte’s eyes widened almost hyperbolically. “R…really? You’d do that?”

“I am doing that. As in right now.”

“Oh Captain!” The tiny hologram approached Scootaloo’s organic hoof and hugged it. “I’m so happy! Also, incoming teleportation!”

There was a pop next to Scootaloo and a blast of pink-violet light. Scootaloo was not entirely sure how she knew, but the pony that had appeared was neither Eight nor Six.

“Scootaloo,” said Twilight. “I see you’re enjoying the crystal?”

“I can’t help but wonder if the crystal is enjoying me more.”

Twilight crossed the room and looked at the box of supplies that Scootaloo had brought from Eight. “That’s…odd,” she said. “Scootaloo, these don’t look like things that would assist in a naval battle.”

“That’s because it isn’t going to be a naval battle,” said Scootaloo.

“But we already discussed- -”

“And I’m modifying the plan. When we get there, they are going to throw everything they have at us. The entire armada will converge on Equestria Prime. We will be able to keep up a fight for a while, but we are eventually going to need a ground war.”

“A ground war? You mean invading the planet.”

“I mean invading Canterlot. That will really get their attention. And we have the advantage there. Ponies have always had a superior navy, but when it comes fighting on the ground they’re weak. Our bodies just aren’t evolved for it.”

“I see,” said Twilight. “And I trust your discursion on this matter. You will have all of my soldiers at your disposal. Use them well. Don’t worry about them dying. I won’t need them once this is over. Also, I do have another present for you.”

“What kind of present?”

Twilight stood beside Scootaloo and projected a construct onto the table with her magic. It resembled an elongated octahedron, and seeing it made Scootaloo’s jaw clench.

“What is that?” she demanded.

“A special type of ship,” said Twilight. “Something my organization found buried deep in the sand. They’re not very big, about the size of a small fighter, but from what I can tell they’re ships.”

“Built by who?”

“By a native race of this world, billions of years before our universe had even yet formed.”

“And they still function?”

“You’d be surprised how much in Vocqtus still functions. Nothing ever really dies here. The human will tell you. Ask her about that thing she wears around her neck.”

“What do you want me to do with them?”

“Command them. My soldiers can’t control them, but I think you can. Who knows, it might turn the tide in our favor.”

Scootaloo stared at the hologram for a moment, and then dissipated it with her robotic claw. “I will,” she said, “but I’m going to need more than some elder fighter ships.”

“I have one hundred sixty four other ships. All of them will be at your disposal.”

“Yes. Just keep those with Alliance power sources out of Starlight’s sensor range.”

Scootaloo looked to Twilight, and was surprised to see that she was smiling. “I can do that,” she said. “If that’s what it takes to win this.”

“It is, Scootaloo. It is.”

And so, the preparations were made. It did not take long. All of the remnants of the Thebe organization immediately went into action, preparing every ship they had for flight. It was less than a day before the reprogrammed Governors began to assemble and prepare for departure alongside the rest of the Thebe soldiers. Not one of them expected to come back, and not one of them cared.

Starlight had prepared herself as well. Her ship was brought in and prepared for its mission, and she had prepared her armor. The time for the final mission had finally come, and she had acquired everything she needed.

“Are you sure?” asked Zedok, who was following behind Starlight as she walked quickly through the now crowded hanger facility.

“I am,” said Starlight, adjusting the settings in her new omnitool. Twilight had not been able to restore her magic- -the modifications that One had made were too well integrated, and any attempt to remove them even by Twilight would no doubt be lethal- -but she had been able to give Starlight an omnitool of incredible quality. Starlight’s tech powers were not what they had been when she had been whole, but they would be more than enough to defend herself in any fight.

“Because I’m ready to go,” said Zedok. “Either direction. I can go with Scootaloo, or to keep you safe. And Sbayadvlag will come with us too, if I ask her.”

“No,” said Starlight. “You need to be here. Once we reach Celestia, Scootaloo is going to pull back to here. And there will be casualties. I need you and your daughter to be ready.”

“Damn. I really wanted to go.”

“Well, unfortunately you’re an extremely good doctor. You should have thought of that before attending medicals school.”

“I know,” sighed Zedok. “Why do I have to be so awesome? I was just really looking forward to destroying some pony ass.” She looked up. “Speaking of destroying ass…”

Starlight looked away from her omintool and saw that Bob was approaching them from a distance. When she realized that they were looking at her, she stood up and walked on two legs instead of four.

“Have you changed your mind?” asked Starlight when Bob was in earshot.

“Have you?”

“Why would she?” said Zedok. “You yourself already said what a threat One was. Unless you’re going back on that too.”

“I never go back,” said Bob. “Down, sometimes, but never back.”

“So then you won’t help us?”

Bob shook her head. “No. This isn’t my fight. Besides, I’m the last person you want on Equestria Prime during a battle. I tend to pillage.”

“Your daughters are going to be fighting without you,” said Zedok. “You know that, right?”

“My daughters have fought hundreds of wars you don’t even know about. That’s what Cerberus does. Trust me. They can take care of themselves.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Starlight, “but if you’re not here to help, then why are you here?”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t here to help. I need to talk to you, depression-horse. Alone.”

“Anything you say to her you can say to me,” said Zedok, crossing her arms.

“It’s fine,” said Starlight.

“Yeah, there’s no need to get your panties in a twist,” said Bob. “Oh, wait. No. Nevermind, you’re an asari. Sorry.”

“You know,” said Starlight, “your presence here is getting really old.”

“I never get old. It’s kind of my shtick.”

Starlight sighed, but closed her omnitool and joined Bob reluctantly. Bob led her away from Zedok and down a darkened side-hall that seemed surprisingly empty in comparison to the crowded one that Starlight and Zedok had been walking on before.

“What do you want, Bob?”

“I highly doubt you’d be able to comprehend that. But if you’re asking why I called you over, well…”

“If you touch my flank, I will incinerate you.” Starlight flicked open her omnitool. “And I would really, really enjoy it.”

Bob frowned. “One, I don’t go for fillies. Two, I don’t go for you. It would be like doing it with Jack, and trust me when I say that’s unpleasant.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The code. The one I told you to paralyze my daughter?”

“What about it?”

“There’s a second part. From the same poem: ‘I kept the first for another day. Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back’.”

“That’s a lot of words for a single code.”

“That’s because it’s not a single code. The first one that I told you before? That one will paralyze her. The second one is the countercode. It negates the first.”

“Why in Cadence’s name would I want to do that?”

Bob shrugged and started walking into the empty darkness of the hallway, back to wherever she had come. “I just thought you should know. Be careful with it, though. Those are emergency codes. Once Un knows what they are, they won’t work a second time.”

“That won’t be a problem.”

“Won’t it? Because I’ve seen the end of the road you’re trying to go down. And I couldn’t even finish it.”

“Trust me. I will do what you could not.”

Starlight turned around and started returning to Zedok, but she paused. An idea had suddenly occurred to her. It was not a pleasant one, nor one she especially wanted to think about, but for some reason it hit with such force that she could not stop herself from asking.

“Bob,” she said.”

“Yeah?” said the human, turning her head and looking back at Starlight.

“When you said she was trained by Cerberus. What did you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I said. She was trained by Cerberus.”

“But what did they do?”

Bob’s large eyes became somewhat distance. “It was a much more refined version of the Pragia protocol. I’m sure Jack has mentioned at least parts of that to you at least once.”

With that, she disappeared into the darkness. The last thing Starlight saw of her was the flash of a grin, and a dim but sickening blue glow as she retreated back to her native element.

Starlight stared at where the human had been, and then finally forced herself to start walking again. “Damn it,” she said. “Goddamn it all…”

Scootaloo paused, looking around her. All the ships in the hanger had been prepared and the launch crews were finalizing their last checks. Plumes of smoke-like fog were pouring out of several of the nearest ships as they prepped their coolant systems for launch.

“Are we ready to go?” she asked.

“All systems are functional and excellent!” said Inte excitedly, her voice pushed directly into Scootaloo’s skull through the extended neural connections of her omnitool. “We are ready to go!”

“Talking to yourself, Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo pivoted to see Six and Seven approaching her. Both of them were dressed head to hoof in armor that looked curiously similar to their former Cerberus gear. Instead of an orange hexagon, though, they bore the mark of a single large star surrounded by six smaller ones. Twilight’s insignia.

“Wow,” said Scootaloo, looking up at Six’s armor plated and now mildly hulking frame. Every piece of her was covered save for her partially armored wings and her exposed horn, and for some reason Scootaloo could not help but feel her heart flutter at the sight of her. “You look good.”

“I feel good,” said Six. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good, proper fight. I’m not a violent pony, of course. But I was literally built for this.” She turned to her sister, who was dressed in substantially heavier armor despite her thinner frame. “She agrees.”

“I know,” said Scootaloo. “She’s even more excited than you are.”

“She isn’t the only one who’s excited.” On the other side of them, Eight and Nine appeared alongside the unicorn breeder Jurneu. Both Eight and Nine were wearing their own versions of the same uniform that Six and Seven were, although Jurneu had opted for a very tight pony version of the black armor that asari commandos normally wore.

Eight leaned against the only male in the group, and he smiled awkwardly. “Isn’t that right, big brother?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m excited,” he said, “but I am prepared.”

“Say it.”

“What?”

“Say. IT.”

Jurneu sighed, then muttered. “My…little...princess…”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem saying it in her bedroom,” noted Nine. “Or on the hood of the SR2.”

“It’s a lot easier when I have feathers on my chest and a horn in my teeth.”

Everyone save for Eight shuddered at how candid Jurneu was being, and that seemed to be his goal. Although Eight stood uncomfortably close to him, the others left him alone.

They stood in awkward silence for what felt like hours before Twilight and Starlight finally arrived. Starlight was dressed in her customary suit of armor, an incarnation of the one that she had worn almost since before Scootaloo had ever met her. Twilight was unarmored, though, instead electing to wear thick clothing with a high collar. Scootaloo supposed she did not actually need to be protected externally; after all, she was fully machine beneath the thin veneer that made her look similar to how she once had.

“Are you ready, Scootaloo?” asked Twilight.

“I am.”

“You had better be. Because this is going to be hard. And not all of us are going to make it out alive.”

“Yes, we are,” said Scootaloo. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

“Do what you can. As soon as we leave Vocqtus, Starlight and I will go into radio silence. Everything on your end is up to you from that point on.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“You seem intent on your revenge,” said Starlight.

“Our sister froze her and left her for dead,” said Six. “What do you expect from her?”

“It’s not me I care about. It’s all the other ponies she’s hurt.” Scootaloo turned around and started walking toward the ship that had been prepared for her. “She thinks the world just forgot them. But I didn’t. Dusty Plume is going to have her revenge. I’m going to be sure of that.”

Scootaloo and her division of the group walked off, and Twilight turned to Starlight, confused. “Who is Dusty Plume?” she asked.

“No idea,” said Starlight, equally confused. “I’ve never heard that name before in my life.”

Chapter 39: The Final Battle

The space in the Equestria Prime system had a strange familiarity to it. It was not something Scootaloo had noticed before, or if she had, she had forgotten about it in time. Even if she had not slept for so long, it would have been many years since she had first navigated that space in one of the Academy’s tiny training vessels.

It was said that Equestria Prime had been blessed. There countless thousands of inhabited and uninhabited systems through the Equestrian galaxy, but none were so ideal for a spacefaring society as the Prime System. According to legend, long before ponies had even mastered the creation of the wheel Celestia had expelled absolutely all space debris from the system in preparation of the technological society to come. Scootaloo did not know if that was true- -it would have been tens of thousands of years ago- -but she did know that the space in the Prime System was absolutely clean. There were no asteroids, no debris fields; just smooth, easy to navigate space.

In the past, the primary difficulty had always been the traffic. Even without debris or any other anomalies, there were always countless tens of thousands of ships pouring to and from the capital of the Empire, the pony homeworld Equestria Prime. As Scootaloo’s ship approached the system, though, she found that it had become remarkably empty. In part, she assumed, this was the result of mass-jump technology. There was no need for starships to physically move long distances, not when they could simply flash across the universe at will. This was unexpected, but proved to be an advantage.

Scootaloo did not take her entire fleet in, at least not initially. Instead she took two midsized Thebe vessels to flank her own, which was heavily based on a powerful but oddly quiet zetan craft. The vessel that Scootaloo had been given was the only one of its kind in Twilight’s collection, but it was hardly suitable. From Scootaloo’s minimal knowledge of the Milk Path galaxy, she understood that the zetans were brilliant engineers that lived in almost complete isolation from the other races. As a result of this, the chassis that Twilight had built the present ship from had been far more advanced than any of the others. Unfortunately, it had also carried with it the side effect that the zetans had designed it for their own insular, strange culture.

The bridge was wide and almost completely flat, leading to an oppressive claustrophobic feeling. There flattened room was further subdivided into two levels: a lower and an upper, with the lower sitting behind the upper in such a way that it made seeing the large front viewscreen- -a screen, not a window- -impossible for the individuals with the misfortune of having to work in that trench.

There was no specific location for a commanding officer, so Scootaloo was forced to stand on the upper deck. Several control apertures had been placed on either side. Jurneu had been placed at one on Scootaloo’s extreme left, and Seven had taken one in the trench. Eight had joined her older sister, and Nine stood impatiently far to the right. Six had taken her place at Scootaloo’s side.

None of them apart from Jurneu actually knew how to use the strange alien controls. It did not matter, though, as none of them were flying it. Scootaloo was, using Inte as a go-between communicating between her own mind and the ship’s computer. That in itself was a terrifying prospect. Not because it was difficult, but rather because it should not have been nearly as easy as Scootaloo was finding that it was.

They all stood in silent, watching as they drew closer to the second planet from the dim red-orange sun that it orbited. As they did, Scootaloo wondered why it was that color. In her native era, it had been bright and white.

Scootaloo had selected their path to take them forward in the shadow of Equestria’s moon. No doubt the long-range sensors throughout the system had detected them, and though travelling in Luna’s wake would not obscure them, it would make detecting the exact nature of their ship a little more time consuming. That would give them the time they needed to get into strike range.

As they passed over the moon, Scootaloo looked down at the ruins that coated almost all of its entire surface: the now abandoned remnants of the civilization that had once thrived on its now barren and airless surface. Even after one thousand years, the massive craters where those cities had been torn apart were still visible, dotting the cities where the now extinct thestral race had once dwelled.

“What happened?” asked Six, seeing the same world that Scootaloo did.

Scootaloo replied honestly: “Celestia won.”

It took less than a minute for them to round the moon, and Jurneu and Nine covered their eyes against the light of the Equestrian sun. In the distance, they could see the curving crescent of what had once been Scootaloo’s home. It looked so small from a distance, a blue-green sphere against an infinite sea of black. It was the world where pony life had begun, and supposedly the planet where Scootaloo had been born.

More than the sight of Equestria prime met them as they came over the moon, though. A group of five Equestrian ships were waiting for them on the other side.

“They’re hailing us,” said Jurneu.

“I know,” said Scootaloo.

“If you’re going to pretend to be ‘communications officer’,” said Nine, annoyed, “I’m going to put you in a red minidress.”

“Yes please,” said Eight.

Scootaloo opened the transmission. The screen changed, projecting a direct image of the pony commander on the other side. The commander looked vastly surprised; direct visual-to-visual communication was almost never used for ship-to-ship communication in Scootaloo’s time, and that seemed to be the same case.

“You had something to say?” said Scootaloo.

“Um- -yes,” said the commander, regaining his composure and standing up from his captain’s chair. “Unidentified vessel, you have entered vital Equestrian space. We can’t identify your IFF. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding, but as far as we can tell, you’re not authorized to be here.”

“Really?” said Scootaloo as she calmly infiltrated their central quant through the channels she had opened, using Inte to cut past their security measures and failsafe protocols. None of the ponies on the equestrian ships seemed to notice, save for one who looked at her interface with mild confusion. Even the holographic quant with its fuzzy, soft wings did not react- -because Scootaloo had already programmed it not to.

“Yes. And I’m sure you can understand that security breaches will not be tolerated so close to our beloved homeworld. Not that you are a security breach, of course. Again, I’m sure this is a misunderstanding.” He asserted that as well as he could, but Scootaloo saw his eyes drifting across the image of her bridge to the two armored alicorns and the obviously breeder unicorn on his far right.

“Why are they alicorns?” said one of his assistants, pointing out what was actually wrong with the setting.

“Ali…” the commander’s eyes became wide. “What- -who are you?!”

“My name is Scootaloo Dash,” replied Scootaloo. “And I have returned to finish what I started two hundred and seventy two years ago.”

The Equestrian commander stuttered, but addressed his quant. “Mildred, prepare the forward battery! Fire all tor- -”

Scootaloo engaged her code. The quant on the enemy ship suddenly vibrated and then exploded as the hardlight system overloaded. Where before there had been an image of a heavily made-up Pegasus, a crystal-like star of enormous but narrow holographic crystals formed, expanding and cutting into the hull of the bridge, destroying the computers and engines.

It was not just the main ship. Scootaloo’s code had infected the others as well, and their hulls were breached from within as their hardlight projectors overloaded in unison. The screen almost immediately reverted to an exterior view, and all of the enemy ships were visible. Holographic crystal had cut through their hulls and was visible on their outer surface. Several of them were too badly damaged to continue, and were desperately attempting to perform emergency landings on the moon.

“Holy shit,” said Jurneu and Nine at the same time. Six remained silent, but lost control of her wings as they extended involuntarily.

“Eight,” said Scootaloo, “send the signal. Open it.”

“Right away. This is going to be so much fun!”

At Eight’s command, the space behind Scootaloo’s ships ripped open from the far side, tearing an interdimensional hole to Vocqtus. It took a moment longer to stabilize, though; even at this distance from the Solar Exclusion Zone, Thebe was having trouble establishing a proper connection.

It did form eventually, though, and the ships poured through.

“Prepare warheads,” said Scootaloo. “Target Equestria Prime. Advance on my- -”

Suddenly, her ship was violently rocked as Inte took control of the command, wrenching it to the side so fast that Scootaloo was thrown across the bridge and into Nine.

“Inte!” cried Scootaloo. “What the hell are you doing!”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking evasive action!”

Scootaloo did not understand- -until she looked through the front screen. Outside, she saw that an Equestrian dreadnaught had just mass-jumped into the location where they had just been. It was not alone, either. An entire fleet of battleships and destroyers accompanied it.

The Thebe vessels immediately went into action, striking hard at the Equestrian forces. Many of the front guard were quickly overwhelmed, though, and several ships were immediately destroyed. Scootaloo did her best to react appropriately, and she was forced to reach out with her mind to the forces she had hoped that she would not have to use.

It was surprisingly easy. At Scootaloo’s command, hundreds of geometric fighters emerged from the rear carriers and swarmed forward. The Equestrian ships attacked them, but just as the forces of the Crystal Empire had been unable to destroy them centuries before, the Equestrians failed to stop them. The octahedrons joined the battle, plunging into the Equestrian ships and cutting through their shields and hulls.

As Nine stabilized Scootaloo, Six leapt to one of the unoccupied control interfaces. “They shouldn’t be here,” she said as she opened the system and began to scan through the files. “Not this soon!”

It only took a few seconds before she found the necessary files, and she gasped. “The communication channels- -you!” she turned sharply to Jurneu. “You piggybacked a transmission on ours!”

Jurneu smiled awkwardly. “Yeah,” he said. “I called the whole damn armada.”

“Why, Jurneu? Why would you do that?! You’ve doomed the mission!”

His smile fell and he looked into Six’s eyes. “Because I am a Spectre. And if you win? If Twilight takes back the throne? The Council loses. I did what I had to do. To ensure peac- -”

Six barely managed to dodge a beam of violet-orange light. Jurneu did not. It struck him in the chest and he instantly detonated into a plume of blood and organs that splattered violently across his corner of the ship. Six gaped in awe, and then turned to see Scootaloo, her omnitool open and still smoking. She had not even looked at the pony that she had just killed, and kept her face focused on the screen and the battle outside.

“I will not tolerate disloyalty,” she said, lowering her hoof. “I’m sorry, Eight.”

“Eh.” Eight shrugged. “I already got what I needed out of him anyway. If Bob can be an excellent single mother, I suppose I can too.”

“Six,” said Scootaloo, “did he manage to communicate Starlight’s location?”

“Hold on,” said Six, “I think…no. He was hacking your communication line to the other ship to hide it- -his bandwidth was only high enough to get out our coordinates. You cut him off before he could send the second part.”

“Then the mission still has a chance. It’s just harder on us.”

As soon as she said it, the ship began to rumble and list. Scootaloo felt her control of the engines failing, and then detected several plasma eruptions that destroyed most of engineering.

“He’s sabotaged us,” she said. “This ship is done. Eight, get your sisters to the planet.”

“I can do that,” said Eight, suddenly frightened, “but I can’t teleport you. Not with a quant crystal attached to you.”

“You don’t need to,” said Scootaloo, disengaging herself from the ship’s systems and allowing the reactors to burn uncontrollably. Her final command was to adjust the primary thrusters and to plunge the dying zetan craft directly into the bridge of the head dreadnaught. “I will meet you there.”

With her processing disengaged, Scootaloo focused her suit’s energy entirely into Inte’s crystal. The machinery she had built from the parts that Eight had provided began to vibrate and rev.

“Are we good to go, Inte?”

“All calculations indincate that size exclusion will be viable to overcome the defensive parameters. Which is computer for, eh, forty percent chance of survival.”

“Good enough.”

Scootaloo took a flying leap and engaged the mass-reactor strapped to her back. Almost immediately, space shifted around her and collapsed, pressing around her suit. The suit reacted, holding her body together as the field compressed her to a state of zero mass and out of reality.

Then, as quickly as she had gone, she erupted back into space, this time in green fields dotted with sparse trees. Canterlot stood in the far distance, silhouetted by the setting sun.

“Congratulations!” said Inte, excitedly. “You are now the smallest vehicle on record to have completed a successful mass-jump!”

“I’m not a vehicle,” said Scootaloo, opening her omnitool and transmitting her coordinates to Eight.

“Yes you are! You’re a ship. Because I ship you. With me.”

“Can we please keep this professional for the duration of the battle?”

“But not after?”

Scootaloo did not answer. She sent the coordinates, and a small explosion of light appeared bside her the alicorns appeared.

“Oof,” said Eight, stumbling slightly and being held up by Seven. “I haven’t teleported that many ponies in a long time…”

“Scootaloo,” said Six. “Did you just mass jump?”

“We can discuss what I did and did not and will do after we finish the mission,” said Scootaloo. She directed her command to the fleet overhead, ordering them to arm their warheads. Then, within seconds, the war began.

In the distance, Scootaloo saw the projectiles streaking through the skies and the fires erupt on the farthest edges of the horizon. Her sensors detected the radiation surges of the nuclear blasts.

“Did you just nuke us?” said Nine. She sounded simultaneously impressed and concerned.

“Only minimally populated areas.” Scootaloo shifted her omnitool and looked up, seeing that some of her ships had already pushed through the blockade. “Troops inbound,” she said. “Two minutes until impact.”

“Good,” said Six, projecting a shield around Scootaloo just in time to block a barrage of bullets that had come tearing through the brush toward her. In the distance, Scootaloo could see several hovering vehicles converging on their location, each loaded down with Canterlot guards and accompanied by heavily armed Pegasi. Many, many more were arriving behind them. “Because I we really could use the help.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Nine, drawing an assault rifle and shotgun from her side. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve captured weaker cities when I was less than ten years old.”

The battle commenced. As Nine had predicted, it was hardly a challenge. It was actually somewhat surprising to Scootaloo how effective her friends were. Logically, of course, it made sense. Each of them was an alicorn, and all of them had been trained by Cerberus to be living weapons. The Canterlot guard was primarily a police force, not a standing army, and even with their advanced modern weapons and the magic of the few unicorns present, they were pushed back easily.

Seven led the force, charging forward into the fray and eliminating whatever was unfortunate enough to contact her. Nine covered her and shielded Eight, who was acting as a support unit and teleporting in ammunition, medigel, and thermal clips for her sisters as needed. Six refused to leave Scootaloo’s side and used her powerful biotic abilities primarily for defending her lover. This was critical, of course, because Scootaloo herself was not able to fight well while she was commanding her fleet.

They managed to advance the battle, moving quickly toward Canterlot, and the ponies attacking them reacted just as Twilight had predicted. More and more swarmed out from the city. Not just the Guard, but any elements of the Equestrian army that could be found. As their numbers grew, Scootaloo’s momentum began to slow until they were stuck at a stalemate.

“If this keeps up, we’re going to have to pull back!” said Six over the sound of gunfire and the screams of ponies.

“No,” said Scootaloo. “We’re not.”

There was a roar in the atmosphere as the black ships pushed through the stratosphere. Several beams shot downward from above, decimating the Guard forces and punching through several of their transport ships. The support vessels took up a position over the rear of the battlefield, providing fire support for as long as they could while they unloaded their troops.

Hundreds of Governors swarmed out of them, their transparent wings carrying them down and into the fray below. They were joined by other Thebe soldiers of every race, and the reserve forces immediately turned the battle. The guard forces were no match for them.

This also freed Scootaloo from having to command the entire fleet. She disseminated its operation to the individual commanders with the simple order to defend the planet and to do as much damage to the fleet and as they could.

“Right,” she said, turning her focus onto the battle. “Six, take pointe! I’ll cover you!”

“Right,” said Six, smiling. She spread her wings and charged into the fight, striking out at anything in her way with singularities and beams of magic.

Scootaloo advanced below her, her optics scanning the battlefield and her processing core calculating troop movements and probabilities of attack. As she engaged, she found that her HUD changed. Small insignias appeared at its bottom edge, each representing the vital signs of the members of her party and each giving her the option to command which of their powers she wanted them to use.

Several bullets struck her from the side, and Scootaloo ducked back behind a tree. The blue, segmented arc at the bottom of her vision indicated that her shields had been hit, but her red arch remained steady.

Within seconds, her shields restored themselves and Scootaloo jumped from behind the tree, targeting her omnitool at the group of ponies attacking her. A flare erupted near them, detonating behind their cover. The ponies screamed as their bodies arced with electrical energy and they collapsed, their nervous systems having been completely overloaded.

“Delilah, behind you!” said Scootaloo, lifting her hoof again and sending a beam that incinerated the wings of a Pegasus that was approaching Six. Six did turn, and fired a beam from her horn. Instead of striking the now falling, wingless Pegasus, though, she directed a beam of pink-violet energy directly behind Scootaloo. Scootaloo dropped and rolled just in time to avoid the explosion of a metal-bodied quant that had decloaked behind her.

Six dropped to the ground, and her and Scootaloo advanced together, each one covering the other. Six attacked relentlessly, both in defense of Scootaloo and with vicious disregard toward the survival of the ponies who stood in her way. Scootaloo scanned the surrounding areas, providing Six with the information she could not see with her own eyes, and provided support where she could.

Together and along with the remainder of the forces, Scootaloo’s troops were able to cut their way toward Canterlot until they finally reached the green hills outside the city. By this time, the Guard had begun to deplete, and Equestrian forces were weakening.

Although the losses in the sky above were devastating, Scootaloo held out hope- -until she heard the sound of hooves descending from the hills above. When she looked up, she realized that she her hopefulness had been misplaced.

They looked just as they had three hundred years ago, when Scootaloo herself had been the cause of the founding of their order. Their bodies were covered in heavy, expensive armor, far greater in capacity and in beauty than the simple mass-produced version that ordinary soldiers wore. Their faces were obscured, but Scootaloo knew who they were.

“Priestesses…”

The first units to charge Scootaloo’s forces were cavalry: unicorn soldiers seated on the backs of Teran horses clad in Tech armor. On their left they held long, bladed lances, and even at a distance Scootaloo could see the glimmering plaid glow characteristic of Chaos metal.

“Fuck,” swore Scootaloo, grabbing the back of Six’s armor and yanking her back. “Get out to cover!”

The cavalry slammed into Scootaloo’s troops with almost audible force and cut through them easily, impaling them with the Chaos spears or cutting them down with their guns or magic if they had it. Their lethality was only compounded by the presence of their infantry, which either charged down the hill beside the Teran horses or took positions on top of it to fire down at those below.

Seven had been the closest to cavalry when they arrived. She was fast enough to avoid the lances that came toward her, and erected several tech barriers to slow the advance of the cavalry. Unfortunately, doing so left her open. While she was fast enough to dodge the spears, she was not fast enough to dodge a harmonic bullet that slammed through her armor and into her abdomen.

“NO!” cried Six, charging forward to help her sister.

“No, I said fall back!” cried Scootaloo.

Six did not listen. Seven was badly wounded, but it was clear that she was not dead. Her various combat drones returned to her, attacking the Teran horse and spooking it, causing it to throw its unicorn rider. Seven tried to stand, but was unable to move at anything faster than a limp before Eight’s magic surrounded her, teleporting her to cover.

As she did, and just as Scootaloo felt some semblance of relief, a horse burst through the brush near Six. Scootaloo did not even hesitate to rush forward, shielding Six with her own body. The Priestess opened fire, and Scootaloo felt the bolts of magic cut through her armor and body and into Six. Six cried out in pain, but Scootaloo felt nothing but a distant ache. Ignoring it, she reached around Six and grabbed her sidearm. With one quick motion, she pulled the pistol from its holster and fired it into the Priestess’s head. It struck her horn, and there was a small biotic explosion as she fell.

Scootaloo tried to walk, but she found that her rear legs would not move. Six tried to move her, but was too injured to have any semblance of speed. The Priestesses had seemed to have sensed this weakness, and they were converging.

“Damn it,” said Scootaloo. “Well, let’s hope this works.”

She focused her attention on the location where she knew Eight and Seven were in cover, and then ignited the jet on the rear of her suit. Almost immediately, she took flight, carrying Six with her.

Almost as soon as her hooves left the ground, Scootaloo regretted having installed the flight system into her suit. She had spent almost all of her life dreaming that someday she would be able to fly, just as Rainbow Dash had before the loss of one of her wings. It had been something Scootaloo had desperately wished for, but now that she had the ability, she realized that she hated it.

Scootaloo had flown ships before, and many of them. Flying under her own power, though, was completely different. It was terrifying. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly, and the amount of control it took to keep herself moving in the correct direction was almost beyond her abilities. Had it not been for her focus on keeping Six safe, she would have vomited instantly.

The flight only lasted for a few seconds before Scootaloo dropped awkwardly behind a large rock. Eight was there, doing her best to heal Seven.

“Oh fuck,” she said. “They got Scootaloo!”

“I’m fine,” said Scootaloo as Six propped her against the cover. On her HUD, her red bar was almost fully depleated. “Just cover me for a second…”

“Scootaloo, you’re not fine!” said Six.

“Compensating,” whispered Inte into Scootaloo’s ear. The nannites in Scootaloo’s body immediately swarmed to her wounds, filling them and rebuilding the damaged tissue and organs. The red bar on Scootaloo’s HUD began to quickly restore itself, and even her armor started to heal.

“Holy crap,” said Eight as Scootaloo’s formerly paralyzed rear legs began to twitch and move. “I wish Seven could do that!”

Seven slapped her sister and angrily pointed at the still-bleeding wound in her shoulder.

“Delilah,” said Scootaloo, sitting up. “Your hurt.”

“I know,” said Six. “But you took the brunt of it.” She pointed at several charred holes in her armor. The magic had cut through it, and no doubt there were deep third degree burns hidden beneath those holes. The location of the wounds, though, was mostly in Six’s chest. The Priestess’s aim had been impeccable: if Scootaloo had not stopped the blasts, Six would have been killed.

“Your wing doesn’t look good,” said Eight.

Six looked over her shoulder. One of her wings had indeed been substantially injured, and although the bone was still intact the feathers and some of the flesh had been removed to an extent that would make any flight in the near future completely impossible.

“What the hell are they?” asked Six.

“One’s personal soldiers,” said Scootaloo. “Priestesses of Harmony.”

“Like you?”

“No, not like me,” said Scootaloo. “You can’t think of them like that. Don’t hesitate to fight them. Because if you do, they will kill you.” Scootaloo stood and took a step back.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay in cover, Delilah. I’ll handle this.”

Before Six could stop her, Scootaloo ignited her jet again. Ignoring the terror of being forced to fly, she took to the air.

“Targeting,” said Inte, already understanding what Scootaloo wanted her to do. In Scootaloo’s HUD, numerous small squares appeared, each moving through her vision until they rested around the horns of any and all Priestesses within her range.

The power of the jet dipped slightly as Scootaloo fired in every direction. The rounds flew true and in perfect, straight lines. Each hit its mark, and each Priestess that was struck fell.

Scootaloo dropped to the ground, and then redirected herself. She fired the jet again, but this time held it in a horizontal direction. She shot forward with incredible force, slamming her robotic hoof into a dismounted Priestess’s face. The pony flew backward, sprawling out on the ground and releasing her firearm. Scootaloo picked it up and opened her omnitool, hacking into the weapon’s internal quant and forcing it to submit to Inte’s will. She braced the rifle with her omnitool and held the trigger with her robotic hand. She then joined Nine at the front of the battle, forcing her way into the oncoming Priestesses and driving them back.

As she did, Scootaloo sent an order to several of her Thebean soldiers. They stopped and obeyed, activating devices on their wrists. They immediately began to scream as the systems running through their bodies activated the engineered alicorn tissue in their bone marrow. They erupted with pink-violet light, their armor beginning to disintegrate from within. Several of the Priestesses backed away in fright and confusion, only to have their bodies torn apart as the hyperbiotics charged them.

“PUSH THEM BACK!” screamed Scootaloo, unloading her stolen rifle into anything that moved. Her display seemed to rally her troops, and the reprogrammed Governors pushed forward as well, their particle beams ringing through the smoky air as they killed without any hesitation or remorse.

Then came several deafening explosions. Scootaloo initially thought that the Equestrian forces had called in an artillery strike, and she looked around expecting to see shells falling in the trees and fields around her. Instead, she saw something completely different. High in the sky overhead, several starships had just mass-jumped into the lower atmosphere.

Scootaloo froze in horror when she saw them. The Order had already been on the verge of extinction in her own time, but the symbol of a thistle adorning the side of the white ships was unmistakable.

“Questlords!” screamed Scootaloo, throwing down her rifle and grasping Nine tightly.

“Get off me!” growled Nine.

“Goddamn it Nine, fall back!”

“NO!”

“FALL BACK!”

Scootaloo ignited her jet again, and although Nine struggled to maintain her position, Scootaloo was able to drag her backward, sacrificing the hard-won ground they had just fought for. As she did, she saw the streaks of light coming down from the ships overhead and heard the sound of their projectiles striking the earth below.

When she had finally gotten Nine back to cover and released her, Nine immediately punched Scootaloo in the face.

“What the FUCKING HELL?!” she screamed. “How dare you pull me out of battle like that?! I was WINNING!”

She raised her hoof again, but Six stopped her. “I wouldn’t do that a second time, Nine,” she said.

“Don’t make me have to come after you, you damn whore!”

“Deep breaths, Nine,” said Six. “If you lose your cool…”

“...I lose the battle.” Nine took a few deep breaths and seemed to calm, if only slightly.

Scootaloo had hardly felt the blows to her face. The mask she wore was extremely durable. She was far more concerned with what her sensors were picking up in the distance.

“Now,” said Six, “Scootaloo, if you could please explain why you’re so- -”

The question was immediately answered, but not by Scootaloo. The forest to the left of the rock was immediately consumed in a devastating blast of orange energy. Everything in its path was destroyed. Trees were turned to ash, as well as any solders on either side unfortunate enough to have been unable to get to cover in time. Even the zealots were unable to withstand the force of the magic as it poured over them.

The initial wave was followed by a barrage of rockets, many of which were directed at the few assisting fighters that had remained over the battle. As the others covered their heads in instinctive response to the explosions, Scootaloo looked over the edge of the rock that they were hiding behind.

What she saw was exactly what she expected, but despite having known exactly what would be there, its presence still chilled Scootaloo to the bone. On the far edge of the battlefield, a large bipedal machine was approaching them. It did not move quickly, instead electing to take its time. Its lack of speed did not seem to bother it, though. Any force it encountered was immediately shredded by the magic emanating from the heavy machineguns that it bore.

Eight peeked her head over the rock. “Giant…giant robot!” she cried. “That’s a giant robot!” She then squealed in fright and started running. As she did, her she opened her omnitool and charged her horn. A small flash of light appeared around her as she teleported away.

“COWARD!” cried Nine. “You get back here this INSTANT!”

“No, she has the right idea,” said Scootaloo, ducking behind the rock.

“What the hell is that thing?” demanded Six.

“A Questlord mech. A goddamn Questlord mech!”

“I don’t care what it’s called,” said Nine, “how do we take it out?”

“We can’t! That’s a planet-destroying weapon! We don’t have the forces!”

“Can we fall back?” asked Six. “Have we been here long enough?”

“No,” said Inte into Scootaloo’s mind. “According to present predictions, Starlight and Twilight have not yet reached their destination.”

“No,” said Scootaloo. “We can’t. The mission can’t fail. Not after all of this. We’re not going to have a second shot. We have to fight it.”

Seven gave Scootaloo a look of pure disbelief, but Nine smiled.

“That’s what I want to hear.”

“I’m going to need everything you have,” said Scootaloo. “Target the just to the left of the central chest, that’s where the pilot is. Seven and I will do what we can, but it mostly comes down to you two.”

“Do you think two alicorns will be enough to take it down?” asked Six.

“No,” said Scootaloo. “But we have to try.”

Six took a long, deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, we have to.”

Nine punched Six in the front shoulder. “Don’t say it like that! We’re getting to fight a goddamn mech! Do you have any idea how proud mom is going to be of us?”

They stood for a moment, and without any verbal communication they all leapt into action. Six took the left, charging her horn and firing a beam from her horn. The corona of energy around it was terrifying, even to Scootaloo; she had never seen any alicorn, let alone Six, attempt to use that much power at once before.

Nine did the same, letting her rifle drop into her hooves so that she could direct all of her magic into the Questlord while at the same time opening fire with whatever kind of unorthodox ammunition she had.

The blasts initially had no effect, and instead rebounded off the mech’s shields. They did, however, attract its attention, and it began to turn toward them. It raised a hand and opened fire.

Seven, though badly wounded, lifted herself from cover and produced a tech barrier to hold back the initial force of the assault. With her second omnitool, she generated tech armor around each of her sisters, allowing them to advance forward without fear of injury.

Scootaloo looked around at the devestation of her forces, and saw that several of her Governor units had survived.

“Are you ready for this?” she said.

“I am,” said Inte. “However, the feedback from the process will be…painful.”

“Do it.”

Inte’s computational matrix suddenly seemed to rush forward into Scootaloo’s mind, pouring through the connections of her omnitool and into her own brain. Inte had not actually been correct about how it would feel. Her warning had been a profound understatement.

Still, Scootaloo took hold of the power in her mind and managed to lift her omnitool toward her soldiers, directing the unbridled quant energy and power through her own mind.

“Assuming….direct…control!”

The Governors suddenly convulsed violently, lifting off the ground as their eyes glowed with orange-violet energy. Then they erupted from within, their bodies converting as their Reaper implants overloaded every remaining prothean element of their ancient forms.

The soldiers charged the Questlord. It attacked them in response, but now they were strong enough to resist it, at least initially. This only gave Six and Nine more of a change to tear into it with their magic, although it was obvious that they were weakening. As alicorns, they were many times stronger than any unicorn, but even their biotic potential was not limitless.

The combined attack had limited success, though. The Questlord took a step back as a small explosion erupted around it. Scootaloo realized that its shields had been brought down.

At this point, Six collapsed. Nine’s magic faltered, but she kept shooting for as long as she could before her oversized thermal clip finally ejected automatically. Without Eight there to provide her with more ammunition, she was unable to reload.

“I’m out!” she cried.

Scootaloo looked to Seven, who was now barely conscious and bleeding, and at the last remaining Governor. She knew that the remainder of the fight was up to her.

She dashed up the rock and leapt off, activating Inte’s power and once again mass-jumping. The processing to land somewhere so close and so precisely was almost impossible, but with Scootaloo’s mind and Inte’s working in unison they were able to emerge from space directly behind the Questlord’s back. As it raised one of its arms to fire into Six, Scootaloo hardened her omnitool into a tech blade and stabbed through the metal near its spine. She felt the blade crunch through the now unprotected and unreinforced metal, and then into something soft and warm. She twisted it, feeling the spine of the pilot snap from the torsion.

The entire mech shuddered, and took a step forward before falling to its knees. It stayed like that for a moment, and Scootaloo drew out the blood-stained tech blade. The machine then shook one last time and fell forward onto its chest.

For a moment, the battlefield had gone silent. The only sound Scootaloo could hear was that of her own breathing. She looked across the field to see Nine helping Six back onto her feet. Their tech armor had dissipated, and both of them looked completely drained.

“We did it,” said Six, calling as loudly as she could.

“Hell yeah we did,” said Nine. “That was EPIC! I mean, when I tell mom, I…I…”

Scootaloo realized that Nine and Six were both looking past her. She did not need to turn to know what was coming over the hills behind her. She could hear their heavy metal footsteps, and her sensors had detected them since the start. Eleven more Questlord mechs were marching slowly toward them, each with their shields intact and their weapons ready for war.

The nearest of them bore the flag of a Questlord commander raised its arm, and its body ignited with orange energy, the result of a unicorn’s biotics being enhanced exponentially by half-built Core implants and the machinery that surrounded it. It targeted Scootaloo, and fired.

The air around Scootaloo and the three alicorns suddenly erupted with pink-violet light as a dome formed around them. The blast from the Questlord struck it with a deafening explosion, but the dome did break. Rather, the orange light of its magic swept over the violet like a tempest, breaking apart and being carried away as it went.

That was when Scootaloo heard the footsteps. They were heavy and loud and much closer than the other mech. She looked behind her to see that one was approaching them from the other side- -the one that was projecting the dome.

It did not look the same as the others. The initial design- -or what was left of it- -appeared far older and more ancient. Little of it remained, though; much of its body appeared to have been built with parts from an Atlas robot. On one of the few pieces that remained- -a charred shoulder pieces- -it bore the insignia of a harp.

Unlike the actual Questlord mechs, this one was transparent in the front .Through the window, Scootaloo could see Eight glaring madly at the other robots. Her horn was adorned with a golden ring, and around her neck she wore a red crystal whose toxic glow seemed to have spread to her eyes.

“Two hundred years!” she screamed, her voice booming and distorted through her armor’s loudspeakers. “TWO HUNDRED YEARS! That’s how long I’ve been waiting for this day! I’ve never had a chance to use this, but NOW I DO!”

She lowered the dome and opened fire. A significant portion of her collection, it seemed, had been installed into her personal mech. The effect was almost preposterous as rockets and bullets and beams of every type poured from her body and into her enemies.

The Qestlords seemed taken aback by her presence, and they returned fire.

“A giant robot fight,” said Nine in awe. “I think I’m going to…” A violet surge of light appeared beside her and a fully loaded bio-force gun dropped to her side. Her body shivered and her legs crossed slightly. “Yup,” she said. “I came.”

With Eight’s mech and a new shipment of weapons, the tide of the battle was turned once again. The Questlords were by no means easy to defeat, but they were driven back into the outer borders of Canterlot where their proficiency on open fields was of no benefit to them.

Meanwhile, the battle overhead was going surprisingly well. There had been heavy losses, but the arrival of the Core-based ships and Scootaloo returning to direct command while Eight covered her was enough to disable or destroy many Equestrian ships. With that battle turning, Scootaloo was able to pull some of her octahedral fighters into the battle below or to call in direct orbital strikes on the Questlords and the city at large.

The mission had started to change. Now that they had arrived in Canterlot, the goal was no longer to defeat their enemies. Instead, it was to attract more. Scootaloo’s soldiers broke their formations, spreading through the evacuated buildings to distribute as many explosive charges as they could. The Equestrian forces were fighting as though Scootaloo was attempting to take the Temple of Harmony, but that had never been Scootaloo’s goal. Her sole purpose was to produce a distraction by creating as much chaos and destruction as possible.

For a time, everything was functioning as well as Scootaloo could expect. Just by fighting, Eight was creating plenty of devastation. Nine, likewise, seemed to be having the time of her life- -apart from one unfortunate recoil incident- -with the combination of Eight’s personal arsenal and any quant-rifle she could salvage form her fallen foes. Six, meanwhile, had elected to take up a Chaos spear and found it to be quite effective, even against Questlords when she could get close enough.

With her mind focused on her command, Scootaloo was not able to participate completely in the battle. She instead elected to stand high above it in a damaged but durable tower, watching the city burn. Seven was with her. Though she was slumped over and breathing shallowly, she refused to retreat to Voqutus and leave her sisters without her. Scootaloo had accepted her decision, and remained at her side to administer medigel as needed.

Everything seemed to be going well until Inte suddenly became active. Her processing dropped precipitously, and when it increased she appeared beside Scootaloo, projecting herself as a hologram.

“What is it, Inte?” asked Scootaloo, immediately realizing that something was wrong.

“A new development that needs your immediate attention,” said Inte, hurriedly. “I have interfaced with the planetary quant network, and there is a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“One of the ground-based hub quants has begun to deviate from its defined behave- -” She paused, looking panicked, and then corrected herself. “There’s no time for that. From what I can tell, it has detected a weak signal of an FTL drive approaching the Solar Exclusion Zone.”

Beneath her mask, Scootaloo’s eyes grew wide. “It’s found Starlight?!”

“No, not yet,” said Inte, “but it is investigating. Several ships under its control have broken free and are approaching Starlight and Twilight’s position.”

“We have to warn them- -”

“Even if we could, there is no way to avoid being detected. Those ships need to be stopped.”

Scootaloo immediately opened all the necessary command files, trying to determine how she could position her fleet to intercept the deviant crafts before it was too late. She quickly realized that with the situation of the battle, it was not possible. The quant had moved its remaining ships to cover them, reinforcing an already substantial blockade that was boxing in Scootaloo’s fleet on one side. Even the octahedrons could not get through without heavy fighting that would prevent them from reaching their targets in time.

“Buck,” swore Scootaloo, looking at Inte, panicked. “If they get there- -”

“Starlight’s ship will be destroyed.”

“Buck buck buck- -”

“I have a proposed solution, though,” said Inte, her demeanor heavy as though she were hesitating to tell Scootaloo her suggestion.

“What? What is it?”

“I have access to the hub quant. I was unable to sway its final decision, but I managed to hack into its central power cortex.”

“Then cut it’s power!”

Inte shook her head. “Quants generate power internally. The only way to stop it is to overload it.”

“Then do that.”

“No,” said Inte. “Not until you know the cost. I could…I should hide it, but…” She paused, then looked Scootaloo in the eye. “The detonation will be substantial. That quant is constructed in an urban district across the city. That area has not yet been evacuated. If I detonate the quant, over eight thousand innocent ponies will be killed in the blast.”

“Eight…eight thousand?”

Inte lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

“I…Inte, I can’t do that. There has to be another way!”

“You can refuse to act,” said Inte. “That is the only other choice. But if you do…”

“Then the mission will fail.” Scootaloo looked out at the city. As she did, she noticed an unusual icon on her HUD, one that she had not seen before. It was located just over her vital-sign summary bar, and it resembled a small circle with a small stem on either side. The left half of the circle and its associated stem was colored deep red, and the right side was pale blue.

“Thirty seconds to intercept,” said Inte. “Scootaloo, I do not have the capacity to make this choice without your authorization. I wish I could, but you need to make the decision.”

Scootaloo looked at the small circle, and then at the sky overhead. She closed her eyes.

“Do it,” she said. “Detonate the quant.”

Inte’s hologram faded as she retracted back into Scootaloo’s central computer. “Yes, Captain,” she said.

The circle in Scootaloo’s vision changed. The red half expanded, consuming the blue until the entire icon was red. Then, beyond it, Scootaloo saw a bright and violent flash from across the city. The sound struck her a moment later, like a peal of distant thunder.

“Goddamn it,” she said, feeling tears running down her face behind her face. “You were right all along. Goddamn you, Xyuka. Why did you have to be right?” She looked up at the sky, knowing that Starlight would now be safe to complete her mission and defeat One. “It had better be worth it, Starlight.”

Chapter 40: Victory

Starlight stared at her omnitool, releasing the breath that she had been holding.

“What is it?” asked Twilight.

“Two ships,” she said. “They broke off from the main battle and started converging on our position.”

Twilight appeared immensely concerned. “Have they scanned us?”

“No,” said Starlight. “They just went dark. I don’t know why, but they’re not a threat anymore.”

“That is a relief,” sighed Twilight. “Because we are so very close. If we were to fail now…” She shook her head.

“We won’t,” said Starlight.

“No,” replied Twilight, “no we won’t.”

Both of them sat back in silence for a moment, staring at the red-orange star that they were rapidly approaching. Starlight was somewhat confused as to why they were approaching it, but Twilight had given her very specific instructions with regard to the course.

“It shouldn’t be that color,” said Twilight, frowning.

“It’s the same color it’s always been,” said Starlight. “Or at least that I’ve ever seen. Apparently it shifted to that color a few years after you left. I wasn’t aware of it for the longest time.”

“How could you not see the sun change color?”

Starlight turned her head and pointed at her eyes. “Because my eyes got burnt out of my head staving your niece’s ass, and cybernetic eyes don’t see color very well.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” said Twilight. She turned back to the star outside. “I didn’t realize. You wouldn’t happen to have an aversion to stars, though, would you?”

“If you mean do I want to jump into one again? No. No I don’t.”

“Ah. About that…” Twilight opened an interface and encoded the coordinates for Twilight. Starlight stared at them, and then at Twilight.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. I’m not.”

“No. You ARE. Because otherwise, you’re insane.”

“I’m not insane. Don’t you trust me, Starlight?”

Starlight groaned. “I do,” she said, resetting the course. “But if this kills us- -”

“It won’t kill us.”

“But if it DOES, I am going to strangle you so hard!”

“With hooves?”

“With. HOOVES.”

Both of them laughed for a moment, even though Starlight was still quite uncertain of what Twilight had just told her to do. Still, she did trust Twilight, and she pushed her ship forward to the star. As she did, various systems began alert her to the obvious danger of flying that close to an active sun. The most obvious problem was the heat. Even with a tactical cloak redirecting most of the light around Starlight’s ship, the outer hull was beginning to heat drastically.

The gravity was also becoming an issue. Starlight felt the ship accelerating uncontrollably as she moved closer and closer to the star’s surface. She compensated for it as best as she could, drawing on extensive experience with this sort of thing. If she had been any less of a pilot, she knew that she likely would have crashed into the star below.

There ship began to vibrate, and the temperature inside was increasing drastically. Internally, the ship’s cooling system was beginning to overload. “You need to be exactly over the coordinates I gave you,” said Twilight, her voice now reflecting the urgency that Starlight was feeling.

“I’m trying,” muttered Starlight. “This isn’t exactly easy!”

Then, all at once, the shaking stopped. Starlight opened several interfaces, checking the systems, thinking something had gone horribly wrong. What she found did not assuage her concern: the gravity pull had ceased, and the radiation levels on the ship’s hull were almost completely vacant. The ship was in fact cooling.

“What the hell?” said Starlight, trying to reboot the sensor array.

“Don’t bother,” said Twilight, smiling wide and showing her distinctly non-pointed teeth. “We’re here.”

Starlight looked through the primary viewscreen. She had been forced to close the blast shield over the main window to prevent both her and Twilight from being incinerated, and it took a moment for the ship’s frontal cameras to adapt to the fact that they were staring into a star at point-blank range.

That was when Starlight saw what could only be described as a crack in the star. She leaned forward, thinking she was seeing some kind of visual artifact. It was no artifact, though. There was a groove cut into the star, bordered on each side by structures of white-hot metal that must have been the size of several planets.

“What in the name of Celestia…”

“Exactly,” said Twilight, taking Starlight’s omnitool in her hooves. Starlight was so perplexed that she did not even mind. “Now let’s just take us down a little bit.”

The ship began to descend, and the crack in the star grew wider and closer. As they did, Twilight issued an access code linked to her personal IFF. The star responded, and the crack seemed to become wider, opening and revealing even more metal beneath the star’s surface.

Starlight could not take her eyes off of it. A machine had been built into the star, and somehow, despite being surrounded by solar plasma, it not only stayed intact but it still functioned. As she watched, a circular door of impossible proportions slid apart, creating a hole small enough for a small planet to fit through.

The ship entered the doorway, and immediately its surroundings began to become darker. The first few thousand miles of metal were still red-hot, but they began to cool with depth, eventually becoming red hot and finally cold and dark.

“What is this?” said Starlight, turning to Twilight as several smaller lights erupted on either side of the channel, illuminating the ship’s descent. “This isn’t a star, is it?”

Twilight smiled. “No. Not really.”

The descent took some time, but with Twilight’s guidance, it was not difficult. The innards of the star seemed to have been assembled to be populated by ships far larger than Starlight’s, even though there was no evidence that anyone had been present at all for several centuries at least.

They eventually came to a landing pad and departed their ship. Twilight was unusually excited, and quickly made her way to the airlock while Starlight completed the shutdown procedures and disconnected her omnitool. The process only took a few moments, but was the first time Starlight found herself alone since the mission had begun. She sat for a moment, listening to the miniscule hum of the ship’s engine wind down. As she did, she reached into one of her pockets and removed a small glass-like tube.

She stared at the tube for a long moment, and the fragment of living metal within seemed to stare back at her. It had been Beri’s gift to her- -her last- -and Starlight had only brought it to make sure that it never left her sight.

For a long moment, though, Starlight considered leaving it on the ship. She did not know what she and Twilight were going to be walking into, and if it went bad, she did not want to have somebody pull an artifact like this off of her corpse.

“Stupid,” she said to herself. “You stupid pony…”

“Starlight?” Twilgiht poked her head into the bridge. “Are you coming? I really could use your help.”

“Sure,” said Starlight, slipping the tube back into her pocket and sliding out of her chair. “I’m on my way.”

Starlight was hesitant to leave, thinking that the air would be exceedingly hot, or that there would be no air at all. In actuality, though, she found that the atmosphere was both cool and breathable.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” she said, looking up at the walls that loomed over her at an impossible scale.

“I think that’s what I thought when I was first brought here as a filly,” mused Twilight, stepping onto the platform. “But it is, and always has been, and will always be.”

“Is this Celestia?” asked Starlight. She was beginning to become dizzy from looking up and instead directed her attention toward the still enormous but much more reasonably sized path that Twilight had begun to follow.

Twilight laughed. “No, of course not! This is just the star. Celestia is a pony, the same as you and me. And I think she will be very glad to meet you.”

Unable to control her excitement, Twilight bounded forward and then took flight. Starlight galloped after her, although with far more hesitation. It was not just that everything surrounding her seemed so absurd, but something deeper. Something about this place felt very wrong.

The first signs came quickly. Twilight had led Starlight down a long, wide hall. It was mostly dark, save for a few lights that lit the corridor at the joints between its cyclopean segments. For the most part, the architecture was regular and simple. In fact, Starlight found it somewhat familiar, and after a few minutes she realized why: it was the same style that One had designed most of the Temple of Harmony in.

That in itself was not an issue. The walls were smooth and made of some dark and poorly lit metal, which though uninviting was not overtly disturbing. What indicated the problem, though, was when that architecture gave way to the equipment that began to line the borders of the halls.

Twilight stopped abruptly, staring at the extensive machinery and the long conduits connected to it that trailed down the dark, long hallway.

“This shouldn’t be here,” she said. Her voice sent a chill down Starlight’s spine.

“Why? What is it?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t here before.”

Twilight lifted her hoof and brushed it through the scale and condensation on the machine’s surface. As she wiped it away, she suddenly jumped back.

“No!” she cried. “Oh no, NO!”

“Twilight, what’s wrong, I don’t- -”

Twilight immediately started galloping at full speed down the hallway, seeming to have forgotten that she had wings. Starlight chased after her, but pulled herself to a stop just in time to check what Twilight had actually seen. The instant she saw it, she understood Twilight’s reaction completely.

The front plate of the machine was marked with a symbol: a hexagon, open at the bottom and flanked by two orange brackets. It was the symbol of Cerberus.

For several minutes, Starlight found herself becoming increasingly lost. Twilight had rushed ahead so quickly that Starlight had lost her. Without Twilight, Starlight started to become increasingly unnerved by the halls and structure around her. It was so large, but at the same time so empty and dark. That loneliness seemed to eat into Starlight, and she found herself getting closer and closer to the verge of panic as she desperately tried to find Twilight or anyone at all to keep her company and prevent her from being alone.

Eventually, she just started to run, not caring where she was going as long as it was away. Logically, though, she knew that to do so was pointless: she was in a facility the size of a star. It was the size of thousands of planets, and no doubt was filled completely with halls identical to the one she found herself passing through. That thought did not calm her. It only made her fear worse.

Then, suddenly, she stopped. The corridors had just seemed to end, leaving Starlight in a large and flat room. She stopped and waited for her eyes to adjust, only to find that they could not. The room appeared to have no edge, but rather to fade into blackness. The ceiling and floor were both visible, though, and not especially far apart.

The only light came from a small, dim speck a few hundred feet away. A set of conduits had been laid out of the edge of the hallway and across the floor, leading toward that light. Starlight immediately knew that she was meant to go toward it, but at the same time wanted nothing more than to turn and go back into the darkened halls. Somehow, this room was even worse than they were.

Bravely, though, she pressed on, following the conduits toward her goal. As she drew closer, the light seemed to get brighter. Suddenly, Starlight became conscious of a sound in the darkness. It took her a moment longer to realize that it was weeping, and then another second to realize that it was Twilight.

At that point, Starlight ignored her fear completely and sprinted toward the light. It did not take her long to reach an area where the level of the floor suddenly changed, producing a low platform. When Starlight reached that and saw what had been built upon it, she immediately froze, unable to move forward anymore.

The platform supported a mass of ancient, strange equipment. Narrow tubes and hoses merged together into braided masses, rising both from the floor and descending from the ceiling. Starlight stared at the mass of supports and connectors, immediately understanding what they must have been.

What sat in their center only confirmed it. Although the body had long rotted away, the spine still remained connected to the machinery by the implants imbedded within it. Metal had come to overgrow the bones, holding some of them together, including the remnants of one enormous wing.

Most frightening, though, was that this was also the place where the Cerberus conduits converged. They linked to the machine, sometimes to where the spine was still linked and sometimes into other locations, connecting them to satellite hubs that had been assembled around the central platform.

Twilight lay at the base of the platform, holding something in her forelegs. As Starlight approached, she realized that it was a skull. Although the size of it was much greater than that of any living pony and the horn was almost hyperbolically long, it was clearly equine. Starlight did not need to get any closer to also see that like the spine it was covered in glimmering implants, all of which had long since gone silent.

“Celestia,” sobbed Twilight, cradling the skull in her hooves. “No! Please, no!”

“She was a Core,” whispered Twilight. “This whole time.”

“Of course she was,” said a voice. Starlight and Twilight both turned their heads sharply, but the instant Starlight had heard it she knew to whom it belonged.

One had been waiting for them, standing innocuously on the edge of the darkness in the far reaches of the room. She emerged from behind a large piece of equipment, her eyes locked on Starlight and a small turian blade floating near her head and rotating quickly in her magic.

This was the first time Starlight had ever seen One and Twilight in the same room together, and as soon as she did she felt like a fool. They looked completely different. It was not just a matter of One’s pointed teeth, but in the way her body was shaped. She was slightly taller and thinner than Twilight, with features that were a fraction narrower. Even her coat was different: it was darker, and grayer.

None of the differences were especially profound, but somehow, when taken together, they made a completely different pony. It was at that moment that Starlight was absolutely sure that pony that Thebe had created was the real Twilight.

“You!” shrieked Twilight, holding Celestia’s skull close to her as though One might try to steal it. “You did this!”

“Yes,” replied One, not even hesitating or attempting to lie. Her voice was completely flat and neutral, and her eyes never left Starlight. “I did. It was not even especially difficult. Not when I look like this.” She gestured to herself. “She trusted me, and let me get very close. And, well…” The knife she was holding suddenly stopped rotating. “It was quick. I used this blade, in fact. I slid it between her skull and spine. She felt no pain, and died receiving a hug from her ‘favorite student’.”

“But why?” asked Starlight. She was not especially angry, and although she was loathe to admit it, she actually found herself somewhat impressed.

“Why?” said One. “Because she and her sister needed to die.”

“YOU MONSTER!” screamed Twilight, standing up suddenly and causing the other various bones that had dropped from Celestia to rustle. Tears were running down her face. “She was a beautiful pony! All she ever wanted was peace, and the love of ponies!”

One’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Yes. ‘Love’ and ‘peace’, produced by standing above the world she supposedly rules and watching as the population destroys itself. Celestia and Luna, your world’s gods, content not just to witness countless wars, famines and plagues, all without intervening, but to obliterate your population every few thousand years with wars between themselves. Which one of us was the monster, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Don’t you dare say my name!”

“You killed them both,” said Starlight. She was still in disbelief.

“The Sun and Moon are symmetric. When Celestia died, Luna went with her. I must admit, I felt some remorse for Luna. It was truly only Celestia that needed to be removed.”

“For what?” Starlight looked around at the Cerberus equipment that was keeping the star alive even with its Core long dead. “So that you could take the throne? So that she couldn’t stop you?”

“Starlight,” said One, “you have to understand. This was the pony that oversaw the creation of Cores. From the very beginning. She watched the oligarchy corrupt Starswirls work, and she did nothing. She ruled the galaxy when earth-ponies were hunted and eaten by their unicorn lords, and when captured Pegasi were bred like farm animals until they were docile enough to serve as slaves. Every injustice that this galaxy has suffered, she watched it. And did NOTHING.”

“You murdered a Princess,” spat Twilight, wiping away the tears from her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what she did in the past! She was like a mother to me!”

“Because she gave you those wings only to seal you into crystal? Because the Crimson Horizon failed and because she wanted to give her beloved subjects a weapon capable of vaporizing planets at will?”

“Shut up! SHUT UP!”

“Are you even mad because she died? Or are you angry because I’ve disturbed your ossified social structure?”

Twilight screamed and charged down from the platform. There was a sound of a distant electrical discharge, and One was suddenly standing beside Starlight. Her knife had been drawn and coated with biotic energy, but was not pointed at Starlight. Twilight almost immediately faltered, and as she turned Starlight saw the immense gash that had been cut down her side and into the metal beneath her skin.

One stared at Starlight, and although she was close enough to have easily slain her, she did not. Instead, she lowered the blade she was holding.

“I do not want to die,” said One. “Even though I have no life of my own, the fragment that I do possess is very dear to me. But if I must go, so be it. Starlight, I must know.”

“Know what?”

“Do you hate me?”

One’s voice changed, wavering slightly as she spoke, as if she could not bear to receive the answer that she already knew. The change in her tone was only slight, but it affected Starlight greatly. Not only was One within range to strike her, but she was within range to strike One. Somehow, though, she found it impossible to move.

“You stole my magic,” said Starlight.

“I know,” said One, her expression falling. “Something I have regretted every day. The most selfish action of my life. I could not save your Core implants, and without them…Starlight, you’re not one of the nobility, nor do you know the cost they pay for their long lives. Limiting your magic keeps you young. Without it, you would have aged and…and left me all alone…”

Starlight stared at One for a moment, and out of the corner of her eye saw Twilight standing. The exposed metal in her side knit back together and her skin repaired itself.

“Two roads diverg- -”

One’s pupils suddenly narrowed to lethal points. “No you don’t!” she cried, teleporting across the expanse between them and summoning a biotic construct which she rammed through the side of Twilight’s neck, momentarily removing her ability to speak.

Although she was injured, this time Twilight was prepared to fight back. Her horn erupted with light, and One summoned a shield around herself. Rather than attempt to lock herself in place, she allowed herself to be knocked back several yards before planting her hooves in the ground and then teleporting again. Twilight teleported at the same time, but her ability was slower. When she emerged from the spell, one of her legs had been nearly severed.

One was waiting for her and fired a beam directly into Twilight’s chest. Had Twilight been a living pony, the blast would have killed her. Instead, it ripped into the metal inside her. She sacrificed a substantial amount of her body to direct her magic into a powerful sideways attack that struck One in the side. A cracking sound came from within her, and she was thrown into one of the pieces of Cerberus equipment near Starlight.

Starlight was now in range, and she raised her omnitool, preparing to fire an incineration beam at One. One did not react, though. She did not produce a shield, or teleport out of the way. She just stood there, watching Starlight, as if she were waiting.

“Damn you,” said Twilight with great difficulty. “Damn you, you fucking CLONE!”

With a scream, her entire body ignited in violet light. Biotic force poured out of her in all directions in a prodigious shockwave. Starlight was not able to get out of the way fast enough, and there was no time to set her omnitool programming to do anything to protect herself.

Out of the corner of her eye, though, she saw One charge her horn. As the shockwave hit, One was struck unprotected- -but Starlight felt nothing. She was surrounded by a dome of violet energy that blocked Twilight’s uncontrolled blast completely.

When the spell dissipated, Twilight’s body had been even more damaged, this time from her own excess. Her skin had largely been removed, reveling the machine beneath. As she approached One, though, her metallic body began to heal and her skin to reform.

One was not so lucky. She had taken withstood the explosion, but without any sort of protection it had been devastating to her. Her body was still sparking with the energy as she tried to counter the reave effect, and one of her wings was hanging limply at her side. She also appeared unable to pressure on one of her front legs, meaning that she had no option for escape.

This seemed to make her only fight harder. The tip of her horn charged, and with a cry she produced several biotic singularities that flew out toward Twilight. Twilgiht managed to shield herself from most of them, although the force of them striking her shield was deafening. The second set, though, came around behind her and struck her in the rear, knocking her off balance.

One screamed and teleported forward, forming a construct blade and attempting to impale Twilight with it. Twilight constructed a bubble in defense, but One’s construct was stronger. Its tip penetrated Twilight’s shield and began to spark violently as she pushed it forward with prodigious effort.

“Starlight!” cried Twilight. “Help- -me!”

Starlight realized that she had just been watching uselessly, and for a moment her eyes met One’s. Unable to look into those eyes, she closed her eyes.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” she began. The effect was almost immediate. One stiffened and backed away from Twilight. Her motions were jerky as she struggled against the programming.

“Starlight,” she said. “Please- -” Starlight had kept her eyes closed, but she could still hear the pleading in One’s voice.

“And sorry that I could not travel both.”

There was a thump, and Starlight opened her eyes to see that One had collapsed onto the floor. Every one of her limbs had locked. Despite this, her eyes still flitted about, indicating that she could see and was still fully conscious. Starlight immediately regretted looking into eyes and seeing just how much fear was in them. One had lied to her, and taken her magic- -but somehow Starlight could not help but feel that she had just betrayed a friend.

“Excellent,” said Twilight, her voice finally returning to normal and the remainder of the wounds on her body. She looked down at One, grinning. Then without warning she kicked One hard in the face.

“Don’t do that!” shouted Starlight, moving to stop Twilight if she tried to do it again.

“Why? You know she deserves it. For what she did to Celestia. To me. To YOU. To Equestria itself. She deserves so much more than that. But unfortunately, I don’t have time for that.”

Twilight’s magic extended from her horn, forming her own version of a biotic construct resembling a large, pointed blade. She held it out as if to show it to Starlight, and then slowly positioned it over One’s neck. “I have a lot of work to do. Rebuilding the Harmony, restoring the Parliament. Unfortunately for us- -but very fortunately for her- -she is going to get to die the same way her Princess did. Minus the hug. Not that it matters. You’re not even a real pony.”

One looked up at the blade, and then her eyes turned to Starlight one last time before she closed them and accepted her fate. Then, with a laugh, Twilight brought the blade down.

A ringing sound filled the air as Twilight’s construct struck the bright orange tech barrier that had formed between it and One’s neck.

“Starlight?” said Twilight, looking up at her friend in anger and shock.

“What if,” said Starlight. “What if she’s right?”

She looked up at Twilight, and saw the look of contempt on the alicorn’s face.

“If she’s ‘right’? Starlight, she’s a psychotic murderer- -”

“A murderer. Yes. I’ve killed people, Twilight. How many have you killed? How many planets did you rip apart with the Harmony? Ten? Twenty? Five hundred?”

“I was a Core. I did what I was told.”

“No. You weren’t like me, or the others. You had free will, conscious thought. You had a CHOICE. But you were content to do it anyway. To serve the government’s whim. To kill its enemies and to let others like you- -like ME- -rot in our cells. And now you tell me you’re going to rebuild the Harmony?”

“Of course I am! It isn’t a Princess’s place to rule over her subjects! We’re symbols, Starlight! That’s why Celestia never intervened! Because she understood that Equestria is more than capable of governing itself.”

“You mean that the nobility was more than capable of governing itself. The same nobility that oversaw the conversion of commoners into Cores when they seemed too strong.”

“And you would rather be ruled by HER? By Cerberus?”

“I’ve been at her side for three hundred years.” She looked down at One, who was looking back up at her. “And she lied to me. She claimed to be you.” She looked up at Twilight. “But she was effective, even when it was tearing her apart from the inside.”

“Effective at putting Equestria on the path to doom, maybe. Look at the state we’re in!”

“A technologically advanced society. A player on an intergalactic scale instead of a backward isolationist kingdom. The Cores are free, the breeders self-governing, the forces of Chaos defeated and the races living in harmony.”

Twilight glared at Starlight, and then stepped over One’s paralyzed body. “You have no idea what you’re saying. How could you? You weren’t the one who she killed, whose life she stole. I am an ALICORN!” Twilight pointed at herself. “I was born for so much more than to have what should be mine taken from me! I am the logical conclusion to pony evolution! I am TWLIGHT SPARKLE!”

“No,” said Starlight. “She may have taken that name from you, but she has had it longer and used it better.” She returned Twilight’s glare. “You aren’t my friend. You never were. But SHE WAS.”

“It was all a trick! A lie!”

“Was it?” Starlight’s mind was racing, and she was aware of the memories of her artificially long life. Their time together had been long, and although One had been cold and aloof at the start she had shown nothing but sincerity and devotion as time went on. Starlight knew in her heart that it could not all have been an act, and felt like a fool for ever have believed that it could have been. Every time she had been afraid or angry or otherwise in need, One had been there for her regardless of what she had to set aside to make time. The same was true for Starlight: when the pony that she now knew as One would begin to buckle under the life that she had been forced to live, or perhaps even the strain of the awareness of her dishonesty, Starlight would always be there in turn. The pair of them had laughed and cried together so many times that it was impossible that all of it could have been a lie.

“You should have stayed dead, Twilight. Or ruled in Hell as Thebe. I don’t care if you take the throne, or what you do, so long as you leave my friend ALONE.”

“You little bitch. Do you realize that this is blasphemy?”

“Then call me a heretic.” Starlight took a deep breath. “I kept the first for another day,” she said, reciting the words that Bob had no doubt understood she might eventually want to use. “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”

One gasped and twitched, jerkily rising to her feet. Twilight’s eyes widened in shock when she realized what Starlight had done.

“NO!” she shrieked. “You can’t!”

She immediately turned her horn toward One, preparing to strike her while she had still not fully regained her ability to walk. Starlight considered that Twilight’s response, and fired an incineration beam into the side of Twilight’s face.

The beam exploded on contact with her, but Twilight did not fall. Instead, she slowly turned back to Twilight, glaring at her with one violet eye and one empty, metallic socket.

“I don’t want to fight you, Twilight,” said Starlight, raising her omnitool. “But I will protect One, and the Equestria that we created together. Just leave. Because if I have to kill you, I will.”

“Kill me? Really?”

Starlight’s omnitool suddenly flickered and went out. Twilight sighed as her face began to regenerate. “That’s the thing. Who do you think gave you that omnitool? That would be ME. Not that you would have been able to do much to me with it anyway.”

Twilight took a step forward, and Starlight began to walk backward as Twilight approached her.

“You see, she already did my job for me. You don’t have any magic, or tech. Not even wings. You’re no better than an earth-pony. And I’m a god. And with Celestia and Luna gone? I am the ONLY god. I will be able to succeed where Sunset Shimmer failed!” She paused, and then smiled. “And I’m afraid I can’t have any heretics in my New Equestria, can I?”

Twilight was suddenly struck by a biotic bolt from behind. She turned to see One, who although barely able to stand had charged her horn and was prepared to defend Starlight.

“Starlight!” she cried. “Just run! Get out of here!”

“I’m not going to run,” said Starlight. She reached into her pocket. “And I’m not going to be powerless.”

With one swift motion, she shattered the glass tube on the floor. The Reaper artifact inside immediately reacted to air, squirming in the oxygen and blindly searching for a living creature to cling to.

Twilight slowly turned away from One, confused as to what Starlight had just done. Before she could react, though, Starlight scooped up the shard and placed it in the center of her hoof. Then, with a scream, she stabbed it through her right eye. Her eye burst open and the thin bones of her skull behind it crunched as she rammed the Reaper artifact directly into her brain.

Immediately, it took hold of her, growing and spreading through her brain and body. Starlight continued to scream, both at the pain of the parasite growing within her and at the feeling of it reconfiguring her body. She felt it quickly move through her brain and spine, linking itself to the long-dormant implants that lay there. As she doubled over in agony, she felt it pierce through the scar tissue of her back, building new implants where hers had long ago been taken from her.

Then a strange sense of calmness as it reached toward the base of her horn, extending its own tendrils into the Cerberus implant that One had placed within her. Within seconds, it overwhelmed it, and Starlight screeched as entire body ignited with biotic power.

She dropped to the floor, her body ablaze with blue energy.

“I’m still an alicorn,” said Twilight. “There is no way you could- -”

Starlight teleported to Twilight’s side and sliced into her with her magic. Twilight immediately pulled away, but that only helped Starlight draw out the piece of her that her magic had wrapped around. She twisted in the air, kicking Twilight away and pulling the piece of metal free of her body.

Twilight gaped, realizing that Starlight had just pulled a substantial and irreplaceable Reaper portion of her body away. Starlight grinned as she crushed it in her magic, and then atomized it in front of Twilight.

“I saw how you were made,” she said. “And I think I can figure out how to unmake you, too.”

Twilight roared in anger and leapt at Starlight. Starlight was faster, though. She copied One’s alternate method for teleporting and slid beside Twilight, striking at her internal sensors. Twilight shielded at least one of them, but was blinded in the others. Unable to target completely, she turned and unleashed several simultaneous beams.

Starlight jumped back, interposing herself between One and Twilight and projecting a crystal-like shield around her entire body. The beams ricocheted off of it, although they were strong enough to crack the shield’s surface. Even though Starlight had managed to restore her magic, Twilight was still an alicorn and still deadly.

“Your name is Un?” said Starlight, dropping her shield and landing next to One.

“It’s not a name, but yes, I am,” said One, who was highly confused but also tearing from having heard Starlight’s speech. “And you don’t have to- -”

“Shut your mouth and FIGHT,” ordered Starlight. “Because I can’t beat her alone. We have to do it together!”

One smiled, and replied with her native accent. “I will do what I can, my friend.”

They both struck simultaneously. With her targeting system damaged, Twilight was unable to strike both. She instead focused her attention on One, who she hated more. One was able to shield herself, and while Twilight’s head was turned, Starlight cut through her abdomen and tore out another critical piece of her body. Twilight screamed and dropped to a knee on one of her legs.

“Starlight, stop!” she cried. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“I think I know exactly what I’m doing,” said Starlight, scanning Twilight’s body for more Reaper components while One nearly severed her neck with a biotic construct.

“No you DON’T!”

Twilight unleashed another shockwave. This time, Starlight was able to protoject her own shield. This blast was more powerful than the other one, though, and different. Starlight winced as the Reaper implant within her suddenly burned, and her magic faltered on contact with Twilight’s.

“Starlight!” cried One, teleporting to her side and catching her as she fell to the ground. The impact of the tail end of the explosion further injured One, and she did not get back up. Starlight, though, stood, finding herself standing on the platform where Celestia had spent tens of thousands of years trapped as a Core.

“You don’t understand, do you?” said Twilight, approaching slowly, her body already regenerating. “All I wanted was to have you as a friend. You could have been a general, or a commander of an army. Even a real Priestess. Why are you fighting me, Starlight? It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

“You still have a chance to give up, Twilight. We still might be able to be friends, some day…” Starlight suddenly cried out and nearly dropped to her knees.

“Unfortunately, no,” said Twilight. “That power? The only way you got it was to destroy the implant that SHE put in your head. Which was a very, very stupid thing to do. Because she’s right. Containing your magic was the only thing keeping you alive. Can’t you feel it? It’s burning you from inside. You probably have less than five minutes before you live three centuries, all at once.”

“That’s enough time for me to stop you,” said Starlight, even as her head was aching and her vision starting to swim.

“You can’t stop me, Starlight. You have, what, one Reaper implant? I’m MADE of Reaper technology. Your unicorn body will disintegrate. You’re not immortal like me, Starlight. You’re just a Core.”

“A Core?” said Starlight, smiling. “Yes, Twilight. That’s exactly what I am.”

Starlight jumped suddenly, pushing off from the floor with her biotic power. Instead of rushing toward Twilight, though, she rushed backward- -toward the machine that still held Celestia’s spine.

When Starlight touched it, the machine responded, reacting to the presence of a new Core. The cables that still held onto Celestia’s long-dead bones released them, and the tendrils of metal sought out a new host to penetrate. They quickly found the ports that the Reaper implants had constructed, and Starlight felt them penetrate her body.

“NO!” screamed Twilight, striking out with full strength.

The beam never reached Starlight. She deflected it easily with the solar energy that poured through her body. Her entire form ignited as she linked to the artificial star, and her armor was burned away.

Far on the ground below, Scootaloo looked up to the sky. The battle around her had almost entirely stopped as everyone present looked up to see the sun glowing bright white and hotter than any living pony apart from Scootaloo had ever seen.

The effect on Starlight was profound. She remaind consciousness, although she doubted that if she had been any less of a Core she probably would have- -or been vaporized completely. Even in her present state, there was a very real possibility that the latter could occur.

Space seemed to shift around her. She saw Twilight and One standing before her, with the former desperately attempting to pull her free. Twilight’s efforts were meaningless, though. She was so small that her efforts barely even registered to Starlight.

At the same time, Starlight saw memories that were rapidly becoming hers. She saw herself standing on the platform where she had spent her entire life. In front of her, she saw her favorite student approach. Starlight felt so glad to see her; she had been alone for so long. She reached out her frail, shaking hooves, and Twilight smiled. That smile brought so much joy to Starlight’s heart, and she felt her hooves close around her.

Then she felt the knife, as she knew she would. One had not lied. There was no pain. Only a sense of tremendous relief to know she had finally succeeded.

The memory shifted. Once again, Starlight saw her student, now brought before her by a pair of guards. She was just a filly, a terrified young unicorn. She seemed so innocent and pure, and yet Starlight still hesitated. After her previous failures, she was not sure if this would be the one who was finally be her greatest success.

Another memory. This time a different pony stood before Starlight. Her body was bright yellow and her hair flaming orange and red. Her body had been corrupted and broken, coated with extensive implants that were still bleeding through the bandages that covered so much of her body.

This memory had not been a good one. There had been yelling and accusations of hypocrisy, and in the end Starlight’s beloved student stormed away, never to be seen again. Starlight wept for a long time after that.

The next memory came harder. It was far older, and dimmer because of its age. Still, this memory remained pure and unforgotten in Starlight’s mind. Standing before her this time was a stallion, appearing young but with eyes that were so very old. He wore a long beard and a hat with bells, and he lowered his cape to reveal the implants that he had put inside himself in Starlight’s image. Seeing them made Starlight sad, but also so very grateful that there was another like her. He had been the first to find her, the first of her own kind that she had ever seen. He was the only pony that she had ever known, and yet she loved him dearly.

As he stepped up into the platform and gently kissed her, Starlight felt herself slipping free of the memory. This time, she was no longer linked to the machine. She was just a tiny filly, new and frightened. All around her was nothing but endless blackness.

Then the blackness suddenly retreated under the glow of a blinding blue glow. Though the glow was profoundly horrid, it was also impossibly beautiful. Starlight looked up to its source to see a pair of towering machines, their bodies writhing and reconfiguring as they constantly destroyed and rebuilt themselves into new and better images of their ideas, even as those ideas were dying.

The blue light came from within them, and they reached out. Starlight stood, and she reached out back to them until one thin, mechanical tendril tapped the tip of her tiny filly hoof.

That was when Starlight opened her eyes. Not just the ones in her face, but the eyes of a god. The entirety of everything became apparent to her. She could see everything: every planet and every galaxy, and every grain of sand on any distant shore if she chose. She saw the Council as they debated in the face of sure destruction, and she saw Babylon, sitting about the bridge of her starship with a white Pegasus and a brave asari, waiting. She saw into the Crystal Galaxy, where Flurry Heart was helping her aged husband stand up from his reading chair to come to dinner. Sunburst shivered for a moment, as though he knew that he was being watched, and Flurry Heart looked concerned.

In the distance, Starlight saw those who looked back. She saw the Benefactor, and saw that although he was able to return her stare he did not understand what he was seeing. There was nothing left, save for his final doomed fate to kill all of those he had once elected to save.

Then there was HER. A minor element in the galaxy, barely worth Starlight’s view, and yet somehow she stared back. Her body was infected and badly so, not just with disease but the will of a race who had eliminated themselves to ensure their eternal survival. Starlight saw her blue eyes, and her smile.

“What have you done?” cried Twilight.

Starlight’s attention suddenly turned to Twilight, who had once been her most prized student.

“I have done nothing,” said Starlight, “but I have instead become the capacity to do. I am what you wished for, the god you craved. Did not you wish for a terminal point to your evolution? I have become that. I was the first pony, and with this power I can be the last pony. Your creation, your end. I am both.”

“Then…then are you Starlight, or are you Celestia?”

Starlight paused, considering for a moment. “I don’t think there ever was a Celestia,” she said at last. “Not in any of our lifetimes, at least.” Starlight raised a hoof, and Twilight was suddenly pulled toward her.

“What- -what are you doing?!” she cried.

“I am completing my promise. I gave you the option to turn away, to rule a different kingdom. To live a life of happiness and peace. But just like Sunset Shimmer before you, you chose to throw it away.”

“NO! I didn’t, I- -”

“I thought at one time that you were my greatest success, Twilight,” sighed Starlight. “But now I know. You were a failure. A failure like all the rest.”

Twilight tried to protest, but Starlight wrapped her in her magic. Twilight screamed, trying to resist with every ounce of magic she had. To Starlight, though, it was like crushing a soft, eroded pebble beneath her hoof. It should not have been that easy. Twilight had died once, and what had come back though complete was made lesser by the experience.

With a burst of force, Starlight tore apart Twilight’s body, vaporizing every component and rending the Paradigm within, destroying every aspect of it and cutting through every line of thought. Everything that was Twilight Sparkle was obliterated: her body, mind, and immortal soul.

Nothing was left of her, save for the Key of Korviliath. It fell to the floor and shattered where it landed.

With Twilight once again dead and never to return, Starlight turned her attention to One. One looked up at her, and although she was crying, she smiled.

“Starlight,” she said. “You look so beautiful.”

“The power,” said Starlight. “The amount I can see…the amount I can do! I could remake Equestria in my own image. Or everything. I could rule this galaxy for all eternity.” She paused. “But…but would it really matter? Something so trivial…a world so short lived…everything I create would turn to dust instantly.” Her heart fell at the thought. “It would be worthless to try. So much easier just to watch…”

“If that is what you want to do,” said One. “But please, Starlight. I must ask you one favor, if you will permit it.”

“What is it? What would you ask a goddess?”

“Please,” said One. “Kill me. Like you did her. That is what I came here for.” She looked up at Starlight. “I came here expecting you to kill me, so that you would have closure. But to hear what you said…it made me so happy. I thought I would die in the torment of having disappointed my only friend, but now I can die in peace.”

Starlight was confused. “But why would you want to die at all, then?”

One smiled. “Because I am no longer needed. I was built to rule. It is my only purpose, the only reason why I was created. But I don’t need to anymore. Equestria has a new ruler. And I know you will be greater than I ever was.”

“You can do more than what you were designed for.”

“Can I?” One looked at the place where Twilight had been standing and where her shadow had now been burned into the ground. “She was right. I’m not a real pony. Just a copy. Just a machine.”

“But you could still rule.”

“But I couldn’t bear to.” One shook her head. “Not alone. To live a life like that. Without you. I can’t face it, Starlight. I just can’t. But you’re a god now. The new Celestia.”

“All this power…and still trapped,” said Starlight, realizing her fate. “A Core, like all other Cores. Nothing more than a slave.”

“Don’t say it like that,” said One. “You may be a Core, but you can move beyond that.”

“I can,” said Starlight, realizing what she had to do. She lifted her hooves and braced them on the side of the machines that surrounded her, and then began pushing herself forward.

“Starlight, no!” cried One, realizing what she was doing. “If you separate yourself from the machine, you’ll die!”

“Then I will die- -if that means- -I don’t have to be ALONE!”

Starlight cried out and tore the upper part of her spine free. The machinery did not want to let her go, and she felt it calling her back. Every connection she severed felt like she was severing part of herself, and with every cable that broke free she could feel her power diminishing.

Then, with a ripping sound, she fell free, landing on top of One.

“Starlight!” cried One, holding onto her tightly. “No, Starlight, please, not like this!”

“I won’t be a slave,” said Starlight. “Not alone, linked to some machine with no friends. I won’t be like she was. I won’t kill you, One. Even if that means I have to die.”

One closed her eyes and hugged Starlight closely, only to suddenly cry out and release her. Confused, Starlight looked at her friend. One’s eyes were wide and staring at Starlight. Not her face, though. She was staring at Starlight’s back.

Suddenly, One burst out into laughter. Starlight did not understand why, and One’s reaction made her afraid. Then One pointed.

“Starlight! Starlight! Look!”

Starlight did, slowly turning her head to look at her back. Apart from having a new set of smooth, low-profile Core ports, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. At least until the two tiny appendages sticking out from between her implants buzzed involuntarily.

“W…what?” said Starlight, stopping one of the feathered appendages with her magic. Her eyes widened when she realized what they were, and she burst out laughing with One. “I have Scootaloo wings!”

That made the pair laugh even harder, and they embraced each other. Neither had to die, and both were free to live in the Equestria that they had created together.

Chapter 41: The Princess of Equestria

Starlight adjusted her clothing. It was a form of armor, but it was adorned heavily with a ceremonial garment that resembled a flowing robe. Starlight did not much care for the flowing nature of the outer portion, but she greatly appreciated that both pieces had been constructed in such a way as to allow her to proudly display the exposed implants in her back, as well as her new wings, as tiny as they were. She also was a fan of the color: unlike her traditional dark armor, this version was constructed in white.

What she liked far less about her appearance was her eyes. They were now asymmetrical. The one she had been forced to remove had been replaced by an artificial version produced by the Reaper implant that still resided within her. It was silverish in color, unlike her other red eye. The only reason Starlight had kept it was because it reminded her of Jack, whose eyes had possessed the same silver luster toward the end of her life.

As Starlight adjusted the collar of her clothing, One appeared beside her. She was also dressed in an extensive flowing dress, although like Starlight she also wore the armor associated with the Cult of Harmony. Unlike Starlight’s white, though, One’s armor was designed with a black and silver color scheme.

“Wow,” said Starlight. “You look good.”

“I do?” One did not bother to forgo her French accent. She saw no need to, now that she was not forced to keep up the perpetual guise of being Twilight Sparkle, at least around Starlight. In Starlight’s opinion, it had changed her behavior drastically. That secret must have been weighing on her greatly, because now that she was able to share it with at least one other pony she had so much more energy. He nightmares and flashbacks to the horrors of her abuse at the hands of Cerberus had also decreased, although Starlight would still hear One talking to herself angrily when she thought she was alone. Even that was happening less and less, though.

“Yeah,” said Starlight. “With clothes like that, I’m sure you could get two, maybe even three consorts.”

One blushed. “Hardly,” she said. “Nor would I try. Attempting to compete with you would be trying, I think.”

Starlight laughed, and so did One.

“I’m so happy to see you this way,” said One.

“What do you mean?”

“Happy. Alive. Before, you were so sad. But now…”

“The problem was, I was facing the wrong way.”

One looked confused. “Wrong way? I don’t understand.”

“Like Celestia. When I connected to the sun, I saw her memories. That was her problem. She could only look in reverse, toward the path. She had all the power in the world, but she couldn’t use it because she couldn’t bring herself to look toward the future.”

“And you could?”

“Not when I was like that,” said Starlight, her good cheer dropping for a moment. “But like this? Like this I can.” She reached out a hoof and opened a new, modern omintool. “I have my tech back, and my magic back. I’m as powerful as I ever was. And I’m with friends. Plus, I hear we’re going to have an excellent part later.”

“So you keep saying,” said One. She remained incredulous. “Although I will withhold judgment on the quality of this party until I see it. Trusting it to this ‘Pinkamena’ seems…unorthodox.”

“Trust me. Pink says she does excellent work.”

“And so I will take your word on it.”

Starlight laughed, but then became more serious. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

“You mean Babylon,” said One, her own voice adjusting in tone to match Starlight’s. “Yes. She is. Many important dignitaries are. This is an important ceremony. Perhaps the most important in recorded Equestrian history, if that does not sound too arrogant.”

“And…you talked to her?”

“I did.”

“And how did it go?”

“I simply told her that she was not permitted to end our Alliance. She tried to press me, but I held firm. I simply stated that there was no way I would ever disown you.”

“And?”

“And she seemed to think that our nation’s relationship was more valuable than any damage you could possibly ever have committed.” One paused. “In all honesty, though? I think she intended it from the beginning. That this was a ploy. I can’t prove it, though.”

“She would do all that? For what?”

“To win,” said One, simply. “Starlight, I would recommend staying away from her. I consider her a friend, but not the kind of friend that you are. It is better if I handle her.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right about that. Because next time, I think I’m just going to punch her in the face.”

One gave Starlight a look, and Starlight laughed. “Kidding. Of course.”

A door opened on the far side of the room, and a Priestess entered.

“Princess, High Priestess,” she said, bowing. “It is time.”

“Right,” said Starlight, looking to her friend. “How about we get this over with?”

“‘Get it over with’. A peculiar choice of words for the situation.”

“I mean my part. This is supposed to be your day.”

“No way. You are not going to let me face this alone. If I have to do it, so do you.”

The started toward the door, and One sighed.

“What is it?” asked Starlight.

“I just wish…well, I know it sounds strange, but I wish that I could go into this next chapter of my life with a real name.”

“A name?”

“I know. To you, that must seem ridiculous. But I have never had one. Everyone in Equestria will know me as ‘Twilight’, from now onto eternity. And to all others, I am given a simple number. No one even bothered to name me.”

“Well, I’m not going to.”

One gaped at Starlight. “You- -you aren’t? But why not?”

“Because I’m not in a position to. At this point, you can’t just get a name. You have to make one.”

“I never thought of that,” said One. “Hmm. That will take some time.”

“Which we have. We’re both kind of immortal. But when you think of one, let me know, alright? I’ll use it so much it wears out.”

One smiled. “Yes. I will. I think I would like that.”

The ceremony had been set to take place on one of the highest halls of the Temple. It was a grand room, long and open on either side. One had written the custom and design for the entire process based on historic data, and it bore her trademark precision and organization.

On either side of the grand hall, dignitaries from various locations stood, waiting and then standing in unison as Starlight and One entered the room. Many of them were Equestrian, but many were not.

Starlight scanned through the crowd of fine clothes and alien faces until she saw her friends. They were standing with the delegates sent by the Council: a white Pegasus, dressed in an impeccable suit, and an asari woman in a beautiful dress who was covertly holding Sbaya’s hand. Sbaya was dressed in a similar but more masculine design as that worn by the asari diplomat, and she was grinning widely as if she could not comprehend her good fortune. Zedok was standing to her side, and she looked much less comfortable in her formal clothes. Despite that, though, she was able to break protocol and lift her hand slightly, waving to Starlight and smiling.

The other side of the hall contained a different set of individuals. Among them, the group that stood out the most was a pair of Alliance officers in full formal armor, both of whom were flanking a white, blond-haired pony wearing much more simple dress. Starlight recognized both of the officers. One was the synth Marc Antony, and the other was Four.

“I can’t believe she came,” whispered Starlight.

“Neither can I,” said One, nervously.

For a moment, One and Four’s eyes met. Four did not glare, exactly, but maintained a rather cold and neutral expression. Starlight did not know what their momentary exchange meant, or what it might mean for the future of their relationship. As much as the pair hated each other, they were still sisters. At least they could remain civil for a limited time.

There were others, too. Dignitaries from the various realms of Equestria and beyond: an armored, bipedal dragon, the leader of the breeders, a Tartaran princess, several Armchairs, all of whom looked profoundly confused and may have been there only by mistake.

At the farthest end, a pair of ponies caught Starlight’s eye. One was an elderly stallion dressed in a formal Crystal Empire uniform, and beside him a tall and eternally young alicorn. Starlight smiled at Sunburst, and he returned her smile with a wink.

Beyond the dignitaries stood two lines of Priestess-warriors. Both of them presented arms as One and Starlight passed between them, all acting in perfect unison. As Starlight passed, though, she noticed a strange and toothy smile on one of the soldiers. She shifted her vision to her smiling, an extreme breach of protocol. She almost hoped that One did not see until she saw that of the otherwise nearly identical, that one specific Priestess had wide, insect-like blue-green eyes that faded to normal yellow almost as soon as Starlight noticed them.

Then, finally, the hall ended at an balcony that extended into the cool night air. Below, tens of thousands of ponies had gathered. As soon as they saw One and Starlight, they cheered.

One waved, and that made them cheer even louder. As she did, a Priestess approached them with a beautifully adorned breeder at her side. Her coat was bright green, and her hair jet black. She looked excellent, and of all the Priestesses that Starlight had vetted over the past several months, she had proved to be the most worthy to become the new High Priestess.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“And if we weren’t?” joked Starlight.

The Priestess just smiled, and addressed the crowd as One stepped forward.

“Citizens of Equestria,” she said. “You do us great honor by coming here to mark this historic event. Together- -us, and all of you- -we are united. United in Friendship, and in Eternal Harmony.” She paused, and the crowd remained silent in anticipation for what they all knew was coming.

“And in that spirit,” continued the Priestess, “and to ensure that it survives, enkindled across time for all of Equestria’s future continuity, I present to you: Twilight Sparkle, the Goddess of Harmony, our protector and eternal ruler: known from here and forever, Queen of Equestria!”

The crowd cheered, and the adorned breeder lifted a crown and placed it on One’s head. She grinned, bearing her pointed teeth for all the world to see, and waved. The crowd responded with cheers of joy and love, welcoming their new and eternal ruler into her new position.

“And,” said the Priestess, after the crowd had settled. That was Starlight’s cue to step forward. “To rule at her side, to execute her will and to defy her when the need arises, so that together in Frienship they might preserve our Empire’s eternal Harmony, I present to you, the Citizens of Equestria: the Princess Starlight Glimmer!”

The crowd was silent for a moment, but then cheered even louder than for One as a crown was placed on Starlight’s brow. Starlight waved to them, just as One had, and they stood there, together. Both immortals, and both destined to rule at each other side for the remainder of their eternal lives.

In the crowd, though, not all the ponies present were cheering. Unbeknownst to Starlight and One, one pony among the group was staring at both of them through a single white, electronic eye. At her side stood two ponies: one female, but with the proportions of a stallion, and the other tall and thin. Both were armored, and both wore heavy cloaks that covered their backs.

The armored pony watched the coronation, all the while knowing that what she had done had been for nothing. Strangely, though, she could not bring herself to care. Too much of her original self was gone, replaced by a version of the pony she had at one time swore that she would never become.

Neither she nor her associates did anything to disrupt the ceremony. There was no need to. Instead, she simply turned away and made her way through the throngs of ponies that filled the streets. The pair with her did the same, following her as she went, until all three of them had disappeared into the crowd.

They were not the only ones watching. Far overhead, a small high-resolution hologram was playing, held over a hand whose pale skin hid the Reaper skeleton beneath.

“Well, this was…unexpected,” said Eloth.

“I totally expected it,” said Bob.

“No you didn’t.” Eloth closed the hologram and turned his attention to Bob. She was standing, holding her artifact in a sphere of blue light between her hands. The machinery before her- -the heart of Equestria’s star- -was responding to her presence, and the presence of one of the fragments of its creators.

“It’s cute, in a sense, I suppose,” said Eloth. “But I can’t believe it worked.”

“Of course it worked,” said Bob, the machinery beginning to shift and twine around her. No pony had ever been this deep in the star, and even Celestia may not have been aware of its presence. None of them had ever had cause to reach it. In fact, even Bob would not have been able to. Not until Starlight had interfaced with the star and then released herself from it, anyway.

The machinery before her finally opened, and a blue glow filled the room. Bob’s eyes narrowed as she instinctively tried to protect herself from it, but Eloth’s did not. With no soul and no possibility of life, he had no reason to fear eternity.

An assembly pulled itself forward, rising from the machinery of the star. In its center was a writing metallic artifact only slightly larger than Bob’s. She smiled, and held out her own. The two immediately began interacting, and between them a copy started to form. Bob and Eloth watched as it formed, and then when it was done, the copy merged completely with Bob’s artifact.

The machinery began to shut down, closing itself back away, and Bob turned to leave. As she did, she repeated herself.

“Of course it worked,” she said, holding up the modified artifact and grinning madly. “Who doesn’t like a happy ending?”

Author's Notes:

There you go. An ending. Hopefully better than the last one. With this, the Mass Core trilogy concludes.