> Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot > by Equimorto > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Ring a Prayer for the Falling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky was clear and the air was still, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and the sound of its steps over the mountain echoed in every street and through every window and door. No pony dared speak, as the Behemoth walked through Canterlot, and the shadow it cast made the citizens shiver and the fountains freeze and flowers and plants close up as if it was nighttime. And the souls of the living shrieked as they were ripped from their earthly shells and carried along with the storm, and the souls of the dead were raised alongside them and all they headed to shatter against the Behemoth. > Ripples on a Crying Mirror > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Where were you, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' became customary to ask. 'Where were you on that bright summer day when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' or, perhaps, 'What were you doing that sunny afternoon, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' It was a conversation starter. A way to get to know each other. Something every pony, every creature shared. Something everyone could relate to. Friends would ask it one another, colleagues would bring it up during breaks, family members would worriedly write about it. Some, of course, didn't have an answer for that. Some hadn't been born yet back then. Some were too young to remember. But of those who had been old enough, everyone remembered exactly what they were doing as the Behemoth walked over Canterlot. Everyone remembered that day. > In the Dead of Dawn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Everfree had grown restless in the months after the Behemoth's arrival. One could not walk inside it without hearing a commotion all around themself. There was a nervousness to the creatures and to the forest itself, something that could be felt thrumming up your legs from the ground beneath. Like a subtle vibration, a restless unease. The forest was used to change. It itself was the product of change, a continuously shifting maze that evolved with time, carefully balanced just enough for its inhabitants to make sense of the pattern behind the evolving landscape, though still rather stable in its outer reaches. But things wouldn't be the same. Change from inside was what the Everfree Forest thrived on, change from outside threatened to forever shatter the delicate balance of chaos that regulated it. Every creature knew that the forest would never be the same. It wasn't an easy decision for Zecora, but seventeen weeks after the Behemoth came to Canterlot, she abandoned her house and moved to Ponyville, carrying as much as she could with her. No one was ever able to find her old house again. > Corpse-Watching > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The city was in ruins, as were many others. And as with many others, rebuilding was in progress. Attempts at it at least, the early stages, digging through the rubble to find anything of value, moving things out of the way so it was possible to pass through. It was a slow process, and one not many enjoyed. But it was a necessity, and there were always those willing to help. Not always out of the goodness of their heart though. It wasn't unheard of for some to keep what they found for themselves, and perhaps it wasn't unusual either. But at least the rubble was moved, and work moved on. It was in one of those circumstances that the first scale was found. The first recorded finding, at least. Of course, no one knew what it was at the time, all they knew was that they'd never seen anything like it. And so, of course, everyone could guess it was there because of the Behemoth. This caused quite a bit of controversy, at the time. Some wanted to get rid of it. Some wanted to study it. Some didn't want to even acknowledge it was there, and a few were rather interested in getting a good look at it. But, of course, the final decision came to the pony who'd found it. Though, arguably, only because the mare whose house he'd found it in was all in favour of getting rid of it. Stone Brick, on the other hoof, happened to be among those interested in keeping the thing for himself. If nothing else, he thought it looked pretty, with its oddly glittering colour. He recalled quite well how he'd first found it, and how he'd not been the only one there. There had been another stallion. Both of them were there to steal. Both of them knew they were there to steal. And so, of course, both of them had to pretend they were there to help. It had been only by luck that Stone had happened to spot the scale before the other. It had felt like the thing was calling for him, and luckily, it had fit beneath his hat. A quick sleigh of hoof had been all it took to hide it while the other was turned. And so the first scale was found, back when they weren't yet even known as scales. A few more popped up around Equestria before the term came in use, after one was sold to Princess Twilight. Selling did seem to be the only use they had, but Stone didn't sell his. He felt there was something more there. Something to uncover. And so much did that thought gnaw at him, that Stone Brick left the city a few months later, headed to the castle where Princess Twilight was said to be studying the scales. > Startracking - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack was out in the fields when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Working on the orchard, taking care of the apple trees. Canterlot was in sight, but it still took her a while to realise something was off. At first, all she noticed was a little shade covering the fields, but she assumed it was merely a passing cloud. Distant as she was, the Behemoth's shadow wasn't as cold over her as it was over Canterlot. But then came the steps. She thought it was an earthquake at first, as unusual as it would have been, what else could have caused something like that? But there was something off about it. It had a rhythm, a cadence, it stopped and started back up again, like a series of blows against the earth itself. She'd never felt anything like that, not even a dragon's steps could compare to it. Another shock came, stronger than the last, and all fruits still hanging from the trees were knocked off their branches. Her first instinct was to look towards the farm, suddenly worried the buildings could collapse if things kept up. Then, as her eyes darted around to find some sort of explanation, she looked up to Canterlot, and a shiver ran down her spine. The silhouette stood out against the sky, framed by the light, half-translucent and seemingly fading in and out, subtly shifting in shape. It was massive. Larger than anything Applejack had ever seen, and she'd walked around the Dragonlands before. That she could still spot it all the way from Ponyville was a testament to just how unreasonably big it was. It put even the Tantabus to shame, never mind dragons or other creatures. Applejack suddenly felt cold as she gazed at the creature. An odd sensation, not something she'd ever felt, a coldness spreading from inside rather than outside. A flower of ice blossoming in her heart and extending its roots and thorns all the way to her limbs. Time seemed to slow down for her, the sounds of the shaking earth distant and muffled. There was something about the light that passed through the half-there, half-fading figure. It was like watching an eclipse through a thick glass bottle to shield your eyes, a distorted, surreal tinge to the images on the other side. But they couldn't possibly be that near, right? Another quake shook her out of her stupor. She was suddenly aware of just how cold it had become in the orchard. Without the Sun's light, while the breeze kept blowing, things did tend to get chilly, but the shadow cast by the creature felt like it was sapping away the heat from all it covered. But she had things to take care of. Running through the trees and fallen fruits, Applejack headed back towards her house, calling out for her family to make sure they were safe. The buildings remained intact, though in need of repair, and none of their inhabitants were injured. Applejack was glad that was the case, she knew very well the rest of Ponyville hadn't fared as well. The ruined harvest would be a problem, but in the coming months it became clear just how little of one compared to everything else. Still, Applejack never forgot that first day. When the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and she gazed into its shadow. > No-one's Land > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was mostly grey, about the size of a small village, and the fillies and colts liked to watch it sometimes. Some of the slightly older ones, those in the age where one tends to think of oneself as older than they are, occasionally dared each other to slip a hoof inside, or quickly jump in and out of the outer rim. No one ever did though. And they all knew better than playing near it, lest they lose some toys inside it. It was cold, just to stand at the edge of it. Unnaturally cold. Even in the most scorching of summer days, it still sent chills down creatures' spines that no one wanted to experience. It wasn't safe to drink near it, or touch anything made of metal, and birds and other animals had long since learned to avoid it while travelling. Very rarely, someone came from around Equestria to see it. Even more rarely did they not regret the decision. There was a section of it, just a bit, that was still inside Canterlot. But no one went there. No one lived in the portion of the city around it, and no one had any interest in getting close to it. A few said the cold grew even stronger there, and though no one bothered to check, no one doubted it was true. The rest of the city was still in use, if not as lively as it had been before, but that area was completely deserted. Not that there would have been anything to see. All the trees had died, just like all the grass and flowers. The buildings had crumbled and turned to dust. The ground inside it was naked, grey, lifeless and cold. Flat, featureless earth, like the fresh layer of skin beneath a wound. No one had bothered to check how deep it went, but after all the time it had been there for, everyone guessed it would be pretty deep. Trees around it didn't grow on the side facing towards it, especially the older ones, and digging they'd found their roots had died and withered on those sides. Every once in a while, one of the few, more determined researchers attempted to study it more in depth. Oftentimes someone from Princess Twilight's institution, the only place with any considerable resources for research. And they always failed. And so, for a couple days, citizens were treated to the sight of abandoned equipment right past the edge. Then, that disappeared too. No one knew when, or where it went, no one had any interest in finding out. One time, Twilight herself had come to see it. She'd brought no equipment, no materials, and no one else with her. And she'd sat there, for a couple of hours, looking at the strange, abandoned, deserted land where the Behemoth cast its shadow. Then she'd left, without saying anything. She hadn't gone to the opposite end of it either. There in Canterlot, where the shadow began, where the Behemoth still stood undisturbed over the city, like the day it had first come there. > Like Tears in the Wind > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rose was out near the edge of the Everfree when she found her scale. Many would have found it inadvisable to hang around such a place, in truth. It had never been considered the safest thing to do even before the Behemoth came to Canterlot, but in the months following and with the evident commotion the forest displayed it was less a matter of superstition and more one of common sense. But she knew the chances of something actually attacking her there were slim, and if her cutie mark called then the risk was worth it. Living in what had used to be a relatively minor town before Princess Twilight's arrival, running a flower shop had been pretty much the only reasonable path in life for her. She didn't mind, in fact she very much liked it, but it wasn't the only thing she was good for. Her affinity for flowers moved past simply growing and selling the few breeds that ponies liked, past the simple confines of her work. She kept up with the newest studies, discoveries and publications concerning botany, and she even had her own private garden where she kept more exotic, less common breeds. Most of all, she understood flowers. The same way Fluttershy understood animals, or Pinkie understood parties, or Twilight understood magic. It was her special talent, her life's calling. Selling came afterwards, and really, she would have done what she did for free. But the bits were needed, and not unwelcome. But it was precisely because of her talent that she was there. Because most ponies would not have noticed it, but she couldn't ignore it. There was something different about the flowers, there near the edge of town, and it was spreading. Standing there and looking closely at them, she had no doubts about it. Most, if not all of the usual species found there were undergoing severe changes. Whether mutations or very rapid evolution she couldn't tell, but it was impressive either way. And it wasn't all. She didn't feel she had the knowledge and experience to make a definitive call on it, but a fair portion of the flora she was seeing didn't look like anything she knew of. The geometry, the colours, the size and disposition of leaves and petals, the more she looked at them the more she was convinced she was staring at entirely new sets of species. Tall stems with blue petals, stubby orange flowers that came up directly from the ground like bushes, grey-green leaves in patterns of seven or nine, thin vines slithering in swirling patterns across the ground ending with tiny pale pink blossoms, and a number of other plants that were like nothing she'd ever heard about. She would have liked to study them more closely, but she knew better than to go smell or taste a plant she wasn't familiar with. Especially one rooted so close to the Everfree. So she was left with sight, and so it happened that she spotted something else there. Certainly colourful, but distinctly not a flower. So it happened that Rose found her scale. And so it happened that Princess Twilight, just a few days before the news of the other findings reached her, was made aware of the scales' existence and had a chance to study one for herself. Rose had brought it along, later that day, as she'd gone to tell Twilight of her discoveries at the edge of town. It had felt odd, when she'd found it, like the thing was calling for her. And odd leaving it to Twilight, even if it was the right thing to do, almost like she should have kept it as hers. And odd still, when Twilight had given it back to her, like a weight had been lifted off her chest. She would spend the following months helping the princess study the changes in the flora around the town, and learning quite a bit about the matter simply by virtue of being there. So, almost by accident, Rose became one of the founding members of Princess Twilight's research institution, and perhaps the single most knowledgeable expert in the field of post-arrival botany. While she did not forget about it, that she'd also come in possession of a scale, on that day, became a rather secondary fact in the course of events. That is, of course, until Twilight made her first major breakthrough when researching the scales. > I am the Fury in your eyes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ruins always looked different from up there. Sat on a cloud, drifting by as the wind carried him along, watching the world stretch out below him. It was all he could do, most of the time. Just watch. There had been a time when things were different. Very different. Before the Behemoth came to Canterlot, others were watching him. It was kind of funny, in a way. Kind of ironic. But after the Arrival, there hadn't been much if any space for big shows and sporting events. And so he was left on the sidelines, watching. He'd helped, of course. When he could, how he could, he'd always tried to help. But the thing was, really, there was only so much he could do. He knew his limits. He wasn't the strongest, he wasn't an expert on anything beyond his own field of work, he could only help so far. And that annoyed him, very much. Not the lack of attention. Not being put on the side. He wasn't that kind of pony, he knew the world had far more important things to focus on. But that feeling of powerlessness, that knowledge that all he could do was watch. He was one of the best in his field, but in the world as it was, that was useless. He lived in a world that didn't need him anymore. That had led him to quite a few moments of reflection. Were all cutie marks equal? Were there ponies out there whose entire purpose wasn't needed by the world around them, leaving them stranded and alone? The best answer he'd managed to give himself was that he'd not been useless when he'd found his talent. Not in that version of the world. And in the new one, the one he lived in now, ponies wouldn't get a useless talent. The world wouldn't produce them. But he was not an expert, and perhaps he was too old to study such things. Sometimes, he did wonder about going to Ponyville, to Princess Twilight, to maybe study something there, anything useful. But he knew he didn't have the motivation for it. He'd never been good with books. He was good at flying fast, and that was about it. And so he watched. Absent-mindedly, trying not to think about it, trying to ignore the burning frustration at being forced to just watch the half-destroyed remains of towns across the country while he couldn't do anything about it. Maybe he would go to Princess Twilight. Maybe... Maybe just to see the castle there, maybe just to talk to Rainbow. Lazily, with no real motivation, he pushed his cloud in the vague direction of where Ponyville was supposed to be. Staying low, close to the ground, just in case he met someone worth talking to. And as chance would have it, he did meet someone. A unicorn, watching the road from the edge of town, and staring at a map. A unicorn who was planning to go to Ponyville, too. To deliver a message to Princess Twilight, about something they had found while clearing out the rubble. A message that would have been sent by magic, but as it seemed, the spell just refused to work, not unlike others. Soarin''s wings itched as he listened to the unicorn. Yeah. That was something he could help with. > A Brief History of Terms: Behemoth > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As with many things, it was Princess Twilight who first utilised the term Behemoth to describe the creature. As with many things, the term came from a book. It had been used, in ancient times, to describe a large terrestrial creature, by a tribe or a species living somewhere roughly near the location of Chrysalis's old hive. Probably. Centuries by the dozens had muddled the waters and there simply wasn't an original source of information to study, rather a multitude of reports all far more recent than the time they talked about. It was, for example, impossible to tell who exactly had used the term first. Was it a tribe of ponies? Or a different species? No way of knowing. All the texts said was that ponies had learned of the creature from a population of sorts. It wasn't possible to say whether or not the creature had been real or simply a myth, either. The population apparently told stories of it, and goodness knew what that actually meant. Reports agreed that no one had ever seen it, but then again, there were no mentions of ponies travelling in that territory, just of the exchanges that happened at the border. The description itself of the creature was weird. Rather lacking in many aspects, oddly specific in others, at times contradictory across different sources even from the same time period. The only thing everyone agreed on was that it was big. How big, though? Some said like an elephant, some said like a mountain. Some said the earth shook beneath its steps, other talked about being able to mount it just by jumping off a tree. Some theorised it was in fact just a giant tortoise, while others spoke of horns or tusks or claws. The name too was of debatable origin. Between the culture the name came from likely having spoken a different language, the shakiness of the translation process, and several instances of transcripts where the pony working on them clearly thought they knew better than the one who'd written the original and had tried to correct perceived mistakes, never mind the language differences across hundreds of years, it was anyone's guess how much the name was actually the right one anymore. It might have had a meaning, at some point, but all that was left was a set of sounds rearranged through time. Still, it had been a fitting name. Perhaps even more fitting given its mysterious origin. Whether or not the thing in Canterlot was the Behemoth of legend, Twilight had no idea, but it certainly fit the description. Some versions of it, at least. And so, she'd called it that. A large creature, its steps enough to shake the earth, that had come out of nowhere and settled itself in Canterlot, forever changing all of Equestria with its mere presence. Some had argued that perhaps it was a construct, not a creature. No one had dared go near enough to check, so the name stuck. It had a nice ring to it, most ponies found. > Startracking - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rarity was there, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Not exactly where the Behemoth stepped, of course, but she was close. Very close. She was in her boutique, talking with Sassy, making sure every order would be on time for the next event and already planning the one after that, when suddenly the ground had trembled. Just briefly, just a little, but it was a worrying thing. Canterlot was not known as a town prone to suffering from earthquakes, it would not have been wise to build a city on the side of a mountain if that had been the case in the area. Then the second step. The second quake, a little stronger, lasting a little longer, and then another pause. Rarity had looked at Sassy, then the two had dashed towards the exit, right as the third step had come. The walls creaked, cracks appearing in them, a little rubble falling from the ceiling. Enough to make the unicorns stop for a moment, to make sure everything was alright. The fourth step came, and made it clear the building wouldn't last forever. The fifth shattered the glass windows, just as the two had reached the door, and the sixth came as they walked outside, while inside the stairs collapsed. And that's when they saw it. Having been inside a building, they'd had, like many others, no way of knowing what was going on. But they, unlike many others, came very, very close to the creature. It was right there, as much as it could be said to be there, its odd and flickering translucent form fading in and out just mere metres ahead. Rarity's breath was taken away as she looked up, then higher still, and still she could not spot the end of it. It had been walking down the street, with one of its legs at least, and had it been just a few metres to the right it could have stepped on the building itself. Rarity would have remained stuck there, petrified by shock, had Sassy not dragged her away in the direction opposite to the one the Behemoth was walking towards. And so brief was her time spent near the creature, and so filled with adrenaline, she did not even notice the cold chill it sent across her skin to be so close to it. The two unicorns then rushed and dashed across the ruined city, following the trail of wreckage left in the Behemoth's wake, running with no direction as the ground shook harder and harder with each step of the creature. Only when they reached the park did they stop, far enough from buildings to be safe from any of them collapsing. It would be unfair to say there were no pauses in their running though. Rarity did stop, briefly, on more than one occasion, to ensure ponies safely left buildings, and to otherwise help others make sense of the chaos around them. And when they all reached the park, and none showed signs of injuries, and all turned towards the impossibly tall shape of the Behemoth, only then did Rarity finally let herself go and dramatically pull out a couch to collapse on. And there she wondered to herself, about the mysterious creature, about what would happen next, and about what the uncertain future might hold for all of them. > Cracks in the Light > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She sat at the edge of the cave, studying the pattern of cracks on the ground just outside. It looked stable enough, and with a rather clear path through it. Safe. But was it worth the risk? There was nothing in sight. She could try to scout the surroundings, but for how long? If she found nothing, and came back, it would be a waste of energies. And worse, what if she strayed too far in search of something, and the pattern changed, leaving her trapped? She weighed her options, throwing a backwards glance at her supplies. She still had food for a couple of days, definitely enough to make it until the next major shift. If she played her cards right and was careful, maybe enough to carry her until the one after that, too, in case the next one brought nothing good. But if that left her stranded too, then she would be out of luck. No more food, no more ways to get more. What were the odds of the next shift screwing her over? Heh. Knowing that would have made things a lot easier, but there was no way to tell. Not as far as she knew, at least. So it really was just about making a guess. Stay inside, wait, hedge her bets by making sure she'd have a second shot if things went poorly next round. Or go now, while she could, and hope to find something, and if that failed hope luck would be on her side when the next shift came. It was a solved problem, in a sense. There was a correct course of action. It wouldn't necessarily ensure her survival, but it would give her the best chance. The results of the next shift remained unknown, and would still dictate how she would fare later on, but the world outside the cave was set. It was there. Just knowing whether or not she could find something would have made all the difference, and solved her decision. But instead, she couldn't know. And that drove her nuts. The kind of aimless rage that couldn't be unleashed on any target, and ended up feasting on the one feeling it in the first place. All because of those light cracks. There could have been a fruit tree, right there, not eight metres away from her cave, or a patch of grass, or a banquet table filled with cakes, and she wouldn't see it! She couldn't see it. Because there was a crack there, meaning a blade of light shot up from the ground and covered whatever was behind it like a curtain. She could, at least, take minor solace in the fact that there probably wasn't food there. It was most likely just another barren chunk of grey ashes. There could be food, yes, but the chances were slim. Very slim. If she extended her gaze, though... The cracks and lights hid everything past a certain distance, but what were the odds of there being something behind them? And how long would it take her to get to them? About ten minutes or so, to get there. In half an hour, she could be way past that point. The cracks wouldn't shift for at least two hours, she would have time. But it would wear her out, as walking near the cracks always did. And... And the thing was, yes, there could be something out there, but what were the odds of her finding it? That was the real problem. She couldn't see anything from the cave. So if something was there, either it was far, or it was small. And if it was small, there was a very, very large chance she'd miss it. Her visibility would be constantly hindered by the cracks, and while she could walk a fair distance she could only cover a rather small amount of the fields before her in terms of area. One wrong turn would mean entirely missing any potential resources she might find, and a wrong turn was far more likely than a right one. So, well... It seemed, unfortunately, the wise thing to do was also the frustrating one. Wait there, do nothing, don't waste her energies. Hope things would be better the next time around. Or the one after that. It was... It was hard to describe, actually. Would she have rather gone out to find nothing? Of course not. But staying inside wasn't pleasant. Feeling powerless, at the mercy of chance and luck, was not pleasant. But it was her situation, no matter what. Better make peace with it and pick her best option. And so she waited. > HhHhH > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zecora set the tiny blue bottle back on her desk, and caught herself staring at the upside-down view of the world on the other side. It always gave her a sense of childish amusement, for whatever reason. A little thrill of wonder. It was nice. But she didn't have much time to spend on staring at the world through a bottle. She had experiments to run, and there was research to be done, and while she wasn't in any particular rush it would still be for the best if she got through it all efficiently. She quickly scribbled down the results of her last test. It was an entertaining activity, at the least. And it was no wonder she'd been picked up for it. Chemistry was a lot like alchemy, and ever since the Behemoth's arrival the line between the two had been muddied. And when ponies said that, what they really meant was that the already slim confine separating the disciplines had been shattered like a window being hit by a train, and what was left was more of a box containing the mangled remains of the two in a state so messy it was no longer possible to tell what pieces belonged to which subject. And so, testing. The main point of separation, ideally, was to classify reactions as belonging to one category or the other based on whether or not they released magic as a side product. That was why the occasionally buzzing mana detector was there on the table. Of course, testing everything would be an absurdly long and complicated process, so for the moment the tests were more focused on the individual results than on any bigger picture. Zecora was rather glad she could be helpful. She would have liked to help more, of course, but unfortunately her potions could only help so far now that at least half of them didn't work right. Some had at least the decency to do nothing, but the charred hole left in the floor of the last laboratory she'd been using had taught her it was safer not to try them all out. Just in case. It was safer to do more basic testing first. Twilight had done a very impressive job, setting up her institution. She'd given ponies something they could trust, something stable they could hold on to. A beacon to remind them that not everything was lost despite the turmoil around them. And she'd also done a great deal in terms of research, and the quality of it. The sheer amount and rate of new discoveries being made between the walls of her castle was astounding, the institution as a whole was buzzing with creativity. It was partly because of how much yet uncharted territory there was to explore for science after the Arrival, no doubt, but even still it was impressive. Zecora herself found the environment to be rather pleasant, as well. The other creatures there were all extremely nice, perhaps as a result of the shared hardship of the reality around them. In particular, the zebra was fond of that red-maned mare going by the name of Rose. They were considering the possibility of carrying out a set of shared experiments, to verify the potential alchemical applications of the newly discovered species of flowers and plants Rose was cataloguing. Zecora was also rather interested in that oddly reflective trinket the mare kept tucked in her mane. She hadn't gotten a chance to ask about it yet, though. Maybe during the next lunch break. But for the moment, more testing. She picked up a red bottle and flipped the page on her notes, then began to experiment anew. > Ad Astra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stone Brick laid down his pillow at the edge of the cliff and then sat on it, looking down at the wasteland hundreds of metres below as he sipped from the bowl of soup in his hooves. It was mostly dark grey, down there, with some red in places. The path a river had used to run through was still visible, but the water was all gone, and all that was left of the trees in the area were a few charred stumps and consumed branches. He was no expert in geology, but as far as he understood it, the place must have always had all that lava beneath it. The Behemoth's arrival had just moved things enough for it to come out. Either the chunk of land he was on had risen or the one in front of him had sunk, and then all that molten rock and liquid fire had bubbled up from the ground and burnt almost everything that was left down there. There were still a few lava pools, scattered around. They looked rather pretty from up above, he had to admit. And they weren't the only thing there, apparently, which was why he was staring at the scenery. Well, that, and the fact he had nothing better to stare at. The trees behind him were rather monotonous, and his tent wasn't exactly a sight to behold. Plus, he'd get to see the sunset too. Just as he was taking another sip of his soup, it happened. With a sound halfway between a hiss and a splash, a tall jet of water shot up from the ground far below, and then crashed back down. So it was true. He'd heard about such a thing in some parks across Equestria, back when he was a colt, but he'd never actually seen one. So they really were a thing there too, now. That was good to know. At least he hadn't taken that deviation for nothing. Not that it would have particularly mattered, actually, the path that passed from there was just as long as the other and seeing the lava pools alone would still have been interesting, but he was still glad he got that on top. Finishing his soup, he kept staring, and soon enough a second jet shot up some distance from the first. He sat there, watching the Sun go down past the horizon as a few other geysers occasionally went off, then got back to his hooves and took the pillow back to his tent. The night would get cold there, and it was probably for the best if he got inside quick. Not too cold, maybe, but still unpleasant, and besides he had to get up early in the morning. Closing the entrance, he sat inside. The road to Ponyville wouldn't cover itself, he reminded himself as he stared at his map. It would still take him a couple of days at least to get there, provided everything went well. But he did have supplies for about twice as much, just in case. Lying his head on the pillow, he took a long look at the scale he'd left tucked in a corner of the tent, then closed his eyes. He'd get there soon enough. He just needed to keep going. > Burn Out the Stars > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a wonderful piece of silverware, Celestia considered, as the shiny grey metal tool glittered in the golden glow of her magic hold. Truly a beautifully crafted instrument. The fine engravings alongside its surface had been carefully carved in with marvellous precision, the geometric patterns pleasant to the eye but not too prominent or wide or deep, as to not be a distraction to the touch should a pony without magic have to hold it. The metal itself was some of the finest, a flexible but sturdy league of steel with inserts of gold in a weaving pattern reminiscent of wheat. It also cut wonderfully well into her cake. The alicorn brought the tiny bite at the end of her fork to her lips, quickly wrapping them around it as the morsel of sugary deliciousness melted inside her mouth. Cream, mostly, but with just a hint of cherry laced into it. Just the right consistency for it to disappear inside her mouth without the need for chewing, while still not leaving her unsatisfied, still having a certain weight she enjoyed feeling over her tongue before it disappeared. It was a very nice cake. She would have to make sure the restaurant was paid for it, as they'd insisted she eat there for free. She expected it would be a fair amount of bits to cover for the whole thing, she was eating in the town's priciest restaurant after all. It wasn't hard to see why their prices were so high though. The food was fantastic, the service impeccable, and the view... Celestia looked to the side, past the confines of the relatively tiny disk of floating rock her table was seated on, away from the set of crystal staircases connecting it to other such disks below it and further inland and eventually leading back to solid ground. She looked instead towards the larger floating crystals not too far from her, and at the rivers of water that streamed around them in all directions, and at the way the light was caught and warped by them as the Sun set behind them. Yes. The view was certainly worth it. Bit of a shame about the ponies whose houses had used to sit on the portion of land that had suddenly decided to ignore the known laws of physics and scatter into tiny floating fragments hanging in the air between land and sea, but at least it made for a very pretty piece of scenery. Celestia took another bite of her cake. She'd need to invite Twilight there at some point. The younger alicorn would surely enjoy it. > Startracking - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie Pie was in Ponyville, inside Sugarcube Corner, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Baking a cake. The least active part of the baking process, that being the waiting done while the cake sat in the oven. So to compensate, she was also mixing a bowl of butter and sugar to use for her next cake, balancing it atop her head as she stared at the cake through the stove's tinted glass. The following trembles and quakes came as a surprise to her. Now, if talking about any other pony and almost every other creature, that would have been nothing unusual. Of course the surprising and unforeseen event would come as an unforseen surprise to them. But Pinkie was most definitely not any other pony. Despite her appreciation for surprises, she rarely found herself on the receiving end of one, at least when considering physical events. Creatures could still surprise her, yes, despite her meticulously detailed folders of data on them, but the purely material consequences of their actions were generally something she could see coming in advance. The sudden and repeated shaking of the earth definitely fell closer to falling objects than surprise birthday parties, and therefore in the realm of things her personal brand of clairvoyance was prone to picking up on. Especially so when it was something so massive. But instead she'd felt nothing. Not a twitch or a shiver or an itch or a quiver or a tingle running up or down her spine or ears of legs or tail or nose or eyelids or any other part of her pink equine body. Not a single thing that could hint at what was coming. This of course caused quite some trouble for her. First and foremost, it made it rather tougher to balance the bowl on her head. Of course she could have set it down or grabbed it with both hooves, but that would have required also setting down the other bowl that was held in one of her hooves as she mixed the eggs and flour inside it with the spoon in her mouth. And while that could have been set on the floor, by the time she caught up with what was happening the second step had come down and now the other bowls and cakes that completely filled the table threatened to fall off and the bags and boxes of ingredients on the shelves were slipping out and drawers were sliding open and cupboard doors were swinging this and that way and the thrid step came and then the fourth and Pinkie was rushing towards a corner of the room a second and then running to the opposite one the next as the shelves tilted and the walls creaked and the tables bounced and the earth shook and shook and shook. About thirty seconds later, the room looked like a very large version of a tiny dollhouse room that someone had thrown a set of poorly mixed cake ingredients into, wrecking havoc upon the miniature mobilia. It was, instead, in fact, a regular-sized room, which had been filled with a much too large quantity of poorly mixed cake ingredients. From somewhere beneath the pile of half-broken wooden panels, wet flour, and cracked eggs, Pinkie Pie emerged, coughing, spoons and other tools in her mane and more frosting than usual splattered across her coat. Eyeing the widening crack in the ceiling and the dust that fell from it as the ground shook yet again, she decided it was best to leave the room and perhaps the whole building. Outside, once she'd made it past the empty but possibly even more damaged main hall and through the now shattered entrance door, the rest of the citizens in the area and particularly the Cake family were rather relieved to see she was as alright as could be hoped. And Pinkie turned towards Canterlot, following the direction many a other pony around her were looking in, and her gaze set on the waning, uncertain shape of the Behemoth. And Pinkie thought to herself that it was definitely weird. Yes, she thought. It was very odd and strange indeed. > Chess; but not really > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a nice chessboard. A very large chessboard. Oddly misshapen, asymmetric, missing a few squares, and with clearly more colours than necessary, but it was still a nice chessboard. It was indeed a chessboard. That was his story, and he was sticking with it. It even clearly had the pieces on it. Over there, that tower was - well, that was clearly a tower. And that statue on the other side of the garden, that one was clearly a knight. And that large writhing mass of tentacles and eyes, well... Huh... Maybe a queen? Yeah. Probably a queen. It was very clearly a puzzle, there for him to solve. Yes, that large building on the other side of town was the enemy king, and indeed the one he stood on top of represented his own. Now he just needed to figure out a way to move that pile of rubble, down there to the left, diagonally to the right and up and then - Oh, oh great, wonderful, the ball of tentacles was moving on its own and had just eaten one of those little duck-shaped decorations that served as pawns. Fantastic. It was one on its team, no less! How was he supposed to plan if the pieces didn't play fair!? Mad? He wasn't mad. He was absolutely not mad. Just because Scarlet Ribbon said he was mad, that didn't make him mad! She wasn't even a real doctor. Yet. And just because everyone else in town agreed with her, that didn't make her right. Lots of popular books were objectively terrible, after all. The voice of the masses had no bearing on the truth. He was not insane, no matter what everypony said. Having eaten that shiny thing he'd found inside the river did not mean he was mad. He needed a place to keep it, after all. He didn't have any pockets, and he couldn't risk losing it, and there were animals around that could steal it. And what if he hid it, but then someone or something came along and took it? No, he had to keep it safe. That was why he'd eaten it. Now it was safely with him. He'd also realised how he needed clothes. He needed pockets. Why did ponies almost exclusively wear either no clothes, or useless and purely cosmetic ones? Pockets were such a wonderful thing. He'd stolen a pair of pants and a jacket from the half-destroyed clothes shop just an hour after finding the shiny thing. The pants were a bit too large and the jacket a bit too tight, and maybe both were a mare's model, but now he had pockets. There wasn't much in his pockets. A few bits in his pants, a couple chess pieces in his jacket, some of which were broken. But he had pockets. Meanwhile, the queen ate the windmill. He hadn't actually figured out what piece exactly the windmill was, but not that it mattered much now that the tentacles had eaten it. Oh well. With the queen there he really couldn't win anymore. In fact, it looked like she would be coming for him next. At least he'd tried. He jumped off the building's roof, away from the chessboard and the steadily approaching mass of not particularly friendly-looking appendages. He'd be more lucky with the next puzzle he found. > Stairway to more stairs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soarin' set down the package, and pulled out a map of the region, alongside a compass. He had about three more hours of flying in the same direction, and then he'd be at the Wall. If everything went according to plan, at least. Not many reasons to expect it wouldn't, but the possibility was always there. He could always get caught in a manastorm, after all. Or, more likely, have to stop and wait for it to pass before he could proceed. Rainbow was just about the only pony crazy enough to attempt flying through one, and probably the only one skilled enough to actually pull it off. He did like the sound of a challenge, when it didn't involve risking his life, but he wasn't about to do anything dangerous when he was carrying something. Especially not something as valuable as what he had. He took a moment to stare at the package again. Wrapped in plain light brown paper and slightly consumed string, it could have passed off as ordinary were it not for the emblem of Princess Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark stamped on top of it in pink-purple ink. Of course, one would have noticed that there was more than met the eye either way, upon picking it up. The metal casing hiding just beneath the paper was rather heavy, its segmented texture very peculiar to the touch. Going by what he'd been told back in Ponyville, it was basically the strongest box in all of Equestria. Multiple plates of magically reinforced steel disposed in a carefully constructed pattern designed to absorb or deflect any impact and blow. It would ensure the contents would remain safe, should the package be lost. The only way to make it stronger would have been making the box a sphere, but you couldn't exactly shove a book inside a small one and a larger one around the existing box would have been impractical to carry alone. Not that he was completely alone, he reminded himself. Throwing a glance behind him, he confirmed how Lightning Dust was still there, hovering in sprinting distance, flying low enough not to be seen by those who didn't know what to look for. A security measure he hoped would not be necessary, but the possibility of someone wanting access to Princess Twilight's research results was not one they could ignore. In case it happened, their instructions were to leave the package behind and rush back to Ponyville. It was near impossible that whoever chose to ambush them would actually be able to open the box, and Princess Twilight had installed a long-distance magic switch she'd use to burn the contents once informed that the package was lost. But Soarin' was rather doubtful that his companion would run away rather than fight. They would be safe once behind the Wall. Princess Cadence had been warned ahead of time about their imminent arrival, and she'd be waiting for them there. In truth, he looked forward to spending a day of rest in the Empire, and he knew Lightning did as well despite her refusal to admit as much. So, barring manastorms, barring assaults by wild creatures, and barring any attempts made to steal the package, they still had three hours to go. Soaring picked up the map, the compass, and the package, and slipped them all back inside his saddlebags. Just three more hours. With a kick from his hind legs, he took off, and began flying northwards again. > Weavewalker > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- .flesreh ot gnimmuh ,yawa klaw ot nageb ehs ,elims tnetnoc a htiW .laed gib on saw ti tub ,dniheb erehwemos 't' a dessim evah yam ehS .yllaer ,dab oot toN .noitanitsed lautca reh morf yawa klaw etunim net ot evif a tuobA .reh dnuora sngis teerts eht deye ehs ,spop dna skcilc wef a htiw sknik eht tuo krow ot kcen reh gnitliT .yzzid elttil a reh edam syawlA .htuom reh ni eugnot reh fo leef eht neve dna gnillems dna gniraeh dna gniees ot kcab gnitteg ,sevooh reh ot kcab gnitteg ,driew tib a syawla saw tI .nattahenaM fo steerts detalupop yldlim eht otni tuo deppets susagep yerg ehT .llaw a ni tuo pop yllatnedicca t'ndid ehs erus ekam ot dedeen tsuj ehs ,ti fo gnah eht gnitteg saw ehs tuB .eert a ni kcuts nettog tsomla d'ehs llits dna ,emit tsrif eht dleif nepo na ni ti enod d'ehs ssendoog knahT .desilaer esle enoyreve naht erom ylbaborp ,yksir tib a syawlA .ti fo tuo flesreh llup ot woN .rehtie emit tsrif eht t'nsaw ti tub ,detisiv netfo ehs ecalp a toN .eeffoc fo llems eht dna egnit neerg thgil sti htiw ,noitan eht fo etats eht etipsed llits suonohpocac ylthgilS .haeY .elddim eht ni ereht erehwemos eb dluohs nattahenaM oS .derongi eb dluoc taht eno yltcaxe ton tub ,thgis tnasaelp a reveN .ti revo gnivomnu doots taht ssenkcalb fo llew peed eht ereht dna ,ereht revo saw tolretnaC dnA .sey ,tlef rO .oot edis taht morf nees eb dluoc ti taht dednimer eb ot gniyrrow ylthgils dna evisserpmi syawla saw ti dna ,llaW eht saw ereht dnA .ydolem a sa raelc eltsac s'thgiliwT fo rats thgirb eht ,ellivynoP saw erehT ...nattahenaM ,nattahenaM ?thgir ,nattahenaM ?og ot erehW .hcum ton llits tub ,edis rehto eht no desilaer yeht naht eroM .etsaw ot emit hcum toN .rettam oN .rebmemer ot drah saw ti ,rehtoB ?thgir ,evaeW eht ti dellac dah thgiliwT ?evaeW eht dellac ti saW .dnuof eb reven dluow ti ebyaM .tey dnuof neeb ton dah yaw a hcuS .evaeW eht otni pat ot dnuof saw yaw a fi ,rehto eht ot eno morf sgniht dnes ot desu neht ,snoitats gnikcod hguorht detcurtsnoc eb dluoc segdirb deknil ,yroeht nI .tsael ta raf os ton ,esu ot egdelwonk taht lla gnittup yllautca fo smret ni shguorhtkaerb yna dah ton d'ehs tuB .ssergorp suodneputs edam d'ehS .nonemonehp eht gniyduts ,ylsuoivbo ,saw thgiliwT ssecnirP .saw ereht lla saw emit a ta eno ,salA .gnicaf lla erew yeht selbuort fo laed taerg a evlos dluoc taht ,gnola stcejbo egral llup ot dnuof saw yaw a fi dnA .htap lanoitnevnoc eht gnola mrah laitnetop yna morf efas eno dna ,secnatsid egral revo noitatropsnart fo dohtem kciuq ,tneiciffe na saw tI .edir eht rof gnola serutaerc rehto gnillup fo ytilibissop eht otni hcraeser ot snosaer lacitcarp erom ,hsifles ssel ,rehto erew ereht ,ssenriaf ni ,woN .ti ksir ot nwonknu sgniht ynam ooT ?ereht eb t'ndluoc yeht fi tahW ?tsol tog yeht fi tahW ?efas eb ti dluow tub ,ni dellup neeb evah dluoc eno drah yllaer ,yllaer gniyrt ebyaM .sevlesmeht rof ti ecneirepxe t'ndluoc serutaerc rehto taht ,gniht das a saw tI .dlrow eht fo edis taht no elihw ,tlef erew yeht sa nees hcum os t'nerew sgniht rof ,ereht drow tcerroc eht saw leef ,sey ,spahreP .ebyam ,leef rO .ees ot tnasaelp saw ti dna ,nrettap a ,ti ot redro na saw erehT .yaw a ni ,suoinomrah eroM .edis taht morf recin dekool syawla dlrow ehT > There and Again - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining sighed, setting his sword down against the cold crystal wall. He took off his saddlebags, took one last look at both ends of the tunnel, then finally convinced himself he was safe and sat down. Rolling his shoulders back and forth and stretching his hind legs, he lay back against the wall behind him and sighed again. His hooves needed the rest, even if he didn't want to admit it. They were getting a bit sore. His horn lit up. The button holding his bags closed came undone with a satisfying pop, and held by the glow of his magic the little sealed tray of food he'd brought along levitated towards his lap. He clicked his tongue in anticipation, while his hooves worked to undo the silver-grey wrapping. The shreds of it had yet to hit the ground when the smell of food hit Shining's nostrils, and a moment later the stallion practically threw himself onto the small tray. Goodness, he'd been hungry. Way more than he'd realised. Years of guard training meant he could ignore the need for food for a while and not be distracted by it, but it also meant he wasn't exactly conscious of the fact he was doing it. Cadence's food was good as always. He didn't mind cooking for himself, but she'd insisted on doing it and he certainly wasn't going to refuse the offer. He slipped the last bit of food past his lips, staring at the now empty plate on his lap. That had been nice, yes. He lit his horn again, and pulled out a clock from his saddlebags, bringing it up to his face. He could still afford a few minutes, yeah. Setting the clock back inside his bags, he stretched his legs, then placed his hooves behind his neck as he leaned back and began to whistle to himself. Things had gone well, if boringly so. Nothing seemed to have snuck in the tunnels as far as he'd explored them so far. There would probably be something up ahead, he'd have found it worryingly suspicious if nothing at all turned out to be there, but it probably wouldn't be anything too bad. He really wasn't sure why Cadence worried so much about him going there. Sure, they didn't exactly know what more they could find, but so far there was no reason to think it would be anything more dangerous than what they'd already found. He'd never come out of it with more than a few scratches, and even in the remote chance things went bad, he could always teleport out of there. Shining got up. The tray and the shreds of wrapping were levitated back into a separate pocket in his bags, then the bags themselves were closed and slid onto his back once more. He took hold of his sword, and then began to trek down the tunnel again. That's when a bit of movement caught his eye. Up ahead, on the floor, a darker shade of blue slithering away from him. Another crystal lizard, it seemed. Craning his neck back and forth, he stepped forward, and started to follow the creature. There was no need to rush it. Not as long as it was just one, at least. > Clocks > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight sat on the wooden bench in the shop, looking at the clocks hanging from the walls around her. There were a lot of clocks there. None were particularly loud, but all together they made quite the amount of noise. It was at least a regular noise, and after a while it was easy to ignore it, as her brain treated it as just a background to her thoughts. She unfortunately didn't have much else to do. Just wait, and stare at the clocks. It was actually quite convenient that there were clocks there. That way she could easily tell how much time had passed. It shouldn't take too long. Maybe just a few more minutes before she finally got something else to do beside waiting and looking at the clocks. They were nice clocks. Some were metal, and others wooden, and they all must have taken quite a while to make. There was something funny in there. About clocks, and the time spent making them. Definitely something to work with. Maybe she could do that. Write something about the clocks. Not then though. Nothing to write on, not enough time to do it. One day, maybe. When it was all over. She didn't exactly have much free time. She didn't allow herself to. There were a whole lot of clocks there. Maybe she could count them? Maybe not. It would be boring. Waiting wasn't the most entertaining thing, true. But counting the clocks might have been even less entertaining. And she wouldn't have time to count them all. She wouldn't have to wait much longer. She could tell, there were quite enough clocks around her to tell that she clearly wouldn't have much longer to wait. Why there? Why by the clocks? Not that it was a bad choice. Most other choices, while deemed safe, could perhaps hide some unforeseen danger. Perhaps just to reduce the risks to a minimum? It could certainly make sense. And yet it didn't, not fully. It felt like a justification. It was too peculiar a place for it to be just a matter of safety. No other place was quite like that shop, and clearly it had been picked for a reason. So, clocks. Maybe she would ask why. It wouldn't take much longer before she got a chance to, she confirmed with a glance at the clocks. What colour was the wall? White? Yeah. It was white. It was hard to spot behind all the clocks. Was it white behind the clocks too? It was probably yellow, or grey, or maybe black, after all the time it had been covered by the clocks. Was the wall really white when most of it wasn't? Maybe Twilight would buy a clock, one day. A pretty one, not too big, not too fancy. One made of wood, with floral patterns carved on the surface. With large painted numbers that made it less precise when read, so for twenty minutes straight you could still say it was twelve o'clock. And she'd hang it in the kitchen, where she could see it from the table. A set of clicks, and the door slid open. > Startracking - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow Dash was in Ponyville, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. On a cloud, half napping, her mind occupied with nothing in particular. Resting in the shade of another cloud higher up in the air, letting the faint breeze run over her feathers and through her mane. Just relaxing, not doing much of anything. She didn't notice things immediately. Being on a cloud, far from the ground, being out of the Behemoth's shadow, being far from Canterlot, there wasn't much for her to notice. No cold chill over her skin or vibration running up her hooves, no ground shaking where she stood or buildings dancing around her. So it took a moment, before she noticed something was amiss. It was the commotion in town that woke her up. The nervous yelling, the occasional scream, the thumping of hooves as ponies ran this way and that and rushed out of buildings and called to each other. Her first reaction was to stand there for a second, confused, looking about as she tried to understand what was going on. Her second reaction, just a moment after the first one, was to swoop down from her cloud and begin helping others. Understanding what was happening could wait. The earth was shaking and half of the buildings in town were threatening to come down, and she had citizens to save. Dashing back and forth across the streets, she pulled many a creature out of buildings, more than once through the windows, and helped more than a few find each other in the confusion. Only when every direction she looked in from her hovering spot above the town yielded either dangerous situations devoid of creatures or groups of creatures devoid of dangerous surroundings did she allow herself to unfocus from helping others, and once more let herself question what was happening and why. That is when, while turning around to look for clues, Rainbow Dash first saw the Behemoth. And her first thought upon seeing it was that it was big. Really big. Which in fairness was the same first thought a lot of other creatures had upon first seeing the Behemoth, and it would have been so for an even greater number of them were it not for those running for their lives either because of collapsing buildings or because of the Behemoth itself. Rainbow just hovered there, about as still as one could be while bobbing up and down under the beating of their own wings. So. Unreasonably big, mysterious, and seemingly supernatural thing in Canterlot, wreaking havoc all the way to Ponyville and likely across the whole country with its mere presence and steps. The rainbow laser might not work, depending on whether it was intentionally destroying things or it had merely found itself there it might not even be needed. The sensible thing was consulting Twilight. Who'd probably already know what the thing actually was, being Twilight and all. A lucky coincidence that going to her meant getting closer to the thing in question too. Rainbow cast a last glance around, making sure everycreature was safe, then shot off towards Canterlot in a blur of colours. > There and Again - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining took a peek behind the corner, into the corridor where the crystal lizard had slithered. Did lizards slither? Kind of, right? Either way, it was there now, quietly looking around. Crystal lizards were not the brightest creatures, but not the dumbest either. It knew Shining was following close behind. But it did not have any real concept of how close he actually was. Once past the corner, he was no longer in sight, and so to the lizard it was the same as if he wasn't there. That the pony in question was near, ready to jump out if he so wanted, did not and could not cross the creature's brain. They were simple creatures like that. Pretty sturdy though. Could take quite a few hits, in terms of blunt damage. But then again, that was why he was carrying a sword, not a mace or a hammer. Not that all hammers were blunt weapons, war hammers in particular were a far cry from construction hammers and their hits were arguably closer to arrows than punches given the spiky bits and pointy ends, and really- And really, he was starting to rant about weapons. Again. Thank goodness Cadence was at least willing to listen to his rambles when he went on one, bless that mare. So, anyway. He had a sword. Crystal lizards were actually pretty resistant to cuts as well, but that wasn't what the sword was for. Well, it was, generally, but not in that particular context. The sword was there to dislodge the bits making up the lizard's core, which it turned out was the most efficient way to get one to disassemble. Literally. Yes, a pole arm would have been more efficient, but the cracks were thin and the core fairly far in and the corridors not that tall, so a sword was just more convenient. Yes, he could have had some more specific tool built, but the sword was better in case something else showed up. You never knew. Crystal lizards were more of a nuisance than a real danger. They were sort of like rats, if rats were the size of a large dog and had razor sharp teeth and claws and crystal plating that reflected magic blasts like a mirror. So they weren't really like rats, except for how they ate supplies. They could probably eat a pony too, though. They never had, but on the other hoof, they'd always found supplies. No one was really willing to test out if they were omnivores or not. The lizard turned its head towards the opposite end of the tunnel. In a blink, Shining stepped behind it, and jammed his sword right past its armour and into the core. Just a sideways push on the blade, and the creature exploded into splinters of rock and crystal. Shining smiled, and began to walk away. That particular one wouldn't give them trouble for a couple of weeks. It would take a while for it to reform, and a while longer before it felt daring enough to come in that direction again. They were like timberwolves. Crystal instead of wood, a manifestation of the Wall's magic rather than the Everfree's, but essentially the same type of creature. Which was about as fascinating as it was annoying. The Wall did not have the centuries of history the Everfree did, and the confines of where the ponies' territory began and the wild things' ended were not yet defined. Still, so long as it was only lizards coming that close, Shining supposed it wasn't too bad. Not too bad at all. > At the End of the > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It wasn't really a restaurant. It had no set menu, the dining area amounted to a few tables hastily thrown together from planks of wood, the stallion running the place was the only one working there, and half the time you might not even get a plate to eat on. It was more like a place that happened to serve whatever food happened to be prepared that day, at whatever time it happened to be prepared at, all run by the same pony who happened to cook that food. But inspectors had come, they'd checked and verified that the kitchen was clean and the food was properly stored, and so the place stayed open and kept serving whoever happened to pass by. And that was a good thing. Because that one pony made some darn good food. They'd never learnt his name, and he'd never learnt theirs. Neither had ever asked. They'd shown up there, one day, soaking wet while a thunderstorm raged outside. Asked for food, no matter what it was. And, darn it, it'd been the best food they'd ever had. They kept showing up, whenever they could. Whenever they could afford to pass from there, and the place happened to be open. Didn't even need to ask for anything anymore at that point. They just sat down, and a bowl of whatever was being served that day got to their table. Eat, leave the bits behind, wave goodbye as they walked out the door. Sometimes, there was stuff to drink, too. There was a water pump outside the building, clean stuff, connected right to an underground spring there in the mountains, but sometimes there was something else too. Usually served in the same old glass stein, the bottom so worn out from use and polishing sessions it would have been a hole if it hadn't been so thick. Always nice stuff. Cider, or grape juice, or pomegranate juice, or a bunch of other things. They had no idea how he got his hooves on any of it, and they didn't care. Not like the food was any more consistent or less headscratch inducing. They were pretty sure half the plants served there didn't even grow in that side of Equestria, much less high in the mountains like that. Maybe the place just had the world's weirdest storage hidden underneath, and he just fetched stuff at random. The building was old, mossy, the many stones that made up the walls misaligned and sticking out, the roof's cover planks looked like they were just waiting for the first hailstorm to break apart. Inside, though, it all disappeared. The fireplace cast its warmth and glow over huge, rough but solid chunks of stone that made up the walls and floor, and the ceiling's wooden support beams looked like they'd been bought just the other day. They always enjoyed eating there. Especially after a rough day, especially when it was raining outside. And then, just like every time, they left their bits on the table, the bowl or plate or whatever cleaned from every last speck of food, and they walked out by themself, once more alone for a while in the outside world. > Cry for me, Acanthite > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door was locked. That was not usual. Especially not for her house. She usually didn't lock the door. Especially not in the middle of the day, especially not when she was still inside. But the door was locked. Well, he would just have to find a way to open it, of course. It would have been easier if she'd opened it herself, but it looked like she wasn't going to. Which was annoying, admittedly, but not the worst. He just needed to figure out how to get the door to open. He quite liked the challenge, actually. He always liked challenges. Riddles and puzzles and such, and that's what that was, no? A puzzle. He always liked puzzles. He was good with puzzles. So. Details, details, details. Context. Clues. It was about that, no? Clues. Contextual clues. Deciphering the context of the puzzle to identify its elements. It was all about that. Careful observation and deductive reasoning, logical, critical thinking. And he was good at that, right? Yeah, he was good at that. He had experience and such. Scarlet Ribbon's house had been built thirty years before, roughly. The small town was expanding at the time, after an influx of ponies moving there from the bigger cities. It had been built with wood from the local trees, during spring, finished by the time summer had rolled around. Some twenty years later it had gone near abandoned after the owners had moved again, maybe bored of the quiet life of the town as they were getting older, and five years or so later Scarlet had bought the place, after working enough to get a place of her own. Her parents were proud of her. There was chip in the white paint on the front wall, two thirds of the way up to the second floor window. Roughly shaped like a square. Clearly relevant, part of the puzzle. There was a smaller chip on the door, to the left, three quarters of the way up. That one looked more like a small triangle. Probably important as well. The doorbell was there, but it made no sound, it had been turned off from the inside. The button still slid in and out though. He liked the button. He liked buttons. They were nice to press. What more? Well, further back, if he turned around, there was another paint chip in the fence. And on the lawn, a small depression in the ground, likely caused by a mole digging a tunnel underneath. And then the tree, of course, the tree. The branches bare, it was autumn after all, a few of the red and yellow leaves still by the trunk, more wet than dry at that point. And yeah, he could see it. He almost had it, yes, he was almost there. He could clearly see the connections, those bright thick wires from one thing to another, the yellow one running over the front wall that connected the paint chip with the tree, and the green one that passed beneath the ground and below that depression and had its ends at the two remaining paint chips, and then there was a red one that went up from the button and up to the roof and then- A drop of water hit him right between the eyes. Oh, it was starting to rain. Well he couldn't be out in the rain, he'd get his clothes all wet. Oh well. Not the worst, not the worst. He'd have to visit Scarlet another time. He turned around and quickly headed towards the centre of town, while a drop after the other began to pour down from the sky. Such a shame though. He'd almost solved that puzzle. > Map to the Scars > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna's axe came down, and the silver snake splintered in a shower of bright orange sparks and white-hot dust. It was the third one that night, the eighth one that week, the twenty-seventh that month. She was getting a bit tired of them, to be perfectly honest. There was nothing particularly engaging about hunting them. They were more of a nuisance than anything. A sound to her right drew her attention. Somewhere behind the cover of leaves and twisted branches, something was moving. She turned, and readied her weapon, narrowing her eyes. Not another silver snake, it seemed. Too small to be one of those. Maybe even smaller than her, judging by how subtle the movements appeared to be. The alicorn waited, patiently still, ready to strike at the first sign of aggression. But nothing came. The movement seemed to halt completely, not even the faintest trace of it left. Everything was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. Curious, cautious, she took a step forward. It could very well be a trap. But it was just as likely that whatever had been there simply wasn't anymore. She got right in front of the bush, and still no signs of anything. Very slowly, very carefully, she brought the tip of her axe towards the leaves and branches. And then, just as slowly, she pushed them aside, to reveal the space behind. Nothing there. With a barely audible sigh, she pulled back her weapon, as the tension in her muscles eased just a bit. She turned away, and gave a look around. There didn't seem to be anything nor any other creature there for the moment. Just trees, and thankfully only the neutral kind. Not that she would have had anything against the friendlier ones, but the hostile ones were far more common around the area, so getting trees that didn't attack was already a plus. Shrugging, she took off. The beats of her wide wings pushed her upwards as she began to soar above the forest, looking below her to spot any other signs of movement or commotion. There didn't seem to be any, not as far as she could see, certainly nothing major. She'd already dealt with a few, true enough. But she doubted it would be all for the night. Her gaze turned upwards, above her, where the rest of the forest lay. Her wings pushed harder, and in a few moments there she was, soaring over the trees with her back towards the ground and her belly towards the sky. Thankfully, she'd been there enough times to learn how to gracefully roll around in mid air without interrupting her flight. Her gaze was once more cast downwards at the ground. Once more searching for signs of strife. It didn't take long, this time, before her eyes spotted something. Trees bending as the creature erratically crashed into them, the heavy thuds of its steps echoing in the air. Axe at her side, Luna swooped down, ready to take out the beast. > Startracking - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy was in the Everfree Forest, near the border, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. She was going back to her house, after spending some time tending to the manticore she'd befriended there. Before the ground shook, before any other sign, she felt something was amiss. She felt it around her, a quiet unease, a thrill of nervousness that ran through the creatures of the forest. A jerkiness to their movements, a sudden awareness that something wasn't quite right. Fear, in a sense. She had just a second to notice it and wonder, then one to prepare. Then the ground shook. Feebly, at first, distant and barely noticeable. But still there. The unrest in the creatures around her came to a halt, but it wasn't calm. Just stalling, the tension building up one moment after the other. A second quake, stronger, as every creature held its breath. Then the third one came, and the stillness broke. Creatures went running, flying, barking and howling and crying, no direction to their movements, no destination on their minds, only an unbearable need to move, to do something, to get away from something that was everywhere around them. The increasing intensity of the subsequent quakes did not help. And Fluttershy stood there, in the middle of it all. She couldn't see it all, most was hidden by the trees or simply too fast to follow, but she could hear it. She could hear them, all around her, and through the forest as their cries echoed to her. She had never seen the creatures of the Everfree like that. Whatever it was, whatever was happening, it wasn't normal. It wasn't natural, not even by the forest's standards. And that had her worried. A different pony, in her situation, might have been concerned about their safety and about the animals running around them. Flutterhsy, however, knew that whatever they were running from would be far more worrying. But whatever that was, she would have time to evaluate the situation later. In that moment, instead, her thoughts went to the animals in her sanctuary, and she immediately began to run back towards it, out of the forest. If the animals in the forest were afraid, the ones there would probably be terrified, and far more confused about what they were feeling. Because they would be feeling something. Because even she had felt something, if just for a moment. A normal pony wouldn't, but spending enough time with animals had led her to share some of their instincts, or at least have a better understanding of them. Something she couldn't quite explain, some unconscious reaction about subtle details she couldn't quite point out. She got to the sanctuary as quickly as she could, and there managed to calm down the commotion. Only a while later, once everything had been taken care of and things had calmed down, did she actually go into town and inquire about what had happened. And as the ponies pointed towards the mountain, and she turned her gaze to follow, she felt it again. That shiver down her spine, as she first saw the Behemoth, and wondered just how much things would change from that moment on. > 15 Acres of Broken Glass > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things were going well, ever since she'd found the city. Definitely a whole lot better than they had before. Food was always there, and she didn't mind helping search for more when the need for it arose. And she had a real bed to sleep on, which as far as she was concerned was worth all the inconveniences that came with living there. Besides, honestly speaking, what was the alternative? Was she really willing to go back to the uncertainty and struggles of the world outside? No. Life in the city had its flaws, its uncertainties too, but it was far, far better than the only alternative they knew. She was safer than anywhere else, she was protected, she wasn't alone. Abandoning it all would have been foolish. She knew it, just like everyone else in the city knew it. Unrest occasionally stirred the population, but it was always held back by that knowledge. That fact that no matter what, even if things were harsh sometimes, even if the Mirror threatened to give out on occasion, being alone out there would always be worse. She was afraid that the whole thing could fall apart, sometimes. That someone could use that fact to impose their own decisions over the city by force, and no one would be able to go against them if the alternative was being kicked out. She'd fight back if that happened, of course she would, but how many other ponies there could manage to do the same? How many of those scarce few wouldn't already have been bribed by those in charge at that point? That wasn't her only fear about living in the city. And it wasn't the biggest one, either. There was something else, always on everypony's mind, even though they tried not to think about it. What if the Mirror broke? If the cracks got past the wall, they'd all be done for. The city would be no more. Would so many ponies even be able to stick together out there? It would be utter chaos. Again. The Ziz be damned, she didn't have the faintest idea of how the Mirror even worked. Maybe she should study that. She was never the best at studying, yeah, but that didn't mean she couldn't try. Especially with something so important. As far as she understood it, if the Mirror broke there was no chance they'd be able to make another, but maybe there was something there? Maybe... Maybe no. Maybe she was just annoyed, again, by how useless she felt when it came to that. The brightest unicorns available to them worked day and night on running the thing and making it work, did she really think she'd be able to figure out something they'd missed just by picking up a book? No. Of course not. But at least she'd be doing something. Just to make herself feel better. Could she really be blamed for feeling like that? No. But it didn't mean she could go out and act on it, just because. She had more important things to do there in the city, there was work to do and food to find. But maybe she would pick up a book on the matter, later on. She did have some spare time to fill, after all. > RRR > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She studied the graphs splayed out on the table in front of her, adjusting her glasses. There had to be a pattern to them, right? She hoped so, at least, because it sure didn't look like there was one. Now that, that would have been annoying. And maybe even a problem. She'd need to keep charting them to be sure, of course. Unless she figured out a pattern. She pulled her eyes away from the table and forced them onto the ceiling. It was so frustrating. Insightful, but frustrating nonetheless. Perhaps she should try to focus on the interesting results, not on those she wasn't having. For example, she'd never expected there to be so many of them. And she'd never thought one would be so near, she was honestly pretty surprised they'd never found that before then. Although maybe someone had found it. In which case, she hoped they were alright. They probably were, maybe they just went around telling stories about it and no one believed them. But there was no guarantee of safety, it was why they were having to set up warning signs and fences around every one they found. Which admittedly drew some suspicions, but it was still a necessary precaution. How many more were out there? How long would it take to find them? She had no idea, and it bothered her to no end. If she'd known what she was signing up for years before, she might've decided to go a completely different way in her life. Although... Her eyes wandered to the photographs she kept on her desk. True, the younger version of her probably wouldn't have thought that would be worth it. She had a different opinion on the matter. Her gaze returned to the pile of papers on the table, pictures and maps and graphs and countless aimless attempts at equations and formulae that had come up short of any solution every single time. Frustration hit her like an improperly thrown brick, only with less nose bleeding and broken glasses. A cup of something that was halfway between coffee and chocolate levitated towards her in the glow of her telekinesis, and she downed it all as quickly as she could. What time was it? She gave a look at the clock on the far wall. Just a few minutes away from one o'clock. In the morning. Maybe it was time to go to sleep. Leave her notes, take the whole issue out of her mind, hope stress would make her pass out before the caffeine kicked in. It was not the best of plans, but it was better than the one she was following in her attempts at studying the matter. So whatever, right? Stepping away from the table, even as her mind refused to follow along, she headed towards the stairs. Yeah. Sleep did sound nice, and was probably needed. And maybe even a pause the day after. She had to go out and buy food anyway, maybe she could spend some time outside, maybe not alone. It never hurt to catch some sunlight, after all. > Why Don't You Cry? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cadence always liked to watch things from up there. As much as there were things to watch from there. Which, in truth, was very little, and that was why she enjoyed it. It was peaceful. No distractions, no worries, she could pretend for a moment that nothing had ever changed. Almost. The unnervingly huge chunk of crystal she sat upon was still an inescapable reminder of the world she lived in. But, at least, not much else had changed up there, between the puffy white clouds and the clear blue sky. Many of her guards would have had quite a few things to say against her being there. That was why she didn't tell them about it when she went. Most of the time, she even got away with it. She took in a long, deep breath. Clear, fresh air. That seemed somehow harder and harder to come by back in the city. It wasn't, of course, but it still felt like it. The tension running through every creature down there was impossible to ignore, and that only made everyone more nervous. She did hope things would calm down eventually, once the citizens had grown used to how things had changed. Shining at least seemed to be taking it quite well. He'd been active helping around town, he'd personally taken part in the process of reestablishing some forms of communication between the Empire and the rest of Equestria, and he'd even started exploring the tunnels, all while keeping up with his royal duties. Maybe he was just excited by the adventurous feeling of change, he definitely was that kind of pony. It did make her worry, on occasion, that he was just growing bored with how their life was before. Well, no more of that for a while. She would have no doubt preferred it, but it looked like the universe or fate or whomever had different plans for all of them. Far more disruptive plans, and she was genuinely afraid at times that they hadn't seen the end of it yet. Far from it. That was why she spent time there. On her own, away from the stress and commotion of her life, away from the earth far down below her and everything and everyone on it. She didn't hate them, or even dislike them. But sometimes, it was nice to just let go for a while. Leave her troubles to another time, another space. Of course, it couldn't last forever. Ponies would notice her absence eventually, and it wouldn't do if she stayed there and ignored duties she had to attend. It really wouldn't do. She could maybe wait a couple of minutes longer though. Just a couple. She still had a lot of day to get through. And then another whole day the day after, and then another one, and then another one, and on and on and on like that. It was annoying, yes. But it was what she had to do. She could just hope that things would change for the better, when they did. > Deadline > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spending most of your evening out at a party that was only supposed to last about half an hour and then coming home with barely any time left to do what you're supposed to get done by midnight was not high on Starlight's list of things she wanted to try. That did nothing to stop it from happening. She really should have seen it coming, knowing Pinkie Pie. She also should have probably started to work on her report. Instead of playing cards with Trixie and Sunburst, like she had been for the past hour. Would it really be so bad if Twilight didn't find anything the morning after? Probably not. She was only being chased down by the stress of her impeding coronation. So really, it shouldn't bother her that much. What's the weight of a single school on the shoulders of a pony who's supposed to rule the entire nation? Oh. A three. Interesting play on Trixie's part. Risky. Starlight looked at her cards. It might be bait, an attempt to shield an ace. But the points were still worth it. It was Cups on the lead that game, and Starlight set down the Knight. Sunburst upped it with the King. Now that was annoying. Sometimes, some ponies just got all the luck. Starlight threw one distracted look at the empty paperwork she was supposed to be filling. Oh well. She wasn't about to stop playing until one of them got a three-point lead over the others, and that could still take hours. It would be fun. Absent-mindedly, she looked at the card she'd just drawn. The Ace of Swords. She looked at what the others were throwing down. Nothing worthwhile. Yeah, maybe it was worth just getting the points. > Lay all your LLLL on T > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was almost visible there, a faint purple glow in the air around her. And she definitely felt it, it made hairs on her coat stand and her bones itch. It was the most intense she'd ever seen it be, and definitely much, much, much more intense than what was considered safe. If it had been up to Twilight, or really to anyone else, they'd have told her to stop hundreds of metres before. That was why she didn't tell them. It was a very stupid thing to do, and she fully realised and acknowledged it. But someone had to go there. Oh, they would spend hours and hours discussing what to do, no one willing to put someone else in danger, no one willing to let another go in their stead. And however it ended up going, one of them at least would have to go, and they'd get hurt. So it was for the better if she went instead. She was tougher than all of them, anyway. Sending a princess wouldn't have made any difference. They could take more, but they were hit harder. Twilight herself couldn't even stand near the border of the safe zone without getting nauseous, and sure as Tartarus that mare would try to go in there herself. She was stubborn like that. That just wouldn't do. The sound of falling rubble up ahead snapped her attention away from her thoughts. As she carefully kept treading towards her destination, she was reminded of why exactly she liked to get lost in her own thoughts when walking around there. The base of her horn hurt. A lot. Like a piece of red-hot iron jammed in her skull, sending bolts of lightning into her head. Somewhere halfway between a broken bone healing and a tooth growing, only worse than both. It wasn't even the only part of her body in pain. Just about every bone she knew of started to protest if she moved wrong, and she'd even discovered a couple new ones that way. Her muscles, particularly those on her torso, seemed equally unhappy about her situation, and sometimes made her feel like she'd just completed a full set of exercises. And then was the matter of her hind legs. That, admittedly, she was legitimately scared about. The hooves could still feel, and the legs a little too going up from there. But everything between her tail and the end of her thighs was dull numbness, and she could just hope it wouldn't give out. Still, it hadn't so far. Spending more time soaking in radiation wouldn't help matters at all, but she was there at that point, no use going back until she'd found everything she was there for. Thank goodness, the explosion had at least pushed everything away from the centre, so there was no need for her to walk right up to the fissure itself. Stumbling just a bit down a slope of rubble, she reached another set of broken white walls and tiles and torn chunks of table, housing yet more of Twilight's and her team's research notes and results. She carefully took hold of them in her hooves and slipped them into her saddlebags. Maybe it wasn't so much of a problem that she couldn't use telekinesis. Between the radiation and how much what was there of her horn hurt, magic might have been out of the question either way in there. > Startracking - Part 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was in Canterlot, when the Behemoth came there. She was in the castle, in her throne room, pacing up and down the length of the wall as she munched on her bottom lip and reran the same set of thoughts through her head for the twelfth time at least that afternoon alone. It was the speech she had to give later that evening. Her first big speech as Princess, barring her coronation. Her first post-coronation speech. And despite every sign and previous example pointing towards her being perfectly able to deliver a good speech, and her being perfectly aware of that fact, she still most definitely did not feel like she was going to. She really had to ask Celestia how she managed to deal with that. Assuming the alicorn did, and wasn't just as much of a nervous wreck, simply good at hiding it. But she wasn't a good actress. Either way, she definitely knew how to deliver a speech. It was at that moment that something drew Twilight's attention away. A voice. Barely a whisper, so quiet she wasn't sure if it was even there or she'd simply imagined it. Far too quiet to understand what it had said. The floor shook, just barely. Twilight felt an itch at the base of her horn, a prickle of electricity in the joints of her wings. The ground shook again, with a touch more intensity, and something akin to a sudden static discharge travelled down her hind legs, starting at her cutie marks. The Sun's light from outside the stained glass windows of the room got just a smidge less intense, slightly distorted. There was something like a shadow on the other side, like leaves against the sky when you look up from beneath a tree, like clear water you can barely tell is there. Something moving. Something looking at her. The ground shook, hard enough for the floor to crack and rise in uneven, broken chunks. The windows shattered, fragments of broken glass flying into the room on a cold gust of wind from outside. The entire castle creaked, as cracks appeared all over walls and pillars and crawled upwards like reverse lighting. Screams of ponies echoed through the halls, and all through the streets of the city below. And Twilight, standing still, gazed at the impossibly large and only half-there creature, as it lifted its head away from the now broken windows and stepped forward again, shaking the ground like an earthquake and tearing down what was left of the room's outer wall. And Princess Twilight Sparkle watched, frozen there in her throne room, as the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and walked over its streets. As the buildings fell and the towers collapsed. As the creatures screamed and ran and cried. As the ground split open and the fountains froze and flowers and plants closed up as if it was nighttime. And the souls of the living shrieked as they were ripped from their earthly shells and carried along with the storm, and the souls of the dead were raised alongside them and all they shattered against the Behemoth. And Twilight watched, frozen there, as the Behemoth stood over Canterlot, and cast its shadow over Equestria. Unmoved, unmoving, silently watching the mayhem it had caused. And Twilight watched, from the torn and broken edge of the room, through the hole that had once been a wall and now spanned the whole length from one side to the other. Like an actress on a stage, looking at the audience. The whole world outside her castle, and her inside. And the knowledge that things would never be the same once she stepped out into that world. > The End of This | For Thine is > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- They met her one winter evening, while standing under a tree. It was snowing, that evening, not too hard but still enough to make flying uncomfortable. They were waiting for it to end, under the tree. The tree was a pine, an old pine, pretty tall. They liked leaning against the trunk, watching the snow fall down around them. She appeared almost at their side, only a few metres away. To their left, to be precise. Just outside the edge of what the pine's branches covered. Standing over the snow, more snow softly falling over her as a few flakes were caught in her blonde mane. She looked around, almost seeming a little dazed. Then, a snowflake landed on her nose, right between her eyes. She gave a shrug, almost a shiver, beat some snow off her body with her wings, and walked towards the trunk of the tree, beneath the branches. They just stared at her, silent. Undeniably, a part of it was confusion. But once she walked up to the tree, she too saying nothing, acting like nothing of notice had happened and it was perfectly normal for a pony to be there when she hadn't a moment before, they decided they would stay silent too. They liked the silence, and the quiet sounds of the forest, after all. And so the two of them sat there, side by side, watching in silence the snow fall against the darkening skies, leaning against the pine's rough bark as they waited for the weather to change. She met them on a winter evening, while looking for a place to spend some time in. She did that often, when she had the time. Just exploration, aimless wandering around the country. It was fun. It was kind of like travelling, but without the annoyances of the trip, without the costs, without the problems of distance. Distance wasn't a problem for her, it had stopped being one a while before in truth. They were standing beneath a tree, alone, watching the snow. She hadn't known it was snowing there, or that there were trees. She'd learned to avoid trees, at least. But it took her a while to notice it was snowing. And a snowflake landing on her nose. They noticed her when she showed up. And they were confused. That was normal. Most creatures were, when she showed up like that. It was why she generally avoided doing it inside buildings. That, and walls. She still wasn't as good with walls as she was with trees. But even if they noticed her, they said nothing. Perhaps they were really that confused. Perhaps they simply had nothing to say. Perhaps they were mute. The snow was cold around her hooves as she walked towards the tree. They'd had they right idea, sitting there, sheltered from the snow. The tree was tall, its branches spread fairly wide, the tiny, pointy leaves on them still there. Maybe it was a pine. She got to the trunk. They still said nothing, and now they looked more amused than confused. She said nothing either. She had nothing to do, and she was there to kill some time. So she sat there near them, and watched the snow fall against the darkening skies, peacefully relaxing as she listened to the silence around them. > Like Silence Breaking Sound > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am sure you must be rather confused right now. About how you got here or even where 'here' is, about who I am, about everything that's happened up to this point, both to you and to the world. I assure you, it will all make sense, eventually. "I have to admit, and I'm being honest, I didn't think anyone would find me so soon. And I certainly didn't think it would be you. But I see it was with her help, so I can understand how things went down. She was one of the most likely candidates for who would find me first, after all. Either her, Princess Twilight, or perhaps Rainbow Dash, those were my guesses. Instead, it looks like it was you. "No matter. Not a problem at all, really. In fact, I am actually rather entertained by it. It's something I hadn't considered planning for. That makes it exciting. And, as I said, this is far sooner than I expected. I was prepared to wait decades, in the worst of outcomes. I am quite sure this will speed things up nicely. "I'm sure you're starting to realise where we are, right? You're a smart pony. You've been looking around while I was talking. Look down again for a moment if you wish, I won't mind you taking your eyes off me. And I promise I won't jump at you while you are distracted. I would never do that. As you might guess, I am not one to keep my actions hidden. Although, yes, perhaps there is some irony in that, given I was hidden by them. "I should clarify, at this point, that this isn't my decision. This whole thing, you see? It's more complicated than that. Far, far more complicated than that. I am a part of it all, but I am not the driving force behind it. Truth be told, I am not sure if there is a single will driving the events here. It seems rather like the consequence of many different, individual parts, and outside the single control of any one of them. Almost a coincidence, perhaps. Though I'm sure some would call it fate. "Who am I to judge? I see how little you know, maybe I'm just as ignorant. Maybe there is someone else behind it all, pulling the strings. But as far as I'm concerned, that doesn't matter. I'm just here to play my part, and I don't care much who that benefits. I never had much of a choice anyway, you see? "And I am sure, very sure, that you must be wondering what exactly my part is. Surely, though, you don't think I will simply tell you. I do have the unfortunate habit to talk a lot, true, but can you blame me? It gets rather lonely up here. But you're a smart pony, you know I won't just tell you what you want me to by myself. And you're thinking to yourself how you can force me to, are you not? "Believe me, that is not something I recommend you do. I won't stop you from trying. But I will make sure you regret it, should it happen. Instead, and I should make it clear I am talking to you, not anyone else who might be listening, why don't you just ask? I'm sure there must be a lot of questions on your mind. I don't promise I will answer everything, but it never hurt to try, right?" > End of Prologue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Moon shone bright in the sky, lighting his path towards the castle. He'd been travelling for almost a week at that point, only ever stopping to sleep, and given his schedule he should have actually stopped again a few hours before. But seeing how close he was for the capital, he'd decided to simply ignore rest and get there. He was carrying vital information, and a swift delivery was imperative. Even if it meant harm to him. Something which would no doubt happen. Hours of ceaseless marching with the added weight of his armour on were bound to have consequences, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He was at least very glad he hadn't had to deal with any attacks. Not from ill-intentioned ponies or other creatures, not from monsters or wild animals. He'd gone seemingly unnoticed, staying away from cities and villages, and as far as he knew no one had spotted him. No until he'd gotten close to the capital, at least. There, of course, he'd been spotted. The guards were keeping an eye on him from the walls, he knew that even if he couldn't see them. Soon enough somepony would reach him and inquire as to who he was. No one was allowed to get near the castle without reason, it was not something the Crown could afford. Sure enough, a guard descended from the sky to block his path. She wasn't displaying any obvious hostility, but he recognised the standard approach to unidentified ponies. Standing at an angle to block as much of the road as she could, wing ready to grab the sword at her side, legs prepared to spring into action. "Hey, you there!" she barked at him in a raspy tone. "Identify yourself." He had to hold back a smile. It was always nice to see properly applied protocol. He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out a sealed letter from his saddlebags, and threw it towards the mare. "That should clear it up." He then watched as she carefully picked up the envelope and opened it, and the way her expression changed as she read its contents. After that, it didn't take too long for him to reach his destination. The mare escorted him inside the city and past the guards, all of which simply gave a salute as she passed by them. He was getting tired of the walking, and almost ready to pass out, but there was one last thing for him to do. The reason he was there in the first place. The door to the throne room stood in front of him, and the mare nodded for him to walk in. And so he did. The doors closed behind him with a heavy, metallic thud, and his eyes drifted towards the far end of the room, where Her Majesty sat upon her throne. "My Queen," he said in a low, respectful tone, kneeling and bowing his head. "I bring you the results of the tests conducted in the Empire, as you ordered. Your faithful subordinate wishes me to inform you that there has been a breakthrough in understanding the phenomenon." Up on her throne, on the opposite side of the room, Nightmare Moon's expression shifted, moving to something almost similar to a smile. "Very well." > Implausible Deniability > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Discord!" Twilight's voice echoed around the path to Fluttershy's house, and louder still echoed her steps as she made her way through it. "Discord!" she called again, as the rest of her friends walked behind her. "Ugh. Come on!" Rainbow Dash shouted, rising slightly in the air and looking around. "Where is he hiding?" "Indeed, where is he?" Discord asked, toying with his beard, a serious expression on his face. The rest of his body slithered out from its hiding spot behind Twilight's neck, and he too began to look around. "Who are we looking for, anyway?" "Discord!" This time, it was Rarity who spoke out. "Oh, me?" The draconequus put his paw to his chest, drawing back in surprise. "Well in that case, there I am." He pointed towards a nearby set of two palm trees, and at the hammock hanging between them. On it, Discord peacefully lay, sunglasses over his eyes and a tanning reflector held in his arms. The group of six ponies looked between the trees and where Discord had been floating up until a moment prior, only to find he was no longer there. Rolling their eyes, they all headed towards his new location, Twilight choosing to directly teleport there in front of him. "Nothing." She stopped for a moment, her mouth half open. She ate the question she'd been meaning to ask back up, and instead went with a more simple, more immediate one. "What?" Discord folded his reflector, the hammock, and the trees, and tucked them behind the frame of his glasses. He then removed his glasses and folded them away from reality. "I had nothing to do with any of this." He gestured vaguely towards Canterlot. "And much to my displeasure, I know just as little about it as you all do." "Sure, and Fa-" Pinkie was cut off suddenly, but it took Twilight a moment to realise why. She first had to turn towards the mare, and see her five friends frozen in place, even those above ground. "Discord," she flatly uttered, turning back towards him. "It's hard to juggle a conversation with six different ponies," he replied while casually juggling six balls, each with the colour and cutie mark of one of them. "Besides, this gives me a chance to talk to you in stopped time in circumstances slightly less dire than the other time. And space. And us." He let the balls fall towards the sky. "But I'm being honest, Twilight," he continued, watching them go. "I know nothing about what that thing is, why it's here, how it got here, I know nothing." That got him a flat, skeptical look. Playing with a dial that had appeared in the air and watching Pinkie move slightly forwards and backwards in time, it took Discord a moment to notice Twilight's expression. "Oh come on. You bring the entire country to the brink of ruin three to five times, depending on how you count, and suddenly everyone thinks you're behind the giant mysterious monster that came out of nowhere and is bringing chaos everywhere." "Yes." Discord looked to the side. "Okay, fine, it's a fair conclusion to draw. But really, Twilight, think of it. It has not been two months since I last almost doomed us all. Don't you think I have learned my lesson for at least a year or so?" As he said that, he coiled around Twilight, beaming a smile at her. "Alright, fine." Twilight brought a hoof to her face. "I trust you, and we need you. Will you at least help us figure ou- What are you doing?" Discord pushed his suitcase closed. "As I said, I know nothing about this. So, since I've decided to make myself forgivable after the recent Grogar kerfuffle, I'm going to do some research for once." He snapped a door into existence, and began looking for a key out of a set he was suddenly holding. "Research? Wait, where are you going?" Twilight stepped to his side. "The library, of course. That's where all the knowledge is." The key turned in its hole, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Behind it, rows of bookshelves stretching out as far as the eye could see, impossibly tall, thin bridges suspended between them to walk from one to the other. Twilight stared, her eyes wide, her mouth wider. Only because Discord pushed it closed with a talon did drool not leak from its corners. She turned to look at the draconequus. "So you're saying there's a dimension out there of just books? Of all the books?" She threw another quick glance past the door. "And you never told me?" Discord looked back at her. "If I had let you in, there would not have been an Equestria left for you to go back to once you were done with it. Maybe not even a planet." He looked forward once again. "And there are things in there better left unread." His tone grew far more serious for a moment as he said that. "Anyway. I might take a few eternities in there. I'll try to get back around two years from now or sooner. But in case I'm not back in the next two centuries, leave me a note saying I took too long." And with that he stepped through the door and closed it behind him. "-rything is- Hey, where did he go?" > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sunlight took on a green tinge as it passed through the leaves of the trees above him, with occasional patches of yellow cast on the path in front of him where it passed unobstructed between them. He hadn't started moving until about halfway through the morning, having slept in late, but it likely wouldn't be a problem. He was pretty sure he was close to his destination. The portion of the path he was on went up a small hill, the space behind it hidden from sight. Sure enough, once he actually made his way to the top, the city of Ponyville appeared to him further down the road, still maybe an hour's walk away. He would be there before noon. Then he'd decide whether to go to Princess Twilight's castle immediately, or find a place to eat and possibly stay first, depending on what the locals said. Speaking of the castle, it really was rather jarring to see it stand out like that against the plain scenery around it. Ponyville was no different from what one would expect when picturing a small town in the countryside, with perhaps a few more modern additions, and the building instead looked more like something out of a toy set. Although, to be perfectly fair, the crystal-tree-castle hybrid would have looked out of place just about anywhere in Equestria. Perhaps it was more in line with the architecture of the Crystal Empire? He'd only ever seen a few pictures of it though. Never been one to travel much at all, something he was actually starting to regret a bit. There was a lot out there, such a shame he had to wait until it was all in ruins before going to see it. Then again, he would not have travelled in the first place had it not been for the Behemoth. Maybe he would visit the Empire too, one day, even if what he'd heard was not encouraging. "Hey you, down there!" Stone Brick suddenly stopped and looked up at the sky, where the voice had come from. Sure enough, a pegasus was there, hovering in the air, staring down at him with his green eyes. "You going to Princess Twilight's castle?" "How did you guess?" "Well, it's either that or the School that creatures go through the trouble of coming here for nowadays," the other replied. "You look too old to be a student, and not responsible enough to be either a teacher or a parent, so I figured it had to be the castle." "Maybe I'm here to be janitor, what do you know?" Stone said back to him, barely holding back a smirk. That got a chuckle out of the pegasus. "You know what? You got me there. Name's Soarin'. I was going back to the castle myself, I can lead you there if you want." "Stone Brick. And sure, go ahead. I don't mind the company." The earth pony went back to walking down the hill, while Soarin' floated by just above him. "So what brings you here to Ponyville, anyway?" Stone paused for a moment, thinking back to the thing hidden at the bottom of his saddlebags. "Oh. It's a long story." > An Empty Room > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You too?" It was a simple question, one posed almost innocently. It still left Celestia at pause. "I..." The pegasus turned towards her, curious, and amused. "Well? It's either yes or no, right?" Celestia looked down. Down below past the puffy white clouds, towards the remains of what had used to be a city. "I can't honestly answer no. But I really do not wish to say yes, either." Something that looked like a smile but didn't feel like one curled her lips. "So I suppose I just choose not to answer." "Why?" Celestia was silent again, for a moment. She kept staring at the city in ruins, munching on nothing, deep in thought. Then her eyes turned upwards, towards the sky, and still for a second longer she was silent. And then she said, "Fear, I suppose. Not fear as one usually intends it, but a shade of fear nonetheless." "Oh?" The pegasus' head tilted to a side. "And why is that? What is it?" "I don't know." Celestia's answer was immediate this time, instinctual. Something she'd prepared for, ran in her head many times. "And I don't want to know. I've never tried, and I don't plan to." She looked at the pegasus. "You can see why, I'm sure. You can understand why I would be afraid." "I can. But I have my doubts it will work forever, Celestia. It's not something you can ignore. The fact alone that you know it's there should tell you as much. You can feel it, and sooner or later it will come to the surface." "Not if I have a say in it." There was a more prideful, authoritarian note in Celestia's tone, something she rarely used in her ruling days and even less so after passing on the crown. She sat a little straighter as she said that, her wings rigid and spread just a bit wider. "I'm afraid you don't." The pegasus just rolled around, uncaring of the alicorn's display. "None of us did. It always just happened. How do you think you can stop it when you don't know what it is?" "I can try." "Try what? Try to do absolutely nothing? You can't. It will happen, Celestia, whether you like it or not. You're just delaying the inevitable." Celestia looked away from the other, back towards the ground, and for a few moments she was silent again. Her long mane drifted along the light breeze around them, as the Sun she'd once used to move slowly made its way towards the horizon. Finally, after feeling the pegasus come to sit at her side, she broke the silence once more. "It's something strong. I can feel it. Whatever it is, it's powerful." The only answer the other pony gave was a tap on Celestia's back with a wing, encouraging her to continue. "I don't know. It could have been any other alicorn. It should have been any other alicorn." "Feel like you're getting too old for this?" Celestia didn't answer, that time. Something that felt closer to a smile curled her lips, and the two of them watched the Sun disappear behind the mountains in the distance. > Welcome Home ([R]) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We can't keep doing this. It's the third one already." "Conspirators. They had it coming." "You know it won't be like that forever. We'll run out of those eventually, do you think she'll have us stop? We'll move on to other criminals and prisoners, and when the cells are all empty we'll move on to civilians." "You keep talking like that, and you'll be the next one lying on that table." "Like you're not thinking the same." "I am. But whining won't solve the issue. We can only figure out what it is we're doing wrong, and try to fix that." "What we're doing wrong? Oh, please. Everything about this is wrong. How do we know there is a way to make it work? What if there isn't? She won't listen to reason, and you know it." "We'll figure something out. We have to. Unless you want to try running away from here, but you saw what happened to the last pony who did." "Oh, I didn't see it just once. I pass there on my way here, they still haven't cleaned away the stain. How long has it been? Two moons at least, hasn't it?" "Maybe. I've lost track of time, my sleep schedule has been a mess as of late. Any plans for the next test?" "No, and I don't want to think about it. We should just ask for more time and tell her to wait on that, she can't expect better results if the tests are all so close to each other." "It's conspirators, remember? She doesn't care if they make it through. I'm pretty sure she expects them not to. As far as she's concerned, we're doubling as executioners." "Don't remind me. This isn't what I signed up for." "I know, right? She isn't even paying us for that." "Shut it. She could just convert them. Why doesn't she just convert them?" "Do you think this is something she came up with on a whim? Because it's not. She planned this, for years. Maybe decades. Why doesn't she convert them? Because then she'd have nopony to send here. Because she'd have to force civilians to come. Because ponies are scared and mistrustful if they know they could be taken away at any moment, but nopony cares if a sentenced criminal dies in a lab or in a prison." "She could have the whole nation pinned down under her hoof. Every single pony. Why doesn't she do that instead?" "She tried. She failed. She couldn't run the whole thing on her own, had to ease her grip on the population, give ponies some freedoms. What do you think this is all about? The Guard? Nah. This is about her. She's working her way back up there, and we're here to build her a ladder." "She has wings." "You know what I mean." "Alright. How do you know all this, anyway?" "Went snooping through the archives." "And you say I'm the one who risks ending up on that table!" "The thing is, Starburst, you actually care about not being melted into a puddle as a result of a failed experiment. I, personally, would see it as an improvement." "I told you not to call me that." "Alright, Starburst. Wanna go back in there?" "Do you think the smell has gone away now?" "I don't think the smell ever will go away. But enough of it should have stuck to our coats for us to have gotten used to it by now." "Well. Alright then. But you're cleaning up this time, I did the last two." > Painting the Orchids Green > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ice inside the glass rattled as the drink was set down, and Rarity took a moment to look at it. It was always interesting to see the way light reflected and refracted, between the glass, the drink and the ice. Eye-catching. Perhaps she could make some designs inspired by that. At a later time though. "Twilight said she found another one," Rainbow Dash said from the other side of the table. "A couple hours' trip from here. For someone who's not me, of course. Maybe even three or four, there's mountains on the way and I don't know if it would be faster to go through or around." "I suppose you're going to check on it." Rarity took hold of the glass and began to drink. It was cold going down her throat, but she didn't mind. She aimlessly turned her gaze towards the window, looking at the snow-covered park just outside. "I'm surprised you even bothered to come here instead of flat-out rushing there." "There's no reason to rush. I like relaxing too sometimes, you know?" Rainbow replied with a cheeky smile. Her own drink arrived, and she quickly took a sip of the steaming hot chocolate, only to bring the mug away from her mouth just as quickly and fan her tongue. Rarity couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. The other threw her a faux-annoyed glare, then blew a little air on her cocoa before trying to drink it again. "Laugh all you want, at least I'm not the one asking for an iced drink in the middle of winter." She gave a nod towards Rarity's own, now half-finished glass. "Can't handle a little cold?" Rarity took another sip. "Anyway. You didn't call me here just to tell me about Twilight's discovery, did you? I'll have you know, I have a very busy schedule. Right now I could be having a long private meeting with one of the bottles I keep locked in the basement, for example." "Why do you even keep those locked away if you go grab them so often?" "I can't have Sweetie Belle going in there. I am not letting my collection go to waste on a teen's drinking spree. That's Applejack's job." Another chuckle, another sip. "I'll take away the lock once they're old enough to appreciate the finer kinds of drinks. Though I might still have to leave it when you come around, I don't think you'll ever learn." Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes, as amused as she was annoyed. "Alcohol is alcohol, Rarity. You're not better than me because you get wasted on wine and not beer." "It's called being high class drunk, Darling." "Which is kind of like how a gold knife is high class. Less efficient than the alternative, but it costs more. Well, at least you're not like Pinkie." Rarity shuddered, and gave a nod of agreement. "Well, anyway." Rainbow took another sip of chocolate. "Like you said, I wasn't just gonna tell you Twilight found another one. I was meaning to ask, wanna come help me out there? I could get there way faster by myself, but I could use somebody else. Especially if it's anything like last time." Rarity took a moment to think. Her glass lay drained on the table, the ice slowly melting. "Sure," she finally answered. "I'm always ready to lend a helping hand." > Startracking light > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight was in Ponyville when the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Working at her desk in the School of Friendship. Supposedly so, at least. In practice, a lot of her head lying on the table was involved, alongside quite a fair bit of her eyelids sinking threateningly low over her eyes. The natural consequences of staying up until late the night before, and she should have known better, but she would still blame it all on Trixie if asked. The good news was at least there wasn't much work to do, it being summer and all. The less good news was her staying up the previous night had also come at the cost of work she was supposed to do then, meaning her workload that morning was doubled and she was late on the delivery. Despite all of this, she still spent a considerably large portion of her time lying motionless as she fought back her sleep, and an equally significant portion of the time spent differently either watering or petting Phyllis. In fairness, it was one of the few things she could manage without risks of messing up, given her conditions. And even then, she'd almost given her coffee to the plant. It is important to keep her condition in mind when considering the events that followed. For example, the way she took far longer than any other creature to notice anything was wrong. Her first instinct, upon feeling the vibrations in the ground, was to assume students were running through the hallways and mutter something against them, too tired to put any effort into her words or to get up and go take a look. It took a few more quakes, enough for them to get stronger than what yaks jumping out of her door could justify, before Starlight actually realised there were no students possibly there to cause all that. What followed was a very confused attempt on her part to get up from her desk, grab Phyllis, and run out of the room. She mostly succeeded at the last two, but the first resulted in far more tripping and hitting her head than she would ever be willing to confess. She was about halfway through her second corridor when she remembered that the throbbing cone of pain and headaches attached to her forehead had uses besides moving plants, and teleported outside the shaking building in a flash. "Is everyone okay?" she asked immediately upon reappearing outside the school and seeing the group of creatures already gathered there. Setting Phyllis down, she started looking around to see who else had made it out. Sunburst gave a nod, as he too checked to make sure no one was missing. "That should be everyone." Starlight gave a sigh of relief, and exchanged a brief hug with Trixie as the two of them found each other. "What's happening?" she asked, as another, yet stronger quake shook the earth. Trixie pointed a hoof towards the mountains in the distance. "That." Starlight followed the direction with her gaze. "Oh." > Out of The Flood > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did you see that?!" Scarlet Ribbon asked in alarmed tones, vaguely pointing a hoof towards the corner of the street. "There was a pony there! And then she just wasn't!" "No, Scarlet. I did not see a pony there." Silver Lace kept trotting at her friend's side, an unamused expression on her face as she stared in the direction the other mare was pointing towards. "Are you sure you aren't seeing things?" "I'm not!" Scarlet answered back, turning towards Silver. "I swear, she was right there. A grey pegasus with a blonde mane. And then she just went poof -" She stopped, and made a vague gesture with her front hooves "- and suddenly she wasn't there anymore." Silver stopped and turned to her friend. "Are you sure you haven't just caught the crazy too?" "Don't call it just 'the crazy', Silver, that's so unscientific," Scarlet half-whined. "It's a real condition and we just don't have a name for it yet. Probably. I need to study it more." She bit her lip and looked to the side. Silver knowingly raised an eyebrow at her. "Gonna be hard to do that if you keep avoiding him, right?" "Yeah." Scarlet gave a nod. Then, after a moment, her expression cleared and she went back to looking at the other mare. "But anyway, there's probably no way I caught it, he seems to have gotten it from eating that thing he found and either way a condition like that is probably not contagious and, well, actually, I don't really have any idea if it's contagious or not and it could be and he did come to my house last week and oh no Silver what if it's contagious and he's going to spread it all through the town and what if I already have it what do I do!" She ended the sentence just barely not screaming, and almost shaking the other mare as she held her shoulders. Silver pushed her away with a hoof and walked back. "Well first off don't come this close to me if it is contagious, what if I catch it too? And don't ask me what you're supposed to do! You're the doctor here." "I'm not a real doctor yet!" Scarlet clutched her head in her hooves. "What do I do what do I do what do I do what do I-" A grey pegasus with a blonde mane ran between them, and disappeared in the middle of the road. The two mares looked at each other in silence. "You infected me!" Silver screeched, drawing back. "See? I wasn't crazy!" Scarlet said, at exactly the same time. They looked at each other a moment longer, as each heard and processed what the other had said. Then they laughed. "Alright then. Disappearing pegasus mare. Why not?" Silver said as the two of them got back to walking down the road. "Did you hear about the tentacle monster?" "I did hear about the tentacle monster," replied Silver in her most melodramatic tone. "Thankfully the guards took care of that." "Yeah. Wanna come to my place for tea, later?" "Sure." > Still Alive > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How long have I been out for?" The question was calm, almost unemotional. Nevertheless, it still tore the silence of the room like a knife through a canvas. Tempest didn't lift her head to ask. She didn't move from her position on the bed, she didn't look around, she didn't make any noise. She just opened her mouth, a little bit, and asked. Twilight's head jerked to the side, towards the bed. There was worry on her face, and relief, and feeble traces of an anger never meant to last, and the signs of more than a few hours of lost sleep. But just a moment later, it was all gone, tucked away beneath the surface. She wore the same kind of calm expression Tempest had while she answered the question. "About a week." "What time is it now?" Again, the unicorn's voice was calm, and again, Twilight answered it in the same matter-of-fact tone. "Pretty late. Just a couple hours to midnight, I'd say." She looked out of the window, towards the stars in the sky. "I haven't checked after coming in here though. I'm not sure." Tempest took a breath that was just a little deeper than the previous ones. "How long will it be before I can get out of here?" "I don't know. The doctors will have to run exams on you, only then we'll be able to tell. Speaking of which." Twilight got up from her chair, and walked to a small table resting near Tempest's bed. There, she tapped a small crystal with her hoof, and the gem began to glow purple in response. "They will be here soon. A couple of minutes at most, probably." "Twilight?" There was a slight, subtle crack in Tempest's voice, and silence followed her question for a while. Twilight finally looked towards the other mare, whose head was only barely raised to allow her to see the alicorn behind her. "I can't feel my hind legs." If any shadow crossed Twilight's face, she hid it too quickly for anyone to notice. "It's the drugs." Then, in a softer tone, she added, "We had to numb the whole area. You wouldn't stop screaming otherwise." She bit her lower lip, and her mask of detachment cracked. "I can tell you, if you don't want to see it yourself." Tempest didn't answer. She lifted a hoof past her white blanket, took hold of it in her grasp, and pulled up just enough for her to curve her neck and look down. Then she set her neck straight again, put the blanket back in place and straightened it, and tucked her leg back under it. And then she gave a brief chuckle. "You think it's funny?" "In a way," Tempest answered. "Entertaining, I suppose. Seeing it there, and knowing it's your body, and feeling nothing at all. Will it hurt, when the meds run out?" "Like Tartarus." Twilight began to walk towards the exit, as the hoofsteps of approaching doctors and nurses were heard echoing closer down the hallway. "Twilight?" The alicorn looked back, her hoof on the doorknob. "I'm sorry." "And I'm glad you're okay." > Heart | Spades > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You lost her, didn't you?" "Sir, I-" "Again." The first of the two guards looked down to the ground. "Yes, Sir." Shining shook his head, possibly more amused than annoyed. "I don't know why I still trust you with this," he said, but his tone was friendly. "To be fair, Sir," the second guard replied, "we did not expect her to teleport through the wall." Shining just looked up at the ceiling, almost as if expecting someone else to look down from the sky and come save him, then he turned around and began to walk through the corridor. "Let's find her before Cadence comes back, she'll get worried otherwise." The two guards looked at each other, then began to follow him. "Sir," the first began, "Princess Cadence is currently-" "Taking a nap in her rooms?" Shining looked back for a moment while still walking forward. "Nah. That mare sneaked away through the window, she's on top of the Wall right now." "And how do you know, Sir, if I can ask?" asked the second one. "I just do, Quartz. I just do." Shining reached a new hallway, and had a look around. "Which way, Captain?" the two guards asked together. Looking to his left, Shining pointed a hoof behind himself, to the right. "I'd say we follow the trail of knocked-down flowerpots and disassembled armours." The trip with Rainbow had gone well. Perfectly, even, for what it was supposed to be. The area had been secured, and nothing dangerous had happened. And yet... "Rarity?" Sweetie Belle's face peeked out from behind the half-closed door, accompanied by her light knocking on it. "Is everything okay?" Rarity lifted her head up from the table, and had to bite down on her lip as a few pops went off in her neck and back. That at least gave her some distraction from the seconds of nausea and disorientation that followed her abrupt motion. When the room finally decided to stop spinning and the misshapen splotches of colour danced their way out of her eyes for good, she answered, "Yes, Sweetie. No need to worry." Her sister seemed hesitant to leave. "Okay. I'm here in the other room if you need me. Do you want me to make dinner?" "I..." Rarity looked at Sweetie Belle, then at the clock on the wall, then at the open bottle lying on the table, already too empty to spill anything even while on its side. She really wished to begin another make-out session between her forehead and the table for a moment. Instead, she just looked back to her sister. "I'm sorry. I'll make something, just... Give me fifteen minutes or so, okay?" "Okay." Sweetie Belle gave a small nod, then slid back out of the room. Rarity went back to looking at the table. There was a sheet of paper on it, set askew, one of the ones she used to sketch on, and without thinking she turned it around. A rough design for a hat was drawn on the other side. She grabbed the bottle and downed the rest of it. > Diamonds > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So what exactly did you have in mind? A dress? A hat? Something less traditional?" Rarity lowered her head and her tone, suspiciously eyeing the corners of the room before focusing back on Sugar. Despite the fact that there was very clearly no one else there. "Is it a saddle?" Sugar Belle gave a brief chuckle at the last question, and then a dismissive wave of her hoof. "Oh, no, it's not anything like that." Rarity gave a sigh of relief deep enough to make any observer question the capacity of her lungs, and dramatically threw herself back on to the chair. "Oh thank goodness it's not a saddle. Those things have been out-fashioned for years at this point." She resumed her more professional attitude and position, and continued, "What is it then?" "It's actually not a dress." Sugar shifted slightly in her seat. "I was thinking about a dice set." Rarity looked puzzled for a moment. "Darling, you are aware that it says this is a clothes shop outside, right? It does say clothes shop, right? Did someone change it to say games shop? Is Discord back? I swear if he's back and he decided to mess with my shop before telling us what he found I-" "Rarity?" "Oh? Oh, yes, sorry. Do go on?" "Well, I'm sure you're aware that he likes to play Ogres and Oubliettes with Spike and the others," Sugar began. "Ah, yes, that. Wonderful game, I'm sure. I played it once. I think. It's been a while. Anyway, where do I come in in all this?" Rarity asked, forcing her smile a bit. The other unicorn cleared her throat. "So occasionally, when we go shopping together, I noticed he'll stop to stare at dice sets through the shop window of this one place that sells tabletops and the like. There's a metal one he seems particularly fond of, but I know he wouldn't spend money on a thing like that. And I was thinking, would it be possible to get a set of dice made of crystal or gemstones?" Rarity opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, frowning in thought. "Well, I'm not a gem cutter, but I do suppose I could help you find the right pieces for it. Yes. Yes, I don't see why I shouldn't help you out with this." She smiled a little wider as a thought crossed her mind. "We'll just have to hope Spike doesn't eat them." "Oh, thank you!" Sugar Belle got up from her seat, chuckling at what the other unicorn had said, and extended a hoof towards Rarity. "When do you have the time for it?" Rarity shook her hoof back. "Would tomorrow afternoon work? I should be free then." "Yes, it would. Thanks again." Sugar began to head towards the exit. "See you tomorrow then, Rarity." "See you tomorrow, Darling." Rarity watched the unicorn leave with a smile, then jotted down a reminder about the appointment next day on her notebook. She was about to go to back to her studio, when the door opened again and Twilight walked in. "Is something wrong?" Rarity asked, seeing the other's expression. "We need to have a talk," Twilight answered, a mixture of worry and nervousness on her face. Rarity moved closer to her, beginning to worry as well. "What is it?" "It's about you." > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, we have the time for it." Stone Brick paused again, then resumed his walk, hoping the other hadn't noticed. And as he did, he said, "Oh, it's also a very boring one. You wouldn't want to have to sit through it. And I'm bad at telling it, anyway. Never was good at telling stories." He eyed the pegasus above him. "In fact, you should do the talking. I'm sure it'll be a lot more entertaining that way." Soarin' threw a glance at the pony below him. "If you insist. Have I ever told you about the time I had to dive under a manateeagle to recover a package?" For the third time, just briefly, Stone stopped. "No, you have not." He looked up at Soarin' again. "It might have to do with how we've never met before." The pegasus sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "And that's how Lightning got the scar behind her ear. Wanna hear about that time I-" Stone Brick gave a brief cough. "Well, looks like we're here." Soarin' stopped to look ahead. "Oh, hey! We are. Time flies when you're enjoying yourself, doesn't it?" "Sure does," Stone answered, finally stepping into town. Even from there, the shape of Princess Twilight's castle was still clearly visible. "Do you think I should wait and find a place to eat at, or go to the Princess right now?" The pegasus landed beside him, rubbing his own chin in thought. "She's probably busy right now. I say we find a place to eat something at and then go to her later. Unless you got some really urgent reasons to see her, of course." He looked towards the earth pony. Stone Brick just shrugged. "Works for me. Know any places we can eat at around here?" "Does Sugarcube Corner sound good?" "First off, why are you asking me if you know I know nothing about this town?" Stone looked back at Soarin'. "And second, that sounds like a bakery. Or a pastry shop. Not like a restaurant." But Soarin' was already a good few metres in front of him. "It's this way," he yelled, turning back to make sure he was being followed. Stone sighed, shook his head, then began to walk behind the pegasus. He could probably at least convince him to pay for both of them. After a couple more minutes of making their way through the busy streets of the colourful city, the duo finally reached a rather plain-looking building on the side of the road, the only indication that it was their destination being the name painted in bright pink letters above the entrance, over the already very bright and very pink paint job that covered the whole front side. Soarin' walked in, and Stone followed behind him. "Hello and welcome to Sugarcube Edge," a voice immediately greeted them as they stepped through the door, its owner a moving set of plate towers underneath which was presumably a mare. "Take this, please." From beneath the spires of ceramic a hoof passed Stone a note on a piece of paper, then the strange creature walked away from them and towards the other side of the surprisingly full interior. Soarin' called to grab Stone's attention after the peculiar encounter. "Hey! Come here and have a seat." With no real other option, the earth pony followed him towards one of the very few still unoccupied tables. > Intensen-i-on > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The flower was certainly beautiful. Its wide purple petals looked soft as silk, shiny and reflective like they were coated in chrome. The tall stems that surged from the centre ended in bright red puffs of pollen that resembled smaller versions of a cheerleader's pompons, and the green roots and leaves at the base were like snakes, their movements harmonious and elegant. It was also dangerously close to breaking through the reinforced glass container housing it. That was probably worth focusing on sooner than everything else. "Rose? We kind of need your help here!" Starlight nervously said as she stepped around the creaking glass cylinder, eyeing the plant with ever-increasing worry. "I know!" the earth pony replied. "I'm trying to think of what to do!" "Maybe cutting off its light sources?" Thunderlane asked, moving to push against the surface of the tube while Starlight did the same with her magic. "Not a good idea," Rose answered, biting her lower lip and stepping in place as she tried to think of a way out of their situation. "If we do that, it'll just get angry and push harder to come out. Same if we cut the air out." An uncomfortably loud sound came from the glass, as yet another crack appeared on its surface. "You know I'll have to blast this thing if we can't stop it, right?" Starlight asked. Thunderlane leaned to the side to look at her. "Can't you just hold it?" The glass creaked again. "Not forever." "Rose?" The pegasus turned back towards her. "I'm trying to think!" the earth pony replied. Rubbing a hoof to her temple, she began to turn around in circles. "Think, think, think, th- A-ha! Thunderlane?" "Yes Ma'am?" Rose pointed towards a cabinet on the other side of the room. "Fetch me the blue vial on the third shelf, and the green satchel of orange powder that's at the bottom. And an empty beaker, too. Starlight?" She turned towards the unicorn. "You think you can hold it in there for a minute longer?" The unicorn looked back and gave a nod. "I can try." "Okay." Rose sat down, and took hold of the items Thunderlane had meanwhile brought to her. "Now, I don't want to alarm you," she began, while emptying half the vial into the beaker, "but there's a very slight chance that this thing might blow up in my face if I'm not careful." She began to open the satchel. "How bad, exactly?" Thunderlane asked. "You know room thirty-seven?" The pegasus stopped to think for a moment, while Rose carefully added some powder to the mixture. "Does the place even have a room thirty-seven?" "Not anymore," Starlight chirped in through grit teeth. Thunderlane swallowed and looked back at Rose, but she was already back on her hooves, the beaker in her mouth now full of purple liquid. "Starlight?" she called, the sound a bit distorted. "Yes?" There was sweat evident on the unicorn's forehead. "Let go." Starlight did, and immediately converted her spell into a shield. A wise choice, given the shower of glass shards that immediately exploded into every direction near the container. The flower's tendrils only had a short time to slither outside of their prison though, as just a second later the beaker Rose had held landed over its petals and broke, drenching them in purple liquid. After a second longer, the plant took on a grey tinge, and the flower closed up as if it was nighttime, its vines retreating and going limp. "Well," Rose said between pants, "that could have gone worse." > Catch some Sunlight > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset gave her ice-cream cone a lick, leaning back into the bench and looking at Twilight. "How's the research going?" "Not well." Twilight adjusted her glasses, slightly pushing them back, then moved a strand of stray hair out of the way, and finally moved to lick her own ice-cream. "I can't find a pattern of any kind." "I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually." Sunset moved her free hand to pat Twilight's head. Then she looked back at the cone she held in the other. "Well, at least it won't melt too quickly." Twilight, a little embarrassed, looked at the park around them, the grass covered in red and yellow leaves and the branches on the trees growing emptier by the day. "Heh. Can you blame me? I spent most of the summer trying to study this thing." "It's not like we forced you to." Sunset licked some more ice-cream. "You're the one who decided she had to go looking for portals from a lab instead of spending time outside having fun." Twilight adjusted her glasses again, this time from the side. "Well, I think it was necessary. Think about what would have happened if someone accidentally fell into one of them! We can't have people go missing, much less have them turn up in Equestria with no idea of what's happened to them." "Do you think that ever just happened? I feel like we would have heard about it. It's weird to think no one apparently ever found one with how many there are." Another lick to her ice-cream. "That's kind of the problem." Twilight let herself fall back on the bench, looking up at the sky with a defeated expression. "No way of telling if the portals were always there, or if it was the Behemoth's arrival that caused so many to appear, or which ones were already there and which weren't." Her expression fell even further. "For all we know, half of those could be my fault." "Hey now." Sunset lightly punched Twilight's shoulder to get her attention. "For all we know, the other half could be my fault instead." "It doesn't matter how many times you try it, Sunset," Twilight said, still looking up at nothing, "the 'your girlfriend turned into a magic demon monster thing too' strategy doesn't work nearly as well as you think it does." "Oh, fair," Sunset said with a pout and a tone that matched it. She licked her ice-cream again. "At least my girlfriend looked hot when she did." That finally got Twilight's eyes to point towards Sunset. "Every time we talk about the time I almost destroyed this world and yours, the only thing you can add to the conversation is that I looked sexy while doing it. I swear, you're impossible." She finally sat straight again, and bit into her ice-cream. Sunset shrugged. "I always had a thing for bad girls. That's what you have that the other Twilight doesn't. That, and the glasses. And you know how to use hands." After a moment of chewing on her ice-cream, Twilight replied, "Okay, fine. You looked pretty sexy too when you did the whole light angel thing." She was about to take another bite, but she stopped and began to turn towards Sunset, asking, "Wait, when you say I know how to-" Her words died in a choked sputter. Sunset kept her eyes locked on Twilight's, her expression a mask of faux innocence, as she finished giving a long, deep lick at the flat top of her ice-cream cone, partly digging her way into it. "Yes, Twilight?" she asked, before licking her own lips clean as slowly as possible. Twilight just blinked. Then she gave a look around the park. Then her geode lit up. > Black > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black, as far as they could see. The sky covered in smoky clouds, around them an ocean of tar stretching boundless in every direction. Nothing else in the darkness between the two, not a sound or a trace of movement. Twilight stood on the edge of the rock, the whole structure no larger than a house, the only stable ground in sight. For all they knew, it had been the top of a mountain at some point, and everything else had been covered by a flood. "What do you think happened here?" she asked. "I can't tell you anything you can't already see for yourself," answered Celestia. "But whatever it was, I doubt it left much of a trace of what used to be here. If there was something, of course." Twilight swallowed as she was reminded of what could have once been there, before whatever catastrophe had struck. "This could have been us," she whispered, mostly thinking aloud. "But it wasn't." Celestia stepped to her side. "There's nothing we can do about it, Twilight. It's no use worrying over it." "I know," Twilight replied. "That doesn't make it better." She turned, and began to walk around the rock's perimeter, studying the horizon. "Do you think we should explore the surroundings?" Celestia softly bit her lip as she looked at Twilight. Not the worried, uncertain symptom of hesitation of someone who sees the benefits and risks of both paths. More like the petty pause of someone who does not want to be bothered, but knows it'll make them look bad. Still, the white alicorn was at least old and wise enough to provide a valid reason with which to mask her laziness. "I wouldn't risk it. There's nothing in sight, and that means both we're unlikely to find anything close, and we might not be able to get back here should we travel far enough to lose sight of this place." Twilight had, unfortunately for Celestia, spent enough time with her to tell where her real motives lay. "Too bad Luna didn't come instead of you, right?" she playfully remarked, moving back towards the alicorn. Celestia looked to the side, feigning the required amount of indignation over the perfectly legitimate yet still perceived as offence piece of critique. "Right," she quietly admitted. "But my sister is busy hunting." "She is." Twilight stood at Celestia's side. "Well, we can always come back here at a later time. Prepared, now that we know what's in here." She looked at the other alicorn. "You can go back to your cakes now if you want." Celestia's cheeks turned far more red than she would have ever allowed them to back in her ruling days. Which was still less than any normal pony's reaction, but nonetheless impressive on her. She just glared at Twilight, perfectly aware that she had nothing with which to fire back. Twilight turned to leave. Then she turned again, as a deep, immensely loud wailing sound echoed towards them from the far horizon, like a violin note distorted and amplified to an impossibly degree. And they both looked towards the distance, at the wall of blackness moving closer and closer, the wave rising from the dark ocean tall enough to reach the sky and swallowing everything in its path. > MD-N-HVN > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was raining. Hard. The grass in the fields bent under the weight of the pouring water, and the frantic drumming sound as each drop hit the ground was impossible to ignore. Weather, after the Behemoth's arrival and especially near the Everfree Forest, had grown to be a bit unstable. Pegasi could still control it, of course, but something had changed. Things didn't exactly respond they way they had used to, and particularly in the first months it had taken a while before they'd finally gotten the hang of things again. Not that anyone was particularly to blame for that specific storm. It looked like it was natural, or at least as natural as anything coming from the Everfree could be, and had simply wandered out there on its own. That might have been a problem had it gone towards Ponyville, but it had instead headed towards a mostly empty strip of land. Lyra didn't particularly mind the rain. Not when it wasn't hitting her, at least, and thankfully enough she'd found shelter. A small, somewhat worn-out wooden shed in the middle of the fields, the door unlocked and the inside well isolated. No water falling in, nor creeping up from the ground or sides, not too cold and not at all dirty. It was clearly still used and cleaned from time to time, but she had doubts the owner would object to her staying in it for a while. There was nothing there one could steal, anyway. It was almost empty. A single room with windows on two sides, a pavement built out of bricks and a bench built into the wall opposite of the entrance. Nails on the walls and hooks on the ceiling were clearly there to hang tools or other things, but it appeared nothing was actually being kept there for the time being, likely explaining why it was left unlocked. Almost empty. The first other thing in the room was a large bag of seeds in a corner. Different kinds mixed together, some of the larger ones broken, all of them dry. Going by the faded decal on the side of the bag, it was probably bird food. After giving it a look, Lyra had assumed the owner of the shed used it for birdwatching during autumn. It was a good explanation for why the place seemed to be regularly used even when no one would be working there. The second other thing in the room wasn't really a thing. It was more like a creature. In fact it probably was a creature. Lying on the bench at the end of the room, its back turned towards the door. A long, black body with hints of green around the torso, translucent wings resting over it partly hidden by a tattered dark blue mane that was matched by a tail on the other end, and visible holes near the hooves. It was also sleeping. Or pretending to sleep, but Lyra had no intention of finding out which one of the two it was. She just stood near the door, watching the rain pour down outside and waiting for it to end so she could leave. > Peace Shells > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's like a cancer. A disease. A virus, but one that only exists within the creatures it infects. It's an idea, or a set of ideas, a concept. It warps the way you see the world. It spreads through writing, dialogue, images, it gets into your head and suddenly it just makes sense to you. It's how you see things now, and you no longer understand what it was like before, what it was like to be normal. You're tainted, and you end up spreading the virus yourself without even realising it. "But it's not right. It's a lie, a fabrication, a construct, and just because it's infected your mind the way it has now that doesn't make it good. You're still in the wrong. There's a demarcation line, a wall of knowledge separating normal creatures from seeing things the way you do, one you no longer understand is there. It's all the same to you, and so you spread the word, and force it down other's throats, and warp their minds until they come to your side. "But the truth is that there is no understanding. There is no knowledge to be sought, no key to unlocking the meaning. The words remain empty, devoid of significance. But you've been enslaved, conditioned, and now you believe in them and repeat them. And you give them the meaning the hivemind enslaved by the virus gives them, but there is no truth. No gradual shift from one side to the other. You wear creatures down with your empty rhetoric until they snap and accept it and worship it and repeat the chant. "It's a disease, it spreads like a virus and warps the minds of those who fall into its trap, and it needs to be stopped." "Ma'am, this is a cutlery shop." The cashier looked above his glasses at the mare, a tired and unamused expression on his face. She placed a fork over the counter. "I will have this." She then paid for the fork, placed it in her mane, and silently walked out of the shop, while the stallion stared in a mix of annoyance and stupor. Once outside the shop, the mare moved towards the first lone pony she spotted, fork still in her mane, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me. I'm a blue pegasus mare with an orange mane whose cutie mark is a seashell." The pony looked at her, confused. Hesitantly, he replied, "No? Ma'am, are you alright? You're, um, a red unicorn with a light pink mane." He leaned lightly to the side to get a better look. "And your cutie mark is an open book." "Oh." The mare looked at herself. "Thank you." A line of coloured flame ran over her body, and she turned into a blue pegasus with an orange mane, and a seashell as her cutie mark. She blinked towards the speechless stallion, her large bug-like eyes staring right at his face, then began to walk away, with the fork still in her mane. > Hig Lif > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The colours and sounds of the club blended together around her, but she didn't pay attention to any of it. She didn't care about the faces of the other creatures, or the words of the music, or what anyone was saying. That was kind of the point of it all. She was there to relax, and nothing helped her relax like a wall of light and noise loud and bright enough to just let herself go in it. Except for whatever it was they slipped into her drink when she asked for it. She didn't care what it was either, just that it didn't hurt the morning after. She was pretty sure that unicorn DJ was taking some of it too anyway. Besides, anyone who'd been there more than once would know about it, if the place hadn't been closed down yet it wasn't anything serious. Lightning leaned back into her seat, taking another sip of her drink. She wasn't exactly sure what kind of drink it was either. Something with alcohol in it, but not too strong. Maybe some fruit too? Her mouth was a little too dry to taste properly. Of course she would have actually known what she was drinking if she'd paid any attention when she was being served, but she was too tired for that. Missions did always leave her like that. At the end of one she was basically moving on inertia alone, schedules too ingrained in her somehow preventing her body from just dropping into sleep when by all other means it should have. Soarin' didn't get hit like that. He wasn't as tired, on average. Sure, he had it pretty rough sometimes, when he really had to push himself, but it was different for her. She was always pushing herself when she went on a mission. Maybe she would need to talk about it with Twilight. She knew she wouldn't, but in that moment she was a sufficient mix of tired, drunk, and otherwise intoxicated to actually entertain a thought such as that. Speaking of the Princess, she was technically the one paying for that and all her other visits to the club. Lightning did wonder if she'd ever get asked about it one day. Maybe Twilight would want to see the place for herself. That was a fun mental image. The pegasus leaned even further back into her seat and slid down, almost to the point of practically lying with her back where her hindquarters should have been instead. She was never quite sure whether it was the feeling of the drug going into her veins or the regular feeling of alcohol doing the same perceived through the drug's distortion, but she always got a kick out of it when it happened. She'd probably spend the rest of the night there on her seat, lying on her side, maybe accidentally drooling a little on the floor as she got the closest thing to sleep her body allowed her to have outside of her usual schedules. Then at some point she would pass out, the place would close down, and the royal guard waiting for her outside would carry her back to the place she was staying at. Business as usual. She should probably ask for that guard's name at some point. > Hardline > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That doesn't sound like a good idea." "Oh come on!" Rainbow threw her hands up in the air. "One of us is literally a unicorn! We should totally write power metal." Fluttershy just stared down at her notes, thoughtfully tapping her chin. "I don't know. I feel like we're not really suited to play something like that." "It's not that hard!" Rainbow got up from her seat and started pacing around the room. "We could just, I don't know... Take out the tambourine for a second guitar?" This time, Fluttershy stared at her, her expression flat. "Okay." Rainbow sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. "Maybe that's not a good idea. We could try a more proggy approach to it? I mean if you can have a bagpipes solo in a power metal song I imagine we could figure something out with the tamb-" "A bagpipes solo?!" Pinkie burst out from seemingly nowhere, almost knocking Rainbow off her feet. "Oh, oh, oh, can I get to play one of those on our next song?" she asked, excitedly bouncing up and down. "Do you even know how to play bagpipes?" asked Rainbow, standing back straight and choosing to ignore how the door was still locked. "I can try!" Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash exchanged an uneasy look. "Solo or not, we need to write a song," the latter said. "Fluttershy?" "I'm trying." The girl drew a few lines over a set of notes she had written down. "I'm really not sure about going through with this. What should it be about anyway?" "Eh, I'm sure we'll figure out the lyrics. I have enough inspiration to work with." Rainbow leaned against a wall, eyes closed and a smug grin on her face. As Pinkie curiously moved around her to get a better look at her notes, Fluttershy sighed. "I would be hesitant about having you write the lyrics anyway, but I'm not letting you do this if you're going off of what you showed me." "Hey!" Rainbow turned towards her. "Those lyrics are totally awesome, okay?" "Half of those lyrics don't even make sense. And we are not writing a song about bloody dimensions or scarecrows." She jotted down and immediately erased a few more notes. "The one about cancer was good, but not exactly something that would fit us." "Oh, fine. We'll let Sunset decide when she gets here, I'll just work on some riffs." Rainbow picked up her guitar and moved to sit down again. "Where is Sunset, anyway?" Pinkie asked, casually assembling a set of bagpipes. "Having sex wtih Twilight." Rainbow struck a few familiar chords, trying to get her inspiration going. "Rainbow!" Fluttershy looked up at her. "What?" Rainbow looked back. "Check Twilight's status." Fluttershy took out her phone and unlocked it. "It says 'Doing stuff with Sunset Shimmer'." "And Sunset's?" Fluttershy scrolled down on her screen. "'Doing stuff and Twilight Sparkle'." She paused for a moment. "Oh." "Permission to tease them when they finally get here?" "Granted." Fluttershy was about to put her phone away, when a notification lit up the screen. Curious, she opened it. She swallowed, and her face went a little paler. "You girls might want to see this." > Astronomy Lessons > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight poured some more pomegranate juice into her glass, and drank a bit of it. "How did the last hunting session go, Luna?" "It went well, Princess." Luna ate a bite out of her slice of strawberry cake. "The forest seems relatively calm as of late." "I'm glad to hear that." Twilight turned to the third alicorn in the room. "What about your cake tasting tour, Celestia?" "As a matter of fact, Twilight-" A raised eyebrow from the pony in in question was all it took for Celestia to pause. She swallowed, then spoke again. "As a matter of fact, Princess, that is going rather well. But I would hope you don't think it's the only thing occupying my time." Twilight tilted her head to the side, curious. "It's not?" She sat straight again. "Well, I suppose sleeping would take away some time too." Celestia slowly turned away from her, and poured herself some water. "What about you, Princess?" "Research is going well, we're making some steady progress in regards to both scales and coils. And just yesterday we finally managed to get some readings on the piece of the Wall we received. It will be a slow process, but we should finally start to see some results there." Twilight cut herself a slice from the large chocolate cake on her side of the table, and quietly began to eat it. Celestia eyed her plain salad with disinterest, stabbing at the air just above it with the fork she held in her magic. To her left, on the end of the table opposite of Twilight's, Luna drank some of her apple juice and took another bite from her slice of cake. "So I was thinking," Twilight began after a minute of silence, cutting out another piece from the chocolate cake in front of her, "if we built collars with pieces of Chrysalis's throne in them, they could work as a more discreet alternative to horn rings. They could be harder to remove, too." "That sounds like a lovely idea, Princess," Luna commented. Celestia finally forced herself to chomp down on and swallow part of her meal. Quietly, she asked, "How has research on pink poison joke advanced since we last spoke of it?" "Not terribly far, I'm afraid," said Twilight. "I'm having Rose study it on occasion, and I'm doing some of the work myself, but we both have more important things to work on. You know how it is. It's not exactly something I could justify focusing on." "I understand." Celestia ate a bit more salad. Then, hesitantly, she spoke again. "I could work on it myself if you wished, Princess." "Oh?" Twilight looked at her, a curious expression on her face. "Could you say that again, Celestia? I'm not sure I quite understood what you meant. I'm sure Luna would like you to repeat it as well." Luna simply nodded. Celestia cleared her throat, and raised her tone slightly. "I could work on studying pink poison joke if you wished me to, Princess." Twilight smiled. "That does sound like a reasonable request from you." > Cold > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The breeze blew through the apple orchard, leaves swaying on the branches as it did. It was that period near the end of summer, when the Sun shines just a bit less hot and the wind becomes too cold to simply be refreshing. Not the best weather to work up a sweat in, but work needed to be done. Applejack hauled her tools atop her cart. After spending the first half of the morning working on the fields, it was time for her to go lend a hoof in the city. Buildings needed to be repaired or entirely reconstructed, and some needed to be torn down. It was the safer alternative after all the damage they'd taken. "Hey!" Applejack looked up, tilting her hat forward to shield her eyes from the Sun. She recognised the voice, of course. "Are you coming to help?" Rainbow Dash landed in front of her. Applejack just looked at the cart full of tools she was about to start pulling, her expression making words superfluous. "Want me to help you pull that thing?" "Sure." Applejack scooted a little to her right, allowing space for the pegasus beside her. She thought about asking Rainbow why she wasn't helping around in Ponyville herself instead, but then decided against it. Beginning to pull the cart, she asked, "Know what we're working on today?" "Sugarcube Corner, from what I heard," Rainbow said. "The whole place needs to be taken down before it does that on its own." Applejack chewed on the inside of her cheek for a bit. It wasn't nice to know the building had to go, but it was the safer thing to do. "Is Starlight coming to help?" "She had to leave this morning. There's a dam about to burst somewhere up north, Twilight called for her to help dealing with it. Or that's what Trixie told me, at least." "And what did Sunburst have to say?" "He's not here. Left for Canterlot yesterday evening, he's doing some research there." Rainbow kicked a pebble out of the way. "I wonder what Trixie will get up to while they're both gone." Applejack shivered. It might have been a particularly strong gust of wind while they walked in the shadows, but she decided it was the thought of an unsupervised Trixie. Then something caught her eye, and she slowed down her pace. "You see that?" she asked, pointing a hoof at a spot between the trees. Rainbow slowed down as well, and turned her head to follow Applejack's gesture. "The grass?" she asked. "No. That thing! There between the two trees." Rainbow leaned a little further to get a better look. "I don't see anything there. Are you sure it's not just a shadow?" Applejack kept her eyes on the spot. She wasn't exactly sure what it was. It looked a bit like smoke, or like the air over a campfire, flickering and quivering. Almost like something was hiding there. But then she blinked, and when she opened her eyes again it had all disappeared. "Probably was," she said, shaking her head as she kept on pulling the cart. > 1N51D3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack sat, on her spot on the train, looking out the window as the city slowly gave way to open fields. Her arms dug deep into the pockets of her coat, one hand balled up while the other's fingers clutched her phone almost too hard. Every once in a while, she could feel it buzz and shake, but she refused to take it out and look at it. The snow on her coat was slowly starting to melt. By the time she got to her destination, it might have dried entirely. It looked like it was snowing less outside too, or maybe it was just because they were moving. The fields were covered in white, and they'd probably have quite a bit of snow on them the morning after. The Sun was almost down at that point. From where she was, she could almost make out the orange lights of the sunset on the opposite side, reflecting on the glass alongside her own face. She tried to get her eyes to focus on what was outside again, though it was getting harder the darker things became there. Her phone buzzed again. This time, it didn't stop. She tried to ignore it for a few moments, then bit the inside of her lower lip. She gave a look around. Only a few other people there, and none seemed interested in her. Slowly, she took out the phone and stared at the screen. Her thumb moved over it, but then she hesitated. And after a moment, she slid the phone back into her pocket, where it buzzed a while longer before finally stopping. She could always call or write to them later. When she was finally done getting things sorted out. But she may be too tired at that point, so perhaps the day after. And not the morning, she would be busy getting everything set up. She'd see about the afternoon, about whether she had time for it, or if she'd have to move it to the evening. If she wasn't too tired then, of course. Her head softly hit the glass. It was easier to look outside that way, and impossible to see her whole face reflected in it. Not that there was much to see outside. It was too dark, and the sky was covered in clouds. At most, she could spot a few white flakes streaking by just outside the window, and maybe one or two clinging to the glass and starting to melt there. And the snowflakes would melt and turn to drops of water, and the water would slide down the window and disappear from sight. And the way she was sitting, with her head against the glass, with her coat still on and the snow on it melting too, no one would notice if some of those drops were on the inside instead, no one would question them even if they did notice. At that point though, she wouldn't have cared about it either way. > The Sound of Rain > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A flock of manateeagles passed high above, their shadows cast wide down to the earth, the beating of their finwings almost audible in the calm stillness of the air. They seemed uninterested in the creatures far below them, at least for the time being. Trixie was rather glad that was the case. She looked at the vast, dry, sun-beaten plains stretching before her. Would she find a tree or perhaps a cave to spend the night in? And was it even worth risking it? She didn't have all that much water with her, and though she didn't like the idea of stopping there for the rest of the day she knew travelling at night would be the wiser choice. Finding a place to rest was perhaps the best use of her time, then. She turned and studied the rocky side of the mountain behind her, looking for some jutting slab of rock that could perhaps offer some shade underneath it, or maybe the start of a cave of some kind. She didn't mind resting on the dirt, but she would still have preferred otherwise. It didn't take too long for her to find someplace suitable. What looked like the entrance to a cave the inside of which had crumbled down, though it could just as easily be a large hole the wind had carved out, some shrubs growing above the entrance providing a bit more cover. It was decently fresh, a bit humid as well, perhaps there was some water nearby. She settled down, and took off her saddlebags. Then she pulled out a map and a compass, and opened the former on the ground. Judging by how much it had taken her to get there, it would be about two more days of walking before she finally arrived at her destination. She had food and water enough, assuming she travelled at night and wasn't thrown off-course by some wild animal or worse. She folded the map back up and slid it back into her bags, alongside the compass. Then she took out her rations, along with the package resting at the bottom. Just to check it was still there, as she did probably more often than necessary. But she couldn't be too cautious with it, the risks if it was somehow stolen were too great. No sings of tampering on the outside of the metal box. Still properly locked, and every spell looked like it was holding up. And peering through the small glass window at the contents of the container, the red and black and grey of the object inside were still visible. Trixie stared a moment longer, then shoved the box back at the bottom of her saddlebags, underneath everything else. Time would come, but not yet. And hopefully, things would work out, and no creature would get hurt. Beginning to eat her food, she stared at the horizon, while the manateeagles in the sky moved further and further away. She just wished she could trust her own plan as much as she'd made Twilight trust in it. > 26 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate everything about it." "Ma'am?" The pegasus looked up at the unicorn. Then she turned into a crow and flew out of the window. On the other end of the room, Celestia stared, mildly confused, holding some cake in the golden glow of her magic. The unicorn sighed and shrugged, then moved away from the table. As he passed near her, Celestia couldn't help herself, and asked him, "Does that happen often?" "It does not," he replied. "We had never met this mare before today, and we apologise for the inconvenience." He then left the room. A single leaf flew in from the window, seemingly carried by the wind, and it landed right on Celestia's shoulder. And there it spoke. "It hurts my soul to read that, okay? How? How does it happen? No school teacher would approve of a child writing something like that, they would fail their test, it's so poorly written, yet-" The leaf was forcefully cut off as Celestia teleported it back outside. Annoyed, it turned into a fly and flew back towards the alicorn. "So you know that pony who carried the experiment results? Basically she's gonna have him come down below the castle and convince him to-" Again, the fly was teleported out of the room. This time, Celestia closed the window as well. No one had anything to say against it, because there was no one else there. A unicorn seemed to appear behind the window from out of nowhere, and she beat her hoof against the glass with annoying insistence. "It was Firecracker, okay? The one who got there was Firecracker after hitching a ride with... What are we calling her here anyway? I'm not actually sure. Anyway she-" A soundproofing spell coated the window and the walls of the room, shutting out whatever else the mare had to say. Celestia then decided to focus on her cake again, before the heat had it melt away. Her peace was short lived. Less than minutes later, an exact copy if Princess Twilight Sparkle, crown included, walked into the room from the entrance. "So you know that shadow thingy? That's actually-" Celestia forced the other's mouth shut with her magic. A second mouth appeared on the would be Twilight's neck. "The Moon Beast is what they will have there, you got that? And it's actually-" That mouth, too, was sealed shut. A third one appeared on the creature's forehead. "It's not about Rarity, it's about R-" Celestia, an eyebrow raised in annoyance, teleported the both of them and her cake atop the nearest chasm. Chains of golden energy erupted from her horn and wrapped around the creature held in her telekinesis, then she unceremoniously let go of what still somewhat looked like Twilight and watched it fall down. "And by the way your coil is-" Celestia reappeared in the restaurant. She opened the window again, and quietly finished her cake. It was very good. > Just a rock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie stared at the rock. The rock did not stare back at Pinkie, for it was a rock, and it is a fact that rocks do not possess eyes with which to stare back at ponies or creatures of any kind. And if ever coming across a rock with eyes, one should be careful about approaching it, as it is very likely not a rock. But the rock Pinkie was staring at was indeed a rock. And as such, it had no eyes. It had instead a flat surface at which Pinkie was staring. This flat surface stretched out for the entire length of the rock, which was taller than Pinkie herself by a fair margin. The rock was also slightly larger than Pinkie. It had a shape somewhere between an egg and an almond, closer to the latter. The rock was stuck in the ground. Or perhaps it was jutting out from the ground. Pinkie didn't know yet whether the portion of the rock that was embedded in the ground was larger or smaller than the one out of it. The rock knew that it was the latter case, however it had no way in which to realise that it did indeed possess such knowledge. This is because it was a rock, and not of the living kind. The rock, not being the living kind of rock, could not comprehend that it was the non living kind of rock, and could not wish to be the living kind of rock. It could in fact not feel anything at all. It was not saddened by any of these facts, as it was a rock, incapable of feeling. It couldn't be happy either, but it did not care. It could not care, after all. The rock was not aware of the pink pony staring at it. This in turn meant the pink pony could easily surprise the rock with her actions. Unfortunately, no reaction would come from the rock even if she did surprise it, as the rock would not become aware of the pony no matter what the pony did. Unless the pony infused the rock with life, of course. But the pony seemed to have no intention of performing such a feat. She instead appeared to only care about studying the rock. She stared at the rock, and she touched the rock, and she also ran her tongue against the surface of the rock, and carefully she placed her ear to the surface of the rock and listened for any sounds coming from inside the rock. But there were no sounds. Because it was just a rock. Once she had probed at the rock enough to conclude that it was indeed only a rock and no more than a rock, Pinkie left the rock and walked away. Then, after disappearing behind a turn, she suddenly burst out from behind the rock. The rock showed no reaction. Finally convinced, the pink pony left the rock behind, and quietly walked away. > Triangular Matrix > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining stopped in front of the door, as the guards on both sides of it stood stiff at attention. "Here?" Twilight asked, nervousness creeping into her voice. "Here." Shining turned and took hold of the doorknob with a hoof. "I'm going to warn you. The smell is the worst part. We've sealed it so it doesn't get past the door, but that just makes it worse on the inside." He looked at his sister. "Ready?" Twilight swallowed, then gave a nod. "Ready." She was not ready. The moment Shining opened the door her first instinct was to run away, and forcing herself to step forward and into the room was only barely easier than forcing herself to walk through a wall of solid rock would have been. Her body did not want to be in that room, and she could tell from their expressions that the guards near the door were barely holding themselves together. Once she finally stepped through and Shining closed the door behind her, Twilight had to force herself not to just teleport out. She felt trapped there, and despite knowing that was not case part of her mind refused to listen to reason, forcing her to constantly keep it in check. She just stared at the floor for a while, not daring to look at the scene until she was sure she could control herself, even if every second spent breathing in there felt worse than the last. "How do you do it?" she quietly asked, trying to put her attention elsewhere. "Had to go look around in the woods first year in the Guard, I don't remember what it was for. We found an animal stuck in a fissure. It had been there just long enough that you couldn't tell what it was. I was the one who had to wait there while my partner looked for someone, I got used to the smell." He stepped at Twilight's side and placed a hoof on her back. "And I have a cold right now." Twilight gave a feeble smile. Then she finally looked up, and it was immediately swept off her face. "Is it-" She had to force her mouth closed to stop her sudden instinct to vomit. "A pony?" she asked. "It was at least two, and a few extra limbs," Shining replied, flat and emotionless. Twilight stared at the tangle of bones and flesh a moment longer, then turned her eyes away from it again. "I know," she breathed out a second later. "The analysis, yes. Just- give me a minute okay?" Her breaths were heavy, her tone rising and falling with no rhythm. Shining silently nodded. Then, staring at the dried blood staining the floor, he said, "It's not-" "Anyone here?" Twilight swallowed again, her voice steadying, and she finally moved closer to the corpses. "No. Of course not." She stood at Shining's side, as her horn began to glow. "Nothing here could have done something like this, and I should have known there would be consequences for what happened. I should have known this would happen sooner or later. This is a message. A warning. Someone knows we were there." "Are they asking not to go back?" Twilight took a slow, deep breath. "They're saying they can come to us too." > Want Me Gone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was strange, at first. Like waking up after a long, long sleep, yet like falling asleep at the same time. Her sense of awareness came back, yet those parts of her that had always been there paying attention to the outside world began to dull, to grow tired. It took a while for the changes to become in any way apparent. Weeks, perhaps even months. But from her perspective, it was all a short blur. If someone had been there, yes, they might have noticed something. Cracks appearing on the surface of the stone, thin at first, spreading and growing longer with time. Patches of colour reappearing. Movement, even. But the castle was abandoned, the gardens unused, and not even animals dared go near those areas of the city closest to the Behemoth. And when the last chunks of stone covering her body broke off and shed like an old shell, and Chrysalis shook her head and opened her eyes again, she was alone. Not quite completely alone, perhaps, the two creatures she had shared her prison with still remained there. But they did not appear to share her tendency to no longer be a statue. All the better, as far as she was concerned, but she did wonder how exactly she'd managed to escape or be freed herself in the first place. But looking around, it became apparent no one would be there to answer that question. No one would be there at all in fact, a quick look towards the castle revealed broken walls, shattered windows, towers missing their upper floors and vines in the process of covering its entire surface. She did wonder, for a moment, if that didn't mean the whole of Equestria had been destroyed. Had they perhaps spent so long encased in stone? But that seemed unlikely. Perhaps only Canterlot had been abandoned, just as the old capital a long time before. But it looked like a recent thing. The ruins looked unstable, ready to crumble further, the vines barely reached past a couple floors in height. She shook her head. Whatever had happened, she wouldn't get her answers by questioning stones and plants. Picking a direction, Chrysalis began to walk, keeping her eyes and ears alert for any signs of other creatures. She didn't bother with transformations, she was by herself more intimidating than just about anything she could turn into and she didn't want to risk wasting energies when she wasn't yet sure of what her own conditions were, much less if food would be available. Despite her attention though, she failed to spot even a single other creature in her walk through the gardens. When she finally stepped outside of them and into the streets, she took notice of how they didn't appear to be in much better condition. In particular, some buildings seemed to have been crushed altogether or cleaved through. It was while following the trail of destruction that she finally saw it. Half visible as it flickered against the light, her eyes turned higher and higher still as she took in what she could of its full size. Turning, almost stumbling on her hooves, Chrysalis rushed towards the opposite direction as quickly as her legs allowed her to, and only stopped as she heard the sound of ponies approaching behind a corner. > Blood Bones and Rust > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The forest was angry. Unquiet. Disturbed by something or someone. Luna's axe swung down hard and bones splintered beneath the force of the impact, as the large twisted mass of guts and limbs wailed in pain. The head was that of a pony, but everything else was unrecognisable. A second strike, aimed at the neck, and the creature's cries stopped. The alicorn looked up. The creatures weren't the only thing growing more twisted. Pillars stretched from one side of the forest to the other, tunnels weaved in and out of it, and the horizon now curved upwards to merge with the other side rather than simply being mirrored. And even as she watched, the terrain seemed to shift and mutate, the overall shape of the forest growing more convoluted. The air had grown darker, and not merely the darkness that night brings. Even with her eyes, she still had trouble piercing through the muddy blackness that seemed to permeate the forest, like smoke or water in a bottle. The forest was scared. Nervous, on the edge. Its creatures afraid of something even they couldn't see clearly. But they could feel it coming. Rage, fear, instincts, it all bled together and warped the world around them. And whatever was coming would be even worse. But Luna could only wait and carry on her hunting duties. So long as the creatures of the forest didn't have a clear idea of what they were scared by, all they could provide her would be vague ghosts and fantasies, more akin to their own fears wrapped onto the skeleton of the looming presence than to the presence itself and its true form. More screams echoed around her. Choked, sputtering croaks, guttural howls, and deep roars of pain and anger. Luna pulled her weapon back, and cleaned the blade from clumps of blood with her hoof. The night was still young, the hunt just at its beginning. More would come. That night, and in the nights to follow, and things would get worse with time for a while, she knew that. But she could take care of it. She could keep going, and as long as things didn't grow out of proportion she could still keep them in check by herself. And she could hope that, once they finally knew what was causing all of it, they could go directly at the root of the problem and put an end to it. The cracking of trunks and branches snapping under the weight and force of a charge came from her right, but she was ready. As soon as the creature broke through the last line of trees and into the small clearing, her legs sprung and pushed her upwards and out of its reach. She landed on its back, the mangled assembly of organs and jutting bones screeching as it tried to claw at her with its malformed appendages. Her axe came down again, splitting its skull in half, and the body went limp under her. Retrieving her weapon, she took off, and began to scout the forest from above the trees. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy tapped on her phone with her hoof, reloading the web page. "Still nothing," she said, opening a separate tab to browse some of her social media feed. "I guess it's gonna be a late one today." Twilight shrugged, sipping on her milkshake. Behind the counter, Pinkie fidgeted with a few bowls, a blender, some sprinkles, and what looked awfully close to a flamethrower. Already long since convinced that the furniture and walls of the building were immune to flames, and having been aware that the same was true of the pink pony for even longer, Rarity chose to ignore the umpteenth fire hazard she'd seen inside the walls of Sugarcube Corner and grabbed a cupcake from the nearest plate. "What do you think it will be about this time?" "Hmm." Twilight drank a bit more. "Well, there's always that puzzles guy it could go back to." "Yeah, whatever happened to him?" Dash said from her place, sitting near a window. "No idea." A sound very close to that of a chainsaw was heard beneath the counter, where Pinkie had disappeared to. "But there's other things that haven't been addressed in a bit too. The ongoing storyline that was split into parts hasn't been touched for a while," Twilight continued. "Neither have the blank chapters," Fluttershy added. "Or the night world stuff," Rainbow chimed in. "Or the hospital." Pinkie jumped on top of the blender to force in a series of items no sane pony would have placed in a blender, not last of which appeared to be a piece of the floor itself. "Yeah, I'm starting to think maybe this guy isn't really sure what he's doing," said Rainbow. "Now, now," Rarity said. "I'm sure he knows where he wants to go with the story. Creativity can be a complicated thing to work with, and you shouldn't assume the worst until you've seen the results. Sometimes you just get a bit sidetracked when inspiration strikes in the middle of a larger project." "Are we actually sure they're an he?" Fluttershy asked, still scrolling through her phone. Rarity raised a hoof and opened her mouth, then her expression changed and she brought the hoof under her chin. "Huh. You know, I was pretty sure I'd read he's male somewhere, but I can remember where it was." "Want me to dig through their stuff?" asked Rainbow. "We could just ask them," said Twilight. "Well, it's no big deal. I'll look into it myself if I can't remember why I was under that impression," Rarity said, grabbing a milkshake and beginning to drink. "I might look into it too, I also got that impression but I can't remember why." Twilight finished her drink. Fluttershy tapped on her screen again. "Still nothing." "We're sure it's gonna come out today, right?" Rainbow got up from her seat and flew towards the counter, as bits and pieces of Pinkie and other unidentified materials were sent flying in various directions. "It will." Applejack grabbed a potion from the cabinet on the wall. "I'm sure it will." > But there's no sense crying > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How have you been?" Tempest slid the spoon out of her mouth and dipped it back into her yogurt. "Things here aren't too bad, actually. The food is quite good, and the bed is comfortable. Pity about the lack of conversations, but the nurses are too busy to waste time on that." Twilight gave a look around the room. A pot with some flowers near the window added a splash of colour to the otherwise sterile monotony typical of hospitals, and overall the place looked clean and pleasant enough. "I'm glad to hear that, but it doesn't answer my question. How have you been?" Tempest finished another spoonful of yogurt. "I've picked up reading to pass the time, you know? I can't exactly go out in these conditions so I had to distract myself some way. There's a little newspapers shop on the first floor that sells comic books too, so I picked up an issue of Power Ponies." Another spoon of white yogurt in and out of her mouth. "It's fun." Twilight quirked an eyebrow, her expression one of annoyance but in even greater part understanding. "Tempest." "Well, I know it's not high literature, or maybe not even really literature depending on your definition, but I'm still technically reading okay? You can't ask me to jump right into-" "Fizzlepop Berrytwist," Twilight said, voice rising a little, "I asked you a question and I expect you to answer it. I did not ask about the place, I did not ask about the food, I did not ask what you've been up to. How have you been?" Tempest looked down and to the side, almost smirking. She sighed. "Not well. I know it's for my own good, and I accept that, and I know perfectly well that things have to be like this. But I can't like this no matter what." Her eyes turned towards the window. "The pain is the least bad part. I'm used to it, I've lived through worse than most of it. But being stuck in here... Being useless, when so much help could be needed out there." She looked down again. "And, well, when I could be doing stuff. Stuff that isn't spending my days confined to one building, barely able to walk at times, walking the same spotless white hallways and eating the same white yogurt every day because it's better than the chocolate pudding which is the only other dessert they give out and honestly I actually really like the yogurt but it's me, Twilight! I'm not a yogurt kind of mare!" Twilight chuckled as she heard that. "Sorry, sorry. I understand." She smiled cheekily at the unicorn. "I could bring you some oranges if you want. Just don't tell Applejack about it." Tempest smiled back. "I wouldn't mind." Then Twilight's expression faltered a little. "And what about..." A different tinge fell over Tempest's face. Not angry, not bitter, more resigned than anything. "Well..." She looked down at herself. "It's... It's manageable, I'd say. It hurts less nowadays, and it's..." She sighed. "I think I can live with it." > All that I see > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Very well, indeed," Nightmare Moon said, running her gaze over the documents she had just received. Then her eyes turned to the stallion who had carried them to her. "You served me well, little pony." He bowed in response. "I was merely carrying out my duties, my Queen. As every citizen should, and as every other of your subjects would have in my place." The alicorn set the documents down beside her throne. "You overestimate the ponies I rule over greatly. Not many share your understanding of what their role should be." "A great tragedy, my Queen." The pony bowed even lower. "What shall I do next? I eagerly await your orders." He had planned to rest after delivering what he'd been carrying, and still intended to in the event Nightmare Moon dismissed him, but being in the same room as her he could not dare do anything other than ask to receive her will. If only the commoners could too witness her magnificence up close, he thought, they would no longer waver in their loyalty to her. Nightmare Moon smiled her odd and twisted grin at the display of devotion before her, clearly pleased by it. "You have done well. You have carried out your orders more diligently and more efficiently than many others would have, and I see that you have placed priority on your mission above yourself, but not so far as to compromise the result by damaging your own capabilities. This is admirable, and I believe you should be rewarded for it." The stallion's breath almost caught in his throat. "My Queen, I-" He stopped, his heart beating faster, as he heard the sound of approaching hoofsteps, and barely able to muster the strength to he looked up to see his Queen, shrouded in a mantle of darkness and power, moving towards him. "Rise, and follow me," Nightmare Moon said as she walked past the pony, without even looking at him. That was all the stallion needed. Like in a dream, the ache in his limbs suddenly disappearing, he almost floated behind the divine mare guiding his path. Through tall corridors flanked by banners and statues, through halls decorated by depictions of his Queen's glory, down winding staircases and deep below into the lowest reaches of the castle, hidden behind locked doors and secret passages. He could not have been able to remember the path there, too entranced by the presence of the Goddess of the Night closer to him than any mortal pony had the right to experience. Finally, Nightmare Moon stopped, and turned back to the stallion. "You want to serve your Queen, right, little pony?" she asked. "Yes, my Queen. Above everything, my Queen." "Very well." The alicorn opened one last door. "I have been looking for ponies like you. Strong, loyal, smart, and willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I have decided to create a new order of guards, directly under my command, and I believe you fit to be the first of its members." She nodded towards the room in front of them. "It is an honour, my Queen." Without hesitation, the stallion stepped inside the room. Nightmare Moon smiled her cruel smile again. "Very well. Your new training will begin shortly, little pony. I expect great things to become of you." She began to close the door, adding, "And remember. You are doing this for your Queen." The door clicked shut, and locked itself closed. Nightmare Moon began to walk away, as a unicorn watched the scene, their head low. "My Queen," they hesitantly began to speak, "I-" "I trust that this will not result in a failure. Do not disappoint me." And with that, the alicorn walked away. > Wish Upon a Burning House > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- They sat in the middle of the field, watching the house in front of them burn. "I used to live there when I was younger," they said. "It wasn't a fancy house or anything, but I liked it. Of course I did. It was home, after all." A chunk of the roof caved in, falling into the rest of the flaming building. "And what do you think this represents?" Luna asked. "Well I'm not an expert, but this does seem like a fairly straightforward metaphor. The whole crumbling of the world I was familiar with and lack of stability and all that. Just a product of the stress of my daily situation, I feel," they answered. Luna nodded. "It would seem so, yes." They looked towards her. "Want me to give you a tour?" Luna looked between them and the burning house. "I think I will pass." A wall collapsed as hundreds of orange sparks were sent flying towards the sky. "It's always such a shame to see the places you used to love go up in flames." They sighed. "And over such stupid things too. Sometimes it'll be a coal from the fireplace. Sometimes the oven left on and open for too long. Sometimes it just happens. One time I even found matches, but that doesn't make much sense. Matches don't light themselves." Luna studied their expression. "If you don't like it, why don't you change it?" "It's a silly thing, really. I hate to watch my home burn, yes." They shook their head. "But I like to watch the fire. I know the house isn't real here, I know it's still there near the fields and my parents still live there. And I know it never caught fire." They stepped closer to the burning building. "And that's the thing. I never saw this place burning. These flames are all my imagination." Luna looked back towards the house, now halfway destroyed. "And that fascinates me, you see?" they continued. "These flames are just the product of my mind. And I can see every flame and fire I ever saw, broken apart and put back together, shrunk or inflated, all of them reflecting in this fire. From the light of candles and lamps to the dancing of bonfires and fireplaces to the forest fire tearing through the trees that summer when I was young. This is the sum of every fire in my life, of every memory of fire in my head. It's fascinating how one single image can hold so much, make you think of so much." Luna walked up to their side. "I understand." She, too, looked at the fire. "To me though, that's just fire." "But does it look real?" Luna paused for a moment. She studied the remains of the building more attentively. "I could not tell it from a real fire, though I must make it clear I have never stared at one for long. Not with the intent of studying it, at least." And the two of them sat there, watching the fire consume the building and then slowly give out. > Revivall > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I had a dream last night," Rainbow Dash said, pondering the muffin held between her hooves. "That does tend to happen when one sleeps." Rarity lit her horn and brought her cup to her lips, savouring the smell of apple juice before taking her first sip. Rainbow took a bite out of her muffin. "It involved Pinkie." "Oh." Rarity set down her cup and focused on a set of sketches and papers she kept on the table, looking through them. "I'm sure it was quite an experience then." Rainbow nodded. "I dreamed we were dating." The yellow sunlight streamed in from the open window, colouring the room with the hues of the early morning. A soft, pleasant breeze drifted in from outside, refreshing without being too cold. It had rained, the night before, and some drops of water still clung to the leaves of the trees where shadows hid them from the Sun. Rarity's reaction was an odd cross between a thoughtful frown and a puzzled pout, accompanied by that untranscribeable kind of sound that always did accompany her more expressive expressions. "It must have been quite the experience indeed." "It was nice." Rainbow looked towards the window. "In the dream, I mean. We were mostly hanging around. Doing stuff together. We kissed." She took another bite out of her muffin. "It felt real, while I was dreaming it. It made sense. I didn't question it. But it doesn't feel real now, you know?" Rarity took another sip of her drink. "I believe I understand. I've certainly had weird dreams myself that still seemed perfectly reasonable while I was inside them." Rainbow Dash sighed. "Sometimes you'll have a dream that you really don't like, and you'll wake up and be glad it's over. And sometimes you'll have a dream that you really like, and when you wake up you'll be really sad that it wasn't real." She finished her muffin. "This one wasn't either. It wad just a thing I dreamed. No feelings either way when I thought about it this morning." "I see." Her sketches set down to a side as she focused on the conversation, Rarity refilled her cup from the porcelain jug sitting in the middle of the table. "It feels weird." Rainbow turned around in her chair. "You never really stop to think about whether you'd want to be dating a friend or not. Unless you got a crush on them. But otherwise they're just a friend, you don't think about it. So I'm not sure what to feel now." She turned around again. "I guess I just know I'm not interested in a relationship with Pinkie. But I didn't ask to know. Thanks, brain." Rarity masked her silence with a sip of her drink, her own brain already working through all the possibilities Rainbow had inadvertently alerted her to even as she tried to stop it from doing so. "Do you think Pinkie would be happy if she was dating me?" The unicorn took the cup away from her lips. "Pinkie could be happy dating anything that breathes, and quite a lot of things that don't," she answered. "But I feel like she'd be happy in making others happy first, not in her own enjoyment of the relationship. She'd be happy whichever your choice was, because you'd be happy with it. If that makes sense." Rainbow shrugged. "I guess it does." > Bynary > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst avidly read through the book in his hooves, as the train chugged along from Canterlot back towards Ponyville. He was so focused on his reading, he didn't even register the unicorn beside him moving closer until she was to the point where her breath tickled his cheek. At which point he did notice her, and promptly proceeded to jerk back in surprise, almost dropping his book. Her coat was a light, soft purple, and her tidy blue mane framed her face with two identical braids on each side, while a third braid ran down her neck. Coloured streaks shot through it, both deep purple and silver, adding vibrancy to the patterns her braids created. Her tail, similarly coloured, was left free of restrictions, but still clearly brushed regularly. Her cutie mark was a spiraling pattern of white stars, with five distinct arms all converging towards the centre. "Hello. I'm Starshine Flicker," she introduced herself. Sunburst settled into a more composed but still partially reclined sitting position. "Hello. Can I help you with something?" "Oh, I was just getting a look at your book. I've been trying to get my hooves on something rare as that for ages but every copy is always booked by someone important and I never get a chance." Her face suddenly lit up. "Oh my! You must be Sunburst! Oh, I've heard so much about you!" She moved towards him in a motion that was technically only barely not a pounce, effectively landing with her front hooves on each side of his body. Sunburst looked up at her through his glasses, clearly confused. "Uh. I am. You have?" "Of course I have!" Starshine leaned down, her face mere centimetres from him. "The great Sunburst the Bearded, friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle, Royal Crystaller of Princess Flurry Heart, Vice-Headmare of the School of Friendship, you are one of the most important contemporary unicorns in all of Equestria and beyond!" Her body sunk even lower and she effectively laid herself on top of the stallion, staring right into his eyes and beaming an impossibly wide smile at him. Sunburst swallowed, uneasy, and took a look around the carriage. No one else was there. Just him, Starshine, and the book. "Thank you," he said, unsure of what more to do. "So..." the mare began, drawing circles in the seat with her hoof next to his head. "Can I read with you? Oh, actually, you could read aloud and teach me! I would love to listen to you read." She shifted back and forth, still lying atop Sunburst's body. "Well... I suppose. I don't see a reason why not." "Hold on, let me get you in a more comfortable position." Starshine grabbed hold of Sunburst back and then she pulled, flipping their respective positions and ending with her belly up, lying on the seats, and Sunburst belly down on top of her. "There." Still a little hesitant, Sunburst opened his book again. But just as he was about to start reading, Starshine Flicker disappeared. > Binary > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a shifting beneath the covers, and then a hand rose out from below them, aimlessly probing and thudding against the headboard in search of something. Finally, the slim fingers clasped around a dangling switch and pressed it, flooding the room with light from the main lamp overhead. "There we go," Twilight said, sliding halfway out of the covers and grabbing hold of her glasses again from atop the nightstand. Sunset slid out after her, much more lazily, and rather than sit on the pillow next to Twilight with her back against the headboard like the other girl she just laid her head on Twilight's legs, looking up at her. She stayed there, smiling in silence. Twilight smiled back as she began to stroke Sunset's hair. "How was it, then? Am I still as good with fingers as you remembered?" "I'm not sure, actually." Sunset's smile shifted to a slightly more devious grin. "I might still need another test run to see if that's true or not." Twilight rolled her eyes, still smiling. "I don't know why I have you talking when we've established there are things your tongue is much better at." "Will you force me to shut up that way, Twilight? Because I wouldn't mind." This time a snort of amusement accompanied Twilight's eye roll. "Do I have to take out my geode?" "Oh, please do." Sunset placed one of her hands over Twilight's, locking fingers with her. Twilight finally failed to contain a giggle. Tapping Sunset's nose with a finger, she said, "You know we can't really do that too much. Remember the last time we tried?" "I don't think I could ever forget you almost ripping the house away from the ground. But that's just because you need to learn to control yourself," Sunset answered. "It's not that easy to slow down when you're being encouraged to keep going, Sunset. I wasn't the only one at fault there," Twilight replied. "I was literally hearing your thoughts when it happened, and you would have had no intention of stopping with or without my encouragement." "True, but you still wanted me to continue." Twilight gave a light punch to Sunset's shoulder, still stroking her hair. "And you still want me to do it again! How am I the one who doesn't know when to stop?" "Are you saying you don't want to do it again?" Sunset's arm curled around Twilight's back. "I didn't say that." Twilight looked to the side. "I would just prefer if kinky sex with my girlfriend didn't devolve into almost destroying the fabric of reality a second time. And if it didn't involve sending our friends the equivalent of a notification saying I'm using telekinesis to fuck you, not to mention the inconveniences with their own powers going haywire." "I have to admit, the prospect of you almost destroying the world again isn't so bad for me if it involves you transforming as well," Sunset said, far more innocently than what should have been possible given the subject matter. Twilight groaned, rubbing her knuckles against her forehead. "Can we have one conversation where the topic of Midnight Sparkle comes up and you don't mention how you'd want her to fuck you?" "How could I possibly not want to fuck a version of you with more magic power and less moral restricti- Ouch!" Sunset jerked in place, but was kept still by Twilight's hand suddenly grabbing firmly onto her hair and pulling, prompting a second yelp. Twilight moved her other hand away from Sunset's chest, fingers still in a pinching position. "That's it," she said, pushing the other girl off her body and sliding out of the covers to lie on her knees on the bed, one leg on each side of Sunset's head. "You're putting that tongue to better use." > Binari > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Non era raro vedere puledri e puledre giocare vicino ai binari. Non lo era stato prima dell'arrivo del Behemoth, lo era diventato ancor meno dopo di esso, visto il calo nella frequenza dei viaggi. C'era da aspettarselo, più di una città aveva subito gravi danni e ci sarebbe voluto un po' prima che la rete ferroviaria ricominciasse a funzionare pienamente. Tutto sommato però, le cose non erano poi tanto diverse da come lo erano state prima in quella città. Le corse che passavano di lì erano sempre state poche e distanti tra loro. Il prossimo treno non sarebbe passato per un altro paio d'ore, e a quel punto tutti i giovani pony sarebbero già stati richiamati alle loro case per cena. Non c'era quindi ragione di interrompere i loro giochi. Alcuni si rincorrevano, altri tracciavano segni nel terreno, altri ancora si divertivano a nascondersi e cercarsi negli sprazzi di boscaglia poco più avanti seguendo le rotaie. Non c'erano animali là, se non qualche gatto che ogni tanto cercava un po' d'ombra per un pisolino. E qualche insetto, ma quelli erano dappertutto, soprattutto in estate. Un bosco vero c'era, vicino al villaggio. Era in effetti più un villaggio che non una città. Il bosco era verso est, dopo i campi, dopo le ultime case ancora abitate. C'era stato un incendio, una volta, una ventina d'anni prima o giù di lì. Buona parte del bosco aveva preso fuoco. Ma per fortuna le fiamme erano state sedate prima che arrivassero ai campi o peggio alla città. O villaggio, che era probabilmente il termine più calzante. Nessuno s'era fatto male, e il bosco negli anni era guarito. A guardare i giovani giocare, venivano in mente tante cose al vecchio unicorno. Uno dei pochi unicorni nel villaggio, a dirla tutta. Ma lui era nato lì, e c'era affezionato, e poco gli importava di quelli che pensavano se ne sarebbe dovuto andare a Canterlot a studiare invece di star lì. Di libri buoni ne aveva anche a casa, e il marmo non gli era mai piaciuto. Molto meglio i mattoni, a sentir lui. Ma sì, gli tornavano alla mente un bel po' di ricordi, a guardare i giovani giocare. Un po' erano i suoi. Quando ancora era un puledrino anche lui, il che era comunque stato parecchi secoli dopo che Luna era stata esiliata, checché ne dicessero i giovinastri. Era loro la colpa se non s'erano mai informati sulla questione, il fatto che lui avesse letto di quanto era successo mille anni prima non significava che lui fosse stato là a vederlo succedere. Aveva giocato anche lui da quelle parti, quand'era giovane. Ma i binari non erano ancora stati costruiti a quel tempo. Di figli non ne aveva avuti, nipoti neppure. A guardare i puledri e le puledre giocare però, gli tornavano in mente i giorni in cui pony ora ormai adulti erano stati giovani anche loro, giorni in cui lui vecchio lo era già ma un po' meno. C'era in effetti un pony in particolare a cui pensava spesso. Firecracker, si chiamava, i genitori una coppia di abitanti del villaggio che avevano la loro casa in campagna tra i campi e ancora vivevano lì. Firecracker invece non abitava più in città da qualche anno ormai, ma mandava ancora lettere ai suoi. Ogni tanto, l'unicorno si chiedeva come se la passasse. > Panic > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was still early in the summer. The Sun shone bright in the sky, and most ponies spent their time quietly resting in their homes, away from the heat. And a hive of flying scorpions slowly grew in the corner of one of the classrooms in the School of Friendship. Starlight gave Trixie a look so flat it made paper sheets look like high-reliefs by comparison. "I may have misjudged the coordinates on the long distance matter transfer spell," the blue mare admitted. "At least no students were here this time around." Sunburst happened to peek into the room as he walked down the corridor. "Is something wrong?" His eyes focused on the black mass in the corner, and the arthropods occasionally making their way in and out of it. "Are those flying scorpions?" Starlight nodded, her eyes still on Trixie. Trixie gave a weak smile towards Sunburst. "At least they're harmless, right?" "I believe you're thinking of scorpionflies," said Sunburst, walking into the room. "Flying scorpions are definitely not harmless." Trixie turned back towards the hive. "So we should just teleport it away, right?" "If a member of the hive is separated from the rest for long enough, or is far enough away from the hive, or is otherwise no longer receiving the queen's pheromones, it will mutate into a new queen and build a new hive," Sunburst explained, staring at the structure with rapt fascination. "So either we make sure every one of them is in there, or we'll have to spend the next few years hunting down all the new hives that will pop up as a result," Starlight added. Trixie swallowed. Then she closed the door with her magic. "None of them left the room, right?" "Why don't you ask the one who teleported the hive here and didn't tell anyone until she realised it was growing?" "Trixie believes she saw none leave the room while she was busy not warning you two," Trixie said. "Tell her that I don't know if I trust her," Sunburst said, pacing back and forth, eyes still glued on the hive, keeping his distance to avoid angering the creatures. "Trixie understands." Her horn lit up, the glow of her magic enveloped the hive, and Trixie teleported the flying scorpions away in a flash of light. "Let's hope that got all of them then," said Starlight, opening the door again and stepping out of the room. Sunburst walked out behind her, and so did Trixie. "Would you like to go for some ice-cream later today?" the stallion asked. "Sure," Starlight answered, and with that the two began to each head towards one end of the hallway. Trixie was left alone there in the middle. "I'd like to be there as well," she said, then she turned and walked back into the room, wondering why she'd walked out in the first place. She still had work to sort out in there. Closing the door behind herself, she sighed and moved back to her desk. > SgBH > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I was a horse today, I thought you might want to hear about it." Twilight pulled back from her phone and just stared at it for a moment. "You mean you went through a portal?" she tentatively asked to the girl on the other end of the conversation. "Yes. I should have said that. It would be a lot stranger if someone who isn't one of your friends started turning into a pony in this world." The tone was dry, and there could be a note of annoyance or envy to it, but it was hard to decipher given how Sugarcoat's tone was always dry and flat. "It was near the school, by the way. My school. It's not your school anymore." "Noted," Twilight said, as she took an actual physical note down on her notebook. "I'll come check on it later today, give me a couple of hours or so." She jotted down a couple more notes. "Oh, make sure no one else accidentally ends up on the other side." "Of course. I would say something about how it takes a tear in the fabric of reality for you to pay a visit to your old school, but that would imply you have anything here you would ever want to see again and we both know that was never the case. Crystal Prep to you was at best the grey hollowness of existing through your days without anything worth noting happening and at worst downright emotional trauma. I'm not sure I would even come myself in your position." Again, it was impossible to tell if there was any annoyance or regret or emotion in the girl's voice, or if she was just simply stating facts. Twilight stayed silent for a moment. "What's on the other side of the portal? Are you alright? You weren't hurt in there, right?" "There's a city on the other side. I am not alright. I wasn't hurt there." It took Twilight a moment to process what she'd heard. Once she did, she asked, worried, "What's wrong? What happened?" "I stumbled into the portal, I spent some time on the other side once I realised what had happened. I spent a while wondering what would happen to my clothes and the things in my pockets once I came back here. I briefly wondered if you have run experiments on the matter. When I felt I'd been away enough that someone might start worrying about me, I decided to come back so people wouldn't freak out over nothing." Sugarcoat remained silent for a moment. "I'm not answering the other question." Twilight flinched. "Would you like to talk about it once I get there?" Another pause. "I don't know." "I'm coming there right now," said Twilight, as her free hand stuffed her belongings into her backpack and she got up from her chair. Sugarcoat didn't say anything for a while, listening to the sounds coming from the other side of the phone. Then, she closed the call. > Live Feed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door slid closed with a thud, and the key turned in the lock with a click. Glancing around to ensure the windows were shut, the changeling stepped forward and undid her disguise. On the other side of the room, trapped inside a shiny green pod, the orange mare whose likeness she'd been wearing stared back at her with empty, adoring eyes. Chrysalis made her way closer towards her. As much as she would have loved to drain the pony for every last bit of love inside her, she couldn't afford to given her situation. In fact, she couldn't afford to keep the pony there much longer, nor to keep impersonating her. She would need to move in a couple of days at most, find another prey to replace. She needed to lay low, as much as she hated the fact. And she needed to stay inside towns. The wilderness wasn't safe for her yet, not until she'd recovered enough energy. Not with all the things running around that shouldn't have been there. Staying with ponies meant she risked being found, but at least she was safe. She estimated it would take just a couple more victims before she was fed enough. It wasn't the first time she'd done something like that. Find a target living alone, possibly with low levels of social interaction. Use her powers to control them, then keep them as a source of food for a couple of days. Pretend to be them when inside or near their house, claiming poor health conditions as an excuse for not being seen outside. Spend most of the day disguised as a different pony, gathering information. And when it all was over, clean up, make the target forget everything, and leave them with just a migraine. It had worked well so far. She'd been careful enough in picking ponies to avoid anyone noticing a pattern. But she was still on edge. Her powers had turned out to be far more weakened than she would have thought after she'd awakened, and being forced into hiding from the ponies she'd been so close to ruling over made her seethe with anger like nothing else. If anything, she could at least make some of them remember their place. Walking up to the pod, she opened her mouth, siphoning a bit more love out of the half-conscious unicorn. She'd been rather easy to take control of, thinking about it. Perhaps it had to be expected from a relatively old pony like her, especially one who lived on her own. She did appear to have a daughter, at least going by the old pictures of a blue filly, but there was no trace of a father or husband in the house. Chrysalis's musings were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. She turned towards it, and mimicking the captive mare's voice she asked, "Yes? Who is it?" No answer came, but something thin and white was slipped beneath the door. Curious, Chrysalis picked it up in her magic. It turned out to be a folded sheet of paper, with text on the inside. Just a couple of sentences, elegantly written, with no signatures. I know the look of a creature who's trying to stay hidden. How have you been, Chrysalis? > Machinations > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was clearly a puzzle of some sort. He could see the door, hidden behind the crumbled rock. He just needed to figure out how to get it to open. An ordinary pony might have assumed the entrance had crumbled, but not him. He could see clearly that it was not the case there. It was a puzzle. He sat down, contemplating the vaguely skull-shaped rock formation and the swamp around it. It looked a bit like a swamp at least. He wasn't sure, he hadn't been paying attention when he'd gotten there. He wasn't even exactly sure where he was or how he'd gotten there. But he wasn't crazy. He'd just been a bit distracted. And there was a puzzle there for him to solve. It wasn't too complicated, he was sure. Not if he looked at it from the right angle. Now, the other entrance on the other side, that one was legitimately unusable. But the one in front of him could be opened. He was sure of it. Very sure of it, he could feel it. He was good at puzzles. And there was that small chunk of rock, there to the right, a little above his height but not too far. He could reach it. It could be pressed, or pulled or maybe twisted. It was clear, the way the base stood out against the wall made it clear, it was almost outlined. But it couldn't be so easy, could it? He looked better. There was a switch of some kind. Yes, he could see the connections from that button. It could go to the door, there was a path there, but currently it was pointing upwards. A separate wire, leading somewhere above. A trap, most likely. But a switch was there, to redirect the path, and he just needed to look around for it. There. There on the ground, to the left. A pressure pad, half hidden behind a chunk of broken rock. And he could see the connection, the wires leading from it to the switch near the other button, embedded inside the rock wall, faintly shimmering as ghostly apparitions to his eyes. Extending one hoof, he pushed down on the pressure pad. The switch rotated, redirecting the first wire's signal, and he reached out with his front hoof to push down the button. There was a click. The ground shook, just a bit, and as he drew back he saw the previously crumbled entrance open up. A few chunks of broken stone fell down, while other sections of the wall slid out of the way, and a moment later the passage was free of hindrances and everything went still again. He felt rather proud of finally having solved a puzzle. He'd told them he wasn't crazy. A broad smile on his face, he stepped into the cave. It was mostly orange, filled with sharp rocks, and after a moment he realised he wasn't exactly sure why he was there. He did however notice a purple alicorn was also present, and was staring at him with a confused expression. > Recursion; > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you remember that day, Twilight? When the Behemoth came to Canterlot?" "Of course I do. Why is that relevant?" "Do you remember the screams, Twilight? Do you remember the yelling, and the commotion, the creatures calling out? Do you remember all the confusion, Twilight?" "Like it was yesterday. Why?" "What did you hear when the Behemoth came to Canterlot, Twilight?" "Silence, and its steps echoing through it." "Did anyone speak, while the Behemoth walked through Canterlot?" "No." "And yet you remember the screams." Imagine you have a deck of playing cards. All the cards are face down, you can't tell what type of cards they are, you can't move the deck, and you can't determine how many cards there are. The only thing you can do is draw. Now imagine that whenever you pull out a card from the top of the deck, the card turns into a different deck of cards. A normal one, and it can be for any possible type of game so long as cards are the primary focus. No two cards from the main deck ever produce the same deck, and the main deck seems to never run out of cards. Eventually, on a given draw, provided you keep drawing, the main deck will produce a new deck with exactly the same traits as the main one. "That doesn't make sense." And yet here we are. This is what this is. We know that's what happens, because we've seen it happen. There's a more interesting question though. One that is an actual question. Can cards from the new deck produce decks that are the same as the ones produced by cards in the previous deck? You see, that's the real crux of the matter. If the answer is no, then both decks are merely windows, and so will be every new copy of the deck made by a copy of the deck. But if the answer is no? What if an infinite number of perfectly identical repetitions is possible? "Frankly, that seems like a pointless question. If they are identical in every aspect they may as well be one. What interests me is the variability of iterations. There are infinite numbers between one and two, but none of them are three. Is every kind of deck possible?" That's not a question you can answer. Not in time, anyway. "There are things in here that are best ignored. Books that are best unread, knowledge that is best unknown, memories that are best forgotten. And that is why I won't allow you to enter. But I can search for you, if you wish, if your wish is something I deem I can safely grant. Do not take it as an insult to your intelligence, Twilight Sparkle, the fact alone that you're here is enough to prove that you surpass many other creatures in that regard. And not to your wisdom either, you would not be allowed to remain if it were otherwise. But the fact remains that the words hiding in these halls could break and reforge any mind who happened to gaze on them. I trust you are wise and smart enough to know where your own limits lie." > Chapter 76 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis carefully opened the door, her disguise restored but her horn ready to strike. No one was there. Nervous, she locked the door again, and turned back towards the trapped mare. She needed to get away from there, and make sure whoever had found her lost track of her. She would have wanted to silence them directly, but with no lead on their identity it wasn't safe for her to expose herself. Sunburst looked in every direction around him. But no matter what, the mare wasn't there. He even tried to open the doors on each side and peek into the other wagons, but she wasn't there either. If she'd used magic, he hadn't noticed at all. No sound or light or movement from her horn, she was just there a second and gone the next. He'd even smacked his legs against the seats given how she'd disappeared from below him. Confused, he returned to his old sitting position and opened the book again. Firecracker stepped through the door and into the building. There was another pony with them, the owner noted. A pegasus mare, with a blonde mane and a grey coat. Neither one of the two said anything, and though the mare did look around the place with a curious glint in her eyes she followed the other to a table, where the two sat down to wait. Smiling to himself, the owner headed towards the kitchen. Scarlet Ribbon stared out of her window, worried. He was nowhere to be seen. Last time she'd seen him, he was heading towards the woods. That had been over a day before at that point. It wasn't the first time he left to go somewhere else, and it wasn't her responsibility to keep track of him, but still she feared he would be in danger. He'd always been if not a friend at least a close acquaintance, and seeing him lose himself like that had hurt. She wished she could help him in some way. Rarity slowly came back to awareness, the rays of the Sun streaming through the blinders like blades striking her eyes. It wouldn't be completely correct to say she woke up, as she'd been closer to passed out than asleep. A hand reached out for her phone on the nightstand, only to strike against naked wood. Then she remembered that it was still in her pocket, in the jacket she was still wearing. With no real energy to her motions, she fetched it out, opening it to reveal dozens of unread messages she didn't want to go through, missed calls, and an hour that wasn't morning by any possible definition. Twilight held Celestia against the wall by the neck, staring into her eyes. Their breath was the only sound in the dark and empty hallway. For a few long moments, nothing more happened, as the two only studied each other. Then, Twilight let go, turned around and silently walked away, leaving Celestia to fall back to her hooves and catch her breath. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So does anyone actually have a clear idea of what's going on?" Rainbow's question was met with resounding head shakes. "I figured." The mare returned to playing with her phone. Twilight aimlessly tapped on the table with her hoof. "I can probably try to make some theory over it, but I don't really feel like there's a point if everything will just get thrown out the window when a new update comes." "But isn't that the fun part of theorising?" Rarity pulled her chair closer to Twilight's. "And besides, we are starting to see something more concrete. The pieces start to fit together if you go back and know what you're looking for." "But do you really want to go back?" Rainbow asked without lifting her eyes from the screen. "Well, I am sure that won't be needed forever. Eventually everything will make sense," said Rarity, her smiling, positive expression refusing to leave her face. Twilight sighed. "Well, I do have to acknowledge it, some loose ends are being tied up, some threads are being furthered and weaved with others. But on the other hoof you've got new things opening up, and even older ones getting no attention! I'm just not sure if I can trust him is all." On the other end of the room, Pinkie momentarily paused her aggressive baking session. "So we've established they're an he?" "Yeah, I dug a bit around for his social media links." Rainbow dismissively waved a hoof. Rarity moved yet closer to Twilight. "But are you not intrigued by it all? The mystery, all the different stories and the way they influence each other, don't you look forward to seeing it all unfold?" Twilight gave a meek shrug. "It's hard to get excited about it. I mean, I would be the first gushing over it if things started to make sense. But right now all we have are a few points and lines, and I have no certainty they'll all lead up to some grand design. I don't feel like wrecking my head over trying to connect the dots when I'm not sure if there is a drawing in there or if I'm just imaging constellations." Rarity thoughtfully chewed on a cupcake. "Sometimes you need a little trust, you know?" "Trust is earned," said Twilight. Then she took a sip from her milkshake. "I feel like someone who you've never interacted with should get the benefit of the doubt the first time around. You shouldn't assume the worst." "And I feel like the rope is being pulled a little too much here for my tastes, and I'd rather wait to see if the water is clear than jump in and get burnt." "I think you got a little tangled up with your metaphors there," Applejack said, suddenly looking towards the two horned ponies. Then she looked back to Fluttershy and to the game they were playing. Fluttershy drew a card. "Either way, all both of you can do is keep reading. You shouldn't be arguing over how the other does it." > Flatline > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight stared at her unfinished solitaire, then at the deck of cards yet unturned lying beside it. She didn't feel like doing even that. And she was bored. Oh, maybe it would have been different if she'd had something she actually needed to do or work on. But no. Nothing at all. She was just supposed to relax, apparently, despite how clearly impossible that was after the day she'd had. A thought wormed its way into her mind. She could sneak into the right room, and then pay the other world a visit through the portal. And a moment later, that fantasy was shattered, as she remembered that there was no portal there in the castle anymore. There hadn't been one for months at that point. Not since that summer day when the Behemoth had come to Canterlot. The mirror had been shattered that day, and no one had worked on repairing it. Not that repairing it was necessarily needed. There were other portals to the human world, if one really wanted or had to go there. Quite a few actually, some less accessible than others. She supposed, if she really wanted to, she could always sneak to the archive instead to take a peek at the list of known ones, and then go to one of those. But that would probably take a while, and at that point she could just take a regular walk outside. Although there was something still alluring about having that walk be on the other side instead. In a place where nobody would know who she was. Where she didn't have to worry about who she was. Where she could pretend to be someone else, if she wanted to, and pretend that the things that had happened that day weren't real. Just to take her mind off of them for a bit. Just to allow herself to. Even if she knew it would all be back to her at the end of it, she wished she could ignore it, just for a while, just finally manage not to think about it. But she couldn't. And it was always there, pressing at the back of her mind, trying to force its way back to the centre of her attention. It would be like that for days, she knew, probably weeks, perhaps months. It would never truly leave her. It had come and gone, like a flash of lightning. She'd had no control over it, no say in how it had happened, no time to react. And just like a tree struck by lightning, she would bear that scar in her memory. It wasn't, all things considered, a bad thing. She hadn't been hurt, none of her friends had either, no other innocent creature had been involved. But it wasn't only about that. It was about being forced to watch it happen. Being powerless to stop it. She should have been used to it. It had been the same with the Behemoth. But they'd found things to work with. A way to fight back, adapt to the changes of the world. They had grown hope that they could one day take back what they'd lost. And yet, again, fate had chosen to remind her that there were things out there outside of her control, too great for her to have any say in their course. > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stone sat down in front of Soarin'. Still a touch confused, he took a better look at the note he'd received from the unseen pony. "Valid for one party or musical number at a valid time of your choice. Parties and musical numbers can only take place outside of Sugarcube Edge's working hours. Cannot be traded, sold, or used for a musical number or party dedicated to someone other than yourself. Redeem this ticket by contacting Pinkie Pie. In case the ticket is lost, you can receive a replacement ticket by contacting Pinkie Pie," he read from the piece of paper. Then he looked up at Soarin', still just as confused as he'd been. "I would have loved to throw you a party or a song when you arrived, but that has been harder to do since I started working here more often," a voice said to his right. "Speaking of which, may I take your orders?" Startled, Stone Brick turned, seeing a pink mare standing there near their table, a notepad in her hooves and a pencil behind her ear. By the sound of her voice, she was the same pony who'd been hiding underneath a pile of plates just moments before. Soarin' cut in through Stone's momentary silence, quickly enough for it to not become awkward. "Just bring us whatever the day's special is, Pinkie." "On it!" Pinkie gave a salute and marched back towards what was presumably the kitchen. Turning back to his companion, the earth pony asked, "So what's the deal with this place? And with her?" "Pinkie is like that. Just accept it." Soarin' laid back in his seat. Talking against the background noise of the other clients' chit-chat, he continued, "As for Sugarcube, it used to be just a bakery and confectionery. And it used to have its own building, too. A really pretty thing, looked sorta like a giant cupcake. Unfortunately it had to be taken down after the Behemoth, it wasn't holding together." Looking around the place, Stone nodded along, signalling the other to keep going. "All kinds of business had trouble after the Behemoth, some more than others. Sugarcube's owners needed a new place to make and sell their stuff, and the owners of the restaurant that used to be here needed help repairing the building and staying financially afloat. So they made a deal, combined their businesses, and picked Sugarcube Corner as the name for brand recognition." Soarin' sat straight again. "And why does that Pinkie girl keep calling it Sugarcube Edge?" A bowl landed in front of Stone Brick. "It's because we're not on a corner anymore," Pinkie said, setting down an identical bowl in front of Soarin'. "Sugarcube Corner used to be at a street corner, but now we're not. So now it's Sugarcube Edge." Stone looked at the contents of the bowl for a moment. They were indecipherable, but anything with a smell that good he would have eaten blindfolded. "Shouldn't it be Sugarcube Side then, since you're on the side of the road now?" Pinkie gave a shrug. "I prefer the sharper name." > Savatage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis stared at the other creatures in the hall, while sitting on a couch in the corner, disguised as a green pegasus with a blue mane and a key as his cutie mark. Not anypony who actually existed, as far as she knew, she'd just made the disguise up on the fly. And if anyone asked, she would just pretend to be a friend who'd come to visit Suri. Things had worked out impressively well. She'd found the perfect target to replace. A mare like Suri Polomare wouldn't be receiving any visits, especially not while she was on vacation. No one would find out she'd replaced her, and all Chrysalis had needed to do to prevent anyone from peeking into their room was say that she was working on a new line of clothing and didn't want her designs to leak. She didn't even need to worry about finding a second disguise. She could easily walk around the hotel as Suri, no one would be able to tell anything was off about her. And she'd done that, actually, for a couple of days after arriving there and capturing the mare. Everything had been going well, perfectly even. Everything up until the second morning. I told you I'm good at recognising you, Chrysalis. You shouldn't run like this. Why don't we have a talk instead? Chrysalis growled, glancing down at the piece of paper clutched in her hooves. She'd been found, again, and by the same creature it seemed. The writing looked the same at least. Despite her best efforts to hide her tracks, despite travelling through the edge of the woods as an animal for part of the way there, despite moving in darkness, she'd still been tracked down. At that point, she wasn't going to run away again. It would be a waste of time and energies, and it would most likely achieve nothing again. And the odds of her finding such a good target were low. But there was more to it than just that. If that annoying purple nuisance and her friends hadn't come after her yet then whoever was aware of her position was probably not planning to call them in. Going by the last message, they just wanted to talk. Directly. And Chrysalis had decided she would give them just that. She was done running. A Queen shouldn't run, anyway. If this creature wanted to play with fire, she'd make sure they got what they deserved. And there was always a chance they wanted to help her. All things considered, meeting them was the best option. And so, there she sat, studying all the other creatures in the hall. But none seemed to have any interest in her, all too preoccupied with talking with each other or merely passing by. Of course, Chrysalis had no lead as to where the other was actually planning to meet her, but if they were tracking her steps then she assumed they would make themselves known. But for a while, nothing happened. Then, just as Chrysalis was about to start losing her patience, the receptionist suddenly stood up from her desk and walked towards her. "Excuse me," the mare said, "one of our guests made a call asking about you. She says she's waiting for you in room eight-thirteen." > Vydeokldt Rediostahr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello, Twilight." Twilight, whose head was currently held low just past the rail while a hoof on her mouth tried to help in preventing her from vomiting, slowly pulled herself back and turned towards the other. "Do we know each other?" she asked, studying the pony. "No. I do know a Twilight Sparkle though. But she doesn't have wings or a horn, most of the time." The mare was busy trying to give her surprisingly long mane a shape with some hair ties. Twilight just raised an eyebrow, pursing her lips to suppress another gagging fit. The other's mane finally settled on what was probably the desired shape. "I'm Sugarcoat." It took a moment for Twilight to actually process that. "Oh. Oh, right, Sunset wrote to me about you. I didn't realise you were coming today." She looked back inside the building, a little embarrassed. "It might not be the best time." "Did someone die?" Sugarcoat asked the question almost emotionlessly, like she was asking about the weather or about the most boring and trivial of matters. She looked towards Twilight, a flat and calm expression on her face. "Not exactly." Twilight stood a little straighter. She didn't want to traumatise someone on their first meeting, but the other seemed weirdly unfazed by the possibility. "Why do you ask?" "I can smell it on you." "Oh." Twilight's cheeks went a shade darker again. "I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it was something along those lines." "What exactly is it about?" Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses with a hoof. "Or is it classified information?" Twilight looked up for moment, frowning in thought. She decided there was no harm in telling the other about it. A piece of the whole story, at least. "I'm sure you will believe me if I tell you parallel universes exist, right?" Sugacoat's silence and unchanging expression were an effective answer, though one that made Twilight regret the attempt at humour. "It turns out some are less friendly places than others. And someone decided to..." Twilight actually had to pause for a moment, her brief academic excitement strangled by remembering what she was actually talking about. "Well, let's just say you don't want to go into that room with the guards in front of it. It wasn't anypony from this world, but still someone." "Knowing there are worse universes than my own is oddly reassuring in a way I feel it shouldn't be." Sugarcoat turned and began to walk away from the balcony, following the direction Twilight herself had seemed intent on going towards. Twilight walked beside her. "Have you been enjoying your time here?" she asked, trying to bring the conversation back onto happier themes. "Yes," said Sugarcoat, in a tone that did not line up with the word. "Cadence gave me a brief tour of the place. Your Cadence. Our Cadence doesn't have wings. I suppose it's still better than demonic bat-like wings though." She was silent for a moment. "I'm bad at telling jokes, so I mostly don't, and as a result I never get better at it." Twilight looked puzzled. "No, I guess that one was okay. It's the timing you should be working on." She pursed her lips. "Are you alright?" Sugarcoat didn't turn as she answered. "I'm being crushed by guilt thinking about how a version of Twilight that had a proper group of friends to support her through her life became the leader of a nation while all I did for mine was pressure her and be mean to her until she snapped and almost destroyed the world. But aside from that, being a horse is very nice." > tr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer," the odd bug-like creature said. She looked like a very large stick insect, her legs just a bit wider in proportion, though her neck more closely resembled a pony's and her head was almost fully that of one. She wore shades over her eyes. Shining stood silent in front of her for a few seconds, as a light breeze coming in form a window somewhere down the corridor pushed the door behind him to open a little wider. Finally, he settled onto one of the many questions whirling about in his mind. "How did you get in?" "The door was open," casually said the other. She titled her head slightly to the side, studying the stallion. "No it wasn't. I locked it. I had to unlock it just a moment ago to get into this room again, and there's no other copy of the key in here except for the one I have with me." Shining's expression was perfectly flat, likely a result of many different emotions all trying to warp it in different ways and all evening each other out. "Oh." The creature cocked her head to the other side. "The window was open?" she tried. "It wasn't. But even if it was, why is it closed now?" "Oh," said the creature again. Then she slowly began to move back on her six legs. Up until she reached the wall. And then up the wall. And then on the ceiling, moving backwards towards the door. But before she managed to reach the exit, Shining closed it shut. "Who are you?" The creature put on a disappointed pout. Then, looking away from the closed door and towards Shining, she asked, "Would you believe me if I told you I am the Raven?" "I have no idea what that means." Shining turned towards her. "Who are you?" "You know Rarity?" Shining blinked. "Yes?" "Imagine a set of two mirrors endlessly reflecting off of each other, and there's a wig that looks just like her mane taped around one of them." As she said that, her two frontmost legs rose up to accompany her words with gestures. "That makes no sense and still doesn't answer my question." Shining kept staring at her, a more aggressive edge entering his glare. The creature awkwardly gave a fake cough into her tarsus, eyes darting nervously from side to side. "Do you ever fall through a portal while hiking and end up on the other side as something other than a horse, and also as a different biological sex?" Shining took a step closer, though his expression softened a little. In a calmer tone, he asked, "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" "Uh..." The creature looked back towards the exit. "Time travel?" She suddenly transformed into a tiny bug and slid underneath the door. Then, on the other side of it, the heavy resounding of her steps signalled she had taken on her larger six-legged form again. "And tell Celestia it will be very not nice of her to drop me like that!" she yelled, her voice growing more distant as she frantically rushed away from the room. > Plot Progression > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sugarcoat and Twilight stood, speechless, as the large, bug-like, six-legged creature rushed by in front of them, followed shortly after by Shining Armor, clearly intent on chasing her. A moment after the commotion had moved past them, the first turned to the second with a questioning look. Twilight looked back. "I have no idea." "That's reassuring, actually." Sugarcoat returned to walking down the corridor, and Twilight followed at her side. "So," the alicorn began to ask, "what are your plans for the rest of the day?" "Just visit the town," said Sugarcoat. "Go look at the shops. Have a walk in the centre. Maybe read something if there's a library. I will probably look for a bakery or something close and see if they have snickerdoodles." She kept walking, looking straight ahead. "It sounds boring. But I just want to be normal." Twilight bit her lower lip, unsure of what to say. "Do you want me to help you with anything or-" "No," Sugarcoat interrupted her. "Walking around with a princess is the last thing I want in terms of keeping my visit normal, and while your words about the situation between me and my Twilight were welcome and will be helpful you're still a reminder of my mistakes, so I would rather not be with you while I sort things out." A moment of silence went by, then she added, "It sounds like I'm antagonising you for offering help. I'm not, and I do appreciate the offer. I'm horrible at any kind of social interaction, especially with someone I'm not familiar with." "I don't think you are," Twilight immediately replied. "You're being too harsh on yourself. I meant what I said about you and the other Twilight, you should be working on improving things now and not regretting mistakes you can't unmake. And besides, you have friends, don't you? You can't be as bad as you say you are." "I only ever really became friends with them after we almost died together. Before that the closest thing I had was occasionally doing what I can't describe as anything other than bullying together with Sour or Indigo. Every other pretense of me having any sort of social relationship was just the byproduct of being one of the top students, and between the shift in the school's climate after Cinch was kicked out and the way I wasted the rest of that year moping in a corner and completely annihilated my grades that all crumbled away. I'm completely socially inept and just because I was able to bond with other sapient creature through a shared near death experience against a magical entity bent on world domination things aren't going to change." Twilight would have chuckled at that last statement, given her own experiences, but the rest of what Sugarcoat had said kept her from it, especially coupled with the mare's worryingly flat tone. "I didn't know about your grades." "I didn't tell Twilight. I was held back a year. Right now I'm keeping them just on the edge so I can easily tank them again if I want." "But why?" Sugarcoat actually stopped walking there. "Because I've got nowhere else to go outside of that school. My whole personality was built around a system that doesn't even exist anymore. I don't know of any other place where a complete disregard for emotions and an obsessive focus on facts would be welcome. And more importantly, if one exists then I want to stay as far away from it as possible. The old Crystal Prep pressured me into following its concept of being the best so much that I don't think I could ever manage to fit anywhere else right now." Twilight turned towards her, tentatively extending a hoof. "Isn't there anything you wanted to do in your life?" "No." The word was dry, flat, emotionless. "The only thing I ever had time to focus on was being the best student. All I managed to do was hurt others." > Plot Aggression > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Isn't there something you enjoy doing? You must have some sort of hobby or something like that." "You mean aside from bullying?" Sugarcoat kept trotting along the hallway, Twilight at her side. "I know how to drive a motorcycle, but I had to learn that for the Friendship Games. I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it, or that I enjoy it. There's singing, but that's not much of an accomplishment in a school that forces you to be good at that too." She paused for a moment. "There's dancing. That I have fun with. But I'm not particularly good at it either." Twilight pursed her lips, frowning in thought. "I'll see if I can think of a way to help. I'm sure there's something out there you would enjoy, we just need to figure out what." "You're thinking of asking my acquaintances in the other world for help, hoping they know something about me that I'm currently unable to see because of my shaken emotional state, aren't you?" Sugarcoat stopped as she finally reached the door leading outside. Twilight gave a slightly too large smile as she heard that. "Maybe?" Sugarcoat answered back with a rather small one, but distinctly a smile nonetheless. "I know I can get better, I just don't think it's worth forcing others to put up with me in the process. But I can't stop you from doing it. Thank you." She looked outside and sighed. "I might go look for a clothing shop. It should help reducing the stares." She looked at her thighs for a moment. "And I'm more used to pockets, I'd rather not have to keep money in my hair." "Oh." Twilight nodded, her eyes darting to follow Sugarcoat's gaze for just a moment before she stopped herself. "Yeah. You should probably try to exercise with that, too," she added, looking at the opposite end of the mare instead. "I can help with it if you want." Sugarcoat's eyes slightly crossed as she focused on the horn protruding from her forehead. "I suppose you're right." She adjusted her glasses after that. "Well, it's been nice meeting you. See you around." Twilight was about to wave the unicorn goodbye and turn back, but suddenly she noticed something. Or rather, she noticed someone. "Hah!" she half-yelled, pointing a hoof in their direction as a smirk suddenly appeared on her face. Sugarcoat's eyes followed the direction Twilight was pointing towards, and settled onto a rather tall winged unicorn who she assumed was Equestria's own version of Canterlot High's principal. The horse was still, her eyes open wide, her pupils shrunk to pinpoints and focused on Twilight, her mouth half open, one of her hooves holding a slice of lemon cake halfway between the ground and her face. During the brief moment in which the two winged unicorns stared silently at each other, something fell between them from a balcony on the higher floors of the building. The large creature then quickly scrambled back to her six legs and began to run away, and a moment later Shining Armor landed in the same spot, encased in a bubble of pink magic which he then dispelled. A second after he was gone, again running after the creature. Twilight and the other tall horse, after both of them had stared at the display in confused and unmoving silence, once more locked eyes with each other, and then both disappeared in flashes of light. Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses again, and finally walked out of the building. > Soft Regression > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight found Sugarcoat on a bench, sipping on a chocolate mint milkshake, staring aimlessly at the empty parking lot. She would have preferred to meet her sooner, but the other had insisted that she should focus on the portal first, and so Twilight had. Now that had been temporarily secured, with more proper measures on their way, and so it was finally time to have a chat. "Hello," Sugarcoat said, as Twilight sat down beside her. "Hello," came Twilight's attempt at a reply. She stared for a moment at the shop behind the bench, where Sugarcoat had gotten her milkshake from. "Do you want to talk about it now?" Sugarcoat kept drinking for a moment, possibly mulling over her answer. "I still don't know." Twilight almost cringed at that. "Well... Do you want to tell me more about what things are like on the other side of the portal?" she tried, in an attempt to get the conversation going in some direction. "There's a town, like I said. Pretty big. Lots of weird crystal buildings." "Oh! That must be the Crystal Empire," Twilight said. "Sunset has told me about it. It's interesting that a portal could lead there too." She gave a small giggle. "Thought I suppose it would make sense, Crystal Prep after all." Sugarcoat didn't even look at Twilight, instead drinking some more of her milkshake, and the other girl's smile slowly turned awkward. "So, um..." Twilight trailed off, drawing circles in the ground with a foot, trying to think about what more she could ask. "Why were you near Crystal Prep?" There was a faint, barely audible clink, as Sugarcoat's teeth closed in on the edge of the glass, and for the first time Twilight saw something she didn't recognise on the girl's face. "Why do you think I was there?" Sugarcoat half-yelled, half-asked a moment later, her tone rushed and annoyed. Twilight drew back slightly, frowning. "Sorry. Yeah, I suppose you would have reasons to visit, unlike me." Sugarcoat looked away, and said nothing for a bit. Then, wanting to take the conversation elsewhere, she spoke again. "I'm a unicorn on the other side." "Really? Well, I guess I don't have much to go by on what type of pony one should be," Twilight said. "So you can use magic there?" "I suppose so." Sugarcoat went back to staring in front of them, and took another sip. "I didn't try though. I wouldn't know where to start." Twilight adjusted her glasses. "Believe me, I know what that's like." "I got a lot of stares," Sugarcoat continued. "Mostly towards the thighs. I think it had to do with how I seemed to be the only horse without any symbols there." Twilight frowned as she heard that. "Sunset told me something about those. They're called cutie marks, I think. And I don't think it's normal for someone to not have one." She took out her phone and began to type a message to her girlfriend, asking for details. Sugarcoat finished the last of her milkshake. "I enjoyed being there." She turned towards Twilight. "Do you think I could go back?" > Post Possession > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's about you." Rarity frowned, confused. "Me? Did I do something wrong?" Then her expression turned to worry. "Is something plotting against me?" Twilight gave a nervous look behind herself, at the ponies trotting outside the shop window. "It's more complicated than that." Catching her intention, Rarity flipped the sign hanging from the door, and lowered the blinds. "Tell me." Twilight cleared her throat, moving to sit on the nearest chair. "It's about the other you," she explained. "The one in the human world." "Oh, goodness." Rarity moved to sit in front of Twilight. "Did something happen to her? Is she alright?" Twilight looked hesitant, and took a moment to swallow before continuing. "She's safe, right now, if that's what you mean. No accidents or serious physical harm. Not yet at least." She paused for a second, breathing in. "But she's not alright. And I need your help. She needs your help." Rarity leaned a little closer to Twilight. "I will do what I can, Twilight, that's not even a question. But will you please tell me what is the matter with her?" Twilight looked to the side. "You know that cupboard you keep under lock and key, the one where you store wine bottles and occasionally take one out for special occasions?" Rarity nodded. "I take it my human self shares my fine tastes in drinks." "She unfortunately doesn't share your moderation," Twilight replied. "Not as of late, at least." Rarity pursed her lips. "I know I went too far myself a few times when I was younger. A rather disgraceful display. And with such unrefined liquor, too." She shook herself out of her reminiscing. "But that is not the topic here. I believe what you're saying is that something has pushed her to drink? And how bad are things, currently?" Twilight chose to answer the second question first. "I only know what Sunset has told me, and she only knows what her and the others have been able to piece together. But as far as certainties go, from what their Sweetie Belle has said, she spent a whole late afternoon and evening drinking, to the point where she passed out still dressed on top of her bed at the end of it, without having dinner. As far as what else she might have done..." Twilight looked to the side again. "Yes?" "Well, you don't know what a car is, but... Imagine a cart, but faster, and made of metal. And imagine a bunch of those being driven around, and it's all like the traffic in Manehattan," Twilight explained. "Now imagine doing that while drunk." Before Rarity had a chance to freak out, she continued, "They're not actually sure she did it. Just that the keys were moved at some point. But in her current state, she might have." Rarity put a hoof to her forehead, frowning in worry as she looked down. "You want me to talk to her, right?" "The others don't know where to start. You know yourself better than anyone else." Twilight offered her a tentative smile. "And why is she like this?" Rarity asked, again. Twilight wanted to look away again, but forced herself not to. "There are things about the other Rarity you don't know. And there's a reason I haven't told you or others about them." She sighed. "This isn't only about you." > How Applejack got her #################################################################################################################################################################################################################################### Back > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack sat on the stone railing, looking at the lake in front of her and at the Moon and stars reflecting in it. She'd be moving again come Monday, but still had all of the weekend to prepare for that, and this time it would only be a short drive. She swallowed the last bits of her ice cream cone, balled up the paper napkin and placed it in her pocket after cleaning her mouth, then took out her phone. She was in a good mood, there and then. Good enough that she was willing to risk ruining it. Staring at the screen, she began to scroll through her unread messages. Nothing from Rarity. That was, in a small part, a relief. But it still did bother her, in some way. She knew the other girl wasn't doing well. Aside from that, a few messages in the group chat, a few pictures from Fluttershy, a few other direct messages from Rainbow and Twilight. Strangely enough for her, her mood was still up by the time she got done reading through all of them and responding. A thought wormed its way into her brain. Before she had time to think twice on it and change her mind, she tapped onto her screen and started a call, placing the phone next to her ear and waiting. Thankfully, the other picked up before any second thoughts could come make her close it. "Applejack?" came Twilight's voice from the other end of the conversation. "Hello?" "Hello, Twilight," Applejack replied. Her shoulders relaxed, letting go of a tension she hadn't realised was there. "How are things going there? I had a bit of time so I thought I would shoot you a call." "It's been a while since I heard you," Twilight said. "It's nice of you to call. Things here are going well enough, we're still looking for a new bass player." There was a subtle sound Applejack couldn't quite make out, accompanied by a pause in Twilight's speech. "Things are going well except for Rarity." If Twilight's first remark about her lack of calls had made her flinch, the latter mention of Rarity flat out pushed Applejack to bite her tongue. Of course the conversation would end up there. Still, she could delay it for a little while. "I'm sorry about leaving the band like this. I suppose I could record my portions here and send it to you girls." "No, it's okay. You're busy, and we need someone for live shows anyway." Twilight stayed quiet for a few moments. Both of them knew why. "And, besides, it's not a big deal that you left the band. We understand. And something like it might have been inevitable even without you having to leave, after you, well... You know." Applejack swallowed. She knew she'd have to have that talk at some point, no reason to run from it again. "How bad is she?" Twilight's breath on the other end of the line was heavy enough to hear. And Applejack forced herself to stay there and listen to her answer, as snow began to fall on the lake. > A Brief History of Terms: Coil > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even back when it first surfaced to the broader public, it was a hard, near impossible task to trace the proper origin of the term coil. The meaning was officialised when it had already spread and been used, in what really only served as recognition for the effective existence of it. Much like the public statement in which it was utilised served as little more than a formal acknowledgement of a phenomenon most of Equestria was becoming aware of by itself. The date of Princess Twilight's speech to the nation on the matter of coils was recorded, of course. So was the hour, and if one really wanted to they could determine the exact minute when the word was first spoken in an official context. But that would be a rather pointless endeavour, if perhaps an amusing one. Truth is, the matter of coils had by that point already been amply discussed elsewhere, the term widely accepted, and not one creature even paid mind to Twilight's use of it in her speech. The origin of words is indeed a very complicated matter in most cases, and much more fluid of a process than what many might assume. Especially when a term originates, as one could say, from below, from groups of creatures and their need to identify something, and not from above, imposed by an authority. To determine the origin of the word coil, in its post Arrival meaning, the best course of action is perhaps that of determining the time and place of appearance of the first coil itself. This, if anything, provides a window of time during which the term must have come into being. Unfortunately, not only is the topic of the first coil just barely less complex than that of the origin of the term, it is also less helpful than what one might hope. While it is agreed on by a rather sizable portion of those studying the phenomenon that Firecracker was the first to display the signs of one, they only later learned of the term, through contact with others who themselves had learned it from other sources, after other coils had been found and studied. Some claim it was Pinkie Pie who coined the term. Reports agree that, upon stumbling into Princess Twilight's castle while the latter was in the process of examining one, she claimed that was their name, and having nothing else to call them by everyone temporarily adopted that. Where disagreements arise is on whether she made the term up on the spot and it simply stuck, or if she herself had heard it elsewhere and it was this reaffirmation of its use that prompted Twilight and her assistants to keep it. It does not help matters that Pinkie might have used the term elsewhere before then, giving then the impression that it was indeed already in use. This does, however, at the least provide a date before which the term must have originated. Coupled with a rough estimate of when Firecracker's coil first manifested, the result is a three week period during which the word first gained its new meaning, alongside a rough geographical estimate of either Ponyville or the neighbouring areas, at most about a fifth of the country accounting for the potential spread of information. As for why the term was chosen though, no one has been able to provide a suitable explanation, leading much credence to the possibility that Pinkie Pie may have indeed come up with it herself. > Nightmare in Silver > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack walked through the frozen wasteland. Jagged spires of blue ice rose around her like trees in an orchard, catching what little light was there and twisting it. The ground was covered in snow, almost sand-like in the way it moved beneath her hooves. A soft, gentle breeze blew over her coat and through her mane. The sky was cloudy, a uniform curtain of grey blue nothingness. It should have felt cold. And by all means, it was cold. And she could tell it was cold. But it wasn't uncomfortable, for some reason. It felt cold, yes, but not colder than her own skin or body. And the snow wasn't wet, not as it usually would be. It didn't melt against her skin. Instead it stayed the same, and even as she tried to pick some up and breathe on it nothing changed. Even her breath, despite how cold the air was, was invisible, and breathing in didn't hurt as it should have. She tried looking around, searching for any sign of anything that wasn't ice or snow. But there was nothing else. Nothing more than the cold and frozen world surrounding her in all directions, as far as her eyes could see flat plains covered in snow where ice rose from the ground. Uncertain, Applejack kept walking around, wondering what else she could do. Suddenly, she felt something. Like a pull on one of her hooves, stopping her from lifting her leg. She immediately turned her head towards it, but couldn't see what was blocking her there, the base of her hoof buried in snow. Quickly she brought another hoof there to move away the snow and see what else was beneath it. But all she found was ice. Ice on the ground, ice beneath her hoof, and ice crawling up her hoof and enveloping it. She tried to pull again and saw how the ice kept its hold on her, and terrified she realised she could no longer feel anything in her hoof. As she desperately kept pulling, trying to think of a way out, her two other hooves were locked in place just as the first one had been, leaving only the still raised one she'd used to move the snow free of ice. And then, adding to her dread, the ice began to crawl up legs. She'd thought, at first, that she could no longer feel her hooves. But as ice spread higher along her limbs, she realised that was not the case. She could still feel her hooves and legs. Merely, they were different now. They weren't simply encased in ice. They were being turned to ice themselves. Suddenly she felt what she thought was a touch on her back. But turning towards it, she saw one of the pointed branches of the twisted trees of ice around her had extended, and was now piercing through her flesh, as ice spread through her body from there as well. Turning her head from side to side, all she could do was pant as more and more of her body turned to ice, both crawling up from the ground and from new spikes piercing through her. Until the ice reached her lungs, at least. Then her breathing became calm. Her throat was turned too, and she could no longer scream. And finally, her head was transformed, leaving her in darkness. Applejack slowly opened her eyes, seeing the Moon shining through her room's window. She remembered the nightmare, yet she felt nothing over it. > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The food was better than good. Of course, the days of eating rations on the road made it better, but even so Stone Brick was pretty confident that whatever he'd been served was the best thing he'd ever eaten. He still had no idea of what it actually was, but that didn't particularly interest him. He stepped out of the restaurant, once the two of them had paid, and turned towards Princess Twilight's castle. "Are we going there now?" he asked Soarin'. "I don't see why not." With a flap of his wings, the pegasus moved ahead of Stone, and once more began to lead the way through the town. The Sun was past its peak at that point, but not by much, and the streets were largely empty. A few ponies were still there, some waving at Soarin' as they saw him. But for the most part, creatures were inside their homes, either eating lunch or relaxing in the early afternoon. "I think I asked before too, but why exactly are you going to visit Princess Twilight?" Soarin' looked back over his shoulder at the other pony. Stone Brick bit the corner of his lips. "I have something I would like to show her. And questions I would like to ask." He hoped that would be enough to convince the pegasus, at least for the moment. Some part of him didn't want to make even a mention of his scale to anyone who wasn't Twilight, though he couldn't quite place where that intent was coming from. "Well, I hope it's something important. The Princess doesn't have much time to waste." Soarin' was about to say something else, but his eyes were caught by a familiar face turning the corner. "Hey! How's it going, Silver Spear?" The pony in question looked up at the two of them. "Soarin'! Things are alright, same as always. What about you?" he asked, walking towards them. He was a lightly built unicorn, his short mane a dark grey while his coat was a more light shade, like silver. He wore parts of a suit of light blue armor, clearly the same model as the Royal Guard. "Going well," Soarin' replied. "Was just taking this stallion here to see Princess Twilight. We had lunch at Sugarcube, you should try the day's special if you haven't eaten already." He shook the other stallion's hoof in a friendly gesture. "How's Lightning doing?" Silver huffed, rolling his eyes. "Same as always. Had to drag her to her house yesterday night too. But she's fine otherwise, she didn't seem too bad this morning." "So when are you gonna start hitting on her?" Soarin' asked, raising his eyebrows. "I can't hit on an intoxicated mare, Soar'. And besides, it's against protocol. I'm there to guard her, not to have sex with her." "Just ask her out when she's sober. It's out of your work hours anyway." Silver rolled his eyes again. Looking at Stone, he said, "Don't trust any type of relationship advice he gives you. Especially not when it involves mares." Soarin' gave an amused snort. "Well, I think she's missing out if she doesn't hit on you first. I know I would." "Then why don't you?" Soarin''s eyes suddenly nervously darted from side to side. "Right, the castle. Stone, we should get going. See you around, Silver." With that, he flew a fair bit forward, far faster than Stone could reasonably keep up with, then stopped just past a corner to wait for him. "Oh, I'll be seeing him alright," Silver said, passing by Stone's side. "Stone, was it? Enjoy your stay in Ponyville. Have a nice day." With a wave, he left, walking down the road. > If you don't mind, I'll sing a song > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It used to be a lullaby," the pony said, moments after he'd finished singing. "I always thought it was fitting here, but I hadn't had a chance to show it to anyone else yet." Twilight nodded. Her eyes wandered over the scenery, the red and empty hills of dust underneath the burning crimson sky and the scorched, blackened and consumed ruins of what had once been a city far off in the distance. "Was this your home world?" The stallion looked back at her. "It might have been. It might have not. I wouldn't tell you." He took a couple steps in her direction. "There are more practical reasons why I've brought you here. It's easier for me to send you back, and harder for you to track me." He reached Twilight, and stood in front of her. "Not that you would manage to find me anyway, but this should make it hard enough for you to decide against trying." Twilight held his gaze. The smugness wasn't lost on her, but she knew it was deserved, if slightly annoying. "How do you navigate them so easily?" she asked, not for the first time. Not for the first time, he answered, "Experience, and memory. And lots of time to get familiar with the system." He smirked. "Now, will you follow me back to Equestria?" Twilight stared towards the horizon, contemplating. "Is there anyone here?" He followed her eyes and turned towards what little was left of the city. "Not that I know of, but I haven't checked. Still, I doubt it." Twilight nodded once, then shook her head. Of course, there wasn't much of a point in trying to look for survivors there and then, and he'd known that too when he'd chosen where to take her. She turned back to him. Still... The look in Twilight's eyes gave away her intentions before her mouth had a chance to speak them, and he cut her off right as she was about to talk again. "No." Twilight pursed her lips. "But it would be the right thing to do." That just got him to shake his head and chuckle. "Honestly, I don't think there's anything right in this whole ordeal. But the point is, Twilight, that you have your own world to take care of. It's not your responsibility to help those living in other universes, and it shouldn't be." "I choose who I want and don't want to help," Twilight replied. "I've been to different worlds and helped people there before. I won't stop just because you told me to." "You need to draw a line, Twilight, or time will draw it for you." He stared at her again. "Where will you stop? Because I've seen a lot out here, and you're a smart mare, and we both know you can't get to the end, should there even be one. You can't save everyone. You can't even save most. There will always be more things to do than you have time for. So I suggest you spend that time on the world you're closest to, and accept that you can't save the rest. Otherwise, you risk losing everything instead." > In Tenebris > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The unicorn marched up and down the length of the laboratory, the click of his steps against the stone pavement echoing around the room in a nervous, frenzied rhythm. "Are you sure about this?" his companion asked, as she herself sat at a table and clutched an empty beaker in her hoof just to have something to hold on to. Her body slightly twitched every few seconds, the tension inside her trying to push its way out. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to her, his eyes wide and his pupils shrunk to the size of needle holes. "I have never been less sure about anything in my life," he stated, in what sounded closer to a dam breaking than to a pony speaking. "The only thing I know for sure is that if this doesn't go well then we're both going to die a slow painful horrible death, probably at each other's hooves. Is there anything you'd like to say to me before we go out there and sign our death sentences?" The beaker in her hoof seemed threateningly close to cracking, but still managed to remain intact. "I think we signed our death sentences when we came to work here, Star'." "We didn't have a choice there. The alternative, I'll remind you, was death. You don't disobey an order from Her Majesty." He sat down, pushing his back against the wall. "I guess you could argue she signed our sentences for us. We never really had a say in all this. We're only allowed to do what she's okay with us doing." "When you think about it, everyone signs their death sentence the cycle they are born. That's how life works. Or something." She tried for a smile, and ended up with something decently close to it. "Except for her I guess. Fuck." The other gave a resigned, almost accepting sigh. "Well. Time to go. Been nice knowing you, Sunlight." He got up, and began to march towards the door. The other unicorn set the beaker down, and stood up as well. "I told you, don't call me Sunlight." She stepped to his side, in front of the door. "Also, same." "Sure thing, Sunlight." With a flick of his horn, he opened the door and walked into the next room. There, behind a curtain of glass, a stallion lay strapped to a table, a worried but determined smile on his face. The two unicorns looked at each other, then the mare lit her horn and spoke to the pony on the table. "We will begin now. I will warn you, this is going to hurt." He said something in response, probably about doing it for the glory of Her Majesty or some other honorable idiocy the soldiers were brainwashed with. It was a bit of a shame they couldn't hear him, but they both knew they'd be grateful for that once the screams began. The male unicorn swallowed, readying his spell. "All clear?" he asked to his partner. "All clear." She nodded. Closing his eyes, the unicorn flared his magic, and the machine on the other side of the glass hummed to life. > 5% > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A dark, deep black crystal descended from the ceiling, at the tip of a metallic arm that positioned itself through the clicking gears at the junctions of its different sections. Behind the glass the unicorns watched, slight tremors wracking their bodies and expressions. The stallion on the table still looked determined, yet his expression couldn't help but falter whenever he looked at the unicorns'. But he knew it would be safe. It had to be. He had been chosen for that role by Nightmare Moon herself, and there was no reason to hesitate. No reason to ever go against her will. The crystal came down onto his chest, like an hammer and a nail onto a plank of wood, and no amount of loyalty or training or brainwashing could stop the scream. Beyond the glass, the male unicorn lowered his gaze, refusing to watch the stallion's face. But the other kept her eyes on him. Somebody had to, after all. Thick black protrusions began to appear on the pony's chest, expanding outward from where the crystal lay halfway into his body. They were much like veins, only far larger, and not belonging to his old body. Like roots of something else slowly forcing itself on him, snakes crawling beneath his skin and through his flesh. His face was distorted by agony, his eyes shot with blood and his pupils shrunk to the tiniest size. He shook, violently, but the straps around his limbs and torso held him down. Whether he was still screaming or he'd run out of air for it was a question that crossed the unicorns' mind, if not one they wanted an answer to. If anything though, he was at least still alive. Clearly, as a trained soldier, he was robust enough to take it up to that point. The surface of his body began to shift. His hair grew darker, until it was a deep blue that could barely be told apart from black. It started in different patches at first, but soon his whole body had changed colour. His eyes were blood red at that point, dozens of vessels popping in them, and his teeth grew sharper and misshapen as they pushed against each other in a mouth too small for all of them. The female unicorn clenched her jaw. She knew what would come next, and knew no subject had ever made it past that point. On the other side of the glass bubbles began to form on the stallion's skin, some small as an ant while others bigger than an eye. It was as if his own skin and flesh and hair had turned to tar, slowly melting as it enveloped him. The shaking continued. The male unicorn finally looked up again, knowing the time had come, knowing from that moment onwards he would be a dead pony walking. And he watched, slack-jawed and breathless, as the bubbling on the stallion's skin stopped and the almost fluid mass around him seemed to revert in its melting process, growing stable. The pony's limbs and body began to expand and shift. His torso shot up, burying the crystal all the way in, while his restraints snapped. Bones split and shifted in his legs as muscles wove themselves around them in new patterns, thick and outlined by the almost lucid layer of his hairless skin. His hooves broke into chunks and grew sharper, claws at the end of four-digit paws that looked more like swords than anything an animal should have. His jaw and mouth grew wider and longer, a myriad of sharp fangs now finally free to position themselves in it. His pupils turned to slits inside red irises, below the prominent brow of his elongated face. Pushing the machine atop him aside, bending it and snapping a few cogs in the process, he stood and turned towards the glass window. On his forehead was a small perpendicular ridge of bone, just as blue-black as the rest of his body, and two similar but longer ones flanked his spine. On his chest what looked like a tangle of vines just below his skin, its many ends stretching towards the rest of his body and growing thinner and deeper as they did. A wild tuft of blue fur, more akin to smoke in its apparent consistency, had replaced what used to be his mane, and a similar one began at the middle point of his otherwise barren tail. The creature stood on all fours, his arms now longer and thicker than his hind legs and his back slightly curved as a result. There was no trace left of the crystal used, not on him or on the machine. He stared at the unicorns with his red eyes, his expression impossible to read for them. His breath was regular, if a little heavy, his nostrils slits at the front of his face that flared open and closed in sync with his chest's motions. The male unicorn pressed his face against the glass as he stared at the result of their experiment, the full weight of the events finally crashing down on him, while to his side his female companion sat frozen on the ground and felt the same. And they both looked at the creature's eyes, as the creature looked back. "What have we done?" > Love as a Construct > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door to room eight-thirteen stood in front of Chrysalis, no different from the many other doors flanking the empty corridor. She grit her teeth in anticipation, prepared to shed her disguise and unleash a torrent of magic at the first sign of danger. She shouldn't have been afraid, and she hated the fact that she was. But she couldn't help it. Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself there was nothing to be nervous about. Whoever was inside that room had made a huge mistake if they thought they could take her own. She placed a hoof on the knob and opened the door, stepping through. The door closed behind her with a click. The room was dark, but in the darkness she could make out a shape, the silhouette of something that was unmistakably a pony staring at her from the furthest corner. And it was a familiar shape indeed. "You," Chrysalis growled out, halfway surprised and halfway afraid. Then her eyes adjusted to the low light of the room a bit better, and the pony stepped forward, and both her shock and her concern grew. "No," she whispered. "You?" The mare stopped in the middle of the room. "Hello, Chrysalis. How have you been?" she asked, her tone cold. The darkness around her made it almost impossible to notice the few things that set her apart from the pony she so closely resembled, but Chrysalis couldn't mistake the expression on her face. "Or perhaps I should call you mother?" She smirked. "As for me? Well, I've been really busy being dead. You know, after Harmony murdered me. You'd know about it, you were watching after all. Though that's not a concern anymore, as you can see." Chrysalis's disguise dropped and magic flared bright around her horn as she hissed at Twilight's clone, rage blazing in her eyes. But she didn't fire any spells, and her hissing died down to a low grumbling after a few moments of complete lack of reactions from the other. She stared at her through her slit pupils, wings tense on her back. "What do you want?" she barked at the alicorn. The mare smiled at that. "Your help," she simply answered. "As if I would ever help you after you betrayed me once!" Twilight's clone rolled her eyes at that. "Chrissy, please. Have you considered that, if all your children end up betraying you, that might mean you're a terrible parent?" She chuckled at that, then continued, "But honestly, do you think I would trust you? I never said you have to do this willingly. I was thinking more about having you obey my orders. "And don't look at me like that. I know what you're thinking right now." She smirked again. "Think about your options, Chrysalis. I beat you once already, and you were stronger then than you are now. No one is going to help you if you try to run away. You don't have a choice here, unless you want to find out what happens when your enemies aren't as merciful as Equestria's leaders." Chrysalis swallowed. There wasn't a single word of what the alicorn had said that she didn't hate from the core of her being, and the remarks about the other changelings' betrayal made her want nothing more than to lunge at the mare and shut her mouth forever. But she was smart enough to recognise that the overgrown log had a point, even if doing that alone was almost enough to make her throw up. The magic in her horn died down. "What do you want?" > Hall of the Mountain Queen > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stallion blinked. "Hello," he said. The alicorn, confused, looked between him and the section of previously crumbled wall that had inexplicably opened up and allowed him access to the cave. "How did you get in?" The stallion appeared puzzled by her question. "Well, I stepped in through that hole over there." He turned to point towards the direction he'd come from. That did nothing to alter the alicorn's confused expression. "How did you get the rocks to move like that? I didn't see any magic." "Oh. Well, I just pressed the button that was there on the wall." He kept looking at her, still smiling. The mare refrained from asking what he actually meant by that, convinced whatever answer he could give would not help her understand. Swearing to check on the wall later, she asked instead, "What do you want?" "Hmm." The stallion put a hoof to his chin, thoughtfully chewing on nothing. "I could go for some soup right now." The alicorn's mouth sat half-opened for a moment, while she kept staring at him just as bewildered as she'd been when he'd first stepped in there. "What do you want here?" she tried again, making the meaning of her question clearer. "Oh. Oh, well, nothing. Really, I just wanted to get in." He looked back to the entrance once more. "I like puzzles. That was a fun puzzle. Do you like puzzles?" The other brushed aside the question. She had more of her own to ask first. "How did you even find this place?" The stallion was silent for a moment, still smiling. "I have no idea." A few more seconds of silence. "Do you know the way back to the nearest city?" "Yeah." The mare wondered why she'd actually answered that. Shaking her head, she moved on to the next pressing issue. "Do you not recognise me?" The stallion blinked, then tilted his head. "You're a pony?" "...Yes. Anything else about me that sticks out as recognisable?" "You're an alicorn." Silence stretched on, and the mare continued to be more confused than she'd ever been. "...And?" The stallion clicked his tongue. "You're purple?" The faintest twitch moved the mare's right eyelid. "Do I not look like Princess Twilight Sparkle?" "Oh." The stallion stared at her a little bit longer. "You do." The alicorn's mouth clicked wordlessly, teeth hitting each other just a little faster than normal. "So you can see that I am Princess Twilight." "I don't know. I've never met her." He leaned forward, curving his brow as he got a better look at her. "Isn't she a little less grey than you ar-" Twilight's clone closed his mouth with her magic and held it shut. "You know, never mind. Let me just take you outside and point you towards the nearest town." She enveloped him in her magic and began to walk towards the new entrance he'd created. "Thank you," the stallion tried to say, though it came out muffled and barely intelligible. He let himself get carried outside without resistance, going almost limp in the alicorn's magic's hold. > Constructivismysm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh! Can we stop here? I saw a thing over there, can we go check that out?" The stallion pointed a hoof towards a very small clearing in the trees, bouncing up and down on his other legs as he looked towards the alicorn, excitement evident on his face. Twilight's less colourful imitation rolled her eyes. She didn't want to entertain the stallion's doubtlessly nonsensical request, but she knew well she wouldn't hear the end of it for the whole rest of the trip if she didn't. Begrudgingly, she began to walk towards the designated spot. "Okay. What is it?" Truth be told, she was tempted to shoot the pony in the back and leave him there. But she wanted to avoid the risk of someone coming to look for him and stumbling into her hideout. She'd need to move out of it at some point, she'd always known that, and it looked like the time had come. She would have been working on preparing her things right that moment if she hadn't been forced to walk with the stallion all the way back to the town. She'd tried to give him directions, of course, and he'd even tried to follow them, but in no more than ten minutes he'd always turned up back where he'd started, lost again and once more asking for guidance. "It's a puzzle!" the stallion replied, moving some leaves out of the way and staring intently at the wooden stump sitting in the middle of the small patch of grass. "I like puzzles. You still haven't told me if you like puzzles. Scarlet likes puzzles, but she says I've gone crazy. I haven't gone crazy. You don't think I'm crazy, right?" Eyeing the off-size mare-model clothes the stallion wore, which she'd gotten a better look at after taking him out of the cave, the mare chose not to answer that question. "How exactly is this a puzzle?" she asked, seeing him fidget with a few pebbles on the ground and a tuft of grass slightly taller than the rest. "Well, this is a lever, as you can see." He tugged onto the grass. "Then there are these buttons here." He tapped the pebbles. "All I need to do is figure out the right combination I need to press, and then it should open. You can clearly see the cables leading to that cut off tree there in the middle." Twilight's clone reconsidered the idea of actually ending the pony's life, or at least knocking him unconscious and dragging him back to the town. Her patience past its limit, she was about to point out how nothing of what he was saying made any sense, but a sudden cheer from him blocked her. Then came a click, and the tree stump in the middle of the clearing opened up as a small platform rose from it, a bowl on top of it. "Oh, nice. Soup." The stallion walked towards the bowl and gave a few experimental licks to the contents. "It's still warm, and really good. Do you want some soup?" > Equine Existence > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know you're there. I know you're hearing this, or seeing it, or reading it, or experiencing it in some way. I know you are aware of it. That is about the extent of what I know. I don't know who you are, or what your world is like. I can't even begin to imagine how the laws of physics might function there, if they even exist in some form. I don't know what your goals or interests are, if you're experiencing this for a reason or merely by chance, if you do it for a purpose or merely for entertainment, I don't know if you even have concepts of purpose or entertainment. I have my guesses as to what or who you might be, and I suspect something akin to myself might exist there where you live, or more properly exist, perhaps. But the truth is I can't be certain. Not of how many are actually there to receive this message, not of when this message will arrive, not even whether or not some might understand it. But I know someone is there, and it's my duty to try to communicate. There are a few things I need to tell you. First, do not interfere. I don't know if it would be in your powers to do so, but I have seen the consequences of an outside intervention on our timeline. It is not something we can afford to risk. Twice over we've had to branch from the original path to fix mistakes, and both those were from creatures inside our universe, if ones related to the outside. That's without taking into account the damage the fabric of our reality might sustain if you tried to reach it, which could be quite catastrophic after all the tears already torn in it. Second, and I hope you won't need this advice, be prepared for a potential essence crash on one of your own. If there is anyone, anything that you recognise as a mirror of our world in yours, please have a plan ready. As a last resort, we might need to initiate an emergency transfer on some pieces of our reality, and yours will be the target. I apologise for this, and for any damage this might cause should things come to it, but the damage we'd avoid in our world would be far greater than the one brought onto yours as a result. I deemed it a fair trade, if only in desperate circumstances. Third, learn. This concerns the safety of your world more than my own. There are realities I can no longer save, but yours is not one of them. So I want you to study what you're receiving. Take every bit of information you can. I know the communication is jumbled, but try to piece it back together. Because what happened to my world might happen to yours too, and you will want to be prepared. And maybe, I can hope at least, if the transmission is the right way out of order, if we ever do figure it out, you might be able to avoid disaster completely. Lastly, remember that it's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer. This is important. You'll understand if the time comes. That's all I have time for. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What exactly was up with that last chapter?" Rainbow Dash asked, adjusting her sunglasses and shifting in her sunlounger to lie more comfortably on it. "Honestly? Probably just the writer trying to get artsy." Twilight took a sip from her drink, lying prone on her towel. The Sun slowly moved closer to the horizon, not yet reaching sunset but already colouring the sky and ocean with tinges of orange and red. "What was half of that even supposed to mean? It all sounded like jargon." Rainbow pushed a particularly daring crab off of herself with a wing. "It probably was," Twilight answered. "Oh well. I've messed with time before, and there haven't been any noticeable consequences." Rainbow placed her hooves behind her neck, trying to relax. Removing a small emerald from her mouth, Rarity trotted back to her own towel. "Discussing the newest chapter? I haven't actually read it yet." She gave a brief look around. "It seems I have left my tablet inside." "Just use mine." Fluttershy held out her tablet for the unicorn to grab, then went back to focusing on her seashells collection. Pinkie looked in her direction. "Did you find anything I could use here?" She tapped the vaguely elephant-like sand sculpture in front of her, then immediately moved to hold it as it shook a little. Fluttershy paused for a moment. "Sorry, I don't think I have. I can try looking for some long ones for the tusks if you want." Pinkie shrugged. "Don't stress about it." She picked up a cupcake from the tray she kept nearby and popped it into her mouth. Twilight picked up a gumball from the tall pile at her side and began to chew on it. "Huh." Rarity set Fluttershy's tablet back down. "That was indeed odd. Do you think it's meant to be meta or is it an in-universe sort of thing?" "If it wasn't meant to be meta then he did a really poor job at it," Twilight said between chews. "Because it reads meta. And it's not like we've seen examples of someone who could be reading that in the story." "Oh, well. At least elsewhere the plot seems to be moving." Rarity lay down on her back. "And completely still in other places," Twilight replied. "Still waiting on the next update for that cracks world." Rarity bit the corner of her lips. "It is admittedly a lot he's trying to juggle. And some of it does feel, well..." "Useless fluff?" Twilight looked at Rarity. The unicorn gave a guilty half-nod. "Can you excuse me for a moment?" Applejack asked, standing up. "I have a thing I need to check on." "Oh, sure." Twilight just smiled at her, and then went back to chatting with the others. Applejack walked away from the group, up until she reached a tall enough rock to hide her entirely. Stepping behind it, she had a look around, to make sure no one else was close. A bit hesitant, she cleared her throat. "Fuck?" she said. Then she looked around again, suspicious and confused, her eyes searching for something she couldn't find. > Anticipation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are the chains too tight?" "They are not, Princess," Celestia answered. And immediately she regretted having said so, as Twilight pulled them tighter. "Very well." The purple alicorn sat down at Celestia's side, as both stared into the opaque mirror placed against the wall, waiting. "You know," she said, "there's a universe out there where we're ants. There probably is, at least." "Fascinating." Celestia squirmed just a tiny bit, as much as her bonds allowed her to. "And what type of ants do you believe we would be, Princess?" Twilight adjusted her crown. "Well, given my position I would presumably be the queen." Celestia looked a little taken aback by that. "Given I was princess long before you, shouldn't I be the queen?" Twilight threw a glance at Celestia's cutie mark. "They do have rather large behinds, so perhaps you're right." She went back to staring ahead. "Then again, they also possess shorter life spans. Perhaps we would exist as multiple different ants, and in time the ones who correspond to me would become queens." "Or perhaps time in that universe would stretch out to mirror that of our own." Twilight tilted her head. "Perhaps. That doesn't seem to be the case with the human world though. There is a version of you there as well, and I wonder why she exists now." Celestia silently chewed on that question for a bit. "Aren't all ants in a colony technically sisters or at least half sisters, and all daughters of the queen?" Twilight looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Technically, I suppose." "The only kind of sex they could have between each other is incest then." Celestia nodded. "That's kinky." "That is kinky," Twilight agreed. "However, regular ants don't have sex with each other." "But we wouldn't be regular ants if we were ants. We'd probably be sapient," Celestia replied. "Maybe in some universes. In others we'd just be regular ants." "How could it even be us then, without a mind of our own to distinguish us from other individuals?" asked Celestia. Twilight sighed. "Merely connected by a thread across worlds, perhaps. Merely reflections of the same higher entity onto different planes." "And we've established I would be a queen and you a regular ant in some of those iterations." Celestia looked at her. "We have." "Then you would be my daughter, and sex between us would be incest." Twilight blinked. "Did you know there is a specific type of ant, within a colony, in some species at least, that will swallow large quantities of nutrients and bloat her insides with them, then lay waiting in a designated area and serve as a food reserve for other ants by regurgitating food into their mouths when they come to her?" "I believe I have read about this, yes. This, as well, is very kinky, but it does not interest me as greatly as the previous topic." "I share in that feeling of recognising the kinkiness of this fact but not being as interested by it as I am by the thought of incestuous mother and daughter copulation between me and you as ants." > Southern Cross > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's been a while." Standing in the remains of what had once been her throne room, Twilight looked out from the torn wall. Har eyes ran over the scar the Behemoth had left in the city, still not healed, then settled onto the translucent form of the creature itself. She wore a coat of brown fur, thick over her back and shoulders, and still she was shivering underneath it. She knew the cold was inside her, but the coat did help somewhat. She stared a moment longer at the creature, her expression unreadable, then turned to her side. "Any doubts left?" "None," came the answer. "I believe you'll want to read what I found then." "Certainly so." Twilight's eyes went back to the Behemoth, then she looked higher and higher, as high as she could. Still, she couldn't spot him, either he was too far or the creature's body hid him. "I need answers, and I'm not even sure what the right questions are." Then she sighed. "Be careful, here. Don't fly into its shadow." Stepping forward, she opened her wings and took flight, soaring over the gardens now overrun with weeds and back to the still inhabited portions of the city. Sunburst greeted them with a wave as they landed. "I had some food prepared. I don't trust things wouldn't freak out if I did it the other way while he's nearby." He threw a glance at Twilight's companion. Then he took off her coat, shaking away the layer of frost that had built up on it, and opened the door to the nearest building, welcoming the two of them inside. As the stallion went to hang the coat near the fireplace to dry it off, Twilight stepped through the door. Lightning Dust gave a nod in her direction from the table, and so did Starswirl from the corner. "Where's Rose?" the alicorn asked, taking a seat in front of the pegasus. "She's out, taking some samples of local flora," Sunburst replied. "She should be back in a few minutes." As the rest of those present moved to sit at the table, he placed six wooden bowls and spoons on it, then unhooked the metal pot hanging over the fire and began to pour soup in each bowl. Twilight slid a little to the side on the bench, to let Starswirl have more space to sit on. Lightning was directly in front of her, Sunburst to the pegasus' right, and Rose would take the last remaining space in the corner, at Twilight's right and on the side opposite to her. Sunburst took a first sip of soup with his spoon, blowing gently on it to cool it down. "Should we wait for Rose to be back before we start with the explanation?" He looked at the corner opposite from his, to the occupied space right next to Twilight. Twilight pondered that, eating a spoonful of soup herself. "I don't believe that will be necessary." She turned to her right. "Please, begin." > You just keep on trying > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tempest sat in the garden, in the shade of a tree, a book open in her hooves. Flipping a page, without looking up, she said, "Hello, Twilight." "Hi." Twilight set a water bottle besides Tempest's chair, then sat down in front of her. "How are you feeling today?" "Well enough." Tempest didn't stop looking at the book, but she did pick up the bottle and drink some. "They say I might be dismissed soon. Relatively soon, which still means a couple of weeks." Twilight nodded. "That is nice. What are you reading?" "Anatomy." Tempest tilted the book to show Twilight the cover. She turned another page. "It's quite fascinating. Could be quite useful for fighting, too." Twilight chuckled, then sighed. "I don't think you should be doing any fighting in your conditions. Not while your hind legs still aren't working right." "I assure you, Twilight, my hind legs work perfectly well at this point." Tempest took another sip of water. "They just don't do so consistently." For the first time she took her eyes off the book and looked towards the trunk of the tree. "I do have that with me, in case they give out all of a sudden." She nodded towards a small metal harness with wheels and a net to support her lower half. "But it's been happening less and less lately. It should stop being a problem in time." "I see." Twilight had a look at the tree, as if suddenly distracted by it, then returned her attention on Tempest. "That's not why you're reading that book though, is it?" Tempest bit the corner of her lower lip, silent. She turned another page. "How is it?" Twilight asked. "It's..." Tempest sighed, then bit down on her teeth as she swallowed. "It's not bad, right now. It doesn't hurt anymore. It just feels odd. Alien. I'm not used to it." She finally looked at Twilight. "But I think I can live with it. It's not... It's not as big of a deal for me as it could be for someone else. I can't imagine how much Rarity would be freaking out over this. But I never particularly cared for that kind of stuff, and I think things will still be like that." She looked back at the book. "Hormones might be a problem to deal with, though. I've talked about it with the doctors. I'll have to decide if I want to deal with the consequences of this or with having to stop them." "I understand." Twilight stepped closer to Tempest, and placed a hoof on the unicorn's shoulder. "Whatever you choose, I'm your friend, and I will be here for you." Tempest smiled. "Thank you." She turned a page. "Oh. I brought you something." Twilight's horn lit, and a large orange levitated out of the saddlebags she'd left on the ground. Moving her gaze away from the page, Tempest looked at the orange like one looks at water after walking through a desert. "Thank you," she whispered, grabbing it from the alicorn's magic with her hooves. And then Twilight had to remove Tempest's book from her legs, before the unicorn drenched it in orange juice as she dove into the fruit. > K~tt~nm~~s > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic flames swept over Chrysalis's body as she donned her previous disguise once more, then she stepped out of room eight-thirteen and gave a look around. "Are you coming?" she asked, turning her head back to the pony still inside. Twilight's clone walked into the corridor and shut the door behind herself. She gave a look around as well, then motioned for Chrysalis to follow her, beginning to head towards the stairs. Somewhat surprised, Chrysalis started to walk behind her. "No disguise spells?" she asked in her altered voice. "Twilight Sparkle is not exactly the kind of pony that can pass unnoticed." The alicorn smirked at those words. "Don't worry about it, Chrissy. I've picked up a few tricks of my own." As she said that, they turned a corner, and a couple of other ponies passed beside them and continued along their way. Chrysalis followed them with her gaze for a moment, then focused on the alicorn once again. "Don't call me Chrissy," she hissed under her breath, despite knowing she couldn't stop the other from doing it. Wanting to divert the conversation before she was reminded of that fact, she asked, "What should I call you, anyway?" "Hmm." Twilight's clone stopped in front of a door, and her horn lit up as she began to fidget with the lock with her magic. "I could always call you mommy if Chrissy doesn't suit your tastes. As for what you should call me, I was thinking about Mistress. It might get you a few looks in public, but I doubt anyone will ask questions." The door opened in front of her. Chrysalis growled between grit teeth, as she watched the alicorn walk into the room. "You wouldn't dare." Taking a look around to make sure no one else was near, she walked behind Twilight's clone, and closed the door behind the two of them. "Oh, believe me, I would. But I don't think I will, not yet at least." The alicorn drew the curtains open, letting light flood into the room. "I think my title should be Princess, for the time being. I'm the copy of one and the daughter of a queen, after all. I'll switch to Empress when the time comes." Chrysalis was barely listening to her, too busy having a look at the room around them. It was clearly set up as a laboratory of some kind, though she couldn't tell what over half of the equipment in it was there for. But it all looked surprisingly advanced, especially for something built in secret in a hotel room. The alicorn must have had some way to store and move the whole thing, the changeling thought. "I don't want to go by Twilight," Twilight's clone continued, ignoring Chrysalis's reaction to the room. "I don't see why I would want to call myself after something inferior. No, I deserve a name fit for a real ruler. And I think Empress Stellaria has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you agree?" > Clockworkkkkk > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How did you do that?" The stallion took another sip of soup. "Are you sure you don't want any?" Twilight's clone stared at him. "How did you do that?" she asked again, louder. "Well, I just solved the puzzle." Another sip. "Are you really sure you don't want some? There's not much left." The alicorn levitated a small sphere of fluid from the bowl to her mouth and swallowed it. It tasted remarkably good. "What do you mean?" "Well, when you empty the bowl-" "The other thing." She just barely didn't yell that. "What puzzle? How did it work?" "I already told you." The stallion began to lick away the last traces of soup from the bowl. "There was that lever, and the buttons, and-" His mouth was shut closed by Twilight's clone's magic. The alicorn turned to the space between the stump of wood and the pebbles. A wave of energy pulsed out from her horn and washed over the clearing. Her eyebrows twitched. Her telekinesis tore holes and trenches in the ground. She ripped the grass away, she levitated the pebbles, she moved away sod after sod with increasingly frantic and violent jerks of her magic. Gritting her teeth she turned back towards the stallion, lifted him and the bowl away from the ground, then eradicated the tree stump and stared first at its roots, then at the hole it had left. Then she growled and shoved everything back where she'd lifted it from, and moved to plant her head against the trunk of the nearest tree. The stallion finished his soup, and then approached the sulking alicorn. "Are you okay?" he asked her, walking to her side and looking with worry at the way her horn dug into the bark of the tree. "No," answered the other in a low, raspy tone. "No, I am not okay right now." The stallion gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Is there anything I can do?" "Stab your neck on a branch so I can take apart your body to study you and put you back together without anyone noticing I did it." The stallion looked perplexed for a moment. Then he smiled and chuckled. "Oh, it was a joke. I like jokes. I get jokes, yes. I don't make jokes often but I get humour. I understand it. It was an entertaining joke." Twilight's clone had to resist the desire to rip the tree she was leaning against from its roots and impale the stallion herself. "How?" she asked, more of a hiss than anything else. "None of it makes any sense. How did you do that? How did you get it to work?" She turned towards the stallion, barking in his face. "How did you get the stump to open up like that? Where did the bowl and the soup even come from? How?" The stallion blinked once, his expression serene. "I solved the puzzle." Twilight's clone screamed her rage towards the sky, startling quite a few birds in the area. > Burst > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst walked through the store, a basket held in his magic, passing through the shelves and pondering what else he might buy. He looked a few oranges over in his magic, then chose one and placed it in the basket. Setting the rest down, he turned a corner. "Hello," said an oddly familiar voice. The unicorn was confused for a moment, seeing no one around. Then his eyes moved up, and he noticed a mare lying prone on top of a shelf, looking down at him. Her coat was a deep, near-blue purple, and her horn jutted out on her forehead framed by her wild, short and messy dark orange mane. "Hello?" Sunburst tentatively replied, still confused if for different reasons. The female unicorn jumped down to land in front of him. "I'm Starshine Flicker," she said, posing to show off her cutie mark. It was a spiraling pattern of white stars, with five distinct arms all converging towards the centre. It took Sunburst a moment to realise why the name sounded familiar. Then he remembered the mare on the train, days before. The pony in front of him did have her exact same cutie mark, and the same voice as well as far as his memory told him. Still, she was unmistakably different. "Starshine?" he asked, perplexed. "It's me! Don't you remember, the train and the book?" She walked up to him with cheery steps and had a look inside the basket at his side. "I do," Sunburst replied. Suddenly growing suspicious, he added, "I remember you appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared into thin air. And your coat and mane didn't look like that." "Oh, right, I'm sorry about the whole disappearing thing." She turned back towards him. "Want me to help you carry this?" she asked, tapping the basket. Sunburst tilted his head to the side. "Um... Sure? Sure." He studied the unicorn as she took hold of the basket in her own magic and had a look around the place. "What exactly do you want?" he asked her. "Oh, I just want to help you. You know, spend some time together, have fun, enjoy ourselves. I think you deserve some relaxation." She turned around, basket held in her magic, tail hiked up and to a side, and looked left and right again. "Where are we going next? Is there anything else you need to buy?" Sunburst was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "No, nothing more. I was just having one last look around, but I've got everything I need and some more. I was about to go to the cashier." "Very well then." Starshine began to walk, rocking her hips as she did, while Sunburst walked behind her. But she stopped as she passed beside a shelf, glancing at the contents of the basket. "Do you want some chocolate?" she asked, turning her neck to look at Sunburst. "I'll pay for it. Consider it a present, and an apology for last time." Sunburst looked at her for a moment, his mouth half open, unsure of what to say. "Okay," he finally answered. "Thank you." Smiling, Starshine added a chocolate bar from the shelf to the basket, then went back to walking towards check-out, tail still hiked and moved to the side, hips still rocking and swishing with each step. > Yes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine sat at the table, sipping on a chocolate milkshake, lightly swaying from side to side as she stared at Sunburst. "So, any plans for the day?" she asked. "Not really. I have a meeting tomorrow, but I'm mostly free today. I was thinking about maybe doing some research, I have a few books I'd like to get through." Sunburst dug into his ice-cream with his spoon and brought the contents to his lips. "Thank you for paying for this, by the way." "Think nothing of it." In her swaying, Starshine's hind legs began to brush back and forth against Sunburst's. "I wouldn't mind spending some time with you while you read. You could even teach me about what you're studying. You know, to make up for the train ride." She smirked at him. "I can put on my schoolfilly outfit if you want." Sunburst's teeth clacked against the teaspoon as he closed his lips around it, then he swallowed and pulled it out of his mouth. "You have a schoolfilly outfit ready to go here?" he asked, adjusting his glasses. Starshine nodded. "I keep it prepared, it might always be useful. I have a few more outfits ready too. Want to hear about them?" Her legs brushed just a tiny bit higher on the inside of Sunburst's with each sway. "No, I don't think I'm interested right now." Sunburst ate another spoonful of ice-cream, and eyed the way a line of milkshake escaped the corner of Starshine's mouth and rolled down her cheek, then down her chest, disappearing beneath the table. "Why exactly do you have them, anyway? Is it part of your job or something?" "You could say that, I suppose." Starshine smiled. "They're there for you to enjoy. Just like I am." Her legs moved higher still on Sunburst's inner thighs. "I'd love to make you enjoy our time together." She took another long sip of her milkshake, then licked her lips clean. And then she looked straight at him with an almost flat smile, and casually said, "Or we could just have sex I guess." Sunburst stopped halfway through sliding the spoon out of his mouth, then he resumed doing so after a moment, his expression unchanged. "No, I don't think we will." He sunk his spoon in the ice-cream and brought it back to his lips again. Starshine appeared mildly displeased by that. She took another sip of her milkshake, now almost finished, and kept rubbing her hind hooves against Sunburt's inner thighs. "But why not?" "You're an almost complete stranger who I've only met two times, during both of which you acted in extremely suspicious ways, your appearance is completely different from the last time I saw you, I have no idea who you really are, and everything nice you've done for me was very clearly an attempt to get me to have sex with you. I have no reason to trust you." He ate another spoonful of ice-cream. "Also, I'm sort of in a relationship already." "Yeah, but you would like to have sex with me." Sunburst opened his mouth to reply, then closed it for a moment. "Well, yeah, I can't deny that. But that doesn't mean I will." > MtS > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst set his book and his glasses down on the nightstand, pulled the covers up a little and then turned off the light. He'd spent the afternoon and evening reading, as he'd said he would, after Starshine had disappeared. Literally disappeared. The moment they'd left the ice-cream shop she'd just stopped being there, and he hadn't seen her again for the whole rest of the day. Rolling around a bit, he laid his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes. Suddenly he felt a shifting near him on the bed, the mattress curving under the weight of something, the covers being pulled a little. "Hello," said a distressingly familiar voice right in front of him, "I'm Starshine Flicker." Sunburst almost jumped out of the bed as he heard her, and shortly after decided it was still a good idea to leave it. He turned on the light again and stood up, staring at the mare as he put his glasses back on. "How did you get in?" he asked, exasperated and now more than a little worried. Starshine pulled herself out of the covers, and immediately her appearance made Sunburst even more bewildered. Her mane was now a shiny shade of purple, long and well maintained, combed in many fancy twirls and rolls. Her cutie mark stayed the same, but it now stood against an orange coat just a bit darker than Sunburst's own. Her horn still stood proud on her forehead. And she had wings. "Are you still sure you don't want to have sex?" she asked. "More than ever." Sunburst squared her up and down. "What are you doing in my room? Get out! This is not normal!" He pointed a shaky hoof at the door. "You say that, but you don't really want me to leave, do you?" Stepping closer to the stallion, Starshine fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Besides, I have no other place to stay. Do you really want to throw a mare out into the streets at night?" "Said mare just appeared in my bed out of nowhere without my consent so yes, I am perfectly fine with that." Starshine moved closer to him still. "But would you really, when I could spend the night with you instead?" She ran a feather over Sunburst's chest and under his neck. "I am not having sex with you." Sunburst drew back a step. "If you just masturbate on your own and I happen to be there it's not technically cheating on your partner. No more than reading a porn novel would be." Sunburst opened and closed his mouth once. "Technically maybe correct, even if highly debatable, but I'm not doing it. The problem is less the cheating and more the fact that you're weird and I don't trust you." Starshine shrugged. "Your loss. I know you would have enjoyed it." She stared silently at him for a few seconds. "Wanna play card games together?" she asked, pulling out a deck of cards with a distinct backside from behind her mane, then a bag larger than her whole body filled with other cards. "I've got enough copies for you to build your own deck however you like. All expansion." Sunburst stared silently at the scene for a moment. "Sure." > L*ven't > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight flipped through the pages of her book, without paying much attention at all to the contents. Her mind was elsewhere, and it was hard for her to focus on her work. Rather, her thoughts went to Trixie and Sunburst, neither of which was there at the time. The latter was merely away for a few days, but his absence only accentuated her worry for the former's. It had been about a week since Trixie had left. By that point, she'd no doubt reached her destination. And no desperate letters asking for help had come from the locals, so she most likely hadn't accidentally razed the whole area to the ground. That or there had been no survivors, or everyone had been enslaved and a seal had been placed around the area to prevent communication with the outside. Starlight shook her head. No. She trusted Trixie. Well... If she was really being truly honest, she wouldn't have trusted her own self in Trixie's place, and maybe not even Twilight. But she had to trust Trixie. The unicorn was her friend, and much more than that, and not trusting her wouldn't have felt right. And unlike anyone else, Trixie knew what she was doing. She knew what it would be like. If she'd decided to take that risk, then they had to believe she could succeed. And if she didn't... If she didn't, they would stop her. They'd stopped her before, Twilight had at least, they could do it again. It wouldn't be pretty, and they wouldn't enjoy it, but it would be done. And they would move on from there. Most of all, if things came down to it, she was worried about Trixie's reaction. Stopping her would not be a problem, and if everything went well there would hopefully not be serious consequences for others involved. But it would quite hurt the mare. The plan had been her idea, after all. Starlight sighed. She closed her book and set it down, then stood up from her desk. She walked up to the window and looked out, chewing on her lower lip. Maybe she could write Trixie a letter. Or maybe write to Sunburst instead, she didn't want Trixie to feel like she wasn't trusted. Or maybe write to Twilight. Or to anyone else. She grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from her desk, then set them back down. She began to pace up and down the room, her hooves clacking against the wooden floor. A few minutes passed with her moving back and forth, then finally she stopped in front of the door, and took a deep long breath. Then another. Closing her eyes, she kept on breathing, slowly in and out to calm herself down. She opened her eyes again, opened the door and walked out of the room. She needed something else to focus on. Something to take her mind off of Trixie. Walking down the corridor, she considered her options. Perhaps some ice-cream would do it. > ×formance > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Very well. Very well indeed." The two unicorns sat on one side of room, their heads held low, eyes focused on Nightmare Moon but occasionally darting towards the crumbled pile of crystal to their far right. "It's an honour to serve," the male one said, his tone shaky. The alicorn ignored him. She instead remained focused on the creature in the middle of the room, studying it attentively as she smirked. "A pity about his mental capacities, but I trust you will solve this issue in future subjects." As she said so, she finally looked at the two unicorns, sending shivers down their spines. "Of course, Your Highness," answered the mare, tilting her head downwards just the tiny amount left between her already curved position and actively looking at her own hooves. Smiling, Nightmare Moon began to walk away. She said nothing as she left, and her steps echoed in the room as her hooves clacked against the stone pavement. The two unicorns remained in their positions, as was expected of them. The thing that had once been a stallion instead walked behind her, his own steps heavy against the ground. The pace of his walk and the waving of his tail made him look somewhat like a dog loyally following its owner. But as he passed beside the unicorns, his eyes turned to them for just a moment, and the two swore they saw something else frothing beyond his pupils. And they were afraid. Finally, the doors shut with a click as both Nightmare Moon and her new guard left the room, leaving the mare and the stallion to sit alone in silence. A few seconds went by, as both stared at the ground. "What do we do now?" the stallion asked. "Survive," replied the mare. "Keep on testing, keep on hoping, keep on living. Same as always." She looked up, and sighed. "Does your neck hurt? Mine does." The other immediately tried to look up as well, and immediately regretted it. "It hurts now," he said, clenching his teeth and bringing a hoof to rub behind his head. "Well, that means you're still alive. You should be happy." That got something that sounded vaguely like a chuckle as an answer, followed by more pained moans. "I'm not sure about that. That thing is still alive too, and I'm starting to think maybe there are fates worse than death." "Having to clean the lab when a test subject melts on the table is already a fate worse than death. Cheer up and be glad this one made it through." The mare gave an affectionate jab to her companion's shoulder. "And look at the even brighter side. At least she didn't use us to test what he can do." The stallion looked towards the shattered crystal fragments on the opposite end of the large room, the broken remains of what had served as a test for their creation's destructive capabilities. "You have a fascinating concept of what qualifies as the bright side." "We live in eternal night, Starburst. You need to appreciate what little light life throws your way." > Loww > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, what's the plan, Stellaria?" Chrysalis asked, her voice and body camouflaged as Suri Polomare's. "Just Stella is fine while we're in public." The alicorn, who somehow received no attention from the ponies around them even while wearing no sort of disguise, levitated her beige-coloured briefcase to her side and began to walk down the street. She'd stuffed the entirety of her laboratory in the briefcase. And the real Suri. "We're going to Ponyville first, Chrissy. Not directly, and we'll probably stop somewhere around it for a bit, but that's the general direction." "Ponyville?" Chrysalis stammered, forced to speed up her steps to catch up with Stellaria. "That's where the real Twilight is." "That is where the inferior Twilight lives, yes," Stella replied, her eyeroll permeating her tone. "I don't need to be reminded of such details." As she continued, her voice and her legs both began to pick up speed. "Not that her being the inferior Twilight means I'm the superior Twilight, I am of course superior to her but I'm not-" She cut herself off and stopped walking for a moment. Then she resumed, at her previous, measured pace. "I know that. It's precisely why we're going there." Chrysalis had caught up with the pony in the meantime. "It is?" she asked, turning towards her. "Are you sure you want to risk being so close to her?" "Would you rather spend your life hiding?" There was a mocking edge in Stellaria's tone as she asked that, but she kept her head pointed forward. "Opportunities should be seized when they present themselves, and you should always be ready for them. Lying in the shadows won't help you. You'll never be strong enough to defeat Twilight on your own, Chrissy. We need to act, and work with what we have." Chrysalis had to bite down on her tongue and swallow back her own bile. "I've captured that insolent worm and her friends once before and I can do it again. I'll build a new army and-" "And what? Get betrayed again?" Stellaria laughed. "You're a terrible leader. Every success you ever had was the result of someone else's work, and every failure you collected the result of your own mistakes undermining their efforts. I am your new army, if you've already forgotten about that. I'm what you came up with to try and succeed again, and you should consider yourself lucky that I haven't brought you to the same end you left me to suffer. Listen to someone who's better than you, for once in your life, and maybe you'll finally get a chance to see what winning is actually like." Chrysalis was biting down on her teeth so hard they would have cracked had she really been a pony. Green flames danced furiously inside her eyes, and her steps came down heavy on the road. But she knew better than to risk trying to rip the alicorn's spine out in broad daylight. "Why Ponyville?" she asked, trying to move the conversation. Stellaria smirked, clearly aware of the effect her words were having on Chrysalis. Still, she'd played around enough, and an explanation of her plans was needed. "How much do you know about scales?" > A Brief History of Terms: Scale > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The term scale was first used by Princess Twilight. It was chosen for the shape of the objects, noticeably resembling that of a fish's scales, only larger. About the size of a hoof, largely flat, curved at the edges and with a slight but noticeable orientation very vaguely reminiscent of an arrowhead. Their surface smooth and reflective, oddly hard to get a proper grip on, giving almost the impression of being covered in oil despite being perfectly dry. Seemingly a muddy white in colour, if observed at the proper angle a scale would instead appear to present a rainbow-coloured exterior, either in the form of irregular rings spreading from the centre or as a scale-like pattern similar to that of snake skin. Scales were proven to be hydrophobic, and showed similar properties with all sorts of fluids tested on them. They were impervious to all known sorts of corrosive substances, and did not cause any sort of chemical, physical or magical reaction when exposed to other elements. Any attempt to damage or break off fragments of one failed, from stress tests and drills to dragon fire and explosives. Magic in particular proved downright counterproductive, as the scales appeared to reflect the arcane energy directed towards them as a mirror reflects light. The origin of the scales remains a purely theoretical matter. It is undoubted that their existence was a consequence of the Behemoth's arrival, but the exact mechanisms by which the two events are related have never been uncovered. They seemed to simply appear in Equestria, no trace of where they'd come from. For a while they remained as merely a small novelty, not particularly interesting compared to other more immediately pressing changes the Behemoth had brought. The effect they had on the creatures who found them was the only noteworthy thing about them, but even still it was a minor detail. Of course, while seemingly the least important of the Behemoth's consequences, they were still one of its consequences nonetheless, and therefore something more than deserving to be studied and analysed. It was during this period of studying, after receiving one from a city with the explicit request to, that Princess Twilight came up with the term. That particular delivery was also the event that sparked the creation of the RHiSPaTS, though this is a matter best explored elsewhere. The origin of the term, beyond the simple matter of shape, lies in the possibility of the scales being or having been part of the Behemoth itself. This is of course impossible to prove. The reason the assumption surfaced lies in the results of Princess Twilight's studies. She observed, comparing the tests run on the scales to the data recorded near the centre of Canterlot, that the results of said tests gave readings that matched those obtained from the Behemoth itself, only scaled down in intensity and range. Every pattern appeared to be exactly the same, and models showed that a sufficiently large amount of scales together could indeed lead to a replica of the Behemoth's signature graphs. Of course, this sparked great interest in further studying the scales themselves, as they could provide vital information on the Behemoth. It is through these further tests that the scales' more peculiar properties and uses came to be known. > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And here we are." Soarin' tapped the wall of the crystal tree castle hybrid with a wing. "Ignore the missing chunks of walls, they'll grow back eventually." Moving up to the door, he looked back towards Stone Brick. "Are you coming?" Stone had been looking upwards along the castle's wall, which did indeed show a few missing bits here and there. Once he heard himself called, he looked back to Soarin' and nodded, then walked towards the golden doors the pegasus was opening for them. The trip from the entrance to the laboratory was uneventful, merely a few ponies waving at Soarin' and Stone as they walked by, at most exchanging a few words. Finally the two stallions reached the doors to Princess Twilight's lab, and Soarin' knocked once on them. "Come in," Twilight's voice came from inside, just a moment later. Stone and Soarin' exchanged a look, then the pegasus opened the doors. The laboratory was a single octagonal room, large and tall, white tables covered in various types of equipment lining every wall except for the one where the entrance was. Light came from a single large crystal hanging from the ceiling at the centre of the room. A second set of equally busy tables was near the centre, half of a smaller octagon on the side of the room where the doors were. Beyond it was a square metal platform, just a step higher than the floor around it, large enough for four ponies to comfortably stand on it. And above the platform, at about eye level, was a slowly swirling mass of white light, occasionally giving off rainbow reflections. A couple of other ponies were walking around the room, holding clipboards and taking notes, but Stone's eyes immediately focused on the alicorn standing just a short distance from the platform. She was intent on looking into the light, a cheerful smile on her face. Then her eyes turned and she noticed the new arrivals. "Soarin'! And I see you brought company." She waved at Stone. "A scale, right?" Stone Brick drew back a little, confused. His hooves twitched, itching to reach for his saddlebags and make sure his scale was still there. He was silent for a moment, unsure of what to say. "Oh, sorry. I saw it on the monitors." Twilight nodded upwards, and Stone followed the direction of her gesture to see a couple of square panels hanging on the wall above the doors, shifting graphs displayed on them. "I've learned to recognise a scale's pattern against background noise, it's something we see fairly often in here after all." A sound from behind her drew her attention, similar to that of a small bell. "Speaking of which." Curious, Stone took a few steps forward to get a better look at the floating mass of light. It pulsed for a moment, growing and shrinking around its centre, and then suddenly a unicorn jumped out from it. Then the light wavered again, shaking, and finally dissipated, revealing a scale not unlike Stone's own suspended in mid air, still shimmering slightly. > Polychrome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat, clutching her milkshake in her hand as she sipped from it. "Got any plans for the day?" she asked to the girl sitting in front of her. Pinkie Pie shook her head. "Not really. Why? Do you have something in mind?" "Not really." Rainbow drank some more of her milkshake. "How's your ice-cream?" "Sweet," answered Pinkie. "But not as sweet as you are." With the tips of her index and middle finger she picked up some of the whipped cream that covered her chocolate ice-cream, and then gently placed it on Rainbow's nose. The girl was still and silent for a moment. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to process this," she finally said, staring at the whipped cream. She tried to reach it with her tongue, without success. "Sometimes you just feel compelled into a given course of action by forces outside of your own universe dictating the flow of your existence. And maybe sometimes the feeling is right." Pinkie licked her fingers clean, then picked up her spoon. "This is probably a dream anyway." Rainbow finally surrendered, and used her hand to clean her nose. Then her mouth to clean her hand. "And whose dream is it?" "I have no idea." Pinkie ate a spoonful of ice-cream. "Sometimes life keeps you busy for your whole day and leaves you drained and tired with only a short time to do something you need done before the day ends. Sometimes you're possessed by a creature from another reality that speaks through you. Sometimes your cat starts shaking." She ate another. "The door is behind me and I'm not looking at it. I can't see outside, and as far as I know there is no outside. Just here, just now, just you and me and nothing else." Rainbow Dash finished her milkshake, and set the glass down on the table. "I'm not looking at the door right now. I could, but that would mean no longer looking at you. I don't know if there is an outside either, and I don't know if I would be allowed to look and find out. I don't care. I don't want to look away. And if this is a dream, I don't want to wake up." "And what do you want to do, if this is a dream?" "I want to be with you, and love you, and feel your skin against mine and your breath on my face and your hair as it tangles with mine and your taste under my lips as I make love to you." "And what if this isn't a dream?" "Then I will be happy." Standing up, leaning over the table, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie embraced each other and kissed and hugged, pulling their bodies closer with their arms, melting into each other over the table as outside the door stars flowed upwards through the hourglass of dimensions and Harmony sang with its choir in the upper layers of reality. > First Jump > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Here we go then." "Are you absolutely sure about this?" "I am, Starlight. I double-checked the calculations, I had you check them, I had Sunburst check them, I had Starswirl check them, I had Celestia check them, and I even asked Sunset for help with checking them. I'm as sure as I can possibly be that this thing is going to work." "You said that last time too, and the wall still hasn't finished growing back." "This time is different." "How, exactly?" "If I messed up this time you won't have to worry about the walls, because there won't be a castle left. Why do you think I had everyone else leave the building?" "You didn't have me leave." "You can go if you want." "And miss my chance to see this work? Forget about it, Twilight." Starlight swallowed, uneasy. "Are you really sure about this?" Twilight swallowed too. "No. But I'm as sure as I can be." Slowly, her horn lit up. "Here we go then." A small, pulsating orb of light left the tip of Twilight's horn, and very slowly floated towards the round white hoof-sized object suspended in a slim metal harness just a short distance from her. The speck of arcane energy came in contact with the surface of the scale, and seeped into it. There was a subtle fluttering along the edges of the scale, like water rippling under a breeze. The white colour turned to light, weak at first then brighter and brighter. And the light spread out, like a bubble growing, twirling as it expanded in a sphere of blinding energy, tendrils along its surface flowing out and back in. Like a miniature star, the edge a boiling wall of energy storming and cracking as the sphere grew wider and wider. Twilight watched it happen, refusing to close her eyes, and as the light was about to reach her she hoped she had at least been only so wrong in her calculations as to not have caused the rest of Ponyville to be wiped out along with her castle. Then the growing stopped. Moment by moment, the rotation slowed down. The sphere stabilised, about the size of a pony, the surface no longer bubbling and instead occasionally showing some flashes of rainbow colours. Twilight finally breathed again. So did Starlight, far more audibly. The unicorn walked closer. "Okay. Now what?" Twilight kept her eyes on the light. "Now we see what's on the other side." "Oh, right." Starlight put on a smile, and the inner screaming it was masking was palpable. "Are we sure it's safe to go through that thing? To put anything near that thing?" "Not at all. And there's a chance we'll lose this half of Equestria the moment I touch it." Twilight lifted a hoof and placed it onto one of the outer strands of light slowly spinning around the sphere. The light seemed to break out and reform around her, like a stream of water. Starlight looked at her, meanwhile dropping her own jaw so far down Twilight almost expected to hear it hit the ground. The alicorn shrugged. "It was the adrenaline still circling." She looked Starlight in the eyes, and extended her other hoof towards her. "Are you coming with me?" > The Leviathan swam to Akalop - Part 0 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight stared at Twilight's outstretched hoof. Later on, when telling the story to others, she would add that her own decision too had been the result of the adrenaline still in her system. Whichever the case, she took Twilight's hoof in hers, and nodded towards the light. Twilight stepped forward, and pulled. It was a bit like waking up from a dream, like that period of distorted awareness between being asleep and fully awake. Starlight wasn't sure how long it lasted for. She wasn't even sure it could be measured, or if time existed at all there. In the space between spaces, the bridge between worlds. Then just as it all had begun, it all came to an end. And Starlight realised that she was wet, and unable to breathe. Her limbs and body were floating, her eyes stung a little, and water had begun to fill her lungs. Her first instinct was to scream. That made things worse. Her second instinct was to cast a spell to give herself gills, which made things a lot better. At that point she got a look around, and noticed Twilight had chosen the much simpler option of using magic to create an air bubble around her head. The two shared a look and a nod, then swam back towards the floating mass of light behind them and just slightly below them. All around them was water as far as their eyes could see, and a barely illuminated darkness. And a large looming shadow that neither of them seemed to notice. Twilight and Starlight slipped out of the portal, inside Twilight's castle, covered in water. The second gasped for air for a few seconds before undoing her gills. Behind them, the light retreated, leaving the scale shimmering suspended in its harness. "We could have died there!" Starlight almost yelled. "Yeah." "We could have popped out in the sky! Or inside solid rock, or inside a pit of acid, or lava! We could have ended up somewhere too hot or cold for life to exist, with no atmosphere or a poisonous one! We could have walked right into a star for all we knew!" "Yeah." "What the fuck were we thinking going in there without any precautions?" Starlight screamed. The two sat in silence for a while, looking at each other, as a puddle of water slowly formed on the ground. "We have four more scales currently stored in the laboratory. Do you want to check those out now?" asked Twilight. Starlight looked at her, wide-eyed. "I..." But she failed to come up with an argument, unable to deny her own curiosity. "We're making a list. And we're not going through another portal until we've cast protective spells for everything that might be on the other side. I hope you have something to shield us against the inside of a star." "It won't put us inside a star. I'm mostly sure it'll be a planet. And it's supposed to put us on land, too." "Yeah, sure. That inspires trust in your theories. We didn't just experience the exact opposite or anything." Twilight stood up. "If we ended up inside water there probably wasn't any land. The whole surface might have been flooded, and at that point putting us on solid footing would have meant too much pressure for our bodies." She looked back at the scale. "We're not going back in there for a while, right?" Starlight nodded. "Absolutely not." "Alright." Twilight helped Starlight back to her hooves. "Wanna help me prepare for the next one? That protection spells idea is probably a good one. Definitely a good one." Starlight looked at Twilight. "You're absolutely crazy, and so is this. Go fetch the other scales, I'll start writing down a list of potential hazards." > Belhive > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis stared through the green surface of the pod at the mare unconscious inside it. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Someone will notice she disappeared, sooner or later. Someone will come looking for her." "We only need one of us to go out as her every once in a while. No one will come. Suri warned all her business contacts she was going on vacation, and as far as everyone will be concerned she's just prolonging that." Stellaria fiddled with the binoculars set in front of the window. "And if anyone does come, we can always play her part for a bit." "Someone will notice there's only two of us if they never see the three ponies that should be living here at the same time." Chrysalis turned towards the window and walked up to it. "They'll see each one with both others. That'll be enough." Satisfied, Stellaria took a step back. "No creature is bored or paranoid enough to become suspicious of a random group of ponies. And our characters aren't likable enough to inspire visits. No one will find us, you're being too cautious." "I was being more cautious than this, and you still found me," Chrysalis replied. "But I was looking for you." Stellaria turned towards Chrysalis. "No one knows you escaped except for me. No one knows I even exist. No one will be looking for us, no one will find us." Chrysalis munched down on nothing. "How did you know I was out there, anyway? And how are you sure no one else knows?" "I knew whatever had brought me back had to have done the same with you. And we might not be the only ones. But I have to thank you for keeping my corpse with you after you watched me die, waking up where I did was rather useful." As she spoke the last sentence, her horn shone, and Chrysalis defiantly bit down on her lips as breathing became impossible for her. Stellaria continued, "I used that place as my hideout for a while, until some certain events. But I can't blame that poor stallion, he made me discover some things I might have taken months to uncover otherwise. As for why I doubt anyone else is looking for you, I've done my research after my return, and no one goes close enough to the Behemoth to have noticed your absence. I will concede that you were good enough at covering your tracks. No one could connect the dots without knowing you were out there." As air returned around her muzzle, Chrysalis swallowed her insults and hatred, and focused on the conversation. "We won't just be sitting in here. If we make even just one mistake when we're approaching Twilight and her laboratory, someone will notice. Someone will come, if we're not careful, and it'll be easy for them to find us here." "Let them come, then." Stellaria looked out from the window, a smile on her lips and a glint in her eyes. "Or are you afraid? There's not a pony out there I won't gladly crush if they happen to come in here looking for me." > Wish You Were Here > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack stared at the lights of the town outside through the glass wall of her hotel room. She would pull the curtains once she chose to go to sleep, but that wouldn't happen for a few minutes at least. Or maybe she wouldn't, and she'd keep watching the city as she fell asleep. Whenever she actually decided to go to bed. She should have gone to sleep minutes before. She had planned to. She was ready to. In her pajamas, all ready and set to slip under the covers, done with everything for the day. She didn't need to wake up all too early, true, but she still would have preferred not to get up late. It was her only night in the hotel, she would finally move to the new place the morning after. Maybe she could blame it on that. On the new room, or on the nervousness from moving, or on the lights coming in from outside. Or she could blame it on the thin walls and the people in the rooms next to hers, even though the night was completely silent. She looked at her phone for a moment. Resting on her nightstand, sleeping. She didn't want to open it. Nothing new of what she could find there would make her feel better. Nothing old of what could make her feel better was something she wanted to see at that moment. There were things there she wouldn't delete, but she knew it wouldn't be right to go back to them. Not right then. Not right then. Not with the direction her thoughts were sailing towards, not with the memories they were worming their way to. She couldn't stop those from being unearthed, but she could at least limit herself to her own memories, instead of the digital ones her phone held of those same events. She would regret it in the morning otherwise, far more than she knew she would either way. It would feel dirty. And yet she couldn't help but wonder if Rarity felt the same. If Rarity did what she was doing, and what she was stopping herself from doing. If Rarity had even held onto those recordings and pictures, or deleted them in a fit of emotion. And Applejack hated that she thought of all that, but she didn't stop herself. Deep down, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stop herself. Her thoughts went to Rarity, still, and she couldn't find the strength to divert their course. And to a memory, or maybe a dream. Rarity, there on her bed, hair messy after a stressful day. Her makeup just slightly smudged, her clothes a little ruffled. Lying on her back, breathing slowly, almost panting. And her blue eyes half closed, her wrist on her forehead. The painted nails on her other hand like birds gliding over the sea of her dress. Applejack turned off the light, but she left the curtains as they were. She pulled away the covers and laid down, but didn't pull them back over herself. Not yet. She'd blame her loss of sleep on the lights from the city outside, or maybe on the walls being too thin. But her eyes and ears were focused on the fantasy of Rarity in her mind, and her hands soon began to follow the other girl's in their movements. > Nolimatra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He was too tall to enter the castle, and Twilight once more considered building a separate structure for those sorts of meetings. She would need one eventually either way, once Ember became big enough. Still, for the time being her standing on the balcony of her castle while he stood outside would have to do, and thankfully it worked quite well. She was at about eye level with him, smiling as she stared at him. The Nolimatran ambassador smiled back at her. Or at least Twilight guessed it was a smile. Growing up with a dragon meant she was better than the average pony at reading a reptile's facial expression, but the snake-like conformation of the creature was still fairly alien even to her. It did not help that his face was about half her body size, that made it quite difficult to focus on the expression as a whole at close distances. Fascinating creatures, nonetheless. She would have loved to study one, but she knew not one of them would be willing to stay in Equestria for any longer than strictly necessary. Or anywhere else outside of their home country, for that matter. None had travelled further than Ponyville, using Twilight herself as the middle mare for their negotiations with other territories such as Griffonstone. And Twilight knew getting into Nolimatra was near impossible. The creatures weren't willing to let anyone in, and trying to force her way there might have permanently damaged the relationships between the two countries. It was a great shame though. Twilight couldn't help but dreamily run her gaze over the snake-headed scorpion whale's body, wondering just how exactly it functioned. She was just as eager to learn about their culture. Their habits, their language, their history and society. Unfortunately, all that knowledge was sealed for her. Nolimatrans never spoke a word about their homeland, and never in a language other than the one of the creatures they were speaking to. The only known word of their native language was Nolimatra, the name of their country, though its meaning remained a mystery. Nolimatra itself was located in the southwestern sea, fairly far from the coastline. It might have never come in contact with Equestria had it not been for a fishermare's boat getting dragged all the way there during a manastorm. The inhabitants had rescued her, escorted her back to Equestria, and sent along a few delegates to establish relationships with the country. Their condition were fairly simple, they just wanted to be left alone. But they were willing to offer help in times of need, provided the other countries agreed to do the same. No one had actually been to Nolimatra, or seen it from anywhere other than the sky above. There were a few islands there, perhaps also inhabited, but the bulk of their civilisation was assumed to be underwater. The creatures seemed perfectly capable of living both in and out of the water, after all, another one of the many interesting facts concerning them that Twilight wouldn't get a chance to study. > “I didn’t say stop.” > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What about this one?" the mare asked, holding up another dress. "I'd rather go naked for the rest of my life than wear another dark cerise outfit. No thanks." Sugarcoat shook her head. The crystal unicorn set the dress down and reached for another with her magic. "You make it sound like some terrible thing. Going without a dress is what most ponies do," she commented. "Not where I'm from," Sugarcoat replied. She stopped herself from clarifying that she was actually talking about humans and that ponies did actually go naked there, but didn't speak or use magic or have a developed society. "Well, maybe you should be the one to try to bring some change." The mare presented her with another dress. Sugarcoat shook her head again. "I'd rather not get expelled. And probably charged with something on top. Principal Cadence hasn't loosened the restrictions on the uniform policy that far. Not yet at least." Grabbing yet another dress, the unicorn asked, "Did you mention Princess Cadence?" "Same name, different pony. Person. Sort of different." Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses as she stared unimpressed at the newly presented dress, then a thought occurred to her. "Have you ever seen a mare that looks just like me but with a cutie mark and more will to live, by chance?" she asked, briefly hopeful for an easy solution to her problems. "Sorry, I have not." The mare pulled up a set of a few different dresses, displaying them all to Sugarcoat to speed up the process. Sugarcoat looked at each dress, and shook her head every time. "Don't worry about it." Her equine counterpart may very well not have existed, after all, and even if she did she could be as different from her as the two Twilights were from each other. For example, maybe Equestria's version of Sugarcoat was a good person. Pony. "You are not used to shopping for clothes, are you?" asked the crystal mare, tapping Sugarcoat on the nose with the latest and still unacknowledged dress. Sugarcoat shook herself, realising she'd zoned out. She looked at the dress, then motioned once more to move on to the next. "I'm not. I never really had to do it." The mare frowned as she set down that dress too. "Didn't you say you always wore clothes, where you're from?" "I did. But I never had to choose them myself." "Never?" The mare was evidently surprised. "How did you go dressing every day without ever having to choose what clothes to buy?" "I had a few identical sets of clothes I was forced to wear. Acquaintances' gifts were enough to cover for the few times I ever needed something else." Sugarcoat looked to the side. Then her brow curved. "Well, there was one time I had a chance to choose something myself. I just took the first thing they showed me." The other mare suppressed a chuckle at that, as she moved to the next batch of clothes. "It's true. It's why I'm trying to go for something different this time. Something I wear because I want to wear it." "And what are you looking for, exactly?" "I have absolutely no idea. But none of these dresses make me feel anything when I see them. They're all the same to me." Sugarcoat looked at the tall pile of discarded options at her side. "Except for the cerise one, that one I actively dislike. Still, I'm sure they would all do what I need them for. I could have just picked one of them. But I'm tired of not caring about things. I want a dress that gives me a reason to choose it over the others." The other mare pursed her lips. "Wait here just a second," she said, walking away and disappearing behind a corner. Then a moment later she reappeared, holding something in her magic. "What about this one?" > Chapter 119 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I was out on a scouting mission. There was a storm approaching. A big one. I couldn't risk staying outside and getting caught in it. I found a farm, with a large shed nearby. I managed to force the shed's door open and hid inside." The doctor nodded. "What happened then?" "I spent the night there. The storm would wake me up on occasion. I could hear the wind howling around the shed and the rain pouring down. It was louder than an army marching." Tempest swallowed. "I was scared. But the walls and roof held, and water didn't get in." "And then?" "I walked out the morning after. The Sun was shining. There were a few broken branches around, some pretty large. Lots of leaves." Tempest's jaw clenched. "The farm had chickens. They were outside that morning. The storm had killed a sparrow, and they were eating the corpse." "I dreamt of her tonight." Lemon Zest sat in her chair with her arms crossed over the table, her head on top of them. "Her?" Indigo Zap sat down to her right, after setting down her cup of coffee. "Sugarcoat." "How was I supposed to know you were talking about her?" Indigo began to drink her coffee. Lemon Zest answered with an indistinct sound of knowingly unjustified frustration. Sunny Flare arrived at the small round metal table, carrying her own breakfast on a tray. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Lemon here was telling me about her dreams of Sugar." Indigo pointed to the girl with her coffee cup. "She was singing on a stage," Lemon went on, as if she hadn't heard the other two. Twilight stood on top of the hill. Far in the distance, the purple light of the fissure shone bright over the wreckage and rubble. The entire second laboratory was gone. Its rests scattered around the contaminated area. Twilight felt nausea assaulting her, and she wasn't sure if it was the radiation or the sight. Everyone had made it out in time. Everyone had made it out alive and well. But all the research and equipment was still there, somewhere. Someone would need to look for it. The scans had still been running when they'd lost control of the reaction, and if the shields had held they'd kept running while the fissure opened. They needed that data. They knew things might have gone wrong. That was the reason they'd built the lab there. But they hadn't been expecting them to. And Twilight thought back to that night with Starlight. To what could've happened to Ponyville back then. Non era affatto difficile tenere a bada l'edera che cercava d'arrampicarsi sul muro. Bastava farci attenzione abbastanza spesso e rimuovere quelle sezioni della pianta che s'avviavano alla scalata quando ancora erano piccole. Però era noioso. Terribilmente noioso. E il vecchio unicorno finiva per ignorare il problema per mesi, anni alle volte. Finché l'edera non aveva tronchi più grossi delle sue gambe, ed altra edera più piccola che le cresceva sopra. Al che la cosa diventava non solo noiosa, ma anche difficile. Ci volevano un paio di giorni per sistemare il tutto, di solito. Ed aveva quasi finito, quella volta. Stava quasi per ripromettersi che ci sarebbe stato attendendo in futuro, sapendo benissimo che non sarebbe stato così. Ma una lettera arrivò proprio poco prima che finisse. Una lettera urgente, pareva. Da un tale Sunburst. Era sicuro d'averlo già sentito da qualche parte quel nome. > Multiple Inheritance > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The customary boom woke up those last citizens who still hadn't left their beds. There was always a boom midway through the morning, and occasionally a few smaller ones in the late afternoon. At most they'd counted seven, and there were always at least three when it did happen. "Is she still out there?" somewhat loudly asked a stallion, walking up the stairs to a balcony. "Sure is," answered another who was already there, leaning against the railing. The first joined him at his side, and they both stared towards the horizon. Occasionally one could see some red bolts of lightning spreading from there, but it wasn't a consistent thing. The mare had arrived in the town preceeded by letters as formal as they were vague, but all bearing Princess Twilight's seal. That had been enough to convince the citizens to let whatever needed to happen happen. If it was for the good of Equestria, it was worth it, and it was hard to imagine the worst outcome could be any worse than what the Behemoth itself had already done. The mare hadn't spent much time in the town. Only a few had seen her, even fewer had heard her speak those few words she'd said. She'd headed towards the horizon after picking up a set of rations, and midway through the morning after the first boom had been heard. Most had been scared by it, until the mayor had come to announce that there was nothing to worry about. That it was just the mare, acting within Princess Twilight's permissions. A few had taken on a dislike for the mare, mostly those whose sleep tended to stretch out through the morning. The mare came back once every week. A few more had seen her the first time she'd done so, a couple more had heard her speak. But it was never a good look or a good listen that the citizens got. She always spoke quietly, and always hid her head low under her hat. A peculiarly large hat, and one that would have looked flashy had it not been covered in dirt and dust. The same went for her cape. It was the kind of dirty clothes got when passing through the dry lands near the town, the kind citizens were used to see on travellers. The weeks passed, the mare kept up her routine of visits, and soon the town built its own habits around hers. There was always a small crowd when the mare came to get new rations. One could not blame the citizens, there were few other events worth nothing in their routines. And the crowd had murmurs running through it. About who the light blue mare could be. About whether she was an earth pony or a pegasus or a unicorn, an ongoing question that had a number of bets tied to it. And, mostly, about what exactly she was doing. But no one ever got a chance to go check on that. Even if Princess Twilight hadn't forbidden approaching the mare when she was out of the town, which she had, the booms and the occasional flashes of light would have been enough to keep the citizens away. They weren't that bored of their lives, after all. > Qontainer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You known, there's an old saying used to wish someone luck, in the language of my parents' home country. It roughly translates to 'in the mouth of the wolf' as it's said, though accounting for the implicit meaning it would be more appropriate to say it translates to 'may you end up in the mouth of the wolf'. "Of course, 'a wolf' would fit better in this language, the original saying happens to be referring to some specific but unspecified wolf but that can't be expected to carry over well. Of course, one should more properly try to adapt the saying to the language rather than simply translating it, working out those oddities characteristic to the original language. However, that is complicated in this case. "You see, there is actually some controversy as to what the saying is trying to imply. This is reflected in how the one hearing it responds. Some will simply thank you for saying it, others will reply in a single word by saying what would be translated as 'die', although accounting for what that language can imply with a single word that this one we're using cannot the more correct translation would be 'may it die'. Although 'may it croak' could also be an apt translation, as the specific word typically used is indeed a synonym for dying but has other meanings by itself. To crack, specifically, but that's beside the point. "Let me get back to the heart of the matter. There are indeed two different interpretations of what the saying means. One views the wolf as an evil entity, with the one saying the saying playing the part of one who poses a challenge that the other then mocks as hopefully easily dealt with thanks to their luck. In this version, it could maybe be adapted as 'may the wolf eat you', answered by 'may it die trying'. Almost a curse posed in jest to exorcise the fear of an oncoming task. "In the other interpretation, however, the wolf is seen as a benevolent entity. The statement becomes a blessing, as the wolf carries the one receiving it within their mouth and protects them along the way. So 'may the wolf carry you in its mouth' would work as a translation here, although a better sounding version of it that still preserves the overall meaning could be 'may the wolf watch over you on your path'. "But I wouldn't trust myself on any of this. I'm not a scholar or anywhere close to an expert in either of the languages I'm dealing with, I'm not particularly knowledgeable in the culture that spawned the saying, and in all honesty I'm not particularly good with either language even on a base level. The one thing I have studied is magic, but looking at how poorly I do with even that I would sincerely advise against taking a single word of what I say as being worth something." "Is this really the time to be talking about this?" Twilight asked, drawing back as the giant timberwolf below them once more pounced and tried to bite the torn open half of a train carriage she was holding in her magic, housing both herself and the other. The old unicorn peacefully sighed. > Controller > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blades of light pierced through the darkness of the room, and came to stab Lightning Dust right in her eyes. The pegasus threw the covers over her face, muttering and cursing her past self for not closing the blinds all the way. But she knew she'd get up just moments later. She was like that, once she woke up she wasn't comfortable lying in bed. And it would have bothered her greatly to waste the whole day sleeping. That was the reason she never closed the blinds all the way. With a flap of her wings her covers were sent into the air, and by the time they fell down on the mattress with a thud she'd already left the bed. She moved pretty fast for the first five seconds, then the migraine hit and she had to slow down. She stared at the floor below her, waiting for it to stop dancing and spinning, chewing on the thick and viscous nothingness that filled her mouth. She pondered her options for a moment, then sighed. "I know you're there!" she yelled, her voice raspy and a bit painful against her dry throat. "And I know you've got a copy of the keys. Come in." Then, she waited, comfortable with the knowledge that if the unicorn wasn't actually there then there would be no reason to get embarrassed. Sure, maybe the neighbours heard, but they heard her screaming nonsense halfway between midnight and dawn when she was carried back home drunk and on drugs. She had no more dignity to lose with them. It turned out the guard was there. Just a moment later Lightning heard the click of the key turning, and a moment later the clack of the door opening. She looked up to see the stallion walk inside and look back at her. He wasn't wearing any armour, a rare sight for her. Not that she was ever in a condition to get a proper look at him when he was wearing one. "Why the fuck are you here?" she asked, coughing. "This is outside of your work hours. They don't pay you for watching over my ass when I'm sober. Don't waste your time." "If I don't watch over your allegedly sober ass, I fear there won't be an ass left for me to watch over when it's drunk. As far as I'm concerned this is still part of my job. And I quite like my job. I spend hours doing nothing, and that's a lot better than what some others get." He closed the door behind himself. "So, why exactly did you call me in?" "I know how to take care of myself, colt. Don't think there's anything out there I need your help with protecting me from." She pointed at the cupboard below the sink. "I keep a bottle in there for hangovers. I don't feel like walking to it right now." "You're a strong mare, Lightning, and everyone knows that. And it's exactly why your own self is the biggest danger you're facing. Or something like that, they don't pay me to come up with good quotes." The unicorn walked up to the cupboard and opened it with his magic, then he leaned down to have a look inside. "These are all cleaning products." Lightning shrugged. "I'm sure any one of them will do fine." > Nothing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Doesn't it look like that painting is set askew?" The guard leaned forward a bit, to get a better look at what the other was staring at. "Maybe? Maybe it's just perspective." The other guard kept staring at the painting. "I think it is. Should we do something about it?" "Like what?" asked his companion. "I don't know. Fix it, I guess?" The guard shook his head. "It's not our job. We shouldn't be worrying about it." "But it looks wrong." "I'm telling you, it's not our job. We shouldn't worry about it. Leave it to whoever is in charge of taking care of the paintings." "Who is in charge of taking care of the paintings, anyway?" asked the guard. "I don't know. Maybe the maids. Either way, someone is, and you should leave this to them," said the other. "Look, I'm just trying to do a nice thing here." "I get that. But you don't know what you're doing. Maybe it's not actually askew, it just looks like that to you. Maybe it's intentionally like that. It's someone else's work, you shouldn't go messing with it if you're not sure of what you're doing." "No offense, but I think I know how a painting is supposed to go up on a wall. Whoever put it like that did a poor job, and I intend to fix that." "How do you even know it's actually askew? It just looks like that to you. Maybe you're seeing it wrong. Maybe the floor here isn't level. You don't have the tools to check if it's actually right or not." "Well, first off, this is Canterlot Castle we're talking about. You can't seriously be suggesting the floors aren't level here. I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed that in the single most important building in the entire country. And second, I am perfectly capable of seeing if a painting is askew or not. I'll remind you that I have much better aim than you do, so if anything you're probably the one seeing it wrong." "Hey now, I agree with you that it looks like it's leaning to the left, but I'm just saying-" "Wait, to the left? It looks like it's leaning to the right, not the left!" "Our right or its right?" "Our right! Why would you use stage directions for a painting on a wall? Of course I'm talking about our right." "I'm just used to it." "And that's why you're not in charge of directing military operations." "Neither are you. And neither are there military operations to be in charge of, at most we'd be directing parades. Anyway. I'm not saying it doesn't look askew. I'm just saying you shouldn't touch it. You wouldn't want someone else doing your job without properly understanding it." "My job right now is standing in front of this door, even a foal could understand it." "Then maybe you should do your job and continue standing in front of this door instead of going there to move the painting." Finally, one of the tremors was strong enough for the two to notice it past their bickering, as the walls and floor of the castle shook. "Well, it's definitely askew now," one of the guards said, as the castle shook again and the painting fell. "And maybe we should leave now," added the other, hearing cracks begin to form on the windows and outer wall. > Planning? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello. I'm Starshine Flicker." Starlight stared at the pegasus in front of her, while Sunburst's face began a throughout meeting with the surface of his desk. "How did you get in?" she asked. Starshine just stretched a wing towards her, clearly wanting to shake her hoof. Her coat was a very light blue and her mane short and pink with flashes of yellow shot through, but her cutie mark was the same as when Sunburst had last seen her. Starlight very reluctantly brought a hoof up to shake Starshine's wing. "Do we know each other? At all?" Starshine gave Starlight's hoof a brief but violent shake, then she began to prance towards the stallion still sitting at his desk. "Did Sunburst not tell you about me?" she asked. "Sunburst, did you not tell her about me?" "I spared her the insanity," Sunburst replied. It came out a bit muffled, since his face was still on the desk's surface. Starshine pushed his head up with a wing. "It's alright, dear, don't worry about it. I can introduce myself." She turned towards Starlight. "I'm Starshine Flicker." Then she returned to looking at Sunburst, and propped herself up on the desk, lying on her side. "So, how are things going here, sweetie?" she asked, twirling the end of a feather around Sunburst's nose. "Sunburst?" Starlight asked from behind the pegasus, in that tone of restrained anger that demanded an immediate and satisfying explanation. "She's been following me around," the stallion replied. "And trying to get me in bed with her. I have no idea who she is. She just appears and disappears." "How can you say that after the night of passion we had, my dear?" Starshine asked, sliding her face closer to Sunburst's. Sunburst pushed her face away with a hoof. "The only thing that happened between us that night was card games. And only because you wouldn't leave." "But I did end up in bed with you." "Only because you teleported there after I'd already pulled up the covers. And I did not stay there after you did." Starshine pouted. "But you did say you would want to have sex with me." Sunburst bit his lower lip. "I did. If it wasn't for the fact that it would mess with my current relationship. And for the fact that you're creepy and weird and I have no reason to trust you." Sunburst leaned to the side to get a proper look at Starlight, just to know if running away was advisable there. The other unicorn's expression only showed confusion. "And why are you here now, exactly?" she asked. Starshine curved her neck and back to look at Starlight, her face upside-down. "Still trying to have sex with Sunburst." The stallion in question pointed at her as he looked at Starlight, his expression saying more than his words ever could. "...Seriously?" was all Starlight managed to ask at first. "Right here? Right now? While I'm here?" "Hey. If I wasn't open to a threesome I would have waited until you left." Starshine winked and spread her hind legs. Starlight and Sunburst looked at each other. > Must Be Silenced > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight Sparkle walked over the land of glass. She walked farther into it than she ever had anywhere else, in any other world, in any other wasteland of the many she'd seen. And she found nothing. No life, no ruins, no signs of anything that had ever been there. Nothing but endless fields of glass that the Sun never left. And the wind blowing over the glass, shaping the hills and valleys, smoothing the surface of the world like the waves of the ocean smooth over pebbles. It looked almost like a desert, with unmoving, frozen dunes that shone under the light. There was peace there, in a sense. No danger, no reason for her to leave. Silence, coloured only by the monotonous whispering of the wind, broken only by the clicks of her steps against the glass. But Twilight didn't like it there. She'd tried running, at one point. That had only made things worse. It wasn't normal. It wasn't natural. Lifeless, artificial, and she hated being there. A desert was one thing, even a barren one. It was still a product of nature. And those places where civilisation overtook nature were filled with the life of those creatures who'd built them, and when in ruin at least by the signs that those lives had been there. But there was nothing there on the land of glass. Empty destruction that left no place from where to rebuild. And so Twilight kept on walking. She kept on looking, searching for something, anything. Anything beyond the endless, lifeless sculpture beneath her, the sheet of glass that seemed to have swallowed the whole world itself. She could have broken it. The thought occurred to her as she walked farther still. Just a few blast of magic, she could have left a mark of her presence, a scar in the land that would have lasted until the wind washed it away. And she could have dug, as deep as she needed to, until she found something beneath the glass. She didn't want to. She didn't want to know what had been there, what was left underneath. She had no interest in what had been lost, in what would never return to the surface. If there was life still there, it wouldn't last, nor would allowing it access to the world outside help prolong it. Or perhaps it would. Maybe hope was still there, and not everything was lost, and life would return to the world if she helped it. But that wasn't the point. That wasn't the reason she was there. She shouldn't have been there at all, she was an intruder after all. Her train of thought stopped as she stepped on top of a hill. There, past the next valley, something. Something other than glass, naked rock piercing through the endless carpet that covered the surface. Not much taller than or larger than her, black and barren, the tip of a mountain now submerged. Twilight stood in front of the rock and looked at it. Then she turned, and looked at the world around her. She could break it, if she wanted to. > All That Glitters > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A faint breeze blew some dust along the road, past the van parked just on the edge of it. Not one other vehicle could be seen from there, and everything was covered in silence. Or, at least, everything would have been covered in silence, had it not been for three voices coming from behind the van. "Is that really what I think it is?" one asked, incredulous. "Oh, yes. Absolutely," answered the second, her tone deep and excited. "Ooh. Wait, what is it?" asked the third one. The first two girls looked to their right, flat expressions on their faces. Aria crossed her arms, while Adagio just placed her fingers on her forehead and shook her head. Sonata pursed her lips, lifting her shoulders. "This," Adagio resumed, taking a step as she pointed forward, "is what's finally going to allow us to get our revenge." As she stared at Sonata's eyes flipping between Adagio and the thing in front of them while a question began to shape on her face, Aria just rolled hers. "It's a portal to Equestria!" she said, louder than necessary. "Can't you feel it?" "Ooh!" Sonata turned back to Adagio. "Can we go in?" Adagio began to nod, then stopped halfway through. "Is the van locked?" she asked, turning to Aria. Aria pulled out the keys to their van and clicked on the little button with the lock icon on it. A few clicks came from the vehicle's various doors, followed by a couple beeps of light. "It is now." "Good. I do not want to be left stranded in the middle of nowhere when we come back here because someone stole it." Stepping forward again, she held her hand a few centimetres away from the surface of the portal. Then, she smiled, and walked in. Adagio disappeared into the portal. Aria waited a few seconds, just to make sure the other wouldn't quickly re-emerge from it yelling about the unsafe conditions on the other side, then she let go of Sonata's ponytail and watched the girl cross the portal by almost falling face first into it. Then she waited a moment longer, and took a look at the keys she still held in her hand. Finally, she sighed, shoved them back in her pocket, and stepped through the portal herself. The scenery on the other side was somehow more barren than the one they'd come from. A wide stretch of plains covered in a thin layer of yellow-grey dust, with the occasional rock formation standing tall over the nothing around it. By all means, the place kinda sucked. But not one of the three sirens cared, as the feeling of finally being back in their original bodies more than made up for it. "Screw the van," Adagio said, as Sonata flew loops around her. "We are not going back. I refuse to have to walk for another second of my life." Aria was about to voice her opinion on the matter, but she was interrupted before she could talk. Not that it would have mattered, because the boom that echoed around them would have covered the sound of her words either way. The three looked at each other, then at the bright red light spreading over the sky. "Okay," Aria said. "Maybe we are going back." > No Pulse Left > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset reached for the top of her nightstand, nails tapping against the wooden surface as she blindly searched while hair covered her face. Her other arm was trapped, Twilight doing her best impression of a koala on it. "Come on," Sunset said as she finally found and grabbed her phone, even though her heart wasn't into it. "We're already late. The girls will be furious if we don't make it there at all." Pushing aside the hair over her eyes, she took a look at the screen. Her tone dropped as she saw the amount of notifications. "Maybe they already are," she said, sitting straighter. Twilight, who'd partly let go of Sunset's arm to get a better look at the screen, fully let go once she saw what the other girl had. She slid towards the other side of the bed and went to grab her own phone, while Sunset unlocked hers. Forcing her eyes away from the direct messages she'd received from the other girls, Sunset opened the Rainbooms's group chat and immediately scrolled up to the start of the commotion. And then she stared at the screen for a moment, rereading the same message over and over. Then she glanced to her right, and noticed Twilight was about to do the same. The word left her mouth before she could even realise she was about to speak. "Don't!" she said, closer to a yell, as she reached out with her arm towards Twilight. Almost as if she could physically stop her, somehow. Twilight did stop, her finger hovering over the screen just a moment away from entering the group's chat, and she turned towards Sunset. "Why? What happened?" Sunset opened her mouth to speak, and found she couldn't. She looked back at the message, then back at Twilight, then sighed as she placed a hand over her forehead. "I... Come here." She moved a little to the side, and motioned for Twilight to sit next to her. "We'll read this together." Closing her phone, Twilight moved on all fours towards her girlfriend. In different circumstances, Sunset might have found the scene sexy, Twilight still being naked and all, but her mind was elsewhere at that moment. Tilting her screen so Twilight couldn't see it just yet, she wrapped an arm around the girl and squeezed her tight. There was a moment of silence as the two just sat there, then Sunset took a deep breath. "I'm not sure if there is a good way to learn this, and I don't think this message is it. But it does a better job than what I would do telling it." She turned the screen towards Twilight. "So here you go." Twilight's eyes fixed on the message in the centre of the screen. She understood it just fine the first time around. It took reading it seven more times before she actually acknowledged its meaning, and five more before she finally accepted it. Then she looked at Sunset, and Sunset looked back. And then they both looked back at the screen and began to scroll down, to see how the others had reacted to the news of Applejack and Rarity breaking up with each other. > QQ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I what?" Rarity asked, disbelieving, in a tone so loud Twilight worried it would alert the ponies walking outside. "You were together with Applejack, and then you broke up with her. The human you and the human Applejack, that is," Twilight repeated. It was easier saying it the second time around, now that she was no longer revealing a secret. "I... Darling, this is too much drama for me to properly overreact to it!" Rarity gave a brief look around herself, then moved to the centre of the room. And there she pushed herself up on the couch which had not been present a moment before, and sat on the edge of it with her head in her hooves. "You're forcing me to be serious here." Twilight moved closer to her, stretching out a hoof to offer her friend some support. "I know it's a lot to take in all at once. I hope it's not too much." "Oh, don't worry, it's only the second time I've been forced to reevaluate the potential relationship status between me and my friends against my will. This week." Rarity tried to pout, but her lips refused to cooperate. She kept staring at the ground for a while, hooves perilously close to entering her mane and only held at bay by years of self-discipline. "How different am I from the other me?" "Well, she's younger than you, by a bit," Twilight began. She sat beside Rarity and continued, "She's not quite as popular or established as a designer. Still working under someone else, nowhere near having multiple boutiques of her own across the country. She plays the keytar. It's like a small piano you can hold like a guitar. But she's a lot like you in personality. The same sense for fashion and style, the same dreams of success. The same generosity." Rarity quietly nodded along. "And how is the human Applejack?" "She's a lot like our Applejack, really." Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. "Dedicated to her farm, close to her family, honest. Strong. A little old fashioned. Maybe not quite as obsessed with apples as our own." Twilight looked to the ground. "Younger, of course. Maybe a little less wise than the Applejack you know, and I think that goes for their Rarity as well." "How long had they been together for?" Twilight swallowed to help clear away the dryness in her mouth. "I'm not sure, I don't think anyone really knows. It took a while before it became something noticeable, a while longer before they made it official with the others. Months at the least though. But it must have happened after I went there the first time, they weren't even friends back then. So no longer than that." "And why did they break up?" "I only know what Sunset told me, and she only knows what they said. And they said it just happened. Their relationship wasn't working right, and they decided to end it." Twilight sighed. "It's still Applejack we're talking about. I don't know if she would lie about this." Rarity finally turned to look at Twilight. "And I?" Twilight sighed again, deeper this time. "Rarity still loves her. She says she agreed to the breakup, but it would be clear as day that she's still in love even without her admitting it when she's drunk. And there's a bit more." She swallowed. "Applejack left for a different city, not too long after they broke up. A job opportunity. She warned the others, but it still felt sudden. They all think it had something to do with the breakup, maybe she was trying to get away from the whole thing. Rarity has been getting worse ever since, not that she hadn't started spiralling down already." Twilight took one last, deep breath. "She needs help, Rarity. And you're the only mare who'd know her well enough." Rarity placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "And I will help her." > Axcept > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Everything has a price." Chrysalis watched from her position, sitting at a table outside a restaurant and sipping on a drink, disguised as a pegasus. She looked with fascination, and a little nervousness, as Stellaria stood in the middle of the road and stared straight at the castle in front of her. She was waiting. Standing still and waiting, a confident smile on her face, while ponies walked around her without paying any attention to her. She'd been there for a couple of minutes already, and she knew she wouldn't have to wait much longer. Suddenly, the castle's doors opened. Chrysalis tensed in her seat, holding her glass a little tighter. Her eyes followed Twilight Sparkle as she walked out of her castle and down the road towards Stellaria, then beside her and past her, without ever glancing towards the other alicorn. Stellaria just stood there, smiling, while Twilight walked away. Then she turned towards Chrysalis and began to head towards her, still keeping the same smile on her face. She sat at the same table, and fetched herself a slice of bread from the basket in the middle of it. And she just sat there, eating her bread and staring at Chrysalis, still smiling. The disguised changeling curved her lips in what couldn't properly be described as a smile or a frown. It was an awkward arching, the front part of her mouth slightly open as if she was about to speak but holding herself back. She was, in essence, refusing to accommodate the other's smugness, but she had no arguments to fall back on. Stellaria swallowed her bread. "Well, Chrissy? Are you convinced now?" Chrysalis grit her teeth. "Yes," she hissed out quickly, then she moved her glass to her lips to drink some more. The pear juice was nice, at least. "That's a good girl," Stellaria said, patting the changeling-turned-pegasus' head. "Looks like this time I won't have to choke you until you pass out for refusing to listen to your owner." She took another slice of bread in her magic. Chrysalis tensed up for a moment at those words, then she set her glass down on the table. "You should be careful with how you treat those around you. They always might turn on you." Stellaria laughed at that. A dry, ugly sound with no joy in it. "The altar you're preaching from does you no favours, Chrissy. You speak to me of trust and betrayal, after all that's happened to you?" "You've said it yourself that my failures were the result of my mistakes. Perhaps you should learn from them." "I could," Stellaria answered. "And I have. The thing is that I don't care. Not when it's with the one who left me to die. Not when you don't have any chance to defeat me." She leaned back in her chair. "The only creatures who might be a threat to me would turn you back to stone on sight, and never believe you. You're only alive right now because I allow it. Part of why is that you could still be useful. Most of it is the amusement I get out of torturing you. You should be thankful that you're so entertaining when you suffer." "I should have burned you when you were still a log." "Careful, Chrissy. You're giving me ideas." > Restart > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's pretty late. You shouldn't be out here by yourself." Cadence was startled by the voice. She turned, a quiet smile on her face. "And what about you?" "I can't sleep well in an empty bed. Not used to it." Shining took the last few steps separating him from Cadence, then sat at her side. He looked up at the night sky, like she'd been doing a moment before. Cadence looked at him instead. "Who's watching over Flurry?" "She's asleep. Don't worry about it. I asked a couple guards to guard her door just in case." "But what if she wakes up?" "Don't worry. They're good guards, they'll survive long enough for us to get back." Cadence's smile widened, and she looked up at the stars again. "Did you seriously walk all the way up here?" "Ha!" Shining smiled. "Of course not. I used teleport jumps most of the way. I walked that last portion just to look cool." Without taking her eyes away from the sky, Cadence punched her husband in the shoulder. "How did you know I was here?" "It's your favourite place to come to, lately," Shining replied. "And I checked the kitchens, you weren't stealing cake." "It's not technically stealing if I do it. Princess of the Empire and all." Cadence leaned to her side, and wrapped a wing around Shining. "Not that either of those titles makes any sense. This is more like a city-state and being a princess in Equestria is dependent on your appendages. Or marrying one, somehow." He stopped there, feeling Cadence's teeth around his ear. "We've had this conversation already, sweetie. At least once a month." Cadence kissed Shining's ear as she let go of it. Shining smiled, and extended a leg to wrap it around his wife. "Why did you come here in the middle of the night?" "I'm nervous." Cadence leaned against Shining. "I'm worried about everything." Shining leaned against her. "Me too. But I'm sure we'll figure things out. We'll make it through this, together." "Together." > A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Starlight Glimmer," Twilight introduced the unicorn to the newly arrived stallion, pointing a hoof towards her. "My main assistant in the study of scales. And just about everything else I study. How was the trip there?" she asked, turning back towards Starlight. "Dry," answered the mare. "Nothing but sand and wind, like the last time. But at least the portal wasn't under a dune this time around. I think we should prioritise exploring other scales." She stepped forward as she spoke, and perked up as she noticed Stone Brick and Soarin'. "Oh, I see we've got someone new." Twilight nodded. "Starlight, this is..." She pursed her lips, bringing a hoof to her chin. "Huh. What is your name, actually? I forgot to ask." "Stone Brick," Stone Brick replied. "Starlight, this is Stone Brick," Twilight said, pointing at him. "He's got a new scale with him, I assume that's why he's here. That is why you're here, right?" A little uncertain at first, Stone nodded. "Well, I'm going," Soarin' said, turning to leave and waving with a wing. "Call me if you need help with anything." "Meeting up with Silver?" Starlight asked, smirking. Soarin' didn't answer, but the way his hind legs tensed up for a moment was all the confirmation Starlight needed. He left the room and closed the door, while she turned around and picked up the scale still floating above the platform. Twilight focused her attention on Stone. "So. Want to know where your scale leads?" The pony swallowed, and set down his saddlebags, slowly digging through them to reach the bottom. "I was hoping for answers, when I came here," he said, as he grabbed the scale. "Start asking questions then." Twilight noticed the stallion's tension, and she moved a little closer, her tone a little quieter. She gave a brief look around, making sure everyone else in the laboratory was preoccupied with something else. "What is this?" Stone pulled out the scale and showed it to Twilight. The alicorn smiled. "That is something I really wish I knew. But there are a few things about it I can tell you. I'm sure you know it's called a scale. We have no confirmation on it, but we suspect it might be a part of the Behemoth itself. We know about the way they bond with creatures." She looked back. "And you saw what they can be used for." "So it's a portal?" Twilight grimaced, biting the corner of her lower lip. "It's closer to a key. A way to open a gate between worlds, if you know how to turn it right. But that's reductive. There's more to scales than this. Unfortunately, they are a tricky thing to work with, and this is the one use we've found so far that we can safely study." As she spoke, she slowly turned back towards Stone Brick. "Every scale opens a way to a different world. Do you want to know where yours leads?" Stone looked at the scale in his hoof, then back at Twilight. He took a slow breath in, then he nodded. > Magic changes everything, from the fabric of the cosmos to the tiniest living organism. The latter can be just as problematic as the former. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've never seen anything like this. I've never read of anything like this. Considering what I've heard from everyone, there's a decent chance this did not exist at all a couple of months ago." The nurse's eyes moved from Twilight to the pony lying on the bed in front of them, then back to the alicorn. Twilight swallowed. "Will she be alright?" she asked. "I don't know. If things stay like this? Yes, absolutely. It's not worse than a seasonal fever right now. But will they stay like this? I have no idea, and it would be inadvisable to make a guess in either direction. I would suggest moving her somewhere else, where she can properly be monitored. Even if it turns out to be something innocuous, studying it would be helpful for the future." Twilight nodded. "I understand. Very well. I will have a room set up in the castle, and have her moved there. I will call doctors from Canterlot, they'll certainly want to study this." She turned towards the nurse. "I'd like you to meet them once they arrive. I understand I can't ask you to leave your job here unattended, but I would still like to have you come visit her whenever possible." "Of course, Princess." The mare nodded. Twilight once more looked at the pony on the bed. She was asleep, seemingly peacefully so. An outside observer might have thought nothing was wrong with her. Of course, they wouldn't have noticed that her coat and mane were the wrong colours, respectively blue and red rather than yellow and pink. "Is there anything else, Princess?" asked the nurse. Twilight shook her head. "No. Feel free to go, I'll just sit here a little longer." The nurse gave a small bow, then walked out of the room. > Nightcrawl (A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 7) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Very well then." Slowly, making sure the stallion was still convinced, Twilight took hold of the scale and began to walk towards the platform. "I will be going alone at first, for safety reasons. Starlight can give you a few ideas of what might be on the other side." She turned towards Stone. "I hope that is not a problem for you." Still breathing slowly, Stone nodded again. Starlight began to approach him, meanwhile looking at Twilight. "Are you sure you're going alone?" she asked. "You just came back from the desert, it's better if you stay here," Twilight said, setting the scale in place. "I wouldn't want you to get tired." Concentrating, she began to cast the long series of protective spells needed as precaution before traversing a portal. They'd managed to combine most of them, and make it so the different portions only triggered and actually drained most power when the conditions requiring them were met, but it was still a rather complex and relatively taxing piece of magic. Behind the alicorn, Starlight began to tell Stone Brick of the first time they'd traversed a portal. She conveniently left out the possibility of it blowing up the castle and maybe more had things gone wrong, Twilight noted. Ponyville had probably never been in danger, there were measures in place to contain an explosion to the castle itself, but if a reaction strong enough to overcome even that occurred then it definitely would have taken the town with it at the least. Shaking those thoughts out of her head, Twilight focused once more on the scale in front of her. She readied her horn, then cast the spell, and a moment later light spread out from the scale in the portals' familiar pattern. "See you in a bit," she said, stepping forward. The trip through the portal was no different from the usual one. The world on the other side was dark. That was her first impression. Night covered the sky, the light of the Moon shining down over everything. A street paved with stone on the ground, well maintained, buildings in the same condition. Soft whispers and breaths, the subtle clacking of a few hooves. Twilight looked around her. Ponies, standing still and looking at her. Surprised, like their daily lives had been interrupted, curiously studying the new arrival. Silent. A few dark banners hung from buildings and posts, and Twilight swore she'd seen a pattern like the one on them before. There was something about the way everyone was looking at her. About the lack of words or sounds. About the colour of their eyes. A castle stood not too far from her position, behind a number of streets and buildings, the top still visible as it towered over everything else. Ancient stone towers and walls, and dark flags waving from posts above them. One pony stepped towards Twilight. The alicorn stepped back into the portal. Twilight stepped out of the portal, in the middle of her laboratory. Starlight and Stone Brick looked at her, and worry coloured their expressions as they noticed hers. "Is everything alright?" the unicorn asked, while the portal closed. Twilight looked at both of them. "We need to talk." > Fullmoon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow's body drifted up the river, surrounded by scraps of metal and paper. The green water was cold, but not unpleasantly so. Three moons shone up in the sky above her, and a myriad of stars around the them. And it all seemed natural to her, normal, needing not to be questioned. Slowly, however, she realised something was amiss. Something she couldn't quite put her hoof on, just like how she couldn't quite remember why she was there, or where there even was. At the same time, she noticed she wasn't alone. There was another pony to her left, floating up the river atop a silver flower petal. "Princess Luna," Rainbow said, recognising the alicorn. She then looked back at the alien sky above them. "This is a dream then." "It would be quite the worrisome situation otherwise," Luna replied, following Rainbow's gaze up to the three moons in the sky. "And quite the added workload for me, considering those all move in different patterns. It is not a common sight to see them all together like that. I believe the added visibility they provide is part of why the attack failed." She looked down at the broken metal around them in the river. "Although that is perhaps a topic for another night. My workload, however, is not." Rainbow Dash sat upright in the middle of the river, her hindquarters firmly placed on the water's surface, without concerning herself at the physical impossibility of the event. "Is something wrong?" "The attack failed and you almost died, for one." Luna shook her head. "Sorry, a topic for another night, as we've said. As for the troubles of our world, yes, something is wrong. Many things, actually." She gave a little smile. "But that has always been the case, if admittedly more so since the Behemoth's arrival. Perhaps it would be better to ask what is wrong instead. What is wrong now that wasn't before, and why am I here now." Rainbow Dash stared at her for a moment, as silence stretched on. "Uh. Yeah, pretend I did that," she said, motioning with a hoof. Luna couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I shall put it clearly then. I am here because I require assistance. My work as guardian of ponies' dreams has grown more taxing, as of late. In no small part, this is due to the hunting sessions I have to undertake. Without the Elements and with the Behemoth's presence, the Everfree has been growing restless and more twisted, its presence in the dream world more intense, and the borders between dream and reality far thinner within it." Luna noticed the poorly contained excitement on Rainbow's face, and her lips curved upwards just a tiny bit. "It is nothing I can't take care of, and nothing too dangerous so far. But I do fear I may not be able to properly dedicate myself to either task as things get worse. And knowing about a certain pony who expressed interest in travelling through the dreams of others, and who also happens to quite enjoy the thrill of action and danger even in her sleep, I was wondering if-" "Yes," said Rainbow, failing to contain her excitement any longer. She'd been mouthing the word for a bit as she'd listened to Luna speak, and actually hearing herself say it out loud surprised even her. She'd not meant to, and she was aware she'd spoken just a bit too soon. But Luna just smiled. "Very well then. Shall we begin?" And Rainbow noticed she was suddenly wearing a silver suit of armour over her light blue coat. > Nightcall (A Rock and a Sharp Place - Part 8) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door closed behind Starlight. Inside the small room, Twilight Sparkle, Stone Brick, and the scale he had brought. And a small crystal table. Starlight was almost certain the room hadn't been there the day before, but she'd learned to stop concerning herself with the oddities of the crystal castle. "There's something I haven't told you," Twilight began, setting the scale down onto the table. "I don't think Starlight told you either. It's not something we share around too much, even with the rest of the staff, but it is something you need to hear to understand why this is important." She stared right at Stone Brick. "Do I have your attention, and your secrecy?" A little taken aback at first, Stone nodded, and Starlight was reminded that she was, in fact, at the presence of Equestria's only current ruler. It was easy to forget the weight of Twilight's role and titles at times. The alicorn waited a moment, looking around the room. "I've told you every scale leads to a different world, and I'm sure you've realised how different they can be from each other. But they all have one thing in common." She paused to take a breath. "Every world we visited so far had no sapient creatures in it. We found ruins, we found traces of what clearly used to be civilisation, but we never found any signs of one still existing. "And it doesn't look like any of them met a peaceful end," she continued. "We found worlds submerged, desertified, swept by impossibly strong winds, covered in ice. We found a planet broken in half. We found a room floating in a void that seems to be all that's left of a world, and everything inside was still in perfect condition. Every single world we've been to was destroyed in some way, some worse than others, by some sort of catastrophe." Twilight paused a moment longer. "Until now." Starlight almost jumped up as she heard the last words. "You found an habitable world on the other side of that?" she asked, almost a scream of surprise. Twilight gave a crooked smile, one Starlight had never seen on her face. "I found more than that. I found an inhabited world." Taking advantage of Starlight's momentary gasp, she kept going before the unicorn could interrupt her. "And it's like ours. There were ponies there." Starlight's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, with no sound coming out of it. Twilight's expression darkened. "And we are not going back now. Not the way you're thinking of. We'll have to be very careful in there, Starlight. And make sure we're not seen, when we go investigate." Starlight's mouth closed with a snap, several layers of confusion and surprise warping her face. "But why?" "I saw something there. Something I recognised. You know all about Sunset, so I don't think you'll have trouble believing me. It was night there, and the ponies were out, and I recognised the pattern on the banners around town. It's not the exact same I saw the last time, but I have no doubt it means the same thing." Stone Brick was looking between the two mares, confused. Starlight took a step forward. "Twilight, what did you see? What does this have to do with Sunset? And why did you tell me it was..." She looked down for a moment. "No." Twilight nodded. "Yes. What we've gotta hope for now is that she doesn't have a way to follow us here." "But... It doesn't make sense, the timelines I created shouldn't-" "It's not the same. The Moon was clear, and the banners were different." Twilight took another breath. "But it's unmistakable that Nightmare Moon is the one in power there, or someone very much like her. I don't like the idea, and neither do you I'm sure, but this is the only real chance we have to learn more about how scales work. We'll have to go back there, sooner or later." She turned to Stone Brick. "I must ask to keep your scale here a while longer, I'm afraid. And I'm sure you have questions. Now is the time to ask them." > GLR > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, funny story, I found out this online game I used to play back in middle school got its servers shut down a few years ago, but then a couple years later a group of fans got together and reverse-engineered the whole thing, and now it's playable again. Still a bit buggy in places, but they're patching it up. I've gotten back into it." "And how is it?" "Oh, it's every bit as awful as I remembered it, a black hole that sucks away your life with ever-increasing waiting times to upgrade your buildings so you can produce more resources to upgrade your base even further and produce even stronger units and defensive turrets in a never ending spiral of growing numbers that feasts on your basic human instincts. But at least now there's no company behind it, so it's impossible to speed things up by paying real money for premium currency, so everyone is stuck with the waiting. So when you find a stronger player you know they wasted hours to get there instead of dollars. I'm only playing it because of nostalgia, and I think it's the same for everyone else, really." Indigo Zap momentarily raised an eyebrow, then her expression returned to normal. "Alright then. Are you playing it right now?" Lemon Zest shook her head. "No, I have buildings under construction at the moment, no point keeping it open. I would keep it in the background, but the current build doesn't handle idle players well. It crashes and needs to be restarted, so I might as well not keep it open. Not while attacking is still bugged and I don't need to worry about optimising my online time so people can't steal my resources." She kept on typing at her keyboard. "Why do I get the feeling that means you once spent a whole day straight never leaving the game just for that?" "Because I did." Lemon looked at Indigo. "Hey now. If you don't get all the stupid things done and out of your system when you're young you're gonna have problems when you feel the need to do them as an adult." "I don't think that's how that works. Anyway, what are you up to now, then?" "Right now I'm creating a bunch of fake accounts to skew the results of a pool on this website." Lemon turned back towards the computer screen. "It would be a lot easier if people didn't keep voting for the other option." Indigo Zap just rolled her eyes at that. "What's the pool about, anyway?" "Porn." A moment of silence stretched on. "Do you have no shame?" "Specifically, what this girl should do next." Indigo resisted the impulse to smack herself in the face, though it was a close thing. Then another impulse came to her. As stealthily as one could, which is to say not particularly, she slid her chair next to Lemon's. "What are the options?" Lemon just turned the screen a little, as she once again picked the one she was trying to push the pool towards. > Orchard > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Doesn't that girl look familiar?" Lemon Zest followed the direction of Indigo's eyes with her own. "The green one?" "No, not her. The one next to her, with the hat." "Oh. I don't know, maybe? We should ask her." "Lemon, you can't just-" "Hey, you! With the hat!" Lemon Zest shouted towards the opposite side of the road. "Do we know each other?" Applejack turned to stare at the opposite sidewalk, and there saw a girl excitedly waving at her while next to her another covered her face with her hands, distinctly showing the signs of wishing the ground would swallow her. A few more people turned as well, and the blue-haired girl took a step back. After taking a moment to assess the weirdness of the situation, Applejack realised she did actually recognise the pair. "Crystal Prep? Friendship Games? Twilight almost destroying the world?" she shouted back, regretting it a moment later as most eyes turned to her. Lemon Zest snapped her fingers. "Applejack! Of course!" She turned to Indigo. "See? We did know her. We just had to ask!" Indigo moved her fingers just enough to uncover her eyes, and threw the most piercing glare she could muster at her friend. Lemon ignored it as she turned back towards Applejack. "What brings you here?" she yelled yet again. Nervous, Applejack pointed to the nearest crossing with her eyes, hoping the duo would catch the hint. Lemon Zest did not. Fortunately, Indigo did, and she dragged the other girl by the back of her shirt up to the crossing and to the other side of the road, as Applejack walked there too. They all moved to stand aside, as to not stop in the middle of the sidewalk while talking. Applejack pointed a finger at the girls. "Lemon Zest, right?" she asked, receiving a nod in response. "And you are..." She turned to Indigo. "Uh... Blue Fast? Something like that." "Indigo Zap." The girl put forward a hand to shake Applejack's, who did the same. "So, what brings you here?" Lemon asked, swaying back and forth with her arms behind her back. "Well, I sort of live here now," Applejack said, looking towards the ground. "Cool. Same," Indigo replied. "Won't that hurt the band?" Lemon asked. Applejack flinched at that. "Yep. Yes it will. They're looking for a new bassist now." Then she frowned slightly. "Wait, you know about the Rainbooms?" "Of course I do!" Lemon replied. "How could I not know about the band Twilight sings in?" "Twilight is in a band?" Indigo looked at the other two, surprised. Lemon rolled her eyes. "How do you not know that, Indy? I've told you about it at least five times." "Lemon, living with you is already hard enough. If I actually had to pay attention to all your unending music rants I think my brain would melt and leak out of my ears." Indigo turned towards Applejack. "She thinks three in the morning is an appropriate time to blast music. She almost got us kicked out of the place. Twice." Applejack felt a small chuckle rise to her lips. "So, why are you two living here on your own? University?" "University is for nerds," Lemon replied. "Which admittedly includes all of our friends, and it's the reason almost all of them are around here too," Indigo added. "But no. We're just taking a year off, deciding what to do. Having fun, you know?" "Almost?" Applejack raised an eyebrow. Both Lemon and Indigo looked to the side. "Sugarcoat is still stuck at Crystal Prep," the latter explained. "Things have been rough for her after the Games." "What about you? What are you here for, studying?" Lemon stepped in. "Work, actually," Applejack answered. Then she glanced at her phone. "Speaking of which, I better get going if I want to be there in time." "We were going that way too, we can come with you if you want," Indigo offered. Applejack pondered her options. "Sure. Why not?" And with that, the trio began to walk down the sidewalk again. > Connect the Dots > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The alicorn was more than ready to finally get rid of the stallion. She'd have forcefully flung him into town with her magic if it hadn't been for her desire to remain unnoticed, and she was planning to do it anyway if he annoyed her particularly. But she needed to focus. The first houses were in sight, and she couldn't afford all her work to come undone because of one mistake. She couldn't afford to be seen there, there would be too many questions, and sooner or later the original Twilight would find out. No one had to see her. "Oh, I see you've changed," the stallion suddenly said, turning back towards her. "I can still recognise you though. Same wires as before inside you." She paid no attention to him or his nonsense. There were more important things to focus her attention on, for example the pony at the edge of town. The one who was coming right towards them. In a blink, Twilight's clone jumped behind a bush. If everything went right, the pony would just notice the stallion and take him back to the city. "Scarlet!" the stallion shouted, noticing the approaching pony. He began to trot towards the mare, leaving Twilight's clone behind. The other pony ran towards him. "You're here! I was worried about you! Where have you been?" "I got lost," the stallion replied. "Did you know there's a swamp someplace around here? I did find some puzzles along the way. I had fun. I had some soup earlier. You like soup, don't you? We should have soup together sometime." Scarlet drew back a little, a conflicted expression on her face as she eyed over the stallion and his clothes. "You shouldn't run off on your own like that. You could have hurt yourself, or worse! You should stay in town from now on, please." "But I wasn't on my own." The stallion pulled on a blade of glass in front of him. Twilight's clone felt her heart drop as the bush in front of her lowered itself into the ground and the stallion pointed a hoof towards her. "She helped me get back here after I got lost near the swamp," he continued. The alicorn's very first impulse was to blow both ponies' brains put. Thankfully that only lasted a moment. She knew it would only make things much worse. Cursing herself and the other Twilight for not having learnt appropriate memory manipulation spells yet, she decided her best option was to play along and hope. Carefully she stepped forward and began to approach the other two. "Oh, thank you!" The mare rushed towards her. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't found him." In a lower tone, once she was near, she leaned forward and added, "He's not all right in the head. I'm sorry you had to deal with him. We're trying to figure out what to do with him." Straightening and speaking normally again, Scarlet continued, "What was a unicorn like you doing out there near the swamp, anyway?" Twilight's clone was about to respond, but something of what the other had said made her pause. That, and something she saw. Standing in front of the mare, she was just close enough to see her reflection inside Scarlet's eyes. And that reflection did not show Twilight's body. > Fire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would rain soon, the pegasus could feel it. The tiny prickles of electricity running along their wings spoke of an oncoming storm. At the least, they were done with work for the day. All they needed to do was find a place to stay for the night. Maybe they would even catch some of the rain, they never did mind getting wet too much. Autumn wouldn't last much longer. The days were getting shorter, the nights colder, and soon winter would be there again. Hopefully it wouldn't be too different from the previous ones, but there was no telling with the Behemoth still in Canterlot. If they squinted really hard, on a day when the skies were clear enough, they could see it even from there. It wasn't something they liked to do, though. Not that anyone else in Equestria liked looking at the Behemoth, not as far as the pegasus knew at least. And they would have been greatly surprised to find out someone actually did, and perhaps concerned about the mental well being of said creature. Fascination with danger was one thing, but there was something distinctly unnatural and otherworldly about the Behemoth, something sickening, even if no one could pinpoint down exactly what. A stray droplet of water landed on the pegasus' muzzle, taking them out of their train of thought. It was starting earlier than expected. Firecracker stretched their wings, then took off and began to glide down the mountain. A few more drops of water hit them on their way down, but it hadn't properly started to rain yet. For a few minutes the pegasus just kept gliding, as the weather remained unchanging. Thunder rumbled in the distance, as the sky grew a bit darker. A few flashes of lightning illuminated the clouds from within, but still only sparse drops dripped down to earth. That had Firecracker mildly worried, heavy rain was not the most pleasant of things to take head on. At least it was long past summer, completely out of season for a hailstorm. Though with the Behemoth there, one couldn't be completely sure. They supposed maybe they should have been glad it was still raining water, going by what the creature had brought to Equestria as far as plants and animals went. But then, they should have been angry at the Behemoth being there in the first place. Perhaps it was all a bunch of pointless wonderings, and they shouldn't have concerned themself with speculation about what could and couldn't have been with things so completely outside of their control. After all, it would have been like complaining they'd been born in that world and not another. And yet ponies still did complain about the rain. Admittedly, most of them were used to weather being a scheduled thing, and they even knew who to direct their complaints to. Firecracker did not envy those ponies tasked with bringing rain, not one bit. But the rain above them at that moment was different, they knew it. And in a couple more minutes it would be pouring down on them, so perhaps it was best if they focused on finding shelter first, and then continued on with their musings there. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "See, girls? The plot is moving forward now," Rarity said, but her tone was shaking, and her smile unconvincing. "Still waiting on an update on the cracks world," Twilight said, "and on one for the hospital storyline. And probably on something else that I've forgotten because it's been too long." Rarity tried to widen her smile. It didn't go too well. "Come on now, darling. I'm sure he has it all figured out." Twilight shook her head while keeping her eyes on the unicorn, unamused. "I don't think he does. And honestly, even if he does, I don't think he's delivering on it. Do we really need to spend a chapter on a painting? Can't we move on to the important stuff instead?" Rarity crossed her front legs and looked to the side, furrowing her brow and pursing her lips. "Oh, please." She have a short, hissing huff. "You need to learn to appreciate the flavour of things, Twilight. Why eat sweets when other food can feed you just the same? Why wear good clothes when simple panels of cloth can offer the same protection?" She flayed her front legs around dramatically for emphasis. "Why even read a book instead of its synopsis if you're not interested in how the events are presented? Why paint walls? It's what decorates things that makes us enjoy them, not only the barren and naked structure underneath!" She posed for added effect. Twilight rolled her eyes. "And I am worried that there is no underlying structure under all this fluff and pointless meandering. You can't build a solid wall with just paint, no matter how many layers of it you apply. If you want to decorate something, you need something to decorate, otherwise all you have is a pile of decorations that is less than the sum of its parts. If all you have are bits meant to enhance an experience, but no experience to enhance, then what you've made isn't good. And if something is there, but it's too far buried underneath everything else, then it's not much different. Adding salt to food makes it taste better, but a pile of salt with some food beneath isn't good." She crossed her front legs, closed her eyes and nodded. "How long will the potion last?" Fluttershy asked from her bed. "I don't mind being blue, but I would like to know when it will be over." "Should be over soon," Rainbow Dash replied from atop her own bed. She moved one of the hats beside her to the side. "Rarity? When are you moving these?" Rarity looked up. "Ah. Yes, darling, give me just a minute, okay?" She frantically began to look around the room for another suitable place for her pile of fashion. "Girls?" asked Applejack, rubbing the back of her head. "Does anyone else feel like things are different right now? Different from the way they usually are?" Everypony else in the room looked at each other. "Not really?" Twilight said. Applejack bit her lower lip, then went back to looking at her tablet. > Carried Along > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adagio was the first back out of the portal. And she almost made it there still on her feet, but Sonata crashing into her as she stepped out behind her brought both of them on the ground. Aria was not as hasty as either of them as she stepped back into the human world, but the pile of bodies right in front of her feet as she walked out of the portal still meant she lost her balance, fell down and became part of it. At the bottom of the pile, Adagio propped her head up with an arm, and resting her chin on her hand began to drum with her fingers on her cheek, waiting for the other two to take themselves off of her, an unamused expression decorating her face. Aria, being the one on top, was the first to get off, and after dusting off her clothes she helped Sonata up with a hand. Feeling the weight over her lift, Adagio too stood up, cleaning her clothes as best she could and then posing as if nothing had happened. "So much for finally getting our revenge," Aria said, her arms crossed as she looked at the portal with spite. "We'll go back," Adagio replied. "We just need to wait for the other side to be clear." There was a distinct growling sound underneath her words, like that produced by a cat who's ready to lash out against someone. "If the other side ever is clear," Aria said. Sonata just stood in a corner, looking sad and miserable. "I miss flying." Adagio ignored her. "We'll wait here. We're going back in later, tonight if we have to. We are not leaving this place until we have magic again, and we're writing down the coordinates." "Do we have food with us?" asked Aria. "I don't care if we have food with us! We'll have all the food we want once the people of this world are crawling beneath us," Adagio snapped. Aria and Sonata looked at her for a moment, silent, eyes wide. "I do want food," said the latter. Adagio growled at her. "I'll go check if we have food," Aria said, walking towards the van. Adagio turned her head towards the portal and began to glare at it, a mix of frustration and desire on her face. Then sometimes else caught her attention, and she placed a hand on her chest, her expression at once confused and concerned. "We do have food!" Aria announced from inside the van. She then stepped out, just in time to see Adagio sliding a hand beneath her clothes. "Did that thing finally stab itself in your ribs? I get keeping it, but don't you think it's kind of obsessive to wear it all the time?" "Shut up, will you?" With a tug, Adagio pulled out the necklace she wore, and stared at the red gem attached to it. And a grin slowly spread over her lips. Seeing her, the other two did the same, fetching their respective gems from within their pockets. And both of them were slowly overtaken by excitement, as they watched the red sparks of energy dance and crackle within the crystals. "Maybe we can leave for now, after all," Adagio purred, donning her necklace once again. > Fructose > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack adjusted her clothes as she walked down the sidewalk, briefly checking her phone for messages before looking straight ahead again. She wasn't in a rush to get where she needed to go, but it was still preferable to arrive there soon and not have others wait for long. At least that was what she told herself, to justify her walking pace. What she didn't tell herself was that she was nervous, though beneath the surface of her thoughts she knew she was. Finally, after turning a corner, her destination appeared to her. Calling it a restaurant would have been a generous thing, perhaps so generous as to make it a lie. It was more properly defined as a place that served food for cheap. The type of business that thrived on people in their late teens and early twenties looking for a place to meet each other and feed themselves at, but not interested in the formalities and prices of a proper restaurant. Visited by anyone who needed cheap food to eat on the go. So, essentially, a gathering place for students, young workers, and other sorts of people still young enough to not care about the quality of the things they ingested. She fit the second category, and the ones she was going there to meet fit the other two. There they were already, all four of them sitting at a table just outside the entrance. Talking to each other, until one of them noticed her and pointed and waved and the others turned and now they were all staring at her and only then did Applejack realise she'd been standing still and frozen staring at them. Waving and resuming her walk before Lemon decided she needed directions and started to yell, Applejack tried to swallow her nervousness. It didn't work. "There you are," Indigo Zap greeted her. Then she turned to the others, while Applejack took a seat on the empty metal chair beside Lemon Zest's. "This is Applejack. Applejack, these are Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet." The latter of the two girl excitedly smiled and waved, while the first one gave a more polite and contained smile. "A pleasure to meet you," she said. "Uh, likewise," Applejack said, sitting down straight and looking at the four girls at the table. She awkwardly fidgeted with her empty hands, unsure of what to do or say. "So, uh, I know about Lemon and Indigo, what about you two? You're here in town to study, right?" Sunny nodded. Sour said, "Yes we are! Isn't it wonderful?" Then she looked to the side and her tone dropped. "Ruining our sleep schedules and diets to waste our time and money on learning things we could have learned by ourselves for free if we weren't too lazy for that only because we need someone to acknowledge that we have in fact learned them. And the bathrooms suck." "Hey now," Lemon interjected. "I'm not going to school, and I still get to ruin my sleep schedule and diet." She pulled out a bag of gummy worms and began to eat them. Applejack had no idea where the bag had actually come from. It was not a small bag, either. "That's just because you never mentally moved on from being a teenager, Lem." Indigo sighed. She looked at Applejack. "What will you be having? We were discussing what to eat before, I can go order for all of us if you tell us." "Does this place have a menu?" Applejack asked. Sour Sweet handed her a folded sheet of thin and glossy cardboard. "Knock yourself out." > Additive | 65 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sugarcoat stared at the dress for a few seconds, as the mare walked closer to her. "No. That's hideous. You should bring it back to the dark backroom you dug it out of." The mare stopped and stared at the dress. "Yeah, I know. But for a moment I hoped we'd finally get rid of it. Can you blame me?" She set the thing down on the nearest shelf. As the other mare searched for something, Sugarcoat took a brief walk around the shop. Her gaze fell on a clothing rack, and something caught her eye. "What about this one?" she asked, pointing at a dress with a hoof and lifting her head, looking around for the other unicorn. The mare in question slid her head out of a drawer and turned towards Sugarcoat. "Yes?" She walked up to the girl, and pulled out the dress that was being pointed at. "This one, dear?" Sugarcoat gave it a better look. There wasn't some sort of grand shining revelation inside her, but a reaction was there. A sensation, kind of weak but there nonetheless, a gentle warmth like that of the embers after a small fire has died. It was nice. Not spectacular, not earth-shattering, but she liked the dress. It was more than she could have said about any other one she'd seen. "Yes," she said, turning to the other unicorn. "I'll take this one. No, I don't need to try it on first." The unicorn had a look at the dress, then at Sugarcoat. "I think it will look nice on you." She nodded, and carried the dress towards the counter. Sugarcoat watched her walk for a moment. And she smiled. Fluttershy opened her eyes, and she gasped for breath like someone coming up for air after a long swim underwater. Around her darkness punctuated by beeping red and green lights. There was something on her body, attached to it in different places, but she couldn't understand what it was. She would have looked, but she was too weak to. Or maybe it wasn't that. She couldn't focus on anything, the images before her eyes seemed to dance and melt together. She wasn't sure where up and down were, she couldn't move, she felt hot and cold at the same time. Her eyes started to close again. Her eyelids were getting heavy, it was a struggle to keep them open. The edges of her vision darkened, a blurry blanket of blackness spreading towards the centre. She was lying down, she realised, her head over something soft. She was comfortable. Maybe it was better to sleep. She heard sounds coming from somewhere. But they were muffled to her, she couldn't make out anything. Her vision grew darker and darker, her eyelids heavier and heavier. There was no point in keeping her eyes open when she couldn't see anyway, and so she decided to close them. It wasn't so bad after all. Sleep would make her feel better. There were a few more sounds, closer this time. Someone touching her. But by that point, she was already unconscious again. > That Which Was Skipped > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sure, and Far Shore didn't steal my seashell whisk last month. I know she did. It was a nice whisk, too. I'm not really bothered by not having it, I have a lot of whisks, but she should have just asked if she wanted it, and like I said it was a nice whisk. I got it about a year ago at a shop near a volcano in the Dragonlands. I don't actually know why they were selling a seashell whisk there. I don't know why they were selling a whisk at all, considering it was a postcards shop. Well, technically it was supposed to be a newsstand, but almost nothing ever got there so they basically exclusively sold postcards. Maybe that's why they were selling a whisk. "I remember Ember was really surprised that I was there. Maybe I should have told her I would be throwing a party. Mail doesn't get there though, so I would have needed to find another way to get to her. But then it wouldn't have been a surprise party! But maybe she doesn't like surprise parties, and I shouldn't be throwing surprise parties for her. Oh, now I hope she wasn't just pretending to enjoy herself to make me happy. That's just the worst, I always need to fix my files after I find out about that and what's worse it means I threw a party where someone wasn't enjoying themself! "I remember this one time, for example, where I was throwing a party for a filly. I'd gotten her a huge chocolate cake, with turquoise-coloured frosting. At least it was supposed to be turquoise. Turquoise is kind of on that line where creatures debate whether a colour is green or blue, although turquoise itself is definitely more on the blue side. I think, at least, from what I've seen. Maybe I've always seen turquoise wrong and every creature was using the name incorrectly and turquoise is actually different from that. "Aren't you ever afraid of something like that? Of suddenly finding out everyone is wrong about something and they have all been misusing a term and suddenly you need to tell others so they too can stop making this mistake but you feel kind of bad about it because the realisation that you've been doing something wrong your whole life kind of hurts and you don't want to hurt others but you know it's the right thing to do to tell them but it's still hard, but it'll hurt more if you don't and you know that's the case. "And even if you didn't say it, they're still doing it wrong. And they might find out one day in the future! And then, they will wonder why you didn't tell them if you already knew, and they will still be hurt by it. So really, it's better to tell them as soon as you can. After all, it's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the metanarrative layer, and everything is- Hey, where did he go?" Pinkie looked around, but Discord was no longer anywhere to be found. In his stead a closed door stood in front of Twilight, who turned to look at her and sighed. > Paid In Full > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight sat on her chair, looking at the ground. To her left, Sunburst similarly sat on a chair, in just the same position. Between them, on a third chair, Starshine Flicker sat upright, smiling, one wing embracing each unicorn. "I could go for some ice-cream right now," Starlight said after a few more minutes of silence. Then she looked up, and noticed there on the desk an ice-cream cone waiting for her. She blinked. "Sunburst?" "Yes?" the unicorn replied, not taking his eyes off the floor. "Did you teleport ice-cream inside?" "I did not." Starlight stayed silent a few breaths longer. "Then why is there ice-cream on the desk?" Sunburst lifted his eyes and noticed the ice-cream cone on the desk, and the little metal stand with a hoop keeping it up. "I have absolutely no idea." "You better get to it, Starlight. It will melt otherwise," Starshine said. Starlight took the cone in her telekinesis, brought it to her lips, and gave a careful, experimental lick to the ice-cream. It was mint-flavoured, and it tasted good. She then turned to the pegasus. "Starshine, did you make the ice-cream appear?" "No." Starshine shook her head. Starlight went back to looking ahead and down, studying the floor, only now she was licking her ice-cream. A few minutes went by, and she finally finished the cone. She was smiling by the end of it. "You want this?" she asked to Sunburst, turning towards him and holding out the bottom part of the cone. Sunburst looked at it, then back to the ground. "No, but thank you." As Starlight finished the bottom of the cone, he stuck out his hoof in some vague direction to his left, grasping at air. There he latched on to a mug, and pulled it back. It was black, and filled with chocolate. "Starshine? Did you make this mug appear?" he asked, turning towards the pegasus. "I didn't," Starshine replied. Sunburst looked back at the mug of chocolate, shrugged, then began to drink it. It was good. By the end of it, he was smiling too. He licked the top of his lips clean after he was done, and set the mug down beside his chair. "What the actual fuck is going on right now?" "I have no idea," Starlight answered, just as cheerfully as the question had been asked. "Do you two want to have sex again?" Starshine asked. "Nah." Starlight got up. "Not now, at least. But I do want to figure out what's going on here." "Oh, maybe I can help with that!" Starshine got up as well. Sunburst followed just a moment later. "So where do we start?" he asked, lifting a few of the papers that had fallen onto the floor in his magic and placing them back on the clean corners of the desk. "We should probably..." He trailed off as he suddenly felt a pressure against his leg, and looked down to see a mop there, and a bucket of water. Picking the first up, he began to clean the desk where it was still wet. "We definitely do need to figure out what's causing this. But at least it's convenient." > Tunnel Vision > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The unicorn sighed, shook his head, and closed the cupboard. "I can't poison my source of income, Lightning. It would be quite counterproductive." "I'm not your source of income. The Princess is your source of income. You can keep making money even after I'm dead," Lightning Dust replied. She chewed on nothing, trying to get rid of the viscous sensation filling her mouth. "Not if she finds out," the stallion replied. He opened another cupboard, this time above the sink, pulled out a glass and filled it with water. "And I'm pretty sure she will find out as soon as she asks you to make a new delivery. Kind of hard to pretend at that point, when you're no longer moving and all." "Just act like I'm blackout drunk. Then run. You should make it across the border fast enough." The unicorn held out the glass for her, and she stared at it. "Please tell me that's vodka." He looked at the glass, then at her. "Yeah, it's vodka." Lightning snatched the glass with a wing and downed it in one sip. "You lied to me." "You asked me to." Lightning would have thrown the glass at him, but her wing was a little too sore for that. And her legs were out of the question, as long as she wanted to still be standing afterwards at least. "I can't serve you alcohol this early, Lightning." The stallion took the glass from her and placed it on the table. "Like I said, I'd rather keep you safe." The fact that her mouth was less dry and overall more normal after the drink made Lightning hold back most of her complaints. Not all of them, though. "It's not early. It's the middle of the afternoon, ponies are already starting to get drunk about now." "It's early for you, you just woke up after all." The unicorn had meanwhile begun to search around the kitchen for something to eat. "What's up with that, anyway? Usually you manage to get out of bed before noon. Rough day yesterday?" "Have you ever tried to outfly a storm?" "Can't say I have." "Good for you." Lightning chose to end that particular conversation there. She spent what felt like a moment looking at the ground, then a smell hit her nose and she looked up to see the unicorn cooking a couple of eggs in a pan. "What if I don't want them?" "Then I'll eat them myself. Try to stop me." Lightning sighed, then slowly made her way to the table in the middle of the kitchen. The world was finally stable enough for her to walk mostly straight, which she was quietly thankful for. The unicorn looked back at her. "Don't you have any coffee around here?" "My dad used to pour himself a shot of liquor inside his coffee, and another one in the cup afterwards to clean it. I live alone. I don't need to pretend I'm drinking coffee when I want to start my day on a double shot." Lightning sat down. "You shouldn't drink so much with how important your job is." "I'm not working today." The stallion served her the eggs, and she eyed them suspiciously. "And you aren't either right now, so you shouldn't be here." "And pass up a chance to watch over your ass?" The stallion sat down in front of Lightning. "There are stallions and mares who'd pay for that, you know?" That actually got a snicker out of Lightning. She began to eat her eggs. "Maybe I should charge you for it, then." The stallion smiled. "Nah. At that point I'd probably go back to Soarin' instead, that's an ass I like looking over." Lightning looked halfway up at him, lifting an eyebrow. The unicorn looked back at her with a smirk. "Did you know he's a screamer?" Lightning's laughing fit almost made her choke on the eggs she was eating. As the stallion promptly refilled her glass with water and passed it to her, she cleaned her mouth with a wing. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked, grabbing the glass as he passed it to her. "Silver Spear," the stallion said. "Took you long enough to ask." > Lightningbringer - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was raining, hard. The sky was near black, streaked with white and blue when lightning flashed through the clouds. Firecracker's coat, wings, mane and tail were soaked, heavy with water. Still, they kept flying, looking for a safe place to land. The shelter of the trees underneath was not enough with rain so heavy, and the side of the mountain was not a place they trusted with that weather. Lightning was one risk, but more than that they feared a mudslide or worse. If the storm kept going long enough, it was bound to happen. And so the best thing to do was get away from there. Flying in the rain wasn't fun, but it beat walking through it on muddy ground, and was faster too. They had to keep low though, close to the treetops. The winds were too strong and unpredictable higher up, and losing control in mid air was the last thing they needed at that moment. It came and it went before the pony had a chance to realise what had happened. One moment they were flying, the next everything had gone white and loud. A moment later, they were flying again. Breathing heavily from more than just the strain of moving their damp wings, they stopped and turned back, staring at the smoking tree still glowing orange where the lightning had struck it. The rain had already put out the fire itself, but the trunk was charred, like a giant ember embedded into the ground. The lightning had barely missed the pegasus. They could have hovered there wondering how it was possible for them to be unscathed, but they decided it was a much better course of action to not stay still in the middle of the storm and leave the reflections for a later point in time. They turned again, still panting, and returned to flying away as fast as they could comfortably manage. The odds of being that close or closer to a lightning strike were probably low, but that was not a valid reason to tempt fate. Firecracker didn't have much time to reflect on that either, though. Not a minute after, everything went white again. This time, they weren't flying when things cleared. The pegasus managed to catch themself just before hitting the top of the trees, and go back to a stable flying position after falling through the air. There was a ringing in their ears, and their breath was heavy, but nothing else felt any more wrong than what the rain already made it feel like. They actually took a moment to check their heartbeat, and make sure it was indeed still there. Had they been hit? That couldn't be right. Maybe it had gone off right in front of them, and merely disoriented them. Being a pegasus meant being more resistant to electricity, but the little sparks of small pony-made clouds were not the same as what full storms put out, especially not natural, uncontrolled ones. As they mentally wandered on the issue and searched for the point where the lightning had landed, they happened to look up. This time, they actually saw the bolt come down. But by the time they realised where it was heading, it had already hit them in full. > Phase Shift > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The grey pegasus walked down the road beside the field. There was a lone tree there, far to her left, surrounded by grass and fallen leaves. Its branches were almost barren at that point, still holding on to only a few red and yellow leaves that soon would fall too. She'd never quite understood why the tree had been left there, in the middle of the field. She supposed it was none of her business though, and after all she didn't mind. It provided shade in the summer, and it was nice to rest underneath it. And foals had fun running around it. And sometimes they climbed it as well, those branches were thankfully strong enough to hold a pony. A fully grown one as well, she was pretty sure she'd once seen Rainbow Dash napping on one of them. She shook her head and turned back to staring at the road ahead. Better not to get distracted, especially not when she was walking. There was always the risk of tripping, and, while she wasn't carrying anything, a meeting between her body and the ground was something she would have preferred to avoid. She lowered her gaze to look at the road itself, watching her own steps. Her father had always told her to watch her step if she wanted to make sure not to trip and fall. It had shown to work, when she remembered to do it. Yet somehow, that time, she tripped and fell either way. But she didn't fall towards the ground. Instead, she fell someplace else. .ni nellaf d'ehs erehw fo tuo kcab flesreh gnillup ,taht tsuj did ehs os dnA .ni tuo emoc ot reh rof tuo ecaps fo tol a saw ereht ,dleif nepo na ni elihw nellaf d'ehs gniht ykcul a hcuS .ereht tuo flesreh llup dluoc ehs os ,lla retfa ,ni tuo og ot tuo na dedeen ehS .ecaps dedeen ehs ,tsrif ,hguohT .esnes tsom eht ekam did tahT .tuo eht sdrawot tub ,pu evom ot evah t'ndid ehs oS .tuo tub ,og ot dah ehs taht pu t'nsaw tI .noitautis reh tuoba thguoht ehs ,nwod kcab gnioG .raelc dna thgirb ,hguoht ybraen rats a ees did ehS .rellams sgniht ekam saw did ti lla ,deirt ehs ecnO .gnikrow eb ot mees t'ndid pu gniog tuB .ti fo tuo dna pu og yeht ,loop a edisni ebyam ,erehwemos sllaf eno nehw dnA .pu kcab sevlesmeht llup neht yeht ,sllaf eno nehW ?yltcaxe tuo teg ot woh tuB .melborp a ylsuoivbo saw hcihw ,ereht doof on eb ot demees ereht dnA .reverof tiaw t'ndluoc yeht dna ,od ot sgniht dna ,eb ot secalp dah ehS .ereht fo tuo yaw a dnif ot dedeen ehs ,thguoht ehs ,llitS .esoprup fo esnes a htiW .evisehoC .noitauqe na ro ,gnos a ekil tib a saw tI .ecalp ecin a saw tI .nellaf dah ehs taht saw yllautca ti reverehw ,ereht gnieb tuoba derehtob t'nsaw ehs tuB .hguoht saw taht trap hcihw erus yllaer t'nsaw ehS .reh fo trap rehto emos sa hcum os seye reh gnisu yllaer t'nsaw ehs ,noisserpmi gnorw eht evag dekool ti gniyaS .tlef ti ,kool yllaer t'ndid ti ebyam rO .tnereffid dekool tI .wonk ot mialc dluoc ehs ecalp a t'nsaw ti llits tub ,ni eb ot ecin etiuq tlef yllautca ti tcaf ni ,railimafnu leef t'ndid tI .htiw railimaf saw ehs ecalp a t'nsaw tI The grey pegasus stepped out into the field, and promptly hit her head on the trunk of the tree. She sat down, groaning, and massaged her forehead. She'd barely missed it, she realised. She needed to be more careful, the next time she fell in there. She couldn't risk coming back out inside something. But she wasn't against the idea of falling there again, it looked rather nice after all. > Unia > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow stared at the floating sphere in front of her, and at the red vine-like structure wrapped around it. "That can't be good," she said. "Should we do something about it?" Luna, sitting beside her, studied the scene. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have seen similar things in the past, though nothing ever exactly like this. But then again, every pony's dreams are different, if similar to others'." "What is it, exactly?" Rainbow asked, looking between the alicorn and the sphere. There was a brief pause, during which Luna looked at Rainbow for a moment. "This pony is sick, right now. They're in a hospital bed, unconscious. Their life is not at risk for the time being, but it might be if things become worse." She stared at the red, vein-like vines wrapped around the sphere of the dreamscape she knew was Fluttershy's. "This is related to their illness, which itself is related to the Behemoth and the changes it has brought. But it's unclear how. If this is a symptom of it, or the cause of their physical symptoms, or if both are consequences of something else." "So... Should we do something about it?" Rainbow asked again. Luna smiled. "Perhaps, perhaps not. If this was indeed the cause of their problems, then yes, we should remove it. The doctors can't help them here, after all. But if this is merely a symptom, then removing it might be futile at best, and downright make things worse at worst. It might be a defense mechanism of their own psyche, and we may hurt them by intervening." Rainbow looked between the sphere and Luna again. "So we just do nothing? I'm pretty sure that pony is having nightmares in there." "Most definitely," Luna agreed. "But sometimes nightmares are needed. Like how a broken bone hurts when it's healing. Sometimes, going through some pain is necessary. It's like a fever. It's your body trying to solve the problem, and you should step in to stop it only to prevent it from going too far." "But you still help in other ways," Rainbow objected. "And this pony is being helped. They have doctors looking after them, and they are safe as of right now. I will notify their caretakers of what we found on this side, and discuss with them the best course of action going forward. We shouldn't act too hastily, not while the pony is not at risk and we might worsen things with our actions." Rainbow bit her lower lip. "Dealing with dreams isn't usually this complicated, right?" Luna chuckled. "Having second thoughts? No, it usually isn't. There are cases where a nightmare is better left undisturbed, but they aren't many. I'll make sure to take those on myself." "But why? The nightmares, I mean. Why leave ponies to have them?" Luna smiled fondly at Rainbow Dash. "Dreams are the place where we get to speak with ourselves without realising it. Some things need to be said, even when they're not pleasant to hear, or we wouldn't understand them when we're lucid." Rainbow looked back at Luna. At first she slowly, softly nodded, then she subtly shook her head. "I don't think I get it." Luna chuckled. "You will, one day." > Dymonds - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rarity was sitting at the table in the kitchen when the front door opened. She just kept staring at the empty bottom of her glass as she heard the sound of footsteps walking from there to the room she was in, and only once they stopped did she look up towards the doorframe. "So it finally happened," she said. "I have finally gone insane. Took myself long enough." She went back to looking at her glass. The other Rarity hesitated for a moment. She shared a brief look with Sweetie Belle, steadied herself, and stepped into the kitchen. Closing the door, she began to walk towards the table. She grabbed a chair for herself to sit on, but her eyes mostly stayed on her human self. Once she was sitting, she cleared her throat, to draw the other's attention. Rarity looked up. "Oh, you're still here." She swallowed. "So this is less of a hallucination and more likely a dream. Or a vision, perhaps." She lowered a hand to her side, and pulled up a half-empty bottle of transparent liquor from the floor. "Do you want some, my less dishevelled and more sober self?" The other Rarity eyed the bottle for a moment, then shook her head. "You're not even drinking wine anymore." "It was a waste to drink that when I'm too drunk to taste it. And this gets me drunk faster." She placed the bottle back down, without pouring any of it for herself. "But I'm not yet drunk enough to imagine a conversation with myself today, and I haven't woken up yet so this is not a dream. Pony Rarity?" The pony turned human Rarity nodded. The human from birth Rarity smiled. "I understand you are quite the talented seamstress, but I fear there's no mending the tears of my heart. And please, tell Sunset that while I certainly do know how to appreciate myself, I am not in the mood for self love right now." She looked somewhere to the other Rarity's side. "I may be in the future though. And we..." She didn't finish the sentence. Her expression seemed to crumble and shatter like glass carelessly dropped, and she just stared at nothing, eyes suddenly lucid. She waited a moment, uncertain, afraid of touching an open wound, but reminding herself that it was the reason she was there, the other Rarity asked, "Thinking about her?" "Would I need to drink myself into forgetfulness if I could simply choose not to think about her?" The human Rarity looked at her counterpart across the table. "Always. I'm always thinking about her. I simply have long stretches where I fool myself into failing to notice that is the case. Then I realise she's still there in my head, and I can't do anything to get her out." She gave what sounded vaguely like a very dry, whispered laugh. "Don't think I'm holding back tears right now. I merely already ran out of those this morning." There was a stretch of silence where the human Rarity looked at the other, while the pony turned human one awkwardly looked at the table, unsure of what to say right then. It was the one native to that dimension who broke the quiet, speaking again. "What's your Applejack like? What are things like between you and her?" > Transit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst set down the mop and the bucket. "Well, at least the desk is cleaned now." As Starlight began to reorder the papers that had been moved around in the commotion, he started to look around the room for clues of some kind. "Do you know any spells that might be useful here?" "I think I remember one," Starlight replied. There was a thud, and Sunburst turned to see the other unicorn had bumped into a large book on the floor. She picked it up and opened it to the conveniently marked page. "Yep. It's this one." Starlight levitated the book over to Sunburst, who picked it into his own telekinesis and began to study the spell described in the page. "Can I help with something?" Starshine asked, walking around the room and looking at the two unicorns. "Anything? I can do anything you two would like me to." Starlight sighed. "No, and definitely not in the way you're suggesting." She looked up at Starshine, then almost jumped from the surprise. "Hey! When did you grow a horn?" Hearing her, Sunburst turned towards Starshine as well, to notice she had indeed turned into an alicorn while neither one of them was looking. At the least, her mane and tail and coat were still the same style and colour as before. "Yeah. She does that." He returned to studying the book. Starlight looked suspiciously at the alicorn, who just stared back at her with a smile and a hint of playful smugness. A wave of magical energy swept over the room, coming from Sunburst, and the two mares both turned towards him, waiting for answers. "Nothing." The stallion shook his head, and set the book down. "At least now we know it's not traditional magic." Starlight tapped her chin. "Maybe it's stage magic? Maybe someone else is here and they're secretly tricking us through a combination of misdirection, subtle hypnosis, and a complex system of mirrors and levers." "And reading our minds?" Sunburst lifted an eyebrow for emphasis. Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that his half-pouting expression reminded her of Rarity. "Well, maybe they've actually hypnotised us so completely that we're fully unable to notice their presence, and they can manipulate our perception of time as well." "This isn't one of those books you read when Twilight isn't around, Starlight." Sunburst looked up at the ceiling, sighing. "I'd just like to get some answers on who's behind all of this." He turned, and found himself face to face with a tall mirror which had not been in the room ever before. It was too big to even fit through the door, he was pretty sure. His own reflection stared back at him, first surprised then unamused. "Very funny," he said, as dryly as possible. Starlight looked at the mirror. "We'll have to find a place to put that." Meanwhile, Starshine had placed herself at Sunburst's side, and was looking over her own reflection. "I look nice," she said, turning around to check out her other side. "You don't know what you look like?" Sunburst asked, looking at her. Starshine shook her head. "Only the broad strokes. It's hard when you keep changing." She ketp checking out her reflection. Sunburst and Starlight shared a look. > Chameleon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staring back at her from within the mare's eyes was a blue unicorn. Twilight's clone froze for a moment, and instinctively looked down at herself. The same purple coat she'd always had still covered her legs, and she still distinctly felt her wings on her back if she focused on them. It took a second for her to realise the other was still looking at her, expecting an answer. "Oh, I was just passing there, I'm doing some research around there," the alicorn blurted out. "Oh? What kind of research?" the other mare asked, genuinely interested. "There's nothing there as far as I know, did you find something? I always heard it was just a swamp, and not exactly someplace you wanted to go near." Twilight's clone took a step back. "Yeah, we found a cave there. Well, I mean, the cave was always there, you might have seen it on the maps, but now we found something in the cave." She'd been planning to move out of there anyway after her encounter with the stallion, at that point she was just trying to figure out how to deal with the situation she'd been thrown in as best she could. "We think someone might have been using the place not too long ago. There are traces of magic there, and some more evident signs of physical presence. Broken stalagmites and such." She lowered her tone, letting herself more comfortably slip into the lie she was telling. "There's some speculation it might be where Queen Chrysalis and the others were hiding before they attacked." The disgust on her face as she said that name she didn't need to fake. The other mare looked impressed. "Well, thank you again for taking time to take care of him. I'm Scarlet Ribbon, by the way." She turned back towards the stallion, who was sitting and looking at the two of them. "Blue Spark," Twilight's clone replied. It didn't matter if Scarlet ever found out she'd lied about everything, she would be looking for a pony that probably didn't exist. And if they did, all the better, they weren't her. At most, if the whole thing came up, it would be assumed to be the work of changelings. But there was still one pony who could trace back to her. She began to walk behind Scarlet, keeping her eyes on the stallion. "Mind if I have a look around town?" she asked. "Now that I'm here, I might as well." "I don't see why not," Scarlet replied. They reached the stallion, and she gave him an uncertain look. "We need to talk, later." She walked past him, though she seemed hesitant for some reason. Twilight's clone reached him as well, just as he was getting up to follow the other mare. She held him for just a moment, to make sure there was some distance between them and Scarlet, then she whispered in his ear as they both walked towards the town, "What is going on?" "We're walking towards the town," he serenely replied. The alicorn held back a growl. "Not that!" she hissed. "Me, you, the fact that Scarlet there sees me as a unicorn, your puzzles. What's all of this about? Things stopped making sense the moment you stepped into my life, and I want answers." "Oh, that." The stallion looked at her. "Just wait a few minutes, okay? I'll tell you about it when we're alone." > The Solitaire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all started with a letter. Twilight found it on her desk one afternoon, after coming back to her study. At first she didn't notice it, but once che actually sat down her eyes fell on the grey envelope there in the corner. She picked it up, assuming it had been left for her while she was away, and opened it. The sheet of parchment she pulled out was blank. She frowned, turning it around in her magic to make sure it actually was, and she hadn't just been staring at the wrong side. She was about to switch to revealing spells to check for hidden messages, when the itching in her horn told her that something was happening with the scroll. She set it down just in time to see words appear on the surface. Princess Twilight Sparkle, I presume? A spell similar to the one she used to communicate with Sunset, mostly likely combined with a trigger when the envelope was opened to warn the one on the other side. That was ingenious, and a good way to communicate without risking someone intercepting the letter itself, assuming some sort of password was established between the ones meaning to use it. She needed to study the scroll, the spell could turn out useful in the future. Putting those thoughts aside, she picked up a quil and wrote her answer. She did wonder who it was on the other side though. A few moments later, more words began to appear on the parchment. Check behind the desk, on the wall, near the ground. Twilight paused for a moment, staring at the letter. She got up, pushed her desk away from the wall just enough to slide behind it, and looked down. There, cut into the wall, was a rectangular hole not much deeper than a hoof. And inside it something, wrapped around in a grey cloth. She carefully took it out, but didn't check the contents immediately, instead going back to the letter. Who are you? The answer didn't take long to arrive. Not anyone you would know. Twilight's breathing was just a bit faster, less steady. They'd reinforced security after the incident, specifically to avoid someone sneaking in again. She unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a glass box, and inside the box what looked like the feather of a very large animal. But its off-white, reflective colour was all too familiar to Twilight, and the way it seemed to shine a light of its own sent a shiver down her spine. She set the box down on her desk and covered it with the cloth. What is this? She waited for the answer, breath shaking. Again, it didn't take long. Your world is in danger, more than you realise. I want to talk. I'll contact you three days from now, in the laboratory. Twilight stared at the letter. After a moment, more words appeared. Treat the feather like you would a scale. The spell should be stable enough for it too. See where it takes you. > Following your breadcrumb trail to my madness > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a short bridge, over a river not too wide, near the middle of town. It wasn't an old or historically significant bridge, though it wasn't particularly new either. It wasn't really a bridge anyone had much reason to care about, beyond caring for the fact that it was there and they could walk over it. So when the bridge stopped being there, it wasn't met with any kind of particular despair, but it still provoked all those feelings of annoyance and worry that a bridge collapsing would reasonably cause. It happened in the middle of the night, while no one was there. No one got hurt from it. But a bridge falling was something that needed an explanation, especially if it had done so on its own, and so research was done to figure out what had happened. It took a bit, not too long but at least a couple days, to make sure all the pieces were recovered. Some had fallen in the river and needed to be pulled out. At least they'd been too heavy to get carried away by the lazy current. At the end of it, the ponies in charge of checking concluded that there had been something wrong with the support beams underneath the bridge. The something wrong being that they lacked a structurally integral section. Not in the sense that they had been built without one, but in the sense that that portion had no longer been there when the bridge had collapsed. More than one beam had been reduced to a set of two opposing ends, without a middle to connect them. Not broken, not torn off, it looked like an impossibly clean cut and the middles just weren't there. Nor anywhere else, for that matter, no matter how hard they were searched for. For a while, ponies just accepted it. After all some reason had to exist for what had happened, even if they couldn't figure out what it was. Spontaneously disappearing chunks of matter was not exactly a structural flaw or natural event that could be planned against, so the bridge was rebuilt and that was that. The most accepted theory was that it had probably been a unicorn who'd for some reason stolen the beams. No one had any idea why they might have done that, but it was the most reasonable explanation. And the citizens would have probably forgotten all about it, given enough time, had it not been for what happened to the town hall a week and a half later. Again, it happened during the night, and only at dawn did the ponies notice the results. There were holes in the building's front wall, rectangular, the edges clean. Sections missing from the sides of the decorative columns flanking the entrance. One hole in the roof, too. It was a work too complex and precise to have been done with anything other than magic, in a single night and silently. Unlike with the bridge, though, the damage done to the town hall came with a signed note. > Take a Good Luck in the Mirror > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight's clone stared at the window, watching Scarlet walk away from her house. She was going to warn a friend that they'd found the stallion again, and the alicorn had offered to keep an eye on him while she went do that. Once the mare was far enough, Twilight's clone had another look around the room, then her eyes set on the only other pony in it, sitting at the same table as she was. "We're alone now." "We are," he replied. The alicorn held back a growl. "The explanation, remember? Puzzles, me and you, your friend seeing me as a unicorn? What's going on?" She put emphasis on the last part, letting go of her hold on her temper for a moment. "Oh, right, that, sorry." The stallion swallowed. "Would you like something to drink?" "I could kill you now and no one would ever know it was me." "But you won't." He got up from his chair and began to walk towards another room. "I'll be right back," he said, and sure enough he came back just a few seconds later, holding a bottle of water. He took a sip as he sat down again. "Because I have answers you want." Twilight's clone tilted her head to a side. "Spit it out, then." "No rush." The stallion tapped on the table like one would on a typewriter. "Like we've established, the things you could learn from me are the what's keeping me alive right now, aside from your obvious desire not to leave traces behind. We've also established that I'm the only one who can tell you're actually you. Once you have nothing left to learn, you may very well decide getting rid of the only pony who can recognise you is worth a murder that no one can trace back to you. I just want some insurance." He threw a glance towards the window. Twilight's clone breathed once, slowly. "You're a smart one, aren't you?" "Nah. But I'm not an idiot either. And I'm not crazy. They call me crazy, you see. I'm not crazy. I know the things I see are actually there." The stallion sighed, then shook his head and tapped the table again. "Well, anyway," he cheerfully picked up again, "I must say I am extremely excited to finally meet another one! Oh, goodness, I thought I was the only one for a while. This is refreshing." Taken aback by the sudden mood shift, Twilight's clone tilted her head the other way. "Another one? Another one of what?" "Of us!" The stallion pointed at her chest. "You see that, well, no, no you can't see that, of course not, I think I'm the only one who sees those, but still, it's there. I should probably explain it to you, you have no idea what I'm talking about. I forget about that, I still have trouble remembering others don't see what I see. It's there, a coil wrapped around your heart, like it is around mine." The alicorn looked at herself, without seeing anything but her usual purple coat. "A coil?" The stallion nodded. "Oh, now I wonder how many others are out there. There ought to be a few, right?" > Before You > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "But anyway." The stallion shook his head again. "You can't see it. Right. That's right, you can't see it. Maybe I should find a way to show you. I can probably find a way to show you. I should be able to find a way to show you. Give me a moment." He bent to the side, as the alicorn looked on in confusion, and there he fidgeted with the top of one of the table's legs. A moment later the leg opened, a sheet of something slid out, and the leg closed again. "That was lucky," he said, picking the thing up and passing it to Twilight's clone. "I wasn't actually sure it would work. Still learning to control it and all." Twilight's clone took hold of the sheet in her magic. It was far heavier than paper or parchment, but still just as flexible. Almost like some combination of metal and paper. One side was dark grey, slightly reflective. The other held a picture of her silhouette in shades of grey, indistinguishable from Princess Twilight's, with some parts inside her highlighted. Some of the lines she was pretty sure didn't match up with any organ or system. In particular though, her heart has clearly visible, and there was something wrapped around it, pictured in a lighter shade of grey. It looked a bit like a small snake, or perhaps an abnormally large worm. But she could make out no details. "That's what I see," the stallion said, drawing her attention away from the image. "You can keep it. Sell it as an art piece once you've left this town, pretend it's a portrait of the real Twilight. Someone will probably buy it, and you need the bits." He nodded towards her. "Of course, that's not all of what I see. I see that in colour, by the way, the lines are mostly yellow, but this table only does greyscale. But anyway I see it on top of the rest or maybe inside it if that makes sense, the rest which I assume is what you also see. Aside from you changing, because I don't think you see that, but I do also see it. You are a very nice shade of blue. I wouldn't notice the wings if it wasn't for the wires." Twilight's clone instinctively ruffled her wings as he mentioned them. She lifted a hoof. "Focus on this. Focus on what's going on. That part about me changing. Explain that. That's what I care about right now." She figured making it really clear could help stir the stallion's speech towards the desired direction. "Well, what I think happened," the stallion said with a hoof under his chin, "is that you accidentally set it to work on everyone except yourself. Accidentally being a relative term, I'm pretty sure you didn't know what you were doing. Neither did I the first times, I'm still figuring it out right now. But I did see that you're like me, see, I see that stuff inside of me too, well, that and the thing I swallowed which I think is called a scale or at least that's what I've heard them referred to as. Mine is currently embedded in my stomach. Not my smartest decision but I had no pockets at the time. It hurts a lot before hailstorms but thankfully we never have those around here." "Can we get back to the topic of my appearance and its changes?" the exasperated alicorn asked, almost hissed. "Yeah, sorry, I remember, yes. We'll need a mirror for this next part." > Speak > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, you see yourself as yourself right now, right?" asked the stallion. "Don't worry about Scarlet, she won't be back soon. If I know her, she's having tea with Silver right now. She always has tea with Silver when she goes there to visit, mostly because Silver keeps a jar of cookies there on the table and Scarlet can pretend that breaking her diet by eating from there is a form of courtesy towards Silver. Silver Lace, I don't think Scarlet actually mentioned her name to you, she's a friend. We used to always call her Silver Lace back when we were young, but Silver Spear doesn't live around here any longer so we don't need to specify. I do wonder what he's up to these days." Twilight's clone cleared her throat, to draw back his attention. "Yes, I do see myself as myself right now." They had moved to the kitchen, and the stallion had brought down a mirror for her to stand in front of. "Sorry, got distracted again." The stallion shook his head. "Well, first thing first, you should try to turn it off." "Turn what off?" Twilight's clone glared at him, lifting an eyebrow. "...It," said the stallion. "I'm not actually sure what it is. I'm not even sure you feel it the same way I do, in fact I suspect that's not the case at all. But there should be something you can feel somewhere inside you, maybe like a switch. You need to learn to recognise that." "Not feeling anything different right now," Twilight's clone replied. The stallion clearly wasn't as crazy as she might have originally assumed, but he wasn't all there mentally either, and she was hesitant to trust everything he said. She had to hope she could get something out of him that she could work with. The stallion sat down, a hoof under his chin. "Hmm. I'm guessing it is sort of like a switch for you. Once it's set you can't really pin it down. If you could force it to change you'd probably notice where it is, now that you're paying attention. Maybe if we figure out how you did it the first time?" He looked up at her. "Do you remember when you changed, back in the woods, just before we got to the edge of town? When I pointed out you'd changed? Did you do something before that point? It can't have happened much sooner than that." Twilight's clone thought about it for a moment. "There was... I thought about needing to not be seen, by anyone else. That can't be it, right? You're telling me I can just think up something like this?" "You did watch me pull a bowl of soup out of a tree trunk. I thought your disbelief was sufficiently suspended at this point, with the picture coming out of the table leg and all." Twilight's clone looked at the stallion, her expression bothered mostly by the fact that she didn't have an argument against what he'd said. "So should I just think about looking like something else, or not doing it, or anything of that?" The stallion shrugged. "Won't hurt to try, no?" > Burn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vignette eyed over the email. It looked professional enough, as far as an email could look professional. She'd double checked, and she was certain it was all legit too. The place was booked, the tickets were sold out. But something about the whole thing still rubbed her the wrong way. There was no footage of the band online. Oh, she'd heard about her fair share of bands dedicated to making sure that none of their material was available anywhere, but even that had a limit. Something always slipped through the cracks and ended up online, in some dark shady corner of a less known website. She knew where to look for that. And yet, she'd found nothing still. A part of her suspected it was all a farce. Hype built around the mystery of what the performance would be like, with an underwhelming payoff once she actually got there. On the other hand, it wasn't the first concert the band had put up. If it really was all marketing and no substance, people would have been talking about it. So maybe there was something there. And even if there wasn't, she would just be wasting an evening, so it wasn't a big deal. Maybe she could get something out of it either way. If it truly was nothing worth seeing, she could just expose the whole thing on social media. No way they would manage to shut her up, and besides they were the ones inviting her there in the first place. They clearly wanted her to talk about it afterwards, and they'd get it! She tried a smile. The argument made sense to her. But she still wasn't convinced. She lay back in her couch, thinking about it. There was something off about the whole thing, something she wasn't comfortable with, but she still wasn't sure what it was. She thought the whole thing over once again. Maybe she should ask for something more. If they really wanted her they would send something, and if they didn't get back to her she just wouldn't go. Much to her surprise, the answer to her request came only minutes after. Even more surprising, it contained what looked like a performance from the group. Curious, she fetched her earphones and slid them in, then clicked play on the video. Four minutes later, Vignette had decided she would go to the concert, and she wondered why she'd ever thought she might not go. > Again > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thinking certainly wasn't going to hurt, the stallion had a point there. Twilight's clone tried, if a bit lazily, to envision herself as something else as she watched her image in the mirror. Nothing seemed to happen, but then again she'd been seeing herself as herself all along. She turned to the other, questioningly lifting an eyebrow. The stallion looked back at her. After a few seconds of silence, he blinked. "Sorry, was something supposed to happen? Did I miss something?" Twilight's clone grit her teeth and channelled her frustration into a sharp inhale. "I don't know, did something happen? I haven't noticed any changes, but I didn't notice it the first time either." The stallion cocked his head to the side. "No. Doesn't look any different to me. Though it might look different to someone else, I can't tell you that. I can't see the world the way another pony sees it, much less the way another creature might. Not that anyone can, actually, barring some very advanced types of magic of course. Things would go a lot more smoothly in the world if everyone could just see things as others see them at will." "Can we get back on topic before Scarlet gets back here?" Twilight's clone asked. She was starting to get mildly nervous about running out of time, considering she was in the kitchen with a mirror that didn't belong there and a pony she needed to eventually shut up one way or another. "Oh? Oh, right." The stallion perked up. "What exactly did you try to do?" "Visualise myself as something different, I guess. I was going for a pegasus this time," Twilight's clone replied. "And it didn't work. There must be something different from how you did it the first time. It must have been instinctual there, maybe the thought was just the catalyst. Maybe it's a matter of need." The stallion frowned, deep in thought, and his tone lowered. "It must be. For me, it's about enjoyment. But for you, it must be a matter of survival." Twilight's clone cleared her throat. "Hello? Still trying to help me?" "Your voice sounds different too. It might be useful for you to know that." The stallion looked back up at her. "I can already recognise you. I know you're you, and I'll always know you're you. You don't need to be hiding from me." Twilight's clone paused to think about that. He had a point. Even if she wasn't consciously aware of and controlling her camouflage, the fact remained that it was useless with the stallion. Unnecessary, unneeded. There was a faint click, somewhere within her, and she noticed the stallion was suddenly smiling. "Did something happen?" she asked, a tingle of excitement rushing down her back for the first time in quite a while. "You're purple and winged again, to me at least," the stallion replied. "So I'd say it did. This reminds me, by the way, do you have a real name? Not the lie you told Scarlet. I can't keep calling you Princess Twilight's copy in my head." Twilight's clone was silent for a moment. "What is your name, anyway?" > To Me > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So I'm back to looking like my normal self, to you at least." Twilight's clone studied her reflection in the mirror. "I did feel something there." "Do you think you could replicate it?" the stallion asked, hopeful. Twilight's clone pursed her lips. "No. I couldn't quite pin it down. But I know it's there now, at least. I'd need to do it again to figure out where it is exactly. Any idea on how we might trigger that?" She turned towards the stallion. "I do have one, actually," he said. "It seems we need you to subconsciously recognise a need for the camouflage in order to control it, so far at least. I think we can work with that, by making you convince yourself that you need something, before you manage to figure out where the switch is and how to control it." "And your idea is?" "Well, you need to understand how your power works. It would be highly beneficial to you. And you would also highly benefit from seeing how exactly you look like to others right now, since you didn't have a clear idea of what you were going for when you camouflaged." The stallion pointed at the mirror. "So, we could say that you need the camouflage to affect yourself as well." Twilight's clone was following along with the thread of his speech, but then a thought occurred to her. "Wait. When I looked inside Scarlet's eyes, I saw myself as the unicorn she sees me as. Why is the mirror different?" "Probably a matter of your powers working in a directional fashion by specifically targeting the light that moves towards the receptive apparatuses of the creatures you're camouflaging yourself to. So that image was different because it was from light being sent in Scarlet's direction, but what you see now is sent in yours." Twilight's clone blinked. "Does that mean mirrors can mess with the camouflage?" she asked, suddenly worried. The stallion shook his head. "It didn't do it for me. It actually worked better, considering wires don't reflect, but that's not something that would probably be relevant to anypony or creature other than me. Well, no, maybe there are some creatures out there who can see what I see, but you get my point. For all we know your power takes effect right on creatures' eyes and not on light as it leaves you, either way it seems to know what to affect and what not to." Twilight's clone chewed on nothing for a moment. She would need to conduct research on the matter, once she had more time. And once she actually knew how to properly use her powers. Which brought her back to what she was trying to do in the first place, and what the stallion had been saying before she'd derailed the conversation. Turning her head, she focused on her image in the mirror. She needed to understand her power, and she needed to know what others were seeing her as. There was another click, inside her, and the image she saw in the mirror shifted, matching the one she'd first seen in Scarlet's eyes. > A Bout > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did it work?" the stallion asked, noticing the shift in the alicorn's expression. Twilight's clone took a few moments to answer, looking herself over in the mirror first. "Yes, it did," she finally said. The stallion excitedly tapped his hooves against the floor. "Do you think you can manage to replicate it now?" Standing still once again, Twilight's clone fixed her eyes on her reflection in the mirror, and focused on what she'd felt a moment before. It wasn't an immediate process, but between the better understanding of what was going on inside her and the way she'd learned to push her powers she shortly after managed to flick back to her regular self, then to switch back and forth between the two until she'd quickly mastered the process. She tried for a different shape and found she could pull it off with little difficulty. Smiling, she cast a glance towards the stallion and changed the way he saw her. "Does that answer your question?" "Hurray!" The stallion gave a brief prance around the room. "Oh, you should tell me all about what else you find later. Can I get rid of the mirror now?" Twilight's clone thought about it for just a moment. "Yeah, sure." It was only useful for checking changes to how she viewed herself, but she'd already managed to get those under control, and if she really needed she could always just look down. The stallion began to carry away the mirror, back up the stairs. As he did, Twilight's clone began to mentally fiddle with the controls of her power. That was how she envisioned it, in her head. It was kind of like using magic, in a sense, precisely controlling something that wasn't physically there. She would probe around, bump into something, and slowly build up a mental image of what she could and couldn't do with her newfound ability. Some of it would need to be verified with another creature, but she was pretty sure she had a good idea of what it all did, testing could wait for later. The sound of hoofsteps down the stairs reminded her that she did have a test subject there, but not one who would be particularly useful. And given how much she'd already learnt from him about herself, she wondered if the possible uses she could have out of him still outweighed the risks of keeping him around. She turned towards the stallion with a grin, just as he stepped back into the room. He spoke first. "If you're thinking about ending me, I suggest you do a magic scan on me first." He casually walked up to her. Frowning slightly, partly out of surprise, Twilight's clone did as he asked. Then, she froze. "I told you it was there." The stallion smiled at her. "I don't know how much you've heard about scales, but I'm sure you can figure out by yourself what would happen if you weren't careful around this thing. And it just so happens I managed to hook this one up to my vital signs. Assuming you don't care about the house being destroyed, do you think you can teleport away quickly enough not to get caught?" Twilight's clone stared at him. "I could teleport you inside a mountain and let you blow up there." "And do you trust I don't have other precautions set up for that? That I don't have a way to tell the world about you, after what you've seen? Isn't it safer to buy my silence at this point?" The alicorn swallowed. "What do you want?" > You Better Believe > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset walked into the waiting room, pen and clipboard in hand and eyes fixed on the latter. Then she looked up. "Oh, hey Trixie. I didn't know you'd be auditioning as well." The girl sat with her arms and legs crossed on one of the plastic and metal chairs lining the walls. She looked back at Sunset, then lifted her chin and huffed with her characteristic, overplayed air of superiority. "The Great and Powerful Trixie's talents would be wasted on a band like the Rainbooms. Don't get any strange ideas, I have no interest in joining you." Sunset softly tapped the back of the pen against her lips, looking at Trixie with an amused expression. "Why are you here, then?" Trixie didn't drop her snobby pose, arguably she pushed it further by looking away from Sunset. But the tone of her voice betrayed her, even as she tried to mask it. "I may be in need of a car ride later. And I may have no money for the bus on me right now. So I thought I could give one of you peasants the privilege of driving the Great and Powerful Trixie to her desired location." Her trademark smugness returned to her as she got to the last part, and then she turned to Sunset, continuing, "And I thought I could amuse myself by seeing some less talented musicians struggle for a position that I would be overqualified for." Sunset smiled, shook her head, and gave something halfway between a chuckle and a sigh in response. "I'm free later, I'll drive you where you need to go." Pretending not to see the evident signs of relief on Trixie's face, she asked, "So you think you'd be too good for this? I didn't even know you played the bass." Trixie gave another huff. "It's just a guitar with less strings. I don't see what could be so difficult about it. I'll have you know the Great and Powerful Trixie easily performs with a nine string guitar." "I mean, if you really need the extra strings to cover for what you can't do with your hands..." Sunset let the thread drop once she almost physically felt the daggers of venom Trixie was glaring at her. "Still. If you're that good, would you mind giving us a show? It will still take a bit before anyone else gets here, we have the time for it." Trixie suddenly seemed to choke. "I wouldn't want to warp your expectations," she said. "No other performance could compare after witnessing my talents, and it wouldn't be fair to those poor souls who are trying to join your little band." "The same little band that beat yours last time?" suddenly came Rainbow's voice from the same door Sunset had walked in from, the blue girl leaning against its frame with a grin on her face. Trixie stood up at that. "I was supposed to be the winner, and you know it! The judging was rigged!" She pointed a finger at Rainbow as menacingly as she could. "And what about the time I beat you at the guitar shop?" Rainbow kept on teasing, as Sunset watched on, unsure of whether she should have been amused or worried. "Well, I technically won that one!" Trixie retorted. "You ran away once you realised your tricks were no match for my talent." She looked to the side, swishing her hair, eyes closed and hands on her hips. Rainbow pushed herself off the doorframe with a flex of her shoulders, and stared straight at Trixie. "Rematch?" "Oh, it is on!" > Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight, lying on her back, stared up at Rainbow Dash. "This is a dream, isn't it?" "Yep." The pegasus gave a nod. "In case the multiple instances of Celestia's detached head didn't give that away." She gave a look around the red lake, and at the heads floating in it. Twilight just shrugged, still floating on the surface of the lake. "No, seriously, is it something you ate? I don't think dreaming of this kind of thing is normal." Rainbow looked back to Twilight. Twilight shrugged again. "It must have been something I read." Rainbow was silent for a moment. "Okay then. I guess this doesn't really count as a nightmare, so I should probably leave. Leave you to your weird existential dread and symbology." Looking at the purple sky above them, Twilight asked, "Will I remember this?" "Figuring out it was a dream?" Rainbow began to walk away. "Nah. You'll remember me being here with my armour, but it'll register as part of the dream. You'll forget the contents of the conversation." Twilight took a breath. "You didn't tell me you'd picked up dreamwalking." "And I don't plan to until I have to," came Rainbow's distant reply. Then the pegasus was gone, and the green star shining in the sky disappeared behind the mountains of bones on the horizon. Red holes dotted the orange canvas of the alien night sky, and screams echoed from beyond them. And Twilight's body floated on, occasionally bumping against one of Celestia's heads, as the current lazily brought her towards the gate. > 4113 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy opened her eyes, and was greeted with the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. Her body felt oddly sore, like after intense physical strain, and her throat was dry. She was on her back, and her wings were slightly uncomfortable in that position, but not too much so. She could have sat up, but she was fairly certain it would have hurt more than it was worth. She did hope she could have some water soon, though. She was a bit cold, despite the cover on top of her, yet she felt like she'd been sweating. Her head didn't properly hurt, but it still didn't feel right. Like she was still half asleep, or maybe in pain, distracted by something. She was smart enough to recognise what it was like to have a fever, though that didn't mean she could do much about it, nor make herself more lucid. She did recognise she was in a hospital bed while looking around, though she wasn't capable of giving the knowledge of the fact the worry it deserved. She laid her head on the pillow, sighing. There wasn't really much she could do, besides lying there and waiting. She didn't feel like getting up with how her limbs and body felt, and she knew it wasn't a good idea to do so in her conditions anyway. The best thing to do was to wait for someone else to arrive and tell her what exactly was going on with her. She vaguely remembered something that had happened before she'd ended up there, but it was all a blur and she couldn't quite place down when she'd passed out, or what had happened around that point. She tried to swallow, achieving only a moderate success. Her eyes felt heavy. She wondered if she would fall asleep by closing them again. > EFTC > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst sighed as he stepped past the mirror. "Starlight, call me if you figure something out here. I'll go have a look around the school. Maybe there's something to find there." He was mostly trying to get away from the room. Starlight knew that, but she couldn't blame him for it. And he wasn't wrong, really, it was better to look for clues elsewhere than to waste time there when they didn't have any idea what to do. The mare nodded as she looked around the room again. "And you call me if you find anything out there." She watched him walk out the door, then sighed. "Starshine, you're staying here, right?" she asked. But the alicorn had already disappeared, and Starlight was left looking left and right in confusion. In the corridor, Sunburst suddenly heard a second set of hoofsteps join his own at his side, just slightly behind him. He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "Starshine Flicker?" It wasn't really a question, but he could still pretend he wasn't sure it was her. "Sunburst?" Starshine's familiar voice asked back. It was always the same voice no matter what the pony looked like, one of the few consistent things alongside her name and cutie mark. Sunburst wasn't sure if he should have been happy or unnerved by that fact. The hoofsteps had stopped, and so the unicorn opened his eyes and turned to his left. The alicorn's face looked back at him, a serene smile plastered onto it. "You te-" Sunburst began, but immediately cut himself off. He then resumed, correcting himself. "You materialised in the hallway. No teleportation there." "You don't know that," Starshine said, quickly, before the unicorn had a chance to go on. "I didn't hear the pop." "I could have cast a silence spell in advance." Sunburst lifted an eyebrow, but chose not to pursue that particular train of arguments. Instead, he went back to his original thread. "First off, please don't do that again, it's creepy. Even by your standards. Second, why? Why are you following me?" "Would you rather have me disappear?" asked Starshine. "I'd rather have you stay with Starlight," Sunburst replied. There was a pause, and a conflicted expression on Starshine's face that Sunburst had never seen her with. "I can't do that," the alicorn said. "Either with you or nowhere." At first Sunburst wanted to ask why she couldn't stay with Starlight. What Starshine said made him change his mind and ask something else instead. "What do you mean when you say nowhere?" "Nowhere," Starshine simply replied. There wasn't any worry in her voice. She seemed as calm as ever, and her expression had gone back to her usual serene one. "But you'd rather keep an eye on me, so I'm here." "But what do you mean when you say nowhere?" Sunburst pressed on. Starshine rolled her eyes. "Literally nowhere. No place. You silly creatures of physical matter and your inability to properly process and visualise the concept of non-existence." She sighed, like a mother dealing with her child would. "Just accept it, trust me. Your head will thank me." > My Dream's but a Drop of Fuel for a Nightmare > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sounds around her were deafening. Screams and howls and moans, and deep and distorted strings and artificial, digital beeps moving in pitch and brought to the highest intensity. A cacophony that rumbled through and along the walls, down from the too high to see peaks of the stadium she stood at the centre of yet all around her in the barren and claustrophobically narrow corridor she was simultaneously kneeling in. And it was enough to drown her, and Adagio was drunk on it. And the seats of the stadium were all full, but the place was empty, and the people spoke but their mouths didn't open, and they cheered but their faces were still and grey. And Adagio sank down through the sound, naked, music filling her lungs as she struggled to breathe. And her body touched the bottom and still she couldn't draw breath, and her head began to pulse but there was nothing she could do about it. The weight of the screams and music above crushed her down, and she was forced to crawl over the naked bodies that made up the bottom of the abyss. They looked almost like statues, their skin preserved pale and hairless but intact, their faces always hidden from her. And as she dragged herself forward her skin too began to lose its colour, her hair losing its shape and shade and draping down over her back. Her nails lost their polish, and her vision went blurry. But still she pushed forward, as her muscles grew weaker and her body lost weight. And the pressure grew, and it pierced through her skin, and the sound entered her blood and she was being torn apart at the seams and her body splintered. And Adagio took the music in her lungs and screamed, and her voice joined the sound and her body became one with the cacophony. And she was sound and music and she spun and swam faster through the ocean and she gathered more sound with her. And Adagio was a storm rising over the seas, and she ripped the corpses from the bottom and crushed them and pushed them together and a star ignited inside her from the mass of death she gathered, and in a burst of light and melody in the eye of the storm the black and grey star of death collapsed and her new body was born. And her body was power and beauty and form and sound and music and matter and it gleamed a light of its own. And her steps on the shore were like glass bells singing in harmony, and she walked towards the throne of rock and bone and flesh that was one with the island and with the whole of the world. And Adagio sat on the throne and the throne pierced into her body and spread through her, and Adagio was one with her throne and one with pleasure, and her face distorted into a smile as she and the throne fully consumed each other. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, that was a thing," Rainbow said, reclining in her seat by the window. "Yep." Pinkie nodded from behind the counter. "And he had a thread going there for a bit. That was unexpected." "And..." Sitting in front of Pinkie, Twilight sighed. "I don't wanna say bad, because it wasn't really bad, but it's weird that he'd focus on that. With everything else that's going on and everything he could focus on, it's weird that he'd spend so long on that. It doesn't seem as important as some of the other stuff." "But would it have felt rushed if he had given it less time?" Rarity interjected from her chair on Twilight's right. "That's what we should be asking here. That part didn't feel like it dragged on, at least not to me. Those two characters were interacting, and their interactions were given their needed time." Twilight wrinkled her lips for a moment. "Just because you can't imagine something better, that doesn't mean something better isn't possible. Who's to say a better writer couldn't have gotten the same information across just as clearly in half the words?" "Twilight?" Rainbow waited a moment before continuing, to make sure the alicorn was looking at her. "If you don't like it, why do you keep reading it?" Twilight had a false start before she actually said, "I don't dislike it either. And I want to like it. And I've read it all the way here and-" "Sunk cost fallacy?" asked Fluttershy, who was sitting to Twilight's left. "If that's what's keeping you, you should realise that this thing is probably not even a tenth of the way through yet. If you want to jump ship, now's your time." "It's not just that," Twilight replied. "There's some stuff I like in there. And there's stuff I'm interested in, and I want to see where it goes. That's why it annoys me when not only do we get nothing new on the things we've already established are there, we instead have to take time establishing even more stuff. And the bigger the pile of threads grows, the more do my doubts that it'll all be satisfyingly weaved together." Pinkie nodded. "She's got a point there." "Well, at the least we do seem to be getting mostly updates on things we know recently," Rarity said, picking up her drink. "Or ones that don't add new stuff." "I guess you're right." Twilight took a sip from hers. "There was that one chapter about the bridge though. That one's new." "That is new," Rarity agreed. "And weirdly floating there on its own. But I guess we'll see where things go with that." "Still waiting for the next update on the hospital." Twilight took another sip. Then she looked around the interior of Sugarcube Corner. "Has anyone seen Applejack?" The four other mares all shook their heads. Fluttershy pursed her lips. Rainbow gave a dismissive wave, and said, "She's probably just taking care of her orchard." Twilight thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, you're probably right." > Still Life > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy watched the tips of her feathers. "Is this going to be permanent?" she asked. Twilight paused for a moment, and followed the direction of Fluttershy's gaze. "Oh, that. We don't know, actually. Same with the mane. It's not bothering you though, right?" Fluttershy was taken aback for a moment. She pushed her mane in front of her eyes, and for the first time noticed the red streak still shot through it. "Oh, I didn't even see that." She shook her head, letting her mane fall back to her shoulders. "No, it's not a bother." She looked back to her wings, the tips of their feathers still blue. "Good." Twilight nodded. "How are you feeling?" "I'm alright." Fluttershy leaned back against her pillow. "Really. I feel fine." "That is good to hear," Twilight said. "Are you sure? No light headaches or fatigue or anything else like that? Even if it's something minor, you should tell us about it." Fluttershy nodded reassuringly. "I'm sure, Twilight. I'm just fine." Twilight seemed to clench her jaw for a moment. "I believe that. Sorry, I'm still a little frazzled after the whole thing. It's not every day one of your friends falls ill to an unknown magical disease with no clue as to how bad it will affect her." Fluttershy giggled in response. "I understand that. But there are a lot of things like that recently. Things you would have called rare if not unique once. When something starts coming up every other day, maybe it's time we re-evaluate what is and isn't unusual." Twilight gave a sour smile. "I suppose you're right. This is the world we live in now." She sighed. "I'm glad you're alright. You'll still need to go through a few tests to make sure you actually are all right before you can get out, but I'm still glad everything seems to be resolved." Fluttershy nodded again. "I'm sure it will all be fine. Don't worry about it." She looked towards the closed window on the opposite side of the room. "What time is it now? My internal clock is all over the place after all the unintentional sleeping." It was Twilight's turn to chuckle. "Unintentional sleeping is a light way of putting it. It's late in the afternoon, why do you ask?" "Will the tests have to be done immediately? I'd like to take a short nap first, if possible." Twilight cocked an eyebrow. "After all the sleeping you've already done?" "That wasn't proper sleeping," Fluttershy replied. "And this bed is very comfy," she added, moving side to side and digging herself deeper into the pillow to emphasise her point. "Are you absolutely sure you're feeling well? No bouts of sleepiness or sudden fatigue or-" "Twilight." Fluttershy looked at her friend. "I know myself. And right now I just want to take a nap." Twilight sighed. "Sorry. You're right. I better leave you to it then, you probably need it." She stood up, and headed for the door, turning off the lights. "See you soon." "See you." Fluttershy waited for the door to be closed, then did the same with her eyes. She just hoped she would have enough time. > Dance the Death of Fading Peace of Mind > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two guards sat down on the grass, although collapsed might have been a better term. Still panting, both of them silently looked towards the castle and the thing near it. "Well that was... something," the first one said after a while. "Yep," replied the other. "Definitely something." He kept looking at the creature as its shape seemed to flare in and out of sight. "What the fuck." The first guard looked at him, but seemed to pause for a moment. "Yeah, okay. Appropriate here." Then he looked around, noticing the crowd that was gathered in the park. "I hope no foals heard you say that." "I ought to not be the only one," the second guard said. Then he too had a look around. "Isn't that one of Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends?" he asked, pointing at a white unicorn with a purple mane. "Huh." His friend looked in the same direction. "Yeah, I think so. Ra-something, wasn't it?" The stallion put a hoof under his chin. "Rainbow Dash?" That got him a weirded out look from his companion. "No. Rainbow Dash is the one with the rainbow mane. And she's a pegasus. And a member of the Wonderbolts." "You know I never cared for sports." "That is massively beside the point." The stallion looked back towards the distant unicorn, and was silent for a few moments longer. "Rarity!" he finally exclaimed, standing up. The other looked to her as well. "I guess she does look like a Rarity." "What does that even mean?" "I mean..." The stallion waved a hoof towards Rarity. "Look at her." "That's what I'm doing. Your point?" The other stallion looked back at him. The guard just sighed. "Forget it." He looked back to the castle instead. "So... What now?" "That is a great question," said the other. "And I don't have an answer for it." "Well, at least we're alright." The stallion shrugged. "That we are." The other guard nodded. "That we are." His gaze swept over the park. "And hopefully, so is everyone else in town." "Hopefully." The stallion stood up. "We should help out." He looked towards the Behemoth once more, and at the trail of destruction it had left behind. "And we'd rebuilt town less than a year ago, too." > Wall of Sound > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Okay. So you go to the bartender, and you order a cup of hot cocoa and a glass of pear juice. The bar has a fridge, so the juice is still fresh, cold even. Let's ignore the problem of space, let's say there's enough space in both the cup and the glass. Just ignore it, there's not less chocolate or pear juice in them to make room. They're a magical cup and glass or something. Now, which drink do you pour in which? Do you put the chocolate in the pear juice or the pear juice in the chocolate?" Indigo Zap silently stared through the shadows of the night at the ceiling above her. After a few seconds, she finally spoke. "Lemon, it's two in the morning, what the fuck are you on about?" "I think you pour the pear juice in the chocolate. If you do the opposite then you run the risk of the chocolate all clogging together as it goes back to being solid, so you end up with one big lump of chocolate floating in the pear juice. And even if it doesn't, it'll still all fall to the bottom. And then it will get awkward when you try to drink it, and who likes cold hot cocoa anyway? It's in the name! But if you pour the pear juice in the chocolate instead, you'll get this pocket of juice in the middle of the chocolate while the one around stays hot, and then you get to drink them together. It's a lot better that way." "Lemon I will actually physically choke you with a pillow until you pass out if you don't let me sleep." Despite saying that, Indigo didn't move, keeping the same position atop her bed. "Oh, choking. Kinky," Lemon replied. "Do you want me to call you Mommy while you do it? Hey, do you think there's a guy out there who has both a Mommy kink and one for being called Daddy, and he has both things going on while he's with a girl? At that point it just sounds like you're roleplaying a couple with a child but with extra steps to get there. There ought to be someone into that though. I mean there are a lot of guys into the whole Daddy thing, do you know anyone who might be into the Mommy thing?" "Sunburst, probably." Lemon clicked her tongue. "Huh. Why?" "Have you seen his mother?" Indigo asked. "She hot? Actually scratch that, don't answer, your answer is always yes. You'd fuck anything with tits between the ages of sixteen and sixty." "Like you wouldn't." Lemon sighed. "I suppose you're right." A moment of silence stretched on. "How have we not fucked each other yet?" "We've both been drunk enough to not remember anything the morning after at least once. We might have." "We might have," Lemon agreed. "Still. We don't remember it. We ought to fix that at some point." "Maybe." Indigo yawned. "Just let me sleep for now. We can talk about this tomorrow." > Replica > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What building do you think it's going to go for first? The one on the left or the one on the right?" "Our left and right or its left and right?" "Our." Pinkie put a hoof under her chin, squinting towards the tall mass of writhing tentacles in the distance. "I'm gonna say right." Pinkie nodded. "Same." The two sat in silence for a bit, watching the creature slither and squirm forward, ever closer to the edge of the ruins. Suddenly, one of them spoke up. "Say, do you happen to have a brother or two that you've never mentioned to anyone else?" The other Pinkie Pie looked at her. "Why? Do you have a brother or two you've never mentioned to anyone else?" "Maybe." Pinkie side-eyed Pinkie. "And you?" Pinkie turned her face back towards the tentacles, but her eyes stayed on Pinkie. "Maybe." A few more seconds passed in silence. "Looks like it picked the one on the left instead." "Yep." The two Pinkie Pies watched the building-sized entangle of squirmy smooth appendages trample over the remains of what had used to be a house and consume it with as much delight as the featureless ensemble of tentacles could display. "Do you think that'll be enough for it, or will it go for the other building as well?" one of the two ponies asked. The other Pinkie replied, "I think that will be enough." "I suppose we will see." "That we certainly will, Pinkie." And see they did, as after a couple more minutes of silently watching the creature they could observe it leaving towards the forest at its characteristic slow pace, satisfied with its meal. "My Rainbow picked up dreamwalking," one Pinkie said after a while. "She hasn't told us yet. She doesn't plan to, I believe." "Sounds like Rainbow alright. Our Twilight is still with Sunset, and they haven't accidentally torn another hole in the fabric of reality while having sex yet," said the other Pinkie. "Sounds nothing like our Twilight. I have contingency plans ready for when she finally decides to get kinkier with Celestia, in case she goes too far." Pinkie whistled. "Yes, they're as desperate as you can imagine them being, but hopefully Equestria will survive with only a couple cities needing to be rebuilt and a few creatures needing to be untransformed." "At least you have serious contingency plans. Mine is a bucket of cold water," Pinkie said. "Never underestimate a bucket of water. I once stopped Twilight from taking over Equestria and made her not evil again with a bucket of water." Pinkie chewed on nothing for a moment. "Or, well, a Pinkie did that with a Twilight once. It's fuzzy whether or not it was my Twilight, and it's not really stable whether it was or wasn't me." "I understand." Pinkie nodded. "Still. I ought to think of something better." She pursed her lips, thinking. "I could install remote-controlled water sprinklers in their rooms and turn them on if I ever see the geodes start to act up." "That could work," Pinkie said. "That could definitely work." > Mirrors and Smoke > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst stared at the alicorn, dumbfounded. "So you're saying you don't exist when you're not with me?" Starshine titled her head to a side, then to the other. "Sort of. It's a bit more complicated than that. Like I said, just roll with it." "How am I supposed to just roll with it?" Sunburst asked, incredulous. "Why should I believe you, anyway? You've done nothing but bring chaos into my life." "That's not true and you know it," Starshine replied, smirking. "Oh shut up." Starshine rolled her eyes. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to strike the right balance when you're trying to bed a stallion who wants you to call him Daddy but still wants to call you Mommy? I'd like some recognition for pulling that off." Sunburst stared at her, flatly. "That was needlessly specific." "Do you want me to be more vague next time, Daddy?" Starshine gave a fake, exaggerated pout. Sunburst looked at the ground. "Shut up." "Make me. You don't really want me to-" "Shut up!" Sunburst looked back at Starshine as he yelled. "I don't know if you've noticed it in the last months, but things are kind of ever so slightly stressful right now. The world's going crazy, and I'm one of the unfortunate ponies who actually gets to learn about most of it, and the last thing I need is someone like you coming to annoy me with your nonsense. Stop wasting my time and stop making my days even more stressful than they already are." "It looks to me like you could use a relief for all that pent up stress, actually. But anyway, I thought you wanted to know what was happening. It's not like you to not ask questions and ask the mystery to walk away instead," Starshine said. "You're very clearly not answering my questions in any helpful manner," Sunburst replied. "So either you tell me what's going on, or you leave me alone. At this point, I don't care which it is." "And yet I'm still here." Starshine tilted her head. "And if I'm still here, that means you want me here." Sunburst almost growled. "Are you the one responsible for all the stuff back there in the room?" "No." The alicorn shook her head. "But the thing responsible for all that is responsible for me as well." Then she gave a nod towards Sunburst. It took him a moment to get what she was trying to say with that. "Oh, so this is all my fault, huh? Convenient that a mysterious mare who appears and disappears at random would coincidentally happen to also show up while this is going on, isn't it?" Sunburst shook his head. "I'm not buying this, Starshine. I have no reason to." "And I can't convince you otherwise," Starshine replied. She looked down at herself. "You're confused right now. You want me gone, but you want me here. You want this whole thing to be over with, but you want answers." She looked back up at him. "I suggest you choose the former option for a bit. It will help you clear your mind." Sunburst looked back at her as he thought about it. And a moment later, she was gone. > Juliet > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cautiously, Sunburst stepped back into the room. Somewhat to his surprise, the mirror was still there. So were the book, the mop, the bucket, and everything else that shouldn't have been in that room in the first place. Starlight was there too, but that at least was expected. She looked up at him as he walked past the door. "Where's Starshine?" she asked. "I thought she was with you." "She was," Sunburst replied, "until she wasn't. We had a bit of a discussion in the corridor." "Where is she now, then?" "Nowhere, according to her." Sunburst sat down on the first chair he found. "Or wherever it is she goes when she's not pestering me. I don't know. She's not my daughter, I'm not supposed to keep track of her." "I don't think she'd be young enough to be your daughter." Starlight shook her head. "What do you mean with nowhere?" Sunburst leaned back in his seat, sighed, and gave Starlight a look she'd learned to recognise over the years, and particularly over the months spent in charge of the school, as that of a pony who's absolutely done with something and wishes to talk about it as least they can. "Trust me, the less you hear about her, the happier you will be." Starlight nodded in understanding. "So, found anything out there?" she asked, walking up to Sunburst. She sat down at his side, looking at him. "Nothing," the stallion said. "I had a look around the building, but there wasn't anything, and every spell turned up empty. Same as here. You?" "Nothing." Starlight leaned into her chair. "I had a look around some books, but I couldn't find anything like what we're dealing with. Nothing that doesn't involve regular unicorn magic, at least, and we'd have picked up on that already. Any other strange occurrences out there? Nothing showed up here after you left." "Nothing," said Sunburst. He was silent for a moment, then sighed again. "Starshine, she... She said this was all me." Starlight looked back at him, frowning. "This what? Stuff showing up out of nowhere?" "That. And not just that." Sunburst clicked his tongue a few times, buying time. "Her as well. She said she's here because I want her to be. It's... confusing. And complicated. And I'm not sure what to think." Starlight moved a hoof towards one of Sunburst's, hesitated, then pulled back. She sat in silence for a moment. "So, uh..." She gave an awkward, forced cough. "If you had sex with her, would that make it count as masturbation?" Sunburst just turned towards her. Starlight placed a hoof to her forehead and sighed. "Sorry. I should leave this kind of things to Trixie, I'm not good at breaking tension properly." She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "So do you think she's got a point, or is it all a lie? You should know better than me, it's you we're talking about after all." "I think it would be closer to incest than masturbation, or maybe a mix of the two." Sunburst clicked his tongue. "And I need time to think about it." > Mo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know, I've been thinking." "How unusual of you." "Oh shut up. Anyway. What if there is no point? What if we're all going to be forgotten eventually? What's the reason to go on if it all ends in the end?" Silence followed. "Oh, I get it. Yeah, you can talk now." "It wasn't that." Indigo swallowed. "I just didn't expect you of all people to raise some existential questions. And I don't think I'm the right person to answer them, I'm sure brighter minds have tried already." Lemon rolled onto her belly and turned towards her. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to find your own answer. Not like you to live your life the way someone else tells you to." "Maybe you have a point. But right now I have more immediate questions to focus on." Indigo studied one of her wings as she brought it between her eyes and the stars in the sky above her. "For example, should we tell someone about the magical horse portal that opened up in the middle of our room?" "Would they let us keep it? Because the answer is the same, and I'm pretty sure it's no." Lemon looked at one of her hooves. "You've got a point." Indigo let her wing fall back. She was, in truth, a little worried about the prospect of something coming out of the portal and into the room. But she'd worry about it after she'd had a chance to test out her wings. > Most Delightful > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Won't this be hard to get out of our coats?" Celestia paused to ask. "Magic," Twilight dismissively replied. "There's always magic. Just enjoy the moment for once. Besides, there's also the alternative." She moved closer to Celestia, and gave a long lick up the side of her neck. "See?" she asked, looking at the alicorn. Celestia looked away from Twilight, pursing her lips. "I suppose you're right. There's always magic." Twilight chuckled, tilting her head as she looked at Celestia's face. Playfully, she pushed on the other's shoulder with her own, making her step further into the pool. Then she followed behind, dipped a wing, scooped up as much honey as she could and slathered Celestia's back in it. Celestia gave a snort, but didn't protest beyond that. After a furtive glance towards Twilight, she did as the other had done and covered the purple alicorn's backside in a quite generous amount of honey. Then, she licked some off of her own wing. "Do you not think this is a bit of a waste?" she asked. "No more than bathing in milk is, I would say," Twilight replied. "And again, we can always clean it with magic. You seem to forget how useful it can be." "The fact that you can easily solve a problem with magic doesn't justify casually and willfully creating that problem to begin with," said Celestia. Still, she bent her legs, lowering herself further into the pool until only her head and the top of her neck weren't covered in honey. "No. But the amusement you get out of it does justify it. Especially when you can easily get rid of the unwelcome consequences." Twilight did the same thing as Celestia, and then stood up again, honey slowly falling down from her body in that viscous way no other fluid quite matched. Celestia stood up as well, and Twilight had a chance to get a better look at the way honey dripped down her curves, shining golden in the warm light of the room. "Would you kill ponies for your own amusement, if resurrection was a trivial matter?" the white alicorn asked. Twilight smiled at that. "If resurrection was a trivial matter, would ponies not ask to be painlessly killed and then brought back, to know what it's like? To study death, or merely to be prepared for when the time comes?" "Perhaps," Celestia admitted after a moment of reflection. She then walked yet further into the pool, and began to swim through the honey once her hooves no longer reached the bottom. Twilight was, once again, close behind her. She looked at Celestia's face and torso, studying the rhythm of her breathing. Celestia herself caught sight of it, and her breaths became slower and deeper in preparation of what she suspected was coming. A moment later, just as the white pony was almost done inhaling, she was yanked downwards by Twilight's magic and forced beneath the surface. A few seconds later, Twilight pulled Celestia back out, then took great care in cleaning her eyes, mouth, nose and ears of honey in the same non-magical way she'd displayed earlier. She cleaned Celestia's horn as well, finally drawing back after she'd run her tongue along its length. > Honey > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Honey?" Twilight's clone looked at the little open jar the stallion was holding out for her, then shook her head. She watched him close it and put it back on top of a shelf, the teaspoon still held in his mouth after he'd taken some for himself. "Don't you feel bad about stealing your friend's food behind her back?" she asked, turning back towards the window. The stallion took the teaspoon out of his mouth and slipped it in a pocket of his jacket. "Scarlet hates honey," he said. Twilight's clone looked back to him, then at the shelf. "Why does she keep it, then?" "Because those coming for a visit might like it." The stallion sat down at the alicorn's side. "If you don't like milk, you can't really keep milk around in case someone comes to visit. It'll go bad sooner or later. Most things do. But honey doesn't, so she can just keep a jar around." He looked at the jar in question. "That one? That one's been there for four years or so. I always get a spoon when I pass by, and I'm not the only one, but it still takes a while to empty the thing. And Scarlet just needs to leave it there, and change it if it ever runs out." He looked back to the alicorn. "It's easy, and it does others a favour. Why shouldn't she keep it?" Twilight's clone wriggled her lips for a moment, but didn't comment further on the stallion's explanation. "Seems weird of her not to like honey." "Well, you don't like it either, no?" "I didn't say that." Twilight's clone paused for a breath. "I'm just not in the mood for honey right now." The stallion shrugged. "If you ever are, remember there's a jar here waiting for you. Just make sure you don't steal more than a spoon or two, Scarlet might notice otherwise." Twilight's clone turned towards him, and he smiled. "I never said I had her permission to steal it. But it's not like I'm stealing from her." He thought about it for a moment. "It's a gift from my future self. I have his permission to take the honey that was supposed to be his." "But you'll still have honey when you come here," Twilight's clone noted. "Sure, it'll run out faster, but at least some of what you're eating now would have gone to someone other than your future self. You're not the only one who visits." "Then I will make sure to inform my future self that he made a grave miscalculation in gifting me this honey, and that others suffered because of his lack of restraint in his own actions after he'd already shared his portion with me." Twilight's clone rolled her eyes. "With how you keep this bit up, I'd almost believe you believe in it." The stallion shrugged, and smiled again. "Who knows. Future me might really be a different pony. I used to be different before they started calling me mad, after all. Who's to say I won't change again?" > Pillars > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm a warlock now," Pinkie casually announced to the other three girls sat at the table. Sunset only briefly looked up at her, then turned back to her soup. Fluttershy broke off a chunk of bread and ate it, then turned to Pinkie. "So, uh, how did it happen?" she asked, halfway genuinely curious and halfway simply wanting to get a conversation going. "Made a pact with an eldritch entity in exchange for power." Pinkie stabbed her fork into her pasta and brought it to her mouth, giving a dismissive wave with her other hand. "You know, the usual stuff. They said they were an avatar of a reflection of the Raven, or something like that." "And how are we sure this dark and powerful entity won't go around town causing destruction and mayhem?" asked Sunset, a little amused at Pinkie's reply. "Oh, don't worry about that." Pinkie drained her glass of water. "They're on the other side, I don't think they'd keep their powers if they came here. I don't even know if they can come over here, actually." She looked up in thought, a finger to her lips. There was a sputter to Sunset's left, as Twilight almost choked on her food. "You're telling me you found another portal? And you didn't tell me?" she asked, once she finally managed to swallow again. "How else am I supposed to go visit myself? You keep putting guards around the ones we find," Pinkie replied from Twilight's left. "And technically I did tell you. Right now." In front of her, Sunset spoke up. "Are you keeping an eye on it?" Pinkie nodded. "Of course I am. Can't let people wander into it by accident and wonder why all their things are horse things all of a sudden." Twilight looked between the two, and her rage deflated into a sigh. "Point. She's already better than any security we could put up. But you still should have told me sooner." She broke off a small bit of bread and ate it. Then she turned to Pinkie again. "Wait, so you're serious about this warlock thing, aren't you?" "Of course I am." Sunset and Fluttershy traded uneasy glances. The latter spoke first. "What kind of powers did you get out of it, exactly?" "We're still debating that, actually." Pinkie waved her fork around as she spoke, pushing Twilight to lean back just in case. "I don't really need anything destructive, I've got that covered for now while it's still small scale stuff," she continued, tapping her geode for emphasis. "I still need to decide a few details. I'm going back there tomorrow to talk about it with them." Sunset nodded, more out of resignation than anything. "Maybe make sure this thing doesn't plan to do anything evil here or on the other side of the portal." "What exactly do they want in return?" Fluttershy asked. At Twilight's questioning glare, she replied, "Patrons usually ask for something in return for lending their powers. They don't just gift it around for free." Once Twilight's stare grew only more questioning, and Sunset's joined it, she looked up at the ceiling. "This is fairly standard knowledge, girls. Can we go back on topic?" She turned to Pinkie, hopeful. "Oh, not much." Pinkie, having finished her pasta, set down her fork. Then literally licked the plate. "For now, I just need to push this one guy through a portal a week from now." > Hungry Again > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna stepped in front of Fluttershy's dream, and cast her gaze back to make sure she wasn't being followed. Rainbow was a good mare, and she meant well, and it would have been entirely fitting for her to try to sneak up on the alicorn and spy on what she was doing. But there didn't seem to be any trace of the pegasus, nor of anything else that might have been stalking Luna in the world of dreams. It was always good to check, there was always a chance something slipped out with her while she left a nightmare. Satisfied, Luna looked back to Fluttershy's dream, and to the red vines surrounding it. She knew a dream when she saw one, even one that wasn't a pony's. But she'd never seen one do that. And she'd seen her fair share of weird oneiric phenomena over the centuries. Dreams merging, intersecting, dreams inside other dreams or outside them. Visions, nightmares, lucid dreams, ponies falling in other creatures' dreams and vice versa. But a dream clinging to another like a parasite? Never. Or perhaps not a single dream. She stepped closer, and peered at the vines. No. A collection of dreams. Like grains of sand making up the same dune. Individual, similar pieces coming together to form a greater shape. That, she could wrap her head around. She'd seen something similar, in the past, if not as complex. Dream sculpting would have made an entertaining pastime were it not for the fact that it involved toying with and shaping the unconscious thoughts of sapient creatures. She couldn't quite tell, though, how many dreams exactly made up the vines. Anywhere from dozens to millions. She dared not enter them. But she did need to enter Fluttershy's dream, if she wanted to understand what was going on. It would be dangerous, more so for the pegasus than for herself. That was why she was hesitant. She was confident nothing the parasite dreams could do would be able to keep her there. She was far less confident that they wouldn't be able to force her to hurt Fluttershy on her way out of the dream. Such fragile things, the minds of ponies, once given a shape one could interact with. She'd never actually experimented with just how much harm could be done to a pony with that particular branch of her power, but she had her suspicions and her reasonings for them. She didn't plan to verify them. And yet. She couldn't just stand there and wait. She couldn't just hope Fluttershy's problems would be resolved in the waking world. Perhaps it had been unfair to treat Rainbow Dash the way she had, when they shared much of the same concerns. But Rainbow was young, inexperienced, keeping her out of the dream was the right and obvious choice. Luna was neither of those things, at the least not to the same measure. What was the right thing to do? If anyone knew what to do with Fluttershy's situation, it should have been her. Luna looked over the dream once more. Maybe, after all, waiting was the right choice for the moment. Waiting and watching. And if nothing changed, at least she'd know she hadn't wasted time. She sighed, and hoped for the best. > Pentagramma - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know how to play, right?" Lemon Zest asked. Applejack looked up from the table and at the deck of cards Sour Sweet was shuffling. "Yeah, I do. Played it a few times with the girls. I know the rules, don't worry about it." She shifted awkwardly from side to side in her chair, still a bit unsure of herself around the group. Sunny Flare happened to come back down the stairs at that moment. She'd changed into her pyjamas, a heavy set the same colour as her hair if maybe a shade darker. She walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, pouring herself a glass of whatever it was that was in the pitcher. Applejack wasn't sure what it was. She just knew it was alcoholic, but not that strong. Fruity. The kind of drink Rarity would have scoffed at, Rainbow would have drunk straight from the jug, and Sunset and Fluttershy would have probably enjoyed the most. She didn't particularly dislike it, but she wasn't crazy about it either. Indigo Zap pushed herself off from her sitting spot besides the sink and stepped back to the table. "Thanks for the dinner, by the way," she said as she sat down. That left Lemon Zest as the only girl still not sat at the table, but she seemed more intent on choosing what to raid from the fridge at that moment. "Think nothing of it," Sunny replied. "Really, you should thank Applejack for helping out with it. She took care of the potatoes." Applejack felt herself blush a little, and looked back at the surface of the table. "I just got here early, and thought it would be nice to lend a hand. Nothing special about that." Sunny wordlessly hummed her agreement. "Perhaps you're right. What any reasonable friend would do in that situation." Had her tone left some doubts over what she was getting at, which it most definitely had not, the way her eyes set on Lemon would have made it abundantly clear nonetheless. On the other side of the table, suddenly feeling everyone's attention on her, Lemon looked up over the pile of unopened wrappers of sugary snacks that vaguely and poorly imitated bread or proper cakes, past the twin bottles of soda flanking her, and stared at Sunny's face for a moment in confusion. Then she lit up and smiled. "Oh, right! That. Hey now, I helped with the cake that time." "I remember that. She did." Sour beamed towards Applejack, then her too wide smile flipped into a hybrid between a grin and a frown. "As far as melting every vaguely gum-like piece of candy she could get her hands on into a pot counts as helping, at least." Lemon crossed her arms, turning to the side with playful indignation. "The whole thing was gone by the morning after, so as far as I'm concerned it was a success." "Only because the depth of your stomach defies science almost as much as your tastes defy reason," Indigo replied. "The only other girl eating that thing was too drunk to taste anything by that point. And I'm pretty sure she vomited later anyway." After a moment longer of feigning, Lemon let go of her pose. The four former Crystal Prep students shared a quiet chuckle, and Applejack rubbed a hand over her arm, unsure of what to say. Finally, Sour Sweet set down the deck of cards. "Shall we begin?" > Pentagramma - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack nodded, along with the other girls. Lemon cut the deck, then Sour began to distribute the cards, all forty, eight to each player. Once done she picked her own up and looked at them, her face showing no reaction. Applejack had a look at the hand she'd been dealt. Six of Swords, Seven of Wands, Five of Cups, Six of Cups, Knight of Wands, Ace of Swords, Ace of Wands, Three of Coins. Thirty-five points in hand, certainly more than average, and three of the same suit. Two of them high ranking cards at that. Not bad at all. To Sour's right, Indigo had one last look at her cards, then looked at the others with a smirk. "Seventy," she confidently stated, initiating the bid. "Feeling confident, are we?" Sunny threw a sideways glare at Indigo, smiling. "Seventy-five," she said. Applejack looked back at her cards. She'd never been one to tempt fate too far. But Sunny and Indigo looked like they weren't about to let each other win the bid, and if she knew anything about Lemon then the girl would keep pushing as well, at least for the moment. She wasn't planning to win the bid at that point, but she could still hang on just to see where the others took it. "Seventy-six," she said, one-upping Sunny's offer. The turn order moved on counter-clockwise, and it became Lemon Zest's time to bid. "Seventy-seven," she said. It wasn't hard to read on her face and through her tone that she was doing it more out of principle than out of conviction in her ability to win. To Lemon's right, Sour Sweet smiled brightly, then her expression immediately dropped into a pout. "Pass." She kept eyeing her cards, evidently unsure of who to be annoyed at when she'd been the dealer. Indigo's confidence hadn't left her face yet. "Eighty," she said, in the same low and raspy tone Rainbow used when she was challenging someone to a race. "Eighty-five," Sunny replied, still glaring at Indigo, still smiling, clearly up to the challenge. At that point, Applejack was having too much fun to let things drop. Especially when she knew the other two wouldn't. "Eighty-seven," she called out, which earned her a raised eyebrow from Sour Sweet. Lemon held her hands up, her cards face down on the table. "Pass," she declared. She then began to tap her fingers on the back of her cards, curiously watching Indigo and Sunny. "Ninety." Indigo crossed her arms, waiting for Sunny's reaction. It came just a second later. "Ninety-one." "Pass." Applejack set down her cards for the moment, and she too focused on the only two players still bidding. For a second she wondered if that was what it would have looked like had Rarity ever picked up on one of Rainbow's challenges. She hushed the thought almost immediately. "Ninety-two." Indigo was still determined to win it. At that point, she was probably doing it out of principle, considering she hadn't looked back at her cards. Sunny seemed just as determined. "Ninety-three." Indigo's grin grew a little wider. "Pass." She leaned back in her chair, looking at her cards again. "Have fun losing." Sunny sputtered, then glared at Indigo in disbelief. "You played me?" "Hate the game, not the player," the girl replied, pouring herself a drink. Sunny crossed her arms and blew air through her nose, somehow making the sound of it perfectly carry both her annoyance and her determination. "We'll see about that." She looked at her cards, her smile returning to her lips. "Three of Cups," she called out, then set down the first card of the game. "Applejack, your turn." Too busy focusing on her hand to properly appreciate the sight of Indigo tilting her glass too far and almost choking herself on the pseudo-cocktail, Applejack pondered her options for a second, then looked back at what Sunny had opened the game with. Four of Swords. She placed her Six of Swords on top. > Pentagramma - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemon looked at the cards, biting her lower lip. Then, she set down the Page of Wands on top of them. A calculated play. If she was with Sunny, she wasn't losing much to buy the others' trust. If she wasn't, and Applejack was, she wasn't losing too much. If Applejack wasn't, they at least were getting a couple points, provided no one else would beat over her six. Maybe Lemon was better at planning than Applejack had given her credit for. Sour clicked her tongue repeatedly as she eyed the cards in the middle of the table. The Two of Coins came down. She must have undergone a thought process much like Lemon's own, only with different conclusions. With points already on the table, no use in pushing the risk further in case Applejack was with Sunny. Not worth trying to get the points for herself if she was with Sunny instead, the others' trust would be more valuable. And there was always the risk of Indigo taking the cards for herself as well. Indigo, who had meanwhile managed to not die from choking on her drink and had set the glass back down, blinked once while studying the cards played. She played the Page of Swords. Sour threw her a look, and she stared back. "Points are points," she replied. "I might as well make sure they go where they belong. Not that I don't trust you, Applejack," she added, turning towards the girl. She scooped up the cards from the table and set them face down in front of herself, then began the second trick by setting down the Four of Wands. Sunny briefly tilted her head to one side, then the other, looking between the four and her own hand. She too set down a four, the Four of Cups. The remaining three girls eyed it suspiciously. Applejack nervously swallowed as she looked at her own cards. "Y'all got something to take this? 'Cause I don't think we're gonna win this if we keep all our points till the late hands." Sour Sweet gave a subtle shake of her head, but Lemon confidently nodded. Praying neither one of them would stab her in the back, Applejack set down her Ace of Swords. It was a risky move, but a necessary risk. Lemon whistled at that. "Well, you got our trust now, girl," she said, placing down the Seven of Cups. Sour Sweet followed it up with the Two of Wands, still clearly on the edge on who she wanted to trust. Or, perhaps, angry at the points being funneled away from her and Sunny. Lemon casually gathered the cards from the table and put them down in front of herself, a bit askew and misaligned, then she began the third trick by placing down the Ace of Coins. She stared right at Applejack. "I'm just returning the favour." Sour took a moment to choose what to play next. She looked over each player, then at her own cards. Something seemed to click in her head. She was about to play a card, but then she hesitated, and looked to Sunny and Indigo once more. Quietly she mouthed something to Applejack, and placed down the Five of Swords. > Pentagramma - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was Indigo's turn to play her card. She hadn't noticed Sour mouthing to Applejack, too focused on the girl's hands instead. "Good thinking, Lemon," she said. "We just need to take this trick, and we got it." She placed down the Three of Swords, promoting a subtle reaction from both Applejack and Sour Sweet. Indigo didn't seem to notice that either, though. "Applejack, it's up to you now," she said, looking towards the girl. Then she turned to Sour. "I'm onto you." Sunny's next play didn't take long. After only a moment spent looking at the state of the game, she laid down the Knight of Cups. The gesture seemed almost mechanical in its calculated poise, graceful yet cold. Like an eagle diving to catch a prey. Applejack drew a slow breath as she realised she had nothing to take the cards away from Sunny. She must have known as much, or she'd have dropped the ace instead. She couldn't risk it, when thirty points were enough to stop her from winning and Lemon already held eleven. So she had the King of Cups in her hand, too. Setting down the Seven of Wands, Applejack exchanged a look with Sour. They both understood. Indigo was playing with Sunny, and they'd win the last three tricks by default assuming they held on to their high rank cards. There were certainly still a couple of ways to win the match. But could they do it? Sunny opened with the Knight of Coins. Sour's look, uncertain until a moment before, lit up as gears began to turn in her head. Applejack and her exchanged numbers, unspoken, fingers held over the backs of their cards as they pretended to look them over. Two, five and six. The four and seven were out already. Two words, breathless. They both looked to Sunny and Indigo, then at Lemon. It was a gamble. A nod, and Applejack placed the Knight of Wands on the pile. "Lemon?" she asked. "Yeah?" Lemon asked back, stopping before playing her card. "Can you take this?" "Yeah-" "Don't." Applejack looked at her. "If you trust me, load this one up." Lemon was hesitant for a moment, looking back at Applejack. Then, she settled onto a smile, and placed the King of Swords on top of Applejack's knight. Smiling, Sour put down the King of Coins atop it. "Your turn, Indigo," she said, looking to her right. Indigo grit her teeth, visibly tense. The other girls could practically hear the gears whirring in her head. "I'm not falling for it, Sour," she finally said, placing down the Five of Coins. Sour kept her smile as she gathered the cards. "Just three more points, right?" She chuckled, then opened the trick with the Page of Coins. There was a light sound from beneath the table, though Indigo jerked upright from clearly more than just that. She looked at Sunny, who was very not subtly mouthing the word points to her. Then, she played the Knight of Swords. Sunny's eyelid jerked. > Pentagramma - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The way she was munching on the inside of her lower lip evident from outside, Sunny made the only play that wouldn't result in a loss, and placed the King of Cups on top of Indigo's knight. It wasn't really any question what the right play was at that point. Applejack casually added the Five of Cups to the pile. Lemon placed the Two of Swords on top of it, smiling. Sunny gathered the cards to herself, grumbling. She stared at her hand, taking a long, long moment to decide what her next play would be. They were guaranteed to take everything in two out of three of the next tricks, but they needed to choose which. Sighing, choosing to stave off their defeat for a while longer, Sunny opened with the King of Wands. She gave Indigo a look, one that didn't need words to be understood. Four points were already too many to let someone else take them. Applejack played the Six of Cups, initiating the gritting of Sunny's teeth. Lemon followed with the Four of Coins. Sour added in the Seven of Swords. Indigo made the only play she could, and took the cards for herself with her Three of Cups. To no one's surprise. She then played the Six of Wands. Sunny almost practically slammed the Ace of Cups on the table. Applejack added the Three of Coins without much thought. It was the lowest of the cards she had left, after all. Sunny swallowed as she saw it. "Good acting there, Indy," said Lemon. "I actually fell for it before." "Give her the Page," Sour Sweet said, without looking away from her cards. "Don't worry about it. I've got this." Lemon looked at her confused for a moment, then she shrugged. She moved her hand away from the card she'd been meaning to play, and placed the Page of Cups on the table instead. Smiling in a way that bordered on looking sadistic, Sour placed the Three of Wands on the pile. It got her more confused looks from all the other girls, but the way her smile stuck to her face made Sunny's confusion shift to worry as she gathered the cards for herself. She placed down her last card, the Six of Coins, and realisation began to dawn on her face. Applejack played the Ace of Wands. Lemon played the Five of Wands. Sour Sweet turned to Indigo. "Mind going first? It's not like it matters at this point." Biting her lower lip, Indigo cautiously placed the Seven of Coins on the table. Sour stood up, pushing her chair skidding back in her haste. "How does it feel to lose to a two?" she half-yelled, grinning, as she slammed the Two of Cups on the table and took the last eleven points for herself and her team. A moment later she sat back down, as if nothing had happened, and began to count her total points. Indigo stared at her and blinked, mouth agape. "Did you really throw twelve points our way just to rub it in?" "I sure did." Sour set down her cards. "Twenty-five for me." "And eleven for me," Lemon piped up. "Since Applejack got nothing, I guess that's eighty-four for you girls." "Sixty-six. And Indigo got eighteen." Sunny slumped back into her chair, deflated and defeated. She smiled. "Good game, girls." > Pentagramma - Part 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Good game," Sour said, gathering everyone's cards and shuffling the deck back together. Similar comments came from the rest of the group as well. "You just had to keep pushing on the bid, didn't you?" asked Sunny, sitting straight again. "Hey, it worked," Indigo replied, crossing her arms behind her head. "You did lose because of that. I just had no idea you'd pick me." "We could have won if you hadn't set the bar that high." Sunny poured herself another glass of the yet unidentified drink. "You're the one who chose to keep up with me. You should have known better," replied Indigo. "I could have won if you hadn't set the bar that high. Although I would have called the Ace of Swords." "Oh. That would have been me," said Applejack. Sour finished shuffling the deck and placed it back on the table. "I wonder if you would have been less obvious about it." "Sugarcoat's always good at that. You just can't get a read on her face when she's really trying," Lemon said. Applejack opened her mouth, but was silent for a moment. "I'm not just a replacement for her, right?" From across the table, Sour looked at her. "Are we replacements for your friends?" Everyone was silent for a short while. Before either Lemon or Indigo had a chance to attempt to lighten the mood with potentially horrible results, Sunny spoke. "I think we feel the same way you do about this. We're missing something, and we found a way to fill that hole that's similar enough to what was there before, but we don't want it to be or feel like just a replacement. Denying that the similarities at play are influential to this would be wrong, but that doesn't mean there aren't genuine intentions beyond them." Applejack nodded. "Yeah. Sorry if I brought that up." "Hey now, better to bring things up and resolve them than to let feelings fester into a dark blob of irrational emotions that ends up swallowing you and clouding the way you see things until either everything eventually breaks down in the worst way possible or your inner self crumbles under the pressure of unspoken worries." Lemon offered Applejack a thumbs up. Applejack's mouth silently opened and closed for a moment. She understood the message, but was mostly puzzled by its source. Indigo evidently noticed that. "Lemon can be really deep sometimes. Usually on accident." "It's like necrosis," Lemon continued. "You'd rather chop off a finger than wait and have to remove the whole arm once it spreads there. Or like cutting away the rotten part of an apple. Or when you accidentally leave leftover food in the oven and forget about it for a couple of days and when you find it again it's growing mold but only on one side so you take that away and still eat the rest since it's usually still pretty good and it would be a waste to throw it away." "And then she goes and ruins it like that." Indigo sighed, leaning back into her chair and looking towards the ceiling. > Pentagramma - Part 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Thanks again for having us," Applejack said, stepping back into Sunny's bedroom. She'd changed into her own set of pyjamas, as had the rest of the girls. "Are you sure your parents won't mind?" "Hah. My parents wouldn't even find out about this if I didn't tell them. They don't mind me having people over, as long as nobody breaks anything." Her eyes seemed to wander towards Lemon Zest as she said those last words, but maybe it was just an impression. "You should have seen the party she organised at the end of last year," Sour said. "The neighbours didn't call the police only because there are no neighbours." "Don't you ever get lonely, here by yourself in such a big house?" asked Applejack, sitting down onto a pillow on the ground. Sunny bit her lower lip for a moment. "I think I might, if I stayed here. I suppose it's why I spend most of my day elsewhere. We do have a smaller house I occasionally live in instead. But during the winter I rarely bother, too much trouble turning on and off the heating system and then dealing with the cold once I come back here." "You can't be seriously complaining about having all this for yourself, Sunny. I wish I didn't have to share my place with my siblings." Lemon was absent-mindedly looking at her phone, still waiting for Indigo to come back. "You don't live with your siblings anymore," Sour pointed out. "Not with your parents, either." "Yeah, but I'm not on my own yet," Lemon whined, placing her phone on top of the nearest table and sitting down on a pillow much like Applejack was. "I was going to say that sharing a room with Indigo doesn't count as there being restrictions, considering how low her standards of decency are," Sour replied, "but then I remembered yours are nonexistent." "Oh, so we're at the part of the evening where we point out Lemon's complete lack of human decency," said Indigo, stepping past the door and into the bedroom. "Trust me, you girls have no idea how bad it gets." "So," Sunny spoke up, "what do you girls want to do? Boardgames?" From her spot behind Sunny, Sour drummed her fingers over the stack of boxes piled onto the table. "Maybe later," Lemon said. "Oh! How about Truth or Dare?" "We've been past the point in our lives where anyone would choose dare without being drunk for years," Sour replied. "I think it's time we move past the pretense too and start acknowledging trading secrets for what it really is." "At what point does it devolve into middle-aged women sharing petty gossip while waiting at a laundrette?" asked Sunny. Indigo shivered. "Oh, please, none of that. I'm still young and sexy." "Are you saying older women can't be sexy?" Lemon asked from the opposite end of the room. "Are you saying they are?" "Sunburst's mum." Indigo opened her mouth once to reply, then closed it. "That's not fair," she said after a moment. Applejack chuckled. "Truth or Truth works for me, if y'all wanna go with that." Sour shrugged. "It is always fun to catch up on what even more embarrassing stuff Lemon's gotten up to since the last time. Sure, I'm in." > 10% > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Still trying to figure this out?" "Yeah." Twilight took a sip from her coffee mug. Sunset stepped next to her, and looked down at the desk filled with graphs and maps. "Don't you think maybe you're working too hard on this?" "Yeah." Twilight set her mug down. "But if I don't do it, who will?" Sunset rolled her eyes, and patted the other girl's head affectionately. "I'm sorry I'm not helping with it as much as I could." "No, you're right. It wouldn't be right to drag you into this thing. And you know what they say. It's hard to find a pattern into a seemingly random set of data, especially when there isn't one. Maybe that is the case here, after all." Twilight leaned back into her chair with a sigh. Sunset quirked an eyebrow. "I think I only heard that about black cats and dark rooms." Twilight looked at Sunset. "Yeah, but you spent your childhood in magical pony land and I spent most of my high school years shutting off as much social interaction as I could in favour of studying and research." She sighed again. "Bless my parents for getting me a dog, I would have turned out a lot worse otherwise. And I still ended up almost destroying the world." "Hey. I almost mind controlled a high school into invading the parallel horse dimension." Sunset ruffled Twilight's hair. "While looking like a demon. And we sadly have no good pictures of it. Don't we have this same exact line of conversation every month or so?" "We both have a bundle of conflicting and complicated feelings over the concept of turning into a monstrous creature through stolen horse magic. Not all of those feelings are the bad kind." Sunset gave the ground a little kick. "It's so annoying that the transformations we get when when going power crazy look way hotter than the regular geode ones. That's not just me, right?" Twilight gave something resembling a smirk, though the angle from which Sunset was seeing it made it unclear. "Maybe. Speaking of stolen horse magic, can you fetch me that map over there?" She raised a hand, and pointed to a stack of papers onto a table to her right. Ruffling Twilight's hair one more time, Sunset headed towards the table. Twilight looked back to the maps laid down on the desk in front of her, straightening her hair with a hand as the other began to move things around. She wanted to compare the map of the portals with Equestria's version, just to see if there was something she'd missed. For the thirtieth time or so. Absent-mindedly, she lifted up a map, and her eyes happened to fall on the one under it. Twilight froze. Sunset turned around, and noticed the reaction. "Is everything okay?" Twilight didn't answer. She undid the motion she'd stopped halfway, then repeated it, like she was flipping a page back and forth. Then the map on top was enveloped in her telekinesis, and she held it a few centimetres above the other, looking at both of them. "I think I've got it." > Fear of the Dark > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight's first instinct was to cover her mouth with the back of her front leg. Partly to stop herself from vomiting, partly to block the smell. Judging by the sounds Twilight made behind her, the alicorn's reaction hadn't been much different. "I don't like this place." Starlight looked around. Or, at least, she tried to. The curtain of pitch black darkness around her was too thick to see anything, and the light of her magic failed to illuminate anything beyond her own body. It did mean she got to look at her hoof, though. When first stepping through the portal, she'd assumed the ground was muddy, perhaps a swamp. She was pretty sure mud wasn't that shade or red, and it didn't clump like that. "I really don't like this place." "You're not the only one." The sound of Twilight's voice, and the uncomfortable squelching of her hooves on the ground, told Starlight that she had moved up to her side. Despite this, she still couldn't see her. Not until Twilight lit her own horn, at least. "Do you think this is blood?" Starlight asked, holding up a hoof. Twilight looked at it, then at her own hooves. "Could be. Either we landed on top of a giant corpse, we landed on top of a battlefield, or this world has flesh instead of soil. I don't know which one would be worse." "Cool. Let's leave, then." Starlight looked back at the portal, hopeful. "Just note this down as freaky flesh world with abnormal darkness, and move on to the next one." She looked to Twilight again, forcing a smile. "I'm as tempted as you are," Twilight replied. "But we both know we should do more exploring here." She took out a small vial from her saddlebags, and collected a sample of the ground. She was just as unnerved as Starlight by the way it remained shrouded in darkness up until being inserted into the vial. They couldn't even see the ground, only guess it was there by the way the vial stopped when moved downwards. Starlight frowned. A small orb or light detached itself from her horn, and floated higher in the air in front of them. It remained there, perfectly visible, illuminating nothing. "Do you think this is magical darkness?" "Probably." Twilight cleaned the bloody outside of the vial, and stowed it away back in her saddlebags. Starlight looked down. She could barely see her own hooves. "I don't think there's much of a point in exploring this place, if we can't even see where we're going. What if we fall down a cliff?" "We both know how to fly," replied Twilight, but her tone was a bit uncertain. Starlight had another look around. "And what if we run into something?" Twilight also looked around. "Like what?" Starlight didn't answer that. Slowly, she began to step back, and cut off the light she'd left floating in the air. Twilight swallowed, and did the same. A moment later, they both reached the portal, and left through it. > DvlTrggr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is a dream, isn't it?" Luna nodded. "It is. I must admit, I was rather curious when I noticed a fully formed dream where there previously was none. Forgive me for interrupting, but I had to check." Lemon shook her head. "Don't worry about it." She paused for a moment. "Wait, are you real? This is all a dream, right? Oh silly me, look at me, talking with a horse in my dreams." Luna tilted her head to the side, curious. "Did Twilight not tell you about me?" "Twilight? I haven't seen her in a while and... Wait, you mean like, the other Twilight?" Lemon tapped her fingers on her chin. "You kinda look like that CHS vice-principal lady. Only a horse." "Are you not one of Twilight's friends?" asked Luna. "I'm friends with the Twilight that's not a horse," replied Lemon. "I think she did mention something about princesses this or that on this side. So you're, like, the magical horse of dreams or something?" Luna slowly nodded, unsure. "You... could say so, yes." "Cool." Lemon looked at Luna, then at herself, then back at Luna. Then back at herself. She screeched, and threw her arms up over parts of her body, crossing her legs. Luna leaned forward, worried. "Is everything okay?" "Uh, yeah, um, could you turn around for a sec?" asked Lemon, shifting awkwardly, doing her best to cover all the bits of her naked body she didn't want exposed. "I..." Luna shook her head. "Of course." She turned, looking away from Lemon. After a few seconds of quiet swearing, as the girl tried to figure out how exactly to make her own dream go the way she wanted it to, she gave a cough. "Alright, you can turn back around." She'd settled for her old Crystal Prep uniform, not the best but it was the first thing she'd managed to successfully conjure up. Luna looked at her again. "Oh, I see." She frowned. "Did I see something inappropriate before? I apologise. I usually know better than to interrupt certain types of dreams, but I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with the finer details of your species' culture. It didn't seem like I was interrupting anything private." "Oh, no, don't worry about it, you-" Lemon abruptly stopped. "What did you interrupt, exactly? I don't remember where this dream was going before you showed up." "It looked closer to a nightmare, I would say." Luna stared to her left. Lemon followed her eyes, and looked to the right. There, seen as if through a screen that occupied the entire wall of the arbitrarily limited white room they stood in, a still image of her body being enveloped in green and pink flames spreading up from beneath her, burning away her clothes in the process. Memories clicked into place. "Oh. That's like what happened to Twilight. Our Twilight. I guess being in magical horse land made me wonder what would happen if I were to be consumed by magic or something." Luna looked at her from the corner of her eye. "And what do you think would happen, in that case?" Lemon hesitated for a second. The horse had already seen her naked at that point, and she was curious about the rest of her dream. She shrugged. "Well, you can just let the dream play out. That way we'll both get to see," she replied. After a moment, Luna nodded. The image on the wall began to move, and both of them watched. > Sleep Deprivation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indigo cast her eyes downwards, making sure Lemon was still there and sleeping safe. Then she had another look around the place. No signs of anything in sight. Finally, she allowed herself to relax and looked up at the sky with a sigh. The cloud she was on was definitely lower than the ones in her world normally were, but somehow it felt like the stars were closer too. Wings hadn't been too hard to figure out. Not on the most basic level, at least. She knew she wasn't using them well, but she was still using them well enough for the time being. She'd managed to get herself up there, after all. The cloud was every bit as soft and comfortable as she'd have imagined one to be as a kid. So nice to rest on, she was almost tempted to fall asleep there. It was better than the ground, that was sure. But she didn't trust herself not to fall off while thrashing in her sleep, much less wake up in time to spread her wings if she did. She still kept the rail on in the top bed, she wasn't about to sleep on a cloud with no protections. Besides, that wasn't the point. She wasn't gonna sleep up there on a cloud and leave Lemon down on the ground by herself. Especially not in magical pony land. Who knew what kind of creatures could come attack them during the night. She'd only heard stories and seen blurry pictures of anything that hadn't been Twilight, but if the things that had come from that world to hers were any indication, the local fauna would be far from enjoyable. Well, not completely fair, Indigo thought to herself. Sunset was a pretty welcome sight for a creature from another dimension. A most pleasant one. Indigo shook herself, and almost slapped herself with a wing. Not the time to think about sexing the magical horse redhead. Never the time to think about sexing the magical horse redhead, considering she was taken, but especially not there and then. But damn if Twilight wasn't one lucky girl. Indigo shook herself again. She huffed, standing up. The air was cold, up there, but it didn't keep her awake the same way it usually did. Flying horse biology, if she had a guess. She didn't feel like she wanted to sleep, not when they were out there and Lemon was already sleeping. But she couldn't will herself to stay awake forever. Eventually, she resigned herself to the best solution she had. She spread her wings and walked off the edge of the cloud, actually managing to glide down safely towards the ground. The cool air in her mane and against her face did help with the sleepiness, but again much less than it usually did. She landed not too far from Lemon, and walked the rest of the distance by hoof. She yawned once she got there. She had one last look around, making sure nothing was about to ambush them from the shadows, and finally she lay down and curled up against the other pony, closing her eyes. > Pathetic Aesthetic > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think it looks way too cluttered," said Twilight. "It feels like they worked on it until it was finished, and then just kept going. There's a design somewhere in there, and it's probably a good design, but it's buried under all the unnecessary details they kept adding because no one told them to stop." Celestia nodded. "That does seem accurate. Artists of that period did have a tendency to overcomplicate their works, and it could get quite excessive, as seen here. It's as you said, they had a finished piece but they just kept going. It's no wonder a minimalist current took over in the next century." There was a click, as Twilight tapped the projector, and the picture on the wall changed to a different one. "And what about this one?" Twilight asked. Celestia studied it for a moment, tilting her head. "I think I remember this one." "I'd expect you to. It's you." "I see that, Princess, but you cannot expect me to remember a millennium's worth of artistic depictions of myself and recognise them all at first glance. Especially not when not all of them were directly presented to me. But I do remember this one. It came only a few decades after Luna's banishment. The style and proportions are still not quite as well defined as they would become a few centuries later. It's meant to symbolise strength, it was made in celebration of a successful battle if I recall correctly." "It looks ugly," Twilight said. "It's fine if you just glance at it, but once you take it in it becomes worse and worse. The nose is too wide, the facial structure is off, your bones look misshapen. Your underside looks malnourished and overfed at the same time, like a sick and bloated animal. Your eyes aren't aligned properly. Your flanks and thighs look deformed. You look like a sketch that someone treated as a finished piece. Like a decent drawing somepony with a very unsteady hoof tried to trace." Celestia nodded again. "That is true, Princess. I do look ugly and misshapen." "Moving on." Twilight clicked the projector again. She stifled a chuckle as she saw the new image. "When was this lion sculpted?" she asked, clearly holding back giggles. Celestia was also forcing back her laugh. "A couple of centuries ago, judging by the technique employed on the pattern at the base. Quite an admirable piece, the base." She had to stop talking. "The base, yes." Twilight laughed. Not holding back anymore, she pointed at the lion's head. "He just looks so goofy!" Celestia was too busy fighting against her laughing fits to speak. "It looks like a foal's drawing that someone decided to replicate in a statue." Twilight kept chuckling as she talked. "Its eyes aren't even the same size! It looks like a lion if you inflated parts its face with air like a balloon." "It really does." Celestia had finally calmed down enough to speak. "Do you think it was on purpose?" "I'm honestly not sure," Twilight replied. "Oh well. Moving on." > Lightningbringer - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything went white and loud, again. It was over only a moment later, as the world came back into focus around Firecracker. They were still flying. Breath and heartbeat a bit faster than normal, but that could be chalked up to the shock of the situation. Apart from a light itch along their skin, and the sudden feeling of dryness over their coat and wings, everything else seemed perfectly normal. Worryingly normal. Slowly and carefully, they flew down towards the ground, onto a large flat-topped rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. They didn't care about getting wet again at that point, it was the least of their potential problems. Once they had landed they began to check themself over again. Pulse still as normal as before, regular breathing, no involuntary muscle spasms. No pain that they could feel, but pinching their cheek revealed they still felt things just fine, so it wasn't just shock. No scorch marks on their hair or feathers, nothing burnt or even so much as ruffled. Everything was perfectly fine. By all means, it shouldn't have been. Being more resistant to electricity than other ponies was a pegasus thing, yes. But that only really justified things when dealing with small pony-made clouds, not with a full-blown wild burst of lightning that could turn a whole tree into a giant ember. And more importantly, being more resistant to those still meant you felt something. Firecracker had taken their fair share of sparks while messing around with clouds in their youth, and they always stung at the least, hurt most of the time. But they had felt nothing when the lightning had hit. Nothing they should have felt, at least. The only real effect the bolt seemed to have had on them was drying them off. Firecracker shook their head. It was probably luck. It had to have been luck. Dumb, unbelievable, unjustified luck. They'd taken a lightning to the face and survived unscathed, somehow, probably thanks to some weird atmospheric conditions around them. Conditions that probably wouldn't manifest themselves a second time. The pegasus looked up from their body and at the storm still raging around them. Rain kept pouring down, and the rumbling of thunder echoed around the mountains whenever a blaze of lightning streaked through the thick black clouds above. They needed to get away from there. Praying their muscles wouldn't just suddenly seize up in some delayed reaction to the shock, Firecracker spread their wings and once again began to fly through the rain. They actually felt it, that time. A moment before it happened, a tingle on the back of their ears. Instinctively they slowed down, looked up, and pushed themself back with a flap of their wings as a new lightning bolt fell down square in front of them. They hovered there for a moment, staring at nothing. There had seemed to be something odd about that bolt. As if it had been slower, perhaps, somehow. Firecracker felt the same tingle behind their ears. This time, they didn't move. > Crack > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- One set of slim fingers curled around the wand's black handle, lifting it from the table. The other picked up the golden metal rod and slipped the round end into the opening on the handle, where it locked in place. Eyes set on the tip of the rod, thin and pointy, like a bullet. A customised variant, they'd even sharpened it enough for it to draw blood if pressed hard enough. A soft smiled curled their lips, and they set the assembled wand back down onto the table. Black gloves slid over their hands, stopping just short of the elbows. Straps and silver buckles at the end of each one tightened them around their forearms. The clicking of boots against the floor echoed around the square confines of the room as they took hold of the wand's plug and first slid it through the metal rings on the table's side, then carried it to the electrical outlet on the far end of the room. Then again, as they walked back the distance to the table. They picked up the wand again. It was the strongest model they had, and combined with the rod it would provide the most intense results. Exactly what the client wanted. Given what she'd asked for, it wasn't hard to see which part of the experience she was most interested in, and they were happily going to provide. They were actually considering upgrading to a stronger model, sometime in the future. Likely custom ordered from some independent manufacturer, or maybe they would build one themself. No company out there was selling anything stronger than what they already had. Wand in hand, they walked to the centre of the room. They threw a look at the contact cable left over the table, wondering if they would have time to use it. Then, they focused their attention on the centrepiece of the scene. The X-shaped cross of dark grey metal stood just tall enough not to prevent comfortable access to the top with their hands if necessary, but still made for quite the impressive sight. They tugged at the chains on the upper section, making sure they still held and twisting them around to check if they were getting stiff. Everything seemed fine, and so they did the same with the lower ones. Everything was fine there as well. They wondered if they should have swapped out the padded cuffs. They did have a set of metal ones in the drawer under the table, and the client would probably ask for it. They'd have to be a bit more careful, and make sure to check on her wrists and ankles afterwards, but it could be done. They'd take care of that in just a moment. Smiling, they brought the tip of the rod against the cross, then pulled it back just a bit. Their fingers moved over the handle, and there was a click as the wand was turned on. Electricity arched through the air between the wand and the cross, and they smiled. They would have so much fun that night. > Black as Ice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There," said Pinkie, pointing a hoof. "Oh, I see," Pinkie replied. "Can I come talk to it?" Pinkie put a hoof under her chin. "I'm not sure. You are me, but you're also not me. I should probably ask them." Pinkie nodded. "I understand. Don't worry too much about it, it's not a problem if they don't let me. It's fair to keep secrets on something like this." "But I want to tell you all about it!" Pinkie pouted. "I could just tell you and say I only spoke to myself, but I would feel like I lied to it." "No, no, really, it's okay." Pinkie put a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder. "No need to stress about it. Stay strong, Pinkie." "Thank you, Pinkie. You're right." Pinkie snapped at attention. "Well, I'll wave if you're allowed to come. I'll tell you all I can after we've discussed what I can and can't share." Pinkie nodded. "Good luck, Pinkie." "Thanks." And Pinkie began to walk down the slope of the cliff. Pinkie watched her go, as she approached her destination. The two of them would be discussing a moment later. At least, she got to watch, which was still quite nice. > Winter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snow slowly, lazily drifted through the air, pushed this way and that by the wind. It came down in soft, large flakes, clusters that peacefully set themselves down over the ruins once they touched the ground and remained there undisturbed, building up piles and coating everything in a thick layer of white. There was no heat to warm up what was left of the city, no ponies living there and no other animals either. The stone was cold, and the snow didn't melt. It was undisturbed, free to build up without being crushed. Soon it would cover the entire city. If it kept snowing long enough, even the tallest pile of rubble might have been submerged. Assuming the snow didn't collapse under its own weight before growing that tall, of course. It would be, perhaps, fun to see some pony or other creature walking through the place once it had stopped snowing. See them fall deep into it, in holes tall enough to fit their whole height, and see them stumble around as they ran into the hidden remains of the city under the snow. But then the snow would be ruined. It would have holes, and places where some had melted down. To be fair, yes, all the snow would melt down in time. The seasons would shift again and the temperatures would rise and the snow would all melt or evaporate. It would turn to water and soak the ground below, and then mix with the mud and turn dirty. And perhaps it would melt in the day, but freeze again in the night, turning to ice. And the ice would melt again during the morning, in ugly and half-frozen puddles filled with dirt. But that wouldn't happen for a while still. It was snowing, right then. Still snowing. Snow coming down from the sky in large and soft flakes that danced through the air on the soft bouts of wind and then touched the snow already on the ground and stayed there, not melting, building higher and higher. The sky was cloudy, but not quite as dark as a storm would make it. The Sun was still there, behind the clouds. But covered, so it couldn't warm the land and melt the snow. The snow wouldn't melt for a while still. The air was cold, and the sky was cloudy, and more snow kept falling down and piling up. It wouldn't have happened like that, had the city still been inhabited. The warmth from the houses and the ponies and the busy streets and all the buildings with their fires and their life would have melted the snow when it first fell. It would have taken long for it to cool the streets and the rooftops and the walls, sacrificing itself. And then, what? Ponies would clean it away, and push it out, and salt the streets so no more snow would pile up in them. Maybe out of the city, in the fields, snow would be allowed to grow, but even then they would walk over it and ruin it. One had to wonder if it would have been possible to build tunnels, underneath the snow, if it was left to build up for long enough undisturbed. But then, there was the risk of ruining it still. Better not to try. > Lightningbringer - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Electricity cascaded around the pegasus' body, over their skin and hair and feathers. They felt it moving through their mane and tail, sliding harmlessly past them as the lightning struck the ground below. One moment later it was all over again, and rain began to once more dampen Firecracker's coat. They released the breath they'd been holding on to, as their heart kept pounding in their chest. It had been different, that time. Maybe it had been the lack of shock that had been there before, but it had almost felt as if they could see through the lightning as it passed over them. Not blinded or disturbed by it as much as they had been previously. They were still there, hovering in the air, unscathed as the storm continued around them. Slowly they looked up at the clouds, as thoughts kept rushing over each other in their head. They flew a little higher, moving slowly, then with more confidence. It wasn't a quick process, they had to account for how strong the wind was and could only fly up so far, but still they did manage to get decently far above their previous position. And there they stopped, watching and waiting. They felt it again, starting on the back of their neck. Their breath slowed down. Deep breaths, their wings beating to the same rhythm, as the tingling sensation built up. They closed their eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked up with a jerk of their neck. Their wings came down hard and fast as lightning struck through their body again, and onto a tree down below. Firecracker's heartbeat had gone up again, and it began to relax. It was strange. Not entirely unfamiliar. A part of it, at least, was much like what a pegasus could normally do. But there was more to it. Another hard push with their wings, another lightning. They could feel it sliding over the tips of their feathers, curving to follow the bend of their wings. They could see it moving just a bit to the side as it fell to the ground, off-course relative to where it had been coming from. A deep breath, a push of their wings. Lightning cracked down, feathers bent, joints turned. It split, two separate bolts hitting the ground. Firecracker's heart was pounding again, for different reasons this time. They looked up at the clouds. Moving away from the storm couldn't be done while flying too high, not with winds pushing them from side to side unpredictably. Moving perpendicularly to the wind was another matter. In a moment they were speeding up, gaining height, flying straight towards the centre of the storm. They felt another lightning coming, and let it pass through them. Their hooves pierced the clouds, and the rest of their body followed. Their eyes couldn't see, and the pegasus let their sense of gravity tell them where to go. Sparks and bolts of electricity went off all around them as they moved through the cloud, building up over their body, coiling around their limbs as they kept flying higher and higher. Soon the sparks were melting together, growing larger, fusing with each other until the pegasus was fully enveloped in one singular agitated mass of electricity streaking behind them. Firecracker gave one last push with their wings. Light hit their eyes as they pierced through the top of the clouds, and they stopped. Thunder echoed around the empty blue sky, above the raging storm, as a whiplash of lightning shot upwards from the clouds and through the pegasus, and spread out like a flower towards the Sun. > Chasing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firecracker watched the pegasus disappear behind a tree to their left, and reappear a moment later from behind one on the right, smiling. She approached them, still smiling, and sat down besides them. "Fun stuff," they commented. "Isn't it dangerous?" The mare shrugged. "Only if I'm not careful with where I pop back out. I don't know what would happen if I did exit where something else is, but I'm happy not knowing." She swayed from side to side. "It's easier out here. The trees stand out more on the other side. Buildings are a lot harder to avoid." Firecracker nodded. "I see. What does it look like, on the other side, exactly?" "It's... different." The made pursed her lips, thinking. "I can't really put it into words. You'd need to see it yourself to understand. It's like..." She trailed off, and her hoof trailed on the snow in front of her. "Imagine you were a flat shape, on a flat world, and suddenly one day something picked you off from that world and left you to drift around in space. And imagine you saw the world, your world, and realised its shape in space is curved. That's what it's like." Firecracker quirked an eyebrow, intrigued. "And what shape is our world, in the one above?" The mare shook her head, her blonde mane swishing from side to side. "I have no idea. I don't think I can even comprehend it. I'm still thinking in three dimensions, even when I move in four. But I can see shortcuts. Like a shape might see that a line between two points of a solid is shorter if it passes through it and not along the edges, without understanding that the solid is a cube or a sphere or a cone." Firecracker nodded again. "I understand." They remained silent for a moment. "Can you show me? Take me with you on the other side?" Again, the grey pegasus shook her head. "I've thought about bringing others with me. I don't know if I can, and I don't want to risk it. If I bring you in and lose you, I might never be able to find you again. And I don't even know if you'd be able to be there at all." Firecracker swallowed, a bit disappointed. "How fast is it?" The mare looked at them, a smile slowly spreading on her lips. She blinked out of existence before they had a chance to say anything else. And a few seconds later she reappeared, holding a postcard. She passed it to Firecracker, who looked at it and saw it was from Appleloosa. "That fast," she replied. "If I want it to." Firecracker blinked, very clearly impressed. "Not bad at all. Princess Twilight must love having you around." The mare chuckled. "I think she hates it, actually. One more thing she can't figure out." Firecracker chuckled as well. "I don't think you've told me your name yet." "You haven't either." The pegasus sighed. "True enough. I'm Firecracker. What about you?" > Into the Swarm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The key turned in the lock, the door opened, and the unicorn stepped into his house. He cleaned his hooves on the carpet at the entrance, turned to close the door again, then began to walk towards the kitchen. And as he stepped through the door between the kitchen and the entrance he fell to the ground, unconscious, zapped by a bolt of green magic. Chrysalis began to drag the pony towards the wall near the sink. "Do you need help?" chimed in Stellaria, from the entrance room, munching on a bag of chips she'd borrowed from inside a cupboard. "No." Chrysalis placed the stallion on top of the cocoon base she'd already built, and then began to spin the rest of it around him. Stella smiled. "Good." She downed the remaining chips, then crumpled the bag and threw it towards the nearest trashcan. Then she walked into the kitchen, and started rummaging through cupboards in search of more food. Chrysalis threw her a side look, then focused back on the unicorn. "You could leave some." "You won't need it." Stella downed several slices of bread and swallowed them whole. "You'll get plenty of love to feed yourself with at your new work place." "Unlike the current one," Chrysalis hissed. She looked at Stellaria again, while the alicorn swallowed the remaining slices of bread. "Sometimes I wonder if there wasn't a snake in the tree I made you from." "Sometimes I wonder if changeling queens are supposed to be stupid, or if your egg was dropped before you were born." Stellaria's horn flashed, and Chrysalis's muffled grunts filled the room, along with a sound not too far removed from water sizzling when touching heated metal. Chrysalis wanted to say something else. The pain in her chest told her it was better to shut up for the time being. She closed the top of the green cocoon, and began to fill it up. As she did that, her eyes wandered over the rest of the room, without paying any particular attention to anything. They'd already throughly explored it in the previous days, there was nothing really noteworthy there. Just a regular kitchen in a regular house in Ponyville, owned by a stallion who worked as a researcher at the local castle, lived alone, and wouldn't be getting any visits. The perfect target to replace. There was just one last thing to take care of. Ignoring the way Stella was eating through a bag of crackers so fast she may as well have been inhaling them, Chrysalis focused instead on the stallion, still unconscious, floating inside the cocoon she'd just finished filling. She just needed to make sure he wouldn't be a nuisance, business as usual for her. But as she fired up her magic, a thought wormed its way into her head. She looked at Stella again, still busy eating, then back at the stallion. Her magic slowly flowed through her horn and towards the pony. It wouldn't hurt to have a backup plan, after all. > Parting > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scarlet diligently cleaned her hooves over the carpet, then opened the door and stepped inside. "I'm back," she announced, making her way to the living room. She was relieved to see both of her guests were still there, and still safe. "Scarlet," the stallion greeted her. "How's Silver doing?" "She's doing well. She's happy to know you're back." She'd almost said alright instead. She felt a light touch of hate towards herself once she realised she hadn't and why. But she made an effort not to show any of that was going on in her head. Instead, she turned to Blue Spark. "And how about you two? Did anything happen while I was gone?" She stared at the unicorn, trying to get her point across. Blue shook her head. "No. Nothing noteworthy, really. We were just chatting, that's all." The stallion nodded. "It was quite entertaining. I didn't have anyone to speak with while I was alone in the forest. Well, I had the trees, but usually wood doesn't answer back. It was nice to find one who did." "I'm sure it was," Scarlet replied. She walked towards Blue, and quietly asked, "He wasn't being weird or anything, right?" Blue shook her head again, less notably. "Nothing to worry about. He was a bit odd, but nothing bad." "I understand. Thank you again for taking care of him." Scarlet cleared her throat, then went on more loudly, "Well, thank you for keeping an eye on the place while I was out. Can I offer you something? Do you two want anything?" "I'll pass, but thanks," said Blue. The stallion looked up. "I could go for some honey," he said. "Of course," said Scarlet. "Blue? Are you really sure you want nothing?" "Really." The unicorn's tone was gentle, but firm. "Don't worry about it. I already had enough food for today." Scarlet sighed. "Alright then. Sorry again for keeping you so long, I'm sure you have your research to get back to-" "I do." Blue looked precisely towards the clock hanging on the wall. "I should probably get going right now, actually, if you no longer need me." Scarlet went silent for a moment, embarrassed, and swallowed. "Ah, sure, yes. I'm sorry I took so long. You can go now." She took a step back. "Don't worry about it. It wasn't a problem." Blue stood up from the couch. "But now I really better get going. I might come to visit, one day." "I would be glad to have you," said Scarlet, still feeling a little awkward. Blue moved towards the stallion, and said something to him. Scarlet didn't catch what it was, but she was already too embarrassed to pry for information. She just waited, walked Blue to the door, and waved the unicorn goodbye as she walked away. Then she walked back to the living room, and looked at the stallion. "Oh, right, your honey. Do you want anything with it?" The stallion tapped his chin for a moment. "Do you have any of those dry tea biscuits?" > See Where It Takes You > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked at the feather, held at the end of a steel cable coming down from the ceiling. For the sake of actually confirming what they were dealing with, she'd had a thorough look at all the test results and readings, but they hadn't revealed anything she hadn't already known after a glance. It was all exactly the same as a scale. On a surface level, there was no reason for her not to simply accept that it was indeed the same. Accept that scales could come in shapes different from the one they were used to, and that scales was even worse of a name than they already thought. It would at least give them a reason to change that. Logically, it all made sense. And yet, it didn't sit right with her. And not just because of the circumstances in which she'd acquired the feather. Mostly because of those, yes, but not only. If feathers were possible, why hadn't they found any before? Why was it relevant for it to be a feather and not just another scale? Did the Behemoth even have feathers? No one had checked that last one. No one would be able to, no one wanted to. Someone had the answers she was looking for. Twilight eyed the letter sitting on the table. She'd tried writing in it again, but after a lack of replies she'd stopped. It would still be a while before whoever had left it would supposedly show up again, and that meant all they had to work with was the feather. They had tried to trace back the spell on the letter to see where it was communicating with, but the results had come out as literally nowhere. Twilight had a hunch it was somehow sending things past a portal, not entirely unlike her correspondence with Sunset, and she would tear down the letter to its last cell if it meant finding out exactly how it managed to do that with scale portals. Once she no longer needed it, of course. And so, that left them with their only option being exactly what the intruder had suggested. Twilight didn't like it. It felt too much like walking into a trap. But as with every trap she'd willfully walked into, she knew it was what she wanted to do. It was a good trap, because there wasn't really a choice. And besides, she was curious. She readied her horn. This time, she'd been extra careful. Protection glyphs all around the platform, and a second set around the laboratory. If it blew up, the damage would be contained to a minimum. But she doubted it would blow up. There would have been easier ways to blow up the castle for someone who could sneak into her study undetected. It wasn't a particularly reassuring thought, but it was something, at least. Twilight cast the spell, and held her breath. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly at all, it went off exactly as it was intended, and a moment later a portal stood there in front of her. She breathed again, and looked around. It was time, after all. She cast the usual set of protective spells, and stepped forward. It was time to see where, exactly, it would take her. > Witness Me, Phoenix > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- " I'm falling In the same direction you did In the opposite direction you did To a different place From a different place Through the same place In a different time I'm here Where our paths converge Where our paths diverge To greet you, even if you're not here You were, once Twice, thrice, and again And again, here, yet not You won't see this And I will not see you And maybe, that's how it should be I've seen this world change And I have accepted it And I have lived through it And I've suffered its changes And yet, I have changed it too And I have put myself where I am now Who I am now What I am now And the things that are in me This world is suffering, wounded, screaming These walls are breaking, assaulted, bleeding These worlds are collapsing And I see them Running As they try to understand As they try to fix things As they search for answers And I can't help them And I know the answers, and I can't speak them And I know the words, but forget the meaning And I can't go back to the world I feel from The world I came from And I don't remember One of them spoke to me In a time where I was not myself I knew her, though I did not remember her And she too came from the world I left From the time I left And she too saw through the world I passed And I spoke to her And remembered her And the one who I am made a pact with her She is my past And I am her actions Her consequences, in my past, the future Ordered by me, as I am now Yet orchestrated by me, as what is in me And I wasn't I can't feel, towards this It's how it must happen It's how it already had I've tried to speak to them I've tried to warn them I've seen the future And I'll see it again And maybe, I'll see me again And maybe I'll leave, one day When this is all over Last seconds have passed The creature has left And I can be myself again I've warned them Talked to them I will do it again I never had a choice Yet I'm making all the choices And playing my part, and writing it But I can't see it yet Sometimes, I feel like I don't know where I'm going But no matter This isn't what you're here for, anyway I am Everywhere everywhen Through these worlds Through these words And in this world I am The threads that pull And the pawn that's pushed And here, I am now, as you've been before And now, I am here, as you've never been The shadow to your light The day to your night The other side of the mirror, to your choices To climb my way up as you fall So Witness me As I walk past the tomb you lay in As I'll walk past the tomb you'll lay in As I walk to the world that you shunned > Rsh | Psh > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two ponies flew side by side, slowly, over the snow-covered mountainside. "It was around here where it first happened," Firecracker said, looking around. "I think I might still be able to figure out where exactly." The mare looked in the same direction they were. At least, they assumed she was, it wasn't all too clear. "I could show you where it first happened to me," she said. She rolled to the side in the air, towards them, but disappeared before hitting them and popped back out on the other side. "But it might take you a while to get there. It was near Ponyville. I almost hit a tree." "I hit a tree as well. Well, not with my body, but it did happen. A couple of times." Firecracker had another look around. "It did not go well for the trees. It's what I'm looking for right now." "You think you can still spot them, even with the snow?" asked the mare. Firecracker was silent for a moment. "Maybe. Probably not though. It was raining pretty hard. If my eyes land on one I might recognise it, but I'm not really sure where to look." They scratched their chin, a few small bursts of electricity arching between their hoof and their jaw, like miniature lightnings. Then they looked further ahead, and their expression lit up. "But I can recognise that!" Firecracker dived forward with a burst of speed. When they landed onto the jutting chunk of stone, the other pegasus was already there. "It happened here," they said, turning to look around. "Yep. Definitely here." Pinkie slid down the alleyway with all the stealthiness a person playing out the most exaggerated and caricatural miming of someone sneaking around they could manage could manage. Sunset and Twilight were rather glad, as it made the girl extremely easy to follow despite her constant refusal to adhere to the laws of time and space. They really would have lost her once she'd stepped into a side alley and walked out one further ahead and on the opposite side, otherwise. Somehow, though, Pinkie's target was as oblivious to her as she herself seemed to be to her friends. He just kept walking down the road, head covered by the hood of his jacket, hands in his pockets. Poking out from behind a wall to observe their target's next move, just as she did the same with her own a little further ahead, Twilight whispered to Sunset, "So what is the plan, exactly?" "We stop Pinkie from doing anything dangerous," Sunset whispered back, before dashing across the street to hide behind a skip. Twilight ran behind her, as quietly as she could. "I think you'd need to tie her to a chair and lock her in a room with padded walls if you actually wanted to achieve that." Sunset failed to come up with a valid counterargument. "Anything dangerous to someone who doesn't even know her. Besides, if there's a portal here then we need it secured as fast as possible." Twilight nodded at that. "You're right. I just hope this whole thing doesn't end up hurting anyone." Suddenly, there was a sound behind the two girls. > Palindrome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "But what if a group of cows was called a murder?" Fluttershy, Sunset and Rainbow Dash all stared at Pinkie for a moment, silent. "That sounds oddly terrifying," Sunset said. "Yep," Rainbow added, nodding. Fluttershy also nodded. "Thank you for yesterday, by the way," Pinkie went on, jumping to a completely different topic as if nothing had happened. "It's no problem," said Sunset. Then she paused for a moment. "What happened yesterday?" "The portal, remember?" "Yeah." Sunset's expression remained confused. "We were following you. And then we were working on getting the portal secured. And then... There wasn't a portal?" "Uh, is everything okay?" asked Rainbow, leaning forward. "Yes, don't worry about it," Pinkie said. But Sunset shook her head. "I don't remember. There's something there I don't remember. Like there's a hole in my memory and things at the ends of it don't match up." Her gaze drifted towards Pinkie. "What happened?" "But what if a group of cows was called a murder?" Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Sunset all silently stared at Pinkie. "That sounds oddly terrifying, for some reason," Fluttershy said. "Twilight is still working on trying to figure out a pattern for the portals, right?" asked Pinkie, completely disregarding the question she'd just asked. "Sure is," said Sunset. "I've tried to tell her to go easy on it, but I'm not sure how much she's listening. But she has gotten better about this kind of stuff, I have to give her credit." "Anyone heard from Applejack recently?" Rainbow asked, leaning back in her chair. "I have," said Fluttershy. "She said she's doing alright." "And has anyone heard from Rarity?" There was a slight tremor in Sunset's voice as she asked that. Rainbow Dash pulled out her phone and scrolled through a couple of messages, holding it over her face as she leaned into her chair so far her head was almost parallel to the floor. "Eating ice-cream on the couch right now, and watching horribly acted dramas." "How many tubs?" asked Sunset. "Still on the first one." "So it's not too bad today." "Or maybe she woke up late." Rainbow put her phone back in her pocket. "That too." Sunset lay her arms on the table and her head on top of them, deflated. Fluttershy placed a hand over hers, offering a smile. Sunset smiled back. Pinkie suddenly twisted in her chair, looking towards the window on the wall behind her. The other girls followed the direction of her eyes, and saw a bird tapping with its beak against the glass. "Is that a crow?" asked Rainbow, trying to get a better look at it. Fluttershy stood up and walked towards the window. Sunset followed her with her eyes, while Pinkie just turned back to the table. Rainbow too chose to look away. "What do you think that's about?" she asked. "Well, she'll tell us once she's done talking to it," Sunset said, watching as Fluttershy opened the window. But rather than stop to talk to the girl, the bird flew inside and towards the table. > Casing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The pegasus looked around one more time. It wasn't safe to be there. The ruins hadn't been stable before, they were it much less after whatever had happened to them. Clean cut, square and rectangular holes on every surface and structure, like portions of matter had been severed away by someone or something. What had been there before nowhere to be found. Some form of magic, no doubt. At any moment something there could break down and fall to the ground, and they were planning to avoid being there when that happened. But just as they were spreading their wings, ready to leave, their front hoof slipped inside a small hole in the stone pavement, and they found it annoyingly refused to come out. Firecracker struggled, trying to pull their leg free, but no matter what they couldn't manage to pull it out. Their hoof was stuck there. Just then there was a cracking sound from higher above, and the pegasus looked up along the length of the tall column next to them, all the way to its tip. Just a little lower, a chunk had been removed, and the thin portion still holding the top had just split. And a second later, that top part slid forward. They saw the rock coming down towards them. They tugged their leg, still stuck in the ground, and knew they wouldn't be able to pull away in time. And they watched, as the chunk of stone made its way sailing across the air and headed for their body, too large to hope it would somehow miss them, ready to crush them with its weight. Then, a hoof touched their shoulder, and they were no longer there. They were floating, somewhere. Or at least, it felt like it. It was like the beginning of a dream, that odd mental space one drifts into when falling asleep, the one the slightest shock knocks you out of. But nothing came to shake them, and they didn't fall asleep. Instead they floated on, as time seemed to slow down to a crawl, while the world around them twisted and bent at impossible angles. Until suddenly it all stopped, and they were ripped out of it, and time was again and they had an up and down and things were normal again. And they were standing, somewhere. It was cold. Firecracker looked around. They'd spent enough time flying through the clouds to know they were fairly high up somewhere, but that was about all they could tell at first glance. They were standing on something, yet it almost looked like they weren't, staring down. Not quite like a glass pavement, but as if the thing below them was and wasn't there. But even still, they couldn't properly see the ground far down below. They looked around again, and froze. There was a pony, there, sitting. A stallion by the looks of it, no wings or horn to be seen. A bit taller than average, coat of a light grey brown, and his mane a darker shade of the same colour. His cutie mark was hidden while he sat in that position. He turned his head towards the pegasus, and spoke. "Hello. Firecracker, was it?" > Bringer of Pain - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firecracker swallowed. They had indeed looked around while the stallion was speaking, though they still had their doubts about where exactly they were. Not so much doubts about where it was supposed to be, more so about actually being there. Still, he'd said to ask questions, and they'd listen to that advice. "Who are you?" "Ah, yes, there's a good question." The stallion smiled. "I am the Charioteer. Or the Mahout, if you'd prefer." There was a pause. "I would have gestured, here, but you may notice my legs are a little tied at the moment." He lifted his front legs slightly, and Firecracker noticed straps wrapped around them that led off somewhere in front of him. They seemed to wane in and out of reality, in an all too familiar way. There was a nervous twitch through the pegasus' body at the sight. Their mind jumped to the first question it could come up with, even if it wasn't what they'd wanted to. "Where are we?" asked Firecracker, their throat a little dry. The stallion chuckled. "Come on now. You've figured it out already. Or do you really need to hear it?" Firecracker swallowed. Did they want to hear it? They hesitated, and asked something else instead. "Why?" "I've already answered that. Please don't ask questions I have already answered, don't indulge my chattiness beyond measure. Just because I get lonely up here. You'll have to leave at some point, I'd rather you spend the time we have asking questions you don't already know the answer to." Firecrackers gave half a nod, their breath growing deeper. Sparks of lightning coursed along the tips of their feathers, but it was more of a nervous reaction than anything else. "How did I get here?" they asked. "Your friend decided to lend you a hoof," replied the stallion. "She figured the risk of what could happen if she took you on would be better than the certainty of you flattened under a rock. And it looks like it was the right choice. Funny you'd end up here, but I suppose it makes sense." Firecracker took a few seconds to reflect on that, taking in the information. "Where is she now?" they asked, worried, forgetting their situation for a moment. "Oh, come on, just because I can see a lot of things from up here it doesn't mean I can see everyone and everything," said the Charioteer with a very blatantly faux offended tone. Then he smiled, and turned to have a look in front of himself. "She's looking for you right now. She seems pretty worried. She's close to here, actually, I imagine she'll get into town in a few minutes." Their worries sedated, Firecracker focused back on the present. The stallion knew way too much to just be pretending, and they'd had enough time to accept and make sure they really were there. The feeling underneath their hooves wasn't getting any better, and they feared it would start to crawl up their legs at some point. "You brought this thing here." Looking back towards the pegasus, the stallion frowned. "Not quite how I would say it went, no. But I suppose, in a way, if you want to put it like that. Really, I was more along for the ride." "Take it away." Firecracker's tone was firm, and angry. "Now, now. I can't just do that. But I can get it to move, if you really want me to." He smiled, and held up his front legs again, the reins around them growing more visible as he pulled on them. "Should I have it take another step?" > Bringer of Pain - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firecracker took a step back, clenching their teeth to stop their imminent clattering. "You wouldn't," they hissed. "Oh, but I totally would," replied the stallion. "Trust me, Fire', I'm a creature of my word. So how about you calm down those feathers of yours, and we just have ourselves more of a chat, and no one down there gets hurt? Doesn't that just sound a whole lot better?" Reluctantly, Firecracker straightened themself, but kept their eyes pinned to the stallion. "If I fly away from here, will you stop me?" "I would have a hard time doing so, given my position." The stallion nodded towards the reins again. "And I don't exactly have anything to throw at you. Not that I have any interest in keeping you here, beyond simple company at least. Like I've said before, I'm prepared for news of my presence to spread out after this meeting of ours. Excited by the prospect, really. And by the meeting that I imagine will follow." The pegasus relaxed, if only a little. "You said you were prepared to wait for decades. And I'm assuming you've been here all along. How?" The stallion shrugged. "Lots of patience. To be completely fair it wasn't as boring as I make it out to be, I had things to watch." There was a pause, while he looked into the distance. "A lot of things to watch. You'd be surprised at how much there is to see." Firecracker followed the direction of the stallion's gaze for a moment, only to confirm there was nothing there. They turned back towards him instead. "How much is there?" they asked. The Charioteer snickered. "Oh, now, I can't just give you all the answers, can I? It would be much too easy that way." He looked at Firecracker for a moment, clicking his tongue. "I've said you're free to fly away from here, and I mean it. But something tells me you're going to fall off instead." Firecracker tensed, but didn't react any further. "What are you here for?" The stallion, once again, motioned to the reins wrapped around his forelegs. "There needs to be someone taking care of this. Trust me, really, it would have been a mess if it had been sent here by itself. You want someone steering it to where it's supposed to go." Firecracker was very curious as to where, exactly, the Behemoth was supposed to go, and about who or what had sent it, from where, why, and a number of other things the stallion's words implied or appeared to. But at that moment something else took centre stage in their thoughts. "That would have been a mess?" they growled out. "Have you seen what this thing has done to Equestria?" The stallion gave a mild shrug at that. "All buildings fall, sooner or later. If you knew what I know you'd consider being thankful that you still have an Equestria, and ponies living in it." The stallion clicked his tongue again. "For the time being, at least." > InsHide > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis checked her image in the mirror, to make sure one last time it exactly matched the stallion she'd captured. "You look fine. Stop obsessing over it," came Stellaria's voice from the other room, muddied a little by the chocolate the alicorn was munching on. Chrysalis ignored her. "You'd say that even if I stepped out of here with no disguise," said the changeling, finally leaving the bathroom. "You'd enjoy seeing me captured, wouldn't you?" Stella stared at her from the couch, smirking as she always did when she had a chance to torture her would-be mother. "I wouldn't go that far. Where would the fun be if you were caught? I wouldn't get to play with you anymore. But seeing you nervous, squirming as you fear you might be found out, seeing the tension in your body as you realise you might have doomed yourself with your mistakes..." She gave a long, deep, and particularly breathy exhale. "That's fun," she said, in just as breathy of a tone. Chrysalis chose to pay as little attention as she could to the alicorn's words, and for once decided not to say anything back to her. It wasn't worth the consequences, not given the day ahead. She glanced at the clock. "Shall we be going, then?" Stella nodded. She levitated the keys to the door and opened it, then stepped out into the morning. Chrysalis had another look at the stallion in her cocoon, to ensure everything was still alright on that front, then followed Stella outside and closed the door behind them. The walk to Twilight's castle was uneventful, aside perhaps from Stellaria's ever-present grin. Chrysalis tried to take her mind off it by going through the plan again in her head. It wasn't supposed to be anything too dangerous just yet. Simple scouting was the idea. They'd taken as much information as they could out of the stallion she was replacing, and Stella would cover for anything else they might need in terms of required knowledge on the research topics. She was the smartest creature in Equestria, after all. Chrysalis shivered, and deeply regretted choosing to mentally go over the plan again. For a moment, as the doors to the castle appeared at the end of the road, she wondered about taking herself out of the deal. Undoing her disguise as soon as she was close enough to Twilight and telling the alicorn everything. She wondered if stone was really all that bad after all. She rejected the thought so violently she almost spat out. Clenching her teeth, she marched a little faster towards her destination. She would not give either of those purple nuisances the satisfaction of seeing her admit defeat. Not when she still had a chance to win in the end, not after everything she'd already gone through. And if things went well enough, she'd decorate her throne room with the petrified remains of both alicorns, after she was done smashing them to pieces. She looked up, finally at the doors, and gave a determined knock. > Hyperquizzitistical > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We don't have much time. If I'm spotted I will need to leave, and it's important that we share this information now. We..." The pony-sized praying mantis wearing a trench coat stopped, and tilted its head to the right, making sure to stop its hat from sliding off. "Wait, are you the right Pinkie?" Pinkie moved the pile of plates she was carrying slightly aside, so she could look at the mantis face to face. She shook her head, then gave a nod towards a table near one of the walls, where another Pinkie sat eating soup. The mantis sighed, brought its hat a little lower on its face, and then made its way towards the other Pinkie, pushing through the crowd in the busy restaurant. "Hi," said Pinkie as the mantis approached, before eating another spoonful of soup. "Hello," said the mantis, sitting down. "We don't have much time, and it's important we share this information as quickly as we can. I could be forced to leave at any moment, therefore our conversation should be brief and efficient. It could be potentially very dangerous if we did not have the proper time to exchange everything we need to. For this reason we should get to it as soon as possible. Do you understand? I need you to understand that time is a valuable resource and we cannot afford to waste any of it. Is that clear? Is it clear that we need to be quick? Time is of the essence, Pinkie." Pinkie nodded, still eating her soup. "Good. I'm glad you understand our need to act fast in this situation." The mantis poured itself a small pile of salt on the table and then took it in through some orifice in its head. "Was it done?" Pinkie nodded again, more vigorously this time. "Yes it was!" "Good. Were there any complications?" asked the mantis. "None at all." Pinkie shook her head. "Everything went off without a hitch, all according to plan. The right time and place, everything just as you said it would be." The mantis nodded, pleased. "Yes, very good indeed. This should mean this iteration is preserved, for now at least. Did anyone see you?" Pinkie shook her head again. "I trust you are right." The mantis sighed, and took a moment to recollect its thoughts and adjust its hat again. "Was our messenger safe?" Another nod from Pinkie. "I'm glad to hear that. Now, then, onto the next step." The mantis produced a folded piece of paper from within one of the pockets of its trench coat, then unfolded it on top of the table. It then pointed to a circle drawn on top of it. "There's one here," it said. "When the time comes, I want you to be the one who chooses to go there, alongside Rainbow. Preferably just you two, but if Twilight decides to come as well you may let her." Then it pointed to a cross drawn onto a different spot of the map. "And keep everyone away from here for as long as you can. Things will need to be solved on this side before you can properly deal with that. By any means necessary, Twilight mustn't go there before the Moon has passed. It may be a dangerous gamble, but it's a risk we have to take." > Bringer of Pain - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lightning cracked along Firecracker's wings, their eyes pinned to the stallion in front of them. "What are you talking about?" the pegasus asked through gritted teeth. "You think this is over? You think things will just stay like they are now, and all you'll need to do is adapt to them?" The stallion shook his head. "What you saw was just the beginning. And things have kept moving, beneath the surface, out of notice from you creatures. But they are still changing. We are far from done in this world, Fire', and we are far from the worst of it." Firecracker's teeth clenched harder, arches of electricity sizzling through their mane. "And you're a part of this?" The Charioteer nodded. "Indeed. As I have said, someone needs to direct this to where its presence is required. I have sincere doubts there are many, if any, who'd be willing and able to do it out there in this world. And so, I have to play my part, as I've said." "And what happens if someone stops you?" The stallion smiled. "I am not quite sure, to be frank. Certainly, someone could be quite displeased by the fact, provided anyone is there. But here? I suppose things might simply stop, at some point. Not quite immediately, I imagine, as some are already in motion, but eventually. Likely before reaching the most dangerous portions of the planned course." Firecracker nodded, breathing slowly. "What can you tell me about scales?" they asked. "Not too much," replied the stallion, "but I can tell you that Twilight is correct in her guesses to their origin. And that there is still something you haven't figured out, as she believes." Another deep breath. "What happened to me, and the others like me? Is it all really the same? How many are there?" "A few more still you don't know about, and yes, it is the same for all of you. Merely showing in different ways. But as for what it is, well, I'm sorry." The stallion shook his head. "That's not something I can tell you." Firecracker looked silently at the stallion for a few moments. "If I were to try and fly my way back here, would I be able to?" The stallion pursed his lips. "I doubt it. It is quite surprising that you arrived here in the first place, and... Something else, too, but I will wait a little still to address that." Lightning was coursing over Firecracker's body, but it was less agitated, more controlled. A deliberate output rather than nervous discharges. "Then this is my only chance to stop you, and in turn stop what's happening to Equestria," they said. "You've said you don't have a choice in your actions. I'm willing to believe that, and don't blame this on you. I hope you won't blame me either, if I decide that if your actions will lead to the destruction of my home, and of the lives of those I love, then I should stop you here and now." The stallion's smile widened. "I've said it before, Firecracker. You're welcome to try to force my actions. Don't be too disappointed if you fail." The pegasus' answer came in the form of two bolts of lightning, shooting from their outstretched wings towards the stallion. > Bringer of Pain - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You ought to be more careful with that, Fire'. You could kill a pony throwing that stuff around." But the stallion was smiling as he said that. He'd moved back a touch, likely rolling, though the pegasus couldn't tell how much of the blast he'd dodged, if any. "I figured you could take it," Firecracker replied. "Given what you know, you wouldn't have been taunting me otherwise." Their wings remained tense, sparks shooting across the feathers as more electricity built up in them. "I'm not planning to kill you, if you're worried. Just knock you out so I can take you away from here." "I don't know if you'd have a cell that can hold me, down there. But it's not a bad plan, all things considered." The stallion was still sitting there, staring at Firecracker. "So, will you come and get me? I'm not moving from here, I think I've made that evident enough already." Firecracker began to approach the stallion, one step at a time, eyes focused on him and wings ready to strike. Getting too close was not a good idea, but they needed to get closer if they wanted to make sure they could hit him properly. They noticed a slight, almost imperceptible shift in the other's expression, and they stopped. For a moment everything was still. Then, movement. The pegasus had been preparing for it, and sprung into action as soon as they noticed. They pushed themself to the right, and shot another lightning from their left wing. The stallion was faster than they had anticipated. He rolled back, away from the pegasus, and the bulk of the straps wrapped around his legs slid off them. The lightning bolt seemed to still hit him, but despite that he finished his roll in a standing position and let the motion carry through one of his front legs. The rein held in it whipped forward and struck one of Firecracker's legs, knocking them slightly off-balance while still in mid-air from their sidestep. The pegasus still managed to land on all four hooves. They stared at the stallion standing in front of them, holding the ends of the reins into his hooves while their length lay down in front of and around him, like whips ready to strike. They looked almost like ribbons, about as thick as a bit, but almost as wide as a hoof. Firecracker's muscles were tense, waiting for something to react to, their wings building up more energy for a stronger shot. The stallion's front legs kicked. Firecracker jumped to the left, avoiding the rein that cut through the air and struck where their head had been. Their wings snapped forward, aiming towards the stallion. The second rein hit them right in the chest, feeling heavy like a full grown tree, and their lightnings fired off aimlessly towards the sky as their body was sent rolling back. They got back to their hooves. The air had been knocked out of their lungs, and it took a moment to get their breath back in order, but there didn't seem to be any other major sign of damage. Firecracker looked towards the stallion again, wings readying another strike. Then, all of a sudden, a metallic taste filled their mouth, their bones began to ache, and a sound like shards of glass grinding against each other filled their head. The Pegasus fell to their knees. "Ah, there it is." The Charioteer stepped forward. "Seems like we're out of time then. A shame, really, but I did wonder when it would happen." He tilted his head to the side, studying Firecracker. "I should probably explain what's going on right now, I suppose." > Bringer of Pain - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firecracker looked up at the stallion, but could not muster the strength to get up again. They felt like they were suffering from a high fever, and their vision was starting to wane from side to side. The stallion lowered his head, so he could talk to the pegasus more easily. "You're not supposed to be here. You were never supposed to be here. I'm sure that if you haven't tried to get too close to the Behemoth, you've at least heard stories about those who have. You know how it goes." The stallion sat down at that point. "The nausea, the aches, everything else. The few that make it past that pass out before they get far. If you've ever felt that almost imperceptible unease that for some comes from being near a scale, that's a drop of water compared to the river you're in now." Panting heavily, Firecracker struggled to open their mouth, first spreading their lips as droplets of spit fell off their gums. Their tongue and throat felt dry, yet they expected their nose to start pouring any second, and an acid aftertaste lingered in the back of their mouth. Finally they managed to force their teeth to open, and were almost surprised blood didn't start to pour out. "Why now?" they asked, their tone raspy. The Charioteer nodded. "You're a smart pony, like I've said before. If you'd just appeared here, this is what you would have felt like from the beginning. But that's not quite how it went." He looked around for a moment, an amused expression on his face, then focused back on the pegasus. "You weren't really here, per say. Not fully. It turns out a bit of you was still outside, slowly getting back to you. Oh, you'll be fine, don't worry about it, nothing broke down inside you. But it did mean you took a bit to reappear fully. Tell your friend that when she asks how things went, I'm sure she'll appreciate the information." Firecracker had to force their eyes to stay open at that point. The sound inside their head was only growing louder, and there didn't seem to be a muscle in their body that didn't hurt when they tried to use it. They looked at the stallion's hooves, still holding the reins, then managed to push their neck high enough to look at their face again. They leaned forward as far as they could manage to, and with one last push put a wing forward and pressed it against the other's face. A directionless burst of electricity fired off from the inner side of the pegasus' wing, a dozen of different arches of miniature lightning shooting off of it and coursing through the air, all hitting the stallion's head in the span of less than half a second. "That was actually kind of adorable," said the pony. While Firecracker's vision clouded further, he picked up the pegasus with a hoof on their back, and casually tossed them far enough to a side. Firecracker didn't land back on the Behemoth, and instead began to fall at its side towards the ground far down below, still only half conscious. > Adream | Concerning Words Unwritten > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy stared towards the ceiling, eyes wide open, head sinking into the pillow. There wasn't much to see with how dark the room was, but that wasn't the point. She'd had someone, she couldn't quite remember who right then, recommend she keep her eyes open while trying to fall asleep should trying to keep them closed not work out. Right then, she was trying to fall asleep as fast as she could, and the nervousness from trying to force herself to sleep and knowing there wasn't much time for her to do it was doing her no favours whatsoever. But she was tired, still, technically. She could probably fall asleep. She could definitely fall asleep. And Luna was meaning to talk with her, so there was nothing to worry about, because if Luna wanted then she could make sure she would fall asleep. And if Luna did nothing then there was nothing to worry about, because it meant she didn't need to do anything, because sleep would come by itself and Fluttershy just needed to sleep. Focus on sleeping. Because she was going to sleep. Because she needed to. So she was going to sleep. Fluttershy took a deep breath. Then another. She had to calm down, and stop rushing through her thoughts. Focus on nothing, and let her own tiredness overtake her. Slowly she closed her eyes, her breath grew slower and slower, her head began to swim and eventually she fell asleep, drifting into the world of dreams. Sweetie Belle was walking down the road in Ponyville, halfway lost in thought but still paying attention to where she was going. So when she suddenly noticed, out of the corner of her eye, a pegasus tripping and falling, she immediately stopped and turned in that direction to check if they were okay. But they weren't there, and no one else seemed to have seen anything. Confused the filly looked around for a moment, then shook her head. It must have been something else that she saw, or maybe she'd just imagined the whole thing. She turned back again and started walking. She was a bit surprised to see Twilight in front of her, crossing the road, but not too much. True, she'd expect the alicorn to be in her castle at that time, but it wasn't unusual for her to occasionally be spotted in town if she ever went looking for something or someone. Sweetie was a lot more confused, though, when she reached the entrance to the alley she could have sworn she'd seen Twilight walk into and realised that there was no alley there, just a wall. Most confusing still was when she turned away from the wall, and saw Pinkie Pie moving across the street with piles of plates on her hooves and back. And yet more confusing was how the pony disappeared from her sight after she'd rubbed her eyes, as if she'd never been there at all, and no one else seemed to notice. > Doomsday News > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was in the laboratory, scanning a set of test results she held in her magic while walking back and forth through the room. The other ponies working alongside her were used enough to her habits to successfully avoid colliding with her when moving from a table to another. The place was mostly quiet, aside from the mild clacking of hooves and low buzzing of magical research instruments. That all came to a halt as a pony rushed through the doors, almost tumbling to the ground before catching herself and moving to grab Twilight. "Canterlot castle. The statue in the park. Now!" Twilight quickly moved past the appreciation for the mare actually bothering to appear inside the corridor rather than inside the laboratory, as requested, and onto confusion for what she was asking. Then that too was surpassed as she had a look at the pegasus' eyes and saw the worry and frantic nervousness inside them. Without second thought, she lit her horn and releported the both of them away, letting her papers fall to the ground. They reappeared a moment later, near the petrified forms of Tirek and Cozy Glow. Normally, Twilight would have gone to the garden's entrance instead, she didn't like the idea of teleporting so close to the Behemoth. She wasn't sure it was safe. But she'd made an exception there. The pegasus quickly left her to rush towards something on the ground, and Twilight gasped as she followed her with her gaze. She immediately ran towards her, and towards the second pegasus lying on the grass in front of the statue. "What happened?" Twilight asked, kneeling down and checking Firecracker's pulse with a wing to their neck. "They were checking on the ruins, someone did something there. Destroyed chunks of them. A column was missing pieces, and they got stuck, and the top section broke off, and it was about to fall on them and... I..." The mare took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Still shaking slightly, she continued, "I tried to pull them in with me. It worked, but I lost them. I started looking for them. I- I had to, if I hadn't pulled them in the rock would have crushed them, I-" "Were they like this when you found them?" asked Twilight. She'd checked for vitals and everything seemed in order with the pegasus, but she was still on edge. There was a moment of pause as the grey pegasus gathered herself, then she shook her head. "No." She looked up, towards the Behemoth. "They were falling." Twilight looked where the other was. "Back to the castle," she said after a moment. Then with a wing still pressed over Firecracker's chest she teleported away, taking the unconscious pegasus with her. The other mare disappeared from the place a second later. All three reappeared inside Twilight's own castle in Ponyville, the blonde mare only a moment after the other two. They were in the infirmary, and one look between the doctor and Twilight had been enough for him to immediately get onto checking Firecracker's body. "What happened to them?" he asked. "We don't know for sure," answered Twilight. "Check for any signs of magic, regular kind or otherwise." The doctor moved away from the trio and towards his desk, to fetch a scanner, but before he could reach it he had to turn back, as Firecracker suddenly gave a violent cough, like someone who almost drowned finally breathing again. Lifting their head and neck from the floor, they looked around, and spotted Twilight through their half-lidded eyes. "There's someone," they said, voice still raspy. "There's someone on top of the Behemoth." > Giant Spider > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you heard one of the guards working at the castle is called Silver Spear?" "I've heard that, yes." "Are you two related, by chance?" "Not the first time I've been asked that." Silver Spoon bit down on her sandwich. "Not as far as I know." "Ah. I hope I didn't bother you with that question." Rainbow's ears curved a touch backwards in slight embarrassment. "Don't worry about it." Silver Spoon took another bite from her sandwich. "I haven't been asked too many times yet." Rainbow was silent for a bit, swaying from side to side. "Alright. Sorry still. So, uh, have you been up to anything interesting lately?" "Just the usual." "The... usual?" "You know. My usual daily life." Silver Spoon looked up from her sandwich and towards Rainbow for a moment, lifting her eyebrows. "I doubt that would be particularly interesting to a pony like you." Again, Rainbow drew back a little. More figuratively than physically, given the situation. "I, yeah, sorry, I guess. You're right." Her expression shifted drastically as she caught the unintended meaning of her own words. "Well, no, you're not right, it's not like your life is less important to me because you don't go on adventures like I do and- Ah, forget it! I'm not good at this." "At least you know." That actually earned Silver Spoon a glare from Rainbow, one that almost could maybe have been on the edge of potentially qualifying as offended. "What?" Silver Spoon lifted an eyebrow. Rainbow opened her mouth to speak, then closed it for a moment. "I don't know. I guess I was expecting compassion instead of... Whatever this is." "Honesty?" "Unkind bluntness." Rainbow frowned. "Honesty is different." "Prettier?" asked Silver Spoon with a smile. Rainbow was about to nod, but caught herself and looked to the side instead, blushing. Still smiling, Silver Spoon ate more of her sandwich. "You know it was just a joke, right?" Rainbow sighed. "Yeah. I know." She relaxed and looked back to the other. "So, uh... Is this normal?" Silver Spoon paused her chewing for a moment. "This, what?" "You know." Rainbow gave a vague nod. "This. This whole thing." Silver Spoon swallowed. "I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. What do you mean exactly? What are you talking about?" Rainbow opened her mouth, and let out a wordless sound of hesitation. Finally, she gestured with her hoof at the cave around them, then at their conditions. "This thing. The whole being wrapped up in a sort of cocoon hanging from the ceiling of a massive cave thing. This." "Oh." Silver spoon took another bite from her sandwich. "That." She swallowed. "No, I don't recall it being normal." "Alright." Rainbow was silent a bit more. "Want me to get you out of here?" Silver Spoon looked around. Then she shook her head. "No. I think I'm fine." She took one more bite from her sandwich, which hadn't changed in size yet since the first time Rainbow had laid eyes on it. "Alright." Rainbow looked around too. "See you around then, I guess." > Make Love > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things were going smoothly. Everything was fine, everything was perfectly alright. It was unnerving. Or maybe it was the way Stella circled around the room with a smile constantly plasterers onto her face that really bothered Chrysalis. The way she seemed to be taunting her. Her own personal demon only she could see, like she was haunted or going insane. The changeling tried her hardest to focus on the microscope in front of her instead of the alicorn staring at her from across the table. For the most part, she'd been doing exactly what the stallion she was impersonating would have. Replicating the daily activities of a creature was still part of a changeling's natural talents, after all, and while in better times such tasks would have been far beneath her station the present lack of resources meant even she had to lower herself to that level. If only because the absolute failure of a worker who thought of herself as a queen had refused to partake. Chrysalis bit down and swallowed her venom, reminding herself yet again that it did no favours to her or the mission to focus on Stellaria. It was what that waste of magic energy wanted. Still, she could not help but regret ever having conceived of creating her. But thinking that involved thinking about her actions as a mistake, something the changeling's distaste for had only grown stronger since her meeting with Stella. Twilight Sparkle's castle was as fascinating as the last time she'd set hoof in it, perhaps even more so. It reminded her of her own hive, in a way. The way it so clearly could shift its shape to accommodate for its inhabitants' needs, the pervasive feeling of magic in its very structure, in the floor beneath her and the walls around her, almost sizzling in the air of the rooms and corridors inside it. She was, indeed, quite thankful it wasn't capable of detecting changelings. Or perhaps it could, but hadn't found a way to alert its owner yet. She was a bit less thankful for how it didn't show the same eagerness as its mother when it came to taking care of fake ponies born from trees. She assumed the Tree of Harmony didn't have a problem with being referred to as female considering how she chose to appear to others. Though maybe that had changed after it had died and come back. Maybe she really had gone insane, with her pondering the intricacies of a family made of crystal trees. But then, maybe she'd also been born from one. So went one of the stories, at least. Chrysalis had gotten so caught up in her own thoughts she almost jumped when a very light spark of electricity zapped her hind legs. She looked to Stella, then focused back onto her task. For once, the alicorn seemed to care more about the success of the operation than about tormenting her. She didn't want to be caught getting distracted on the job, after all. > Hunt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- And there it was. Or, to be precise, there it wasn't. The alicorn looked over the statue, which anyone familiar with would have noticed was missing one of its key figures. Chrysalis was gone, and only Cozy Glow and Tirek were left. She'd suspected it, but she'd wanted to make sure of it before she began her search. She quickly walked away from the garden though, being so near what Twilight had chosen to call the Behemoth was not a comfortable experience if prolonged too far, and it was not advisable either. She'd do her studies on it one day, but not then. She couldn't antagonise the creature too much, though. It was, after all, most likely the reason she was there. Breathing and thinking and alive again, for a second time. And soon to be looking for the one who'd been responsible for the first. Such things she'd missed in her absence. It was a very fortunate thing that ponies were more than willing to share everything there could be to ask. A very unfortunate one that the most of them were not so reliable in the accuracy of their narrations. Thankfully, written official records did exist, and as weird as it could seem for a pony to be studying the previous year's events as one would ancient history it was still not something anyone stopped her from doing. There could have been an easier way to get her information, in truth. She could have asked directly to the pony who'd been there for most of those events. It would have been the more efficient solution, perhaps the best one overall in terms of results as well. Yet, she had her reasons not to approach that pony just yet. It wasn't fear. She mentally laughed at that. But it was still personal reasons. She did not want her first personal meeting with the alicorn to be wasted on such frivolous details, mere necessities in her plans. No. She'd meet Twilight when the time came for her to crush the pony under her hooves. And besides, the mere thought of having to rely on her was revolting. Stellaria's steps became a little louder as she stomped her way away from the castle. It made her blood boil, the idea of lowering herself to being dependent on Twilight Sparkle of all creatures. She didn't need anyone, she wouldn't make the same mistake twice. She'd been neither particularly pleased nor displeased at the news of Chrysalis's imprisonment. While she had reasons for both on a personal level, the event itself was merely the natural and expected consequence of the changeling's incompetence. Much as one could love or hate a tree there was no sense in feeling anything over it losing its leaves in autumn. But Chrysalis's escape was another matter. She'd been debating whether she should have broken the statue or kept it as her own, or perhaps both. But now that the changeling was out there in the world, she could do a lot more than that. And she planned to have as much fun as she could out of it. > Thank You > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Indigo?" "Yeah?" Indigo Zap's head popped up above the cupboard she was kneeling in front of, and she momentarily stopped her rummaging through its contents in search of the right pan to cook lunch in. Lemon eyed the opened package on top of her bed, then looked at her roommate again. "Did you order a collection of rare vinyl records from some of my favourite bands off the Internet, by chance?" Indigo quirked an eyebrow. "Why?" Lemon gave a nod towards her bed. "Because I just got a package with a collection of rare vinyl records from some of my favourite bands, and there was my name on it, and this address. So it's probably not someone else's package that accidentally ended up here. So someone probably ordered that for me." She looked to Indigo again. "Did I order that? Was I drunk enough to accidentally order that and blow all my money on it?" "I don't know, Lemon. It's not my job to keep track of your antics, and if it was I would quit." Indigo momentarily ducked behind the cupboard again, and went back to searching. She emerged seconds later, brandishing a pan like one would a sword. "I don't think I even had enough money to buy all that," Lemon went on. "Did I find a way to make more money while drunk and then spend it all in the span of a single night forever losing the secret of how I made that money in the first place to time? Did I make some shady deal with a criminal organisation in exchange for money? Did I live-stream myself playing video games drunk and half naked, build up a fanbase and accidentally leak enough of my personal information for someone to buy and send that to me?" She slipped her fingers through her hair to hold her head, growing increasingly worried as she spun around. Setting the pan down, Indigo put a finger to her lips, pursing them. "That last option sounds like it would have been nice to see. But unless there's a desperate fan's love letter still in the box I don't think it's the right answer." "Don't make fun of me, Indy, I am not ready for the pressure of becoming an Internet celebrity." Indigo had a look around. "Oh I think you're ready. It's not like you're short on unwashed clothes to sell, we could make a fortune." "Very funny, Indigo." Lemon turned back towards the other girl. "I'm here trying to figure out what happened and how much I should worry for my safety after I might have done who knows what while inebriated and you are there smirking and trying to hold back laughter and now you're bent over laughing at me and-" Lemon stopped, and suddenly facepalmed. "You bought it for me, didn't you?" It took a moment for Indigo to speak through her fits of laughter. "Guilty as charged." Lemon didn't remove her hand from her face. "Thank you," she quietly said from behind it. The colour of her skin made it a bit hard to tell, but Indigo swore she saw her blushing behind her hair and fingers. > Revw > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What?" Firecracker propped themself up with a leg. "There's someone on top of the Behemoth," they repeated, then they coughed into a wing. The doctor approached them. "Please, try to relax," he said. "You should lay down and not exert yourself right now, we need to make sure you're okay." "I'll be fine," the pegasus said, then they coughed again. "I'll be fine. Let me talk to Twilight." They waved their other wing, as if to shoo the stallion. "He's right," said Twilight, lowering herself towards the pegasus. "We don't know what happened to you and you should lay down. You can talk to me, but please don't do anything reckless. We still don't know what falling through the Weave might have done to you, much less being so close to the Behemoth." A part of her wanted to shake answers out of the pony. A louder and much more reasonable one knew that their safety was more important. Firecracker seemed to accept the idea, and lay back down. "It'll pass," they said. "I'm already feeling better. And falling through was fine." They looked to the other pegasus in the room, who'd been quietly and worriedly watching them. "It took a bit before all of me made it through, but it didn't hurt me. He said it was like I wasn't fully there at the start." "Who said that?" Twilight asked, unable to hold back her curiosity that far. Firecracker silently looked to the ceiling for a moment. "He called himself the Charioteer, or something else, too. He was... He looked like an earth pony, a regular stallion. He said he's been there all along. He's the one who's telling the Behemoth where to go." The pegasus looked back towards Twilight. "He said he was waiting for someone to find him. I think he's waiting for you to go to him, now." Twilight bit the corner of her lower lip, as thoughts rushed through her head. "How does he tell that thing where to go?" she asked, while her brain worked through all the information. Firecracker gave a small smile at that. "Reins," they simply replied. All of Twilight's thoughts screeched to a brief halt just so she could allow herself a bewildered chuckle. "Of course. Why not. Giant potentially extradimensional creature that breaks all laws of physics and magic that arrived out of nowhere and has drastically warped the world since then, and it's driven by a pony using reins. I've seen weirder." "You have?" asked the other mare. "You know what? I've been around Discord for a while and Pinkie Pie for longer. And another Pinkie Pie, on occasion. I probably have." Firecracker swallowed, their breath sharper for a moment, then they seemed to relax again. "If it makes it less weird, those reins looked a lot like the Behemoth itself. And going by how hard they hit I'd say they were way heavier than they looked." Twilight still had a number of questions swirling around in her head. But looking at Firecracker, and hearing what they had just said, she decided those could wait until they were sure the pegasus had fully recovered. She sighed. "We'll continue this conversation later. Now excuse me, there's a new protective spell I need to design. It's about time I figured how to get close to the Behemoth, anyway." > Rigged > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you doing?" Twilight didn't look up from the graphs in front of her as she replied, "Working on a new spell." "Oh." Starlight stepped further into the room. "What is it for?" "A protective spell." Twilight wrote some notes down on a piece of parchment, then shifted around the papers on her table until she found the one she was looking for. "Ah." Starlight was silent for a moment, leaning forward but not approaching Twilight further. "What kind of protective spell? Something else we should add on when we travel through scales?" Twilight was about to answer, but closed her mouth for a moment and thought it over. "You know? If it ends up working, then sure, we should probably throw it in there as well. You never know what you might run into." "Huh." Starlight nodded lightly, and finally took one more step towards the alicorn. "So, what's it for?" Twilight focused on the contents of her table for a moment, scribbled down something else, then finally replied. "I'm trying to see if I can make something that'll make it possible to get closer to the Behemoth. Scales give the same readings so at least we have something to work with there." "I see." Another step forward. "Why are you doing this? I mean, I know why, I want to get close to that thing and study it as much as you probably do. But why now?" More paper snuffling. "Because I'm planning to go near it." "How close are we talking about?" Starlight approached Twilight a bit more. There was silence, for a moment, filled only with the sounds of the two mares' breath. "On top of it," Twilight said. Starlight's newest step turned into a stumble midway through. "On top of it?" she asked, yelling. "Why? I'd think you're crazy if you so much as suggested trying to touch it and you're telling me you want to walk on it?" "I'll tell you why once I've been there and back." Twilight still didn't look away from her notes and research. "I don't even know if you will be back!" The rest of the distance between the two was quickly covered as Starlight reached Twilight's table in a hurry. "You can't be serious, Twilight." "I am." The alicorn turned to Starlight. "And if I told you why, you'd want to come too at minimum, probably ask to be the one who goes instead of me." "Then why don't you tell me?" "Because I'm more likely to make it back than you are, if things go wrong, for one. Second, because I would rather you be here and safe, which is why I'm not letting you spy on my studies over this." She grabbed Starlight in her telekinesis and placed her further away from the table, then turned to look directly at her. "Third, because I'm selfish and I want to be the one to see what's there first between the two of us, and be the one who gets to do all the research there first, because years later my compulsive desire to be the best there is in certain fields still comes out and for once I'm letting it loose. And lastly, because you are not in the right mental conditions to do this right now." "I'm fine!" Starlight said, trying to walk closer. "No you're not. No one here is fine, not after the world got turned upside-down and we still have no idea what's going on, not when every time we discover something new things just get weirder." Twilight's tone became a bit softer. "No one is really fully fine, especially not here. We're all just fine enough, because we can still deal with what's thrown our way. Right now you're dealing with more than anyone else, after what you saw. And I know you can take it, and still make it through. But I don't know how much more you can take on top of it, and I have no plans to make that into an experiment." She looked at Starlight again. "I'll be okay. Please, just trust me for a while." > MQ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Cold today, isn't it?" "Sure is." Applejack set her coat down on the back of a chair. Rarity did the same with hers. "Do you think it will snow soon?" "Snow?" Walking towards the cupboards to fetch something to eat, Applejack looked out the window. "Doubt it. Still too early for snow, I'd give it a couple weeks at least." "We have had sudden snow in the past," said Rarity, sitting down. "Not this early. You're just paranoid after that time you got covered in it." Applejack had fetched a bag of dried apple slices and set it down on top of the table before sitting in front of Rarity. "Don't worry, they're ours. I'd have offered you some treats but those are still baking." She nodded towards the oven. Rarity reached for a slice of apple and delicately bit down on it. "You know I couldn't have accepted it either way. I can't just go eating mindlessly, you wouldn't want me to grow fat and ugly." "Are you saying I'm fat?" Applejack said, smirking as she raised an eyebrow. Rarity sputtered, the way she didn't actually let out any bit of food betraying how played up the action was. "Not at all, dear. You have your work on the farm keeping you fit. And giving you those lovely, lovely muscles and-" Rarity shook the longing look out of her face. "You're like a fine workhorse, but I'd end up like a cow." "You wouldn't look half bad as a cow." Rarity gave an indignant pout at that. As Applejack chuckled, she replied, "I'll have you know black splotches on white clothes went out of fashion at least six seasons ago." "I'm sure you could bring it back into trend. Maybe a bell on your neck, too?" Applejack kept chuckling a bit longer. "But anyway. How come you can afford all that ice-cream but not apple treats?" Rarity looked to the side, still pouting. Even the tiniest blush was hard to miss on her white cheeks. "I don't eat ice-cream that often." "But you eat the whole tub when you do." Applejack leaned over the table and poked Rarity in the ribs with a finger. Rarity's reply to that consisted of indistinct noises of faux and playful annoyance. Applejack leaned back into her chair, took an apple slice into her mouth, and looked out the window again. The Sun was setting already, filling the room with an orange tinge. "Gonna have to take care of all those leaves sometime soon. Might get to that tomorrow, actually." Rarity bit down on another slice of apple. "Did you want to talk about something?" Applejack looked at Rarity, sitting there, happily smiling as she ate her dried apple slice. There was a moment of silence. "Uh, yeah, but that can wait. Got in contact with some people over a job, but nothing concrete yet so it ain't worth stressing about. How about you, how are things going for you? How's Sweetie Belle doing? I hear about her from Apple Bloom, but you know. Kids her age, sometimes they move too fast to get any answer that makes sense out of them." > Disappearing Act > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I could fake my own suicide." "What?" Indigo almost choked on her breakfast. She leaned to the side from her spot on the table and looked at Lemon. Lemon was on her bed, still in her pyjamas, one hand scrolling through tabs on the computer precariously resting on her overcrowded nightstand. "I could totally fake my own suicide online." Indigo wisely chose to swallow what was in her mouth before continuing on with the conversation. "Okay. Weird thing to say first thing in the morning." "There's only about seven people I'd need to tell about it. Two of them are outside my circles, so they won't rat me out. Two of them I trust to stay silent about it. The last three I'm close enough with that it won't be a problem, once I've explained it all," Lemon went on. "If I'm smart about it, it'll never come out. Too little clues about my real self for people to figure out anything, and those actually close to me will be in on it." Indigo had a silent, pondering pause. "Is everything okay?" "It's the perfect crime." Lemon didn't move, still lying on her bed, her free hand still resting at her side. "Dozens get fooled, no one gets seriously hurt, and I get what I want. Freedom, a chance to start over, a kick in the teeth to those who deserve it. I can go out with a bang without going out at all." "Yeah, no, you're seriously starting to weird me out with this now." Indigo took another small bite of her breakfast, and chewed through it as quickly as she could. "I've got rope. I just need to look up how to tie a noose, and take a picture with a note. A date and a signature. Time everything right, write a post to go along with it, log out of my accounts on all social media and never look back. They'll never catch me." Lemon's free hand moved through her still messy hair, straightening out a few knots. "There'll be nothing to catch me for, anyway. Nothing illegal about killing a character, after all." Indigo had already pushed her chair far enough from the table to get up if needed, but for the time she was simply sitting sideways on it and looking at the other. "Is this a roundabout way of getting me to come there so we can finally make out?" Lemon yawned and looked away from the screen, towards Indigo instead. "Nah, don't worry about it. I mean, I wouldn't mind the making out part, but you don't need to worry about it." Indigo just stared at her, mouth half open and an expression precisely halfway between annoyed and confused that perfectly carried the question "What the fuck are you on about?" without need for the girl to actually voice it. "Chill, Indy." Lemon dismissively waved as she closed her laptop. "You really think I'd go through all the trouble of setting that stuff up when I could just kill myself for real instead?" > I've seen the heavens and the fires below me > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Why is it so orange?" Luna shrugged. "Does it have to be so orange?" Luna shrugged again. "I wouldn't know." Rainbow had a look around the place. "What kind of pony has nightmares like this, anyway?" "You may have forgotten them, Rainbow Dash, but I assure you that some of your own dreams have been just as weird as this one, if not weirder." "Did they have this many nooses?" Luna pursed her lips. "Admittedly, no, they did not. But it is possible there might be something more at play here than just a regular nightmare." "So we finally get to fight some real monsters?" Rainbow's wings buzzed with excitement. "Maybe." Luna looked at Rainbow Dash. "Maybe not." Rainbow deflated a little. "You still haven't told me who this dream belongs to." She looked around again. "Is that a skull?" Luna looked in the same direction. "It would appear that is a skull." She looked up a touch. "And those are corpses of ponies with their eyes removed, hanged with their own entrails." Rainbow put a hoof to her mouth. "Definitely something wrong here." "Or perhaps a foal's imagination running a bit too wild." Luna saw the way Rainbow was looking at her. "You'd be surprised by what horrors immature minds can come up with, just by virtue of having no metre for their gravity. Especially when they are left unchecked." "So, are you telling me who's dreaming all of this up or not?" Rainbow asked. "I'm not," Luna simply replied. "And the reason I'm not is because you should learn not to make assumptions about the nature of dreams and their dreamers, or on the nature of dreamers and their dreams. If all information is given to you, you'll never learn how to figure things out on your own." "But wouldn't knowing who's dreaming help me understand what's going on? Besides, whenever am I going to end up in a dream on my own without knowing who it belongs to? The only way that'll happen is if you pull me in there. You're preparing me for a supposed emergency only you could ever actually make me go through." "Knowing who the dream belongs to would not help, no," Luna replied. "You'd make assumptions, like I said. You do not know every one of the ponies whose dreams fill the night, and knowing only on a surface level who they might be would lead you to assume things about them, even if you weren't meaning to. Knowing nothing is preferable, in some cases. And if you did know the pony, then things wouldn't be much better. There might be sides to a pony that you don't know about. Details of their personality that you've never come across, things in their life they've kept secret. You'd make even more assumptions, because you'd think you know everything there is to know." Rainbow mulled the answer over for a bit, as the two of them began to walk in the corpses' general direction. "Fair. Still doesn't address the other point." "It does not." Luna kept walking. > yadm;IS > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Looks like it won't be hard to open," said Stellaria, examining the locked door in front of her. "Not for me, at least. Some more protection charms on the other side, but those will be easy to deal with as well." Chrysalis looked around the hallway before speaking, to make sure no one else was close. "When are we taking them?" "Overmorrow," Stella replied, ending her magical scanning. "During the night. No one expects you to be here for long tomorrow, and I'll have time to make sure the escape route is planned out. It gives us time if something comes up tomorrow that we need to plan around, and lets you set things up properly." Chrysalis bit her lower lip. "Why not just take one of the ones they're using right now and leave?" she asked. "They'd find us too quickly." Stella began to walk down the corridor, back towards the laboratories. "We need time to disappear from their tracks. The sooner they realise something went wrong, the sooner they'll be after us." Chrysalis began to follow Stellaria. "There must be an alarm system. Are you sure you'll be able to take care of that?" Stella actually stopped walking as Chrysalis finished her sentence. "I'm sure there is one, yes. And I'm sure Twilight designed it herself." She looked back towards the changeling. "Do not suggest that I wouldn't be able to outdo something she's done. You're still the expendable part of this operation." Chrysalis physically recoiled at the venom in Stella's tone and the fire in her eyes. "I didn't mean to," she stammered out. "I was just saying, it would be easier to take a scale now and run than to have to deal with every other security measure. I thought one would be enough for what you're planning." "It would." Stella turned, and started walking again. "But good enough is not good enough for what I want, Chrissy. Things will be much easier going forward the more of them I get my hooves on, and it'll be that much bigger of a blow on Twilight." She practically spat out the name. Chrysalis swallowed, still following Stellaria if more reluctantly. "What do you... What have you figured out about this situation, that she hasn't yet? Long term consequences, what is going to happen once you have those scales and why we're taking them. What do you know about the Behemoth that Twilight doesn't?" "Hah! Now you're starting to worry about long term consequences? The improvement would be admirable if the circumstances didn't make it look pathetic." Stella kept on walking without turning back. "You really think I'd tell you? I'm not letting information fall into the hooves of someone who might be desperate enough to crawl back to Twilight and beg forgiveness. I don't need you to know, I just need you to obey orders. You should remember your place." Chrysalis swallowed again, and didn't answer. Not that she could have said much, as the two of them had gotten close enough to the laboratories for other ponies to be there. She waved at them, and tried to put on her best expression. She still had the rest of the day to get through. > Paprika > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis unlocked the door to the stallion's house and stepped inside. And immediately she froze, seeing the scene in front of her. Stellaria passed her by, closing the door behind them, and took a seat on the couch. "Oh, that? I thought it would be best to start moving out of the old base as soon as possible, so I had her pack everything up and leave. With camouflage spells, and a few other tricks, no one noticed anything." She opened the beige-coloured briefcase now resting on the table in front of her, and began to look through its contents. Chrysalis was still frozen in shock, eyes nervously drifting from Stella to Suri, who was standing motionless near a wall and looking at her with empty eyes. "I picked up on a few mind control spells and charms," Stella explained without looking at Chrysalis. "She'll head out tonight, be on her way to her home, and in a day she'll have forgotten all about everything that happened. All replaced with fake memories, unless someone looks inside her head it will be impossible to tell." Chrysalis swallowed, and finally took a few steps into the house, undoing her disguise. "I see." She had to force the words out of her mouth, her throat suddenly dry. Stella looked towards her, smirking. "Is something wrong, mum?" One of Chrysalis's eyelids began to twitch, completely outside of her control, and her breathing grew faster. "It's nothing," she managed to push out, her body shaking only slightly less than her voice was. She tried to make her way to the kitchen, but every step felt like trying to move through a swamp. "Oh, really?" Stellaria's smile only grew wider. "Well, that's nice to know, mommy. That's very nice to know." Chrysalis had almost made it to the kitchen, where she was planning to have her breakdown in relative peace. Probably cry some. She just had to pass the doorway. Suri was standing right next to it. The changeling barely had time to register the incoming hit, and a moment later she was pressed against the wall, the air knocked out of her lungs, held there by more strength than she'd ever guessed the earth pony would possess. Stella's steps echoed in the dark and silent room, as she very calmly made her way to the other two creatures in it. "Chrissy. Dear Chrissy. You should know better than to lie to your daughter." A moment later Chrysalis was on the kitchen floor, every part of her body in pain from Stella's magic blast. None of it would actually leave any damage. It was just meant to cause pain, and it was a brutally efficient spell at that. The changeling grit her teeth and shut her eyes, heart beating faster and faster. "I can't go too hard on you today," Stella said. "Not when I still need you in working condition for tomorrow. Still... Trying to hypnotise the ponies I allowed you to capture and feed on so they would turn on me?" She stomped on Chrysalis's neck with one of her hind legs. "I can't just let that one go." Her eyes shone with the light reflected from her glowing horn, and she fired another blast. > Waste > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is everything alright?" Chrysalis took a moment to reply, silently staring at the floor. "I just... slept poorly," she said. It wasn't even technically a lie. The pony in front of her nodded, and reassuringly patted her shoulder. "I get it. If you're not feeling up to it today you can take a break and go home, we can manage without you." Again, Chrysalis was silent. She slowly looked up, until the alicorn standing near the wall on the other end of the room entered her field of vision. "No, it's... fine. I'll just... get something to drink." The pony looked at her, skeptical. "Are you sure?" Chrysalis looked at her, and forced out a smile. "Yeah. Don't worry about it. I don't have much to do today, I'll be better tomorrow." The mare smiled back, a little unsure. "Alright. But don't push yourself." With that, she began to walk away. Chrysalis watched her leave, then began to walk towards the laboratory. Stellaria joined her as she passed by her side, and the two of them silently made their way through the crystal corridor. Once at the door, Chrysalis stopped, and looked at Stella for instructions. She already knew how things were supposed to go down, but it would have hurt not to double check. Stellaria looked back towards Chrysalis, clearly not displeased by the lack or initiative on the changeling's part. "I'll be checking on the defence systems, and planning the escape route. Don't come looking for me. I'll be out when I'm done, probably tonight. Just do what you need to, then go back and wait for me. Don't fuck this up." With that she turned, and began to walk away. Chrysalis swallowed, and waited a few more seconds before finally opening the door to the laboratory. She walked inside, closed it behind herself, and made her way to her assigned desk. All she had to do was log in a few results, sort them out, and run a couple checks and tests to make sure everything was in order. Nothing that would take more than a couple hours. Gloomily she sat down and began to sort through papers, not even trying to put any life to her expression or movement. She figured ponies would buy the lack of sleep excuse. She was a little startled when she heard a familiar sound, a familiar cadence of hooves clacking against crystal. And yet there was something different to it. She looked up, and almost jerked backwards, but after her initial reaction she quickly realised it was the original Twilight she was staring at in the middle of the room. The colours gave it away, but she also seemed to be a touch taller than Stellaria. The alicorn was carrying a scale with her, and held a clipboard in her magic. She jotted down a few notes as she made her way to the centre of the lab, then looked around. "Is anyone not too busy at the moment?" she asked. Almost without thinking, Chrysalis raised a hoof, and cleared her throat. > xCho*ces > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight opened a map of the nearby areas on to a table, spreading it out and flattening any creases with her fingers. She had her calculator by her side, just for the sake of double checking her results, and a long ruler in her other hand. She quickly levitated a couple of pins from a nearby shelf and placed one down on top of Canterlot High, the other almost exactly on top of Crystal Prep. Convenient reference points to start from. She began to take measurements, drawing a few lines with the pencil she lifted from her desk in her magic. The equations she was running through in her head were anything but easy, yet she'd practised them enough to get through them pretty quickly. Being familiar with what the earlier results were supposed to be helped a lot, giving her confirmation that she was actually on the right track with each new intersection the lines traced. But maybe her brain moved a tad too fast for her own good. While her fingers were still tracing the earlier stages of her work, while her calculations were still taking care of building up the path to what she was looking for, she already was theorising where she might end up once she was done with it. She had an idea, if a vague one, and the pool of potential results only shrunk with each new step of the process. And so, naturally, her eyes wandered to the section of the map where she suspected she'd end up. And then she stopped. She stopped running through the numbers in her head, she stopped tracing lines, she stopped wondering where the next portal would be found. For one moment she just stared, in silence, at the small red X she'd drawn on the map. The one she had no memory of ever having drawn, yet clearly looked the way she would draw one. The one that was exactly where her equations could take her, if... A moment later she wasn't staring anymore. She was crunching numbers again, twice as fast as before. Her calculator lay forgotten on her chair, she'd never really needed it anyway. In those times where she needed to think fast, she allowed herself to recognise how good she actually was at what she did. She even began to skip drawing some of the lines, her head moved faster than her fingers and hands ever could anyway. But she didn't skip the final ones, of course. And just as she'd thought, they crossed right on top of the X on the map. Twilight stepped back. She was confused, more than anything. Was there something there, something she'd once marked and then forgotten about, something that had nothing to do with what she was doing then and everything to do with some earlier part of her life she'd lost her interest in and her memories along with it? But none of the names she read on the map ringed any bells, and she wasn't that awful with remembering things. But the alternative? That she'd somehow already found that one particular portal, and then forgotten all about it? The implications were frightening, whichever way she tried to spin it. "Oh," a voice said from behind her, and Twilight felt herself freeze for a second. "So you found that one again." The laboratory door was locked. Yet, Twilight was not at all surprised by who she'd heard. But partly to make sure, partly to understand what was happening, she turned nonetheless. "Pinkie?" > Choices > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Could you help me with this? Sorry about interrupting your work," said Twilight, motioning for Chrysalis to come closer to her. The disguised changeling stood up from her desk and stepped towards Twilight. "Not a problem," she said, "I have time. What do you need?" There was an air of nervousness to Twilight, a slight jittery edge to her posture and voice. She levitated her clipboard into Chrysalis's hooves. "Could you hold onto this for a moment? Well, maybe more than a moment, I might be gone for a bit longer than that. Don't worry though, I'll be fine." She gave an awkward little laugh, then visibly tried to slow her breath to calm down. Chrysalis still wasn't fully sure of why she'd gotten up or replied to the alicorn in the first place. She wasn't really sure of what she was feeling at that moment, truth be told, it was a strange tangled mess and she was still trying to sort through it. She acted more out of experience and instinct in that instance, seeing an opportunity for information. Lowering her tone, she asked, "What's this about? Is something wrong, Princess?" Still forcing herself to breathe slowly, Twilight pondered how to reply to the question for a few seconds. She nodded towards the scale she was holding. "Not the first time we've travelled through this one. We know what's on the other side. It's dangerous. This visit... shouldn't be dangerous, I'm taking the right precautions and I'm only going there to investigate. But I'm nervous something might go wrong." She hesitated. There was something more she wanted to get off her chest, but clearly doubted spilling it over with the pony Chrysalis had replaced. Chrysalis reasoned it was worth a shot. Besides, it meant more time to process her emotions. More time before she had to question herself and her choices. "I promise my lips are sealed," she said. It was the truth, really, she had no plans to tell Stella any of what she could hear. "I don't ask to know what's keeping you on edge, but I believe that it might help you calm down if you shared it with me, or anyone else. We're all friends here, we help each other. And if it's as dangerous as you say, going in there so nervous won't do you any good." Twilight let go a little chuckle as she finished hearing that. "Sorry. You sound like a cheesy motivational poster I'd make on one of my less stressful days. That's not a bad thing though." She took another deep breath in, and let go of it with a sigh. "You're right." Her tone dropped a bit lower. "I was supposed to run this test with Starlight, but she had something else come up at the last minute. We didn't put it on the official schedules. This scale is kind of a special case." She had a brief look around the laboratory. "And the exit portal seems to be moving around. That's mostly what I'm worried about." > 1999 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello, Twilight," Pinkie said. She was standing there in the middle of the laboratory, hands crossed behind her back, hips bent slightly forwards as she swayed just a touch back and forth on her feet. Her expression was hard to read, a weird mix of calm determination and mild amusement. If she hadn't been Pinkie, Twilight would have found the display almost unsettling. She still kind of did, but it being Pinkie meant she was rather confused about what she was supposed to feel. The shady attitude and casually menacing demeanour were everything Pinkie was not, and everything she was not usually capable of pulling off without exaggerated silliness. It was disconcerting to see her play it straight. "What's this about?" Twilight asked, turning fully towards the other. "Nothing personal," Pinkie replied. "Orders from the other side. I need to keep you in check and make sure you don't overstep your boundaries. In particular, I need to make sure you don't come across that portal just yet." She nodded towards the map behind Twilight. Twilight tensed. "Do you realise what the consequences might be for leaving a portal unattended? We can't just ignore it. Someone might, and statistically speaking someone will given enough time, run into it. That's not the kind of thing we can ignore. Not the possibility of someone spreading the knowledge around, or being hurt on the other side, or of more magic coming into this world. We cannot afford to waste time on this, and you know it." Pinkie just looked at her nails while Twilight spoke, and only then did the other girl notice they'd been painted black. Same colour as the boots Pinkie was wearing, though seeing that actually gave Twilight pause. She could swear they hadn't been that way just a moment before, and definitely hadn't had those spiked belts wrapped above them. But Pinkie cut off her wonderings, speaking again. "I've heard that, Twilight. A few times already, actually. The one here who doesn't realise what the consequences of their actions might be is you. "Not that I can blame you for it." For a second Pinkie leaned her bust further forward, with one hand on the back of her hips. Twilight wondered if what she was seeing around her eyes were eyeliner and pencil or just shadows. "You're not allowed to know, after all. That's part of my job. Every time I explain it to you, I gotta make sure you don't actually remember. So I can keep you off the trail for a while longer. I think I'm going to switch out the map this time, that should make it easier on me." Twilight instinctively stepped back. "Pinkie? Just tell me what's going on. I don't know what you're talking about and I don't know what you think you're doing. Just calm down and let's talk this through, because right now you're not making any sense. Even more so than usual." But as she said that, one hand wandered towards her geode. It didn't matter though. She saw Pinkie smile, and then was blinded by a flash of black and purple. > And a Lack Thereof > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I understand." Chrysalis nodded. "As I have said, I won't share this with anyone you don't wish me to. Be careful while you're in there." She kept on playing her part, though a part of her wondered if she shouldn't have been doing something else instead. Something pertaining to who she was, and not who she was pretending to be. "Thank you." Twilight nodded in response, cutting off Chrysalis's train of thought. She seemed calmer already, but a hint of nervousness touched her features again as she breathed in and bit her lower lip. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper as she spoke again. "If I'm not back by tonight, or if I send any messages asking for it, or if anything else comes through, close the portal. Tell Starlight what happened, and... she'll figure out a way to get me out of there." She shook a smile back on her face, though Chrysalis could tell it took effort to keep it there. "But hopefully you won't need to do any of that. Everything you need is in that clipboard." Before Chrysalis had time to reply, likely before she herself had time for second thoughts, Twilight marched to the centre of the laboratory, cast her spell on the scale she'd been holding, and disappeared through the newly formed portal. Chrysalis was left there, standing and staring at the portal. Only after a few moments did she shake herself out of her stupor, and begin looking through the clipboard Twilight had given her. She stopped almost immediately while scanning it. Twilight hadn't been lying. Spells to activate and deactivate a portal, protection spells for travelling through one, routine practices for managing scales and the worlds beyond them, everything one could have needed perfectly explained in detail. All of it surely common knowledge for someone working with scales, but the pony she was replacing was not part of that category and she'd been forbidden any form of research on the specific topic by Stella. She moved back to her desk, studying the information while keeping an eye on the portal. Almost on instinct she copied the contents of the documents to a different set of papers, just in case Twilight came back before she had time to properly study everything. And as she thought about it, Chrysalis finally realised what she could have done. She looked around the laboratory. Not enough ponies for her to have any problems dealing with them, if it came down to it. A look back to the clipboard, at Twilight's own freshly added note stating that, yes, she could and in fact should close the portal if the situation called for it. Then she looked at the portal itself again. She could strand Twilight off in a dangerous world with no way to come back on her own, and run away with the key. She wouldn't even need to fight anyone, just convince them Twilight had asked for it. She could go through the portal and come back as Twilight, claiming the other pony had been lost in there after she'd called for him, and use the opportunity to gather up as many resources as she possible before running away. She could even choose to replace the alicorn permanently, if she wanted, take over the role of Equestria's only leader and take over everything from there. And almost nobody would ever find out, if she did things right. Almost. > From Infinity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie neatly folded the map Twilight had been using, and slipped it into the edge of her tight-fitting black pants. Then she pulled out the one she'd bought, opened it, and set it down on top of the table where the old one had been. She placed Twilight's tools on top of it, and stepped back. Hands on her hips, she watched the work she'd done. One hand moved to her chin, and she stepped back towards the map to move the pencil and ruler to a different position. "There. That's better, don't you agree?" Twilight, of course, didn't answer the question. She couldn't, right then. Pinkie wasn't actually sure if she could even hear it, though she didn't particularly worry about details like that. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, every bit of memory would be wiped out. Pinkie looked at the clock up on the wall. She hadn't taken too long going to buy the map and coming back. Not yet, at least, so long as she finished everything quickly enough. She tapped her forehead with a long black nail, wondering if there was anything else she was missing. With her other hand she grabbed the coffee mug Twilight had brought with her before sitting down to work on the map, and downed it all in a single sip. It was cold. Like her soul, she thought, but only to keep to her character. She'd explicitly been told, actually, that there was no need for her to stick to that character and aesthetic. But she wanted to. She set the mug back down, on top of the map this time, then turned to Twilight. "I really am sorry about this whole thing. But we have to. Trust me, I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't sure it's the right thing to do and if you know me then you know it." She walked towards the girl, who was lying limp against a sufficiently large piece of machinery, kept upright by two glowing black and purple crystal formations wrapped below her shoulders and around her torso. Pinkie took hold of Twilight, whose eyes were glazed over with the same black and purple as the crystals. The crystals themselves disappeared as Twilight slid into Pinkie's arm. "There we go," Pinkie said, beginning to carry Twilight towards the chair. "In a couple minutes you'll wake up, and everything will be fine. It'll just feel like you fell asleep. I'm sorry about wasting your time like this, but we don't have an alternative if you find the location of that portal. Please run into another one next time." Gently she slid Twilight into the chair, and placed her leaning over the map, head and arms atop it like she'd fallen asleep there. She gave the girl and affectionate pat on the back. "I'm doing this for everyone's sake. Yours and the girls' and everyone else's." There was hesitation on Pinkie's face for a moment. "I hope I'm doing the right thing," she whispered. Then she stepped away from Twilight, and disappeared in a shadowy corner of the laboratory. > Pressure > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door clicked open, then closed again, and the sound of Stella's steps echoed through the house as she walked in. "Mommy? I'm home," she declared, loud enough for Chrysalis to hear her from the kitchen. A shiver ran down the changeling's back as she heard that. "Welcome back," Chrysalis replied, quickly forcing the last piece of paper into her mouth. She got up to greet the alicorn in the living room, and by the time she was there she'd swallowed the whole thing. She'd found paper was moderately tasty, all things considered. Stella looked at the stallion still resting in his pod on the wall, then at Chrysalis. "I hope you've been a good girl while I wasn't there looking after you. It would be a shame otherwise." "I have, Empress." Chrysalis meekly nodded, and then kept her eyes to the ground. Her whole body was tense, silently praying the conversation would end there. Stellaria hummed to herself. "I have my doubts an insect like you would actually know how to behave herself." She tapped a hoof on Chrysalis's chest, and smiled in delight at the nervous twitch that wracked the changeling's entire body. "But. I need you in usable conditions tomorrow, so I suppose we'll be skipping punishment for today." She walked past Chrysalis and into the kitchen. "We'll make it up after we've gotten away from here." Chrysalis finally released the breath she'd been holding, and it cascaded into panting and rapid inhales that she struggled to calm down. For a moment she felt like she'd break out in tears right there, but she managed to pull herself together. "Of course, Empress. Thank you, Empress." "For what, mommy?" Stellaria asked, looking through the empty shelves and cupboards. "Are you thanking me for not punishing you?" "Thank you f-f-for p... p-punishing me-e, e-eventually," Chrysalis croaked out, through much effort, before exploding into fast and ragged breathing again. Her legs shook, knees threatening to give out, her mouth half open and her lips twitching. "That's a good girl." Stella moved away from the last cupboard and began to examine the stallion in the pod, lighting up her horn. Chrysalis stumbled forward through the living room, tumbled into the sofa, and lay herself limply atop it while pressing her face into the pillow. Cutting off sight and most sound and air for a while, just being alone in her head. Stellaria's bitter, hysterical laugh was enough to pull the changeling out of her self-imposed mental exile, though it had lasted enough for her to come out of it in stable conditions. "Eating paper?" Stella laughed again. "You're lucky it's so pathetic that it's entertaining, mum. I might have had to change my plans otherwise." The second sentence was spoken in a lower, throaty tone. Then Stella focused on the stallion one moment longer. "I appreciate you showing me the contents first. Things would have been different otherwise." She stepped back, her horn no longer glowing. Chrysalis looked at her, her breathing finally steady and almost even. "Of course," she replied. And quietly, in the back of her mind, she smiled and laughed at her own plan working, and felt hope again. > Drk > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stepped out of the portal, and the first thing she did was cast camouflage spells on both it and herself. The second thing she did was look around, to determine where exactly she was. The inside of a building, and clearly not an abandoned one. Knowing that was enough to add extra layers of soundproofing to her spells, minor mind altering spells around the portal to make sure no one would walk into it, and triggers around it in case someone actually did, all with an extra layer of triggers on top for the spells themselves being detected or interacted with. It wasn't a perfect set of security measures, but she'd devised it to be pretty damn close to one. She allowed herself to feel some pride about an achievement like that. Morale boosts were good once in a while, and reminding herself that she was one of the best magic users of all Equestria and of all known history did wonders for her nervousness and insecurity. Especially when she had to deal with one of the other best magic users in Equestria not being on the other side of the portal like originally planned, instead replaced by a regular member of the castle research staff. One who'd probably deserve some compensation for the stress being put on him. But Starlight's absence was justified, and it would have taken longer to get someone comparable to replace her than to wait for her return. All her spells in place and double checked, Twilight got herself a better look at the interior. It wasn't just any building she was in. A palace, with rugs of midnight blue over floors of polished azure marble and deep purple and black banners hanging between columns lining the tall walls. Suits of armour painted silver and onyx decorated the long corridor, and chandeliers of black and blue crystal descended on heavy chains from a ceiling that seemed to vanish into a starry night sky. She began to walk, her steps silent through the sourceless cold light blue light that seemed to fill every corner of the place. Even given the excessive display of opulence around her, even given the markings on the tapestry, Twilight still could have convinced herself it was merely the residence of a particularly rich noble. Mostly an act of pure denial, but one she would have been happy to follow through with. But with every new hallway she saw branching from the one she walked, with every room she found a door to, with every staircase she met along her path, came the knowledge that she was perfectly aware of where she was. She'd been there, a few times in her life. On a rather important occasion the first time around. It had looked different, of course, and she'd only ever stood in memories of pieces of what it had been like originally, back when it wasn't in ruins yet. But she'd read about it, she'd seen drawings and reconstructions, she knew what it was supposed to look like. She looked towards one of the banners again. She supposed there was some irony to be found, that she'd be once more walking through the same old castle, searching for information and fearing Nightmare Moon would find her first. > Goth Pinkie Pie Chapter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What in the... Pinkie Pie?" Trixie stepped back, confused and mildly concerned, as she watched the rest of the girl's body slowly fall out of her hat. "What are you doing here? And why do you look like that? And what are you doing in my room?" Pinkie finished sliding out of the hat. Although, given the floor was there pushing against her back, it looked as if instead the hat was sliding upwards along her legs and revealing more of them as it moved, until it finally came to rest on the tips of her boots. She remained there, back on the ground with her straight hair splayed beneath her, arms crossed over her chest, legs in the air slightly bent. "Still getting used to this dark magic stuff," she replied in an uncharacteristically monotone and emotionless voice. "Must have gotten caught in this exit while teleporting." "Dark magi- No, Trixie, you've seen enough people turn into monsters to know that's not a good idea, knock it!" Trixie slapped herself on the cheek. She looked back at Pinkie, fully taking advantage and fact that she wasn't the one acting the weirdest of the two. "What's with the look?" "I've told you," replied Pinkie, her tone still cold and lifeless. "Dark magic. Gotta look the part." She still refused to move, but she did take on to polishing the silver spikes on the collar around her neck and on the straps around her legs and arms. "I see." Trixie nodded, not really seeing anything but choosing to go along with the reasoning nonetheless for the sake of speeding things up. "Would you kindly get away from my house, please? I was practising my magic tricks." She gestured broadly to the various props strewn around the room, then pointed to the door with her other hand. "Come on. Shoo. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not have time to deal with your nonsense and your alluring temptations of dark power." Pinkie looked at the door, then at Trixie's hand pointing towards it, then back to the door, then she looked at Trixie herself. "I'm not moving. Force me to." Trixie rapidly, nervously blinked. She moved to the door and opened it, then marched back towards Pinkie. Removed the hat from the girl's boots, she began to push her towards the exit by force. "You asked for it." Pinkie waited until she'd been dragged halfway across the distance before speaking again. "I'm not gonna get up just because you push me outside the room. Do you really want to carry me all the way down the stairs?" Trixie stopped pushing, and looked at Pinkie. The girl's eyes were like ice, and her expression was dead serious. Closer to dead than to serious, actually. Trixie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She let go of Pinkie, and closed the door. Then she moved back to Pinkie, hauled her up over a shoulder, walked to the window, opened it and chucked the girl out. "And for the record that makeup looks awful on you!" "Thanks," replied Pinkie in her colourless voice, resting in the bushes where she'd landed in the same position as before. Trixie slammed the window shut. > Fake Routine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The guard took a turn down into the main hallway, and kept on walking through it. He wasn't particularly alert, but he knew there was no need to. No one had ever managed to infiltrate the city, much less the castle itself. The idea of someone managing to sneak in there without Queen Nightmare Moon knowing about it was simply laughable. Guard patrols were mostly a formality, the station of working as a guard in the castle more of a status symbol and a reward than anything else. A status he was certainly proud of, but it was foolish to think he could in any way be necessary. There had, admittedly, been strange reports circulating among the population. He'd heard some rumors about them. Stories of a strange pony who'd appeared in the middle of town out of nowhere and then had disappeared just as suddenly. He didn't think they held much weight, but it was odd how no official statement made had been made on the matter. Perhaps it was a way to discredit the concept, to show it was so far beneath the real problems, so absurd in its conception, that it was completely unworthy of any consideration. He adjusted his purple mane underneath his helmet, and absentmindedly looked at the tapestry while walking down the corridor. There wasn't much of anything else to see, but at least the sight was always a pleasant one. A very small gust of wind distracted him, likely from beyond a door being opened somewhere along the length of the hallway, and he shook his head, focusing back onto his assigned task. It wouldn't have done him well to be caught slacking on the job, and he had no intention to be demoted. Especially not at a time like that. With how the situation was shaping up, he'd have most likely been sent north. And he much preferred the weather there where he was. Though he was curious about how things were going there. He'd heard about some experiments of sorts being conducted as of late, but no precise information on what it was about. Just things slipping through the cracks, words caught here and there as he heard other guards and dignitaries talk. It technically wasn't eavesdropping if he just happened to have good ears and pass by at the right time. He was indeed curious about what kind of experiments were being conducted there. If they were anything like the ones happening in the castle, for example. He wasn't allowed to enter the laboratories, but he'd escorted enough prisoners to them to have an idea of the kind of things happening in there. Especially given he'd never had to bring anyone back to their cell. He'd taken a turn guarding the laboratories as well, once. The job was about keeping the researchers in more than it was about keeping intruders out, as he'd understood it. Not a weird thing, after all, anyone trying to get to the labs would have had to get into the castle itself first. And that was just laughable, as everyone knew very well. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Does anyone else feel like our lives have been a bit dull lately? Like, duller than they'd gotten already?" Rainbow asked, lazily tapping on her phone. "I honestly don't know where you got the impression our lives were dull in recent times," said Rarity, glancing in Twilight's direction. "But personally, I quite enjoy some peace and quiet once in a while." Twilight caught wind of what the unicorn was implying. "Don't look at me like that. You can't deny we used to get up to much more exciting things than managing cupcake sales. Not that you were very helpful with the latter." She looked at Pinkie, behind the counter. "I'm not saying I don't like helping you. It's just that it seems like something is missing. I agree with Rainbow, recent weeks have been particularly boring." Rarity rolled her eyes. "And you can't deny that those old adventures were dangerous, and far from the norm. As I've said, I'm rather happy we don't have a need for such things nowadays. If you so desperately need excitement you can find it in media. Does reading no longer entertain you?" Twilight also rolled her eyes. "Way to divert the subject. But since I can see where you're going already, I'll concede, you do have a point for now. The story does seem to be going somewhere. It's not a direction I expected it to go in for at least half of what is currently happening, but it's all clearly in focus. For now." Rarity pursed her lips. "Always a downer, aren't you?" "I don't feel the need to cheer at signs of basic standards being met," Twilight replied. Rarity rolled her eyes again. "Don't you have potions to brew with your new teacher? That at least can give you something to do if you're so bored." "Potion Nova is out of town for the week. And I'm not allowing myself into her laboratory, I've blown up enough buildings for a lifetime." "What does count as enough buildings blown up for a lifetime?" Pinkie wondered with a hoof to her chin, leaning over the counter as she set down a drink she'd just finished mixing. "I'd say less than one," Trixie replied from a table to the side of the room, near a window. She took another sip from her glass. "Trixie!" Twilight exclaimed, noticing her. "She's been here for ten minutes," said Pinkie. The door to the shop opened, and in walked Fluttershy, nervously looking around the place. "Is something wrong?" Rainbow asked, noticing her concerned expression. "I can't find Applejack anywhere," Fluttershy replied, walking up to the counter to sit down in front of it. "I've asked Apple Bloom and she doesn't know either. Now we're both looking for her. I hoped she would be here." "Have you tried asking Discord? He might help, if it's you," Twilight said. Fluttershy shook her head. "He's out of town." Rarity sighed. "Well, you wished for something exciting, no?" She stood up from her seat. "Come on everypony. We have a friend to find!" She posed dramatically in front of the newly appeared background, while a small fanfare played. "Do I have to come as well?" Maintaining her pose and head still, Rarity looked to the side towards Trixie. "No, you can stay. We'd appreciate the help but we won't force you to." Trixie took another sip of her drink. > Introspection > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst checked the door a second time, just to make sure it was properly closed. He doubted anyone would come, but it was better to be sure no one would just walk in if they did happen to be looking for him. And hopefully, in the event a real emergency broke out right then, Twilight or Starlight wouldn't teleport directly where he was. Sufficiently satisfied, he turned away and walked to his desk. He'd made himself some tea, and it had cooled down just enough to still be warm, but not too much so, while he'd busied himself preparing the room. Not that he'd had much to do on that, actually, just moving around a couple things. But he'd taken it slow. Really, it was more about mentally preparing himself. And as he sat down at his desk and took the mug in his hooves, he decided he was as ready as he was going to be. Waiting further wouldn't have helped, if anything it might have made things worse. He would have gotten second thoughts about the whole thing, probably called it off until another day, maybe he'd have simply wasted enough time in indecision until he was left with too little to get things done. No more waiting then. He closed his eye, took a slow sip from his tea, and focused on something. A memory, for the time being. He would find other ways, more proper ones. He opened his eyes. The coat was orange, this time. A little lighter than his mother's, a little darker than his own. The eyes a blueish purple, somewhere between Trixie's and Starlight's. A unicorn, maybe a little bit taller than average, the mane and tail short and straight and the same colour as rust, with a streak of pink-purple through them that made him think of Cadence more than anything else. But the cutie mark was still the same as always. And so was her voice. "Hello," she said. "I'm Starshine Flicker." She smiled at him, her head tilting slightly to the side. "It's been a while," she said after a moment of silent contemplation. Sunburst slowly set his mug down on the desk, the way it clicked against the wood betraying the nervousness still stirring beneath his calm demeanour. "It has," he agreed. A moment more of silence, the two of them looking at each other and smiling, though he wasn't sure why he was smiling and if he wanted to in the first place. Then, with just a hint of fear, he asked, "Did you miss me?" Starshine seemed to ponder the question for a bit. Her smile was still there, but it was a little less vibrant. Not faked, or hiding sadness. Sunburst wouldn't even have gone far enough to call it bittersweet. But just a touch marred by something else, yes. Some knowledge behind it, that carried something else besides just happiness. "I could answer that both ways, actually." She blinked once, like any regular pony might. "What would you rather I say?" Sunburst looked in her eyes, breathing in and out slowly. "I'm not sure." > eiie > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The flames swept upwards along Lemon's body, wrapping around her limbs and torso and head until she was only a silhouette visible through the unnaturally coloured fire. She gasped as the magic forced itself around her, and the Lemon Zest on the other side of the screen began to regret her decision just a bit. She hoped the magical horse dream princess would focus on the pain in those gasps and not on the other emotions. Then the fire slowly disappeared, seemingly seeping into Lemon's body, and the her that was watching the scene was left with her mouth agape. Her skin had grown a shade darker, just like Twilight's had. Broad red wings spread from her back, somehow like a dragon's or a bat's in their conformation yet feathered all the same along their back and upper portions. Two red, ram-like horns were on her head, glowing with power and shooting upwards at the end of their curve. Her hair was a waterfall of dancing green and yellow flames twice wider than her torso, cascading behind her up to just barely above her feet, and her eyes glowed a bright neon green with piercing red pupils. Her headphones had been warped by magic, now two glistening pieces of metal the same colour as her new skin that were seemingly implanted right in her head, brightly colourful red and green and yellow wires stretching from the backs of them and into her neck and above her collarbones. Speaker-like indentations of a slightly darker colour on the outside of the metal chunks had presumably replaced her ears, while vertical slits on the fronts suggested the ability to extend some form of eye covering, perhaps two separate pieces of curved glass or one single strip of energy from one side of her head to the other. She was, perhaps surprisingly, not much less scantily dressed than Twilight had been during her transformation, though who that was saying something about was a debatable topic. All her clothes in the same bright, downright light-emitted green as her eyes and flaming hair, which also happened to decorate her slightly longer nails and could be found, in part, both around her eyes and on her eyelids and on her lips. It couldn't be called a high amount of makeup, but the magical nature made it rather stand out. She wore a tight fitting cross between a corset and a tube top, leaving her shoulders and part of her cleavage bare. The other lemon didn't need to double check to know her breasts were bigger, but in fairness so had been Twilight's. Maybe not by that much though. The top had oval cuts on the sides, exposing portions of her skin, and it ended in a V shape that left a bit of her midriff visible. Fingerless gloves rode from her hands almost up to her armpits, matched by sleek, pointy-ended high heel boots that went up to her thighs. Above them was a surprisingly frilly and unsurprisingly short miniskirt that still left skin visible on her legs, perhaps the piece of clothing closer in concept to her old school uniform if certainly different in execution. Last was a thin, glowing green tail with a flat triangular end, something that looked more like a glowstick or posable wire than anything an actual organism would have evolved. The way part of it looped like a spring halfway along its length only strengthened that impression of something artificial. In the room, Luna turned towards the still perfectly human Lemon Zest. The girl noticed the horse out the corner of her eye, and understood the implied questions. But she kept staring at the paused image on the screen,mouth still open. "I need a moment." > Frawy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rocks, lava pools, more rocks, more lava pools, some bigger rocks, some larger lava pools. That was about the extent of what he could see, not much different from what he'd been seeing for the past hour of walking. Not yet a dragon in sight, and much as he was somewhat thankful he didn't have to deal with them he was also very much aware that he needed to, sooner or later. That was why he was there, after all. And he was, on top of that, worried about what the lack of them might mean. He kept trotting forward, eyes alert for any sign of movement yet finding nothing nonetheless. Surprisingly, the place was not that hot, all things considered. The sky was permanently half-obscured by smoke and floating ash, not dissimilar to the gloomy cloud cover of an autumn day, meaning the Sun only did so much to heat the ground below. And while the pools of lava were certainly hot, staying far enough from them mitigated that. The only real bother was the occasional gust of wind, blowing the heat from above the pools towards his face, but those were rare. And he wasn't planning to go near the lava pools, anyway. Not just because they were lava pools and he was a pony, he was careful enough not to fall into one on accident, mostly because he would have been quite bothered if his clothes or his beard had been damaged in the process. But he would need to perhaps inspect some if he kept on finding no dragons, maybe they were hiding in them. Certainly a curious hypothesis, but he wasn't really sure what else to think. He did believe he'd been the wrong pick for the job, after all. But Princess Twilight had insisted, and she was the ruler of Equestria. Not even he could quite refuse an order from her, especially not so in dangerous and uncertain times such as those. And though he'd much argued that other creatures and other ponies would have been better suited for the task, she had refused to listen to any of his arguments. He hoped she had her reasons for it, and the pressure of facing such a crisis so soon into her reign hadn't taken too much of a toll on her. > CbrpnkRd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first attack came and went without anyone noticing it had really happened. It happened in the woods, too far to reach the town nearby. It was all done too quickly. It wasn't until a few days later, while a pony was taking a walk there and looking for any fallen branches they might have taken home to fuel the fireplace, that the first signs of what had happened became known. They found an animal carcass, mauled. Splinters of bone jutting out at unnatural angles, the head reduced to a red splotch on the ground, the innards strewn about around the rest of the body. It was already starting to rot. Strangely, though, whatever meat had been stripped from it seemed to have been taken by other animals. Whatever had killed the thing had just left it there, with no interest in consuming it. That was perhaps what pushed the pony to search further. That, and the rather obvious trail that whatever creature was responsible for the scene had left. Broken branches, deep cuts in the trees, and dug up sections of the ground that were all the more impressive given how hard the dirt got during the cold. Just a dead animal wouldn't have been impressive enough to get the news out to Princess Twilight herself. At most it would have been shared with the rest of the town, someone might have advanced the hypothesis of some new creature, and maybe in a couple weeks a group of researchers would have been there. The crater the pony found at the end of the trail, with its rocky blue-purple surface and deep enough for a pony to stand in it, that was another matter entirely. > What Day Is It? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Don't you ever worry we're wrong? You know, about everything. Everything you choose to stand for, everything you agree with, every decision you made and make. Don't you ever worry you had it all wrong?" It didn't take long for the answer to come out. "All the time. All the damn time." Applejack pulled her jacket tighter around her pyjamas. "Wasn't expecting you to ask that though." Lemon shrugged. "I get philosophical and pretentious when I stay up long enough without being drunk." She pulled something out of her pocket, and pushed her hand towards the other girl. "Do you smoke?" Applejack eyed the open pack of cigarettes the girl was offering her. "Nah, I don't," she said, pulling out one and slipping it into her mouth. "Didn't take you for one who did." "I don't either," replied Lemon, pulling a second one out with her mouth to let it sit there. "Neither do any of the people I know. How else do you think I'd manage to go around with a full pack of the priciest brand?" She waved said pack around before sliding it back inside her pocket. "I wouldn't know it's the priciest," said Applejack. "Most expensive one they had in the shop." Lemon took the cigarette in her hand for a moment. "Had it for a few months at this point. You're good at talking with one in your mouth." "Practise," simply said Applejack. Lemon lifted an eyebrow. "The whole wheat in your mouth business? Sounds... almost offensively stereotypical. Just, you know, you're real so it clearly isn't." "Trust me, Lemon," Applejack replied while her unlit cigarette bobbed up and down, "I'm the last person you need to make aware of that." > Cooldown > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis split her attention between the portal and the documents on her desk. She had no plans of closing it. Whichever way she chose to go about it, she knew it would backfire. Close it and pretend Twilight had asked her to? She'd still have Stella breathing down her neck. In fact, she already knew how it would go. The alicorn would take out Starlight while no one was looking, then the two of them would play out a fake rescue mission for Twilight and end up replacing the two. The most she'd get out of it was a reason for Stellaria to keep her alive. Go in and come out pretending she was Twilight instead? Same thing, except Stella wouldn't need her alive then. If Twilight did actually end up asking for the portal to be closed? She'd do it, and then deal with the consequences as things played out. But for right then? She was hoping the alicorn would come back out safe and sound. Or preferably badly injured and barely alive, so long as she did make it out. She already had other plans, and that was why she was focusing on the documents as well. A part of it was actually taking care of the work she was supposed to be doing. It would have come off as quite suspicious if it turned out she had done nothing but study what Twilight had given her while the alicorn was away. But on a personal level she was far more interested in learning those spells, and so she was carefully balancing her attention between the two tasks, all the while occasionally throwing a new glance at the portal. She had a plan. A plan to get rid of Stella, and Twilight along with her if things went well. But she could deal with the original purple alicorn staying around. She could even deal with having to reveal herself if things came down to it, as long as it meant she'd get rid of the overgrown log who'd done nothing but ruin her life ever since she'd been born. She'd regretted not burning her to stay warm back when she could have every night since she'd met her again. She would have even been willing to ask the regular Twilight for help, if she'd thought it would make things easier. She'd genuinely thought about it. As much as she despised the pony and everything she'd done to stop her plans both directly and indirectly, as much as she would not have hesitated to strand her off in another world under any other circumstances, Stella was a bigger problem. Big enough to make her even willing to collaborate. Thing was, she'd thought about it, and she'd realised speaking to Twilight wouldn't help. Because convincing the pony would take time. Too much time. Enough time for Stella to notice something was off, and when she did notice... Chrysalis had seen what the alicorn could do, if she wanted. If Stella chose to get to her, there was no way Twilight could stop her. She wouldn't even know it was happening. Chrysalis shuddered. For all she knew, Stella could be right there in the room, and it would be impossible for her to tell it was so. She focused back on her supposed job. She just had to hope that was not the case. > Expl > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight paused, seeing someone walking down the corridor in her direction. A stallion, wearing armour, patches of his white coat and bits of his purple mane visible underneath it. A unicorn, she realised. The colours were certainly familiar, but she quickly chalked it up to a mere coincidence. She was more preoccupied with not being noticed, really. Although the unicorn seemed rather lost in thought, not really paying attention to the world around him. Odd behaviour for what was probably a guard, then again the hallway appeared empty to him. And after all, she really wasn't complaining about him being distracted, it made things easier for her. But she did have to hope he wouldn't run into her portal. He wasn't likely to, given how he still couldn't see her despite how close they'd gotten and how the portal had even stronger spells protecting it, but that didn't make her less nervous. But she couldn't really make sure he wouldn't, going back the way she'd come just for the sake of following him would have been a waste of time and she didn't have too much of that to spare. It still felt weird to just walk by him though. Unnatural. She wasn't used to being invisible to others. Even when creatures didn't pay attention to her, at least she knew they acknowledged her existence. Knowing that the stallion thought he was alone in the hallway made it feel like she was intruding on something private, even if she knew it was a dumb thought to have. It did make her wonder if she walked differently when she thought she was alone. The answer was probably yes, and she'd pay attention to it next time she had a chance to, but right then she forced the thought out of her mind. It was not the time. She knew she was doing it to find something to keep her nervousness at bay with, but she had more important things to focus on. The stallion walked past her, at her side, perhaps a little closer than she'd have wanted. She'd gotten distracted too. She turned, just to make sure everything was okay. The stallion did seem slightly different, but he didn't look back nor even around. For all she knew he'd just shaken himself out of his own musings. He just kept on walking down the hallway at an even pace, ignoring her completely. He really did have the same colours as Rarity. The tail was styled differently, straighter and a bit shorter, but if she'd seen a picture of just that she would have assumed it to belong to her friend. The armour was covering his cutie mark, so she couldn't check if it was in any way similar to Rarity's, but she would have liked to if she'd had the chance. Twilight shook herself, and turned again. She had much more important things to do than go chase a pony just because he reminded her of a friend, especially when following him could have meant putting herself at risk. > HHW > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And so we still managed to get the traditional play, after all." "Did you have any doubt?" Twilight smiled, looking at Celestia, while the crowd cheered and the actors on stage bowed. Celestia smiled back. "I suppose you do have a point." She stood up and joined the cheer, politely tapping her front hooves on the ground. Still smiling, Twilight did the same. It was a few minutes later, after much cheering and much standing up and moving of groups of ponies and other creatures who'd also gotten curious and chosen to go watch the play, when Celestia and Twilight finally had a moment alone for themselves again. The former had carefully avoided any particularly excited admirer, the latter had postponed her duties, and both had managed to dodge journalists on their way to the backroom. Celestia sighed, drinking from a spare bottle of wine she'd fetched somewhere along the way as she looked out the window. Twilight didn't need to follow her gaze to know what she was looking at. The Behemoth stood visible from anywhere in Canterlot, unnervingly even from those places where it shouldn't have been. "Do you think ponies are getting used to it?" Celestia asked, setting the bottle down. "I think ponies still aren't used to me being the sole ruler of Equestria," Twilight replied. "Some might not even be used to Luna being back, from what I've seen. But we've always been good at getting through the bad stuff together. Because even if things are bad out there, we still have each other. That's what Hearth's Warming is about, no?" "Too bad hugging and loving each other other won't be enough to end this crisis," Celestia replied, taking another sip. "Have you tried rainbow blasting the thing away?" "I've tried regular magic on a scale and it blew up in my face. I'd rather not risk razing Canterlot to the ground. No magic rainbows until we're sure it's safe to try." Twilight eyed the bottle, trying to see how full it still was. "That's not the first one today, is it?" "I'm tall," Celestia replied. "And large. I can take it." Twilight rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure we can use the rainbow blasting anyway, actually. It seems to need some inciting factor, going from experience. Without the Elements to wield I'm not sure how it would work, it would be awkward to just walk up to the thing and start a speech." "You could try asking the sparkly treehouse spirit that looks like you," Celestia replied. Twilight pursed her lips. "I've tried. She doesn't want to talk to me, apparently." Celestia chuckled. "If it's any consolation, she never talked to me either. Though it might have been very confusing if she'd looked like you when doing it." She looked out the window again. "Do you think it's good to pretend that problems aren't there?" "I think it's good to recognise that just because problems are there that doesn't mean we can't still be happy and still have nice things," Twilight said. Celestia smiled. "We made the right choice letting Equestria in your hooves. Just... Sorry about this whole mess, we'd have waited if we'd known it was coming." > Contact > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight paced in circles around the centre of the room. Three days had passed, and so whoever had left the letter on her desk would presumably get in contact with her again. She just wasn't sure of when that would happen. She'd given everyone working at the lab the day off, pretending she would be cleaning it and doing some maintenance, and she'd actually busied herself with that as she waited for something to happen. She was nervous. She had questions she wanted to ask to whatever creature had managed to sneak into her castle completely undetected and cut a hole in the wall behind her desk while at it, and she was obviously worried about what someone capable of that might do if ill-intentioned. The lack of any attacks or threats of sorts was a good sign, but still she couldn't perfectly trust them. For all she knew, she could still be walking into a trap, and it was all a way to get to her alone. But just as with the feather they'd left, if it was a trap she had no other option but to walk into it. They knew too many things she didn't, and she had to get that knowledge out of them. Even if it meant risking her life. She smiled a bit as she thought about that. They could be good with tricks, but it would take more than a little disappearing act for them to take her down if that was the plan. She brought the letter over in her telekinesis and had another look at it. Still nothing. She'd made other attempts at writing on it, but she'd received no answer. But if she was ever going to get one, it was probably then. So she picked up a quill and wrote on it again, asking for a more definite answer on when the meeting would take place. To her surprise, it only took a short while for words to appear in response. Though the content of those words was perhaps a bit less exciting. Check again in ten minutes. Twilight mulled over the sentence for a bit. Then, she shrugged, and went to check on one of the microscopes to pass the time. The ten minutes were almost up when she was done, and she picked up the letter again in her magic, waiting. Soon after, writing began to once again form on its surface. Check the hallway. Curious, a little worried, Twilight walked up to the doors and opened them. The hallway seemed to be empty. Pursing her lips, she took a careful step outside. Then another, looking around for any sign of anything. Then a few more, moving deeper in. Then the doors shut behind her. She immediately turned, and realising what was happening she lit her horn to force the doors open again. She regretted being tricked like that much more than she regretted isolating the various rooms in the castle from teleportation attempts. She began to pull, only lightly at first, and found resistance, but before she could pull harder a voice spoke from the other side. She could only tell it was probably male by the way it sounded. "See you at the clocks, thirty minutes from now." Then the doors gave out, and Twilight managed to catch just hints of what looked like the end of a tail disappearing inside a portal before that, too, vanished from sight. > Reload > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You could at least help me carry all this stuff up the stairs. Especially when half of it is things you decided to buy." Indigo Zap set the two full bags of groceries down on the floor as gently as she could, but it still resulted in a heavy thud from how full they were. She took off her coat and hung it up on the wall-mounted hook by the door. Lemon stared at Indigo while prone on the couch, head propped up on her palms and feet kicked up in the air, smirking like a cat. "Oh, come on, Indy," she teasingly replied, "I'm just letting you exercise." "I can go to the gym if I want to exercise," Indigo replied, beginning to unload the bags of their contents. "And it would probably cost less than having to buy all this stuff." She paused for a moment, reading the info on the back of a bag of candy, then turned to look at Lemon who was getting up from the couch. "How do you even manage to burn through all this stuff and stay that slim?" Lemon shrugged at the question as she walked up to Indigo, who was back to setting things either on top of the table or into the appropriate cupboards. "You could go to the gym, yeah." Lemon waited for Indigo to be standing and facing away from her, then hugged her from behind and slid a hand under the other's clothes, over her abs. "But I wouldn't get to watch you work out then." She gave a small kiss on Indigo's neck. > Recharge > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Lem'!" Indigo chuckled, leaning back into the hug. "At least wait until I'm done with the groceries." She turned her head, planted a kiss on Lemon's nose, then pushed herself forward away from the embrace and went back to taking care of the bags' contents. "Or, you know, help me out with them." Lemon rolled her eyes and fetched a bag of cookies from the closet bag, then carried it to a cupboard and placed it inside. Seeing Indigo was also momentarily bent over, busy with finding a place for the sliced bread to fit, she walked towards her and planted her hands on the back of her hips, then leaned forward with her bust until her head was besides Indigo's. "But Indy, can't the groceries wait? It's not like anyone will see them." "Not the ones that need to go in the fridge." Indigo straightened herself again, pushing Lemon into the same position. The other's hands slid a little lower as a result, but she didn't mind. "Let me at least get to those, okay?" "Oh, fine." Lemon stepped back from Indigo and began to walk back to the couch. "But make it quick, okay?" Indigo shook her head and rolled her eyes, smiling, bending down to grab a couple of chocolate bars from one bag and in doing so dodging a piece of clothing that was sent sailing across the room from where Lemon was. > Restart > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemon pulled the fuzzy blanket a little higher over their shoulders, then let her hand slide under it and wrapped her arm around Indigo's waist. The other was below Lemon's body as she laid on her side, the hand resting on Indigo's hips. "Are you sure you're comfortable?" One arm bent to have her hand under her cheek, Indigo let the other rest over Lemon's, sliding their fingers together. "I'm sure, Lem'," she said, in a tired but affectionate tone. "Are you sure you're comfortable? You're the one sandwiched between my back and the rest of the couch." "Implying I could ever be uncomfortable in a situation that involves being sandwiched between you and something else." Lemon leaned a little forward and gave a playful bite to Indigo's ear. Indigo rolled her eyes. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?" "Especially if it involves being naked," Lemon continued. "We wouldn't need this blanket if you'd just let us get dressed again, you know?" "Yeah," Lemon replied. She pushed herself forward until her chest was pressed against Indigo's back. "Don't pretend you don't like it." Indigo was silent for a moment. "Shut up." Lemon chuckled. "We still haven't done it on the other side of the portal." Indigo blinked. "Do you want to do it on the other side of the portal?" "You know it's me you're talking to, right?" "Yeah. Point taken." Indigo silently pondered her life choices for a few seconds. "I feel like it would be awkward." "Probably, but I wanna see what feathers can do." "We can just buy some feathers." "Not the same." "You could fuck a bird." "Find me a bird half as pretty as you and I'll consider it." Lemon rocked herself and Indigo back and forth. "I'm sure you're curious what a horse's tongue is like, anyway." > Reconstruct > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you going to help me out this time or nah?" Indigo asked, fetching her undershirt from the table and looking at Lemon, still wrapped up in the blanket. Lemon just pouted, pulling the fuzzy cover tighter around her body until she looked like a giant caterpillar. She pouted harder when Indigo actually slid her undershirt on. Indigo rolled her eyes, picked up the rest of her clothes, and put them back on as she began to walk back to the still half full bags waiting for her. Lemon followed her with her eyes, her expression morphing from a pout into an attempt at puppy eyes. After she received no attention, and Indigo had fully dressed back, she cleared her throat to try to get her to look there again, with no results. "I'm still naked in here, you know?" she said, almost annoyed. "And?" Indigo didn't even turn back. Lemon pouted even harder. "I'm still not done, Indy," she complained. "You're almost never done, Lem'. Usually you sooner pass out from exhaustion than call it quits. But the groceries need sorting and I'm not going to wait longer for that. And I'd rather not be exhausted when I get to them." "But I'm right here, and naked!" Lemon went on. Indigo set a can down on the table and finally turned. "Look, I'm not fucking you again until I'm done here, so the most you can do is stop making me lose time and actually help so I get through it sooner." "This is blackmail," Lemon said flatly. "Promise we're not stopping until I say we can?" she asked, hopeful. Indigo rolled her eyes and sighed. "Alright, fine. You help me with the groceries and I promise to fuck you into the ground until you're satisfied afterwards. But we're stopping for dinner. That good enough?" Lemon pondered it for a moment. Just one moment, though. The next she was standing up, discarding the blanket behind her as she headed towards the other. "Seriously?" asked Indigo, staring up and down Lemon's lack of clothes. "Saves time," the girl replied, bending over to reach into one of the bags. Indigo shook her head and looked up at the ceiling, then went back to sorting through what was left of her shopping. > End of the World - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A set of clicks, and the door slid open. Twilight stood up from the bench, and looked at the pony in the doorway. A stallion, as she'd guessed. A unicorn, which was not surprising, given what she'd seen him do. He wore a featureless dark grey cape, tied around his neck, a little tattered at the edges. Stuck too close to his back to possibly be hiding wings by itself, though it did show hints of stuffed full saddlebags hanging from his sides. His coat was a light, dusty shade of brown, his mane short and messy and a touch darker than it. He did have a few grey stripes in there, particularly noticeable in his tail which was fully grey towards the end, and it seemed like there was a hint of some reddish colour to his coat underneath his cape. His hooves were also closer to red than brown. His expression was a bit tired, maybe a bit worried, but seemingly friendly. He gave off a noticeable impression of looking older than he probably was, though Twilight still wasn't sure exactly how old that made him. Perhaps a little younger than her, but probably a little older. His eyes were deep blue, and she could tell they'd seen their fair share of what a regular pony wouldn't. She confirmed he was the same pony she'd seen in her laboratory when he finally spoke, and said to her, "Princess Twilight Sparkle. A pleasure to finally meet you. A shame about the circumstances, though I suppose we might not have met at all otherwise." "And you are the one who snuck past our defence systems and dug a hole in the wall behind my desk," Twilight replied. "I do hope this meeting will clear up some things, and answer all the questions you've been raising with everything you've done so far. Who do I have the pleasure of talking to, exactly?" She kept her horn ready for use, studying the other carefully. "My name hasn't gotten any more relevant," he replied. "And I haven't grown any more willing to share it, if you'll forgive me. I apologise for the commotion I caused in your castle as well. I could have approached the whole thing differently, perhaps, but that's not quite something I can fix now. As for our talk, I'd say we don't have much time, but, well..." He had a look around the room, with its walls full of clocks, and chuckled. "It's rather space we're lacking here. Speaking of which, if you could join me. I'll have an easier time explaining things out here." He stepped back out the door, motioning for Twilight to follow. Still uncertain about the situation, Twilight carefully did follow him outside. "I was meaning to ask why you'd chosen this place, actually." She stepped through the door, and had a look at the mostly black and empty void surrounding the lone chunk of rock on top of which the shop was built. "I suppose I will get an answer to that." It was always weird to stand there, and she tried not to think about how the place shouldn't have had gravity in the first place. She was still a little afraid acknowledging it would make it go away. It would have been a shame to ruin the shop like that. The stallion looked into the distance, towards what if anything Twilight couldn't tell. "Do you know how this place became like this?" he suddenly asked. > End of the World - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked at him. "I don't. I can make a guess, but I wouldn't know the specifics." She looked around, not that there was much for her to look at. "I've never seen anything quite like this. All signs point to some sort of magic being involved, and almost all the worlds we've found have been in some state of ruin, but I couldn't tell you what exactly happened here." "This right here is not the only piece of the planet left," the stallion said, still staring into the distance. "I've managed to find a few others. It turns out at least someone saw it coming before it was here, though there was nothing they could do about it. You can still see it if you get lucky, but I've only spotted it a couple of times." He was silent for a bit, but purposefully just not long enough for Twilight to interject. "They called it the World Eater. I think you can figure out why." Twilight took a moment to process that. She had a few ideas of where the stallion might have been going, and she decided to ask something else she'd been planning to instead, just to see if it did lead down one of those roads. "What about the feather you left us?" "From the Ziz. To be quite frank I left it more for the sake of leaving something than anything else. Of the things I could, it was one of the nicer looking ones, and one of the least useful to me." He turned to Twilight, lifted his cape on one side, and opened his saddlebag. "I've got quite a few things in here. Feathers of a few different varieties, pearls, eyes, claws, other kinds of scales, even a tooth of the World Eater. And a couple of scales from the Behemoth, if you'll forgive me for that," he said, pulling out stuff from his saddlebag. Each item with the same odd, pearly look Twilight was familiar with. The alicorn had been distracted for a moment by what looked like a scar partly visible on the stallion's back, but she'd quickly focused on the items being displayed in front of her. She just stared at them, afraid to touch one or use her magic, until the stallion put them back where they had come from. "How many?" she asked, as she thought about the implications of what she was being told. "Every one," the stallion replied. "As far as I've seen, at least, every world these can take you to has its own Behemoth. They're not in the state you find them in by coincidence, some just have it worse than others. Some have more time before things get bad." Twilight's mind caught on to the first wrinkle in the picture the stallion was painting. "I found a world with no evident damage yet. A world where ponies live." "Ponies still live in your world, too," he replied. "And as far as I know, I might have been able to get to it before the Behemoth did. But I can't confirm that. The point is, it's likely just a matter of time before something shows up in that other one as well. Now we've got something else to talk about, and I'm sure you still have questions you want me to answer." > End of the World - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight took a moment to shake herself out. "Who are you?" she asked. "Just a traveller, and not by choice," the stallion replied. "I would have much preferred never to get involved in this whole thing, but life had other plans for me. My world had its own creature, its own equivalent to the Behemoth. It gave us enough time to study parts of what was happening, enough time to figure out how to travel with our equivalent of scales. And one day, time ran out. Now my old home is an inhabitable wasteland, and everywhere I end up isn't much better. Until I got to your universe, at least." "So you're just jumping from world to world, finding different scale equivalents in each to keep going?" asked Twilight, while the back of her mind was occupied with processing the received information. "Sort of," the stallion replied. "But finding new things is dangerous, nearly impossible in some of the worlds. I can manage to find a few at best, often none at all. In some it's too difficult to bother searching. There's something else to it. It turns out, the world a portal takes you to doesn't depend just on what scale or feather or whatever you use, it's about what universe you're in as well. It makes things complicated, and you end up somewhere you could already get to sometimes, but it still opens up a whole lot of travel possibilities." "How do you keep track of all of them?" Twilight immediately asked. "With every new universe giving you a new set of potential destinations for each previous item, and potentially new ones that also have their own uses in previously accessible universes, even factoring in repeat universes that's still a mountain of data to keep track of." "I have good memory." The stallion smirked. "And lots of practice." Twilight took mental note of the unicorn's smugness, but moved on. "I take it that's how you could get in and out of the castle so easily. I take it you also found a way to direct where a portal ends up when you open it, haven't you?" "That one I'll be glad to teach you." Twilight nodded. She took a deep breath. "What have you managed to figure out about these things?" "From travelling alone across ruins, occasionally of civilisations with languages not my own? Not much. Bits and pieces of what was being figured out before the disasters, in those worlds that had some time to study them. But they all start with the same findings we and you made, I haven't come across any that got particularly further along compared to where we'd gotten. Someone had managed to figure out it was happening across different universes, but now all that's left of those researchers is a few frozen scraps of writing buried underneath a mountain of ice. I saw these creatures called abominations once, the rest of the wall the sentence was carved on had been melted by acid. The only thing every world had enough time to figure out is a name for what was invading them." Swallowing, Twilight decided to get to the question she'd been dancing around for a bit. "So you're saying my world is going to be destroyed, too?" The stallion looked at her. "If we can't figure out a way to prevent it, then yes. Your world will end up like mine, and like all the ones we've seen." The scene darkened, as the impossibly large, half there shape of the sectioned, worm-like creature in the far distance obscured whatever unseen source of light had been illuminating the place. "How much time do we have?" Twilight asked. > Backtracking > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis took a deep breath, watching the Sun rise through the blinds from the window in her stolen room. She'd had her rest for the night, and despite the fact that she'd woken up with still time to spare she hadn't tried to go back to sleep. The nervousness would have kept her up either way. Instead, she'd focused on mentally revising the plans. Both Stella's and her own. The alicorn was still sleeping in the living room. Or as close to sleeping as that thing got, really. Chrysalis had watched her do it a few times, fully aware that Stella knew she was there. It was an unnerving sight, and one she occasionally wondered the origins of. Was Stella able to do that because of what she was and how she'd been created, or had she figured out a way to do it by herself? She certainly was the kind of creature to do something like that. The Sun had gotten a little higher on the horizon. Just a tiny bit. Only a few minutes still left, and then they would leave the house for the last time. The unicorn it belonged to was already out of his pod, already instructed by Stella on what to do. If things went particularly smoothly, they wouldn't even need to run when leaving the castle. But things weren't going to go smoothly, not if Chrysalis had a say in it. Things would start out the same as Stella's plan. They had to, she needed to keep the alicorn as unsuspecting as she could. Once she was out of the scene though, once it came to Chrysalis's part of the equation, she could start diverging from there. Stella had plans for that, of course, but those plans couldn't account for what Chrysalis had learned behind her back. An alarm clock went off in the kitchen, for a single second, and then stopped. The sound of Stella's hooves came from the living room, and Chrysalis didn't wait to get up and walk out of the room. She met with the alicorn in the kitchen, donned her disguise, and then walked out of the house with Stella following close behind her. All in silence, no need to go over the plan again. Because even if she screwed up, Stella had a backup plan, after all. Maybe the alicorn was expecting her to fail in the first place. Maybe it was all just a trap to get rid of her for good, and she'd get stabbed in the back the moment she walked into Twilight's castle again. But that wasn't Stella's style. She wasn't the kind of creature who left things up to chance for the sake of presentation, and she'd made it clear enough why she still kept Chrysalis around. The two of them quietly walked their way to the castle, neither bothered by the cold morning air. Stella was smiling, of course, the same smile she almost always had and Chrysalis had grown to loathe over time. One way or the other, whatever happened that day, she knew at least she would never have to see it again. > Infinity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight sat on the edge of the chunk of rock suspended in the void, looking at the nothingness around her, taking slow deep breaths in and out. From somewhere behind her, she heard a click, then hoofsteps approaching. Starlight sat next to Twilight. For a while, she was silent. Then, finally, she asked, "Nervous?" "Nervous," Twilight agreed. "But that's normal. It's expected. It's okay as long as I don't freak out and do something stupid because of it." Starlight nodded. She was quiet for a little while still, just looking around. "Why here?" "I find it calming," Twilight replied. "With nothing to look at, it's easy to just let go of thoughts for a while. And I like the sound of the clocks." "You do?" Starlight raised an eyebrow. "It all sounds a bit too messy for my tastes." Twilight nodded. "I do, really. I like how regular it is. You can just pretend it's not there, but if you do focus on it it's so well organised." She chuckled. "It's kinda funny how time doesn't really pass here. Something ironic about it, I guess." "I suppose," said Starlight. "Personally I just find all that noise makes me more nervous. Like it's constantly counting down to something, or counting up the time I'm wasting." Twilight smiled. "I understand. I think I'll buy a clock from here, one day." "Buy." Starlight gave a hint of a laugh, deliberately cut short. "I'm not sure if you can call it that, here." "You can't stop me." Starlight smiled too. "Is the spell ready?" "As ready as it's ever going to get." Twilight looked a bit further up, though the patch of black nothingness she was staring at didn't show any particular differences from the one she'd been observing moments before. "At least without testing it. And I suppose that's what I'll be doing." "Still not telling me why you're doing this?" Twilight sighed. "How much time did you spend looking at the portal before you made up your mind about following me in here?" Starlight bit her lower lip. "Enough for someone to ask me if I was okay," she admitted. "But hey, I got in eventually. I'm improving." "Exactly." Twilight put a hoof on one of Starlight's. "And it's precisely because you're improving that I don't intend to bother you with more information than strictly necessary. Not while you're still working on getting better." Starlight pouted in protest. "But I just want to be helpful." "And you'll be more helpful in the long term if you take some time off now and then get back to things when you can give them your all," said Twilight. "It's the better solution overall, and you know it." Starlight held up a vaguely accusatory hoof, blinking as she thought things through. "Curse you and your logic," she spat out, but not without her tone betraying the lack of seriousness behind her words. She sighed, looking into the distance. "I suppose all I can do then is wish you good luck, Twilight." "Thank you," the other replied. "I'm going to need it." > Panic Harder > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ten minutes! Ten fucking minutes!" "Well I wasn't the one in charge of setting up the alarm clock!" "But you are the reason we didn't fall asleep until three in the morning!" Lemon Zest and Indigo Zap rushed along the street, their backpacks jumping against their backs with every step of their run. They barely dodged the people they met along their way, who threw confused looks at them before shaking their heads. "Please tell me you at least picked up the tickets," Indigo said with a hint of panic, one hand having come out empty from her pocket. "I did!" Lemon replied, as cheerfully as she could manage between her pants, holding the train tickets in question up for a moment before sliding them back into her pants. "I think I forgot to put on a bra though." Indigo paid that comment no mind as she crossed the road just a fraction of a second after the lights had turned green for her. "And all because I forgot to charge my damn phone," she muttered under her breath. > End of the World - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stallion was silent for a moment, looking at Twilight, perhaps waiting for the shadow that had fallen over them to move out of the way. "I don't know. Every world is similar, but every world is still different in its details. That yours has already gone so long without any major changes might actually be a good sign, but I can't tell when things will start to get worse. It could be years, in the luckiest of cases. It could be just months. It could be tomorrow. But I frankly doubt it will be that last one." Twilight took a breath in and out. "What's the plan?" "Do you want the bad one or the one you'll refuse to go with?" Twilight hesitated for a moment. The stallion continued to be exactly as smug and annoying as he could rightfully get away with, and she didn't know if she was bothered or amused by it. Though the worry on her mind mostly overshadowed both of those feelings. "Let's hear the second one first," she said. "You find the least inhabitable worlds you can, figure out a way to make it possible to live there, move everyone and everything you can manage to, and leave your old world behind where it can fall apart when the time comes." The unicorn was completely serious as he talked, though he also didn't seem particularly keen on actually following through with what he'd said. Twilight opened and closed her mouth briefly, then finally spoke. If a single word. "That's..." "A logistical nightmare and a very morally questionable choice," the other finished the sentence for her. "Yes," Twilight agreed, "that. We can't possibly move everyone. Especially not all other creatures. And how should we decide who to leave behind? And we can't ask someone to leave behind everything they know, everything they have, to put them into a world that's maybe barely good enough to keep them alive. And that's all assuming we ever find a world with enough resources, even with just ponies... " She paused for a moment. "The solution that would work best is sending a small group and leaving the others behind. Large numbers wouldn't make it either way." "Yeah, it's horrible," said the unicorn. "It's also the only solution that ensures you save at least somebody. As many as you can, ideally, the more and sooner you go in that direction. Everything else you choose to go with means you leave things up to chance. If it works, great, if it doesn't, everyone dies when you at least could have saved some. But you'll take the risk, won't you?" Twilight stared at him, thinking for a moment. "Looking for potentially habitable worlds isn't out of the question, and neither is setting up a last resort plan to start sending creatures to them if things go irreparably wrong. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna try to solve the issue instead of running away from it." "Hope makes creatures do a lot of stupid things," the stallion commented. "But it leads to a lot of great ones as well. And I hope our case will be the latter." > Relax > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "My dreams have been kinda weird, lately. Mostly ice and snow, as far as I remember," Applejack said, taking a sip of hot chocolate from her mug. "Huh." Rainbow took a sip from her own mug. "Might just be the season. Anything else?" Applejack briefly frowned in thought. "Well, there was yesterday's dream. I dreamt I was a cow." Rainbow Dash almost spit out her chocolate. "A cow? That's honestly kind of hilarious. I wish I could have seen that." "Hey now. I was out there saving the world," Applejack replied. "Something about a key or something. You were also there, I think? Not you you though. More like, this weird fire breathing lizard thing that I think my brain was basing off of you." "So a dragon?" asked Rainbow. "No, it didn't really have wings," replied Applejack, shaking her head. "And it had hooves, I'm pretty sure. It was more like a weird scaly dragon horse." "Like a kirin?" "Less horsey and more lizardy than that. No hair, all scales." Applejack drank some more chocolate. "She was also a lot nicer than you, I remember that." Rainbow Dash pouted. A few seconds passed. "Maybe you wouldn't look so bad as a cow. Would I look bad as a cow? I mean I wanna keep the wings, of course, but I was just thinking." "It wasn't really me turned into a cow, it was more like its own cow that also happened to be me. You know, dream stuff and all." Applejack set down her empty mug on the table. "No no, I get that, I'm just saying. If it was us being turned into cows, I think it wouldn't look too bad on you." She took another sip of chocolate, nearly done with it herself. "And I could probably pull it off too. It's me we're talking about, after all. What about the others?" "Well, Rarity's halfway there. Just slap some black spots on her, you're basically done. Reckon she'd make a pretty great cow, actually." Rainbow stared into the distance for a moment, imagining the scene. "She would." She shook herself out. "But there's more to a cow than just colour. We should swap out her horn too." "Hooves as well," Applejack went on, "lots of ponies who forget cow hooves are different. We ought to trim her tail, too." "Oh, and we should probably give her a bell for her neck!" said Rainbow. "And then we could mark her and give her an ear tag." Applejack fell suddenly silent. "'Kay, maybe that's going too far. She's still our friend and all that. Shouldn't treat her like that just because she's turned into cattle. We don't do that stuff with the regular cattle anyway." Rainbow reluctantly nodded, still processing the mental images Applejack had conjured up. "Right. But she would make for a great cow." She forced herself to finish her chocolate so her mouth would stay occupied. "That she would," Applejack agreed with a nod. "Rarity would make for one mighty fine cow indeed." > Meta > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you listening to?" "Oh, this?" Sunset removed one of her earphones and passed it to Twilight. "It's this weird new band I found online, I think they just started to put out stuff. They're called Coldstars. I was just giving them a spin to see what they're about." Twilight took the earphone in her hand and gave a listen. "Huh. You were right about the weird part." "This song is called Justice," Sunset said, looking at her phone for confirmation. "I think at this point I've almost listened to the whole album, there's only a couple songs left. Might as well check those out too." Twilight passed the earphone back to Sunset. "Is all of their music like that? I'm sure it's someone's thing, but probably not mine. I can dig the concept, but the execution leaves me a bit cold." "A couple of them are weirder than that. A couple go into slightly different direction. But in general I'd say that's the style they follow," Sunset said. She didn't put the earphone back in, so she could better listen to what Twilight might say. "I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. It feels very experimental, which I think is warping my opinion a little. Like it's more of its own attempt at something than a proper album." "It might even be just a one person thing," Twilight added. "Synthesised voices and a lack of individual instruments do point in that direction." "There are a couple guitar bits that sound like they were properly recorded, actually, but yeah," Sunset agreed. "Not really good guitar skills or good recording, for that matter. Whoever it is they probably wanna keep their identity secret, considering they don't speak a single word on the whole thing." "Maybe it's some popular musician's secret side project that they'll start teasing the masses about and then it'll explode in popularity just from brand recognition through their name." Sunset shrugged. "Maybe. I'll at least hand it to them on the aesthetic, they keep a pretty consistent style with the lyrics and tone. For as weird as it is it surprisingly delivers on being an album titled Digital Suicide." "Well that's cheerful," Twilight said. "And you haven't seen the cover art. I tried a reverse search and it turned out nothing, so I think they might have taken it themselves," said Sunset, holding up her phone so Twitter could see the picture of a blue rope tied into a noose, resting over a red blanket with an abstract vaguely floral pattern. The girl blinked. "Cool," said Pinkie, who was suddenly there. Neither Twilight nor Sunset jumped at that, but both wondered if it was really a good thing that they'd gotten used to things like it. "Nice stockings," Sunset commented, looking at what she could see between Pinkie's skirt and boots. "Didn't take you for one to wear black like that, but they look nice on you." She did not put into question Pinkie wearing a skirt and exposed stockings during winter, either. > Home Coming > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her decision had been set already, but had that not been the case Chrysalis still would have found it made it for her by time as Twilight Sparkle walked back out of the portal. Or, more properly perhaps, stumbled out of it. The changeling was on edge for a moment, fearing there might be something else about to spring out behind the alicorn. But having a better look at things she realised Twilight wasn't in any rush. She wasn't being chased, or followed. But she still was clearly nervous, shaken, the cause of it unclear. Perhaps more out of curiosity for that fact than for the sake of keeping up the role she was playing, Chrysalis got up from her seat and carefully approached the pony. "Princess, is everything okay?" she asked, only when she was close enough for only Twilight to properly hear her. "Depends on your definition of okay," Twilight said at first. But then she shook her head, and Chrysalis could notice her posture shift as well. "I'm safe, and everything went well in there." She closed the portal, and took the scale in her hooves, shaking just the tiniest amount. Wondering if a regular pony would have even noticed that, Chrysalis asked, "Is there something wrong? You seem nervous." She softly placed a hoof over Twilight's back, something she knew ponies found to be a comforting gesture for whatever reason. She'd only ever seen it as a bother, something to block her wings and nothing else. But perhaps it was a matter of different anatomical dispositions and details. Realising what kind of look she still had on her face, Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out. It seemed to mostly calm her down. "It's about something I saw," she answered, begging to walk away from the centre of the laboratory. "I will have to discuss this with Starlight." Trying to follow her without making the action look out of place, Chrysalis asked, "Would it help if you talked about it now?" Twilight stopped and looked back, smiling. "I appreciate the concern, but it wouldn't. It's best if I review the information first. Not that I don't trust you, but I don't want to involve others into this more than necessary. This could be dangerous, and I would rather keep the risks at minimum. Thank you for your assistance." And with that she turned and walked away, noticeably, if only a little, walking faster than she usually would. > Another Stone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Standing in front of the door to the laboratory, after walking through the crystal corridors of the castle, Chrysalis once more watched Stellaria walk away from her and towards the room where scales were kept. All according to plan. To both of them, really. Once the alicorn had disappeared from view, the disguised changeling waited a moment longer, then opened the doors quietly walked inside. She was greeted by a few looks and nods from the other ponies in the room, and a bit surpringly to her one of those ponies happened to be Twilight Sparkle. She seemed intent on going through a couple of books at once, but still stopped to wave at her with a smile. Chrysalis approached her, curious about whether the alicorn had something to say. "Princess. You seem to be doing better today," she said, once she was close enough. And it was true, there was a noticeable lack of shaking in the pony. Twilight nodded. "A good night of sleep and a good breakfast go a long way to improve your mood. I'm sorry if I ended our conversation a little abruptly yesterday, I know you were just trying to help." "Of course," Chrysalis replied. "I understand, I wasn't bothered by it." That was a lie, and she made sure to make it sound somewhat like one. The stallion she was pretending to be probably would have been bothered, if not as much as she'd been. Twilight seemed to catch on. Still, she didn't budge to Chrysalis's unspoken request. Quite the opposite. "Well, everything went well and it's all over for now. Thank you again for your help. You can get back to your work now, I won't keep you." She focused back on her books. Chrysalis hesitated for a moment, then nodded, and walked back to her assigned table. She forced herself to ignore the questions she still had. She had more important things to focus on, she couldn't afford distractions. The first half of the morning played out as normal, and as planned by both Chrysalis and Stella. It played out as if Chrysalis hadn't even been replacing a pony, with her just doing his job for him, and thankfully nothing came up that she wasn't prepared to deal with. She was waiting for a signal, to spring things into action. And the signal did come, in a rather unexpected manner. Starlight Glimmer walked into the laboratory, holding a scale and a notepad. Evidently, she was back from her trip. Then, a little bit more waiting. Starlight talked to Twilight, a portal was opened from the scale, the unicorn travelled in and out of it and the two of them talked some more. Notes were taken, as far as Chrysalis could see. It was when the portal was closed that the changeling finally began to act, instead of simply observing. She stood up, and carefully followed Twilight towards the door, as the alicorn headed for it with the scale held in a wing. Starlight remained inside. Twilight noticed Chrysalis, but stayed silent until the two of them were out of the room. Once they were, though, she turned and asked, "Is something wrong?" Chrysalis hesitated for a moment. The original plan, Stella's plan, demanded she keep whoever was going to bring the scale back busy. The alicorn was likely already inside the room where the scales were kept, and just needed time to break out of there. Her plan was a tad different. "Let's keep walking while we talk," she said. Twilight slowly nodded, and began to walk again. "Sure. What is this about?" Chrysalis followed behind her. "Have there been any reports or signs of someone trying to break inside the castle, or trying to take anything?" > Upon The Monument > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight seemed to have a reaction to that, a small twitch, but she kept on walking without looking back towards Chrysalis. "Why do you ask?" Chrysalis walked a little faster, to be at her side as she spoke. "Someone tried to break into my house, yesterday. Or at least I think that's what happened. I heard sounds during the night, and in the morning I found signs against the door and near the windows, like someone had tried to force them open." "Are you sure it wasn't just some wild animal?" "So far from the forest? Someone else would have noticed it too. And no other houses had any signs, I checked," Chrysalis replied. "I'd taken home copies of some test results to check them over again. I think someone might have noticed that." Twilight shook her head. "I think you're being paranoid. Why would anyone do something like that?" But her expression was uncertain, and Chrysalis could see that. "Princess, you should know better than all of us that not every creature is as nice as we would wish them to be," Chrysalis replied. "The research conducted in the laboratories here could be very dangerous in the wrong hooves. There must be someone out there who wants it for themselves, we can't rely only on the good will of those who enter these walls." "We have security measures," Twilight replied, almost snapping back. "But are they enough?" asked Chrysalis. Twilight was silent for a few moments. Just enough for them to reach their destination. "I suppose, perhaps we could tighten security further. I didn't want it to feel like another burden on those working here, but you do have a point." She began to cast the necessary spells to open the door to the room where scales were stored. Chrysalis didn't listen to her. She'd gone tense the moment she'd looked up and seen the door, and she was forcing herself to be ready for what was coming through her building unease. One mistake and it could all be over for her, but that was why she needed to be focused. She took deep breaths, quietly readied the spell in her horn, and waited as Twilight opened the door. She almost fired as the inside was revealed to her. As she'd planned. But something stopped her. Not anything she saw though. There was nothing to see inside the room anyway, even if that wasn't unexpected. A second more of nothing, as Twilight began to walk in, it would have been just enough for Chrysalis to consider casting the spell anyway just to get rid of one purple alicorn. If she'd actually been paying attention to that still. But she'd been frozen in place from the moment the door had finished opening, not for something she'd seen but for something she'd heard. "I'd be disappointed, if it hadn't been so predictable." It almost sounded like Twilight had spoken, but Chrysalis had learned to tell the difference. And she'd learned what to expect from the tone the words had been spoken in. She'd never learned how to take it, though. And as she was slammed against the nearest wall, every nerve and muscle and bone in her body burning with agony, the only thing she could do was scream, and pretend her tears were just a result of the pain. Twilight turned in time to see Chrysalis fall to the ground, her disguise coming undone. An instant later, a scale landed next to the changeling, and a portal opened from it, swallowing Chrysalis. > To The Sins > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis wasn't sure if having smacked against the cold stone floor had done more to jolt her out of her shock or worsen it, but either way the adrenaline rushing through her body did enough to get her to stand up again almost immediately. She'd seen the portal open near her, even if it had taken a moment for her to process the information. Going back through it was not an option, not when Twilight and, worse, Twilight's clone were right there on the other side. Her first instinct was to transform again. Try to hide from whoever was about to follow her, and whatever was already on that side. It backfired. The moment she tried to use her powers, pain once again surged through every part of her, making her scream and almost fall on her knees. Her second instinct, once she'd recovered from the consequences of the first, was to run. She spotted the only door leading out of the poorly lit room, one she realised to be a largely barren bedroom possibly somewhere underground, and made a dash for it. The corridor outside was just as poorly lit, slightly cold and oddly humid. The lack of windows and the stone walls again made her guess she was somewhere underground. She looked for any other doors, seeing only one up ahead and to her left before sounds behind her alerted her that someone else had stepped through the portal. "Chrysalis?" she heard Twilight's voice call, but she was already running to the next door. She couldn't even be sure it was the real Twilight at that point. But maybe, if things went well, she could still get something out of the situation. Maybe. Maybe there was still hope for something. But Chrysalis wasn't thinking as she pushed open the door. Twilight would try to take her back. And she couldn't go back. Not right then. Maybe in a while, maybe the other would have gone away eventually, but not right then. The room Chrysalis entered looked like a laboratory of sorts. A table with some kind of machinery hanging over it, a glass wall separating the room from an adjacent one, what looked like magical detectors of some sort on the wall opposite that. In front of her another door, metal instead of wooden like the previous two. She ran towards it. Locked. "Chrysalis!" Twilight called, more insistently. "We need to get out of here! You don't understand, this is dangerous!" She stepped past the door Chrysalis had run in through, and her eyes focused on the changeling. Her breath was short, her legs almost shaking. "I don't know what's happening, or why you're here, but we need to get away from this place. Now." Chrysalis stood with her back pressed to the door, eyes darting around the room, breath heavy as her heart pounded against her chest. She was trapped, with nowhere to go, and an opponent she couldn't hope to do anything against. She couldn't even use her magic in her conditions. But maybe... Twilight didn't seem to be planning to harm her, right then. Maybe they could just talk, maybe she'd listen, maybe Stella wasn't there anymore and- "She's right, you know? You really should be leaving this place." Chrysalis's eyes shrunk to the size of needle holes, and her heart might as well have stopped. The next moment she was running again, as the machines above the table shattered in a shower of black sparks and an alarm blared off. She ran through the cascade of magical discharges, uncaring of how it singed her chitin. She ran past Twilight, shoving her aside as the alicorn covered her eyes to shield them from the explosion in front of her. She ran away from the room, away from that voice, and in her haste didn't even notice the ponies rushing in on the other side of the glass wall. She ran through the corridor, back into the room, and back through the portal, Twilight running behind her. And when she emerged, just for a second, she saw Stella again, smiling in front of her. Then the alicorn disappeared from view once more. > Of Shortsighted Fools > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chrysalis stumbled back, confused and frightened. "But don't think this side is safe for you either." She started running down the corridor, as Twilight reappeared out of the portal behind her. She ignored the few ponies who noticed her running, intent only on making it to the castle's doors. Wanting only to leave. But she skidded to a halt as those doors came into view, as lying down in front of them was Stellaria, her horn lit and a smirk on her face. Her breath barely distinguishable from a spasmodic twitch of her body at that point, Chrysalis muttered something that didn't quite amount to words, and turned around to run in the opposite direction. She saw the real Twilight coming down the hallway towards her, but she didn't care about her. She did care about Stella, who suddenly appeared again, leaning against a wall about halfway between her and Twilight and looking at the changeling with her same usual smile. Chrysalis, desperate, dove into the first door she found and stumbled into the laboratory. She all but crashed into a table, and tumbled to the floor, shaking, muttering incoherent sounds. She heard ponies rushing around her, some towards her and others away from her. But the first face that popped into her field of vision, replacing the view of the ceiling that filled her eyes, was one she knew well. Starlight leaned down towards the changeling's face, eyes wide and confused, asking incredulous, "Chrysalis?" Still panting, her heart still beating way too fast, Chrysalis tried to untangle herself from her own limbs. Her head and horn hurt, and she was confident she'd bent one of her wings at one point or another. She tried to speak, not an easy task through her clattering teeth and her general shaking. But she did manage to force out something. "Help me," she pushed out between stammers, as the doors to the laboratory opened again and Twilight walked in, calling her name. "Please, help me." Starlight's expression grew more confused, but there was something else too in her eyes. She was willing to help the changeling, seeing her in that state. Chrysalis never had a chance to notice that, though. Another face entered her vision, a familiar smile on it, and she began to scream and kick out as she tried to get back to her hooves. "They can't save you, you know? Not from me." Chrysalis was standing again, hyperventilating as she looked around the room. Starlight had reeled back, and held a hoof over her nose, where one of Chrysalis's kicks had connected. Twilight was in front of the exit, wings and front legs spread, horn ready. "Do you really want to stay here, mommy? I don't mind. We can have so much fun playing together," the voice rang in Chrysalis's ears alone. She might have screamed, in another situation. But all that came out of her mouth was a croaking, hoarse and desperate hiss, her throat too dry for any yelling. She stumbled and stared around, like a drunk pony who doesn't even know where they are anymore. And then she saw the light. Paying no heed to Starlight's scream, nor to the banging of Twilight's hooves, Chrysalis stepped through the portal in front of her. > You Are Welcome In It > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her nose still hurting, an unmistakable wet feeling along her face and her hoof telling her it was starting to drip blood, it took Starlight a moment to get a better, proper look at the scene. Chrysalis was still there, still probably not in a right state of mind if her actions were any indication, and she was currently staring down Twilight, who was blocking the door. The changeling seemed to just look around for a moment, her expression hard to decipher. Before anyone could say anything, though, she was acting again. A green dome of energy appeared around her, slightly distorting the view of what was inside, and just for a fraction of a second Starlight noticed the glint of a scale showing itself on the floor in front of the changeling. Evidently, something she'd taken with her. A green beam of magic fired from the tip of Chrysalis's horn, and the portal opened in front of her. Chrysalis began to walk, slowly, towards the portal. No other spells cast on herself, no signs of the rush she was in a moment before. Twilight banged with her hooves and her magic against the shield, to no avail. "She's probably taken that from storage. I have no idea what's on the other side!" the alicorn told Starlight, while Chrysalis still kept on walking, as if hypnotised by the light in front of her. Starlight screamed at the changeling to stop, as her magic too wrapped around the bubble in an attempt to break it down. It did nothing. A moment later, Chrysalis had disappeared, and the green dome shattered in a shower of sparks. Without even thinking about it, Starlight rushed to the portal, casting the protective spells she'd by then memorised on herself. Her first impression of the other side was that it was blindingly loud. Only after a second or so did she realise there was no sound, and what she thought she was hearing was all in her head. The spells partly protected her from the mental assault. Chrysalis, standing a few metres ahead of her, did not have the same luck. And looking a little farther, Starlight could see the apparent source of the chaos ringing in her head. It stood taller than the castle they'd just left, an ill-defined mass that blocked out the Sun and seemed to shift in and out of existence. It looked vaguely like it should have been a head of some kind, though Starlight couldn't identify any features on it. Between the confusion assaulting her mind and the creature's own waning nature, she couldn't really focus on it at all. She tried, instead, to run her gaze down the creature's body, only to realise that it was one with the ground she was standing on. It was made up of fibers or tubes, somewhat reminiscent of an exposed muscle or a collection of pipes, and it looked like a combination of flesh and bone, rock, tree bark and grass, all the same sickly and rotten grey colour. The sounds in her mind shifted, and she realised there was something different about them. She focused on Chrysalis again, and watched the changeling walk closer and closer to the creature. In her head she could hear a different kind of sound, less chaotic, separated from the maelstrom of confusion that still raged on. Almost pleading in its tone. Starlight tried to move, or reach out with her magic, but found it led only to fits of pain that left her stuck in place. And so all she could do was watch, and listen. As Chrysalis stepped closer and closer to the creature, the two voices in her mind, one distinctly singular, the other like an orchestra of different entities speaking in unison as a cacophony of screams, kept on what seemed oddly like a conversation, though they also reminded her of two singers trying to get in tune with one another. Chrysalis took another step. Her hoof touched the creature. The two voices in Starlight's mind spoke as one. Then, the scream, lacerating in its intensity and pitch, as Chrysalis's hoof melded into the creature's body and the rest of her was forcefully pulled inside, despite her struggles. Starlight stood there, frozen in place, as she watched Chrysalis's body disappear, and witnessed her mind being swallowed by the creature's. Then a pair of hooves wrapped around her, just as the creature was turning towards her, and she was dragged away back out of the portal. > Collision Course > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Aren't you excited, Star? Another round of work, another chance to feel the thrill of constantly being in a life or death situation. Doesn't all this adrenaline make you feel alive?" The stallion slumped down into his chair. "I'm pretty sure that's the coffee you're feeling, not the adrenaline. And in five minutes it'll be gone and you'll be just as happy as I am." The mare rolled her eyes. "Why do you always have to be such a downer?" "We're expected to take an experiment that in all likelihood succeeded only out of sheer luck, one which we couldn't properly measure, devise an updated version that produces better results and then replicate it dozens if not hundreds of times. And if we fail, we'll most likely be the next test subjects. Remind me again why we should be happy?" He looked up at her from his position. "We haven't failed at that yet, for one," she replied. "I thought failing at what we were trying to do so far and killing someone as a result was bad enough. Then I realised succeeding means we still in all likelihood mentally killed the pony on that table, but instead of a pile of rotten goop we've put a monster into the world. Oh, right, did I mention we've killed ponies?" "Shut up." "What? Suddenly unhappy with-" "Shut." The mare placed a hoof in front of his mouth, and spoke again, her tone down to almost a whisper. "I think I hear something." The stallion perked up his ears. "Is it coming from the lab?" he asked, also whispering, a sudden frown on his face. "Seems so. Are these hoofsteps?" asked the mare, carefully beginning to walk towards the door to the next room. "No one's supposed to be there." The stallion got up and quietly followed her. The mare put an ear to the door. "I think I definitely hear something. And not just machinery creaking. Are these..." She lit her horn and levitated the door's key from the table. "It almost sounds like voices in there." Then the alarm went off, alongside an unmistakable sound of something exploding and glass shattering. Both unicorns jumped back in surprise, and the mare fumbled with the key before finally managing to push it into the lock and turn it. The door opened, and they both rushed inside, just in time to see a tall, black and green figure running out of the nearby room, shoving aside a purple alicorn who turned to follow her a moment later. The machinery hanging from the ceiling, now reduced to hundreds of fragments on the table and floor, had been the evident cause of the alarm. "What the fuck was that?" asked the mare, while the stallion teleported both of them on the other side of the glass wall. Carefully stepping around any particularly jagged chunk of broken magical equipment, the two made their way into the corridor the intruders had left through. They both dashed to the door at the end of it, in the direction they'd heard the others run towards, but once inside they found the bedroom empty. They both paused, panting for breath. "Well. Sure am feeling that adrenaline now, Sun," said the stallion, as the alarm still looped on its sound in the laboratory they'd come from. > Misery > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight studied the door in front of her for a moment. She looked left and right, making sure no one else was nearby, then opened it and stepped through. She closed it behind her, magically locking it again and hoping no one would notice any differences. She'd checked as best as she could that the spells would match up with the previous ones, and she was fairly certain she'd done a good job there, she just wasn't sure if she'd missed something. No alarms had seemed to go off, at least. She walked farther inside, carefully taking one step after the other as her eyes got used to the low light of the room she was in. She didn't plan to cast any light spells. Masking her own shadows was hard enough, properly making the light she'd cast and its results invisible would have been an extremely complicated task. Blinking as she got used to the darkness, she realised she was inside some sort of small storage room. Very narrow and short, made even more cramped by the shelves on every wall except the one with the door. The space she could walk on wasn't much larger than the door itself had been, and only about three times as long as it was wide. But Twilight knew it had to be more than just storage. They wouldn't have gone through the trouble of boarding up the door with so many spells if all it was protecting had been a bunch of bottles and jars and boxes. It was another layer of security, in case someone managed to get in there by accident. She just needed to keep looking. And keep looking she did. It didn't take too long, not with her magic scanning over the shelves' contents and the walls. There was no magical switch, interestingly, but she still detected the empty space behind the wall opposite from her. A few seconds of fidgeting around later, she found the mechanism holding the fake wall and the shelf attached to it in place, and pushed it open. The space beyond was even darker, though the hints of light she could see if she looked down made it clear that she was standing at the top of a narrow spiral staircase that plunged into the ground. Stepping forward and down the first few steps, Twilight closed the fake wall behind her, and began her descent. > Training > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemon Zest and Indigo Zap both lay against the wall, panting, as the doors slid closed and the train began to move. "See?" asked the first, weakly throwing her hands up in what was supposed to look like a cheer. "We made it in time, after all." Indigo shot her a glare only half annoyed, though she wasn't sure if it was tempered by her feelings for the girl or simply by her momentary exhaustion. "This much panting and running in this cold isn't exactly healthy," she simply said, moving on the conversation. "You don't need to always worry about things being healthy all the time," Lemon replied, running a hand through her hair to straighten it out. "And if you really cared you'd have fully quit drinking." "Drinking makes me forget that drinking is unhealthy. And I can manage, as long as I don't do it as often as I used to. And as long as I don't get as drunk as I used to." The forced run minutes after waking up may have put a strain on Indigo, but she was still an athlete, and she was recovering from it far quicker than her friend. "And you're one to talk. I'm not the one buying cigarettes." "I only did it-" Lemon was cut off by her own panting, and she held a hand up to keep Indigo paused as she reached for a bottle of water in her backpack. Once she was done drinking, she resumed. "Once. I only did it once. And I haven't smoked them yet. I don't plan to." "And why did you buy them?" Indigo quirked an eyebrow as she asked that. "Why would you not buy a pack of cigarettes when you're not someone who smokes?" Lemon asked back, as if she'd just been questioned on the most logical thing in the world. She was doing better and panting less. Knowing her, Indigo suspected she'd laced her water with sugar. Which brought her to her next point. "You're also practically drowning yourself in the least healthy sweets imaginable." Lemon shrugged. "Doesn't seem to be hurting too bad." She ran a hand over her waist for emphasis. "Your metabolism will betray you sooner or later," Indigo shot back. "You'll wake up the day after your thirtieth birthday and everything you stuffed into your mouth the day before will still be there, and from then you'll know suffering." "I could just not make it to thirty," Lemon replied. Before Indigo had time to worry too much, she added, "Or take a candle or two off the cake. I'm sure I can fool the universe for a while." "The years'll keep passing anyway," said Indigo. "Gonna be hard to fool people on that, especially if we continue to meet up to celebrate. Unless next year you actually do manage to make us lose our train." "It was my fault only mildly more than yours," Lemon said. "Still, sorry. Wanna find a place to sit down or do you plan to spend the whole ride standing here?" Indigo thought about it, then shrugged. "I suppose. If I have to listen to you ramble on until we get to Sunny's place, I might as well be comfortable along the way." > RRtR > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This seat isn't occupied, right?" The unicorn sitting next to the window looked up at the mare who'd asked the question. "Oh, no. Feel free to sit here." He moved slightly aside to free up some more space. As the train began to move, the mare sat down, setting her beige briefcase between her hooves. "Lovely weather today, isn't it?" The unicorn looked back to her, a little surprised she was so suddenly initiating a conversation. "I suppose so." "I do quite like this part of the year," the mare went on. "Not many bugs around anymore. What brings you away from Ponyville?" She turned to the stallion. He, again, looked taken a little aback by the mare's continued attempts to push the discussion, but after a moment decided to go along with it. "I'm, uh, visiting my parents. I haven't seen them in a while." He was silent for a second. "What about you?" he then asked, trying to play his own part in the discourse. "I had some business to take care of in town," the mare replied. "Now that's done." A pause. "I did see my mother as well. She doesn't actually live here, but I thought I could take her along, as a sort of vacation. To catch up on all the time we'd missed. And I'd always wanted to see the castle up close, so it was nice to get to do that as well." "I see," said the unicorn. "Where to now, then?" The mare seemed to legitimately ponder the question, pressing her lips together and humming for a moment or two. "There's an old friend of mine I haven't seen in a while. I might decide to pay him a visit. I still have business to do, and he lives somewhat far from here, but I should have time. It might still take a while before I see the consequences of what I was up to here, and business cannot quite procede before then." The stallion looked curious. "May I ask what it is you were doing in Ponyville?" "You may," answered the mare with a smile. It turned into a grin. "Don't expect an answer though." The unicorn wasn't sure if he was supposed to take it as a joke or as a rude jab, but he decided to go with the former and shook his head. "How was seeing the castle up close, then?" The mare shrugged. "Nothing special, really. Not bad, I suppose, but it could certainly be better. Though I find it more interesting for its nature than for its architecture and looks, if I have to be sincere. Sadly, there is not much one can research on the topic. Especially not now that it is being used as a laboratory." "It used to be Princess Twilight's personal residence before that," replied the stallion, "I doubt ponies were simply allowed in and out back then." "True, perhaps." The mare dismissively waved a hoof. "But I'm sure she would have allowed curious researchers such as myself a look inside. And perhaps some testing as well. I suppose that will have to wait a while still, then." > Made of Candy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've been seeing things is how I would put it, I guess." Twilight took note. "What kind of things? Visions? Places, or creatures, or something else entirely?" she asked. "Ponies, mostly," Sweetie Belle replied, "though I think it might just be creatures in general. They seem to be right there, like ghosts. Sometimes there's a bit more around them, objects they carry or some parts of the ground they walk on, but usually it's just ponies." Twilight noted that down as well. "And these visions, do they talk to you? Interact with you in any way? Does it look like they're trying to share some sort of message with you?" Sweetie shook her head. "No. The opposite, actually. They don't even seem to acknowledge that I'm there. Like they're just going on about their mundane, daily business. Only what they're doing makes no sense where I see them." "Do you know these ponies you see?" Twilight asked on. "Sometimes yes, actually," answered Sweetie Belle. "I saw you once, for example. Just walking down the road. And Pinkie, I think she was spinning around with some plates, that same time. I've also seen Apple Bloom a couple of times." Twilight wrote down some more notes. "When and where do these visions present themselves to you?" She looked up from her notes and towards the unicorn. "There doesn't seem to be any constant there." Sweetie paused for a moment, thinking about things. "Sometimes it'll be when I'm walking around, other times when I'm having lunch or dinner, occasionally when I'm in bed before falling asleep. They just happen whenever and wherever." "I see." Twilight looked over the notes she'd taken. "You briefly touched on what ponies are usually doing in your visions, and how that doesn't make sense with where you see them. Can you elaborate?" "It's like I said. It's all normal stuff, but it feels like it's taken out of context. Like I'm seeing only a part of a scene." Sweetie pursed her lips, trying to think of how to put thoughts into words, and Twilight couldn't help but think the way she did it reminded her of Rarity. "It's like I'm getting to see only one specific pony do something, without the world around them. But they're not really there where I see them, so I end up with ponies going through things or walking into walls. And sometimes I'll see them touch something, or talk to someone, but I can't see what they're interacting with. Like an actor's performance ripped out of a play and put into another, without changing it in any way. They don't belong there." Twilight nodded again, and took a few more notes. "It's a bit early to tell, we will need to test it first. And for that we'll need to figure out how exactly it's supposed to work, and what it is you're seeing. But there's definitely a possibility here." She looked up at Sweetie Belle. "I want you to keep a full report of every vision you have. Write down the time and place, and as detailed a description of what the creature you see is doing as you can. I'll see you a week from now, same time." The unicorn nodded once. "Understood." > Tra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Don't you think that carpet has a crease in it?" The second guard looked in the direction the first was pointing at with his head. "Maybe? It might not." "I think it does." "It might, but I'd need to go there and check if I wanted to know for sure. I'm not doing that." "Why?" The first guard looked at the second. "Do you have anything better to do?" "Sitting," the other guard replied. "As a matter of fact, I do prefer sitting here, yes. Why don't you go check?" The stallion looked at the two of them. "You'll need to get up if you want me to go check. And I don't want to walk there. Why don't you go? And anyway, it looks pretty clear to me. If you want to argue it's not creased you're the one who should check." The second unicorn rolled his eyes. "I swear, I might go check just so it means I don't have to listen to you for a while." "I'm just saying they did a pretty poor job putting this thing down if that's the case. They'll need to take off the whole thing and put it down again, it's all glued to the floor and tucked in at the sides. They'll have to redo the whole carriage," said the first. "Or they could just not," said his friend. "Putting aside how it's probably not even creased, what if it is? It's no big deal." "No way," said the other, shaking his head. "That's right in the middle of the passage. What if somebody trips over it? They can't have that happening." That got him a look. "Do you plan to keep this up the whole trip?" "I'm just trying to look out for the safety of others," the unicorn replied. The other unicorn rubbed his forehead. "Did I have to be sent to Ponyville with you? What are we being sent there for, again? I get we're guarding the castle, by why now?" "Increased security," replied the first guard. "Apparently, though this is just rumours I've heard, there was some sort of incident there. Someone sneaking in. Some say stuff got stolen, others disagree. Either way, it's apparently what convinced Princess Twilight to finally get tighter security on the place. And that includes us!" "Should we tell them they got the wrong stallions for the job?" The first unicorn threw him a look. "Come on now. We're great at what we do." "We have an absolutely abysmal track record," replied the guard. "As far as the two of us are concerned, every single attack on Canterlot that we got to stand against was successful, and they all got through us pretty easily actually." "Those are the ones that succeeded against all the rest of the guards too. It's just bad luck. And we were inside the castle, the only stuff that got to us was what had already gotten past the outer layers." "I'm still not the happiest about that time a filly smacked me around and threw me out of the place." "That filly was an alicorn," replied the unicorn. "And a psychopath," he added after a moment. "I'm just happy being thrown out was all she did with us." > You may have noticed a number of recent chapters take place on trains. This was a coincidence, but at this point we might as well have another. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is that Princess Twilight Sparkle?" asked the mare, leaning slightly out of her seat yet at the same time holding back, as if she was afraid of being spotted. The pegasus sitting at her side also tried to get a look, though he found himself partly inconvenienced by the mare's movements. "I believe so," he said, when he finally managed to push his head far enough to the side. He looked around a little longer. "And those seem to be her guards. I'd say that's probably her, yes." "What do you think she's here for?" asked the mare, a quiver in her voice. "Well, I wouldn't know that." The stallion turned, and noticed the mare was shaking. "Are you okay?" he asked, suddenly worried, leaning closer to her. The mare had meanwhile retreated into the corner of her seat, and looked like she was trying to wedge herself into it. She looked up, teeth clattering a bit. "Y-Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little cold." "Do you want me to fetch you a blanket or something?" The stallion drew back, ready to stand up and reach for his suitcase, but he was stopped by the mare grabbing him with a hoof. "No, it's not a problem, really. It'll pass in just a bit, I'm sure," she said, still shaking but making an effort to stop it. Reluctantly, the stallion returned to his regular sitting position. He kept his eyes on the mare, but seeing she did seem to be shaking less decided she was probably going to be alright. He looked towards Twilight again. "Actually, do you think she's here to see about that business with the bridge, and then the town hall?" "Maybe." The mare seemed to have picked up shaking again, just a bit. "It's been a while since that happened, hasn't it? You'd expect she'd have come here sooner if that was the reason." "She's a busy mare," the stallion replied. "I'm sure she had more important things to take care of. And maybe the news didn't get to her until recently. The town was probably trying to deal with things by themselves, they might have decided not to bother her." "So you think it wasn't something worth her attention?" There had been a weird, sudden shift in the mare's tone. From shaky, it had jumped to being snappy, sounding almost annoyed or offended. Her expression was also slightly different, an odd mix of the one she'd had until just a moment before and one more fitting her new apparent mood. The stallion was a little taken aback by the unexpected change. "Well, no, not what I was saying. If she's here now for it she clearly thinks it is worth her time. Maybe whoever didn't tell her before didn't, but they were wrong." The mare seemed to have calmed down. "You're right. I suppose you're right. I'm sorry, this whole business has had me nervous for a while. You understand, I'm sure." She looked to the opposite side, at the wall and the window and the fields strolling by outside. "But now Princess Twilight is here to settle things right." She giggled. "Princess Twilight herself is here for that." > HBL > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So it's really today, huh?" "History may have forgotten, but I haven't. Not yet. I think. I may have developed dementia and gotten it wrong though, I wouldn't know. You should ask Luna, she's a little less likely to have gone senile." "Oh, shut it, you. Happy birthday." "Thank you, Twilight." Celestia was silent for a moment, but a quiver ran along her lips. "You too." Twilight took pause. "I am tempted to throw your present away now. You don't know how much." > Hurrycane > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight felt herself being dragged out of the portal. She saw it close a moment later, as the laboratory around her came back into view. But she wasn't paying attention to that. Her vision was blurry, her mind unfocused. Her breath wasn't jerky, or any quicker than normal. Simply she felt distant, detached, suddenly a spectator to her own life. Watching things happen too fast for her to react. She lay there on the cold floor, staring at nothing, thoughts drifting in and out too fast for her mind to register them. Twilight was at her side. Worried, leaning down, shaking her slightly. "Are you okay? Did something happen to you?" she asked, as if those were important things. Starlight felt herself nod, and answered that yes, she was okay. Or something to that effect, anyway. She didn't hear the exact words, she wasn't paying attention. She wasn't paying attention to anything. She didn't know if she could, and she knew she didn't want to. Twilight helped her stand up, and Starlight managed to stay straight more out of courtesy to her friend than anything else. It would have felt impolite to collapse down, and she didn't want to bother Twilight. So she stood there, motionless for a bit, until it occurred to her that perhaps she was obstructing the passage. That, too, felt awfully impolite, and so Starlight slowly moved to a side until she met a wall. Twilight wasn't in the room anymore. She'd run out at some point. There were other ponies running, or at least walking faster than normal. They got in and out of the room, and talked to each other, and occasionally one of them looked at her. Then they looked away. Starlight just sat there. She wasn't sure for how long. Twilight had walked back into the room at some point, and she was discussing with a few others. Starlight thought that maybe she should have been part of the discussion too. But she wasn't getting up, so clearly that wasn't what would happen. Starlight thought for a moment that it seemed like rather poor writing on whoever was in charge of dictating the events she was witnessing's part, but it was only for a moment, and she forgot about it soon after. The sky was red outside the window. Sunset red. Not the unicorn. She was pretty sure it had been morning before. She was pretty sure the window she was looking out of wasn't in the laboratory, either. Evidently, she'd walked out of it. Evidently, some time had passed. Twilight approached her, again. Twilight asked her if she was okay, again. Again, Starlight said that she was. It wasn't technically a lie. The mind watching things play out was quite well, if a little disoriented. The body carrying her around was well and healthy. She'd stop being okay the moment the two synced back up with each other, true, but that wasn't then. Not yet, at least. Just for a while longer, not yet. > Preproduction > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh, great! Absolutely fantastic," half-yelled Lemon, in a tone so drenched with sarcasm Indigo could have sworn she heard it dripping onto the floor. "Is everything okay?" "Define what you mean by okay," Lemon replied, without looking away from her screen. Indigo walked up to her. "Did you lose some files or something?" she asked. Lemon shook her head. "Nah. Thank goodness, not that yet. Just the website I needed to use is down now. Maintenance, apparently, which they did not announce, and of course it had to happen right the day I decided to get working on this thing. Wonderful, eh?" She looked up at Indigo. "It is what it is," Indigo replied. "What site is this, anyway? What did you need it for?" Lemon drew slightly back, turned her screen a bit, and stuck out her tongue. "Not telling you. It's a surprise." Indigo lifted an eyebrow. "Huh. Alright, then. I'll go have a shower now, don't set the place on fire while I'm gone. Again." She turned, and walked away from the table. "It was an accident!" Lemon's yell chased her. > Time Wasted > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever get to the end of a day and wonder where all the time went? How you could possibly have done so little, how you could possibly be late on something when you had the whole day to do it?" "Sometimes. I guess it does happen sometimes. Although, for me, I'd say it's more about the times where I just forgot I had something to do and did something else instead. I don't really like not being busy." "Ha! Don't try to fool me, I've seen you lazing around both in school and on that yacht." "That's relaxing. It's different, and it's programmed. I don't laze around when I should be doing something else, I do it when I can afford to." "I don't think you could afford to be sleeping in class with the kind of grades you were getting." "Okay, that was lack of sleep. I had the bad habit of staying up too late some days, especially when I got nervous. At least I learned to talk myself into sleeping early when sports were involved. Get myself in top condition and all that." "Had? Have you looked at the clock?" "Got me there, I suppose. Maybe I still have it. But you're up too!" "You get used to it when you're a performer. Some shows happen pretty late. At least I don't need to be up early in the morning." "Oh, have you done any shows recently?" "...No. But that's beside the point! The point is that..." "Yes?" "I'm not actually sure where the conversation was going anymore." "Oh. I've got something. I could help you with your show! I could be your assistant. There has to be stuff you can do with me that you couldn't otherwise." "Well, yeah, but that would be cheating." "As opposed to? Come on, even I'm not that dumb. I know it's all tricks." "Yeah but it's the honest kind of lying. The one that's fair." "You're just afraid I would steal the show from you." "Hah! In your dreams. Besides, I can always cut you in half and pretend the trick went horribly wrong." "Sounds like you're scared to me." "Is that a challenge?" "Well, yeah. It is. Maybe you'll finally feel what it's like to realise you're only the second most awesome person in the room." "Funny. You're the one who should be telling me what that's like right now." > Time Gained > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ugh. Could you turn off the lights, please?" "I'm pretty sure that's the Sun." "Turn it off!" "Come on, now. It's already late enough. I need to take you back to your place, your mother will get worried otherwise." "How detestably responsible of you. And I thought you were the cool one. I should have picked my other ride." "But you didn't." "Silence. It's your fault I stayed up so late in the first place." "I'm not the one who kept talking." "You forced me to. You kept replying to me, and being wrong, and I just had to show you that you were wrong." "I'm pretty sure at one point you literally woke me up right after I'd fallen asleep because you wanted to keep talking." "Lies! Slander! I will not stand for this kind of blatant falsehoods." "You will not stand at all it seems. Come on! Get up, I'll go make ourselves breakfast." "...Do you have eggs?" "Sure. Do you want some?" "I... suppose I can join you for breakfast. If, and only if, you promise to make something worthy of my greatness." "Well, come along then. You wouldn't want to not keep an eye on me while I do it, right?" "Ugh. Fine. I suppose I can get used to your inhumane routines and habits if I at least don't need to cook for myself." "Oh, please. This is already more of a brunch than a breakfast, and if we wait any longer it might as well be lunch." "That's not how that works." "Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure it is how that works." "Clearly not! I just got up, this is the first meal I'm having, therefore this is breakfast." "But the rest of the country has already been up for a few hours. Heck, some people are probably already having lunch. We're too far into the day to have breakfast." "The day just started." "Uh, you've looked at the Sun, right? Or at a clock?" "Have you looked at me? I just got up. Therefore, the day just started. And it started early because of you, might I add." "The day doesn't start when your day starts. You can't act like the whole world revolves around you." "How can I not when it so clearly does?" "Does not." "Blasphemy." "You can't expect to be the best if you think the world is gonna wait around for you. You need to chase it! Run after those opportunities!" "That's what people like you, who are playing catch up, need to do. I, on the other hand, o- Oh, please!" "What?" "You're mixing them wrong." "No I'm not." "Yes you are. Move aside." "Wh- Hey!" "This is how you're supposed to do it. Not that jerky stuff you were doing, you almost sent some in my hair." "I..." "What?" "Huh. You're pretty good with that, actually." "I've told you. You don't get good at sleight of hand unless you learn to control your movements and practise. If I can train for that while doing something else I might as well optimise time." "Sounds a lot like playing catch up to me." "Just pass me the salt, okay?" > Time Made > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So. Ready to go yet?" "Not yet. I need to mentally and physically prepare for the trip, assuming you always drive like that." "Like what?" "Like you're trying to get pulled over by cops and give your passengers nausea at the same time. I want these eggs to still be inside me when I get home." "You didn't seem to have problem with it yesterday." "I was just too tired to complain. And distracted." "Distracted by how awesome I am?" "Well, if being awesome is what you want to call it, I'm not going to stop you. But I wouldn't call it that." "Sure. So, what do you want to do while we wait? And by the way, great job with the eggs. I guess I could get used to your laziness if you at least end up making brunch for me." "How dare you." "Only fair when you do it, huh?" "You used me." "Oh you think that's me using you? You haven't seen anything yet." "...Right. Want to, uh, wanna see a magic trick?" "Sure." "Right, then." "You kept that in your sleeve all this time?" "There's a separate pocket for it, and you get used to it. It's not as annoying as you'd think. Anyway. Look at the cards, and tell me when to stop." "Stop." "Alright. Now I want you to look at the card you're seeing, and keep it in mind." "You stopped late." "Excuse me?" "I caught you on that. You stopped after I told you to, you already know what card I'm looking at." "You could have just said you knew the trick." "I don't. I just caught you doing that." "People don't catch that sort of thing. It's the whole point of the trick, it happens too quick for you to notice." "Too quick for others to notice, maybe. Not me. Horse magic, remember?" "Ugh. Right." "I've told you, we could do great together. No one would ever be able to figure out your tricks if I was helping you with them." "Please stop offering that." "Why?" "Because you're right. And I'm really tempted to take you up on that offer. And I don't want to." "Uh... why not? I'm not sure I get it." "You're right. Nobody would be able to guess it. Not just spectators. We could fool anybody, any other magician out there would be left wondering how we ever possibly pulled things off. With enough luck and trying we'd get noticed, get famous, probably go on television and score a big show somewhere fancy. And then we'd be basically celebrities, and life would all be driving downhill from there." "I think I missed the part where any of that is a bad thing. It all sounds pretty nice to me." "It does. But I'd be cheating. The point of magic is to make the impossible look possible, and if I just use something that by all means should be impossible in my routine then I'm not just fooling people. I'm cheating. I'm playing a different game than everyone else is, and that means it's impossible for me to lose. And if they can't possibly win, then it doesn't mean I'm good. I don't need to be good. And I don't even need to be me, because if cheating is what gets me to the top then everyone else could have done the same thing in my place. I prove nothing that way." "...Oh." > Time Found > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh? Oh what?" "Nothing, that's just-" "Too deep to really be coming out of my mouth? Too admirable to come from me after everything I've done to you and your friends?" "That's not what I meant!" "But it is what you thought. Do you have some orange juice?" "I... Yeah, sure, give me a moment." "Thanks. And please tell me it's not that overly sugary stuff they sell at the store, I can't stand that." "Don't worry, I got you. Here." "Thanks." "Listen. I really didn't mean it like that. You were just as under the Dazzlings's influence as everyone else was that time, and when it came to what Wallflower was doing Sunset wouldn't have managed to fix things without you. I know you're a good person, and you know that I think you're pretty cool too now. That was just..." "Unexpected?" "Yeah." "Out of character?" "That too. I'm just not used to seeing this side of you. I don't remember you ever having that big of a problem with cheating in school when you were the one doing it. At least, I think I caught you a couple of times." "School tests are just hindrances. Magic is something personal. I do it because I want to be good at it, not just to be noticed." "I get it. Really." "I know you do. Sorry about that, I'm still a little groggy. You haven't used that second bed in a while, have you?" "I think it was more you sleeping with your clothes on, honestly." "It's winter. I'm not going to strip down to sleep." "I wouldn't have complained. We could have slept in the same bed, warming each other that way." "You're as subtle as a snap change seen from the back. Be glad you have an ass nice enough to get away with it." "Hey. If I was your assistant, you'd get to dress me up however you want." "Now that's tempting. I wonder if I could practise rope tricks with you as well." "What was that about being subtle?" "I never said I had a problem with it. Besides, I also have a nice ass." "If you say so." "I've caught you staring." "In your dreams." "Then I suppose this does nothing for you, right?" "Uh..." "Something wrong?" "I no I uh..." "Hah. Don't think you can act like that in front of my mother when you take me home." "Wait, who are you writing to now?" "Mum. I'm telling her I'll be back for dinner, and she shouldn't worry about me." "So I'm not taking you back home?" "You're taking me out to eat, and then for whatever I decide we should do afterwards. And you better make it worth my time." "Hey now. What if I already had other things to do today?" "Are those things better than me?" "...Fuck me." "Not yet." "Ugh. Got any place in mind for lunch?" "Anywhere but the sushi place." "Too cheap for your tastes?" "Exactly cheap enough for them, actually. Which is why I'm almost sick of it, for one time I don't have to pay I'm getting something better." "Fair enough. So, how did you get into magic, anyway?" > Time to Stop? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's a long story, actually." "We've got nowhere else to be for a while. I've got time to listen." "I'd rather not." "Why?" "I'd rather not yet. Maybe I'll tell you when we know each other better." "You're making it sound a lot personal." "Well maybe it is." "Alright. Alright, not going to push there if you don't want to talk about it now. Wasn't really expecting you to back away on that after the ropes joke but I'm not gonna bother you. Anything else you want to talk about?" "Sorry, it's just- Yeah, it is kind of personal. Anyway. Do you smoke? Cigarettes, I mean." "I'm an athlete. I need my lungs. That's like asking you if you'd purposefully try to cut off your fingers. Why?" "Because I'd have had to drop you if you did. I can't stand it." "Wait, didn't you get caught smoking once in school?" "Yeah, when I was trying it out. Thought it might be useful for a few tricks. It turns out I hate it, I gave up on it after a week." "That's kind of impressive, actually." "The wonderful feats of willpower being broke and a student allows one to pull off, right? Right up there with surviving on precooked noodles for a month and getting only a day's worth of sleep across a week." "You say that like being broke and a student aren't the same thing." "Crystal Prep exists, so clearly there are some exceptions." "Does it really exist though? Do we have any proof it's not just a collective hallucination? A farce held up by a group of paid actors?" "The must have quite the special effects budget if they managed to not only make the other Twilight destroying the statue look convincing, but also somehow make her look hot while doing it." "Hey now. She looked hot before that too. Wait, no, that's not what I meant to say, forget I said anything." "I don't really have a thing for glasses." "I mean, me neither, it's just that-" "You have a thing for everything that's female and breathes." "Don't call me out like that. I'm at least a little bi. A little. And even I wouldn't touch Cinch." "I'm pretty sure the requirement that it be a breathing creature ruled her out already." "Hah. Yeah, it probably did." "Aside from that though, is there any girl you wouldn't have wanted to sleep with?" "Huh. Tough one. I wanna say Adagio just because of what a bitch she was to us and, well, everybody, really, but honestly? I'd still tap that." "Same. Why are all the hottest girls secretly aliens from the horse dimension?" "I mean, there's Rarity." "Too posh. She looks like the kind of person who'd stop in the middle of sex because she broke a nail. Forget about pulling her hair while you're at it." "Are you into pulling hair?" "Are you into getting your hair pulled? Actually, don't answer that. We'll just find out together." "I... I know this is weird coming from me, but don't you think we're going a little too fast with things?" "I wasted the last two years trying to go after Sunset when you were right there, I don't intend to lose any more time." "But what if it doesn't work out?" "Then we'll have lost less time. Now please drink a glass or two of water." "Why?" "I don't want the eggs to cover up what the inside of your mouth tastes like." "That is the least sexy way I've ever seen someone ask for kissing." "I wasn't asking." > End of the World - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So. What's the plan?" Twilight asked. "Look for something. Anything, really," the stallion replied. "I can give you a list of every world I've visited, and everything I know. Your research team seems to already be further ahead than mine ever was. I'll keep travelling around, and if any of us find something we'll write to each other. I know it's not that grand of a plan, but it's better than nothing." "Why not come back with me?" Twilight tilted her head, curious. "We have a place for you. We can give you somewhere to stay, it has to be better than being out here." "You need someone doing the dangerous exploration out here if you want to find something, and I'm more experienced than any of you," replied the stallion, while beginning to sort through one of his saddlebags. Twilight shook her head lightly, watching what the unicorn was doing. "You can't just keep yourself travelling between worlds all the time." "Why not?" The stallion looked up at her for a moment. "It's what I've been doing so far. For a while at this point, too." "Think of how much you could help us with research. Of how much we could help you," Twilight went on. "You can't just expect me to leave you out here on your own." "Like it or not, it's how things will happen." The stallion was holding a small, pearly white orb in his hoof. He let it fall forward and roll for a bit, then caught it in a spell and a portal opened from it. "Your world is not my own, Twilight. It's not my home." "It could be," Twilight said. "After this is all done, if it ever is, you could stay. You don't have to be alone." The stallion silently stepped towards the portal, and motioned for Twilight to follow him. Reluctantly, Twilight did. On the other side, they appeared in a swamp, not in any world Twilight was familiar with. "Wait here for a moment," the stallion said, then he disappeared through a new portal produced too quickly for Twilight to see what it had sprouted from. It occurred to Twilight, in the time spent waiting there near the two portals, that had the stallion wanted he could have left her stranded there with no way to go back. Thankfully, he did come back, closing the portal he'd left from behind him. Something else had occurred to Twilight, in the meantime. "Have you ever come across a library, while travelling?" The stallion looked at her, puzzled. "You mean just a regular library?" "Not quite," Twilight replied. "Don't mind that for now. Have you ever seen a draconequus?" The stallion just looked even more puzzled. "I have no idea what that is." "How familiar are you with chaos magic?" Twilight asked. "Never once touched it, and I would like to think I'm smart enough to keep it that way," said the stallion. "Now will you tell me what this is all about?" > 15415 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was cold. A different kind of cold than the one he'd been used to, but cold nonetheless. A different kind of sleep than the one he'd been used to as well. And he was taking quite a while to wake up, that time, more so than any time before. He'd been sleeping for a while. Not the longest sleep he'd had, but still a noteworthy length. He was, however, surprised to be waking up so... Well, maybe soon wasn't the right word, but it was the word he would use, as inappropriate as it may have been. He wasn't planning to sleep too long, no, but he would have expected it to last a while longer still. He was expecting to be waken up, like the last time, rather than waking up on his own. Someone sooner or later was bound to disturb his slumber, after all. But no one was there. Not immediately. That was, at once, fascinating and deeply worrying. As he slowly, slowly opened his eyes, he could see no one there, shaking him from his torpor. Perhaps part of the reason why he was taking so long to awaken. He had no great interest in going back to the world, after all, no immediate inciting factor. And so he took things slowly, and comfortably. But he knew something was out there. Something powerful, and dangerous. Something great, shaking the world itself. That was what had woken him, it must have been so. And he was quite curious as to what exactly was happening out there. But not curious enough to speed things up. He had time, he knew he did. And he wanted to be ready. Whatever was out there, it was big. Too big for him to take, maybe too big for anyone to take alone. Things were changing. He could tell, for example, that he'd moved. He wasn't waking up where he'd last fallen asleep. Perhaps quite a good thing, as quite a bit of turmoil would have likely come had he woken up there. Yet still, it was a nuisance not to know where he was. But a nuisance he wouldn't yet be bothered by for a while still, not until he was fully awake. And that wouldn't come soon. He was tired. Tired still. The last time he'd been awake, things had taken a toll on him, and beside that soured his tastes for the world. For a while, at least, he'd have preferred to simply sleep. A lifetime or two in pony times, or even a dozen of them, he could wait it out. He'd gone for longer, far longer in the past. But something had happened. Something was still happening. Something was out there, calling for him, waking him up. And he supposed, after all, was it so bad if he got to wake up already? Whatever was out there, it promised to be something exciting. Really, he had to be honest with himself, he didn't mind the idea of being back up as much as he pretended to. It had been a while, after all. > Repairs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Stupid stupid stupid piece of junk. Why won't you work?" Indigo leaned forward over the disassembled pile of plastic and metal bits, cupping her chin with a hand while the other rested on her hips. "You're the one who spilt soda all over it. But that probably has nothing to do with it, right?" "Are you really going to go the extra mile and say it as spilt just to annoy me?" Lemon looked up from the jumbled mess of circuit boards and cables lying in front of her on the table, pouting. "I just did," Indigo replied, a smug grin on her face. Lemon rolled her eyes. "It wasn't all over it. Most of it is still perfectly fine, actually. It's just this one contact right here that's completely busted. Oxidised both the end of the ribbon cable and the receiving pin, I tried chopping off the broken end of the first and scraping out plastic so I could use the portion behind it but the other just isn't having any of it, even after I cleaned it, and it's no longer snapping shut properly anyway." "I see. So what's the plan now?" Indigo asked, still smirking. "Well..." Lemon leaned back into her chair, stretching her arms in front of her and letting her intertwined fingers give off a few satisfying cracks. "Through my absolutely amazing skills with the interwebs, I have managed to track down the specific piece of circuitry I need to fix this whole mess." "Oh, great." Indigo forced herself not to roll her eyes at most of Lemon's words. "So you just buy that and replace it, no?" Lemon seemed to deflate like a wet sponge left to dry. "I would." "But?" "But the seller is on the opposite side of the ocean, and shipping would cost more than the piece itself." Lemon sighed. "Ah." Indigo bit her lower lip. "So..." "So now I'm faced with the most horrifying thing a person in the heart of their youth could ever encounter," Lemon dramatically whined. "Having to spend money?" Lemon shook her head. Indigo quirked an eyebrow. "Having to renounce your use of technology?" "Worse," said Lemon, "far worse." "What?" "A choice with no immediately obvious correct answer where both options have pros and cons and both are potentially equally valid." Lemon posed for dramatic emphasis. "This kind of injecting drama should be Sunny's business, Lem'," Indigo commented. "It's horrible!" Lemon half shouted. "The crushing weight of responsibility, oh woe is me, mortally wounded is my carefree youth!" Indigo dryly sighed. "I can get the piece and repair this, even if that will be a bit pricey." Lemon pointed with her hands in a direction for emphasis, then in another one as she continued, "Or, I could spend more money, buy a whole different thing that's better than the one I was using, and not repair this." "Well, if you got the money for that..." "I don't wanna just throw away all this other stuff though. It's still perfectly working." Lemon took her head in her hands. "Well, it's your choice, Lem'." Indigo patted Lemon on the shoulder before walking away. "Just make sure you're happy with it." Lemon audibly moaned at that. > Roll > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is... unexpected. Very unexpected." Rainbow awkwardly shifted from one leg to the other, watching the scene in front of her. Shining Armor looked at Rainbow Dash. Then he looked at the other Rainbow Dash. Then he looked back to the first Rainbow Dash, though she was actually the second one for him. Then he opened his mouth, and closed it. "This is a dream, right?" Rainbow Dash nodded. Only one of them. The one who'd gotten there second, and had spoken a moment before. Shining furrowed his brow. "Are you also part of the dream?" Rainbow shook her head. "I see. Why are you here, exactly?" Shining asked. "I was curious," Rainbow Dash explained. "I can imagine that," Shining Armor replied. "That does not explain how you got into my dream, or why exactly you came into my own. Twilight hasn't told me anything about this." "Twilight doesn't know." Rainbow gave a small cough. "You won't know either, I'll make sure you forget this part after I'm gone." "Ah." Shining looked at Rainbow for a bit, silently. "I don't get a choice there, do I?" "Nope." "Alright." Shining blinked. "You still haven't answered my other questions." "Luna needed help," said Rainbow. "That's all the answer you're getting. You'll forget about it anyway. Mind explaining what this is about?" Shining had a look around. "It's a dream. That's about it I'd assume. You're the one being granted Luna's powers, why don't you tell me what this is about?" "I clearly don't have enough experience for that just yet." Rainbow swallowed. "Fair enough, I suppose." Shining turned away from the real pegasus and back towards the imaginary one. "What are you doing?" asked the Rainbow who was no longer being looked at by the unicorn. Without looking back, Shining said, "I have a dream to get back to." "I'm still here," Rainbow said. "I know," Shining replied. "You're free to watch if you want to." Rainbow shifted in place a few moments longer. "Is Cadence asleep now?" "She should be, assuming Flurry didn't wake her up without waking me up as well," answered Shining. "Why? Do you want to spy on her dreams as well?" "Hey, that's not..." Rainbow hesitated. "That's not exactly what I'm doing. I'm checking on you. For your own safety." "I've heard a lot of younger guards say the same thing when trying to justify taking a peek inside Celestia's room." Shining chuckled. "And Luna's too, once she came back. And pretty much every single room in the castle, really." "Ugh. Anyway. I'll, uh, be going then. You have fun. With me. Other me. I'll check on your wife. Maybe your kid too." Rainbow took a step back. "Have fun," Shining said. Rainbow didn't reply, and she simply walked away. A few moments later she disappeared into nothingness. "Was that me?" asked the Rainbow who was still there, looking past Shining. "Technically, you are her," replied the unicorn. "Let's just get back to what we were doing for now." > Assumptions > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And that's a three, a seven, and an eleven," Shining said, pulling away from Rainbow's side while watching the dice on the tray he held in his magic. "Pretty good rolls, huh?" replied the pegasus. She tried not to sway too hard from side to side. "Anything else in there?" Shining set the silver tray down on the table, and moved closer to Rainbow again, making sure not to step on his own entrails by accident. He peered at the exposed flesh, the tip of his horn glowing to help him see better. "Doesn't seem so," he said, moving strands of muscle aside with his telekinesis to make sure. "Nice." Rainbow gave the closest thing to a nod that her upside-down hanging position allowed her to. "Moving on to the other side, then?" She tensed and released her wings, flapping then once, before letting them droop downwards again. "I suppose so." Shining stepped back again, always carefully, and moved the tray and the little wheeled table it was on to the pegasus' other side. "The shackles aren't too tight, are they?" he asked Rainbow as he did. Rainbow shook her hooves to test the metal binds wrapped around them that held her suspended in place, and looked upwards at the chains they were connected to, stretching on and on past her ability to see. "Doesn't seem so. I think they're just right like this." "Good." Once the table was in place, Shining turned to examine Rainbow's flesh. "Oh. Definitely a lot of stuff here. Does it hurt yet?" "Still can't feel anything but my tail," Rainbow replied. "Is it bleeding? I can't tell if the stuff on the floor is mine or yours." "Don't worry, it's mine." As he said so, Shining grabbed a reddened cloth from the table and used it to soak up some of the blood slowly dripping from his chest and underbelly. "You still haven't given any problems with that. At least the drainage system seems to be working fine." He lit his horn again, peered closely at the muscular tissues in front of his face, and asked, "How do you want to roll?" Rainbow pursed her lips for a moment. "Let's go with two six and one twenty, you got that?" "Sure do." While holding up the now empty tray, Shining simultaneously took hold of the required dice in his magic. He pulled, ripping them from Rainbow's flesh, then let them fall down. "Oh. That's not good. Not good at all." "What did we get?" asked Rainbow, a note of worry in her voice. "Two, three, and just a four," answered Shining. "We needed a twelve to clear this one. Oh well." He took the saw in his magic, and used it to remove another one of his ribs, then added another mark to his bleeding hind leg in the form of another open cut. "I think I see a map in here, too." "Should we take it out now?" Shining shrugged. "I don't see why not." > Rise a Night > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh, it's... Uhm... Sorry, I don't remember what your name was," sheepishly said the mare, rubbing the back of her neck. "Blue Spark," replied the unicorn. "Oh, yeah!" Scarlet's face lit up for a moment. Then it darkened again. "I'm terribly sorry, I'm afraid I don't remember how or why we know each other. I do remember you, I swear, the details are just a little fuzzy. Maybe the glasses are throwing me off." "I was running some research in the forest and the swamp, remember? I'm the one your friend ran into." Blue watched the expression on Scarlet's face. "The one who carried him back here in town?" "Oh!" Scarlet's face lit again as she had a flash of clarity. "Right! Yeah, I remember, yes. Sorry again if I didn't remember sooner, and sorry about wasting your time back then." "It wasn't that bad of a problem," Blue replied, "I actually quite enjoyed having a chance to take a break from just boring old research. Especially when we were at the late stages of it already, those are notoriously the worst ones." "Oh. I see." Scarlet nodded. "So, what brings you here again? More research?" "I'm on vacation, actually," answered Blue, nodding towards her beige briefcase. "I've been travelling around, and while I was in the area I thought I could drop by and see how things are going here. How have you been, Scarlet?" "Quite well, all things considered. That would be Doctor Ribbon now, actually." The mare gave a light chuckle to herself. "I finally finished all my studies and all the other fluff. I've started working here in town, I've already worked with a couple of patients. It's been nice. But what about you? How are you doing? Nice glasses, by the way." "I'm all fine, thank you." The unicorn adjusted her sunglasses. "Work is going well, and I recently saw my mother as well. She's doing well too." A pause, as Blue Spark gave a tongue click. "What about him?" "Him?" Scarlet frowned for just a moment. "Oh, him. He's, well, he's still about as he was when you last saw him. He hasn't gotten worse, which I suppose is something, and he hasn't disappeared again like back then, but he's still not quite all there." She shook her head. "Nowadays he spends most of his time fidgeting with stuff he finds lying around in the park. He's innocuous, but it's... Sorry. I still remember what he was like before all this, it's been a bit rough for me." "I understand." Blue gave a polite little nod. "Does he still wear those ill-fitting mare clothes?" Scarlet almost chuckled at that. "He does. But he does wash them, it's not like he never took them off since you last saw him. He does pretty well with basic care like that, actually. Eating when he should be, good hygiene, he comes inside if it gets too cold. Nothing particularly self destructive." "I see." Blue Spark looked briefly into the distance. "Could I go talk to him?" > Sirens > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is all very interesting," Twilight said, looking over the notebook she held in her magic. Sweetie Belle shifted in her seat. "It is? It all just seems kind of random to me. Is there anything you can figure out from there?" "Yes, actually." Twilight stopped her back and forth pacing and turned back towards the unicorn. "Everything here is consistent, time-wise, and happening when it should." Sweetie raised an eyebrow. "That means?" "The things you get visions of are things you'd expect to be happening when you get those visions. Ponies eating at around midday or during the evening is the biggest giveaway there. House chores and walks in the afternoon, sleeping during the morning in the weekend, that kind of stuff," Twilight explained. "It's not conclusive evidence, but it does strongly point towards the idea that what you're seeing is really happening as you are seeing it, or at least somewhen close to it." "So I can see what others are doing?" Sweetie recoiled for a moment. "I'm spying on them?" Twilight had meanwhile gone back to reading through the entries in the notebook. "If you want to put it like that. But you don't have any control over it at this point, you shouldn't feel bad about it." "And can I learn to control it?" Sweetie Belle asked. "That's what we're here for," Twilight replied. "But first, we need to make sure we know exactly what's happening here." She paused, her eyes focusing on one specific entry on the page in front of her. Then she walked towards Sweetie's end of the table. "What is it?" Sweetie asked, looking at Twilight. "This one here." Twilight held the notebook up in front of Sweetie Belle's face, pointing with a hoof at a specific line on the page. "Is it correct?" "Of course it is," said Sweetie, a little bothered by the question, as she looked over her own writing. "The exact time and everything?" Twilight pressed on. Sweetie nodded, saying, "Yeah. It was in my room, I had a clock nearby." "Just making sure," said Twilight, pulling away the notebook. Then she closed it and set it down on the table. "I'll be gone for a bit, maybe a few minutes. It shouldn't be more than that. I need to check something." Sweetie didn't have a chance to ask what Twilight meant, as the alicorn had already disappeared in a flash of magic. Instead she was left there waiting, alone, humming to herself to pass the time until Twilight's reappearance a few minutes later. "Did you go visit Celestia?" Sweetie asked immediately. Twilight nodded, though she seemed strangely intent on staring at the tip of her hoof. She blew some white hair away from it, then shook her head. "I did. And it looks like my guess was correct. It's a stroke of luck that you saw something we could check so soon, but it was going to happen sooner or later." "So what now?" asked Sweetie Belle. > Strs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I know that look." "No you don't." "Yes, I do. It's the look you always have when you're excited for something but can't or don't want to tell me what it is just yet," Indigo replied. Lemon pressed her lips together, biting them on the inside. "Maybe," she let out after a bit. "What is it?" Indigo asked. Lemon shook her head. "Not telling you." Indigo quirked an eyebrow. "Is it same thing you mentioned before? The one you needed that website for?" "Yep." Lemon nodded. "That same thing." "I see." Indigo stepped closer. "So why that face? Is the website working again?" "Not yet," Lemon replied, "no, but I'm starting work on the other part of the project." "Ah. Got you." Indigo had a brief look around, and then walked towards the fridge, to get herself some water. Lemon looked at her. "You really shouldn't be drinking straight from the bottle. It's unsanitary." Indigo almost choked on the water she was drinking. "Really? You're the one saying that?" She cleaned her mouth and put the bottle back in the fridge. "Well, it's true." Lemon playfully pouted. "Like you actually mind having your lips where mine have been." Lemon couldn't keep her annoyed expression up. "Alright. You got me there. No problem with our lips touching." She waited for a beat. "Neither type of lips." Another. "In either combination." "I got the point the first time around, Lem'," Indigo said, flatly. "Lesbian sex." "Ugh." It took every last drop of Indigo's dwindling willpower not to facepalm. "How do you function, exactly?" Lemon shrugged. "Cellular respiration? Something like that, probably. I erased almost all memories of science class from my brain as soon as I could." She stared off into the distance for a moment. "I've mostly replaced them with song lyrics, obscure trivia facts about sloths, and the intricate details to the plots of multiple long running works of erotic original fiction I came across online." Indigo slowly, very slowly nodded. "I see." "Apparently my brain is more receptive to memorising information when I'm sexually stimulated." Lemon still had the same far off look in her eyes. Indigo coughed. "Can we move on to something else?" Lemon's expression didn't change. "Did you know sloths live in symbiosis with algae that reside in their fur?" "Huh." Indigo was silent for a moment. "No, I did not know that." The silence stretched on for a bit. "Do you want something to eat?" Indigo asked to break the building awkwardness. "Nah." Lemon shook her head. "I think I'm fine." Indigo waited for a moment. "Okay then." > Eyesolation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh. You're not supposed to be here." Rainbow leaned to the side, trying to get a look at what was on the pony's table. "Is something wrong?" She frowned. "Is something wrong with you?" "Me? No, no, I'm perfectly fine, but you, uh, you shouldn't be here." The stallion didn't turn as he said that, in fact he seemed to tense up. "Rainbow Dash. Would you mind just, uh, just leaving? Just, you know, just leave. You really shouldn't be here right now." Rainbow Dash blinked. "I... Listen, this is a dream, I don't know what's up with you or who you are or-" "Yes, it is a dream," the stallion replied, still not moving. "Or, well, at least, well, okay, let's say it is a dream. But you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't even have made it here, I must have left the door open by mistake, oh, but at least you being here means now I know and I can go close it and I hope nothing else got in. Or out." Rainbow was silent for a moment. Then she shook her head. "What are you doing there?" she asked, once again craning her neck to get a better look at the table. "Music." The stallion seemed to jump a little with his own reply. "I, usually, well, I usually do writing but, oh, music. I'm trying music. It's not ready yet well some of it is but no. It's not really, uh, well. It's complicated. Music. I'm making music right now. And you're not supposed to be here." Rainbow's expression was still one of confusion, and nothing the stallion was doing was helping that, but she just chose to move along. It was all a dream, after all. "So what's your name? Since you know mine and all." "I, uh..." The stallion was silent for a moment, and slowly began to turn. "Still working that out, actually." Still puzzled, Rainbow clicked her tongue. "So what's up with your mane? And your tail? And..." She leaned a bit closer, squinting. "Wait, do you just not have any hair? Is that skin?" "Ah, um, yeah. It's not uncomfortable or anything though. Just, ah, it does get a bit cold, sometimes, when it's cold. But I wear clothes." The stallion was looking at Rainbow with the one eye of his she could see, and he'd turned far enough to his left for her to properly notice the curve of his horn and the shape of his ears. "I..." Rainbow was again silent for a moment. "Are you sure you're okay? Do you always look like this?" The unicorn's body had rotated far enough to be fully facing Rainbow, yet his head had remained still while he turned, only ever allowing the mare to see the left side. "Yes, yes, I am quite alright and quite my normal self as far as so far I've defined. I just..." He clicked his tongue. "I did not want to, but I really need you to leave now." Suddenly, Rainbow woke up in her bed. > DKTDW > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There he is." Scarlet pointed to a pony sitting alone in the middle of the park. "I see." Blue Spark nodded, then held out a hoof to stop Scarlet from walking farther. "Could I speak to him alone?" Scarlet hesitated for a moment, looking between Blue and the stallion, then stepped back. "Alright. I'll be here." "Thank you." Blue nodded again, then began to head towards the stallion, secretly smiling. "Cold weather we have, no?" he asked, once the unicorn was close enough to hear him. "Though I suppose that's not as much of a problem for you." Blue stopped for a moment, before walking again. "Perhaps." "How have you been, Stella?" The stallion turned, without getting up. "I didn't expect you back so soon." "Quite well is how I've been. Thank you for asking." The alicorn got close enough to the stallion, and then stopped. "Here to kill me?" he asked. Stella frowned slightly. "I was hoping to at least have a chat first. Besides, why would I go and murder an old friend like so?" Her expression shifted back to her usual smile as she spoke. "Because I'm the only one who can still give you any issues." The stallion put a hoof to his stomach. "And this. You wouldn't mind taking this, I'm sure. Another one to add to the little collection you have there." Stella briefly glanced at her briefcase, then returned her attention to the stallion. "You do make a convincing argument, I have to say." "Do you believe in fate?" The alicorn paused, and blinked. "What do you mean?" "Do you ever wonder if there's a design to the events of our lives? Strings pulling us along to where we're supposed to be?" the stallion continued. "Whether through cold physical determinism or unexplainable forces that shape our freely made decisions and the seemingly random occurrences around us, do you think there's ever a reason why things happen, beyond their own resolution? If we're not some cogs in a machine that exists through us and yet beyond us, actors in a play written by someone else?" Stella blinked again, more amused than confused. "Would it matter if we knew, provided there wasn't a way to break free of our predetermined paths?" She shook her head briefly. "Why do you ask?" "I've been wondering a lot about our meeting," the stallion replied. "I've been wondering about how different things might have been if it hadn't happened. About the consequences of it." He stood up. "About the purpose of what happened, if one does exist. You would have found out about your powers either way, sooner or later. So the thing that's relevant here, if I want to find one, is me meeting you, not you meeting me." He tilted his head, while pulling out a couple of spoons from his pockets. Stella anticipated what he would say next. "That must make for quite the nice puzzle, does it not?" The stallion smiled, while fidgeting with his spoons. "You know me well, Stella." The alicorn smiled too. Her horn began to glow. "How unfortunate it would be if there was no solution to it. A waste of time. Then again, I doubt you'll get to see what the answer was." "Oh, but I already did find the answer." The stallion stuck one of his spoons in the ground. Stellaria stopped for a second, and blinked again. "Admittedly not by myself. Someone else told me the solution." The stallion looked Stella in the eyes. "Now I aplogise, but I have work to do." He turned the spoon, and a moment later he was gone. > Entanglement > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh. Oh, good, it looks like I made it, good. I wasn't actually sure it would work. For a moment I actually feared I really had gone mad and imagined the whole thing," said the stallion. "Can you imagine that? That would have been awful." Once she was done recoiling in utter shock at the pony who'd suddenly materialised in front of her out of nowhere, the unicorn moved the custard coloured bangs of her mane away from her eyes and took on a more cautious, defensive stance. "Who are you?" she hissed, in part trying to scare the stallion, in part scared herself. "Quite the nice work you did here," said the stallion, completely ignoring the question, as he had a look at the ruins around them and at the added layer of ruin on them that the mare was presumably responsible for. "I'm just here to get this thing rigged up so it goes off when it should. Hopefully." He began to walk past the other. The apricot pony turned to follow him with her eyes. "What's this all about?" she barked, her tone still in the awkward space between annoyed and worried. "I wasn't told anything about someone else being involved!" She hesitated for a moment. "Are you the one who called me here? How did you know? What do you want?" The stallion had his eyes set on a particular pillar, and appeared to be studying both it and the terrain around it. "Not me, I'm afraid, although we likely have the same employer. Employer? We're not really being employed here. We're more like contractors, I suppose, though we're not really being paid. Well, we are receiving something out of this, or at least I am, I don't know about you. Not money though. And I suppose you don't know who's making us do this. I know, or at least I think I know, but then again I could be wrong." He briefly turned back towards the mare. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't have the faintest clue who you are either." The unicorn looked almost offended at that, and was about to say something before seemingly thinking better of it. She simply shook her head instead. "Well, whatever. My work here is done. You, like, never saw me and stuff, if anyone asks. Except whoever asked us to do this, I guess." She started to turn, intent on walking away. "And if you see them, tell them I delivered on my part of the deal, and I expect them to do the same." "Will do," the stallion replied, now closer to the pillar. "I'm sure they will." He looked like he was fidgeting about with the base, moving around little chunks of stone and small piles of dust. The mare kept walking back, with her eyes still on the stallion, confused as to what he was doing almost as much as she was starting to be confused by what he was wearing. Finally she shook her head, turned around, and walked away, hoping nothing bad would come of their encounter. > Fixing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What happened?" Scarlet Ribbon rushed towards Stella, shouting. "What happened?" she yelled again, louder. Stella snapped towards her, her horn glowing, and Scarlet froze in place as she was hit by the alicorn's spell. Making sure no one else was there to see, Stella teleported both of them inside Scarlet's house. Once there she set the mare on the couch, and began to pace back and forth. Scarlet just stared into nothingness, silent, eyes blank. "Did he mention anything about leaving? Any places he would have wanted to go or was planning to? Any mention of anywhere outside of this town?" asked Stella. After a moment of silence, Scarlet replied in a monotone voice, "Nothing." Stella chewed on nothing for a moment. "Did he meet anyone from outside this town, after the last time I was here?" "No," Scarlet replied. "Did he meet ponies living in this town, besides you and your friend?" Scarlet nodded. "Yes." "When I deactivate the spell, immediately write down a full list of everyone he met and where they live, then leave it on the table, forget you wrote it, and never notice it's there. You won't question my absence, during or afterwards." Looking through and tweaking the mare's mind herself would have been a more efficient process, but Stella didn't have the time to properly set up the required spells, so she had to do it verbally. "Did he seem any different after any of those meetings?" Scarlet shook her head. "He didn't." "Did he seem any different at any point, like he'd found out about something?" Stella pressed on. Scarlet's reaction was still the same. "He didn't." "After you've written the list, you'll forget about seeing him disappear and you running towards me. What you'll remember is me coming back to you, talking to you, and us agreeing he would come with me so I can find help for him. After you don't see me for five minutes, you'll remember him walking away with me, us both leaving the town." Stella looked around the room for a moment, then grabbed hold of the honey jar on top of the shelf and quickly drew a mark on the bottom with her magic. "If he ever comes back, pay no mind to any contradictions between what he'll say to you and your memories, and come activate this as soon as you can without him noticing," she said, setting the jar back down as the mark slowly disappeared. "And don't let him into this room before that." Scarlet nodded. Stella grit her teeth. She reached inside her, shifting the way she was being seen by the mare, then her horn stopped glowing. Scarlet got up from the couch and walked towards the kitchen, completely oblivious to the alicorn in the room. Stella watched her go for just a moment, then her horn lit again and she disappeared from the room. She reappeared on a rooftop in a different city, staring straight at the crystal shape of the tree-like castle not too far ahead. > Leaving > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wick Clip walked through the trees on the path leading back to her town, still a little weirded out by her previous encounter. She decided it was better not to think too much about it, and instead hurried her steps. She could get back home in time to have lunch at a reasonable hour if she was fast enough, and she still had her job to get back to after that. A pegasus flew by above her, above the trees, heading where she was coming away from. She didn't get a good look at them, she'd noticed them too late for that. For a moment she stopped and looked back, but then she forced herself to ignore the whole thing. Not her problem. She'd done her part, and everything after was not her problem. In fact, it was advisable that she got away from there quick, so it wouldn't suddenly become her problem again. The pegasus at least didn't seem to have noticed her. Another pegasus passed by. Wick was still half looking upwards, so she had time to see that one clearly. A mare, grey coat and blonde mane and tail. Possibly following the previous one. Either way, she didn't look down either, and didn't notice the unicorn looking up at her. Wick again had to force herself to ignore the event and just keep walking. No more ponies showed up, thankfully for her. In a few minutes more of walking she reached the edge of town, and making sure no one was there to notice how suspicious she looked she walked back onto the main road and on towards the centre of town. A few other ponies greeted her along the way, and she greeted them back, though for the most part her mind was still stuck elsewhere. Once she finally got back home, she absentmindedly threw together a meal and ate, still not quite able as focus on what she was doing and instead thinking back to what she'd seen. She did wonder if anything had happened to the stallion she'd met there, or to the ponies she'd seen flying in that direction. She was still unsure about what her reaction should have been depending on what might have happened to them. Her plate had been empty for over a minute before she finally realised she'd eaten through the whole thing. She placed it in the sink, choosing to worry about cleaning it at a later time, and threw a worried glance at the clock as she gathered her things. Hopefully no one would be too bothered that the shop hadn't opened yet, she was going to be at least fifteen minutes late. Then again, she never had that many ponies coming to buy stuff anyway. Once she actually got to the building, no one was there waiting, and Wick wasn't sure if she should have felt relieved or disappointed. Shaking her head, she unlocked the entrance and walked inside, flipping the little sign hanging on the door and pulling up the blinds on the shop window. > Recollection > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wick Clip sat behind the counter, aimlessly staring into the distance, when the chime of the door opening shook her from her mental wanderings. At first she was glad and somewhat excited about finally having someone else there to distract her, and the idea of them buying something didn't hurt matters either. Then she actually saw who had just walked in, and her expression dropped, while her mood turned its momentary elevation into a cartwheel and made it impossible for her to tell how exactly she felt about things. Completely uncaring of the emotional turmoil ravaging the inner workings of the mare's mind, the stallion let the door close behind him and had a look around the place. He had the same expression a foal would wear in a candy store or a toys store, though Wick wondered if that wasn't just his reaction to anything. "Candles?" he asked, still not looking at the unicorn. Somewhere in the back of her head Wick wondered how the stallion had possibly missed the rather large signboard affixed to the wall above her shop, or any of the other half a dozen at least things that should have clued him in about her selling candles, but on the forefront she simply latched on to the question as a way to stall for time while the rest of her brain caught up with what was happening. "Yeah, mostly. We don't just sell candles, but that's kind of the main thing." More in terms of representation than in terms of sales, but she didn't mention that part. "How quaint." The stallion finally looked at Wick. "That's a thing ponies say, right? Quaint? I think it is." He paused, frowning slightly. "We?" he asked, then had another look around. "You run this place on your own, don't you? Does someone else work here?" Wick blinked. "No. Uh... No, yeah, I do run it myself, I just..." She didn't finish the sentence, and instead switched on to a different topic. "How did you get here?" The stallion looked at her, and blinked once. "I walked." "I- Ugh." Wick looked to the ceiling in exasperation. "I meant here to me here. How did you find this place? Why here? What do you want?" "A place to stay," replied the stallion. "I need somewhere to be for a while, hide where Stella hopefully won't find me. Here just happened to be where I was, you just happened to be the one pony here who I don't know less than everyone else and also I can blackmail you into hiding me. I just followed your tracks." He began to walk farther into the shop. "Sorry about answering those in reverse and yeah, you've got no idea who Stella is and no, you don't want to know." He walked past the counter and farther in still. In silent puzzlement, Wick watched him reach the shelves on the back wall, pull on a seemingly random candle, and then descend down a flight of stairs through a trapdoor which she was sure had never been there. > Deep > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The staircase ended, and Twilight found herself in a corridor. It was poorly lit, but not properly dark. By how much time it had taken to get there and what she'd seen out the windows before, she was fairly sure she was underground at that point, and the way the air felt over her skin reinforced that belief. It was cold, but closer to a chilly spring breeze than to autumn's winds. Still not cold enough for a pony not to get used to it. The walls were made from large chunks of squared stone, with the occasional torch giving off the cold light blue light that filled the corridor. No sounds as far as Twilight could hear. A couple of doors up ahead, one on each side, and then the corridor bent at a sharp angle. Twilight walked carefully forward, eyes and ears alert for anything beside the sounds of her own heart and breath, and as she reached the first door she inspected it with her magic. No spells, as far as she could detect. She pondered about sending a magical wave to check for anyone behind it, then decided it would be more risky than doing it the old fashioned way. So she placed her ear on the door, and listened. Silence on the other side, and her hoof moved to the doorknob and turned. Locked, the door didn't move. Twilight pulled back. Maybe it was worth it to try to magically unlock it, but it could be a major problem if someone came back while she was in there. She couldn't exactly open the door and leave while they were there, and she only had so much time to spend there before the portal was closed from the other side. So she turned, walked a bit farther still, and inspected the second door instead. No spells there either, no sounds on the other side. And somewhat to Twilight's surprise, it actually opened when she tried it. The room she walked into was small, and somewhat barren in terms of furniture. A desk against the wall to her right, a chair in front of it, and a few filing cabinets that took up most of the remaining space. Twilight closed the door behind herself, and finally decided a minor light spell was a low enough risk that she could afford to take it there. She was curious about the contents of the cabinets, no doubt, but the stack of papers still on the desk was probably a better target to start with. She began with the one on top. She was a bit surprised, but mostly glad, that the language they were written in was mostly the same as her own, only presenting minor differences as far as she could tell at a first pass. But she didn't particularly focus on the style and syntax of what she was reading, it was a bit hard given the contents. Though she did note, whoever had logged the test results had done so with surprising steadiness for someone writing about a pony screaming in pain and melting down in front of them. > In The Dark > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you ever heard about the soldier and the white mare, captain?" The mare quirked an eyebrow. "I have not," she replied. "It's an old story. Old even for me. Ponies used to tell it around bonfires, and before then sing it to the crowds in the streets," explained the stallion. "I've been thinking about it, recently." The mare leaned closer, brushing her grey-purple mane aside. "What's the story about?" she asked, curious. "Well, there's a couple different versions." The stallion looked out the window into the distance for a moment. "It tends to happen when a story is around for long enough." He chuckled. "There's a consistent core to it, but if you don't mind I think I'll embellish it a little. I like this version better than the trimmed down one. Anything against it?" The captain shook her head, and then had to push her mane out of the way again. The stallion leaned back into his seat. "There had been a war. A long, bloody war, that had threatened to destroy the country," he began to tell. "But it was over. It had been won, finally. And ponies got to go home. They returned to their families, to their cities. Things would get better, and the victory was celebrated across the whole country. "There was a soldier. Young. He hadn't seen most of the war, though he'd heard stories about it. By the time he'd joined, along with the others his age, things were already looking better. They'd been the final push needed to win, and hadn't really met all that much resistance or danger. To them, to him, war had been mostly a spectre of fear, dreaded when sent to face it. "But the spectre was dead now. The war was over, and there was nothing left to fear. And so the soldier partied with his comrades, and they drank and sang and played music and danced till the morning light, and burnt their uniforms in the fire. And they laughed. "But then, the soldier saw her. Like a ghost in the crowd, the white mare staring at him with malice in her eyes." The stallion adjusted himself, and added, "The white mare is death, by the way. It was more obvious back when that was a common image. But cultural details aside, let's get back to the story." He continued, "The soldier was shocked. Afraid. The night had been like a dream, and he awoke to bitter and cold reality. And so he ran. For two entire days and nights, he ran away, barely sleeping or eating, afraid of what he had seen. And after the days and the nights of running, his muscles aching and his heart pounding, he saw the walls of the great capital in the distance, and by dawn he reached its gates. "But once he arrived, he stopped and fell to his knees, and a raspy scream left his throat. Because the white mare was there, waiting for him. And the soldier looked at her, and started to cry, and he said, 'I saw you staring at me with malice, two days ago. I ran away from you, and yet here I find you again'. But the mare replied to him, 'It wasn't malice in my eyes, but confusion. I was expecting you here at this hour. You were so far two days ago, I feared you wouldn't make our appointment in time'." The captain blinked, some confusion evident on her face. "Lieutenant Sombra, if I may ask... What is dawn?" Sombra just gave a little smile at that. "Oh, don't mind that, I apologise. Details. Sometimes, I still fall back to outdated terminologies, out of habit." > Take Stock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How is it?" asked Twilight, looking up from her desk. "A little better," Starlight replied, unconvincingly. She walked up to the desk, and sat down on the first chair she found. "So, uh..." She swallowed, and tried really hard not to hear her own words. "How did she get out?" Twilight's expression was uncertain as she studied Starlight's face. "I went and checked the statue. The other two are still there. Either that was the real her and she did escape somehow, or someone wants us to believe it so much they went through the effort of removing her from there." She aimlessly shuffled the pages on her desk for a moment, only out of the need for a pause in her speech. "I don't know if it had to do with the Behemoth, which it very well might have, or if someone helped her. I do know she was not alone though." Starlight snapped to attention as she heard that. "How do you know?" "We checked the house for the stallion she was replacing. All the food was gone, and she hadn't been there long enough for that. Not unless she was starving. We're still trying to figure out her movements before she got to him." Twilight sighed, pausing again. "That's not the main thing, though." "What is?" Starlight pressed on. "Someone else was here," Twilight said, bluntly. "Chrysalis was a distraction. One they probably wanted to get rid of in the first place." She looked down at her desk. "Six scales were stolen from the storage room." Starlight barely held back a gasp. "Do you think it was... anyone here?" "No." Twilight still didn't look at Starlight. She seemed deeply focused on her thoughts. "We're the only ones here who know how to open that door and deal with the spells around the perimeter, and no other unicorn here would be able to do that good of a job that quickly. Whoever we're dealing with managed to work around all our security measures and figured out how to do it in just a couple days." Starlight fell back into her chair, thinking. "This is bad. Really bad." "I expect you to understand why we'll be keeping the exact details of the theft a secret for now." Twilight finally looked to Starlight again. Starlight nodded. "It would just spread useless panic if the info got out." She bit her lip. "As long as whoever has them doesn't start to blow up cities with them yet." "Someone that good at magic wouldn't need scales for acts of terrorism. They might contact us, sooner or later." "Or sell them to someone else." "Maybe," said Twilight. "The only thing we can do for now is focus on the info we have." Starlight swallowed again. "I... She asked me for help. Do you think she wanted out of the whole thing?" "She might have," Twilight agreed. "For one, I'll actually do what she suggested. We're adding extra security to the laboratory. More guards, mandatory checks on all workers, I won't bother you with the details right now." "I want to help," Starlight blurted out. "You're not in a condition to," Twilight sternly replied. Then her tone grew softer. "It's for the best, for all of us. You need time to recover." After a moment, Starlight weakly nodded. "I understand." But her tone didn't appear particularly convinced. Twilight sighed again. "Starlight?" She waited for the unicorn to look at her again. "It was not your fault, not any more than it was mine. You couldn't have stopped it." Starlight's breathing had gotten a little heavier. She softly nodded, and blinked twice, but again there was little evidence to suggest she truly believed what she was hearing. > Oleander > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash asked, confused, willing herself forward through the empty darkness around them. "Is that you? Why do you look like that?" Pinkie turned towards her, a little surprised. "Rainbow. You're not my Rainbow though, and I'm not your Pinkie." Rainbow paused. "Oh. Mirror world stuff?" Pinkie nodded. "So that's what a human looks like." After a moment Rainbow shook her head. "Nevermind that, what are you doing here? Do your friends know you're in Equestria?" Pinkie gave her a weird smile. "Don't worry about them, I'm safe here. And besides..." Reaching towards Rainbow, she moved her arm through the pony's torso, her hand coming out behind her neck. "I'm not really here." Rainbow drew back, a bit confused by that. "Okay. That's weird. I'll probably have to tell Luna about it." She looked around. "This whole place is weird. What's going on here, exactly?" "Oh, nothing in particular." Pinkie floated around in the darkness. "I was just catching up with an acquaintance of mine." As she said so, the shadows around her body seemed to shift, ruffling like feathers and caressing the edges of her skin. Rainbow opened and closed her mouth once. "Yep. Definitely weird, definitely telling Luna about this." She drifted a little closer to Pinkie. "Are you sure everything is okay?" "Okay?" Pinkie looked at her with wide open eyes and took a long, deep breath, inhaling shadowy tendrils of the darkness around them. "Things are going far better than just okay, Rainbow," she whispered in a breathy tone. The shadows had grown claws, and were tugging and pulling at Pinkie's lips and other bits of her anatomy Rainbow couldn't as easily trace back to the more familiar equine bodies she was accustomed to, or merely wandering over her skin. The pony looked at Pinkie's eyes, and moved back a little, swallowing. "Pinkie, uh, I'm gonna be straight with you, this doesn't really look okay to me." She held back from summoning her armour, but she was ready to do so at any moment. "Oh, Dashie, don't be silly." Pinkie moved towards Rainbow with speed and motions that looked unnatural even for a creature Rainbow had never seen before moving through void blackness. She stopped with her upside-down face just a hair's breadth away from the pegasus', and while Rainbow knew Pinkie couldn't touch her she suspected that was probably not true for the shadows slithering around over the girl's skin and wrapping around her limbs. "You being straight with me? What kind of nonsense is that?" Pinkie opened her mouth, but what came out was closer to a frantic series of pants than to laughter. That was until a thick stream of darkness and shadows began to pour into her mouth and down her throat. Rainbow swiftly pushed herself away, and she did summon her armour. Breathing fast, she stared at Pinkie and tried to think of what to do. Parts of the girl's body were fully enveloped by darkness, like fabric coating her limbs, and behind her what looked like a pair of black wings almost seemed visible. Then Pinkie's eyes began to glow a deep dark black and purple, and before she could react Rainbow Dash blanked out. > See Where It Takes You To > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A plain, empty grey room, four identical smooth metal walls each with a door. The portal was the only other thing there as Twilight stepped through it. She looked around, and breathed in. At least the air was clear there. She paced around the room for a few moments, inspecting it, her horn lit to detect any magic that might be there. Nothing as far as she could tell. She moved to the closest door, and ready to react to anything that might have been on the other side she opened it. A room identical to the one she was in greeted her, only different in its lack of a portal. It was otherwise completely empty, and indistinguishable from the other. Twilight stepped in it, cautious yet curious, and left the door open behind her. Again, her magic detected nothing in the room. With increasing curiosity she reached for the door on the opposite wall and opened that too, to find another still identical room. Then she turned around and, after checking to make sure she could still see the room with the portal, went for the door to her left. Again it was just like the previous ones, and there she picked the right door. Not even surprised that the new room was once more like all the others, she went right again and ended up in the room with the portal, as she should have. Just to double check that the place did indeed seem to follow regular spatial geometry, Twilight released a spark of light from her horn and, standing still in the room with the portal, guided it backwards along her path to see it once more reappear through the first door she'd opened. That out of the way, she turned to one of the doors she still hadn't opened and charged her horn. A spell fired from it, passed through the door, and opened it, along with every other one it met in its path as it continued to sail forward through the air. As far as Twilight's eyes could see, every room seemed identical to every other one, and a quick accelerated trip through a hundred or so of them and back confirmed they were indeed all the same. Twilight repeated the process for the last door, with the same results, and then moved to a nearby room where once again she did the same with the two remaining doors in it, again finding only copies of the one she was in. She walked back to the portal. True, she could maybe try to go farther and see if eventually something changed. But that didn't seem like a particularly worthwhile time investment. It would take hours at least to properly check everything, and months even depending on how large the place was. And that was all assuming it had an end, which Twilight eerily suspected it might have not. Mulling over her thoughts for a while longer, she headed back to the portal, and left the room. > F-H > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh." Starshine didn't stop smiling. "That's okay. You don't need to decide now. You don't need to decide at all, if you're not comfortable with it. I wouldn't want to bother you so." She sat down, still looking at Sunburst. For his part, Sunburst sighed, opening and closing his mouth a couple times without saying anything. "I'm sorry." "Nothing to be sorry about," Starshine replied. "If you don't want me to be here, I can go for now. Like I said, I don't want to bother you, and you know I wouldn't be bothered by not existing a while longer." "I do want you here," Sunburst hastily replied. "And I want to understand this, it's just... tough. I want to get through this, but not go through it, I guess." "You ponies can get so complicated." Starshine tilted her head to the other side. "I wonder if me being like that too would help." "At this point I don't know." Sunburst stared at the desk for a moment. "And I don't want this discussion to derail into something else." "You're saying that for yourself. You know I wouldn't try to derail it if you didn't want to," said Starshine. "You did want me to remind you of that." Sunburst took his head in his hooves, trying to focus. After a few deep breaths, he looked to Starshine again. "Is there an easy way around this? Can I just will myself to know the answer?" She shook her head. "We can only alter myself, and create physical things that are not part of existing creatures. No instant knowledge or personality manipulation. Or sudden tumors." "I see." Sunburst nodded. That was at least progress. Directing the conversation where it needed to go. "Could we create a book containing all the answers, and then just read that?" "You could try," Starshine said. "But you'd only get the answer you want to have. And there's a decent chance you wouldn't be able to ask all the right questions. It likely wouldn't work the way you want it to." "Alright." Sunburst thought for a moment longer. "Can you answer the questions, then?" "Only the way you want me to answer them, but yes." Starshine nodded. "If you think you do have the presence of mind to wish for an honest answer over a comfortable one, then we can do it." She smiled a little wider. "You did ask for that encouragement, yes. But it is true." Sunburst took another, deeper breath, and pushed himself back against his chair. "Let's start at the beginning." He swallowed. "I created you, didn't I?" he asked, pushing all the words out on a single quick breath. "You did." Starshine softly nodded once. Then her smile curved into something a little more mischievous. "Which technically means I do get to call you Daddy." "Starshine this is not helping," Sunburst replied. "This is the opposite of helping and not derailing the conversation." "Well it's not my fault you have all of this repressed horny." Starshine pouted. "I don't-" Sunburst sputtered. "Don't word it like that! That is possibly the single worst way you could ever word that, and it severely undermines the nuances of the actual issue." "Well what are you gonna do about it, huh? Planning to spank me, D-" The rest of the sentence was muffled and indistinguishable, mostly due to Starshine's sudden lack of a mouth. Taking slow breaths and shaking slightly, Sunburst reached for the steaming mug of chamomile tea that hadn't been there before and emptied it in a long, slow sip. Then he set the mug back down. "This is going to take a while." For her part Starshine stared at him, mouthless yet still smiling. > Visual Silence > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- How is it so far, then?| Oh, it's been okay. Really, nothing to worry about yet.| I see. If you say so, Fluttershy. I was and still am quite worried about this, but like I've said before I won't interfere so long as you feel it is safe for you to continue. I just ask that you continue to be careful in your endeavours.| Of course, princess.| I'm not a princess anymore. This is a serious matter, Fluttershy. I trust your judgement, but do not put yourself at needless risk more so than you already are. Your ideals are admirable, but we will choose to save you over them if things come to it, and we would expect the same from you.| I am only one pony. This goes beyond me. I don't wish for any sacrifices to be made, but if things turned out so I believe I would be the preferable loss.| I would never willfully allow one of my ponies to die. I may not be your ruler any longer, but I still care for those whose dreams I watch over.| Then I hope you would care for their decisions as well. If my death was necessary, I would gladly sacrifice myself. I know you would do the same for something you held dear.| I would. And you would try to stop me from it.| I would. That does not mean I wouldn't allow you to, if no other alternative was found. Life often requires death to continue itself, I've long accepted that I am not above this cycle.| And yet you're trying to be. Choosing to sacrifice yourself, rather than to partake in it, and bring death so that your own life may continue.| It doesn't have to come to it. There can be balance. There is balance, for now.| For how long? You cannot sustain this forever. A host can only provide enough for so long to a parasite that keeps growing, and you do not wish to share your burden.| But a symbiosis can last forever.| We do not know if such a thing is even possible. Why take the risk? Do you not rid your animals of ticks, or worms?| My animals don't choose to keep them, though I might allow them to if one ever asked. But this is a far different situation, you know that much.| Maybe. Ticks and worms can't lie, after all.| Are you here to check on me or to change my mind?| Apologies. I'm merely worried about you. Please, do not make any rash decisions.| I won't. I know what I'm doing, Luna.| I believe so. And I hope you will be right in the end. This does not change the decisions I plan to make should you not be.| Then I hope you will not have to make those decisions.| This I hope as well. Now I shall leave you to your dreams. Be careful, Fluttershy.| I will be, Luna. I will call for you if I ever need your help.| And I will answer your call. Goodbye, for now.| Goodbye. > Last Call > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you sure you got the coordinates right?" "You're the one who calculated them. And I double checked them, and had them checked by a couple others as well," Twilight replied, staring through the empty space where a wall had been months before. "But are we sure they're right?" Sunburst didn't stop nervously pacing back and forth, using his magic to toy with his beard. "As sure as I can ever be of anything, yes," said Twilight, in a surprisingly serene tone. "If calculations this precise turned out wrong then we may as well start doubting everything about teleportation spells themselves. The coordinates are the best we can possibly have, and they're right." "But what if it moved in the meantime?" Sunburst stopped his pacing, staring at Twilight. Twilight rolled her eyes, and turned back towards him. "Sunburst. If the Behemoth had moved again, I'm pretty sure everyone would know." "Right." Sunburst slowly nodded. "But what if-" "Sunburst, please. You're not the one who needs to go there." Twilight gave a small chuckle. "I know you're covering for Starlight, but you don't need to cover for her freak-outs too." "Well I'm sorry if the prospect of our greatest asset and researcher, and our ruler, and a friend, teleporting herself right up to what is possibly the most dangerous thing to ever show up on this planet leaves me a tiny little bit nervous. What am I supposed to do if only half of you comes back?" Sunburst had to stop and adjust his glasses, which were slowly sliding down his muzzle, sweat starting to form on his brow even in the cold weather. "Don't say it," he said, not to Twilight. "Depends on which... Aww. You're no fun," Starshine whined, sat in a corner of the abandoned building. Twilight sighed. "Don't worry about it too much. There are contingencies in place in case I turn into a puddle up there, Equestria will survive. I trust you all, I know you can make it without me." Sunburst fixed his glasses again. "Twilight, that is the opposite of reassuring. It's mostly the you turning into a puddle part we're all worried about, not the political consequences." Twilight sighed again. "I know. But if I keep pretending like it's not a big deal maybe I can continue to trick my brain into avoiding panic attacks long enough to actually follow through on this whole thing." She swallowed. "I've managed to get close enough to touch it already. This should be safe." Then she extended a hoof and grabbed a hayburger from the ground. Once she was done stuffing it into her mouth, she looked to Sunburst again. "There's nothing left to wait for, I think." "So you're going? This is really happening?" Sunburst sat down. Twilight nodded, and began to cast the defensive spell she'd devised on herself. She'd practised and tested it enough times by then that she didn't really need to think about what she was doing, but that didn't stop her from focusing on it anyway. Once she was done, she looked back to Sunburst, then silently turned and looked at the Behemoth. A moment later, she disappeared from the building, leaving behind just the light and sound of her teleportation. Then, nothing. > Passage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a moment spent holding her breath, making sure she was still there and alive, Twilight opened her eyes. The first thing she did was look down. Not that there was anything to see in that direction, though she supposed that indeed confirmed she'd gotten the coordinates right. It did hit her at that moment just where, exactly, she was, and what she was doing, but she forced herself to push through it and looked around. She was greeted before she even laid eyes on the stallion. "Hello," he said. "I've been waiting for you." "The Charioteer, I presume?" asked Twilight, stepping closer to him. He looked just as Firecracker had described him, at least seen from behind. "That would be me, yes." Still, the stallion didn't turn. "And you are Twilight... Twilight Sparkle. Just Twilight Sparkle. No Aurora here." Twilight chose to ignore that last bit for the time being. "I only know you by your title. This doesn't seem all that fair." She got closer still, but not too close, and kept her horn ready. "Would you rather I address you by your title as well? I don't think so. You get to choose what I call you by, allow me to do the same. But let's not waste time on this kind of matters." Twilight bit her lower lip. "You know why I'm here, don't you?" "Answers. The same thing most sapient creatures do just about anything that isn't tied to their survival for. That or having fun." The Charioteer turned to look at Twilight. "Start asking questions, then." Twilight swallowed, as she studied the stallion's expression. She was in danger, and she knew it. And yet, faced with the possibility of everything she could learn, seemingly safe from harm until he decided otherwise, she could not help but indulge her own curiosity. "Is it really true that every world has its Behemoth? Its abomination, as I've heard them called?" The Charioteer smiled. "Every world that matters. Every world you can reach. I don't know about others, if other worlds do exist beyond these. I do know you'll never reach them, should they be out there." He stood, and Twilight noticed the reins wrapped around his front legs. "Every world has its own, in time. Even the nightmare world you've found. Even that one." A shudder ran through Twilight at those last words. She knew what the other meant with them. "Do they all have a Charioteer?" she asked. The stallion kept on smiling. It seemed like a genuine thing, no traces of mockery in it. "This, I don't actually know. I never paid much attention to them, truly. Those I know of do have some form of guide, not quite like me yet not too greatly different. But others might not. I don't suggest you bother checking, though." Twilight swallowed again. She could afford to be curious a while longer, she thought. "Where do you come from?" "Someplace else." The stallion chuckled. "Then again, everyone does. From beyond this world, I suppose. I don't know if it has a name that would mean anything to you or to any of the worlds you might meet. To me it's simply the place I come from." > Onwards > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight thought it over for a moment. "Why are you here?" "Things to do," the Charioteer replied. "Specifically, making sure the Behemoth moves when it should and where it should. Or maybe that it simply doesn't move when and where it shouldn't. But you've heard all this already, Twilight, let's not waste time with it." "But why?" Twilight insisted. "What is the purpose? What is the reason for all of this?" The stallion sighed, seeming a tad annoyed or maybe simply bored. "That is not a question I can answer, much less one I want to right now. Please don't push our discussion down this path further." Twilight considered her options. She wasn't sure if it was her curiosity or her self preservation instinct making the decision, but she chose to heed the stallion's words. Instead, she moved on to something slightly different. "Who sent you here?" "Pretty bold assumption there, that someone did." The Charioteer was back to smiling again. "You've made it clear there's more going on than simply what I can see in the worlds I've found," Twilight replied. "Who's behind all of this?" "Do you want an honest answer?" The stallion's smile shifted to something weirder, like he was suddenly aware of something really funny or ironic that only he could see. "I have barely the faintest clue of who or what it might be. You wouldn't get a satisfying answer if you looked into my head yourself." Twilight was as shook by that as she could allow herself to be given the situation she was in. Still unsure if she'd been told the truth, she asked, "Then why are you doing all of this? Why would you act without knowing what the purpose is?" The Charioteer chuckled. "It's in a raindrop's nature to fall to the ground, and it cares not that a pegasus placed the cloud it came from where they did. It cares not if it's falling to water a forest or to put out a fire. It just falls. I am here, doing this, and that's what I am." "A drop of water doesn't have the free will of a pony like you," Twilight rebuked. "And yet ponies live and die, don't they? For how much they may question why, or try to avoid it, you all have rules you cannot escape. Not knowing why you're alive has never stopped one of you from living, not knowing where you go afterwards has never stopped one of you from dying. We all have our chains, Twilight, and directing this creature is mine. I am the Charioteer, after all." The stallion was still smiling as he said all that. Twilight was silent for a moment. "This world will be destroyed, won't it?" The Charioteer raised an eyebrow. "Death claims everything in time, Twilight. But that's not what you're asking here. This world will be destroyed soon, because of the creature we're standing on, yes." Twilight swallowed, trying to slow her breathing. "How soon?" The stallion pursed his lips. "I don't know, actually. It's not up to me to decide." > Celebration > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And you don't know who it's up to either, right?" Twilight asked, almost taunting the stallion. He nodded, not bothered by her tone. "I'm not sure if it is up to someone, really. It might all be predetermined. Or up to this creature's nature. Or up to pure chance." "Every world is destroyed in its own way," Twilight said. "What about this one? More earthquakes? Will the planet break apart? Something else entirely?" "Wouldn't you like to know?" Twilight forced herself to not be bothered by the Charioteer's snark. She was starting to feel a mild itching in her hooves, but aside from that her spell still seemed to hold. "Is there a way for us to stop this?" Thinking about it, the stallion sat down. "More than one, probably. And yes, because I know already you'll ask about it. Yes, getting rid of me would stop the process. You might still have the Behemoth to deal with in some form, but your world would be safe." "You claim you're here to bring about the destruction of our world, and then tell us that defeating you is the key to stopping it." Twilight took a careful step forward. "It's almost as if you want us to attack you." The Charioteer chuckled. "If I had wanted that, I would not have spent months here alone. I merely prefer to be honest." Twilight briefly nibbled on the inside of her cheek. "Even if that's true, why would you not expect me to attack you right now?" "Because you're not done asking questions, Twilight, and I'm not done giving answers. And I know you well enough." The Charioteer smirked. "I wonder, if Sombra had chosen to tempt rather than frighten, if things wouldn't have gone differently. I'm honestly surprised no one ever sought to exploit your thirst for knowledge. It would seem like such an obvious thing." Twilight stood straighter. "Do you think I would have ever chosen knowledge over my friends?" she almost barked, clearly angered by the implication. "Not at all," the Charioteer replied. "But I do know that you'll wait a few more minutes before you do anything against me. There's so much more I could tell you about, after all." His smile grew a little wider, and his gaze seemed to lose focus for a moment, like he was staring at something in the distance. "Sunburst is starting to worry, but you probably knew that already." Twilight forced herself not to overanalyse what she thought she might be seeing, and instead focus on what it reminded her of. "I'll concede, you got me there. Let's talk coils then, shall we?" "With pleasure. Just don't expect particularly great revelations on this front," the Charioteer replied. "If there's anything I really wanted you to know I would have already told you through the last visit I received. I'm not that much in need of being overly dramatic to sacrifice all convenience for the sake of it. Just most." He smiled, and gave a brief whispered chuckle. > Meanwhile > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How do you think she's doing? Do you think she's okay?" Sunburst kept pacing from one wall to the opposite one, insistently throwing glances into the distance. "What do you expect me to think, Sunny?" Starshine replied, still sitting in the corner with her back against the wall. "Of course I'm going to answer that she's probably okay, she's Twilight after all. You need reassurance right now." "And yet you somehow managed to give it in the least actually reassuring way." Sunburst's steps became a little louder as he nervously stomped over the stone beneath his hooves. "It's not my fault you have to make my existence so complicated." Starshine shrugged. "And stop walking there, you'll dig yourself a trench if you keep that up. Do you want a telescope to try to look for her?" "There's no telescope good enough to see her where she is, no matter how impossibly advanced," Sunburst replied, sounding a little annoyed. But his pace did slow down a little. "I know," Starshine said with a nod. "But you could frustrate yourself with futile attempts and then chastise yourself for even trying in the first place." "That doesn't exactly sound like an ideal use of my time." Sunburst looked at Starshine for a moment, then back in the direction where Twilight was supposed to be. "It sounds like a better use of your time than literally nothing." Starshine clicked her tongue. "Come on, Sunny, you can't just keep walking back and forth like that." "Well what am I supposed to do?" Sunburst asked. "I have to wait for Twilight to get back, praying to Harmony that she does so alive and in one piece, and I have to wait for her here. What else should I be doing?" Starshine rolled her eyes. "If you're gonna wait, at least wait the proper way. Sit down and calm down. Trying to grind out your hooves against the floor like that won't be of any help to anyone." "Twilight could be dying up there!" Sunburst yelled. "How am I supposed to just sit down and wait?" He forced himself to slow down his breaths, and adjusted his glasses. "I mean, yes, she probably isn't dying and things will actually be fine but there is a non zero chance that something does go wrong." "The chances of being hit by a meteorite while grocery shopping aren't zero either, but that never stopped you from doing it," Starshine replied, blowing a strand of her mane out of her face. Sunburst almost sputtered for a moment. "That is not the same thing and you know it." Starshine rolled her eyes again. "Look, Sunny. Do you believe in Twilight? Do you believe that if anypony could pull this off, it would be her? Then stop acting like you don't. She'll be fine." Sunburst opened his mouth, but after a few moments all that came out was a deep sigh. He sat down, and took hold of the steaming mug of tea he found on the ground as he stretched out his hoof towards it. After a long sip, he sighed again, trying to slow his breath. "I suppose you have a point. We'll just have to wait." > Vilify > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella pondered the scene before her. From the pegasus lying down to the one still standing, to the alicorn looking at them both. And the other pony there, too, but that wasn't all too relevant. Definitely not what she'd come there for. And yet, she'd found something that might have been that much more important. What she would do with the information was still up in the air, but she wasn't going to let Twilight get there first. Assuming it could be done, of course. But if it couldn't, the other would be heading straight into a trap. She supposed she might have decided to stop her, if that turned out to be the case. It wouldn't have been right for Twilight to end any way other than by her hoof and horn. But that was a matter for the future. She still had things to listen to there, and tests to run afterwards. Hopefully the little distraction would be worth it in the end. > Exile > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight wasn't sure if she should have felt annoyed by the stallion's attitude, or amused by it. Knowing what he was responsible for, indirectly and directly, her logical side said it should have been the former. Her guts disagreed at moments. "What do you want me to know about them, then?" "A little wide for a question, don't you think?" the Charioteer asked, tilting his head to a side. "Not when you implied the answers aren't that many," Twilight replied. "I may as well have you spit it all out rather than waste time playing guesses about what is and isn't worth asking." "How efficient of you." The Charioteer gave a little tap with his hoof, and Twilight for a moment worried the Behemoth would start to move beneath her. "Exactly the opposite of how I like to do things. But I suppose the pretense of variance across different individuals is part of what makes life enjoyable, after all." He leaned slightly to a side, then to the other. "Right, then. Coils. What could the little pony princess want to know about them?" he wondered aloud, looking at the sky. "Planning to make up for the time I'm not losing?" Twilight was tempted to sit, but she had no intention of putting any other portion of her body in contact with the Behemoth. Just because the spell had held that far it didn't mean she should try to push it further. The Charioteer's eyes snapped back to her. "They are a consequence of the Behemoth's presence, obviously. And yes, there are still more you haven't found. No, they won't change with time, any perceived change is merely the result of better understanding and control. And as a warning, you've been lucky with the receivers so far. It won't last." The corners of his mouth drew back, giving an edge to his smile. "It already happened, actually." His expression then returned to a more normal one. "And yes. Newer ones will appear, in time. No particular correlation between their nature and the when of it. That's all about this, for now." Twilight nodded, taking mental note of everything the stallion had told her and already beginning to analyse parts of it. A stray thought struck at her, and she decided she may as well give it a go before moving on with the rest. "You seem to know a lot about a lot of things." She waited just a moment, to see if the smugness oozing from the Charioteer's expression would crystallise in an affirmative reply as well. When it didn't, she continued, "Do you happen to know about what happened with Chrysalis? The parts I don't know of, of course." "I do," the Charioteer replied. The part where he mentioned he wouldn't tell her wasn't needed, his tone carried that bit of information perfectly on its own. "Please, don't have me fill up the whole conversation with bits of knowledge about other creatures' lives. Unless you want me to talk about Silver Lace. Do I have some things to say about that mare's tastes in terms of paint colours." Twilight looked at him silently for a moment. "Scales. Let's talk about scales." > ahw > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ah, yes. I figured you'd get to them eventually." The Charioteer stood up again and seemingly stretched, rolling his shoulders. "Anything in particular you would like to know?" he asked. "What are they?" Twilight asked, bluntly. "Fragments of the Behemoth. Pieces of its body, as you've been able to put together. Naturally shed, not ripped. Not quite like how a snake loses its skin though. Closer to some creatures losing their teeth as they grow new ones, though that's not an exact parallel either," the Charioteer explained. "I know most of that is things you'd already figured out by yourself, though I suppose it must feel nice to hear them confirmed. Assuming you do consider me a trustworthy source of information, of course." Twilight gave a half nod. "It is nice to hear I was right, yes. Other abominations, if that's what we're calling them, in other worlds, all share this common trait of seemingly shedding parts of themselves, as far as observed. Is this a constant?" she asked. "It is," the stallion replied. "Not always in the same form, and I mean that in more than just the way the shapes variate across different creatures, but every equivalent to the Behemoth has its equivalent to scales. And on that note, they do all share the same properties and uses." "You know an awful lot about other worlds for someone claiming you never really paid attention to them," Twilight noted. "I may not be informed about the specifics," the Charioteer replied, "but that doesn't mean I'm not aware of the general points. Some things were established as common elements before every creature was sent its way." Suddenly reflecting on something what she'd just heard had touched on, Twilight blinked, and asked, "Were they all sent together? Why is there such a seemingly wide time frame for their arrivals? Are some universes further apart than others, at different distances from where you came?" The Charioteer snickered, and Twilight wasn't sure if he was actually mocking her or if he'd just thought of something really funny and completely unrelated. "A linear, equivalent flow of time with a common beginning across different universes is not an assumption you can afford to make, nor is portals derived from scales travelling perpendicular to its direction. Functionally they might as well, but you should consider that an oversimplification if you want to deal with the bigger picture," he explained. "As for your question, interdimensional travel between and across different realities is a complicated mess. One day you might get to see that for yourself." "Does it not bother you to be used as a standing on-demand distributor of information?" Twilight suddenly asked, on a whim. "I have sat here immobile for months. I have very low standards for what counts as an entertaining use of my time." The Charioteer chuckled to himself. "And I do love rambling. I won't waste my one chance at an audience who's actually willing to stand there and take it." Twilight chewed on nothing for a moment. "Makes sense to me. Back to scales then, I suppose. I've still got a couple things to ask there." > Incessant > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ask away," the Charioteer replied. "How do they get where they are found?" Twilight asked. "Do they appear there by themselves? Do they travel there? Are they there all along, waiting just to be found? Were they shed as the Behemoth walked, or are they being shed now as it stands?" "It's more than just a couple things you still want to know," the Charioteer said. He seemed to be humming a tune to himself, but Twilight couldn't quite tell for sure. "Let's see." He cleared his throat, then continued, "They were mostly lost as the Behemoth first walked, and that explains why they are so spread out. That doesn't mean they are already there to be found." His eyes studied Twilight's expression. "And it should be noted that the Behemoth had been stepping on this land for a while already before you took notice of it." The only visible reaction Twilight had to the revelation was a sudden blink of her eyes and a very slight tension in her legs, making her lean just a few millimetres back. On the inside though, the effects of having heard that were far more pronounced. But she could always ask clarifications at a later moment. "Are there still more to be found?" she asked, in the coldest and most detached tone she could manage. "Indeed there are," said the stallion. "And there'll continue to be for, well, for long enough to see this world meet its end, though they might get a bit more scarce towards the end. And afterwards, scales are fickle things. I doubt whoever might wander in here from a different universe will find more than a few. Things would be quite too easy otherwise. And unfair, it's not like you're getting that luxury with the worlds you meet." Stretching her neck, Twilight momentarily scrunched up her face. It felt stiff, but she couldn't tell if it was the Behemoth's presence or merely tension. "What of their connection with those who find them? Is there something special about it, or is it merely an effect of being exposed to one?" "There is something there, yes." Once more, the Charioteer appeared to be studying Twilight's face. "Every scale only has one creature it's meant to be found by. A bond that can't be undone or modified, not by theft nor by other acts. And it does affect one, in particular, of a given scale's uses." "Because scales do have multiple uses," said Twilight. "Indeed, but you knew that already." The Charioteer took a short step forward, though nothing else came from it. "I'm sure you are quite tempted to ask me about them. But where would the fun be if you just knew? I want you to find out yourself. Besides..." For just a moment, he appeared to be looking towards something else at Twilight's side, an impression so strong the mare actually slightly turned her head to look at the nothing there. "Better to leave some things unsaid when someone else might be listening." > Awkn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked back and forth between the Charioteer and the empty space beside her. "Is anyone else here?" she asked, coldly, her jaw clenched. The Charioteer opened his mouth to speak, but a moment later just sighed, and looked down. "How do I put this in a way that won't be misunderstood, but is still annoyingly cryptic to you?" He sat and rested his chin on a hoof, and Twilight couldn't tell if he was serious about it or merely playing it up for his own humour. "Never assume that someone might not be listening, Twilight, there are things in these worlds beyond your comprehension and beyond the scope of what you should care about. Most listeners tend not to interfere. That all said, there is a difference between merely listening in on a conversation and personally being there to spy on it." He looked straight at Twilight again. "I can assure you there is no one here but me and a purple alicorn princess," he said with a smile. Twilight, still unsure, tried to decipher his expression, and threw one last look beside her where he'd been staring at and still seemed to be looking towards at moments. "Back to our conversation then," she said, her tone still stiff. "I know you know all about our little incident at the castle. Does the thief in question know something I don't about how to use scales?" "Maybe they do." The Chariotter shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe they don't. Do you think there's someone out there who'd be able to figure out more than you have, in less time and with less resources?" Twilight gave a particularly intense exhale, but little else. "What exactly does this bond entail? Are there consequences for being close to a scale, or for being tied to it specifically?" The stallion pursed his lips. "Scales are kind of like buckets of water to the Behemoth's ocean. It's a lot harder to drown in the former. Effects might be there, but no worse than how simply standing in the light of the Sun means bathing in radiation. A pony can deal with it." A pause. "Unless, you know, you eat one." The faintest twitch coursed through Twilight's face. "Someone did, didn't they?" "You'll have liked him by today," the Charioteer replied. "Speaking of which, it's exciting not to know what's going on with that." Twilight gave a blank nod. "Anything else about the bond?" Another shrug. "Not really." "Not really. I see." Twilight took a deep breath. "Do you make less sense the more you go on, or is the Behemoth physically melting my brain? I knew I should have put extra shielding on the cerebral area." "Neither, actually." The Charioteer smiled in a way that oddly resembled a pout. "Anything else you wish to know, before the inevitable fight this conversation will end with?" "And you say I'm the one who makes assumptions," Twilight replied. "Is there any pattern I might be able to deduce about where scales will be found?" > Fire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you okay?" "I can't find Twilight anywhere, so that means she's out there risking her life over something she hasn't explained to me yet," Starlight replied. "Sunburst is there too, apparently, given I can't find him anywhere here." "Oh." Trixie waited on the doorstep for a second. "Do you want to go have some ice-cream or something?" she asked. "Kind of cold for ice-cream, isn't it?" Starlight asked back, looking up from her desk. "Well, we could always warm up the room," Trixie replied. Starlight chuckled. "Are they even selling ice-cream this time of year?" "Are you even still assuming this town follows any shred of logical sense?" Trixie deadpanned. "Point." Starlight got up from her seat and walked towards Trixie. "I suppose intaking sugar to distract myself from the impending risk of our country losing its only current leader is a valid option. But I'd probably rather go for hot chocolate." "I'm sure they serve hot chocolate at the ice-cream place," Trixie replied. Starlight chuckled again. "Why ice-cream, anyway?" She reached Trixie, then walked past her and out the door. "I don't know. Why anything?" Trixie replied, closing the door as she walked out behind Starlight. "Why is the sky blue? Why does gravity exist? Why is there a giant creature standing around in our capital? Why am I suddenly back to being the least magically talented unicorn among my acquaintances?" Starlight flinched. "Oh." She took a deep breath. "Come on now. You're still talented! You've gotten so much better at magic." "Never as talented as Twilight or her pupil." Trixie walked past Starlight. "And not nearly talented enough to match up to Sunburst, nowadays." Starlight sped up her steps to reach the other mare. > Wal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Charioteer shook his head. "Not any you'd be ever able to figure out. Mind you, that doesn't mean there isn't one." He smirked. "No, I'm not telling you." Twilight exhaled. "I suppose that is functionally the same as it being random, then." "Indeed." Twilight recognised the expression on the Charioteer's face. It was the same kind of smile Celestia had whenever a student asked a really smart question, or figured out a particular implication of a topic by themself. "I have always been quite fascinated by this topic," he continued. "Given it is equally believed by everyone, or even simply by enough creatures and viewed by society in the proper way, and given it cannot be proven as one, a lie is functionally truth. So it matters not if you can prove the correctness of your assumptions on a universal scale, what matters is that they work." "That is a very practical way to look at the world," Twilight said, "though I suppose precisely because of that it works well for what it's meant to be." "I just think figuring out how to work with and within a system is a more fruitful use of time than questioning its true nature and inner mechanisms," the Charioteer replied. "I wouldn't say it's a better use of time, I believe that kind of judgement is purely subjective in nature, but it does certainly lead to more results in less time." He clicked his tongue. "And time is something you don't have much of, all things considered. I understand your desire to understand things, but compromises may be necessary if you wish to reach your goals." Twilight stared the stallion down for a few moments. "I can't say you don't make a valid point. Though I do find it odd you'd bother to bring this up." "What can I say?" The Charioteer shrugged. "Like I've told you, I do love to rant and ramble. Believe me, I could go on for days' worth of writing." "Odd way to phrase that." "I would hope you'll put down a full transcript of this conversation, Twilight." The stallion smirked at her again. "Something to remember my existence for a bit, when I'm gone." Twilight didn't know if she was meant to laugh or sigh. So, she did neither. "Do you really think you'll be forgotten, if I manage to stop you? With all the damage you've done to Equestria, with all the effort it will take to get there?" "Everyone and everything is forgotten, sooner or later." Twilight looked at him still. "Only when there's no one left to does something stop being remembered. And it might still be known again, at some point." She paused a moment, thinking. "And things don't simply disappear from memory. The details change, the meanings shift, but some traces are left. And they carry on, one way or another, for as small of a difference as they might make. Nothing is ever truly, completely forgotten." The Charioteer chuckled. "This is quite the summary of who the two of us are, isn't it?" > L > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Trixie. I understand you're-" "No you don't!" Trixie replied. "The only time you ever met someone better than you at magic she was an alicorn whose talent literally is magic, and she was so impressed by you she took you as her pupil. You have never had any idea of what it's like to not be anything but absolutely amazing at magic." Starlight flinched. She swallowed, thinking of what to say. "Ouch," she finally let out. "But you are right. And angry, which is why I won't hold this one against you." She stepped closer to the other. "Look. This isn't about which one of us is better at magic." "It's easy to say that when you're not the third wheel." Trixie grumpily refused to look at Starlight. "You're probably the most talented unicorn in the continent, and meanwhile now he's become the closest thing we have to Discord in the noodle's absence." "Come on now," Starlight said. "Just because Sunburst does have powers I don't think it's fair to compare him to Discord." "He basically created life," Trixie rebuked, snapping towards Starlight. "Now I'm not just the least magical one, I'm not even needed for threesomes anymore." Starlight stepped closer, and placed a hoof over Trixie's back. "Trixie. You don't need to be the most magically talented, and you know that. You're still our friend, and you're still special to us. You know you're not a third wheel, right?" Trixie looked Starlight in the eyes, and her expression slowly melted. "It's one thing to be your friend. But now the world is in danger and you two are constantly helping out and I'm... I'm just here. Doing nothing. I'm completely useless in this whole situation, and I just have to sit by and watch ponies better than me risking their lives to try to save us. I know no one expects me to do anything, but you don't know what it's like to be unable to help in any meaningful way." Starlight pulled Trixie in for a hug. "You are helping, and you know that. You've been doing great here with the school. And you're helping us just by being there for us." "I don't feel like it's enough." Trixie returned the hug. "But I guess wasting time whining about it will do more harm than good. Do you still want that chocolate?" "Of course I do," Starlight replied. > K > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean by that?" "Oh, nothing in particular." The Charioteer shook his head. "Moving on then. Is there anything else you wanted to ask about scales, or should we switch to a different topic?" Twilight hesitated, biting her lower lip. Before she had time to say anything, the Charioteer spoke again. "You can always come back to this topic later, if you feel like it. I understand what it's like wanting to be sure you're getting every bit of information you can. Just ask whatever comes to mind, don't worry about missing out on something just because the conversation seems to have moved on." Twilight furrowed her brow at that. "Well, if you put it like that, I do have something else to ask. Are you reading my thoughts?" The Charioteer chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment. But no, I'm just good at reading expressions." He pursed his lips, and hummed for a moment. "Your spell will hold, yes. Don't worry about running out of time." "Are you lying to me?" Twilight asked, moving her legs before they grew too stiff. "No, but I should clarify that I don't consider the omission of truth to be the same as a lie. Morally, perhaps, but semantically it's a different thing," the Charioteer replied. "You'll only get the truth from me. Just not the whole truth at once." Twilight gave a very small, mostly instinctual nod. "If I were to leave now, what would you do?" "Go back to watching and waiting. Like I've been doing for most of the last few months," the stallion said. "How do you watch?" asked Twilight, curious. "Is it another benefit of being stuck there, or something else?" The Charioteer smiled at that. "You know how I do it. And I should probably point out that being here is more of an informed choice on my part than an obligation." Twilight's first reaction was mild surprise. She asked him, "Then why haven't you left?" "Do you want me to?" He smiled again. "But like I've said before, I was waiting. I can't just march up to your castle and announce that I'm here to drive this creature around and destroy your world and all that. Where's the mystery in that?" He gave a shrug to accentuate his question. "Besides, I did have to direct the Behemoth. It's not something that can be done at a distance." Twilight then moved on to the second reaction to what she'd heard. "Does that make Sweetie Belle special, in some way?" "Aren't they all special?" the Charioteer asked back. "Curious that you would ask about her in particular. Perhaps I worded myself wrong." Silent for a moment, Twilight thought about what to ask next, and about what to actually take away from what she'd been told. "Will coils and scales all go away, if the Behemoth does?" "Oh, there's an interesting one. Scales should physically remain, but as much duller object than what they currently are. Coils will disappear, yes." > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Applejack?" Rainbow Dash called. "Applejack? Are you here?" Rarity levitated a cloth out of the way and threw a look at the piece of machinery underneath, then set it back down. "Well, aren't you getting what you asked for?" she said, walking farther into the building. "Things are going in a pretty clear direction at the present moment, and it seems fairly evident that pieces are clicking together. Shouldn't this be enough to give you some faith in the rest of the story?" "I don't know." Twilight looked behind a tall wooden shelf, then continued walking forward. "The current portion is getting a little wordy and exposition heavy. Very telly and not very showy, if you get what I'm getting at. It's like the author couldn't find a better way to get all that information across and had to shove it all towards us because it's needed later." Rarity frowned. "You always find something to complain about, don't you? But even you should admit that it makes perfect sense for this to be happening. The characters may be just standing around and talking, but you can't deny that is absolutely what they would be doing in their situation. It would be bad if they weren't sorting things out like this, in my opinion." Twilight sighed. "I'm not saying you're wrong. Because you're not. The exposition itself is justified within the story. But it was still the writer's decision to have it, and to move the events so that it would happen. Having constructed a frame that justifies the influx of information doesn't change the fact that there was a decision to have it take place in the first place, rather than having things go differently." Rarity shook her head, and she was about to reply with something else when she heard Pinkie's cry from the next room over. "Girls!" she yelled. "I found her!" Immediately Twilight teleported both herself and Rarity towards the source of the sound, and moments later Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash arrived in as well. Applejack was sitting in a corner, facing against the wall, clutching her legs to her body and holding her phone in her hoof. She said nothing as she heard the others approach, the only sign of life the somewhat irregular contractions of her breathing. "Applejack," Fluttershy called to her. "We've been searching you for hours! Your family is worried." "Hours?" Applejack asked, before anyone had a chance to say anything else. Her voice was calm, but strangely cold, and a light tremor in her tone hinted that her composure might have broken down at any moment. "Yeah!" Pinkie said. "We were worried about you too! Trixie was worried too, I think." She placed a hoof under her chin, then shook her head and focused back on Applejack. "Hours." Applejack slowly turned to look at the others. "How often is it updated, Rarity?" For a moment the unicorn didn't understand, then she looked at Applejack's phone. "Oh. Wasn't it once a day?" "Then why has it been seventy-nine chapters since you started looking for me?" > W > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight swallowed at that. "Only coils themselves, or their consequences as well?" she asked, suddenly shifting her weight from one leg to the other. It was partly out of nervousness, partly to deal with standing still for so long. "That's inherently dependant on how much those consequences are tied to the particular coil's existence in the first place," the Charioteer replied, "though you should be able to figure out that much by yourself. Cut out walls and burnt trees will remain, circuits and other such things will not." "So Starshine will..." Twilight didn't finish the sentence, though she didn't need to. "Die? For a given definition of death, though you need to make up your mind on whether or not she's alive in the first place," replied the stallion. "That is all, of course, assuming Sunburst lives long enough to see that happen. Not that it will matter particularly if things simply run their course." Twilight frowned, and was silent as she thought things through. "Oh, don't make that face, and don't act like this is any kind of moral dilemma worth your time. The choice is evident, and the matter of guilt isn't something you can't easily overcome." "That does not mean I enjoy bringing suffering to others. It's not the kind of choice I enjoy making," Twilight said. "And yet it is the kind of choice you are called to make, as ruler of this country. And one you are willing to, as someone fit to take on that role," said the Charioteer. "Only ever if there was no other option." Twilight stared the other down. "And you've been exceptionally good at finding those options, Twilight," the Charioteer acknowledged. "But if it ever came to it, and nothing else could be done, there's not a creature you wouldn't kill. It's pure logic, and it's not something you of all ponies can argue against." There was a moment of almost silence, filled with the slow sound of Twilight's deep breathing. "You don't know me," she finally hissed, in a deep tone. "I know you enough to know that the possibility wouldn't scare you as much if you didn't know it could be true. There's more than one reason you've refused to put yourself in this kind of situation." The Charioteer held her stare, his expression eerily calm. "You're not the first one who doesn't understand me," said Twilight. "I'd assumed you would know enough not to make that kind of mistake, but it seems I was wrong." "I could force you into it, if I wanted to." Twilight was silent again, this time in surprise rather than contemplation, as pieces of her expression shattered and crumbled away. "I could still make it all stop, if I really tried to," the other continued. "I could offer you a deal, Twilight. Just one life of my choosing for this all to end." "You'd be lying," Twilight hastily replied. "You could check for that. Make me swear and promise by any oath and spell you know of, and if you were certain it was the truth, you would do it." The Charioteer stared at Twilight, silently, for a moment longer. "I won't, though, so don't worry about it too much yet." > A > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was, again, silent, but so was the other. They both stared at each other, one smiling and relaxed, the other tense. It was Twilight that finally broke the silence, as she asked, "What would the Behemoth do, exactly, if I stopped you now?" "Are we finally getting somewhere?" The Charioteer had a look around, and quietly began to whistle to himself, until he spoke again. "I can't say for certain, Twilight. I can't see the future, after all. But if I had to take a guess?" Standing straight, he stretched his legs. "Not much. Oh, perhaps it would thrash around at some point, cause a bit of commotion, sure. But from experience pulling at its reins, this creature is much more prone to staying still than it is to move. I've never had to hold it once in all my time here. And while it may agitate itself when the signs we're waiting for come, it'll most likely stop not too long after." "So what you're saying is-" "That stopping me would lead to the least amount of damage overall, barring you somehow finding a way to remove the Behemoth entirely, yes." The Charioteer nodded. "And you won't find any easy way to do so anytime soon. You've seen what risks are there in merely dealing with a single scale. So you can just stop me, right here, and that'll be the end of this whole thing." "Why are you telling me this?" asked Twilight. "What do you want?" "Nothing, really. And everything. I'm just doing what I'm here to, would you say a plant wants something in particular as it simply exists through life?" The Charioteer chuckled. "But it will be funny to see you fail." Twilight's lips twitched at that. "Are you that convinced I can't stop you?" "This is not just about me," the stallion replied. "Ponies and creatures will die, Twilight, and you'll play a part in it, and you'll fail to stop it. You can't take yourself out of this game any more than I can." "I am not alone in this," Twilight replied, "and I don't plan to give up just because I've been told to. I've seen myself, my friends, and the creatures of this world do what we were told we could never hope to more than enough time to believe that we can make it this time too." Magic buzzed at the base of her horn, ready for use, and her back tensed. The Charioteer continued on, unimpressed by Twilight's words. "That world you found, where Nightmare Moon rules? Its abomination is coming, and it'll be far faster than your world's. And you'll happily leave it behind and condemn all the ponies there to it." Twilight grit her teeth, but she still held herself back. "What's the point of this?" She may as well have said nothing. "You'll try to find a new way to use scales, and bring more destruction on this world as a result. You'll fail to see the mistakes you've already made until it's too late, and your friends will suffer the consequences of it." "This is getting us nowhere." Twilight's horn was alight with magic. "Stop it." "Why don't you stop me yourself, then?" > Be Back > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are you ever planning to get rid of that pfp btw? It's old at this point I like it. It's not anywhere close to summer, Twi It'll be summer again in a few months. Ugh I think Rarity is rubbing off on you. When are you changing your picture? It's old too at this point. I like it Do you like it because you like it or because you look cool in it? ...yes You do look cool in it, to be fair. Thanks Too bad it doesn't show off your wet shirt properly. Twi! And yet you say I'm the horny one You are the horny one. Well I am a unicorn, after all That's the fourth time you've made that joke this month. You're keeping track? Someone has to. Anyway. I ran into a roadblock while trying to figure out where the next portal might be. It feels like I might be missing something. Do you mind having a look at it tomorrow? I think I could need a hand here. Sure, Twi You know I'm always ready to lend you a hand ;) What was that about being the horny one? Oh come on! I make one joke One joke You've done a lot more than a single joke, Sunset. That's not I'm not that bad It'll take you five seconds of scrolling upwards to find a picture of you naked you sent, asking me to send you one of myself in return. While I was in class. ...okay But at least I don't have a picture of myself in a swimsuit as my profile picture! Sunset. You see me naked multiple times a week on average. And that swimsuit is probably the least sexy thing in my wardrobe. Legitimately. My regular CHS clothes looked hotter than that. Are you really that bothered by the idea of people seeing my shoulders? You know that's not what I meant Of course I do. But you're cute when you're upset. Hey! And you handle me better when you're angry. If you know what I mean. ... Sometimes I forget What? You're also a unicorn . You can have this round, Shimmer. Hah So anyway Are you worried about Pinkie, or is it just me? She does seem to be strange, lately. In non-Pinkie sorts of ways. Yeah And I think she's started to put on black makeup? And I mean enough of it for me to notice without being up close. Woah That's a thing, I guess Hmm Do you think she's going through a delayed teen edge phase? Didn't Pinkie have her 'edge phase' when she was a child? I don't know. I've never looked into her memory Well I've tried to. It's just, you know... Pinkie. Pinkie Well, we should at least hope it doesn't go the same way as our 'going insane with magic beyond our understanding' phases did. Honestly, I'd fear for the unknown magic's safety in Pinkie's case Which is why it's so worrying that it seems to actually be affecting her. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT > Mirror > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The unicorn straightened his neck and set the miniature down, admiring his work as he took the brush out of his mouth. It wasn't the best, and maybe he'd touch it up a little the day after, but for a first work he found it was probably good enough. And it had certainly been satisfying to put the thing together and paint it, so he could say he was happy with it either way. He glanced at the clock. "Oh, bother," he said, carefully moving the small statuette out of the way and pulling up a blank sheet of paper. He should have been writing. He was gonna be late for it, again. He probably wasn't going to get enough done in time at that point. And then was the usual matter, he thought as he stared at the page. Deciding what to actually write. Maybe some music would have helped, but he didn't feel particularly like it that night, all things considered. It took him a bit to actually start, taking up precious time he didn't have much of as he decided what he would put on the page, but eventually he did begin. He grabbed his quill in his magic, the glow radiating from his curved horn illuminating the darkness of the room behind his back, and after dipping the tip in ink he began to write. There was one thing in particular he wanted to get to, but he'd save it for a day where he had more time to dedicate to it. He instead went with something else, something that still worked with what was around it. As he did, he also threw brief glances around his desk. Some things would need to be either placed on the floor or maybe strapped down, given what was coming. > Cage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Because that's not what I'm here for," Twilight replied. "I'm here to talk, not to fight. You know that much." "You say that just because you're afraid," the Charioteer replied. "You're too scared to try to stop me, because you already know you'd fail." "That's not-" Twilight cut herself off, noticing the Charioteer's expression. "You're messing with me, aren't you?" "Absolutely," he replied, "and it's a great deal of fun." "What are you getting out of this?" Twilight asked him. "Why? I thought you were the one who wanted to have this conversation." "I was. I can't deny that I was." The Charioteer nodded. "But, well, all of a sudden I've gotten very bored of nothing happening. And you've made me realise there's something much more entertaining I could be doing. I was trying to get a reaction out of you, Twilight." He grinned. "But you're just so... indecisive. So static. So stuck in your own comfortable shell and refusing to take decisions. That's not good, Twilight." "Ironic coming from the one who's sat here motionless for months," Twilight said. "That isn't lost on me," noted the Charioteer. "But I am inherently a spirit of change, after all, perhaps I am allowed a pass. Although..." He had a vague look at the oddly translucent surface they both stood upon. "It has indeed been a while since the Behemoth moved. Maybe..." Twilight felt her blood go cold as it raced up her back. "You wouldn't." "Oh, but I absolutely would." The Charioteer returned to staring straight ahead at Twilight. "What better way to force a reaction out of you? You're too entrenched in your own beliefs about dialogue to ever take the first step, and me attacking you would ruin this whole ordeal. So why not, Twilight? Why not force you into action, why not give you something you need to stop? If words won't do it, why not this?" "I thought you said the Behemoth wasn't supposed to move just yet," said Twilight, clearly on edge about the situation. "One more step won't hurt the plan, and it won't bring about the end of the world." The Charioteer licked his lips and then clicked his tongue. "But it will be worse than the last one. I do wonder how the creatures down there will take it." "Why?" Twilight asked again. "What's the point? I thought-" "Because you are just so utterly, annoyingly nice, Twilight," the Charioteer interrupted her. "You can stop the oncoming destruction of your world just by stopping me, and you already know I'm responsible for what damage has already been done, and yet you'd rather just talk. If you're not going to do the sensible thing out of your own will, I'll have to force you to." He tensed his front legs, and Twilight saw the reins tightening around them. "Wait! W-" "I'm done waiting. You have about three seconds, I'd say." The muscles in the Charioteer's shoulder began to tense as well. In a flash of panic, Twilight fired from her horn. > One More > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A translucent, pinkish chunk of crystal enveloped the Charioteer, locking him in place. "Happy now?" asked Twilight, her horn still itching after the spell she'd cast. She'd acted on impulse, but that didn't mean she hadn't prepared in advance. Strangely, or perhaps not strangely at all, the Charioteer did indeed seem to be happy about the situation, at least going by his expression. Then his smile turned into something a little closer to a grin, for as much as the crystal allowed him to shift his expression. Triangular sections began to disappear from the prism around him, small at first but quickly widening, and a moment later the crystal shattered as he pulled himself free. "Not a bad idea, I'll give you that. But you'll need to try a little harder, Twilight," he said, kicking away the last bits of crystal. "Three more seconds." His front legs tensed again. Horn already prepared, Twilight fired again. Wide pink wraps of energy, like giant rubber bands, snapped shut around the Charioteer's limbs. "Are we good to talk again yet?" The stallion considered his bindings for a moment, amused by them, then again he pushed his legs apart and the wraps ripped open, disappearing a moment later. "Still not enough, Twi. Again." That time, Twilight went for something more direct. Her horn flared up, and her telekinetic aura wrapped around the Charioteer's body directly. "How's this then?" she asked. Keeping her magic active was a strain on her, but not one she couldn't put up with. She'd dealt with worse. "This is a pretty good plan, Twilight," the Charioteer replied. "Unfortunately for you, it's not good enough." He tensed his legs again, pushing against Twilight's hold, and slowly but steadily he began to move. Twilight could feel him fighting against her spell. She poured more energy into it, the flare of magic around her horn growing in size. Still, the Charioteer's legs didn't stop, nor did he seem to be struggling any more than before. Gritting her teeth, Twilight fully stopped holding back. She pushed against the stallion's motions with enough strength to crush the castle that stood below them into dust. Sweat began to glisten on her brow, her wings tense along with the muscles in her neck. Her horn shone brighter than the Sun in the sky, almost enough to blind her own eyes, the roaring flame of magic rising from it almost as tall as the alicorn herself. For one, seemingly never ending moment, the Charioteer was still again. Magic swirled around him so vibrant and intense his body was barely visible, enough to burn anything that might pass through its maelstrom, a force that would have shattered the bones of any other creature pushing against his body and keeping him pinned to the spot. And then he moved. The magic around him shattered like glass, the whiplash sent Twilight tumbling backwards, and as she looked up again, fighting against the ringing in her ears, she saw the slow arching wave of motion travelling along the reins as they rose up and felll again, moving from the Charioteer's hooves and off towards the unseen behind him. After barely enough time to comprehend what had happened, the world shook. > Consequences > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Fuck fuck fuck fuck," Sunburst muttered as he scrambled to get himself back up as quickly as possible. "Fucking fuck!" He briefly dusted off his cape, and disregarding his broken glasses he scaled the pile of rubble in front of him to get a look at what was beyond it. "You won't be able to see anything anyway, Sunny," said Starshine, already at his side on top of the rubble. "And you should be happy none of the walls fell on you, honestly." Sunburst ignored her, while trying to get a better view past the pillars of dust rising from the fallen buildings. "This is bad," he said under his breath. "This is really bad." Wick Clip screamed at first for seeing the shelves empty their contents unceremoniously onto the floor. Then she kept screaming as the glass window of her shop shattered. And she stopped screaming once she realised what had caused it all, chills racing up her spine as she remembered the last time she'd felt that same feeling. Heart pounding in her chest she walked out of the building, and a town of cracked buildings from which ponies drifted out greeted her. They all were silent, staring at each other with worry. It wasn't long before the stallion who'd taken residence in her shop was out there too. And they all waited, to see what would come next. Trixie and Starlight both held each other, still on the ground. Neither tried to get up right away, and instead they just stared in the other's eyes, both their expressions equally terrified. Knowing that the Behemoth had moved again was a scary enough thing. Knowing that Twilight was there on it made everything a lot worse. Still, both mares knew there were better things to do than be paralysed by doubts and fears. They both got up, and both silently started to look around for any signs of any creature needing rescue, any buildings about to fall, anything they could help with. It was all they could do, after all. The spoon snapped in half, and Celestia couldn't tell if it had been the shockwave or merely her own magic under shock. A brief look around the room revealed ponies equally as frozen as her. A second, a slowly yet steadily expanding crack along the ceiling. In a flash of golden magic she teleported herself and everyone else out of the building, onto a separate floating island near the one they'd been on, her cake abandoned in her plate. Scarlet Ribbon had lunged forward to grab her honey jar out of pure instinct, and as she lay there on the floor she acknowledged how much of a stupid decision it had been. Yet there was a giddiness to her revelation, the strange euphoria of still being alive after what easily could have been the end of her. It quickly subsided though, snuffed out by the worry and uncertainty of the future. Floating in the thick blackness around her, Pinkie barely felt the vibration. But for anything to reach her there was already quite impressive, so it did pique her interest. She allowed herself a glance in the direction it had come from, a somewhat worried frown on her face. The darkness did not complain about her actions. "Oh dear." Cadence stood still, and so did Shining on the other end of the room. "This is not good." He felt it resonating all the way to his heart. Which was quite a weird experience, given he couldn't really feel his own heart at all at that moment. He wasn't, in truth, sure if it made him more excited about awakening again or more reluctant to. But either way, it certainly was waking him up. And, strangely for him, he felt scared. Something he hadn't felt for a very long time before the last time he'd gone dormant. Sunset tapped on her screen to reach the appropriate icon, only to find Twilight already calling her. She answered, and pulled the phone up to her ear. "Did you feel that?" "Of course I did!" Twilight replied from the other side. "The whole town must have felt that." "What in Celestia's name was that?" yelled Sunset, moving to her window to make sure there was no significant damage outside. "I'd say it was an earthquake," Twilight answered, "but... Well, for one, earthquakes don't happen as a single wave." "For two, earthquakes aren't magic," Sunset added, worry in her voice, addressing what Twilight had chosen not to. "You felt that too, didn't you?" The quiet sound of Twilight biting her lip on the other end of the call was all the confirmation Sunset needed. Rarity catched herself, and stood straight again. "Is everyone okay?" she asked, looking around the room. Twilight nodded, and looked as well to ensure the other mares weren't hurt. Applejack just stared at the ground, wide-eyed and motionless. "Seven more," she whispered. "Applejack, we need to get out of here," Twilight said, trying to grab hold of her friend. "What was that?" Rarity worriedly asked. "Oh for goodness' sake!" Applejack snapped, looking up at the others. "You know what that was! Just like you know everything else that happened!" "Applejack, I don't-" "How do you not realise it? How do you not notice when it should have only been a second here?" Everyone else in the room remained silent, suddenly trading uneasy, increasingly worried looks. The tape did hold, much to the benefit of the stallion's peace of mind. He began to remove it, and to place his items back on his desk. "And to think I was almost late today as well," he said, stepping around the room to make sure he'd gotten everything. Once he was done with that, he had a look at the desk again. "Well, this should at least round it up nicely." He sighed the kind of sigh given after a hard work well done, smiling to himself. "About time we got here, anyway." > On Goes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hmm." The Charioteer chewed on nothing for a moment, staring seemingly nowhere. "I might have overdone it a little." Twilight finally managed to get back to her hooves. She stared at the stallion, unsure of what to say, still processing the potential consequences of what had just happened. "What did you do?" she screamed, more out of a nervous reaction than anything. "I made the Behemoth move," the Charioteer replied, looking at her. "And I might have set the timeline mostly straight again, even going backwards a bit. Want me to do it again?" Twilight was stunned, caught in the dissonance between the magnitude of what she'd just been a part of and the sheer casualness of the Charioteer's attitude. "You wouldn't dare," she hissed out, but she wasn't particularly convinced of that. The Charioteer stared at her, and then he broke down laughing. "You're right, I'm not going to do it," he said, as soon as he'd regained enough composure. He then returned to a more serious expression and tone. "But if I did, what about it? You wouldn't be able to stop me." Twilight had to bite down and hold herself back not to lunge at him, and she wasn't sure how much of it was her horn still being in pain. "What's so funny about all this destruction?" she growled out instead. "Oh, nothing in particular about that," the Charioteer replied. "But this isn't about that. The consequences on the world down there are just that, consequences. This is about us. I said you couldn't stop me, and I proved that was the case. I won our little game, if you will." At that point, Twilight was sure it was definitely the pain holding her back from blasting the stallion as hard as she could. He'd probably be able to take it anyway, she didn't have to worry about hurting him. "That's what all the lives of those down there are worth to you? Just consequences not to care about?" "That is what I was saying there, yes," replied the Charioteer, nodding. "The point is, Twilight, that you can't stop me. Not here, not now, not alone. This is a battle you're bound to lose, and it's better for you not to fight it." "Do you expect me to do nothing after this?" Twilight said, in what would have been a yell if her throat hadn't suddenly gone sore. "Do you expect me to just leave after what you did?" The Charioteer shrugged. "It would be your choice, Twilight. Stay here for another futile attempt at stopping me, or go back and help those who need it while you have the time. Is revenge really more important to you?" Twilight's horn had began to glow again, but she actually hesitated, considering the other's words. The Charioteer spoke again. "It would be your choice. But I'm going to be nice, and take that responsibility away from you." It happened somehow too quickly for Twilight to react to it, yet slowly enough for her to catch every detail. The reins around the stallion's front legs, with their same only half there nature as the Behemoth itself, suddenly became loose, and slid off of him. And they kept sliding away from his hooves, swinging away as they disappeared from view, their weight somehow noticeable even as they did so. The air seemed to visibly ripple around them as they moved through it, and then they were gone. Smiling, the Charioteer looked at Twilight again. Then he spoke to her, his voice behind her, his body no longer where it had been up to that point. "Go take care of your country, Twilight. It needs you. I'll see you around." Twilight turned fast enough to catch sight of him standing behind her. And once he finished speaking, he simply disappeared, nowhere to be seen. > Melt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She reappeared kneeling into a deep puddle of thick black, more of it sliding down her naked, drenched body. Some of it was dripping down the walls, some had even stained the ceiling. It would dry out and disappear though, no reason to worry about it. Just like how her hair would unstraighten itself, or her lips and eyes would return to the right colour. The markings on her arms... Those would probably go almost fully away too, for the time being. Maybe remain as little more than barely visible hints only she could notice, knowing they were there. Eventually, sure, they'd get more noticeable, but not yet then. She sighed, but it was a sound as pleased as it was tired. Sure, her body felt sore, but it was the good kind of soreness. Like after an intense workout, or hard work well done, or after a day spent trekking someplace nice like a mountain or a lake, or even a day at a water park. The last one would have left her almost as wet, though water didn't stick the way darkness did. To be fair, water was also far less enjoyable to breathe in when submerged in it. She looked again at her forearms. Three marks on the left one, four on the right one. Seven in total then, if more didn't show up. But she was fairly certain more wouldn't, she had a pretty clear idea of how things would evolve from there. She was, admittedly, a little unsure about when and how exactly the wings would come in. She could guess they'd burst out of her back and rip through her flesh, but they did look maybe too weirdly ethereal to do that. She realised she should probably start considering her clothes. Not for right then, there wasn't really a reason to get dressed so late at night, but she would need them for the morning after. Although, given how late it was, perhaps she could forego sleeping entirely, stay up the whole night and already put them on. She did like that idea. Not bothering with standing up, she moved on all fours towards her wardrobe and pushed it open. She hummed to herself, looking over the varying degrees of black outfits she was presented with. They would all return to mostly colourful things by breakfast time, unfortunately, but she still did have a degree of choice into what she'd look like by then. Definitely no chains or metal or barbed wire yet. She was still far from the point of stabbing herself to let darkness pour out of her body, and silvery studs gave off more of a punk rock vibe that wasn't really what she was going for. A choker? No. Not yet there either. Boots would be fine though, knee high, a bunch of black straps around, the sole tall but not too tall. And maybe she'd hazard some straps around her arms as well, either on her bare skin or on top of whatever top she picked. > Fixxx > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was out of fear of accidentally landing where a wall had fallen that Twilight chose to teleport a little higher up in the air, and a little farther towards the castle than the edge of the room she'd been in before. It did lead to a striking image when she appeared there though, especially from Sunburst's point of view, looking up at her as she materialised in the sky and descended down towards him. "You're alive?" the unicorn asked, in a mixture of shock and relief. And then, to promptly undercut any potential solemnity the moment might have had, he followed it by yelling, "What in Discord's name happened?" "Really?" asked Starshine, perched on the rubble at Sunburst's side like a cat perches on a chair, taking up as little space as possible yet leaving none of it available for others. "Are we really going to start swearing by his name now? Just because he's not around?" "Sunburst is perfectly justified in his nervousness," Twilight said, touching down in front of the two and looking around to take stock of the damage done. "I think for now the best course of action will be to head back to Ponyville and begin to sort out the consequences of this. How bad was it here?" Sunburst stood incredulous for a moment. "The whole nation just shook, Canterlot is probably half in ruin again, and the first thing you think about is getting back to Ponyville?" He stepped closer to Twilight. "What happened?" he asked through gritted teeth. "You still haven't told me what you were doing up there." "Every other town is probably doing just as bad as Canterlot is," Twilight replied, "I can help the most by being in Ponyville and coordinating all the efforts. That's where creatures will be looking for me. Starshine?" She turned towards the other at the time alicorn. "Can you have a look around the town here, and help anyone immediately in need? And make it clear there won't be new quakes anytime soon, they're likely worried about it." Starshine silently threw a quizzical look at Sunburst, who after a moment of hesitation nodded. "On it!" she said then, and then she took off and flew away. "The country needs something to reassure them after this, the sooner I throw together a public statement the better," Twilight said as she walked past Sunburst. "I should be able to make it back to Ponyville in a few teleportations, we'll check on the places we reach along the way as well." As she talked she held a piece of parchment and a quill in her magic, writing down something. A moment later she sent the letter away in a flash of light, then turned back to Sunburst. "Are you coming?" The unicorn looked at her, squinting a little to see her better without his glasses. "The Behemoth just moved again for the first time since it got here, and you were on it. Tell me what you were doing there." > Changes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight fully turned to stare at Sunburst. Then she thought better of simply speaking, and her horn flashed. A bubble of shimmering light spread out from her and stopped when its edge was a few metres past Sunburst, preventing any sound from moving past it. "I was having a chat," Twilight replied. "It was rather insightful. Unfortunately, it didn't end quite the way I hoped it would, though I wouldn't say it was my fault." Sunburst's mouth hung open as he stared at Twilight. He didn't notice Starshine briefly flickering into existence at his side, munching on what seemed to be popcorn. Twilight, for the sake of the moment, pretended not to have seen that either. "A chat?" Sunburst said, shifting tone at least four times in the span of those five letters. "There's someone there to talk to?" he added, having settled on bewildered incredulity with a side of frustrated anger. Twilight nodded. "The reason I went there, in fact. And as I've said, I did learn quite a few things from this visit. It's a great shame it ended the way it did, but all I can do about that now is help Equestria recover. I would rather not waste time in getting to that." "You found out there was someone on top of the Behemoth, told no one about it, risked your life going there to talk to them so you could get information," Sunburst said, his tone growing louder with each word as he stepped closer and closer to Twilight, the impact of his hooves on the rubble matching his voice, "got the Behemoth to move again as a result, which in case you haven't noticed might have fucked up Equestria worse than anything else up to this point, and now you think the sensible thing to do is shrug it off and move on?" He was shouting almost directly into Twilight's face by the end. Twilight held up his gaze. "I had the first real chance to learn something about this whole situation since it began, I decided to put as few creatures at risk and to reduce the likelihood of information leaks to a minimum, I put my own life at risk and tried to get as much information as I could while I was there," she replied. "I did the same thing you would have done in my place. I'm not shrugging off my responsibilities over the consequences of my actions. But Equestria needs me to act now, and everyone will be worse off if time is spent punishing me instead." Sunburst still stared right into her eyes, but his breath did slow. "What happened there?" he asked. Twilight's horn shone again, and the two of them teleported to a clearing in the trees somewhere on the mountainside, outside of Canterlot. The Behemoth's silhouette stood not too far in the distance, towering over the city. "There was only one creature there. He calls himself the Charioteer. He looks like a stallion, though I doubt that's all he is." > Like Water and > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst silently nodded for Twilight to continue with her exposition, listening to what she had to say. "He said he's the one who's been directing the Behemoth to where it needs to go, and I'd say he unfortunately provided enough evidence to support that claim. And no, he hasn't told me why that is where it is, why it needs to be there, or for what," Twilight explained. "But he does seem to know a lot about a lot of things." She began to walk as she talked, heading upwards through the trees and magically setting the freshly fallen ones straight. "How did you find out he was there, and how does he control the Behemoth?" asked Sunburst, following behind Twilight. He plucked a new pair of glasses for himself out of thin air, and once he'd settled them on his muzzle he began to help as he could with the damage the step had caused. Pushing a chunk of rock precariously hanging on some roots back into the ground, Twilight answered, "Firecracker found him first. They accidentally ended up there, long story. As for how he can control the Behemoth, it seems to be just a pair of reins." Sunburst almost stumbled. "Reins? I'd have expected a proper command console for something that size. For a moment you had me wondering if it was all mechanised." He shook his head and blinked himself back to focus, his tone regaining a bit of its previous hardness. "Get to the part where you being there made that thing move again." "It was his decision," said Twilight, "I want that to be clear. We spent a while talking, and I'll happily enlighten you on the contents of our discussion once we have more time." She reached a relative summit and began to scan the area around with her gaze. "But at one point he began to insist on my inability to stop him, and he decided he was going to prove that to me." "And?" Sunburst reached Twilight and stood at her side. "He was right." Twilight's horn flashed for a moment, and the two reappeared a mild distance outside a city. She began to walk towards it, and continued, "He warned me he would make the Behemoth move again, just to force me into action. I tried to stop him. I failed. Nothing of what I said to him was meant to incite this course of action, but I can't deny that if I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened." She threw a glance at noticeably damaged building in the distance along with those last words. Sunburst marched onwards at her side, silent for a moment. "I trust you," he finally said. "Of course I trust you. But I hope what you managed to learn while talking to him was enough to help us through this." "There's one more thing you should probably know." Twilight stopped walking, to ensure she remained far enough from the city for a moment longer. She swallowed, feeling Sunburst's eyes turn to her. "He's no longer there. The Behemoth won't move on its own, but the Charioteer might be anywhere in Equestria right now." > Star and Chain > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella bit down on her own teeth, horn buzzing as she tried to detect the trail of Twilight's magic, almost growling in anger. "Not fast enough, eh?" came the voice from somewhere behind her. Immediately the alicorn snapped at attention, turning to stare down the stallion while still searching for the trace Twilight's teleportation had left. "You know, I could have had a much more enjoyable chat with Twilight if you hadn't been so insistent on eavesdropping," the Charioteer said. He had a silent look around the ruins surrounding them. "Look at the mess you had me do instead." "It's easy to be at peace with your actions if you're always putting the blame on someone else, isn't it?" Stellaria said to him in return. "Don't waste my time more than you already have, unless you plan to actually answer some of my questions." Her tone betrayed her growing annoyance, each second she lost of Twilight's conversation with Sunburst more frustrating than the previous one. "It's easy to be at peace with your actions when you think you matter more than everyone else, isn't it?" the Charioteer replied. He sighed through his nose, however that worked, and lightly shook his head. "You're every bit as stupid as your mother, and every bit as wrong as the pony you're a copy of isn't." "My mother was a fool and she died as one," Stella snapped, suddenly baring teeth too sharp to be those of a pony, "don't you dare compare me to her." "Or what?" The Charioteer blinked out of existence and reappeared centimetres away from Stella's face. "What are you going to do about it, you failed experiment?" His tone was perfectly calm, as it usually was. Stella stared at him and growled, but didn't do anything else. "Thought so," said the Charioteer, suddenly lying prone on a pile of rubble behind the alicorn. "Are you planning to stay here much longer? Don't you have some innocents to exorcise your trauma on or something?" He looked much like a cat in his position, perched there on the debris. Suddenly, on a set of crumbled pieces of walls just in front of him, a new alicorn was resting in roughly the same position as he was. "Hello," she said, looking with marvelled eyes at the Charioteer. "I'm Starshine Flicker." "I am familiar, yes," he politely replied. "The spawn of Sunburst's own troubled feelings towards the many mares in his life. That boy sure is a mess, isn't he?" "It's not very nice of you to say that about my dad," Starshine replied, pouting. "That's my thing. You shouldn't be the one doing it." The Charioteer chuckled. "Well, at least he's not the human one. Then again, magic existing in this world probably causes enough added problems to make up for the differences between the two." Having quietly given up on tracking Twilight, without actually admitting as much to herself or anyone else, Stellaria watched the conversation happening before her with a mixture of confusion and interest. > Slow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What the heck was that?" Indigo asked, stumbling around the room to reach the light switch. "Was it an earthquake?" "It didn't feel like an earthquake," Lemon replied. She sat in the middle of the room, lit by the television screen behind her. "Did something fall in here?" "I don't think anything did." Indigo finally turned the lights on, and looked around the room. "It doesn't look like anything did." She stood silent and motionless for a moment, like she was expecting something more to happen. "Do you think a bomb went off?" Lemon bit her lower lip in thought, getting back up on her feet. "Maybe? It might have. Should I check the news?" she asked, reaching for the remote. "Don't bother with that." Indigo had gotten hold of her phone, and was scrolling through her social media feeds. "Lots of people who felt that. No one seems to have any ideas what it was." Lemon grabbed her own phone and began to type. "I'll ask the girls if they're okay." She used her free hand to turn off the television, and moved to sit on her bed. Indigo had sat down on a chair. "I'd really like to know if we're supposed to leave the building right now or something like that. Why can't this sort of thing ever happen at a decent hour? Why does it always have to wake me up?" "Honestly it's your fault for going to bed instead of staying up with me," Lemon replied with a playful pout. "Everyone I'm hearing from seems to be fine by the way, but they all felt it too." "Like you weren't dozing off as well when it happened." Indigo stared blankly at the opposite wall. "It can't have been a bomb of they felt it too. Unless it went off somewhere equally distant from all of us, and it was a stupidly strong one." "But if it was an earthquake they'd be talking about it right now," replied Lemon, who'd begun her own internet browsing. "And yet we've got nothing." Indigo swallowed. "You don't think it was..." She eyed the awkwardly empty centre of the living room portion of their shared home with worry. Lemon stared at it as well. "You know what? I'm texting Twilight about this. Better safe than sorry. I won't tell her about the portal here, but..." "Yeah." Indigo nodded. "That's probably the right choice." > False Positive > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine shrugged. "And you are this Charioteer guy dad and Twilight were talking about, aren't you?" The Charioteer nodded. "Quite observant of you." "Eh. I figured you had to be with the fancy coloured dialogue." Starshine shrugged again. "It wasn't nice of you not to introduce yourself, by the way." Stella raised an eyebrow in confusion at the other alicorn's words. The Charioteer also raised an eyebrow, though he did so more in surprise than confusion. "Oh. I didn't know you could see that too." "You know what else wasn't polite?" Starshine continued. "This whole destroying Equestria thing." She had a look at the fallen buildings all around them. "This is really hard on dad's nerves." "But yet, you wouldn't be here with him if it wasn't for this," the Charioteer replied. "I'd rather he be happy alone than miserable with me," Starshine defiantly replied, pouting. But there was an odd, carefree tinge to her attitude. Like a spoiled child being petty, or a pony doing a really good impression of one. "But now he wants you here," said the Charioteer. "Quite the conundrum you've found yourself in, isn't it? For all you may act selfless, Sunburst wanting you alive means you're beginning to grow attached to existence, doesn't it?" Starshine looked to the side, pouting harder, and didn't answer. "If only he wasn't such a dummy," she quietly said to herself. "I heard that." "I know you did," Starshine said in an even quieter tone that the Charioteer still managed to catch, but that was too muffled for Stella. "So anyway, is there anything in particular you would like to ask?" The Charioteer looked blankly into the distance for a moment. "Trixie and Starlight are doing alright, by the way. They were outside when the step happened, now they're helping around Ponyville. I think they were on their way to get ice-cream and hot chocolate." "What about grandma?" Starshine asked, still without looking at the Charioteer. He tilted his head to the side. "Seems like she's doing alright as well. Her house maybe not so much, but that shouldn't be much of an issue all things considered." "Grandpa?" "He's unharmed too." Starshine gave a nod, relaxing a little. Her pout grew less pronounced, she arched an eyebrow, and she awkwardly rubbed a hoof on the ground as a thought struck her. "Say. If Sunburst is my sort of father, does that technically make you my mother? Or the Behemoth itself, maybe?" The Charioteer drew back, then chuckled. "Certainly not me, no. If anything I'd be more of an uncle. The Behemoth itself, though?" He looked back towards the creature in question. "Maybe? I'm not really sure, actually." "I mean, it's less awkward than the alternative," Starshine said. "You know, having every other mare who partly influenced who I am be my mother." She swallowed. "Especially with the whole grandma being one of those mares thing." The Charioteer gave a brief laugh. "You could always have Sunburst be your only creator." Starshine rapidly shook her head. "Oh no no no no no. A god complex is the last thing he needs." > ThInFi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I suppose." The Charioteer clicked his tongue. "So, anything else you want to ask?" He threw a sideways glance at Stella, still standing there and staring at them. "She can't see me, right?" Stella asked. Then she thought better of it, and turned towards Starshine instead. "You can't see me, right?" Then she thought better of that as well, and said, "Sunburst sure is a worthless idiot, isn't he?" Starshine's complete lack of reactions was enough to convince Stella she was indeed not being seen. The non-purple alicorn instead was looking at the Charioteer, pushing her tongue against the inside of her cheek as she tried to think of something. "You don't mind if I tell Twilight about this meeting, right?" "Of course I don't. I wouldn't be letting it happen otherwise," the Charioteer replied. "Oh, by the way. Wanna see something cool?" "Always," Stashine said, suddenly beaming with excitement. Then she frowned a bit. "Just, you know, as long as it doesn't involve more destruction." "Don't worry about that. Think of a number." The Charioteer looked deep into Starshine's eyes. "Any number. And I mean really any number." Starshine bit her lower lip as she thought about it. "Okay. Got it." "Minus ninety-one point twenty-five time square root of thirteen." "Wro- Wait no that's right." Starshine stared confused at the stallion. "I mean I guess that is cool but it's also kinda creepy. But yeah, that's the one I was thinking of." "I thought you said you can't read minds," Stella pointed out. "Wait, no, you didn't say that. You said you weren't doing it. Then again you might have been lying." "Did you read my mind?" asked Starshine. "No, actually," the Charioteer said. "It's a little more complicated than that. Watch out for the unstable brick by the way." "What unstable-" Starshine was cut off as a portion of the pile of rubble she was sitting on gave out, making her tumble and roll to the ground. "Oh. I get it." She remained motionless on her side, staring towards the sky. Or at least at what she thought was the sky, as she was actually staring straight through Stella, who stared back at her before looking at the Charioteer again. "Care to explain that?" He ignored her, and began to whistle a tune. "What's that song?" Starshine asked, without moving from her spot on the ground. "I don't think it has a name," the Charioteer replied, his whistling uninterrupted as he spoke. "The black llamas who live on the Boiling Mountain use to sing it when they go into the Blue Forest, and teach their children to do the same. They say it keeps the shykkoroks away." "What's a shykkorok?" asked Starshine. "I have absolutely no idea," the Charioteer said with a laugh. "I don't even know what universe that place is in. But it does mean that the song evolves with time, if you will. There's no written version, it's more of a general idea of how it's supposed to go and everyone has their own spin on it. So there's really no wrong way to play it." > Recognise > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hey." "Hey." The stallion seemed, at first, perfectly undisturbed by the sudden appearance of another pony in the room. Once he actually looked at said pony though, he immediately snapped to attention and began to observe him closely, walking towards him. "You look weird. On the inside." "I do?" The Charioteer looked himself over in the mirror next to him. "Oh goodness, I really do. This is oddly entertaining, for some reason." The stallion stopped walking, and actually took a step back instead. "Who are you? And what are you here for?" "Don't worry, I'm not here to hurt you." The Charioteer looked back towards the stallion. "And I'd tell you if I was, trust me. It wouldn't make a difference anyway." "That doesn't answer my second question." The stallion was fiddling with something underneath his front hooves. "Oh, I just have some research to do." A second passed by in silence. "Well, that was insightful. Thank you very much, I'll be taking my leave now." The stallion stared at him in genuine confusion. "What did you do?" "Oh, me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all," the Charioteer said, with the smug grin of someone who's only technically not lying. The stallion wasn't having any of it. "You did something there. I... Well, I didn't see it, but I know you... I didn't see it." His eyes went wide. "I don't know what it was!" He began to prance in place like a filly waiting for candy. "Oh this is so exciting! I was getting so bored of just seeing how it all happens. Thank you! I'll figure this one out, just give me some time." He turned and began to head for the back of the room, where he kept his notes. "My pleasure," the Charioteer replied. "Stella is doing well, by the way." The stallion paused his prancing for a moment, his enthusiasm suddenly snuffed. "Unfortunate." Then he brightened up again, all his excitement reappearing as quickly as it had gone away. "Is she still looking for me?" "Always." The Charioteer looked himself over in the mirror a bit more. "She's not the kind of creature who gives up. But she's multitasking, and you've been lower on her priority list than other things. She might pick it back up now, though." "Noted." The Stallion was scribbling something on one of the many stray pieces of paper and occasionally cloth that made up what he considered his notepad. "Say, could you repair the shop window on the way out? I was going to do that myself, but since you're here." "Sure thing. Might as well give you something in return for the help you provided." In the blink of an eye, the Charioteer vanished. "Is there someone else down there?" Wick Clip's voice came asking, as she walked down the stairs. "Just me," the stallion replied. "Huh. Weird, I could have sworn I heard someone else," the mare said, looking around the room. "Did this place always have a mirror?" > Swtch > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh." Starshine rolled onto her back. "Fun." "Oh, that's a bit odd. I suppose it's still wobbling some in places," the Charioteer said. "What?" Starshine looked up at him. "Is something wrong?" "Don't worry about it." The Charioteer shook off his perturbed expression from his face. "It's nothing important for you. I will be going in a bit, by the way, so if you have any more questions you should ask them now. I feel I've wasted enough time here already." "If you were so bothered by it you could have just not talked to me," Starshine said with a pout, rolling back to a more comfortable position. The Charioteer rolled his eyes. "I wasn't talking about mine, dear. Anyway. Is there anything you would like to know?" Starshine put a hoof under her chin, pondering the question. "The meaning of life?" "Understandable. I'm afraid I can't help with that, unfortunately." The Charioteer gave a brief, blatantly faked cough. "Anything else? Anything more immediate and practical and less existential?" "Well there go most of my other questions, I guess," Starshine said. "Hmm. How's the creature who stole the scales from the laboratory doing?" "They're doing well," said the Charioteer. "Well, that's unfortunate, I suppose." Stella threw a poisonous glare at Starshine, but didn't do anything else. "If it's any better, they are extremely frustrated at the present moment," the Charioteer added. "That's something, I suppose." Starshine stood up. "I'm almost done checking the town. You won't tell me where they are, right?" The Charioteer nodded. "It would be too easy that way, yes. I need to have some amusement while I watch you creatures try to prevent the end of the world." "You'd think watching us try to prevent the end of the world would be entertaining enough," Starshine said. "You don't need to add all these other complications to it." "I just like to remain a neutral figure, as much as possible." The Charioteer bit the inside of his lower lip for a moment. "As much as I can force myself to. I do still go out of my way to mess with you all for fun, admittedly, sometimes. But can you blame me for it?" Starshine looked at him flatly. "Yes. Yes we can." The Charioteer pouted in response. Then his eyes drifted only slightly towards Stella. "Well, you can't blame me if someone thought the oncoming end of all things was a good time to cause more trouble. It really makes you wonder about how rotten inside some creatures are, when even the prospect of assured destruction is not enough for them to collaborate." "I suppose you have a point." Starshine lowered her head. "Oh well. I'll be going now." The Charioteer waved at Starshine. "I've got an improperly clothed stallion to pay a visit to." "See you... around, I guess." Starshine waved back. "Say hi to your dad for me. And tell him he's doing a great job with you, that should mess with him in amusing ways." "Will do." The Charioteer smiled, then disappeared. Starshine too disappeared a moment later, leaving Stella alone in the ruins. > Fl0w > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There. This should help." Rose held up the still slightly steaming mug in front of Sweetie Belle, patiently waiting for the unicorn to take hold of it. Forcing herself to take the leg off her face, open her eyes, look down, and not vomit, Sweetie took hold of the mug with a shaking hoof and slowly brought it to her lips. "Are you sure it will?" she asked between sips. "I'm mostly sure," Rose replied. "There is a chance that the new step altered the way nature works once again and I just served you a lethal dose of poison. Or that you'll grow a second horn on the back of your head." "Huh." Sweetie finished her drink. Rose quirked an eyebrow. "I was honestly expecting a spit take." "Death is preferable to this headache at this point." Sweetie set the mug down, then closed her eyes and looked upwards again, grabbing a napkin in her hoof to dry some drops of blood running down her nose. "Stupid powers and stupid inability to control them properly yet," she muttered. "That bad, eh?" Rose took the mug in her mouth and brought it to the nearby sink. "It should only take a few minutes before the effects kick in. You might get a little sleepy from it, so I suggest you find a couch or somewhere else where passing out wouldn't be problematic." "If I can walk to one without vomiting out my soul I'll do that," Sweetie replied, once more covering her closed eyes with a hoof. "It looks like Luna is helping around too. It would be a lot easier to tell what exactly she's doing if her projection wasn't constantly moving through this anteater's!" "Don't stress yourself too much, it won't make you feel any better." Rose headed for the door. "I'm going out, by the way." "Easy to say that when you're not the one whose senses are getting assaulted." Sweetie swallowed. "Research?" Rose stopped halfway through the open door. "Yep. Like I said, there's a chance the step might have had new repercussions on the biosphere. I want to document it as soon as possible, this is important." "Make sure you close your saddlebags properly, I wouldn't want whatever that thing currently covered by Rainbow's head is to fall out," Sweetie said, before emitting a prolonged sound of pain. Rose checked herself over, and properly pushed the precariously hanging equipment back inside the bag. "Thanks!" she said, leaving the room. Sweetie's answer were more wordless acknowledgements of her suffering. Once she was outside the building, Rose immediately headed for the Everfree, a springy gait to her step. Lyra spotted her and joined her along the road, matching her pace but not her cadence. "Going somewhere?" she asked. "The forest. Research stuff," Rose explained. "How are you? Nothing too bad after the step, I hope." "Nothing to worry about." Lyra adjusted her walking speed slightly to better match Rose's peculiar gait. "Any news from Princess Twilight yet?" "She's coming, last I heard, but you should better ask Starlight for more info." > Missing Point > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You shouldn't be here. You don't really have a reason to be here, honestly." "I thought I'd pay a visit. You know, to celebrate the occasion. Besides, the door was open." "I've left it open a bit recently. I shouldn't have. I'm probably going to close it sometime soon, this whole thing wasn't the best idea." "But you do have to admit, the occasion is special enough. And you're late again. You forgot, didn't you?" "Maybe. And that's all of your business, yes. And I suppose you're right. You're here now, at least, so we might as well make the most out of it." "See? It's not so bad, after all. I like your desk, by the way." "No peeking." "You don't keep notes. There's nothing for me to peek at." "Maybe. I'm afraid we ran out of cake yesterday. And most other sweets as well." "I can always get some more myself." "That's nice of you. So, any plans on where to go next?" "Asking me? Is it desperation or presumption?" "Both." "I'm pretty sure you can imagine the answer. I have a couple tricks I haven't used yet, it's time to have fun with those. You need me out of the way for a while anyway, don't you?" "Well, yeah, it will be nice to have that covered. You just do your thing and have fun, I suppose. Don't mess things up too bad though, please." "No distractions until we get to the war, right?" "I said no peeking." "You don't have notes." "Right. Just, pretend you don't know about that, okay?" "Oh, but I need to rehearse my line. I come in right at the end, I want to make sure I don't mess it up." "Well, you can do that in private. I'm frankly glad things will get moving again in a few days, so I don't have to keep that line on stall longer." "You dug yourself into this hole." "You did." "You asked me to. I was perfectly happy not doing that, but you just refused to have second thoughts on the matter. Too late for that now, isn't it?" "I could always change it. I've already done it." "That was different." "It wasn't that much different. It was functionally the same thing, here it would just be explicit instead of implicit." "I don't think anyone would appreciate it much, if I'm being honest." "This is why I keep the door closed." "Close it all you want, you can't shut the windows." "This room doesn't even have windows." "Well, there's your problem. You should add one. It'll be good for your skin to get some light in. Probably for your eyesight too. And maybe you could take a walk outside for once." "I'm not going out, and you know that. But a window might be nice. I'll think about it." "Have it ready when she visits. Then you can talk about it with her too." "No peeking, I said." "Maybe you should keep notes. Have a good one." "Thanks, you too. Maybe I should." > In Full > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I would like to join the Guard, Sir." Shining looked at the earth pony in front of him, a little confused. Dusty blue coat, gold mane and tail with orange stripes, a sealed letter as his cutie mark. Not anypony he'd ever seen or even heard of. "How did you get in?" "The door was open, Your Highness." The stallion looked towards the end of the corridor, at the door left slightly ajar. "I would like to join the Gaurd." "Did you not notice the world shaking?" asked Shining. "Yes." The stallion stared at Shining with the charisma of a goldfish, and with almost the same expression. "That's why I'm here. I feel I should contribute to helping the Empire, Sir." Shining opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing, blinking and raising a hoof as he tried to think about the situation. "Shiny?" Cadence's voice came from the nearby room, shaking him out of his pause. "Is this not a good time?" the other stallion asked. "Uh." Shining cleared his throat. "Just a moment, dear," he shouted. He didn't want to be mean to the pony, but the circumstances they were in were still pretty close to an emergency. "Yes, this isn't exactly the best time for this. If you could just wait until we've properly addressed the situation-" "Of course, Sir!" The pony gave a salute, but didn't move. "I'll wait here until your other duties no longer require your attention." He still didn't move, almost frozen in place. "My name is Paper Letters, by the way." He continued not to move. Shining stared him up and down, still somewhat confused by the situation. "Okay. I'll be going, then." Paper gave a short nod. "Right." Shining left the corridor and moved to the room where Cadence was waiting for him. And a few minutes later he left the room and passed through the corridor again, Cadence walking alongside him, and they both spotted Paper still standing in the same spot he'd been left in. He gave them both a salute, possibly his only motion since Shining had walked away from him. The two rulers shared a look, and Cadence walked down the corridor while Shining stopped behind for a moment. "Look, there's actually a whole set of procedures to join the Guard, and I'm not really the pony you should be asking about it. Here, here are all the instructions you should need." He passed Paper a folded piece of paper. Paper took it in his hoof. "Thank you, Your Highness." He opened it and began to read it over. "I shall join the Guard as swiftly as possible, Your Highness." Without looking away from the paper he held in one hoof, he began to walk back towards the door. Shining looked at him go, still weirded out, then shook his head and turned to follow his wife, quickening his pace to catch up with her. He could only hope Paper wouldn't get himself or anyone else in too much trouble. But he did seem to have good intentions, at least. > H&D > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie sat on a bench in the dark and cold, looking at the empty street in front of her. She'd purposefully picked the bench near the broken street lamp so she'd be in the darkest spot possible, and she was rather happy that the sky was cloudy and the Moon and stars couldn't shine their lights on her. As happy as she allowed herself to be, at least. She'd been told she was trying too hard to adhere to the aesthetic and that it wasn't really needed, but she wasn't the kind of girl who did things halfway, or even the kind that belived there was such a thing as going too far. It was late enough to be considered early, and she was entering that strange state of perceived clarity where the mind accepts sleep isn't coming and starts diverting energy solely on keeping a person awake and aware, all else shutting down. Nixed social inhibitions, for as little of those as Pinkie could have in the first place, an altered perception of time, the rationale of judgement snuffed out. The cold of the night against a body clothed for the days of a different season helped fight off any momentary impulses to pass out, and her wake marched on almost by inertia. It was almost pleasant, in a somewhat masochistic vein. And also ludicrously punk if looked at from a certain angle. It was rebellion against her body itself and its natural impulses, after all. Not that that was the aesthetic she was going for, she was in it more for the suffering of the experience than the bragging rights of having gone through it. But she was starting to like the suffering, in a way. Or maybe she was just too tired, and not thinking straight. That was quite possible too. She wondered if she would have been at any real risk of dying if she passed out there, or if she was being protected. She wondered just how much she was being protected if that was the case. She almost considered testing it too. Then she simply shook herself, stood up, and began to walk down the sidewalk back towards the centre of town. She could probably camp outside a shady bar until they opened, walk in alongside the employees and order black coffee with lemon and no sugar. Or maybe she'd stare at a friend's house from across the street for a few hours, and leave just in time for them to only catch a glimpse of her from their windows and later assume it was just their imagination and half sleeping mind. They both sounded like nice enough plans to her, at that point. > Theft | Art > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you have anything to put me to sleep?" Redheart stood still and confused, her mouth slightly open, and she blinked once. Then she kept staring at the pegasus who'd suddenly flown into the room. "Well?" Rainbow asked impatiently, as one of her hind legs nervously twitched. That shook the nurse out of her shock. "Why do you need something to sleep?" she asked. "Why do you need something to sleep now?" she added, louder. "It's important," Rainbow replied. "Element Bearer stuff. I need to fall asleep as soon as possible. Do you have something for that?" "I can't just give you something that strong on the fly!" Redheart replied. "Even if you had a valid reason for it, it's not the kind of drugs I can give without proper measurements first. It's strong stuff." "But I need to fall asleep now!" said Rainbow. "Why don't you use a spell for it? Why don't you ask Starlight or another unicorn?" Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. "Right." As swiftly as she'd come in, she bolted out of the room. "What do you think that was?" the first guard asked. "I'm pretty sure you know what that was," the second replied. "Unless you hit your head really hard recently." "Not like that," his colleague said. "I know what that I was, I meant why." "Why what?" "Why it happened." The guard made a confused expression. "What do you mean why it happened? We have no idea why it happened the first time around either! It just did as far as we know." "Yeah but like maybe this time it was different," the stallion tried to justify himself. "Didn't Princess Twilight go to Canterlot this morning? Do you think she's got anything to do with it?" The stallion's expression only grew more confused. "Why would Princess Twilight have anything at all to do with this?" he asked in a wild tone. "Besides," he continued, calming down to a more formal demeanour, "we're not supposed to know she went there." "Doesn't make her not there," said the other. "I wish we were still in Canterlot. We'd have gotten to see this one up close." "I'm pretty sure that's an argument against being in Canterlot. Did you just forget about the last time?" the guard asked. The other guard looked at him, then shrugged. "Eh. It wasn't so bad." "The whole country entered a crisis it still hasn't recovered from and you say it wasn't too bad?" the stallion looked at his colleague, quirking his eyebrows. "Well, no," said the guard, "that was pretty bad. But I meant the actual city stuff. Canterlot wasn't wrecked that hard." "A significant portion of it was turned to ruins," the other guard deadpanned. "Yeah but compared to what your regular earthquake or hurricane or massive tornado or flood can do, it wasn't that bad." "Canterlot doesn't get any of those things." "Yes, and?" "Ugh." The guard rolled his eyes. "I just hope everyone there is okay. I might send a letter there later." > Turmoil > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "My head hurts," said the large cross between a bug and a pony. "Well, I am sorry to hear that." The stallion stared at the creature. "You are somehow not the strangest of today's visits." He tilted his head to a side. "You're not from around here, are you?" "Indeed." The bug looked around the room. "Nice mirror by the way." "Thanks," replied the stallion. Wick Clip's voice once more came from up the stairs. "Is there someone else there?" "Yes," the stallion said. The mare walked down the stairs and had a look at the room, until her eyes focused on the rather hard to miss affront to the laws of nature occupying it. "Hello," politely said the thing, waving at her with one of its appendages. Wick stared for a few more seconds, and blinked. Silently she left the room and went back up the stairs. "Poor thing," the stallion commented. "She's not all right in the head. I know it doesn't seem nice to say that and I know I don't like it when ponies do it with me but it's true of her. I just hope she doesn't end up hurting anyone." "Are any of us right in the head, really?" asked the pony bug hybrid. The stallion looked at it. "Us as the creatures on this world or us as the creatures in this room?" As a non response, the thing grew some feathers on its back. "I think I'll be leaving too now. I have places to have been to and times I'll not yet have visited already, and not yet happened things done and finished ones to do." The stallion nodded in understanding. "I'm not sure what that means, but I empathise with the headache now." The insectoid equine looked at him almost disappointed. "Won't you try to figure that one out?" "It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is none," replied the stallion. "Looking for a method in madness is hard enough, I won't bother with searching where one probably isn't. I like puzzles that are there, just because no one else sees them doesn't mean I'm crazy. Trying to read the future by cutting animal entrails open isn't for me, and neither is any other practice of looking for order where one doesn't exist." "I see," the bug said, growing more eyes on its neck for added emphasis. "Discomforting, but fair." "Someone needs to play the mad one's part in this play," the stallion said. "Though the great wheel moving this world is a mechanism I've only understood bits and pieces of. But it is such a vast and complex thing I dare not look at it in full, or I might really go insane." The creature nodded. "You would before even seeing it all. Trust me, I'll have had passed through there a while ago from soon. I'll be going now, then, and hopefully things will clear up." "Hopefully." The stallion gave a polite nod. The thing turned and forced its mass through the stairs, sectioned legs touching the walls and ceiling and hooves clacking against them as it crawled upwards through them. There was a scream as it emerged on top of them, Wick's judging by the sound, and then silence. > A | R > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I came as soon as I could," Rainbow said, materialising in the forest and ducking out of the way of a severed limb being propelled her way. "Good." Luna brought her axe down on the tangle of arms and claws she kept pinned beneath her hooves, putting a definitive stop to its writhing. "This place has been in a frenzy since the step." "So it's finally time to kick ass, yeah?" Rainbow donned her silver armour alongside one of her smuggest grins, and a silver sword appeared floating beside her. Luna gave something between a sigh of resignation and an amused chuckle. "You could put it that way, I suppose." She turned, slicing the shadowy spider tiger amalgam that had been pouncing towards her in half. "Don't get too carried away, or wander too far into the forest. I need someone to ensure none of the smaller creatures escape while I'm occupied with the bigger ones." "I can help you with them too," Rainbow offered. "Don't leave me out of the fun." "Rainbow Dash." Luna looked back towards the pegasus. "You're smarter than this. I'll call you if I feel I need your help, otherwise I want you to stay and patrol the outskirts." Rainbow looked like she was going to answer for a split second, then the motion of her neck and face turned into a slow deep breath, and her expression grew serious. "Yes Ma'am!" she said with a salute. Luna smiled. "Very well," she said as she turned, then she spread her wings and took flight towards the deeper reaches of the forest. Applejack had to bite down on a piece of rope to stop her teeth from clacking against each other. Unfortunately, it did little to help with the shaking in her limbs and torso, but she still forced herself carry on with her work. She was in no condition to do any task requiring some level of precision, and she knew that, but she could still deal with anything more labour intensive and less skill testing. And maybe it would warm her up, too. Even if the weather wasn't cold enough for it to feel as cold as it did, and even if she could tell it wasn't coming from outside. Maybe it would still help. She was afraid it would get to her if she lay down to rest. Besides all that, there was work to be done, and someone had to do it. It needed to be done quickly, too, the buildings had to be fixed properly before they broke further. There didn't seem to be anything too bad in terms of damage, but that was no reason to leave what was there unattended. At least no one would blame her for wanting to get things done fast, and if she was lucky enough everyone would be too busy helping around to notice anything off about her, and it would be gone by the time things were finished. She hoped it would be, at least. > Roubd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Pinkie? Pinkie?" Slowly, the mare opened her eyes. "Yes?" She looked around the room, still sleepy. "I had such a weird dream." Suddenly she noticed something, and jolted upwards. Rainbow Dash stepped back, startled. "Is everything okay?" Pinkie looked left and right, eyes wide. Then she ran to the window and looked outside. She was hyperventilating at that point. "What day is it?" Rainbow quizzically quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean what-" She cut off as Pinkie ran past her and down the stairs. Then she ran downstairs as well as soon as she heard Pinkie yell. "What's wrong?" she worriedly asked. Pinkie was staring at a calendar, with her mouth hanging open. Rainbow slowly stepped closer. "Pinkie?" "I... It can't be- But what if I... I need to warn Twilight!" Pinkie made a dash for the door and beyond it. Rainbow flew after her, now doubly worried, and managed to catch her as she was falling down. "Where do you think you're going?" she yelled. Hanging in Rainbow's hooves, Pinkie looked down at the ground impossibly far below them. Then she was set back down on the strip of soil still there outside of the building. Rainbow took the mare's head in her hooves and turned her. "Can you calm down and tell me what's going on?" "But..." Pinkie had another look around. "The Behemoth..." A flash of realisation came over Rainbow's eyes. "Ooh." Her expression darkened. "You thought we were before, didn't you?" Pinkie looked at her, confused. "What do you mean?" Rainbow looked to the side. "Twilight warned us the amnesia would hit at some point." Pinkie's eyes went wide again. "Amnesia? Did I forget something? What happened? What's going on?" Rainbow swallowed as she looked back at Pinkie. "The truth is-" A loud siren drowned out whatever else the pegasus might have said, and she immediately looked around in fear, grabbing hold of one of Pinkie's hooves. Pinkie just looked at her, even more confused. "What's happening?" she asked, but her voice didn't reach Rainbow's ears over the blaring alarm sound. Then, suddenly, the floating chunk of ground up in the skies they stood on began to shake. A moment later something pushed Pinkie and Rainbow off of it, and as she looked upwards while falling Pinkie saw a great swarm of fish tearing through the building she'd woken up in. She looked at Rainbow Dash, but the mare was unconscious and no amount of efforts managed to wake her up. Swallowing, Pinkie turned to look at the rapidly approaching ground instead, to find there wasn't much time left before she reached it. She closed her eyes, and hugged Rainbow's body, and finally came the impact. Only it was a lot less impactful than she was expecting. It sounded and felt more like a tearing of cloth, actually. "Ouch!" Rainbow yelped. Pinkie opened her eyes, excited, but saw that the pegasus she was holding on to was still unconscious. And then she saw the forest she was suddenly in. And then she saw the other Rainbow Dash, clad in silver armour, staring at her with confusion in her eyes. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 8 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Applejack?" Pinkie Pie asked, stepping closer to the mare. "Are you okay?" "No I am not okay, okay?" Applejack turned for only a moment towards Pinkie, showing the bags under her eyes, before she looked at her screen again. "It's happening again and I have no idea how to stop it and you all forgot and I'll forget too." Pinkie lifted an eyebrow, and held the cupcake in her hoof closer to Applejack. "Do you need help with anything or...?" "Pinkie, I'm not sure you understand." Applejack held her head in her hooves. "I went through all seventeen volumes yes there's a seventeenth one. I went through dozens of other books. I haven't slept in over twenty-four hours and I'm over fifty pages deep in online search results. And I have found nothing about what this is." Pinkie frowned at that. "Cupcake?" After a long sigh, Applejack left herself fall backwards into her chair and stretched out a hoof to take hold of the pastry. Then she brought it to her mouth and bit down on it. "It's delicious," she said in a hollow tone after a few seconds of chewing. "One of the best things I've ever eaten." Pinkie was still frowning. "If there's anything you need my help with, I'm here for it." "Thanks, Pinkie, but I'm afraid there isn't." Applejack looked off to the side. "I expect Twilight and Rarity will be here soon. Discussing the newest chapters. And Rarity will talk about everything is flowing and coming together and falling into place, and Twilight will complain that it's less flowing and more stagnating, and they'll have their back and forth and agree to disagree until the next time the wrong eye is put on us and then we'll be back to doing this from the fucking start." Pinkie flinched. Applejack looked at her. "Don't worry, I'm sure they've got the ratings for it." "See? It's all getting addressed and resolved," said Rarity as she walked into the building. "And it's all orderly now too." Following behind her, Twilight huffed and rolled her eyes. "Well yeah, but that doesn't justify the way it's crawling forward at a snail's pace. If the only way actual development happens is by skipping over it and seeing the consequences, there's a problem." Rarity gave a very offended pout. "You can't just expect everything to get the same amount of coverage when things are happening at such a massive scale. Some things will have to be skimmed over if you want the story to be done in a reasonable amount of time." "Well, maybe if they hadn't piled on so many external threads that have nothing to do with everything else, and they'd just focused on the consequences of the inciting incident, now they wouldn't have to be spinning so many plates together," Twilight loudly said. "And maybe, if you can't properly do something, you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Rarity made some very indignant noises, but produced no real words as a response. "They're already making mistakes anyway. They made a whole deal about communication issues and suddenly it's gone," Twilight added. "Well that's just poor faith on your part," Rarity retorted. "If it's so glaring even you could spot it, do you think they don't know? They'll surely address it." "Retroactively fixing all your mistakes as you go is not a good way to write a story." Applejack looked at Pinkie, and shrugged. > Metronome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight and Sunburst reappeared on the outskirts of another town. "So what are you going to do about it?" the second asked, frustrated by the forced time of silent reflection he'd had to endure. "Nothing, for now," said Twilight. "There's nothing I can do about it, and even if I tried it would probably do more harm than good. For what it's worth, it doesn't seem like he plans to do anything too big." "I talked to him." Both Sunburst and Twilight turned to Starshine, who had suddenly appeared there. "What an enjoyable creature. Aside from the whole destroying Equestria thing, of course. Sadly, no help in finding the thief we're looking for, but he did confirm everyone seems to be alright." She looked at Sunburst specifically. "Grandma too." "So he stuck around for a chat with you. I'm honestly not surprised," said Twilight. "What will you tell the country?" Sunburst asked. "The necessary information. That there have been developments in the situation, that I was a part of them but not their cause, and that for a while they can expect things to be quiet again," Twilight answered. "Knowing that there's a creature out there with potentially ill intents and the power to rival an alicorn won't do them any good, not when he can just go around however he pleases. I doubt he'll be putting on a show, I have no reason to let others know about him and a few not to." "You'd be lying to them all," Sunburst noted, adjusting his glasses. "An omission of truth is not a lie," replied Twilight. "Morally, maybe, but not semantically. I'm just trying to do what's best for Equestria, and right now I feel avoiding useless mass panic is preferable." "He says you're doing a great job with me by the way, dad," Starshine said towards Sunburst. The stallion almost tripped on the spot, but managed to collect himself again. He coughed to mask his stuttering, then turned back to Twilight. "What after that?" "Research. Helping creatures rebuild. Trying to find answers. Same as before, just with some more material to work with this time around." She looked briefly ahead at the city, trying to spot any particularly damaged buildings. "You remember that letter about that town hall being vandalised, right?" Sunburst frowned slightly, thinking. "Maybe? Why?" "I think I'll have to pay that place a visit sometime soon." Twilight began to walk towards the city. Sunburst walked after her. "Are you sure it's safe to let him go like that?" "As much as it's safe to have timberwolves in a forest. Enough, as long as no one's going in there looking for them," said Twilight. "If there's nothing we can do to stop him, and he doesn't plan to do anything harmful, the safest thing is to not have creatures actively trying to run into him." She paused. "Starshine? Be a dear and patrol this town as well. We'll move on to the next one." "On it." Starshine took off towards the city. Twilight's horn lit again, and both her and Sunburst teleported away. "There's something I should probably tell you," she said, turning towards the stallion again. "It's about Starshine, and the Behemoth." > 56676767 | Nome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst stepped closer. "What is it?" Twilight swallowed. "If the Behemoth was gone, or if we did get rid of it in some way, all coils would be gone alongside it. That means she'll be gone too." Sunburst paused mid step, looking at Twilight but with his eyes focused on a spot behind her. "I understand," he finally said, setting his hoof down. "I don't really have a choice in the matter though, do I?" "I wouldn't let you have one if you wanted to," said Twilight. "I'm telling you so you can be prepared." Sunburst took a deep breath. "I suppose I knew it already, deep down. It just made sense. Thank you for telling me about it, though." "I had to." Twilight looked ahead again. She seemed hesitant, unsure of whether she wanted to add something else or not. Sunburst noticed it. "I hope you'll have gotten better at hiding the fact that you're hiding something by the time the speech comes," he said, walking past her. Twilight looked at him pass her and continue on, then shook her head and started walking after him towards the city. Stellaria reappeared on the edge of Ponyville. With Twilight's magical trace lost, the easier thing to do was just wait for her at her destination instead. And in the meantime she could probably get some valuable information still from the ponies there in town. "Kind of predictable, honestly." The alicorn turned, but found no one there where she'd heard the voice. Instead, it came once more from behind her. "I do wonder if she'll figure out the easy way to get over the Wall. Oh well, I have stuff to do." Once again Stella turned and found nothing. She grit her teeth slightly and began to breathe a little faster, but otherwise tried to remain collected as she began to head into the town. Predictably, the place was in a bit of a messy state. Ponies and the occasional other creature were running back and forth in the streets, all with varying degrees of worry in their looks. No building seemed particularly close to collapsing, unlike the previous time, but a few did show evident signs of damage that would need to be addressed. She could have made them fall right then just for her own amusement, but she wasn't there for that. A predominantly blue blur of motion that she identified as Rainbow Dash streaked past her and towards the local hospital. On the other side of the street, Sweetie Belle slowly made her way along the sidewalk, holding herself up with a hoof against the wall. She appeared to be heading for the castle. Starlight trotted past her, looking around, and disappeared behind a corner and down an alleyway. Lyra seemed to just be wandering around town, a bit of an odd look on her face. A few moments later Rainbow darted out of the hospital and towards the school. Stella pondered what to do for a moment. Then her horn lit up and she teleported next to the castle. > I > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You should sleep, Lem'." "You should too, Indigo," Lemon Zest replied from her bed. "Well, don't keep me awake then," Indigo Zap said. "How am I keeping you awake?" asked Lemon. "By being awake." "That makes no sense." Lemon could be heard turning in her bed. "I'm not even using my phone, you can't pretend it's the light." Indigo could be heard rolling around as well. "It's the snoring." "I can't be snoring if I'm awake." "Not that," said Indigo. "The lack of it. The sound usually lulls me to sleep." "That's bullshit," Lemon replied. "I don't even snore most of the time." "Maybe I don't tell you about it," Indigo hissed. "Look," said Lemon, "we're both nervous about what's happening right now. But at least I can admit it instead of making up excuses. And it won't do either of us any good to stay up, we should just try to sleep." Indigo leaned to the side of her bed and stared in the darkness at where Lemon was supposed to be. "Did you seriously just make a sensible suggestion? Instead of proposing that we have sex or something else?" "I get like this when I'm nervous," Lemon replied. "No shush and try to sleep. We can fuck tomorrow if you really want to." Indigo was motionless for a moment, then she pulled back and laid her head on the pillow again. "Goodnight, Lem'." "Goodnight, Indy." > Vessel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining checked his mane in the mirror, making sure it looked presentable enough. "I don't need to say anything, right?" From the other side of the room and across the reflections in both her mirror and his, Cadence glared at him, and that was all she needed to do for him to get what she meant to say. Shining smiled the most innocent looking smile he could muster. He fixed his uniform one more time and brushed his tail again, then turned and began to walk out of the room, as Cadence quickly followed behind him. As they exited the room they found a pair of guards waiting at attention, who flanked them and began to follow them as the two walked down the corridor. Shining merely glanced towards them at first. Then he noticed something and looked again. Forcing himself not to mess up his pace, he asked under his breath, "Paper?" "Yes Sir!" the stallion replied in the same low tone Shining had used. He wore an armour identical to the other guard's, which was why Shining hadn't recognised him at first. "What are you doing here?" Shining asked. "And where did you get that armour? I thought you were trying to join the Guard." "That's what I did, Sir," Paper replied. "They're the ones who gave me this armour." Shining blinked, and again had trouble not tripping or slowing his steps. "You did what, exactly?" he asked, a little louder, making Cadence turn to see what was going on. "I joined the Guard, Sir," said Paper. "I did everything precisely as you'd written I should do. Thank you again for pointing me in the right direction." "You- What- How-" Shining sputtered. "It hasn't been two hours since I saw you leave!" Cadence meanwhile craned her neck to get a better look at the conversation. The guard on her side, for his part, either didn't notice anything or expertly pretended not to. "I know," excitedly replied Paper. "Isn't it wonderful that I so quickly was allowed to be a part of the Royal Guard and do my part in protecting and serving the Empire and its citizens?" "The training process is supposed to take months at the least!" Shining turned to Cadence. "It's still supposed to take months, right?" Cadence looked at him, unsure of what to say. "I think you can skip most training if you pass the required tests, and integrate afterwards?" "I know that, but-" Shining silently looked between Cadence and Paper Letters, trying to get a point across, then turned back to the latter. "Did you pass those tests?" "Of course, Sir. With flying colours, Sir." From beneath his armour he produced the relevant certificates, all stamped with the Crystal Empire's Royal Guard's seal of approval. Shining wordlessly sputtered again. "Honey did we drastically reduce the standards for being allowed into the Royal Guard?" he whispered in Cadence's direction. "I told you not to make me sign anything when I'm sleep deprived." "Not as far as I know," Cadence whispered back. "I believe we've arrived, Sir," Paper said, pointing at the balcony up ahead. "I am sure your citizens will be thrilled to hear what you have to say." > Empty > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Morning." Indigo slowly opened her eyes. "Morning?" She pushed herself up. "Up already?" Then she smelled something. "Coffee? I thought you weren't a coffee person." "I'm not, but I recognise when I need coffee to stay awake, and with how I slept last night I'd say today qualifies," Lemon replied. "I've made you some as well if you want." "Sure." Indigo groggily sat up and dropped off her bed. "How much did you sleep, anyway?" "You don't wanna know," said Lemon, handing her a mug. "Careful, it's still hot." Indigo blew on her coffee to let it cool down a little. "How come I've never seen you doing coffee before?" "You didn't see me during exams last year." Lemon took a sip from her mug. "Then again I don't blame you. You were as caught up with those as I was. I think Sunny is the only one who wasn't on the verge of breaking down." "She definitely takes that stuff better than the average person, but she was still working her ass off. You don't get that kind of grades by slacking." Indigo took her first sip, sitting down on Lemon's bed. "That or she was doing cocaine to keep going." "She'd have the money for it," Lemon said. "But I doubt she'd have taken the risk at CP. If anyone was doing drugs there it should have been me." Indigo peered over her mug at Lemon Zest. "And were you doing any?" Lemon paused and bit her lower lip. "I could tell you that me and Vinyl have the same Molly dealer, but that would be a wild mischaracterization of what actually happened." Indigo blinked. "What actually happened?" She took another sip of coffee. "It's complicated." Lemon took another sip of hers. "Maybe I'll explain it to you when I have six or more hours of sleep in my system." > Athame > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Pinkie?" "Yes. That is my name," Pinkie replied. "No, I mean, are you okay?" Sunset said, worried. "You look like you had no sleep last night." "I didn't," Pinkie replied. "Is it that evident? Good. I'm glad." Sunset's mouth hung open for a moment as she processed the flatness of Pinkie's tone. Then she chose to ignore it. "It's also your hair. It looks... straighter than usual? But in a messy way." "Yeah," Twilight agreed. "It does. However that works." Pinkie smiled with only a corner of her mouth, and said nothing else. "Was it the nervousness that kept you up?" Sunset asked, leaning a little closer to Pinkie. Pinkie looked down. She opened her mouth slightly, but didn't answer immediately. "Let's say it was. Sure. Let's go with that." She gave a very brief, very dry chuckle. Twilight and Sunset exchanged a worried look. The latter then cleared her throat, and tried to bring the conversation onto a different topic. "How long until the others get here?" As if on cue, a blur of motion resolved itself into a girl suddenly sitting next to Twilight. "Fluttershy should be here in a few minutes, Rarity and Rarity are coming a little later but not too long after," Rainbow Dash said. "And, uh... Trixie will be here sometime too. We're hanging out together later today, and she did ask to know about what's going on exactly, so... You know..." "It's okay," Sunset said. "You can probably tell her enough." Pinkie was quietly having an uncharacteristically raspy giggling fit in her chair. She'd also taken to sitting at an angle, one leg on the front part of the chair and one on the side. Rainbow looked at her, lifted her eyebrows, and leaned towards Twilight. "Is she okay?" she whispered. "She apparently didn't get any sleep last night," Twilight whispered back. Sunset eyed Pinkie again, but either she hadn't heard the other two or she didn't care. She was busy playing with a knife, and while Sunset had internalised not asking questions about where things in Pinkie's hands came from she was still mildly shaken by realising her talents could apply to less friendly items than what she was used to. "Anyway," said Twilight, clearing her throat again. "I actually got a message from Lemon Zest, asking about this whole situation. It looks like her and Indigo are worried about this as well. Presumably the rest of the old Shadowbolts group too." "Is there anyone you expect not to be worried about it?" asked Rainbow. "Honestly. The whole town felt that. I'm pretty sure everyone is at least a bit concerned." "You underestimate the average person's ability to force blissful ignorance upon themself, even when trouble comes knocking on their door," Twilight said. "Especially when trouble comes knocking on their door. It's usually the made up things that get people railed up instead. They take the lack of existing answers as a personal challenge." "You know who isn't worried about it?" said Sunset. "Celestia. The principal, not the former princess." "You're the only one here who needs that clarification," Rainbow said. "Yeah. Well, anyway, at this point she's just used to this kind of stuff. And it's not like money is a problem for the school." > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Am I dreaming?" Pinkie asked, standing up. "Usually my dreams aren't like this." Rainbow Dash looked at her, ignored the other Rainbow Dash, then looked at the tear in reality behind Pinkie as it slowly closed. "Yeah. You're dreaming. But I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be here and I'm honestly not sure what to do about it." "Huh." Pinkie had another look around. "Is this the Everfree Forest? This looks like the Everfree Forest. But darker than usual. And less geometrically coherent." Rainbow turned to strike a faceless owl as it dove towards her, then turned back to Pinkie. "Yep, it's the Everfree. In the dream world, though. I think." She bit her lower lip. "I'm honestly really not sure what to do. Uh... Wake up?" Pinkie frowned. "Doesn't seem to be working." She pinched her cheek with her hoof. "No. Really doesn't seem to be working," she said, continuing to pinch and twist the side of her face. "This is bad," said Rainbow. "You're probably in danger here. I think. Maybe. I'm not actually sure." She looked around, sword ready to strike, making sure no other creature was close. "I should probably ask Luna about it." "What are you doing here anyway?" asked Pinkie, stepping closer. "Nice armour. I like the colour." She lowered her head and smiled at her own reflection in Rainbow's silver chest piece. "I'm a dream warden," Rainbow said, "or something like that. I need to ask what the actual term is. Luna needed help with stuff so she took me along for it." "Oh!" Pinkie began to bounce in circles around Rainbow. "That sounds fun! I've always wondered what it's like to visit other ponies' dreams. Well, I did see what it's like, but that was only one time and it was a special occasion and-" "Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash asked, groggily lifting her head off the ground. "What happened?" Her vision focused, and she noticed her armour clad double standing in front of her. Rainbow stared back at herself, silent for a few seconds. "This is weird." "This is awes-ouch!" The second Rainbow excitedly stood up, then stopped halfway as something popped in her ligaments. "It's okay," she said a moment later, straightening herself. "I'm okay. I think." Rainbow stared at herself a little longer. "Okay then. Gonna have to figure this one out too I suppose." > Exuvia > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Huh." "Huh what?" asked Twilight. Sunset put her phone back in her pocket. "I got a message from Wallflower asking about the situation." "Huh," said Twilight. "Will you tell her about it?" "Will you tell us about it?" asked Rainbow. Both Sunset and Twilight glared at her for that. "I'll have to think about that," Sunset said, ignoring Rainbow's question. "On one hand, she's historically more involved with magic than the average person, so she kind of has a right to know. And I don't feel good about hiding things from a friend." "On the other, she's not particularly involved with this specific case of horseworld magic, and we can't just go around telling everyone who asks every detail," said Twilight. Sunset nodded. "Exactly." Rainbow pursed her lips, perplexed. "So how come I can tell Trixie about it no problem?" "She's somehow more involved in this than she has any right to be," Sunset replied. "And she's your current girlfriend," added Twilight. "And she's Trixie. Those last two combined mean we couldn't keep her out of this even if we wanted to." Pinkie silently played with her knife. "So, hypothetically, would you tell Wallflower about it if she was your girlfriend?" Rainbow asked Sunset, pointing at her. Sunset blinked at the question. "I guess? She's not, though. Maybe in a different universe." "Hah!" said Twilight, but her laugh quickly devolved in a nervous one. "Please don't actually postulate the existence of multiple parallel universes with that level of similarity between each other. What we're dealing with is complicated enough already." Sunset smiled at her. "Don't worry. This is the only version of this universe that exists in this version of the multiverse, as far as I know, and you're my girlfriend in it." "But could there be a universe where I'm your girlfriend?" asked Rainbow. "Could there be a universe where I'm your girlfriend but also Trixie's girlfriend?" "About as likely as a universe in which you know how to shut up," Twilight jokingly said. "Which I suppose is as likely as literally any other universe," she felt the need to clarify. "Maybe. It's complicated and I slept too little to subject myself to it." > Void > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think I'll be leaving soon," the stallion said. Wick Clip looked up from her soup. "Where to?" she asked. "I'm not sure." The stallion ate another spoonful of soup. "Maybe Ponyville, but I'm not sure if that's safe. Maybe Canterlot. Maybe someplace else entirely. I do need to meet Princess Twilight at some point." "And what will happen to your stuff?" asked Wick between sips of soup. "Some of it I'm taking with me," replied the stallion. "Some of it I'll leave. The room will close up, and it'll be as if I was never here. I can't afford to leave tracks behind, Stella is too good at following those." "I see." Wick looked down. She stopped eating for a bit, looking at her largely obscured reflection in the bowl of soup in front of her. "Are you saying you'll miss me?" the stallion asked. "I..." Wick hesitated, and blinked a couple of times. "It really says a lot about my life that the answer to that is probably yes. It's not all though." "What else?" The stallion swallowed another spoonful. "Ask me again a week or so after you're gone. I'll be convinced I never liked you at all. I'll be convinced I really don't miss you." She stuck her spoon into her bowl with little energy behind her motions. "Maybe it's this place's fault." "What do you mean?" "Maybe there needs to be someone crazy here," Wick explained, "and once you're gone I'll go back to filling that spot myself. Maybe this place is cursed." "That sounds like an excuse to me," said the stallion. "And trust me, I know a few things about causation." "I was down a path before you came into my life." Wick sat with her hooves on her chair, staring down at nothing. "I think I'll be back on it once you're gone. This will be left as a parenthesis of my life, but not a change." "If you're asking me to stay, I'm afraid I can't do that." The stallion stayed focused on his soup. "But I will miss your cooking." "You could help me. Just by being here," Wick said. The stallion looked at her. "Is this about me or about you? You don't need me. You just need someone. It should be up to you to look for them." "You wouldn't say that to a mare whose life was on the line, would you?" "No," said the stallion. "But you're not that. You're far more petty than that. Staying here won't change things, and things can't get better if they don't change." "They can get worse." Wick grabbed her spoon again, and went back to eating. "It's up to you." The stallion finished his soup. "Scary, right? Having to decide for yourself if your answer was the right one." Wick smiled. "You're a good pony. And I'll miss you. But you always knew something I didn't, didn't you?" She looked up at him. "Do I make it?" The stallion looked back at her, silent, reflecting on what answer to give her. > Countdown > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is everything okay?" Scarlet Ribbon asked, a little worried, as she opened the door to Silver Lace's house. "Scarlet!" Silver greeted her. "I was about to come check on you. Yeah, everything's okay here. Is everything okay with you as well?" "Yeah," Scarlet said, stepping inside and closing the door behind herself. "The house is all still in one piece too. What do you think that was?" "I'm pretty sure you know what that was." Silver walked up to Scarlet for a courtesy hug, then walked back towards her sofa. "Yes, of course," Scarlet said. "But do you think it was something in particular that caused it this time?" "Who knows?" Silver shrugged, taking a seat and inviting Scarlet to do the same with taps on the sofa. "Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it's just something that'll be happening from now on." "Doesn't that worry you?" Scarlet sat down, and immediately eyed the jar of cookies on the table to make sure it was safe and unharmed. "Of course it does. But what am I supposed to do about it?" Silver asked. "Do you want some tea?" "Yes, thank you." Scarlet nodded. "What are we supposed to do, really? Hopefully Princess Twilight will make a statement about it." "She will." Silver stood up and moved to the cupboard where she kept her teapot. "She has to. And she's done so in the past, there's no reason why she wouldn't." "Do you think she knew?" Scarlet suddenly asked, turning towards Silver. "Impossible. Why would she?" Silver grabbed her teapot and her cups. "She would have told us in advance if she knew." "Why hasn't she said anything yet then?" Scarlet began to nervously play with a strand of her mane. "What if something happened to her?" "If something had happened to Princess Twilight we would have heard about it." Silver began to walk towards her kitchen. "She's probably looking into the events before she makes her statement. It hasn't been that long, and she'll want to be sure she knows exactly what happened." "I hope we won't have to wait long for that." Once Silver was in the other room, Scarlet opened the jar and grabbed a cookie. "I hope he's okay, too," she said between munches. "I hope so too," Silver said from the kitchen. "You should try to have him write to us at some point, too." > B-side > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you remember when it happened?" "Like it was yesterday. And not just because we just got a reminder, it's always in my head. Well, not always at the centre, but you know what I mean." "Always a fresh memory, yeah. But you'd be surprised how much that can differ from one pony to another. Memory is a funny thing. You probably remember it all wrong." "No way. That's not the kind of thing you forget." "Like I said, memory is a funny thing. I've talked about it with a few others. Everyone remembers it a bit different." "Are you sure they were sober?" "This place serves more milk than it serves alcohol, and trust me, it doesn't serve that much milk. Anyway. What about you? Were there screams?" "What?" "When the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Were there screams in town?" "Of course there were screams. You did see that thing, right? Do you think ponies were just cool with it walking around, wrecking the place?" "Well, that's funny, you see. I've heard ponies swear it was dead silent when it got here. They say they were too scared to scream." "Well, maybe they were. I'll tell you though, the ponies around me weren't." "And you?" "Me?" "Did you scream too?" "Well I... No, but it's not like that proves anything." "That's also funny. No one remembers screaming. Makes you wonder where all the noise was coming from." "Like you've talked to everyone in this town. A bunch of ponies left the place anyway. Can't say I blame them too much, especially those who got their house destroyed. Place ain't even really the capital anymore, what with Princess Twilight moving to her other castle and whatnot." "Maybe you're right. But you still got to admit, it's pretty funny." "If you say so." > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do we do now, then?" Pinkie asked, bouncing around Rainbow Dash and on top of the slain corpses of the nightmarish creatures she'd defeated. "Luna said I should patrol the perimeter and wait for her," Rainbow explained, keeping her eyes and ears alert. "I don't think you two are safe here, but you'll be less safe if we try to reach her. Just stay close, and scream if you see anything coming." "That sounds like lame talk to me," the other Rainbow said. "Why should we miss out on all the cool action? Plus I'm sure it would be faster to just get to Luna anyway, it's not like anything in this forest can keep up with us." Rainbow gave herself a flat look, then looked at Pinkie instead. "You have a really low opinion of me if that's what your head came up with. I've grown as a pony, you know?" Pinkie gave her a very sheepish shrug. "Maybe my brain just picked an older version of you for the dream. Even though it was set in the future. Then again it was also set on a floating island that was destroyed by a swarm of fish." "That's actually a good point, I shouldn't have assumed." Rainbow looked back at the other Rainbow, who was twirling around in the air dangerously not so close to the other two. "I've seen myself in other ponies' dreams before, but this is kinda different. Do you think she's, like, alive?" "I guess it's not that different from my Mirror Pool clones," said Pinkie. "She's more of a caricature of you. A figment of my imagination born from recombined fragments of memories. She doesn't really exist beyond the shape she was meant to fill and the role she was meant to play." Rainbow nodded slowly, eyes still locked on her other self. "I guess that makes sense. I'd still rather ask Luna to check on her, because as far as I know she shouldn't be here in the first place. Maybe you're keeping her around by being here yourself in some way, but that still doesn't make sense." "Are we doing something fun or what?" yelled the other Rainbow, casually hovering on her back with her front legs behind her neck. The real Rainbow groaned, rolling her eyes. "Was I really that annoying?" "Eh, only sometimes," Pinkie said with a shrug. Then she pointed and screamed. Rainbow snapped at attention, and struck down the ball of limbs and jaws sailing through the air before it had a chance to land on Pinkie. The other Rainbow quickly got there too, but not quickly enough, and she landed disappointed and somewhat deflated once she realised the danger was over. "You could have left that one for me," she whined. "Well, maybe you'll learn to stick close to us and not rush ahead," said the first Rainbow. The second looked at her blankly for a few silent seconds, then went back to rushing ahead without a care in the world. "I don't think memories can learn," Pinkie whispered, leaning towards Rainbow Dash. > ThrTrn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Twilight!" "I should have expected you'd be here," Twilight said, looking around the room. "Well, we can just walk to the castle." Once she was done hugging the alicorn, Starlight stepped back. "What happened?" she asked. "And why didn't you set up a long distance communication spell before going?" "A huge oversight on my part, yes," Twilight said, already heading for the exit and conjuring a sound nullifying bubble to surround herself and the others. "I was trying not to worry you, but in hindsight I should have let you know a bit more. I didn't think things would go like this." "Did she get taller?" Trixie asked, trotting behind Twilight out of the room. Starshine shrugged in response, while everyone else just ignored her. "Won't you tell me what happened?" Starlight asked again, following the others. "I still don't know why you left in the first place." "Sunburst can fill you in for now, any other questions I'll be able to answer later. I need to send a letter to my brother." Twilight's steps grew a little faster. Sunburst, trotting beside Starlight, bit his lower lip as the mare's attention focused on him. "There's apparently someone on top of the Behemoth. Was. Driving it around like an elephant, from my understanding." "He's good at whistling," Starshine added, unprompted. Starlight blankly stared at Sunburst, as her body kept walking on by itself like she was a spring-loaded toy. But when the charge ran out, rather than stopping, she exploded in a shocked expression. "What?" she yelled. "That's just... What?" "Firecracker ran into him first," Twilight said from the head of the group. "He turned out to be as knowledgeable about the situation as you'd expect someone who apparently exists for the purpose of directing the Behemoth around alone to be. We have a few things to discuss once this crisis is over." "I..." Starlight's mouth hung open for a bit longer, until she closed it and began to process the information. "You said was," Trixie pointed out. "What happened to him?" "Going around Equestria," answered Starshine, with a tone filled with more cheer than anyone had any right to use when talking about the subject matter. "Anywhere he wants to and we've got no way to track him or stop him, seems he's tapping into the Weave too. Also he was strong enough to overpower Twilight's spells so there's that as well." Trixie would have slowed her pace down enough to be left behind by the group if she hadn't been stuck in the middle of it. Instead she simply shrunk in on herself, wallowing in her perceived inadequacy and regretting ever asking the question. "Oh." Starlight began to breathe noticeably faster and heavier than normal. "Oh good. Just another force that could wreck everything and we've got no way to stop. You know that keeping me in the dark so I don't have a breakdown thing well I'm starting to miss it Twi-" "It's not that bad," Twilight said. Starlight was silent for a moment. "How is it not that bad? How is it possibly in any conceivable way not that bad?" she growled out. "What the fuck did you do there?" > Read 238368 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From her position near the crystal tree castle thingy she was planning to destroy at some point, Stella perked up as she noticed the approaching group of ponies, though she was a little disappointed to see the magical bubble preventing her from hearing what they were saying. She was at least happy to see that some of them seemed to be arguing with each other, and others awkwardly trying to ignore said arguing. The only exception being Starshine, who looked as happy and carefree as a little filly in a candy store. The ponies finally reached the castle, and stopped talking as they arrived at the door. Stella couldn't tell if the discussion had actually come to an end or if they'd just cut it short, but it didn't particularly matter. She waited at their side for the door to open, and stepped in alongside Twilight through the magical scans and past the guards. It did bring her glee to so effortlessly pass through all the security measures installed specifically because of her, but she managed to contain her cackling into a bout of hyperventilation. She didn't want to look too much like her mother. The rest of the ponies walked in the building as well, all but Starshine who instead disappeared and reappeared inside with a different coat colour. They looked briefly at each other, then silently split up, leaving Stella to ponder who she should follow. She was interested in what Twilight would be up to, but she could always get to her later and her study was in the castle anyway. Sunburst could be fun, but she wasn't particularly interested in dealing with Starshine. Trixie was of no interest to her. Shrugging, she decided to follow Starlight, who seemed to be heading for her own room. She wasn't sure if she would do something with her or just watch. She could, maybe, but it was a lot harder to impersonate someone than to simply move around invisible. Nothing she couldn't do, of course, but it would be such a bother. Then again, maybe she could use some other of her tricks. > 089153 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella slipped through the door to Starlight's room just quickly enough to make it inside before the door was slammed. She was somewhat disappointed to see the mare wasn't crying, as she'd hoped she would be after seeing how she'd rushed into the room, but after a moment she just shrugged and had a look around. Starlight was on her bed, burying herself in a book or a journal or something similar. The room, after a cursory glance, turned out to be of little interest, and so Stella focused on the unicorn. She got as close to her as she could manage while still making sure she wasn't outright breathing on her, and tried to get a proper look at whatever Starlight was reading. It didn't really work out. "Don't you have anything better to do?" she asked, knowing she couldn't be heard. Starlight, of course, didn't hear her and didn't reply. For whatever reason, that really bothered Stella, who grabbed hold of the book with a hoof and pulled it away from Starlight's grip. "Don't you have anything better to do?" she asked again, louder. Starlight again didn't reply. Not because she hadn't heard Stella, but because of the band of magical energy holding her mouth shut. She did try to use her horn though, but that was also blocked by Stella's magic. Same for her limbs. So she just stared at the pony with confusion and worry, trying to scream through her closed mouth as sweat began to roll down her neck. Stella took a few moments to admire the alicorn she was reflecting as in Starlight's eyes, the only sounds in the room her quivering breaths and the other's muffled cries. She'd get to fixing up her own body to look like that soon enough, but she had other things to work on first. All in due time. "Don't bother trying to break out of this, you won't. And don't bother making noise, no one outside of this room can hear us." Stella smiled and stepped closer to Starlight, who shivered and swallowed. "You're probably wondering what I'm here for. Actually you're probably wondering a lot of things. Like who I am or how I got here or other stuff I won't bother to answer because I'm not here to entertain the fancies of an annoying little unicorn I could crush beneath my hooves this very moment, not that it would matter when I'll make you forget all about it, but I suppose I might have some interest in you because of my mother's interest in you I should not have told you that." Stella turned with a snappy motion. "Doesn't matter. I'll make her forget about it. I shouldn't be here, this was a mistake, I shouldn't- I'm here, I'm doing it, it's okay I'll just make her forget about it it's okay nothing can go wrong I shouldn't have brought up my mother." She growled, either at nothing or at the wall. "She's not really my mother. She was an idiot, and she died like an idiot, and I am not like my mother!" She turned back to Starlight, who was getting only more worried, suddenly smiling again. "So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have fun. Because that's what you are to me. A pastime, a toy, something beneath my level I only care about for my own amusement. And then I'll make you forget about it. And maybe I'll play around, do something, leave something in you, maybe I won't, it doesn't matter. It doesn't..." She had a heavy sigh, and looked at the ground. "Fucking matter!" she angrily yelled. Then she stood still, eyes closed, trying to slow her breath. "It doesn't matter," she muttered under her breath. "Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter." She took a last deep breath, and looked at Starlight again. "So we should just have ourselves some fun." > Candy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Angry?" "Not particularly, but a little bit. Kind of." "Why?" "You know why." Starshine took on an annoyed frown. "Of course I know why, but that's not the point. The point is having a discussion about it so you can sort through your feelings and come to an emotional resolution." "I'm not really sure about this whole deal of making my internal monologues into external dialogue." Sunburst looked up from the book he was reading, and stuck out his hoof to grab a mug of not too hot tea from out of thin air. "Hey. Whatever works works, no?" Sunburst sipped on his tea, until he noticed the writing on the mug through the reflection in the mirror. "Did you have to?" he asked, looking at Starshine. The pegasus snickered. "Well, you are a great dad, how else should I let you know?" Sunburst sighed, and finished his tea. "Do you think your own ability to influence outcomes of my powers is a consequence of your progressive reification?" "Probably, but that's not what we're supposed to be discussing right now," Starshine said. Sunburst set the mug down next to the line of other mugs he'd accumulated at the foot of the bed. "Yeah. Okay, let's actually go through this properly." Starshine smiled and sat down next to Sunburst. "Why are you angry?" "Twilight is hiding something. Much like she hid things going into this. Also, she's partially responsible for this mess." "And why aren't you that angry, all things considered?" Starshine continued. "It wasn't really her fault things turned out the way they did," Sunburst said. "It would be like blaming Starlight for how Chrysalis refused to change her ways after being defeated. The Charioteer is ultimately the one responsible for his actions, and Twilight's presence being part of the reason for them doesn't exempt him from his responsibilities, since he's a thinking being with free will and not a natural phenomenon." Starshine nodded. "Go on. What else?" "Twilight means well," continued Sunburst, "and she had a point about hiding information in advance, nothing useful would have come if it had leaked. She has a point about hiding some things to her citizens too, depending on how she approaches it and if the Charioteer is as unlikely to cause trouble as she said, which I trust he is. Given all that, her hiding things from me is probably justified in a similar way." "But as a friend, you're still bothered by being kept in the dark about something," said Starshine. Sunburst nodded. "But still as her friend, I trust that she is only trying to do what she thinks is best for Equestria and all of us. As her subject, I acknowledge that Equestrian rulers have a successful history of obtaining the best results by tweaking the information available, as questionable as that is. And as both, I believe she is more than capable of making the best possible choice given the circumstances, and certainly better suited for her role than I would be." Starshine patted him on the back. "See? That wasn't so hard." > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, are we going to meet up with Luna or what?" Rainbow asked, flying around the other two ponies as they walked through the forest. On a whim, receiving no answer, she moved a little further ahead, and Pinkie leaned towards the Rainbow Dash still there. "Are you sure it's safe to let her go around like this?" Rainbow bit her lower lip. "Not really, but I'm much less worried about her than I am about us. If I know how you know me, she can defend herself, and she'll give the creatures something to jump on before they pick us. As long as she doesn't get annoyed of just patrolling the border and makes a dash for the centre of the forest I'd say we're as safe as we can be." "So like, where are we anyway?" the other Rainbow asked, looking around as she came back. "This place looks all kinds of messed up." "It's the Everfree Forest's manifestation in the dream world, as far as I understand it," said the armour clad Rainbow. "And it is messed up. It's been getting this way and worse ever since the Behemoth arrived." "Everfree?" Rainbow pulled a face. "That's impossible. It was destroyed when Sombra came back. Razed to the ground in the blink of an eye, it looked like the whole place had burned down in a second. Unless..." Her face lit up, and she gasped. "Oh my gosh! Pinkie, we've travelled back in time!" "Uh... No, I'm pretty sure that's not what happened," Pinkie said. "I guess it is what happened to you, but not really, but maybe it is. I should ask Twilight about it. Or Starlight, she knows about time travel. She does, right?" The flying Rainbow frowned sadly. "If only it had helped. She tried to, but it didn't work. I guess the amnesia made you forget about that too." She lit up again. "But now we've done it! We can fix things! We need to find Twilight and warn her of what's going to happen!" She dashed off in a random direction, then immediately came back. "Right. Dream world. Luna first. Hey, me, when are we?" The real Rainbow looked at her other self. "Uh... Past Hearth's Warming, the first one since the Behemoth got here. Still winter. If it helps, we just had the first new step, which is why I had to get here in the first place." The flying Rainbow pulled another face, literally so as her hooves dragged on her cheeks. "This is real bad. The first new step wasn't until summer and that's when things started going bad! Someone's already altered the timeline!" She moved to Pinkie and almost shook the mare in her grip. "Pinkie, we need to do something! We can't let the grasshoppers incident repeat!" Pinkie offered the best smile she could. "I'm not really sure what that one was. But I'm sure we'll manage to fix everything!" "Do you two hear something?" the other Rainbow asked, lifting a hoof to silence the pair. > Mrclmc > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh." Trixie stopped halfway through the door. "Are you okay there?" Lightning Dust slowly, very slowly, turned to look at her. "Not really," she said. She sounded like she'd just woken up, and looked the part as well. Ruffled mane and feathers, and bags under her eyes. "You?" "Better than you're doing, for sure," Trixie said. She stepped in and closed the door. "What's the problem?" "Hangover. You know, the usual. I just didn't expect to wake up so soon." Lightning sat up, slightly stretching her wings. "Were you sleeping here or did you walk here in those conditions?" asked Trixie, heading for the sofa. "Both," Lightning said. "Not in that order. Dragged myself in the castle in case I was needed, and then I collapsed here again." "I see." Trixie sat down. "I've never been that close to you, but I was under the impression you weren't this chatty." "I'm usually not, but I don't physically have the strength to feel anything close to anger right now," Lightning said in a flat tone. "Last night was rough." "Really?" asked Trixie, not really sure of what else would have been an appropriate reply. "I didn't go to sleep until after dawn." Lightning nodded. "Usually I'll just pass out halfway drunk at the club and get dragged back to my house late into the night, when the place closes down. Didn't get drunk enough to pass out yesterday. Spent the whole night wandering around town with a bottle, I don't think I even finished it and I've got no idea what it was. I don't know why I didn't just ask for the usual." Trixie swallowed but nodded, shifting slightly from side to side as the awkwardness of the conversation ran down her sides like an itch. Turning her neck with a few audible pops, Lightning looked at Trixie again. "Any news about what happened?" She stretched her limbs. "What time is it, anyway?" she asked, looking for the clock hanging from one of the walls. "Princess Twilight is here again," said Trixie, glad she could move the conversation in ways she was comfortable doing. "She'll be addressing the nation shortly." "Is my house alright?" Lightning asked. "I didn't check while I was coming here." "Every building is safe for the moment, and the damaged ones are being repaired," Trixie said. "I don't know about yours specifically, but rest assured it will be taken care of if any problems are there." "How's Silver Spear? Is he alright?" "There have been no casualties, nor any major accidents," Trixie reassured Lightning. "Whoever he might be, you'll be able to check the hospital later, and if he's not there you'll know he wasn't hurt. Either way, he's safe." "Good." Lightning placed a hoof behind her neck and turned it from side to side, making it pop again. "Soarin' was supposed to be on a delivery today, I guess he's not around. Hopefully he's alright too. You said Twilight's back, right?" "Yes." Trixie nodded. "I guess she doesn't need my help right now then." With a dull thud, Lightning let herself fall back on the couch. "Don't you dare wake me up." Trixie bit her lower lip. "Why did you stay up like that yesterday, anyway?" For a moment, Lightning didn't move and didn't answer. "The day right before an anniversary is always a stressful one," she finally said. > 366 - 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was wind outside, and a clouded sky, as Twilight looked out of her window. A sheet of paper lay momentarily abandoned on her desk, next to it ink and a quill, on it the unfinished sketch of the speech she would shortly give her citizens. She didn't have much time, yet she knew she had enough to afford that little moment. There were sounds in the streets, ponies and creatures walking and talking, but they didn't reach her. She looked towards Canterlot. Towards where the Behemoth was, even if she couldn't see it from there. She wondered if creatures would remember that day as they remembered the last time the Behemoth had walked, the day it had arrived. It felt longer ago than it had been. And Equestria, and its citizens, had learnt to live with it. But something had to be done. She'd write to her brother shortly, she'd write to the stallion still traversing other universes in search of something that could help them, she'd write to Sunset at some point, and she'd write to the previous rulers of Equestria too, even though she doubted she'd need to. She'd have another lab built, she'd already decided. She couldn't run the riskier experiments in the middle of Ponyville, even with all the security measures on her castle. She'd meet the Charioteer again, sooner or later, she knew that much. He would make sure of that, when he felt like it. He did offer her a way out of the situation. A way she wasn't particularly happy taking, and one she wasn't sure she even could go through with, but it was there. And maybe his point was to tell her outright just to show her the futility of her attempts and how hopeless things were, but that wouldn't stop her from trying. There was Discord. Still missing, but he'd be back at some point. She hoped it wouldn't be too late by then, and she hoped he would find something. It was Discord, after all, such things as whether or not an answer was actually there shouldn't have been too big of an obstacle towards him finding one. Maybe at worst they'd just relocate every life form in the world in his dimension, though she knew that wouldn't fix everything. The thief who'd infiltrated her castle, stolen a portion of her scales, and driven Chrysalis insane still hadn't contacted her, but they would no doubt make themselves known at some point. She could only hope it wouldn't be in a destructive way. Much like how she could only hope that future interactions with the universe Chrysalis had passed through along with her wouldn't be as dangerous as the last one. But it was the only world in which she'd found life, and she wouldn't let go of exploring it. She couldn't afford to. She hoped Rarity was okay, still in the human world when the Behemoth had moved. She would certainly be sorry to hear about what had happened to her sister while she was gone. Her other friends were... They all seemed to be alright, for what she knew. But had she actually been checking on them? Perhaps it was time she started to pay more attention there. With a sigh, Twilight walked away from the window, and back to her desk. > Spiritual Dictator > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It was nice knowing you." "Oh, shut it." "We are so dead though. Like dead dead. Done. Completely." "I get the point, thanks. Stop being so pessimistic about the situation." "We broke priceless equipment and potentially caused the whole operation to slide forward weeks if not months. And you know how she feels about schedules. We'll at most live long enough to be test subjects for our replacements." "We didn't do any of that. It was all... whatever that thing was." "Yeah, in our laboratory, which is under our supervision. Do you think she cares that it popped out of nowhere and then disappeared? You know she won't run the risk of it having been our fault. This is too important and we're too easy to replace." "I just-" The mare suddenly went silent, and sat straighter, and so did the stallion beside her. With slow steps, Nightmare Moon approached the pair. "I see your report of the damage was accurate, and that you didn't waste time in sending it," she said, walking past them only to turn and start walking back the other way. Both unicorns nervously swallowed, trying to fight against the tension eating away at them to avoid any sudden spasms or other movements. "I will see that a replacement for the machine is built and delivered as quickly as possible." The alicorn put added emphasis on the last part of the sentence, and both the other ponies knew she meant it would be done even faster than such a thing should have been possible, likely through complete disregard for the well being of those poor souls involved in the process. "However-" Nightmare Moon stopped walking, turned again, and eyed the unicorns directly "-you must understand that it is a very complex piece of work we're talking about. A very delicate construct of nearly incalculable worth. One of the most advanced pieces of magical technology in existence. And the one previously in your possession is now beyond repair." "Of course, Our Queen," the stallion said with a small bow, barely not stammering. The mare instead looked dead ahead, tense to the point of being almost frozen like a statue. "Very well." Nightmare Moon continued to walk, passed them again, and stopped. "Then I am sure you will understand as well that it will be a while before you will be able to continue your experiments." "Of course, Your Highness," said the stallion, bowing again. It would have been his answer in every case, it was the only answer he was allowed to give, and therefore he only fully realised what he'd actually been told once he'd already said it. Thankfully, he managed to bite his own tongue before saying anything else, and judging by the sound the mare at his side had done the same. "Very well," added Nightmare Moon without turning. "I'll make sure to entrust some other task on you during the wait, it would be a shame to waste your talents. Await further instructions. In the meantime, feel free to do as you please, but do not leave this place." And then, she simply walked away. Seconds passed by in silence. Then almost minutes. "How the fuck are we still alive," incredulously breathed the mare. > F* Daytime EoL > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Anything yet?" Indigo asked, lying on Lemon's bed. "Not yet," Lemon replied. "Nothing new. Twi's probably still talking about things with Sunset, or deciding what they should tell us." "Ugh." Indigo leaned back into the pillow. "Why did we even wake up early for this? It's not like we're going anywhere. This wait is killing me." She looked at the portal in the middle of their living room with one eye. "Maybe we should just tell her about this. In case it's not safe to be near one." "She'd have told us about that if it wasn't," Lemon replied, without looking away from her computer screen. "And it was stress that woke us up. You know how it is. Find something to occupy your time with." "That's easy for you to say. Your time filling activities involve staying right there so you'll immediately know when we get a message." Indigo rolled around over the bed some. "Mine involve going outside. You can't just tell me to go outside. What if Twilight writes back while I'm gone?" "I'll tell you about it when you're back?" Lemon's tone perfectly conveyed her eyebrow raise without the need for Indigo to see it. "Ugh," Indigo said again, followed by other such sounds of petty frustration. "You could at least entertain me while we wait." "I'm not in the mood for sex right now, if you need it that bad you can just masturbate," said Lemon. A moment later, she clarified, "Okay, it's mostly because I'm busy right this moment and less a matter of mood. But I also think I'm closer to what Sunny would insist is a regular sex drive right now. It'll go away when I'm not so nervous." "I didn't mean that and you know it," Indigo barked, snapping up into a sitting position. "We always mean that as a possibility and we both know it," Lemon replied. After a bit of silence, just short enough for Indigo not to continue, she said, "We should have a threesome at some point." "What?" "You'd be into it." Indigo blinked. "Probably. That doesn't make you bringing it up now any less out of place." "I was thinking Sunburst," Lemon continued, caring not for Indigo's words. "Why him?" "Because we're sure he'd say yes." Indigo shrugged after a second of thought. "Guess you're right. What are you up to?" "Did I tell about how I met the tall Moon horse that looks like CHS's vice principal while in pony land?" asked Lemon, still not following through on what Indigo was saying. "You did not," Indigo replied. "When did it happen? Did you go in without me?" "In my dreams. There. She can go through them and stuff," said Lemon. "It was on one of the first visits. I had a dream about transforming sort of like Twi did." "Oh." Indigo adjusted herself and turned towards Lemon. "How was it?" "I looked extremely hot." Lemon used the following silent pause to shift the conversation again. "I'm playing a game by the way. You can come watch if you want." > On The Ro | Add Again > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He'd decided the best way to go was towards Ponyville. Stella might have been waiting for him there, true, but he'd probably be somewhat safer there than someplace else if she did run into him. Besides, he did know he needed to meet Twilight at some point. It was the only real lead he had on the situation. He left early in the morning, rather quietly, but not too quietly and not too early. He did still want to say goodbye to Wick, which he did. He bought a candle from her shop as well, he knew how much she enjoyed it when ponies actually bought candles from her. He put his notes and other stuff in his bags, bought some food from the shop, and began to walk in Ponyville's general direction. He was fairly certain it was Ponyville's direction, at least. He hadn't asked for directions, he didn't want to leave that information behind just in case. He'd always been bad with geography though. Thankfully that glowing trail on the ground was there and he just had to follow it, and hope it wasn't a wire he'd mistaken for something else. He probably didn't have enough food for the trip. He was fairly certain Ponyville was too far for that. But he did believe he'd run into more food or more cities at some point. Even if the trail was leading him off the main road and towards the trees. He was at least happy to be carrying a tent as well. "That wasn't so bad," Cadence said, letting herself gently fall into a cushioned chair. "Right, dear?" Shining had already done the same, but not before taking off his uniform and resting it folded on a table. "It's not just the speech itself, it's all the stress building up to it. It leaves you drained." Cadence nodded. "You're right about that. At least it's over now. Early bed tonight?" "I doubt we'll make it, but it would be nice." Shining sighed. "We should go check on Flurry as well. You were right, she's been getting more talkative lately." "She has." Cadence nodded. There was a knock on the door and Shining straightened himself before answering. "Come in," he said. The door opened. "We've received a letter from Her Highness Princess Twilight Sparkle, addressed to Your Royal Hignesses," Paper Letters said, walking inside with said letter in a hoof and Flurry sleeping on his back. "The young Princess your daughter had escaped her chambers and fell asleep after entertaining herself with the messenger, I saw it wise to bring her to you so you could care for her." Shining wasn't sure whether he was supposed to be most surprised by Paper's presence or by Flurry's, so in the meantime he simply took hold of the letter in his magic while his wife did the same for their daughter. "Thank you," he said, mostly on instinct. "I am merely doing my job, Your Highness," Paper replied with a small bow. > T > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ugh." Rose stepped past the door and closed it behind herself. "Doing better?" "Ugh," Sweetie Belle repeated. "Maybe?" she added after a bit of silence. Rose walked further in and began to set down her findings on her table. "Visions are gone. Migraine isn't." Sweetie rolled around. "What time is it?" "Almost midnight," Rose replied. "Twilight is back, she already gave her speech." "And Rarity?" "Not as far as I know." Sweetie sighed, and groggily tried to sit up. "How did it go out there?" "Well enough," Rose replied. "Do you think you can make it back home or do you want to stay here?" "I can make it," Sweetie said, standing up. "Thank you for the offer though." Rose smiled to her and nodded. > Be, Now, Here > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Trouble sleeping?" Twilight didn't answer immediately, busy looking at the ceiling, but eventually she rolled onto her side and nodded. "And you?" "Me too," Spike replied. "Do you want me to turn on the light?" "No, no need to," Twilight said. "Unless you need it." Spiked walked to her bed in the darkness, and pulled himself up on it. "You did well today, during the speech." "I had to," said Twilight. "It's not like a test. You don't get to do over if you don't get it right the first time." Spike chuckled at that. "Because you totally used to think it was okay to make mistakes in a school test and you could do it again if it didn't go well, right?" Twilight poked him with a hoof, but she smiled. "I was getting myself in the right mindset early." "Sure, sure." Spike turned a bit and lay back, resting on his back next to Twilight. "Are things going to be okay?" Twilight hesitated, but her smile didn't completely falter. "I hope they will. I know they can, and that's what's important." Spike looked at Twilight, and rolled to the side so he could do so more easily. "How is Shining doing?" "Tired, but okay," Twilight replied. "The same for Cadence. Flurry is the only one who doesn't seem too drained by this whole thing, though Shining assures me I was like her at her age." Spike sighed. "I miss when we could just send letters back and forth." "Do you miss that, or do you miss being the one who got to do it?" Twilight asked, poking Spike again. He looked to the side for a moment, which given his position meant looking at the pillow. "Both," he finally admitted. "Feeling like I'm not as useful anymore isn't nice, but I miss being able to just write to someone and have them answer back as quickly as they could." "I miss it too," Twilight said. "We're working on trying to fix it though. We'll probably... We'll hopefully have something figured out in a few months, not as good as before but much better than what we have now." She noticed his expression, and added, "And no, you won't be as much a part of it, but it's not the end of the world is it?" "I suppose not." Spike briefly laughed. "Everything else that's going on is already the end of the world, isn't it?" he joked. Twilight smiled at that, though there was some worry inside her. "Maybe. But we'll make it through. We've come so far already, there's no reason to give up now." Spike smiled back. Then he yawned. "We should sleep now." Twilight glanced at the night sky out of her window. That thankfully hadn't changed yet, and so she could still tell what time it was by looking at it. "We should." She looked back at Spike. "Do you want to stay here?" He considered the offer. "If it's not a bother." "Not at all." Slowly, the little dragon tucked himself under the sheets. "It feels weird to just sleep normally. Today was an important day and all." "Maybe," Twilight said, closing her eyes. "But maybe every day is important. Especially nowadays. Maybe the right thing to do is just to carry on like it's any other day. Either way, you always need sleep at the end of it." > Reverse > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The train came to a slow halt at the station, and the doors opened. Twilight stood up and began to walk away, as the few guards coming with her did the same. A few seats behind her, Wick Clip waited for the pegasus beside her to stand and then pushed past him as she rushed behind the princess, but then stumbled and slowed down as she got closer. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she forced herself to walk at a normal pace and got out of the train. Twilight wasn't hard to spot again afterwards, but she didn't approach her. She kept herself at a distance for the time, walking away from the platform but not too far. Twilight looked around the place, then took out a map, had a look at it, and began to head towards the centre of town, with her gaurds following along. They were spread out, a couple ahead of her and a couple behind, not particularly close. Wick Clip looked at Twilight as she left, then she too began to walk in that direction. The alicorn was, thankfully for her, receiving quite a bit of attention, so following her didn't make the mare look too suspicious. She just had to pretend she was going in that direction anyway, and her keeping her eyes on Twilight would just be brushed off as the normal curiosity any other citizen also showed. Twilight took a right turn down a different street. Wick had figured she was probably heading towards the town hall, and was trying to find a suitable excuse to also be there. Maybe she'd slip into one of the nearby shops and keep an eye on her from there. Maybe she would be lucky and there would be some stalls outside. Either way she likely wouldn't be able to follow Twilight all the way in. Another thought occurred to her, and she stowed it away for later consideration. It was a good idea though. In the meantime she focused again on Twilight, who was just walking through town and looking around. She waved back once at a pony who'd waved at her, but nothing else noteworthy. Wick checked to make sure she did have some bits on her so she could actually buy something. The guards looked a bit more alert to the general situation than Twilight was. Although, Wick reasoned, it made sense for them to be. They were probably in far more danger than she was. On that point, it was interesting to see Twilight there with a set of guards. As far as she'd heard, even though she'd heard admittedly very little, the alicorn usually preferred to not be accompanied in such a manner. It was mostly a rumour that had spread around, though, and maybe things had changed. The town hall was in sight at the end of the road. Twilight didn't accelerate, and Wick made sure to keep her pace and distance consistent and to look as natural as possible. She was just following the princess out of curiosity, after all. > Jagged > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight woke up when the Sun hit her eyes through her blinds. Or at least she'd assumed it was going past her blinds, but once she actually pushed herself out of bed she realised she'd never actually closed those the night before. And a moment later she realised there was a lot she didn't remember about the night before. Or the whole end of the day, for that matter. She'd listened to Twilight's speech, she knew that much, but the time period between the alicorn's return to Ponyville and that was a bit of a blur. And afterwards things only got less clear to her memory. She supposed it was probably just a side effect of the stress she'd been going through, though. She did feel better. Strangely, somewhat, perhaps as a result of the long sleep she'd had. It had definitely been long given how high the Sun was already, but it had helped. She needed to talk to Twilight about the situation. Not just to argue. She hadn't been in the best state of mind the day before, and she knew Twilight had been stressed out as well. But they were friends, and they both wanted to do what they thought was best for Equestria and everyone else. It was time they had a proper discussion about that. > Nothing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Applejack?" Fluttershy called, stepping into the barn. "Are you here?" "Fluttershy!" Applejack walked out from behind a shelf. "Yeah, I'm here. Why? Did you need something?" "I wanted to check on you, actually," Fluttershy said. "Apple Bloom told me you looked sick yesterday and I wanted to make sure you're okay." "Oh." Applejack paused for a moment, and looked to the ground. "Something wrong?" Fluttershy approached her. Applejack shook her head and looked up again. "It's nothing, I just didn't think she'd noticed. I probably shouldn't have stayed quite about it, I didn't mean to make her worry." "It's not a problem. So you're feeling better now?" Fluttershy asked. "Sure am," Applejack replied. "And what about you? Are you doing alright?" she eyed the stripe of colour in Fluttershy's mane. "Oh, yeah. I'm okay." Fluttershy walked up to Applejack's side and joined her in heading out of the barn. "So what did you have yesterday?" "I..." Applejack bit her lower lip. "I'm not sure. I felt really cold, like when you get a bad fever. Cold to my bones. But I wasn't tired or dizzy or anything else. It's passed now though." "Have you told Twilight about it?" Fluttershy asked, as the two left the barn and moved towards the house. "Do you think it had something to do with the step?" Applejack shrugged. "Maybe. Like I said, though, it's gone now, and it wasn't that bad. I've lived just fine through worse. I don't think I need to bother Twilight with it, she's busy enough already." Fluttershy frowned. "What if it gets worse? We don't know what it is, it could be something serious." Applejack gave an affectionate sigh. "You're worrying a little too much, I don't think it's anything. I'll get a doctor to check on me though, if that'll make you feel better." Fluttershy nodded and smiled. > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The dream Rainbow paused and stood alert. "Not rea- Wait." She turned towards her right. "There. Something is coming towards us." "It sounds big," Pinkie said, turning to that same direction as the sounds grew louder. "Really big," she added, a bit of worry entering her voice. The real Rainbow readied her sword at her side and stood in front of the other two. "If things get too dangerous, prepare to run. It doesn't seem to be moving that fast." The trio didn't need to wait much longer to see what they were dealing with. It emerged from the trees at the edge of the clearing they were in, slowly making its way towards them. The main body, a deep blue tending to black, looked like that of a centipede, only large enough for two ponies to comfortably stand side by side on it. They couldn't see the exact length it stretched for, not with the way it coiled partly on itself, but it looked a bit shorter than a sea serpent. All its many legs were like those of an eagle or other similar bird, only coloured red and bent at the midpoint to allow it to more easily grip on the trees it snaked its way past. On the front, in place of a head, were dozens of dark green snake-like protrusions each ending in a crab claw. Some of the claws appeared to have an eye inside of them, though the ponies couldn't tell if that was or wasn't true for all of them. On the back end of the creature was instead a tail like that of a scorpion, rising up to just below the treetops. Only in place of a stinger on its end there was a torso. The two arms attached to it ended in lipless mouths with long sharp teeth, and a pair of small wings like those of a dragon was attached to each wrist. Where the head should have been, there was a swollen, pulsating spot, surrounded by a net of veins that dug into the rest of the torso. And a single hole was in the middle of it, rhythmically opening and closing at a pace slower than the creature's likely heart's beat. "What is that?!" the dream Rainbow yelled upon seeing the creature. Pinkie grimaced at her side. "Nightmare creatures can get pretty ugly," said the regular Rainbow, keeping her sword ready. "This one seems like it's trying to get out of here." "Should we stop it?" Pinkie asked. Rainbow pondered the situation, while the nightmare slowly approached them. "We should try. It'll be a lot easier to stop this thing here than it would be if it got out into the real world, and this one doesn't look too dangerous. You two hang back and be careful, I don't want you to get hurt." The other Rainbow, obviously, did the opposite of what she was being told and stepped forward. "I'll distract it while you go to strike." Rainbow huffed, but didn't complain. "Make sure it doesn't catch you." > Glint > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining, tired and mostly still staying up because of a pony's inherent anatomical structure, simply nodded as he found Paper Letters guarding the door to his room. Half of it was being done with existence at that particular moment, half of it was slowly getting used to the stallion's oddities. How he always managed to get away with it was still a mystery, but everyone else he'd spoken to had confirmed he was doing everything by the book. Paper must have noticed the tiredness in his eyes and face and just about every other feature of his body, because for once he didn't greet him with his customary titles and loudness. He simply nodded and stepped aside, allowing Shining to access the room in silence. Shining was rather happy about that, and he too weakly nodded at the other stallion before opening the door and walking inside. Cadence was already in bed, but not yet asleep, having preceeded him only by minutes. Flurry was in her crib, thankfully sleeping. Shining closed the door, made his way to the bed, and slipped under the covers at his wife's side. "I guess that's that for an early night, huh?" he whispered, laying his head down on the pillow. Cadence sighed. "Yeah. We'll try to make up for it tomorrow." She pulled herself a little closer to Shining, enough to hug him if she so desired. Keeping her eyes even barely open was a struggle, but she knew if she closed them she'd likely just fall asleep, and she didn't want to do that just yet. "We always say that." The same held true for the one eye of Shining's that could be seen. The other was pressed against the pillow and probably already fully closed. He stretched out a hoof to lay it over Cadence's side, in the closest thing to a hug his tired state allowed him to perform. "It never actually happens, does it?" "No." Cadence had to pause, taken by an extremely long and quiet yawn. "But it helps to pretend we will," she breathed out afterwards. She opened her mouth, maybe to say something else, but more yawning came out. Shining answered with a very tiny nod and a yawn of agreement. Outside the room, a second guard approached Paper. The stallion put a hoof over his lips and signalled her to be quiet, and she nodded in understanding before taking her position next to him in front of the door. A few minutes later they could hear light snoring coming from inside, from both the prince and the princess. The mare smiled at that, though she too looked a little tired. "I can wake you up when it's time to leave if you want to nap," Paper whispered to her. The mare looked at him and considered the offer for a moment. She didn't really feel like it was fair to just fall asleep on the job like that. On the other hoof, as she stared ahead of her, she couldn't help her eyelids from sliding lower and lower. Maybe it wouldn't be that much of a problem. There was never any danger there anyway. > Tling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Good morning," Shining said, opening his eyes and seeing Cadence do the same in front of him. "Good morning," Cadence answered back. She slowly pushed the covers off her body with a wing and turned to sit up. Shining did the same with his magic, and he too sat up on the bed. "Where's Flurry?" the unicorn asked, looking around the room. Just as Cadence was beginning to look around as well a knock came from the door, and then it opened. "Your Highnesses, I hope you had a pleasant night of rest," Paper said in his usual formal but friendly tone. "You have just received a new package from Her Royal Highness Princess of Equestria Twilight Comet Sparkle. Worry not about the safety of your Royal Heir, she is currently once more entertaining herself with the Royal Messenger Her Highness of Equestria sent." He opened the door further as he finished the sentence, to show Flurry wrapped around the head and neck of a smiling grey pegasus with a yellow mane. "Comet?" Cadence asked as she slid down from the bed and onto her hooves, quietly enough to make it clear she was mostly asking her husband about it. "Twilight's middle name," Shining replied as he too got off the bed. "Technically speaking. But Harmony knows what obscure piece of bureaucratic documentation he dug up to find that, it's never used anywhere." Next he turned to Paper Letters while beginning to walk towards the door. "Have you been here the whole night?" "I have, Your Highness," Paper answered with a salute. Cadence meanwhile headed towards her daughter. "Flurry, dear. Don't mess up this sweet mare's mane." "It's no problem, Princess," the pegasus said. "I don't mind. The trip back will probably mess it up anyway." A few seconds before that, Shining blinked. He'd seen ponies still look as lively as Paper did after a sleepless night, so he wasn't discounting the possibility that he really had spent all that time there. But those ponies were usually a few hours away from collapsing, and simply didn't realise it yet. "You did well here," he said, deciding to go with a slightly more formal tone, "good job. You can and should take a break now, you've earned it. In the future, don't feel pressured to tire yourself out too much for our or some colleague's sake, the Guard is a team effort." "It's no problem, Sir," Paper replied with a small bow. "No problem at all. I am quite adept at standing in one place and waiting alert. But I shall be taking my granted pause later today if that's not a problem, I do wish to pay the library a visit." Shining nodded, imagining the stallion would fall asleep once he got a few pages in whatever he was planning to read. He knew he'd done so a few times back when he was younger. Flurry had moved from hanging off of the pegasus' neck to doing the same with her mother's, which was admittedly larger and longer, and so the smaller mare had a chance to grab the package she was there to deliver again. "This is from Princess Twilight," she said, holding it with her wings towards Shining and Cadence. > Fling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He'd been there for about half an hour already. A different pony might have considered that a waste of time when he was supposed to be moving towards his destination. A different pony wouldn't have seen what he was seeing right there. It was what his trail had led him to, and though it also continued past it he knew that was merely a secondary option. It had been a while since he'd run into a puzzle so complex, or into one that existed on its own without his input. Maybe the latter was just a result of a still imperfect understanding of his own talents, and maybe the former a consequence of having grown rusty, but either way he was rather enjoying the challenge he found himself in. The trail split up into a square shape surrounding a clearing in the forest. Four tall trees were near the corners, but not quite on them. They were instead on the square's edges, two on the side near him and two on the opposite one. No trees were inside the square, but instead there were two large rocks jutting out of the ground. One, taller than him, was in front of the left tree, about as far from it as it was from the corner, pointed left. The other was smaller, and symmetrically placed relatively to the first stone and the centre of the square. It pointed straight upwards. He hadn't allowed himself to enter the square. He was fairly certain that would ruin the whole thing, and he'd need to take the long way around. He could see wires go up inside the trees, but past the base they disappeared from his sight. He'd found four small piles of rocks, one on each side of the square, and he was sure they were part of the whole thing, but he still hadn't managed to get them to work. Humming, he began to walk around the square again, to check if he'd missed something. Surely he had, there weren't enough elements yet for him to figure out what he was supposed to do and no good puzzle would ask that he make blind guesses with a chance to horribly fail. That kind of thing was apparently reserved for life, the architect of which he would have much to discuss with if they ever happened to meet. If there even was one, the lack thereof would have actually explained away or at least justified many of his gripes with existence. He paused. There was a branch on the ground, of the same kind as the ones on the trees. There were no wires on or in it, but he clearly could see he couldn't see all the wires there were. And maybe his problem had been growing too reliant on his vision and too little on his reasoning. He approached the branch and began to move it towards the pile of rocks closest to it. He set the branch down, and nudged its tip towards the rocks. There was a clicking sound. The stallion smiled. > Peace > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sweetie Belle woke up to the familiar sound of claws stabbing in and out of a pillow. She smiled as she pulled herself up and out of bed. Rarity was convinced she'd trained Opalescence not to mess with anything in the house, but she'd merely taught her to only do so in times and places she couldn't notice. Walking past the cat and over her as she began to walk between her legs, Sweetie made her way to the kitchen and meanwhile gave Opal a few pats with her magic. Once she'd gotten there she began to look through the cupboards. There was the really fancy cat food that was supposed to only be for special occasions, but Rarity would notice if she took some of that. So instead she went with the other, only slightly less fancy cat food. Once Opal's bowl was full and her meows silenced, and once she'd been petted again to actually get her to start eating, Sweetie relaxed and focused on what her own breakfast should be, if any. Rarity still wasn't back it seemed, but she probably would be later that day. Thankfully her headache was completely gone, she felt pretty well rested from her sleep, and there were no intrusive visions bothering her. She would probably go see Twilight later, to talk about what had happened. She looked at the clock, then grabbed an apple from the fruit basket and headed outside, eating it along the way. She felt like taking a walk around town. She'd probably end up visiting either Apple Bloom or Scootaloo, wherever her hooves took her first, but she wasn't against the idea of helping out if she ran into someone who needed it. She hadn't gotten that good of a look at the town the night before, but she still had an idea of how things were. She could probably make herself useful in some way someplace in Ponyville, with repairs to buildings or anything else. It was a sunny and cheerful day outside, and though the air was still cold it wasn't too bad. She was feeling pretty happy, for whatever reason. > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "On it." Rainbow Dash, the one from Pinkie's dream, readied her legs and wings and prepared to take off. Rainbow Dash, the real one, did the same next to her. "I'm ready whenever you are," she said, tilting her sword. The other Rainbow's answer to that was to take flight towards the creature. She flew over its body and almost up to the torso on its tail, then turned upwards and flew back, upside-down for a few moments until she spun around to fix that. The real Rainbow wasn't far behind her. While the creature was still confused and trying to make sense of the cyan blur that had streaked so close to its mouths, she swooped in from the same direction her other self had arrived in. Only she moved to the side rather than turning back, and flew past the nightmare's torso. Her sword, outstretched beside her wing, struck it as she moved out of the monster's reach. It bounced back. Shocked, Rainbow pirouetted out of the way of an incoming bite, as her sword magically levitated back to her side. "This thing's tough," she yelled towards her dream self, meanwhile hovering back to make sure she was out of danger. The creature seemed to be focusing on both of the pegasi. Its front end peered at one Rainbow with its claws, while the torso upon its tail turned in the other's direction and tensed its arms, breathing slowly. "Do you think you can hurt it if you get that sword inside one of its mouths?" the armourless Rainbow asked, flying a little higher than what the monster could reasonably reach. "Maybe, but I'd rather not have to try," the other Rainbow replied. She checked her sword for any signs of damage, but as it should have been there were none, as the blade kept itself sharp on its own. "This thing is supposed to work against nightmares anyway." "I'll try something a little more blunt." The fake Dash began to rise in the air. "Get me out of the way after I'm done." Rainbow didn't get a chance to ask herself what she meant, but she understood it pretty well once she saw it. Which only happened a moment later, as a rainbow streak plunged down from the sky at blinding speed and rammed into the middle of the nightmare's main centipede-like body. The real Rainbow dashed into her other self and carried her away a second before both of the monster's mouths snapped shut over the space she'd been occupying. "Did it work?" asked one Rainbow to the other. The armoured one turned to study the monster. "I'd say you at least hurt it by the way it shrieked, but I don't know if it did much beyond that. I don't see any cracks." The Rainbow from Pinkie's dream bit her lower lip, then eyed the floating sword at her other self's side. "I think I've got an idea," she said, getting back to her hooves. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 9 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's happening to us." "Applejack? Are you okay there?" Pinkie asked, cleaning a glass. "Your cupcakes are delicious, Pinkie." Applejack took another bite out of the cupcake resting next to her head on the counter. "I know I've said it before, but they're really the best thing I've ever tasted." Pinkie smiled. "That's great news, and I'm happy to hear that you like them." Then she frowned. "But that still doesn't answer the question. I'm getting worried about you." Applejack sighed. "What does it matter if I tell you? You'll forget anyway. We'll all forget. You can't even feel what I'm feeling right now." "Oh, you mean the way we're being watched but not by who we're usually watched by, and not in the same way?" Applejack silently, slowly lifted her head off the counter to stare at the mare. Her gaze slammed into Pinkie's flat expression. "What? You think that just because you gained the ability to perceive the metanarrative nature of our existence I lost mine?" Applejack opened her mouth only to let out some incoherent babbling in short bursts, mostly comprised of the letters i and b. "It's okay, take your time." Pinkie patted her on the shoulder, then went back to cleaning her glass. "I just stopped doing it so much, since you were doing it for me." After a bit more babbling, Applejack finally recomposed herself. "You too? All this time?" Pinkie nodded and hummed in affirmation, setting the glass down and moving on to another one. Applejack jumped on top of the counter, grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders, and began to vigorously shake her, yelling, "Then why aren't you worried? Why aren't you doing anything about this?" Pinkie managed to push Applejack off of herself, and held her by the shoulders to stop her shaking. "Relax. Everything is going to be alright." "How do you know it'll be alright?" Applejack asked, looking at her. "I don't." Pinkie Shrugged. "I just have faith." "But how can you just say that?" Pinkie sat down on a chair. "We're just the next step up from Twilight and Rarity, see? The artist and the skeptic, on a different level." Applejack blinked. "Where do Rainbow and Fluttershy fit into this?" "No idea," Pinkie replied. "I see more things than most, that doesn't mean I see everything. But I figured, if I'll be able to see something I won't have been there for, maybe I can see something I haven't been through yet too." Applejack's eyes slowly moved from side to side. "You're losing me." "It'll all make sense, in due time." Pinkie splayed herself over the counter, in a pose that would have made Rarity proud. Or indignant, depending on the interpretation of the character. "Let's talk about our actual issue for the moment. You feel this thing might be our version of the Behemoth, right?" "Well, it's got to be," Applejack replied. "It all lines up so well. How could it not be?" "And you're right!" Pinkie said with an inappropriately wide smile. "It does line up so unbelievably well! But." "Bu > Density > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've never seen anything like what you're describing, no. But did you have to drag me all the way here?" Twilight made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a chuckle. "You did it with me, I felt the need to return the experience." She stepped to the stallion's side and looked up at the Behemoth not too far away from them. "I had my reasons," he replied. "This is just being playful. I hope you have other reasons for having called me here than simply telling me something you could have just written." He lowered his gaze and had a look around the ruined portion of Canterlot they were in, seeming almost worried that someone might see him there. "Don't worry," said Twilight, "I do." Her horn flashed once, a pulse of magic emanating from it that coated both her and the stallion in a sheen of soft purple light that dissipated an instant later. Before he had time to ask or say anything, Twilight's horn shone again. The two of them disappeared, to reappear somewhere else. While the stallion took stock of his situation and looked around in confusion and mild shock, Twilight explained, "I managed to get the data I needed on this spell while I was here, now I know it's good enough to protect both of us. I'll give you the details later. If all scale-type objects give the same readings, it might work with other abominations too." The stallion was momentarily speechless, looking beneath himself at the almost translucent surface they were standing on. "Are we really..." Twilight nodded. "And as you can see, we're alone. I'd honestly hoped he'd be back here, but I should have known he wouldn't be." She gave a look around, then a nod in a direction. "If we continued that way, we might actually find the reins still there. But Harmony knows how long it would actually take to get there." The stallion looked at her, quizzically raising an eyebrow. "Do you mean... Is it different, this up close?" "It's only a supposition," Twilight said. "But look at the clouds around us. We're much higher than this thing is supposed to be, and I don't think they're even really there. It might actually take days to reach the head from here. I don't know if it's really that big and it's warping space to fit in the world, or the other way around, but something is off about it. Something has always been off about it, I just didn't have the data to confirm it." She stared off into the distance, reminiscing. "I looked this thing in the eye the day it manifested itself, and yet its shadow reached all the way to Ponyville." "Are you planning to explore it?" the stallion asked, walking up to her side. "Maybe," said Twilight. "I'm not sure if I want to bother it." "May I?" He looked at her, and she looked back at him. "So long as it's not impeding the rest of your research." > Around > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you think it was?" "I'm not sure it matters much what it was," the unicorn replied. "I think the real question is where it came from, and how. Because wherever that is, it seems to have gone back to it." "I think the ponies in town would like to know what it was, too," said the pegasus. "More than they care about where it came and went, probably." "Maybe you've got a point there. I guess we'll have to wait and hear what Princess Twilight has to say to them about it." "Why doesn't she let us get closer?" the pegasus asked, turning his neck slightly to get a look at what was behind them. The other guard stretched her neck from side to side. "It's probably easier for her to run her tests with no one else there. We might interfere with the readings." "I guess that makes sense." The pegasus clicked his tongue and looked ahead again, straightening himself. "You've seen that place, right?" "I have. Got a good look at it when we got here, from outside. Never seen anything like it." She tilted her head to better look at a hint of movement she'd spotted behind a tree, but it turned out to be just a bird. "Do you have any idea what it might be?" the pegasus asked. "It almost looks like something had a crash landing there, but the town would have noticed if a meteor had fallen from the sky or similar." "Probably the result of some spell, or other magical activity if we assume it's natural," the unicorn said. "Looks like it could be the end point of something like teleportation or similar. It would explain how that thing got here and then left." "Do we even know it left?" "Buddy, you've seen what that thing did around here, right?" asked the unicorn, glancing at the guard beside her. "If it was still here, we'd know." The pegasus was silent for a bit, just doing his job. "So you're saying that thing could just teleport here, out of the blue?" he suddenly asked, interrupting his silence. "I guess so, yeah." > Losfer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What is it?" asked Shining, taking the package in his magic and beginning to unwrap it. "The necessary tools to simplify communication," the mailmare explained, "as she'd anticipated in yesterday's letter. Specifically, a roll of parchment enchanted to work as a two way communication device between here and her version of it in Ponyville. Please remember to ask for a replacement when you're close to running out, and she'll make sure to send another one through me." Shining looked at the parchment roll, held up in the glow of his telekinesis. "Thank you." "I hope you won't feel bad about no longer being needed for our communications," said Cadence. "It's no problem, Your Highness," the pegasus replied. "Truth be told, trips across the Wall can be quite taxing. But I'll still be useful for sending anything physical back and forth." Cadence smiled at that. "I hope it won't be too much of a bother to you then. Flurry seems to like you." She ran a hoof over her daughter's mane, and the mare in front of her affectionately tapped the filly's nose. "One more thing," the blonde pegasus added. She took out another, smaller and flat package, more of a regular letter really. "This is a modified version of a teleportation spell. In case you can't use the communicator anymore, use it on a piece of paper after you've written whatever message you wish to send on it with the necessary tool, and I'll find it eventually." She passed the letter to Shining, who opened it and began to look over the spell. "What tool, exactly?" Cadence asked. The grey mare put a wing into her own mouth, pulled off a quill from it, then passed it to a mildly speechless Cadence. "Regular ink will do fine." "Can I ask what your name is?" Paper interjected. > Change of Plants > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The rocks were evidently active at that point, but the stallion chose not to test them out just yet. Instead he moved on to the next side, and there began to look for another branch. He found it a little farther away from the square, hidden behind some grass, and again he used it to properly activate the rock pile. He did it again for the two remaining sides, finding each branch in a different and slightly hidden position, and finally every set of stones was properly set up. Carefully he looked at the little pile in front of him, then at the square and the trees and the two large jutting rocks in the clearing. He put a hoof over the stone on top of the pile, and turned it slowly to the side. The trees moved. Or, to be more precise, their trunks remained in place anchored to the ground, but they rotated, shifting the position of their branches. He smiled brightly, and turned the stone like a knob some more, getting a good and proper look at how it caused each tree to move. Eventually going far enough made them return to a previous position, and continue from there on the same path as before. More curious, and already forming an idea of what he was supposed to do, he tried a few other freely turnable stones and confirmed that the movements they caused were slightly different. He then moved on to the next set of rocks to examine that one. There too he had access to a few different ways of causing the trees to turn, each only mildly different from the other but all wildly so from the previous set. Direction of the rotation of each tree, speed of each one, orientation of the branches and more, each one of those parameters was different, and it similarly held true for the remaining two piles of rocks. As he returned to the first pile, he had a pretty good idea of what he was meant to do. The two large rocks embedded in the clearing pointed at places where the branches could theoretically connect, and he was certain the next step was to either get those connections working, or form full loops that included those connections in them. So, he began to turn the trees back and forth. He found the first one came quite easy. He was only trying to get the connection down at first, but a full circuit came alongside it by itself. To confirm his intuition, the relevant rock slid into the ground. Once he had to get the other done, though, he quickly realised the real issue. He could get the circuit fully closed in the second setup and lower the other rock with a fair degree of ease, which he did in only a few few minutes of fiddling around, but immediately he'd noticed that undoing the previous circuit brought the first rock back up. The problem, then, was how to get a circuit that included both connections at the same time. > Cake Dressing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Lovely day we're having, isn't it?" Sugarcoat turned towards the dusty blue stallion who'd spoken to her. "I suppose so." She tried to bite her tongue, but couldn't really stop herself from being herself. "Do you always start talking to someone you've never met before like that?" "You're new around here, aren't you?" the earth pony replied, mostly not caring for her question. She was actually somewhat glad that at least he didn't take offense at her manners. "I've never seen you around here. And I've seen a lot of ponies who live around here. I'm in the Guard, you see." He extended a hoof towards her. Part of his gold and orange mane was covering his face, but he didn't seem to care. "My name is Paper Letters. I can help you around town if you need." Sugarcoat looked at his hoof, then at him, then back at the hoof. Finally she agreed with herself and shook hers with his. "Sugarcoat," she introduced herself. "I'm new here, yes. Just visiting." "Unusual thing to do in the Empire, in the present time." Paper finally moved his mane out of the way, and for a bit Sugarcoat wasn't sure what colour his eyes actually were. She figured it was the sunlight reflecting in them that made them look weird. It could have been contact lenses, though. "With the Wall and all. I'm sure you're aware," he continued. "I... Yes." Sugarcoat bit her lower lip. "My situation is complicated. As for needing help, I'm fine. Cadence has already given me an idea of what the city is like, and I'd rather look around on my own. Especially if the alternative is being trailed by a guard, I don't want to stand out like that." "Most interesting. Her Royal Highness Cadence had not informed me we would be receiving a visitor. I suppose it is none of my business to interfere with your visit given that was the case." He smiled stiffly at her, but she felt it wasn't really done with malice. It was more like he was nervous about something else, unrelated, but still trying to be polite with her. "I assure you, I could be quite unnoticeable if I were to accompany you. But I shan't bother you further. I hope you enjoy your stay." He turned and walked away, muttering something about alicorns. Watching him go, Sugarcoat had the odd impression that maybe his mane colour wasn't the natural one. Maybe he dyed it that way. Then she shrugged, and walked the opposite way. > Razorblade > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Twilight! There you are." "Ah. Starlight." Twilight looked to the side, unsure of what to say. "Sorry. I was busy doing a thing." "It's no problem," Starlight replied, fairly cheerfully. "I..." She hesitated a moment, frowning a bit, then her expression settled into something more relaxed. "I'm sorry for jumping at you like that yesterday. I was pretty on edge after the step." Twilight swallowed. "No, it's okay." She looked back at Starlight. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have been hiding so much from you." "You were just trying to do the right thing for me." Starlight stretched out a hoof to put it on Twilight's shoulder. "And you weren't all too wrong about it. If I'd known there was someone on the Behemoth I would have freaked out even more." She smiled. "I should have trusted you." "And I should have trusted you too," Twilight replied. She smiled at Starlight as well, then after a moment pulled the mare into a hug. Letting go of her after a bit, she sighed. "I'm going to need all the help I can get if I want to fix this mess. Do you think you're ready to get back into it?" Starlight didn't answer immediately. "I'm not sure. I'm still trying hard not to think about the whole incident, and I don't know what would happen if I was forced into a similar situation. But I can still help with something unrelated to scales and portals." She perked up. "There's got to be something more for me to work on, and I'd be happy to help out with it." Twilight continued to smile. "I'm sure we'll find something." Starlight nodded. "So... About the Charioteer? Are you sure we shouldn't do anything there?" Twilight nodded. "I trust him not to make a mess. It's weird, but I don't think he's doing this out of malice. He's... Maybe I'm just letting him get to my head, but if he's anything like he says he is, he's not going to cause any trouble while he's not on the Behemoth." Starlight nodded back. "I trust your judgment on this. What's the plan now, then?" Twilight began to walk down the hallway. "We've begun checking for any possible new mutations after the step. We only have minimal data to work with for now, but based on what Rose was able to gather yesterday it seems like any possible new variations introduced by the step were minimal. We can't confirm that yet though, of course." "It would make sense," said Starlight, following Twilight. "The Behemoth's presence is enough to alter the world by itself, maybe its movements aren't as influential as it simply being there." "A possibility," Twilight agreed. "We've begun work on strengthening the existing communications network. Yesterday's events showed pretty clearly that the current one was lacking, and I apologise for not realising this sooner." She took a turn to the right. "I've given the preliminary orders for the construction of a new laboratory. I'd like you to oversee the process." > Chalk on the Surface of the Sea > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- How hard could it be, realistically, to find one single pony in all of Equestria? It really depended on the approach. For the sake of having a lower boundary, she could assume the worst case scenario. Ignore that things like cities and population density existed, ignore that ponies wouldn't live inside lakes or rivers, ignore how much one of them could stand out and how much communication and word of mouth could help her research. At worst, she would have to physically check the entire country. Every square metre, one at a time. Then, it was just a matter of how big Equestria was, and how fast she could go over it. And the answer to her little math problem, surprisingly, was that she could have actually checked the whole country pretty damn fast. In only a few days if she wanted to, actually. Sure, a huge task in terms of magical energy, and a physically and mentally taxing one. But she could do it, easily, if she really wanted to. The real question, then, was another. Why didn't she do it? Why did she spend her time elsewhere, doing other things? Stella bit the inside of her cheek, almost hard enough to draw blood. > Pumpkin > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I see Princess Celestia. She's not alone, she's with someone else. A pony. I can't tell if they're a mare or a stallion." Sweetie Belle squinted. "They're... There's something around them, a bunch of things. It's like trees in a forest, I think, I... I'm not sure." She was visibly struggling to hold her focus. "That's enough," Twilight said, jolting down a few notes. She passed a mug over to Sweetie. "Have something to drink. Don't push yourself too far. It's supposed to come naturally to you, if you're struggling it means you haven't found the right way to approach it." Sweetie took a few slow sips from the mug, then set it back down on the table. "I'm trying to do my best," she said. "I know how useful this could be, and everyone else is already much better at controlling their powers." Twilight smiled at the younger unicorn. "No one expects you to master this easily, Sweetie. It took months for everyone else to get it right, and you're the youngest coil bearer we know of. Yours just emerged late, it's natural you'd be behind. There are probably other ponies out there who haven't developed theirs yet either, you shouldn't feel pressured." Sweetie looked to the side. She made a weird frown with her mouth. "I understand that. But I feel like I could really make a difference with this, and you need it. As soon as possible. Not just you, everyone would benefit from it." Twilight tilted her head to the side, studying the filly, then she moved closer to her. "You're good with magic, aren't you?" Sweetie looked up at her, almost blushing at the sudden compliment. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm the greatest, but I guess I'm good." "Don't sell yourself short," Twilight said. "I've seen what you can do. I knew unicorns your age that weren't half as good as you at Celestia's school." Sweetie almost blushed again, and looked to the side. "Thanks. It's nothing, really, it just comes natural to me." "And this doesn't." Sweetie looked back to Twilight, puzzled. Twilight smiled at her. "You're used to being good at magic, so it's frustrating to you that this isn't working out right. I've been there. I wasn't trying to figure out the same thing as you, but I can understand how it must feel." Sweetie pursed her lips for a moment, thinking. "So... What should I do about it?" "Well, first off, acknowledge that the problem you're dealing with isn't like what you usually deal with," Twilight explained, walking to Sweetie's other side. "A coil is not the same as regular magic," she added. "Second, realise that that means your approach is wrong. Different problems require different kinds of solutions." She leaned over Sweetie's shoulder. "Third, accept that it's okay to struggle and go at your own pace. Everyone is different, everyone is better at some things and worse at others. You don't need to be as good with everything as you are at magic, because no one is like that, and that's okay." > Ec\o > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So how's that game going, anyway?" Indigo asked, bored, from the other girl's bed. "Pretty well," Lemon replied. "I've gotten to the part where I have to grind an event a bunch to get better equipment to defeat a hard boss that'll give me even better equipment, all because I'm making this harder on myself by having picked a class that the developers had to balance around the fact that its weapon bonuses are passive and therefore can be used by other classes too, but it's going well." "Huh." Indigo stared aimlessly at the ceiling. "Do you even like this game?" "A lot, actually," said Lemon. "And the music is great." "At least one of us is enjoying herself." Indigo blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Yep." Lemon didn't even look at Indigo. > Plastic > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I was supposed to do some research yesterday. I can't believe I lost five hours texting you." Twilight sighed. Sunset shrugged. "Hey. At least it was fun." Twilight smiled. "Yeah. I suppose it was. I did enjoy myself." "Me too," Sunset replied. "But maybe we should hold back on it a little next time." "Definitely." Twilight nodded. "Definitely." Sunset moved closer, and hugged her. "I'll help you out with the research, alright?" Twilight hugged her back. "Thank you. But try not to distract me too much." "No promises." Sunset smirked. "Try not to distract yourself too much." "I will." Twilight pulled back and stretched her arms and shoulders. "We should get to it then." "Right now?" "We need to make up for yesterday." > Until > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sun was almost setting at that point. He'd taken a pause to eat and rest at about what he'd guessed was noon, but still he'd been working on the puzzle for most of the day. He was sure he was almost at the solution, though. It didn't feel frustrating. Part of it was his own attitude towards that sort of things, but part of it was the puzzle's design itself. Whenever he thought he'd found a way forward and instead ran into a wall, he always came back feeling like he'd learned something from it. It never felt like he was out of options or like randomly twisting things around would have achieved more. Of course, that was in part because a random and brute force approach simply wasn't feasible with the amount of variables he was faced with. But even still, it never felt necessary. He had so many roads ahead, and all he had to do was go down them. Whenever one way closed, it felt like another opened, like something that hadn't seemed a possibility before became worth considering. He was definitely getting closer. It was all about going through the correct process of logical elimination. Those branches there and there could only connect this and that way, and so they had to be like that by the end. It was just a matter of figuring out the right set of inputs that would make them land there while making everything else fall into place too. It was rather nice that it was so easy to go back to a previous state. Every single stone eventually made the motion loop around, so there was no real way to get stuck or screw up irreparably. Which was really just a matter of good design, assuming the purpose was to figure out the solution eventually and not on a time limit. More of a process of attrition than a test in the traditional sense. That was part of why he liked puzzles in the first place, all things considered. Their stability, their reliability. A puzzle would always be there where it had been left when you came back to it. Of course not all of them were like that, and he didn't mind the occasional different one, but it was still important to him that puzzles would wait. The other big reason he liked them was getting to see and understand how the different pieces fit together. How they worked together with each other, what correlations and causations existed between them. It was always very satisfying to finally get it, to see the design in its entirety and understand it. That moment when things clicked. Things still hadn't gotten there when it came to the puzzle he'd found himself a part of, though he was working towards understanding that one. But for the one immediately in front of him, he had a pretty good idea of what to do next. A push on a stone, a click, and both rocks inside the square lowered themselves at the same time. Then the whole clearing followed them, revealing an opening that led to a cave, too long to see the end of it. The stallion smiled, and followed the glowing trail into the newly opened squared tunnel ahead. > And Another > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It happened again." "Twilight." "It happened again." "Not exactly, really. It was different this time around." "That's not the point." "Fair enough. Sorry, my fault." "Not just yours." "Mostly mine." "No. Mostly mine, really." "Okay, yeah, mostly yours." "Hey!" "What? You said it. Don't pout like that." "Shush. This is your fault." "I thought you'd said it was yours." "I said shush." > Blue Sky > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Me?" Starlight asked, stopping and drawing back a little. Turning to look at her, Twilight nodded with a smile. "I'm going to be busy with supervising research here in Ponyville, and you're the pony I trust most for the job." Starlight hesitated. "Are you sure? I'm not sure if I can... I mean, if you want to, I'll be happy to, it's just..." "I'm sure you can do it, Starlight." Twilight put a hoof on the other mare's shoulder. "I'll come check on things every once in a while, but I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job by yourself." Starlight deliberately breathed a little slower to calm herself. She wasn't usually one to freak out much at responsibility, but it was a big task and she was still recovering from the stress of everything prior, so it was getting to her a little. "Thank you, Twilight. I'll make sure to do my best." "I'm sure it will be far more than enough," Twilight replied as she resumed her walk. "It'll be far from any major settlement. Causing accidents is not the intended purpose, but it's always better to be safe than sorry with this sort of thing. I hope having to stay there for a while won't be too much of a bother for you." "It shouldn't be a problem, I've always taken well to moving," said Starlight, once again following Twilight. She looked around herself. "Leaving this place for a while might actually help me feel better about things." "Hopefully that will be the case, then." Twilight stopped in front of the door to one of the rooms. "Do you want to review the data I gathered from the Behemoth with me, and work on some other stuff?" Starlight looked at the door, then smiled at Twilight. "With pleasure. It's good to be back to work again." > In The End > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What about this one?" Twilight asked, stopping in front of a crystal sculpture of Celestia. What was there was of remarkable quality, but about half of her body wasn't yet, the rest instead still attached to a thick block clear mineral. "It looks unfinished." "It is." Celestia stepped up to her. There was a note of sadness in her voice, and in the way her eyes fell on the statue. "The artist died before he could complete it. That was a couple hundred years ago, at this point. You can still find his other works around the country, but this one never left the castle. We moved it here from his workshop, and it's stayed here since." Twilight looked back to the statue. Looking closer, she could see all the work and detail that had gone into it, from the alicorn's feathers to the curves of her mane, even down to her individual eyelashes. The subtle tensions in her muscles and the slightest irregularities in her coat, all perfectly replicated and immortalised. "I've never seen crystal worked like this before. I didn't know it was even possible." Celestia nodded. "He was a master in his craft. And this would have been his masterpiece. Or at least, I believe that was his intention." She sighed. "It just ended up taking him too long to finish. Then again, maybe it wasn't his fault. Some things take time, and some things can only be as good as they are because of all the time that's needed for them. He just didn't have enough of it." Twilight continued to look at the sculpture. She was almost mesmerised by it, some of the details so minute they could only be noticed by staring at it from so close she feared her breath alone would be enough to break them. "It really is beautiful. It's a shame he never got to finish it." "It's a reminder of what was for a while one of my greatest fears. Something I shared with many artists, I'm sure. With many creatures, really," Celestia added, unprompted. And sensing Twilight's question, she explained, "Running out of time. Leaving a project incomplete. In my case specifically, leaving my country without a worthy leader. Especially after Sunset left me, for a while I feared there would be no one to take my place if something went wrong. Then Luna came back, and finally you took our place." She smiled at Twilight. "I'm glad not to have this kind of unfinished business anymore, even if it meant I had to pass some of its weight on to you." Twilight looked to Celestia, then to the statue again. "I think I understand. The fear of leaving something unfinished, a project uncompleted." She tilted her head to the side, still looking at the sculpture. "At least we can hope those that come after us will appreciate what is there, if it's not all finished. Some things take time, like you said. One can only hope they don't run out of it too soon." "One can only hope," Celestia agreed, "and do their best while they still can." She stepped a little closer to her uncompleted crystal replica. "I don't think he died all too sad that he hadn't finished this. I knew him. Disappointed, surely at least a little, but not too much. He enjoyed carving the statues more than he ever enjoyed looking at them afterwards. I think he was more at peace with the knowledge that he'd done his best, and content with the beauty of the act even with an unfinished result. Maybe that's what one should strive for." > V-Br > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Things were pretty dark down there in the tunnel. Not too dark, but dark. Maybe not dark enough considering he was underground. Or maybe it was, and he was just seeing things differently. He was used to seeing things differently, that was true, and he was seeing things others wouldn't. The glowing trails in the ground and walls, for example. In them. Not on them. Others would say on them, and wouldn't see them in them. There was probably a way to turn on the lights properly. He didn't really care to, but there probably was one. He didn't mind the darkness though. He would probably sleep at some point. It was getting late. At least, he assumed it was getting late, given how late it had been once he'd entered there and how long he'd been there already. Not too long, but for a while. It was pleasant in there. Compared to what else he could have been dealing with, at least. Not too cold, not too humid. Not too hard to sleep on, though he did have something to sleep on. Very squared. Like it had been cut out by someone. It probably had. Or maybe something was the right word. Whatever the case, it wasn't natural. Not that he was bothered by the fact. > Another Line Crossed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I take it this is serious," Cadence said, sparing a glance at the door to make sure it was closed properly. Sitting at the table, Twilight nodded. "I'm here for other reasons as well, but yes. Not that I think our communication lines are compromised, but I still felt more comfortable talking about this face to face." "Is it about that carcass we found in the palace?" asked Shining, leaning a little closer. "That too," Twilight said. "I've had some time to analyse the data properly, and I'm fairly sure that's a part of this too." She shifted a little in place, then looked at both her brother and Cadence. "I guess I should start at the beginning. You both know about scales already, right?" Both the other ponies nodded. "We've read your reports," said Cadence. "None seem to have been found here in the Empire yet," Shining added. "But we have informed the citizens of what they look like, and that they should report any findings of one," Cadence continued. "Right." Twilight nodded. "In my reports, I believe I talked about how all worlds scales lead to seem to be in some state of ruin, all at least past the point of housing any form of civilisation and most forms of life." "Right." Shining nodded to. "Except for..." He looked around, even though there was no one else in the room but the three of them, and lowered his tone nonetheless. "Except for that one." "The Nightmare Moon world," Cadence recalled. "Knowledge of it is still not more widespread, correct?" "Correct." Twilight took a deep breath. "I'm sure you remember the incident we had at the laboratory in Ponyville." Shining cocked an eyebrow. "Does this have to do with the thief?" Twilight shook her head. "There was something else that happened then. Something I didn't include in the reports. In my defence, it wasn't relevant information at the time." "What was it?" asked Cadence. "One of the worlds Chrysalis entered was the Nightmare Moon one." Twilight chewed on nothing for a moment. "I believe we might have been spotted while there." Shining frowned. "So the carcass..." "It came from there, most likely, yes." Twilight shifted in her seat again. "It's not all. There was a recent discovery made near a city south of the Wall. Some kind of creature, we believe, appeared in the forest next to it and eventually disappeared. We only found the traces it left, but the readings from the crater it seems to have either arrived in or left from lead me to believe it also came from the same universe as what was found here." Cadence drew back in realisation, much like her husband did. "So they have a way to send something here?" she asked, worried. "Not a perfect one, the process they're using seems to be a risky and unstable one," Twilight replied. "And they still haven't been here directly as far as we know, so they're likely only taking shots in the dark. But they're working hard on fixing both issues, if I had to guess. Having seen what they've sent so far, I think you can imagine it's not peaceful contact they're looking for." Shining leaned a little closer to Twilight again. "What should we do?" "Prepare," Twilight replied. "I think things will only get worse from here. I will see what I can do on the other side, but I'm afraid it won't be enough by itself. We need to be ready for what will come next." > Onwards > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He had actually slept, in the end. Not before eating dinner, but he had slept. He regretted not bringing a clock along. He'd remember to next time, probably. He'd also woken up, after sleeping, and again he'd regretted not having a clock. He assumed it was morning, given how he felt well rested and had woken up by himself, but he couldn't be sure of it. He was starting to miss sunlight a bit, and also starting to wonder if a prolonged lack of exposure to it could have negative impacts on his physical or mental well being, both short and long term. He would need to read a book about the matter, or maybe ask someone more knowledgeable. Like Twilight. He was trying to meet Twilight, after all. Going to Ponyville for that exact reason. But maybe it was too soon. It kind of felt too soon in some way. He wasn't exactly sure, he guessed he'd be more sure once he actually met her. He did know he would meet her at one point. Maybe it was the right time, but he just didn't want it to be yet, because he didn't know what would come after. He didn't even know if there would be an after. If there would be something more, or if he'd have done everything he needed to do. If he would become without purpose or point again, a tool for a job already finished. Whichever the case, he did nevertheless need to meet Twilight at some point. Which he was trying to do. He was even travelling again, soon after having gotten up from his sleep. He'd only spent the time necessary to put everything he had back into his saddlebags, and he was eating breakfast as he walked. Not that he minded walking, walking was nice, and he did want to leave the tunnel and see the light of day again soon. And meet Twilight. He really did wonder what their meeting would be like. More than he was worried about what would or could come after. > C Mi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You wanted to see me?" asked Starlight, closing the door behind herself. Still turned and looking out the window, Twilight answered, "Yes. Please take a seat." Starlight did as she was told. "What is it?" Her eyes fell on the squared shape covered by a tarp on top of the table, but she didn't say anything about it. Twilight finally turned around. "First, I'd like to offer my congratulations for the progress made here. You've been handling the new lab's construction excellently." Starlight smiled. "I'm glad to hear that." Twilight smiled too, but then her expression hardened a bit. "That's not all, right?" asked Starlight, and again she looked towards the thing on the table. Twilight's eyes also went in the same direction. "Right." She stepped a bit closer, and placed a hoof over the tarp. "This comes from the Crystal Empire. Shining came across it while patrolling the tunnel system inside the Wall. I want you to analyse it here in the laboratory." Starlight's gaze didn't move. "What is it?" she asked, her tone cold and serious. Twilight's magic locked the door, and then she slowly pulled off the tarp. Underneath was a glass container with a wooden base, visibly reinforced with magic. Inside the container was something that took Starlight a moment to properly make sense of. It looked like flesh in places, but not of a colour flesh should be. Yet those were undeniably muscles, even as dark as they were, and therefore the almost rock-like or metallic looking surface on one side of the object had to be skin. Starlight looked at Twilight, then back towards the contents of the glass case. "Does this... Did this belong to some animal or creature that lived inside the Wall?" "It did belong to a creature," Twilight replied, "though not one originating from the Wall. It came from elsewhere, as far as I could tell." Starlight leaned to the side to get a better look at the thing. "What happened to it?" "A run-in with some crystal lizards, or potentially something bigger. They got off worse than it did, considering what else Shining found there. Whatever this thing fought against is a pile of debris now." Starlight swallowed. "Crystal lizards usually only inflict lacerations and similar wounds. What happened to make it look like this?" She eyed Twilight's face, already suspicious of what answer she would receive. "Whatever it was, if it was something, it happened long before this thing got anywhere near the Wall." Twilight leaned forward to give the piece of flesh a better look. "This isn't an infection of some kind or a local mutation from what we've been able to gather. It's just how the creature is currently. And judging by the traces left on the crystals, it seems like what you can see here is not all there is to it." She briefly looked at Starlight as she said, "We have those here for analysis as well." Starlight took a deep breath. "This doesn't look natural. And it doesn't look like the kind of unnatural the Behemoth has produced either. Whatever this thing was, something changed it. Something dark." Twilight nodded. "I want you to figure out how, and everything else you can figure out about it along the way." > 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He was somewhat disappointed, all things considered. It looked like it was just a lever. A simple, straightforward mechanism that would open a door. He felt kind of cheated by the lack of a puzzle. That didn't count as a puzzle. Interact with element A to cause event B didn't really count as a puzzle, not unless it was for a creature who couldn't intuitively understand cause and effect relationships. Which he was not, and he felt somewhat insulted at the notion that he might be considered one. He'd actually expected it to be more complex at the start. Perhaps the apparent simplicity was merely a trick, a trap for him to fall into. He had carefully observed the scene, trying to figure out what else there could be to it, what other details might be hidden. But through careful observation of every corner of the place, he had determined that there was nothing for him to find. It really was just a lever and a door. He felt disappointed. He wouldn't feel better about it if it turned out to be something else. Not after all the time he'd spent looking around. If something was there and he'd missed it, then either it was hidden too well or it wasn't meant to be found at all, and that meant it was a case of either bad or malicious design. He wasn't a fan of either. He'd even checked the ceiling, and everyone knew nothing important was ever supposed to be on the ceiling. Either way, there was nothing left to do but pull the lever. Which he supposed he ought to do. He would and should eventually have done it either way, really, but being there nothing more he could find really did mean it was time to. He prepared himself, unsure of whether he'd rather be disappointed as his assumption turned out to be true or bothered by it being disproven. Knowing only one would come true and therefore he'd never know the other and never be able to compare the two properly, he pulled the lever. A door opened in front of him, on the side of the tunnel, behind it a staircase leading upwards. He had been right, after all. Disappointment it was then. But living in disappointment wasn't fun, and he had other, better things to do, and so he shook his head and began to walk up the staircase. It looked like there would finally be an exit at the end of it. > Still Here > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some unrest was building up in the city. A building had been damaged during the night, and no one knew who was responsible. She hoped for their sake that they wouldn't be found, because it likely would have meant getting kicked out of the city. That was a death sentence, no matter how anyone liked to pretend otherwise. Things hadn't properly gotten worse. They had, yes, but the situation needed to be looked at from the right angle. It was expected that things would degenerate in some way, and given how they hadn't really gotten that much worse there wasn't really a point in complaining. Especially with how stressful the period was, problems arising wasn't a surprise in any way. Food was getting a little scarcer, which kept everyone on edge. She'd helped with a few extra scouting missions, but even still times were tough on that front. The population in the town was only growing, and food sources outside only seemed to become rarer. It was part of the reason why the city would be so eager to throw someone out. Food outside would probably run out, eventually. She'd heard someone was trying to set up reliable sources inside the city, but it wasn't an easy task. Not with how much the Ziz had changed things. Fruit trees weren't really an option in the short term, even if it would have been nice to be able to plan for more long term stability, and seasonal crops were far more complicated to get going. With limited supplies, every seed planted was a seed someone wouldn't be fed with. If it had been possible to expand the Mirror's reach, things would have been different. More land to work with, more space to build and house ponies in, an easier time conducting explorations. Maybe it would have even made long distance expeditions a possibility. They weren't really viable, right then. The city couldn't afford to use food to fuel a mission that had no certainty of coming back with enough to justify it. It really was an annoying situation. Too little resources to take those gambles that might have allowed them to get enough resources to stabilise, because the price of losing on them would have been too steep. But it was what they were stuck with. The Mirror's influence was tied to the confines of the city, and unless someone managed to reverse engineer it there was nothing to do. And, of course, no one would actually attempt to study it so, as the risk of damaging it was too great a threat. She'd been doing some reading on the matter in her spare time. It had not exactly been a pleasant experience, being enlightened on just how messed up things really were, but she'd found she couldn't stop herself from learning even if she wanted to. Apparently, no one really knew how the Mirror worked. It was all guesswork for the most part, courses of action established through long periods of trial and error with no real knowledge of why or how what worked did. They had their smartest constantly studying it, but whoever had built that thing outclassed all of them. The knowledge that it hadn't been enough to save them in the end was not a pleasant thing to bear. > Dot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The mare sat next to an apple tree, looking at the empty spot between two others. It looked extremely plain on that side. Absolutely nothing weird, absolutely nothing at all really. And yet, it had looked so different on the other side. So... Well, she couldn't exactly describe how it looked, exactly. Everything looked weird on the other side, and something looking doubly weird in it made it quite weird to decipher overall. Maybe, a second look would help. She bit her lip, considering the possibility. Then, slowly, she slipped into the other side. .niaga tuo deppils ehS ...nees d'ehs ekil ,teY .did ti ekil tlef ehs tsael ta ro ,ecalp fo tuo yletelpmoC .ecalp fo tuo kool did tI .tnedive erom demees ti srehto ta ,ylreporp nees eb neve t'ndluoc ti selgna niatrec tA .riadim ni sevlesmeht nopu gnitsiwt dna gnignah ,no tsac eb ot gnihton dna meht tsac ot gnihton htiw ,swodahs ekiL .spahrep ,mortsleam a ekil tsomlA ...ekiL .ddo kool did yllaer tI And indeed, still nothing there. Completely plain, an empty space between two trees. That was weird. Things like that, shadows if they could be called that, usually had something casting them. Like the Wall did, like the castle there in Ponyville did, like yet other things did. So maybe something was there. It had to be, probably. Or maybe it had been, or it would be. That last one was worrying, somewhat. Something might be there at some point. Soon, maybe. It was worrying, yes. It didn't look nice. Maybe it was a silly way to judge things, but nice things usually looked nice on that other side. And things that weren't didn't. Like the Wall. Or the Behemoth itself, though she hadn't much looked at it. She didn't really like looking at it. > Ssu > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Paper Letters, was it?" asked Twilight, before taking another bite out of her hayburger. "Yes." The stallion had either already finished his food or hadn't ordered any, and instead only had a glass of water. Twilight only continued to eat for a while, but eventually stopped. "How... are things?" she asked the stallion. It was awkward to have him there, staring at her and occasionally drinking some water. "Things are well." Paper drank some more water. "As well as they're allowed to be given the circumstances." Slowly, Twilight nodded. "I suppose." She looked around the place. Then coughed. Then returned to eating her hayburger. > ragG > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight eventually finished her hayburger. Paper was still there, still mostly staring at her and occasionally drinking. He seemed to be very good at drinking exactly enough not to finish his glass until she was done with her food. She still felt awkward and weirded out by him somewhat, an impression she'd never really managed to shake off since first meeting him. "So, uh... Any plans for the day?" she asked him to snuff out the awkwardness. "None." Paper blinked, and seemed to be staring far into nothingness for a moment. "I don't have anything to do as a guard today. I think I might just stand around until dinner, then sleep." Twilight's head slowly tilted to the side as she looked at him and considered his words. "Are you sure? Isn't there anything else you might do in your spare time?" Paper blinked again. "I don't mind doing nothing. It feels relaxing, every once in a while. I can just wait and recharge." It was Twilight's turn to blink instead. "I suppose that does make sense, yes. Do you really have no hobbies or pastimes, though? Nothing you enjoy besides being a guard?" "Perhaps." There was some distance to his tone. Like he wasn't really focusing on their discussion there, his mind elsewhere. "Are you okay?" asked Twilight. He did seem somewhat different from the usual. Far less formal for one, though maybe he considered the level of formality he usually used to be part of his job as a guard. It took a moment for him to answer that. "No," he said while shaking his head, "not really. I'm feeling strange today." He gave a subtle hint of a smirk, though Twilight wondered if she wasn't just imagining it. "Then again, when has anyone had a good day since the Behemoth arrived?" Twilight worried a little more. "Do you think you'd need to see a doctor about it, or maybe just rest? Are you feeling ill in some way?" Paper looked down, and was silent again for a moment. "Apologies, Your Highness," he said in a low tone, then he got up and began to leave. Though not before adding, "Perhaps I do need some rest." Twilight watched him stand and walk away, still a little worried about him. He did always seem weird, but he'd done so in a different way, and it really felt like there might have been something wrong with him. She hoped he would be alright. > Knock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was, indeed, light at the end of the staircase. And outside space. He had to shield his eyes for a moment after opening the door and walking out, he had gotten used to the darkness of the tunnel. Once he could safely open them again though, he finally got a chance to look around. He'd stepped out of a small wooden shed, what looked like one at least. Inside it was only the staircase he'd used to get there, though he did wonder if things would stay the same once he closed the door. Or if the shed would still be there at all once he left. Somewhat out of curiosity, he closed the wooden door, and found he could not open it again. Satisfied, he turned and had a look at the rest of his surroundings. He saw a few trees and hints of a hill in the direction he'd come from, and houses on the opposite side, separated from him mostly by grassy fields. And among those houses a taller structure stood out from the rest, gleaming in the sunlight and looking somewhat like a tree. The stallion quirked an eyebrow, then pulled out a book from his saddlebags and pulled out a picture from the book. Looking between the two, it was undeniable that the castle he was seeing in the distance was the same one in the picture. Which made sense. Having gotten there so quickly was the part that didn't really make as much sense, considering he'd only travelled for less than a couple of days, but he wasn't about to complain. He placed the picture back into the book, put the book back inside his saddlebags, and then began to walk towards Ponyville and towards the crystal castle in the middle of it. > Rune > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ponyville was... very much like any other town he'd been to. A lot like the one he'd grown up in, too. Of course, the Behemoth had changed things there too, but aside from that and aside from the giant castle in the middle it was hardly distinguishable from any pony town like it he could think of. The place Wick Clip lived in was almost exactly like it in many things. "Hey! You must be new around here! I think you are at least, I don't recognise your face and I'm pretty sure I know everyone here in Ponyville and oh goodness I don't know you I really apologise if I somehow never noticed you all this time but I doubt that would be possible and actually I'm sure it isn't so that means you're new here so welcome to Ponyville!" "Pinkie Pie, I assume," the stallion said before actually turning towards the bouncing pink mass that had appeared at his side. Once he did look at her, his mouth fell open and stayed there for a few moments, and then he frowned. "You should not be able to function." Pinkie stopped in midair to consider that, then shrugged and landed. "I should get you a cake. Or a song. Or a party! Oh! A party with songs and cake, yes. If you're staying. You are staying, right?" Looking away from the nonsensical jumble of pink wires inside and outside the mare before he got a headache from it, the stallion answered, "I might be staying. I'm here to see Twilight. Do you happen to know where she is?" "She's not here today," Pinkie replied. "She took the train and left earlier this morning. We could organise your party while we wait! I'm sure I can squeeze a party in between everything else I need to do." She suddenly gasped. "Wait! I didn't even ask you your name! You knew mine and I didn't even bother to ask for yours! How did you know mine, by the- No, wait, what's your name?" > Tod > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How long do you think it will take for Twilight to get back?" the stallion asked, walking through the streets of Ponyville as Pinkie Pie bounced at his side. "She didn't give me a time," Pinkie replied. "She might be away for the whole day. Or maybe even multiple days, though I don't think she would stay away that long." "This is unfortunate," said the stallion. Though really, it was actually peculiar. He had gotten there to Ponyville too fast, it seemed, and wouldn't be talking to Twilight just yet. Sure, he could always just wait, but it was still fascinating that what had happened had happened. "I'm happy to have someone new here in Ponyville, we don't get many visitors since the Behemoth happened although we did get all those guards and researchers that came here to the castle and actually we had some new guards come in not too long ago and I threw them all a big party and I should actually do something for them again because it's been a while and- Hey!" Pinkie stopped in the air mid hop and looked back at the stallion, who'd stopped walking a brief bit before. He wasn't particularly listening to Pinkie. Instead he was focused on something he'd spotted in a different street, looking at it from the intersection where he stood. "Is everything okay?" asked Pinkie as she approached him again, after repeating the last half arc of her bouncing in reverse. "Sort of," the stallion replied in the lowest tone he could manage, as to not alert the thing he'd noticed. Thankfully it seemed to be moving away from him, or at least not towards him. "What is wrong?" Pinkie asked, also whispering. "And why are we whispering?" The stallion pointed a hoof forward and slightly to the side. "Do you see that pony?" Pinkie followed the direction with her eyes and squinted. "No." "I see." > Yr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I don't," Pinkie said. "What is there to see, exactly? Is there a pony I'm not seeing? Is there another pony I should be organising a party for? I really hope I didn't miss out on giving them their party." "I don't think she cares," said the stallion. "She might not even want a party." "But that's horrible!" Pinkie whisper-yelled. "We should give her a party to convince her to enjoy parties." "We should not." The stallion began to slowly and carefully walk down the road towards the thing only he was seeing. "Trust me, you probably don't want to throw her a party anyway." Pinkie's face turned into a sad frown at that. "But everyone deserves parties. I'm going to throw her a party someday." She looked ahead again. "Once I can actually see her. Who is she, anyway?" "Stella." The stallion quietly continued to approach, watching as the alicorn in question walked further down the road in front of them. Pinkie took out a notebook and a pencil and wrote the name down along with some notes, then stuffed both back into her mane. "Who is Stella? Is she a friend of yours? Is she a ghost? Is that why I can't see her? Do you know how to see ghost?" "She's more of a chameleon, really." The stallion took out a small mirror from his saddlebags and used it to get a look at the street where Stella was while hiding behind the corner of a building. "I thought she was a pony." Pinkie remained hidden at the stallion's side, though she didn't know why they were hiding. "She is a pony, yes." Once he'd confirmed that she wasn't looking their way, the stallion peeked behind the corner. "Or at least she mostly looks like one. On the outside at least. I'm not sure she really is one." "Oh." Pinkie also took a quick peek past the corner. "I still don't see her. How come you can see her? How come I can't see her? Can other creatures see her?" "Hmm." The stallion kept looking, but didn't start walking forward yet. "I can because I can, you can't because she doesn't want you to, and other creatures can only see her if she wants them too." "Oh." Pinkie stood at his side, still squinting to try to spot the pony. "Does she not want you to see her?" "I think she doesn't want anyone to see her right now." The stallion swallowed. He wasn't exactly sure of what to do. He looked at Stella a moment longer, then hid behind the corner again. "Do you have a place for me to stay near Ponyville?" he asked Pinkie. Then he looked at the street again, just in time to see Stella rounding a corner. Biting the inside of his cheek, he began to follow her again. Pinkie walked alongside him, thinking. "I might know someplace, yes. Why? Do you need a place to stay?" "I might," the stallion replied, peeking with his mirror past another corner. > Stains > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What exactly are we doing right now?" asked Pinkie, also getting a look at the next street through the mirror held by the stallion. "Following Stella," he replied. "I think. I'm not sure. I hope that's what we're doing." Pinkie tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. "She looks nervous," the stallion said. He put the mirror away and rounded the corner. "I don't think she's spotted us yet at all. Or maybe it's all a trap. But she wouldn't make herself look nervous if it was a trap and she knew she was being watched, so it's probably not a trap." "So what are we supposed to do other than following her? Should we jump on her at some point and give her a surprise party?" Pinkie stood at his side, still trying and failing to spot the alicorn. "What does she look like by the way?" "She looks like Twilight, usually." The stallion started to walk again. "Mostly, at least. Colours are a little off. The expression too, but I haven't seen Twilight personally yet so I can't confirm. And maybe she's shorter as well, but don't tell her I told you." He slowed down and stepped to the side, hiding behind a group of other ponies while he watched Stella stand at a crossroads. "And we're not throwing her a party. We're just following her to see where she goes, so we don't accidentally run into her." Pinkie opened and closed her mouth, then blinked. "Shouldn't we be walking in the opposite direction if you don't want to meet her?" "The only way I can be somewhat sure I won't run into her, now that I know she's here, and that she's not keeping her eyes on me, is keeping my eyes on her. I don't want to risk it and just walk around Ponyville if I can make sure instead." The stallion allowed himself to look Pinkie in the eyes for a moment. "I don't like leaving things up to chance." He walked out from behind the gathering of ponies, and towards Stella again, while she stormed down the road to her left. "Why do you not want to run into her, anyway?" asked Pinkie. "You're not bothered by all these questions, right? At least I hope you're not. Tell me if you're bothered by them. I don't want to bother you. You'd tell me if I was being a bother, right? Sometimes I will be bothering a pony by accident and they won't tell me because they're being polite and then I'll continue to bother them and eventually they will tell me and it will feel doubly bad because I bothered them for longer." "Not a bother at all," said the stallion. "As for why I'd rather not run into her, I think she'd probably kill me if she found me." He looked past the corner and spotted Stellaria, looking extremely annoyed and yet indecisive. "Oh. That's not very nice of her." > DSL > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think if you took audio samples from the Dazzlings's songs and cleaned them up right you could use them to hypnotise people?" Bon Bon stopped sipping her drink halfway, and blinked. "What?" Lyra idly stabbed at her salad. "Do you think you could use the Dazzlings's songs to hypnotise people? Do the recordings still have power?" "No, I got that part." Bon Bon set her drink down. "But what? Why?" "All sorts of reasons one might want to hypnotise people. Taking over the world for example." Lyra went silent as she began to munch on her food. Bon Bon silently stared at her for a bit. "Alright. Fair enough." Lyra swallowed. "Maybe Vinyl would know. I should ask her." "Yeah." Bon Bon nodded, and sighed. "Sure." "But what if it works and then she uses it to hypnotise me?" Lyra gasped. "Or maybe she's already found out it works and she's already hypnotising us all. Or maybe she accidentally hypnotised herself." Bon Bon picked up her drink again and went back to sipping on it. "Maybe you should ask her about it." "You silly. You can't just ask someone if they're hypnotised. Unless you hypnotised them yourself, I guess." > Missing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Can you give me the path for the file again?" Twilight asked into her phone. The voice came crackling and distorted from the other end, but thankfully not unintelligible. "You should already be in the right directory. Read it out to me so I can double check." Twilight looked over her screen. "Four six six two zero five. Is that correct?" After a moment, the voice spoke again. "It is. I don't understand why you're not seeing it." Twilight hummed. "If it's hidden here, then maybe I'm looking for it in the wrong place. It ought to still be accessible directly from the main array. That's slash chapter before the serial, right?" "It should be that, yeah, after the dot net. Are you sure this'll work though?" asked the voice on the phone. Twilight typed away at her keyboard. "It's worth a shot. What's the file number?" "Let me see." Some rustling came through from the other side of the call, made to have an almost metallic sound by all the static. "One five one three seven six three. Did you catch that?" Twilight had already hit the enter key. "Something is here, at least. But it's behind a password. Got any idea what that is?" A moment of silence went by. "I'm sure there's gotta be a way to find it." > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 10 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack blinked. "Hey! You cut me off!" "I did." Pinkie smirked. "It's the kind of trick you learn how to do when you spend enough time messing with the meta." "Is that even the right way to say that?" Applejack shook herself. "Nevermind that. Things are even worse off now! We've even got portals!" "Shh." Pinkie slid closer to Applejack and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Relax. Everything is going to be just fine." Applejack yelled, "The end of the world could be coming and you ask me to be calm?" She moved to the side, shrugging Pinkie off of herself. "Eh." Pinkie shrugged. "I don't think it's really coming. It wouldn't make too much sense." Applejack stopped in her nervous jitter and blinked. "How does it not make sense?" "Think about where all this stuff is coming from," Pinkie explained. "It can't actually be related. It's all just a cosmic coincidence." Applejack took deep slow breaths and thought it over. "But how?" Pinkie shrugged again. "I've seen weirder things happen. It's not like we're causing earthquakes. Either way, you know as well as I that this means there will be a solution." "As if he cares about the way things go! When has that ever stopped anyone?" Applejack's tone grew louder again. "He seems to be sticking pretty close to things for now," Pinkie said. "I would trust him there." "Only because there's still a road to follow. Soon as that's over, we'll have no walls to stop us from falling." Applejack sat down on her favourite stool. "It's just a matter of time. Things can be refitted, it might be solved once but that wouldn't mean it will stay that way." "Even so," said Pinkie, "it's outside of our control. We should be focusing our attention elsewhere for the time being." Applejack sighed and looked up at her. "On the story still?" She swallowed. "I suppose you have a point." "It's been stagnating." Pinkie took a seat in front of Applejack. "I thought you were supposed to be the positive one." "Maybe we're more than the matter required to fill our moulds." Pinkie moved her neck from side to side, listening to the way it popped. "Would you rather focus on things here?" "It's been a while since we've seen Nova, hasn't it?" Applejack grabbed a cupcake from the counter and began to eat it. "It has." Applejack swallowed. "Do you think we've seen the end of things as far as weirdness goes, here?" Pinkie shook her head. "I doubt it. But it's more likely that we'll just get used to it, like they did. Or maybe not like they did." "Fair enough." Applejack took another bite out of her cupcake. Then she sighed. "Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?" Pinkie pursed her lips, frowning deep in thought. "Maybe... Maybe there is something we could be doing, actually." Applejack lit up. "Really?" "Yep." Pinkie nodded. "But first, I can teach you that trick I > Calc > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Okay." "Okay what?" asked Pinkie, leaning to the side. The stallion didn't look at her, and instead kept looking ahead. "I think she's planning to go away. This complicates things, but at least we'll have time for my party afterwards." "Oh. That is nice," Pinkie cheered. "Why is it that she wants you dead, exactly?" "Because I can see her," the stallion explained. "She doesn't like that. It means someone can spot who she is." Pinkie tapped her chin, frowning in thought. "Doesn't that make her just a worse changeling with one oddly specific weakness?" The stallion thought about it for a moment. "Maybe. But she would probably kill you too for saying that, she'd find it insulting." "That's not nice either." Pinkie kept her hoof on her chin. "I really need to throw her a proper party. Maybe that will finally convince her to be friendly." The stallion sighed. "I've got a thing for you, by the way." He pushed a pebble on the ground slightly aside, and a small square portion of the ground opened up, then a tiny pillar with a bowl of pudding on top of it rose from the opening. "Ooh. Thank you!" Pinkie grabbed the bowl and began to eat, without asking further questions. The stallion found that was much preferable to Stella's constantly questioning attitudes. Even if Stella was more pleasant to look at than the pink mess of nonsense standing at his side. "What is she doing right now?" Pinkie managed to ask while eating. "Just pacing back and forth," the stallion replied. "Like I said, I think she's planning to leave, she's just deciding on where to go next." "She sure seems to be taking a lot of time to do that." "She is. And knowing her, that's just making her angrier." The stallion clicked his tongue. "She'd probably be furious if she knew we were watching her right now." "You're watching her. I'm just listening," Pinkie said, having finished her pudding. "That's true." > Prisma > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Alright, her horn is lit up and she's looking particularly pissed," said the stallion. "And now she's gone." "Huh. Well, that felt anticlimactic," Pinkie said. "Anyway. Time to get your party going!" "I still need a place to stay that's not in Ponyville proper." The stallion had a look around to make sure Stella hadn't just teleported somewhere close. "I can't risk running into her by accident, she'll probably be back at some point." "That can be arranged," Pinkie reassured him. "Now, let's get you your party!" She began to bounce up and down. The stallion smiled, and gave a relieved sigh. "Sure, Pinkie. Thank you for it." > Raft > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight's horn lit, as she looked over the wall where it had been repaired. "You said it was a perfectly rectangular hole, right?" she asked without turning. "Yes," answered the pony standing behind her. "I've never seen a cut so precise." She adjusted her glasses. "Do you know what spell might have caused it?" "You said the same happened to the bridge a while before, right?" Twilight squinted. "Could I have a look at the damage done there as well?" "Of course, Princess," the mare quickly said. "We repaired the damage, of course, but all the affected portions are still there. Some of the broken pieces had to be removed, but they should still be in storage." "Good." Twilight nodded, and drew her head back to get a better look at the whole wall, still not turning towards the other mare. After a bit of silence, the other cleared her throat. "Princess? Do you have an idea of what might have caused this?" Twilight suddenly let go of her spell and turned, startling the mare. "I'd heard similar reports about something happening to a set of ruins nearby, and I took a little detour on the way to check on them. The damage does appear to be rather similar, and it's giving me the same readings." The other pony, a pegasus with a peach coloured coat and a straight purple mane, adjusted her glasses and began to follow behind Twilight while the alicorn walked away. "I see." She pursed her lips and walked silently for a bit, an awkward twitch running along her mouth. "What do you think it is, then?" she finally forced herself to ask. "A coil," Twilight replied, matter-of-factly. "No spell would give that kind of reading, and it's impossible for a pony to have done all that by hoof. Do you still have the note that was left here when the damage occurred?" "We do, yes," said the mare. "Do you wish to see it?" Twilight for a bit didn't answer, just walking through the building and ignoring the unsure glances and stumbled bows she received from the ponies she ran across. "I won't realistically be able to test every single pony in town," she finally said, "but seeing the writing itself and not just the contents will be useful nonetheless." "I will have it brought to you immediately." The pegasus moved forward with one of the most surprisingly fast walking paces Twilight had witnessed, and quickly disappeared behind a corner. Twilight kept walking on her same path towards the lower floors of the building and eventually the exit. She was, at once, glad she'd finally decided to check on the situation and bothered with herself for not having done so sooner. And to top it all off, worried about the consequences of her presence. Whoever had done all that was acting out of a desire for attention, and she wasn't sure giving her that much would bring good. Still, it had been foolish to assume a coil wouldn't happen onto a pony who wouldn't use it for good, and she worried about how many others still might be out there. > Living in > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Remember when King Sombra mentally took over the whole town and made us march like his own army towards Canterlot?" asked Lyra, before taking another bite out of her sandwich. Bon Bon stopped sipping on her drink and looked at the other mare. "Kind of hard to forget about that. Why do you ask?" Lyra swallowed the contents of her mouth. "Do you Twilight knows a spell like that?" "You mean a mind control spell?" Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. "Yeah." Lyra nodded and took another bite into her sandwich. Bon Bon blinked. "I don't know. Why would she know something like that?" "Well, she's smart, and she studies a lot," Lyra replied. "She would probably be interested in a spell she's seen used. It could also be a useful one to have in case she ever needs it." Bon Bon shifted in her seat. "Doesn't it seem kind of... evil? Sombra was probably using dark magic, I wouldn't think the ruler of Equestria would dabble in such a thing." "Oh, please." Lyra dismissed the other's words with a wave of her hoof. "Alicorns are obviously experts on dark magic. How can you decide what you should and shouldn't put in the restricted sections of the archives if you haven't studied it yourself? How are you supposed to protect your country if you're not familiar with the dangers the forces of evil might pose?" Bon Bon bit her lip. "I guess you have a point. The princesses would want to study something like that, at least to develop some kind of countercharm. But I don't think studying it means they'd know how to use it themselves, necessarily." "Twilight totally would though." Lyra took another bite out of her sandwich. "Oh! What if she's already using it and we just don't realise it? What if she has us mind controlled right now?" Bon Bon's eyes rolled at that. "Why don't you ask her about it?" Lyra scrunched up her face. "Bonny. You can't just ask someone if they're controlling your mind." > Nitro > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you think happened to the town hall?" "Huh?" Wick Clip looked up from the counter. "You know. The town hall. Who do you think did all that?" Wick shrugged. "I don't know. Why do you ask?" The other pony blinked a couple of times, perplexed, and pursed his lips. "It's just... Sorry. Have a good day." He grabbed his bag and began to walk away. "Sure. Same to you." Wick didn't look at him leave. > Sun > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know, sometimes I feel kind of bad about this." Sunburst sank his spoon back into the bowl of soup in front of him. "About what?" Starshine asked. "The whole food thing. Just finding it ready here," he replied. "I don't see why." Starshine smiled at him. "I should take you out to eat once." > Abyss > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Oh." Pinkie paused in her trotting. "Oh?" "I don't think I'll be talking to Starlight," said the stallion, looking ahead at the mare in question. Pinkie also looked at Starlight as she walked into a room up ahead, then at the stallion. "Why not?" He didn't move. "Reasons," he said. "I don't trust her right now. It's not her fault, I'm sure, but I can't trust her right now." "Oh." Pinkie chewed on the insides of her cheeks for a moment. "Can I not invite her to the party, then?" "Only if we she never sees me and has no idea who I am and what I look like," the stallion replied. "Coincidentally, have you seen a pony who looks exactly like Twilight except slightly off around here recently?" Pinkie shook her head. "I have not. Do you want some new clothes? I'm sure Rarity wouldn't mind making you some new clothes. Yours look a bit worn out." "I like them," the stallion said. "I like having pockets." Pinkie tilted her head. "Are they a mare's model?" "Probably." The stallion began to look around the crystal corridor, until he spotted something. "Oh." "Oh?" asked Pinkie, following him as he walked towards the wall. "A puzzle," he said, stopping to observe a seemingly random decorative pillar. Pinkie looked where he was looking, and squinted too, but could only see their reflections in the crystal. "A wall," she said. "A puzzle," he insisted. "A beautifully complicated one, too. This will be fun." > Nu > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A unicorn," Twilight said. "That narrows it down somewhat significantly." "Your Highness?" The pegasus mare accompanying Twilight leaned forward to get a better look at the sheet of paper the alicorn was examining, held in her magic. "This was written by a unicorn," Twilight explained, turning to the mare and bringing the page closer for her to see. "Look at the way the letters are traced. This kind of even flow is what you usually get from magic, not mouth writing. Rather finely controlled magic, too." She flipped the page around. "And look at this. It wouldn't have indented the page so much if it had been written against a solid surface. It was done in the air." "Interesting." The pegasus nodded. "Should we compare it with signatures or other documents compiled by unicorns in the city?" Twilight shook her head, bringing the sheet back to where she could look at it properly. "That wouldn't be of much use. They probably compiled those with their mouth, and changing writing style is relatively easy when you're using magic. They probably deliberately used a style different from their usual, if they're smart, which they probably are." "I see." The pegasus nodded again, some defeat in her tone. "Still, knowing it's a unicorn we're looking for is useful information," Twilight tried to cheer her up somewhat, though in a reasonable tone. She pursed her lips. "I think I'll have a look around town. Prepare a list of every unicorn in town while you wait for me. I doubt it'll be of too much use, but it can't hurt to have it available." "It will be done, Princess." The pegasus nodded for a third time, bowed slightly, then began to walk away from Twilight. > Still Ble > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie blinked, lips flat against each other, as she tilted her head. "You've been staring at the wall for five minutes," she said. "It is a really complicated puzzle," the stallion replied. "I did not force you to stay here with me as I solve it, though I do appreciate the company. I won't feel bad if you leave me and go do something else for a while, though." Pinkie gave a slow shrug of her shoulders. "I've stared at a wall for longer before." "Me too," said the stallion. "I don't mind staring at walls sometimes. There's usually something interesting inside them. Like here." Pinkie's head tilted to the other side. "You can see inside walls?" she asked. The stallion frowned and blinked a couple of times. "Kind of." "Kind of?" asked Pinkie. "Kind of," repeated the stallion. "The things I see are inside them, but you wouldn't see them if you took the wall apart. I don't know if they would still be there or not in that case, actually." "Huh." Pinkie leaned a little closer to the wall. "So you see things inside walls, then?" "Not just inside walls," the stallion replied. "Inside trees and the ground and creatures too." "Interesting," said Pinkie, grabbing notebook and pencil out of her mane to write that down. "What do I look like inside? Do you see anything in me?" "Confusion," the stallion said without turning. Pinkie put the pencil and notebook away back in her mane. "What did you see inside Starlight?" "Someone tampered with her," he replied. "Stella, I'm assuming." "Awfully not nice of her. Should we tell Starlight about it?" Pinkie looked around to see if the unicorn was nearby. "I wouldn't do it." The stallion placed a hoof on the wall. "Stella probably took some precautions against that." > Security > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scootaloo?" "Sweetie Belle?" Sweetie walked past the entrance and towards the voice, to find the pegasus lying on the couch with a tired expression. "Are you alright?" she asked her. "Not really," Scootaloo replied. "I've got a fever. You should stay back, you never know." Sweetie did take a step back. "How bad is it?" she asked, worried. "Not too bad, I think," Scootaloo replied. "I'm just really tired. It should get better though, I just need to rest." "Do you want me to bring you something? Some water or something to eat?" asked Sweetie. "No need, don't worry about it." Scootaloo lifted up the water bottle next to the couch, and took a sip from it. "Sorry I can't come out today. I think I'll be taking a nap, it might help." "I hope it does," Sweetie said. "I'll leave you be then. I hope you get better soon." "Thanks," Scootaloo replied. "See you around. Say hi to Apple Bloom for me if you run into her." "I will," said Sweetie Belle on her way out of the house. > What to do > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is that supposed to do something?" asked Pinkie, leaning closer to get a look at where the stallion's hoof touched the wall. "Maybe." The stallion slid his hoof lower. "Maybe not." Pinkie leaned closer still. "What is that you're seeing, exactly?" she asked. "Wires," said the stallion. "More than usual this time." He began to look at different portions of the wall. "A red one and a green one running inside the pillar, from top to bottom. A yellow one from midway down the pillar to where I have my hoof now, where it's connected to a short blue one that ends in what looks like a button on each end. Then there's a purple one in a square shape with a missing edge, starting at the top of the pillar and ending at the bottom and encapsulating the whole thing. Finally there's an orange spiral in the lower left corner." "Huh." Pinkie put a hoof under her chin, focusing deep in thought. "Have you managed to figure out something about it yet?" "The buttons look like the only part I should be able to interact with," said the stallion, "but I've tried them both already and they don't..." He paused, and looked at Pinkie. Then he regretted looking at her directly, and looked slightly to the side of her instead. "Mind putting your hoof here where mine is?" he asked. Her expression unchanging, Pinkie moved her hoof from her chin to the position the stallion had asked for. He then placed his a bit above hers, and looked around. "Anything?" Pinkie asked. As an answer, the stallion held out his other hoof. Pinkie understood, and took it in hers. The stallion gave a little smile. "Well, now the spiral is spinning at least. So that's something." "I suppose it is," Pinkie said, still unsure of what was going on exactly. > Pit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever have nightmares?" Luna looked back towards Rainbow. "Uh?" "Do you ever have nightmares?" Rainbow repeated a little louder, getting closer to the alicorn. "Do you ever have dreams, for that matter? I mean, I remember the whole Tantabus thing, but that was still different. Do you have regular dreams like normal ponies do?" Luna, who'd stopped walking to wait for Rainbow to catch up to her, seemed to have been caught somewhat off guard by the question. "Not really," she replied once the pegasus was close. Turning to walk once again, she continued, "My connection to dreams means I am always aware of being in one. I'm sure you've noticed something similar ever since becoming my assistant." Rainbow paused to think about it. "Yeah, I guess I have. But I haven't really been trying to have a normal dream after you took me in. Could I still have one if I decided to turn my powers off for a night or something?" Luna thought about it for a moment. "I suppose you might be able to. I could always allow you or force you to, if you were to ask for it, but it might be interesting to see what would happen if you were to try yourself." "And you?" Rainbow asked. "Can you do the same for yourself?" Luna paused again. "I must admit, it has never occurred to me to try. I never saw a point to it. Perhaps it could be interesting to explore such a thing, now that I am no longer alone in my wandering through the dreams of ponies." > Inconsistency > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I really don't like working with this kind of stuff," Sunset said, resting her head on one of her hands and her elbow on her desk. She looked at her monitor with a mixture of hate and despair, and sighed. "What kind of stuff?" asked Twilight from the other end of the room. "Programming, computers, all this kind of stuff," Sunset replied. "It's all so damn inconsistent. Magic isn't like this." "How is it inconsistent?" Twilight asked, getting up to approach Sunset. "It does exactly what you tell it to do. Magic is what's inconsistent in my experience." "Look at this then!" Sunset almost yelled the words, pointing at her screen with one hand. She waited for Twilight to be at her side, then continued, "These two pages are using the exact same code. They're literally the same shell of categories and structure. But one is working one way and the other isn't, and all because apparently the line of text in this box here isn't long enough." She collapsed with both elbows on the table, her head only held up by her hands digging into her hair. "I hate it all so much," she whispered, mostly just to herself. > Two Thrones > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you still sure this is for the good of all of us?" Pinkie asked. The other Pinkie didn't answer immediately. She just stared at the ground, breathing slowly and a little more heavily than was her usual. "No," she finally replied. "But I still think it more likely is than isn't. After the things I've seen, I don't know if there's a good choice, but I think there's still a better one." "But what if you're wrong?" A hint of fear entered Pinkie's voice as she continued. "I've seen that thing. I've glanced upon it. I've seen what it's doing to you. How can this be good?" "I can't blame you for what you think, given what you're seeing," Pinkie replied. "Know that if you'd seen what I have, you would not blame me either. I've witnessed things beyond our times and spaces and realities, and though I know not the full picture I've looked past the confines of our finite understanding. I have to do this." "What if it's a lie?" Pinkie's tone regained most of its steadiness. "What if it's a trick? What if what you think is seeing the true nature of things is merely seeing them distorted and warped? What if there's no veil to look past but the one that has clouded your sight and your thoughts?" "Will you try to stop me, then?" Pinkie looked back towards her other self. "I used to look at you and see a mirror of myself. Now... I don't even know what it is I see now, but it's not what I am." Pinkie took a step closer. "This is tearing you apart, you need to put an end to it. But I can't stop you. Only you can stop yourself." "I wish I had a choice." > Padding > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did you ever get that ice-cream, in the end?" Starlight looked up from her suitcase. "Huh?" "The one you were planning to get before the Behemoth moved again," explained Starshine. "Did you get it?" Starlight thought about it for a moment, returning her attention to the task she was occupied with. "I don't think I did. Why do you ask?" "Would you like it now?" asked Starshine in return. Starlight again thought about it, focusing on what to put in her suitcase and not on the pegasus. "No." "Okay." Starshine tilted her head to the side. "Anything you do want?" > Antipodes > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you remember when I brought up how some species of ants will have some members of the colony ingest a large amount of nutrients, enough to bloat up their form, and then hang from the ceiling of a room in the anthill to dispense the food they have accumulated to members of the colony who request it?" asked Twilight. "I do remember that." Celestia nodded. "If I am not mistaken the conversation quickly devolved into talks of incestuous relationships between versions of us from different universes." "It did," Twilight noted. "Only mildly was it my fault for that." She shook her head. "Anyway. There was a reason I had brought that up, before you decided to give credit to the jokes young stallions and mares share about the length of your horn." "What jokes might those be?" asked Celestia, the innocence in her tone as artificial as the fluttering of her eyelashes. "You won't make me repeat them here," Twilight replied. "Anyway. As I was saying, I brought that up for a reason. Given we were discussing ourselves as ants, it occurred to me that Pinkie might be such a type of ant if she were one." Celestia blinked, her innocent expression crumbling into a puzzled one. She blinked again. "I suppose that does make sense," she said. "I do not understand why you would bring it up now of all times." "I don't like leaving loose threads hanging," Twilight simply replied. Celestia stared flatly at her. "Really, now?" > Snake Egg > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sudden thump beside his bed woke Sunburst up, and he quickly lit his horn to see what was happening. "Starshine?" he asked, seeing the purple mare with golden splotches all over her coat lying on her back on the ground. She craned her neck to get a better look at him, then flipped herself over. "I'm having an identity crisis," she said. "What?" Sunburst asked, surprised. "How do you expect me to answer that? I'm having a crisis, I told you!" Statshine replied. But she only whisper-yelled, she was still aware of how late it was. Sunburst picked up his glasses and put on his cape, sitting more properly on his bed. "Can you explain to me what's going on?" "Identity crisis," Starshine repeated. Sunburst groaned, and put a hoof to his face more to drag the tiredness away from it than anything. "Why did it start? How did it start?" he asked. "Yesterday I asked Starlight if she wanted ice-cream," Starshine explained. Sunburst stared at her. "And?" "I asked her!" Starshine again lowered her tone but shifted her inflection, making it clear it was meant to be a yell. "I shouldn't ask things! I don't need to ask things!" She flipped onto her back again. "I fear I might be beginning to exist." Sunburst blinked a couple of times. "Do you want to sleep here? Do you think that might help you feel better?" "I shouldn't need to sleep." Starshine gave a wavy pout. "Sure. Thank you, dad." > As Tray > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you reading?" asked Bon Bon. Lyra didn't look up from her book as she replied, "It's a story about a civilisation that was presumed to be only a myth, suddenly making contact with modern society through a message." "Sounds interesting," the other mare replied. "What message?" "I'm not going to give that away." Lyra kept her eyes glued to the page. "But after that, a small expedition is organised to deliver something to the civilisation in question, and also to actually explore their homeland and see what it's like, and report back. The book is mostly about the expedition." "Huh. Mind lending me that book when you're done?" asked Bon Bon. "Sure thing." Lyra flipped two pages at once. "It won't take long." Bon Bon looked somewhat puzzled at the unicorn. "Yes." "What?" Lyra flipped the page again. "Sorry. Yes, I'll prepare dinner for today. You can take a nap if you want to." "Oh." Bon Bon was a bit surprised that Lyra had guessed she'd be asking about that, but she was mostly happy about the answer. "Thank you," she said. Lyra flipped another three pages. Bon Bon's smile cracked a little. Then she took a deep breath, shook her head, and walked away from the unicorn. A few seconds later, Lyra flipped about five more pages ahead. > Over > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Morning." Sunburst slowly opened his eyes. "Morning," he said. "Sorry, I'm not used to this." "Waking up next to someone?" asked Starshine. "Waking up next to a bed that's taking up over half the room," Sunburst replied. "But that too." The black pegasus sheepishly smiled at him. "Sorry, I might have overdone it a little." "It's okay." Sunburst put his glasses back on, then had a good look at the mare. "Feeling better?" Starshine seemed to think about it for a moment. "Define better." Sunburst blinked. "We have several dictionaries in the library." He shook his head. "Are you still feeling bad?" "Somewhat." Starshine pursed her lips. "It's complicated. I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday, but I think it's because I'm starting to get used to existing. Maybe. I don't know, which is weird, because I should be aware of these things. Which means that no, all things considered, I'm not okay. Or maybe I still am, because I feel like it after all. Maybe I'm just different. It's weird." After a bit, Sunburst nodded. "Yeah." He got up from the bed, putting on his cape. "Want me to make breakfast?" "That would be lovely," Starshine replied. "I shouldn't be eating. This is also weird." > Shooting Stars > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I learned how to tie a noose today." Indigo Zap looked down from her bed. "What?" "A noose," Lemon repeated. "A hangman's knot. A collar if you wanna use the really old term, even though I'm pretty sure no one's been using that for centuries." While speaking, Lemon didn't take her eyes away from her computer monitor. Indigo sat on her bed. "Are you alright?" she asked. "Did you know that the number of loops on a hangman's knot used for executions is traditionally thirteen?" Lemon completely ignored the question. "Mostly in myth and folklore, though, in practice usually less were used." "Lem', I'm serious." Indigo dropped off from her bed and began to walk towards the table Lemon was sat at. "Is everything okay?" "If a package comes it's probably mine, I bought some rope earlier," Lemon said. "Do you think light blue is a good colour? Oh, whatever, too late to change it now." "Lemon!" Indigo slammed her palms on the table. "I'm serious." Lemon's face peeked out from behind her screen. "Relax, Indy. If I wanted to kill myself I wouldn't use hanging, there are much simpler and less painful ways to do it." She returned to looking at the screen. "And I wouldn't play this will I won't I sort of game, either I'd tell you about it clearly and upfront or I wouldn't say anything." Indigo took a slow breath, partly a sigh of relief. "What do you need the rope for, then?" "To tie a noose," Lemon replied. Indigo stuttered for a moment. "What do you need the noose for?" "No spoilers. Nothing illegal though, don't worry about it." > Call > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello, Starshine," said Twilight, noticing the alicorn who'd suddenly appeared in the corner of the room. "Do you want to know something in particular?" she asked. "When is Starlight leaving?" the yellow mare with a red, orange, green and blue mane asked in response. "For the whole laboratory thing, you know. I'd like to say goodbye to her and all." "Soon," Twilight said, focusing on her notes. "I don't have an exact date in mind yet, but soon. I'll tell Sunburst about it when we decide, so you'll know too." "Oh." Starshine stood in the corner, completely still, staring blankly ahead. After a few unnerving seconds of the copper pegasus not disappearing, Twilight looked up from the table and towards her. "Anything else?" Starshine rapidly blinked a couple of times. "Oh, yes. No. Yes." She remained still and still said nothing else. Twilight arched an eyebrow. "Starshine? Are you okay?" "No," replied the grey earth pony with a white and red mane. "Not particularly." Worried, Twilight pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. "Is there something I can do for you? Is Sunburst alright?" "Sunburst is alright," the negative-coloured physical copy of Trixie replied. "And there's nothing you can do for me that I can think of. I will be okay eventually, I'm sure." She smiled, but her expression kept trembling. "I'm not actually sure. I lied. I made that up and I'm not sure if I was lying to you or to myself. I have no idea what will happen to me, though reasonably I should be okay." Her breath was as shaky as her smile, her coat deep red and her mane pitch black. "I hope I'll be okay." Before Twilight had a chance to say anything else, the mare had blinked away from the room. > Understanding > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Rainbow?" "Yeah. It's me," Rainbow Dash replied. "What're you doing here?" Applejack asked, perched high on a branch on a barren tree. "Just checking in on you," Rainbow explained, flying in closer. "I haven't seen you around for a couple of nights, and I was worried. Have you been staying awake at night?" "Huh?" Applejack arched her eyebrows, perplexed. "I haven't, no. What's that got to do with this though?" "Odd. I guess I just wasn't finding you then," Rainbow said to herself. "I should ask Luna about it." "Rainbow?" Applejack called. "You're not making much sense right now." "Don't worry." Rainbow waved at her with a wing. "You'll forget about it. How are things going?" "They've been going alright," Applejack replied. She looked down from her branch at the fields of apples sprouting from the ground. "How about you? Everything going alright?" "Yeah, everything is well," said Rainbow. "Nice to know it's the same for you. We should hang out again soon. Wanna meet up this afternoon?" Puzzled, Applejack looked at the Sun setting on the horizon. "Isn't it a little late for that?" "Don't worry about it," Rainbow said. "I'll go check on Apple Bloom while I'm around here, I wonder what she's dreaming. See you soon." In an instant, she was gone. Applejack calmly returned to looking at her fields of apples, like nothing had happened. > A Little Less > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Worried?" Shining silently stared at the ceiling for a bit before answering, "Some months ago, a creature unlike anything we've ever seen suddenly appeared in the capital of Equestria to wreak havoc in it and cause damage felt across the entire country, the resulting shockwaves somehow enough to make whatever happened with the Wall happen. The only nights I haven't gone to bed at least partly worried since have been the ones when I was too tired to." Looking at the ceiling herself, Cadence scooted a little closer to her husband. She moved her wing until it was under his neck, its tip past it, and used it to give him something close to a hug. "But it's a different kind of worry now, isn't it?" "Right," Shining agreed. He too scooted closer to Cadence, until their bodies were almost touching. He'd known his wife enough to know that her not stopping him meant he was clear to go on whatever rant was on his mind. "We've always been mostly reliant on the Heart as a line of defense for things coming from outside. Not a perfect one, but at least enough to buy some time. Sombra doesn't count." "Why doesn't that time count, again?" asked Cadence. "It just doesn't." Shining cleared his throat. "Anyway. The point is that now we know they can just send something directly inside the Empire, completely under our nose. Imagine if they sent something inside a house, maybe at night. We can't just move everyone away, either." Cadence moved even closer, until she was pressed against Shining. "I'm sure Twilight is already working on a potential solution to the problem." "I know she is, and I know she can do it," Shining replied. "But what if she's not fast enough? What if something happens before she has a solution ready?" > Abyss > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What now?" asked Pinkie Pie. The stalling would have tapped his chin, had he had any free hooves to do so with. Instead he just looked around at the cables in the wall. "No idea." Pinkie looked between him and the wall. "Do you think I can help somehow?" "Yes," he replied. Pinkie asked, "How?" The stallion stared around and blinked a few times. "No idea. Not yet." He began leaning back and forth, like one would do on a rocking chair. "We're definitely on the right path. We just need to figure out the specifics." "It's a bit hard to do when I have no idea what you're seeing," Pinkie said. "If this is meant to be a prank, it's not a good one." "I would never mock you so," said the stallion. He moved the hoof he held on the wall slightly to the side, then returned it to its original position." It doesn't look like these things slide. Not alone at least." He looked at Pinkie. "Try mimicking my movement." Pinkie nodded, and she too slid her hoof to the side as the stallion did the same, then returned it once he did as well. "Is it working?" The stallion shook his head. "Doesn't seem like it." He focused on the corner of the wall. "It ought to have something to do with that, it's the only thing that's changed. Do you think you can reach it with a leg?" > Coming Home > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever think about the future?" Celestia looked up at Twilight, and tilted her head to the side. "The tomorrow kind of future, or the five years from now kind of future? The answer is yes to both, of course, each at its own time and in its own ways." "The really far ahead future," Twilight replied. "The really far ahead even for us future. The even we will be gone and eons of wind and rain and movements of the earth will have flattened mountains and dried seas and split continents apart kind of future." "Oh." Celestia got up, and walked until she was next to Twilight, then lay down again. "At times, I do. I've lived long enough to see hints of these changes by myself, so I probably do it more often than the average pony. The mountain was at least a few centimetres taller when Canterlot was built. So yes, I do on occasion think about it. Why do you ask?" "Do you think it will have mattered?" Twilight, who'd been staring at the night sky while laying on her back, finally turned to look Celestia in the eyes. "When that much time will have passed, will everything we're working for and doing now have mattered, even when it will all be gone?" Celestia tilted her head to the side again, taking a moment to think about things. "No," she finally replied. "In the same way a flower will eventually die when it goes out of season, or a plant will eventually die when it's old, whether you water it every day or whether you leave it dry. In a hundred years, it won't have mattered if that flower lasted a week or two months, the result is the same." She scooted a little closer to Twilight. "But then is not now, and now is not then. It won't matter in a hundred years if you watered your plants or not, but it will matter tomorrow. It doesn't matter that what we do won't have mattered one day, because it matters when we do it." "Doesn't it bother you?" asked Twilight. "Knowing that everything you've worked for will fall apart, eventually?" "Yes," Celestia said. "A great deal. Knowing that there will be a day when I'm no longer looking over my ponies, knowing that one day they might be in danger again. That one day the Equestria I've helped build and defend will not exist anymore, and that the peace we have might not last forever. It hurts. That's why we continue to do what we do. Not to stop that day from coming, but to make sure it's staved off for as long as possible." "That sounds somewhat pitiful, when you say it like that." Twilight went back to looking at the sky. "We all are pitiful in the face of eternity," Celestia replied. "I've lived a life too long for a regular pony to comprehend it all. To them it's just a big number. But I've lived through it all, as you will, if everything goes well and you'll wish to. Yet I'm not much different from them, when I look at the age of our world, or when I look at the future." She leaned to the side, and wrapped a wing around Twilight. "But this isn't then. There's a long way to go until then, longer than you can probably comprehend yet. Certainly too long for most creatures to see it through. It won't matter to them that what we do won't have mattered, one day. That's why it matters, now." > World's End's Length's > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'd imagined the end of the world would be different." Starlight looked up. "Huh?" Trixie waved a hoof around. "This whole thing. It's not how I thought things would go when I imagined it." Starlight tilted her head to a side. "You've been imagining the end of the world?" She shook herself. "This isn't the end of the world, anyway." "It feels like it," answered Trixie. "Just very slow and stretched out." Starlight shrugged. "I guess." "Like... Say someone were to look back at now. Some other species or whatever, after the Behemoth wipes us all out," Trixie said. "We're not getting all wiped out." Starlight pouted. "Let's say we do," said Trixie. "If someone looked back, what would they think of it? A couple of years or however long isn't that long compared to how much will have passed. Do you think they'll just say that everything happened and that was it?" Starlight thought about it. "I don't know, actually. Maybe?" "Yeah." Trixie blew some air towards her hat. "That's kind of annoying." > Burden > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's a convenient thing," said the unicorn. Twilight turned to look at him. "What is?" "Harmony," he replied. "Something you know is good. Something beyond you, tangibly there, that you know is right." Twilight smiled at him. "I take it there were no Elements of Harmony in your world?" "None," he said. "Nothing like them, either. It would have been nice to have a light like that shining on the right path." Twilight still smiled. "Harmony is more than just its power or its manifestation. It's about being with others, together. Even without its magic, there's still a point in being united and not divided. I'm sure your ponies knew it too, if they lived and worked together as we do here." "The purely factual benefits of a collaboration between different individuals aren't something that needs a magical tree to be highlighted," said the stallion. "But it's still useful to have something like that tree. To have something higher and indisputably good." Twilight frowned slightly. "Is ponies being in harmony with each other not indisputably good, regardless of whether Harmony is there or not?" "It is, I suppose," the unicorn replied. "That's not the point. The point is that you have a frame of reference. Something you know for a fact is good, something you can measure against when trying to determine if something else is good. Something beyond you to be held in high regard." "I'm still not sure I get it," said Twilight. "Is harmony across ponies not beyond the ponies themselves?" "As an ideal, perhaps. And many ponies can together choose to follow a common ideal," said the unicorn. "But it's a formal agreement. Not the logical consequence of hard evidence. Without something above us to measure against, good and bad become what we choose and agree them to be. Without an indisputable source, any pony is able to choose for themself what they believe is good. So it's convenient for you to have Harmony. It's useful." > Subjective Mortality > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Starshine, wasn't it?" asked Rainbow Dash, approaching the unicorn. Starshine was stuck looking around the empty black void she sat in the middle of. "Where am I?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused. Rainbow also had a look around. "No idea. If you don't know that one then I can't help you there." Starshine frowned. "Then how did you get here?" She looked at Rainbow Dash with a questioning pout. "How did I get here? Why don't I remember getting here? The last thing I remember is having an existential crisis and talking with dad about it." She suddenly stood up. "Where is he? Is he okay?" Rainbow looked confused for a moment. "Sunburst? I can check on him later if you want. I think I got your question wrong before, though," she said. "This is a dream. I didn't think I needed to make that clear, usually ponies either know it is one or don't care." "A dream?" Starshine fell back into a sitting position, with a soft thud of her hindquarters against the arbitrarily tangible horizontal slice of emptiness she stood and walked on. "How? What?" It was Rainbow's turn to frown. "Do you not know what a dream is?" "Of course I know what a dream is!" Starshine threw a hoof up for emphasis. "But... But I'm not supposed to have dreams! Not me! I've never had dreams before! I've never even been asleep before! Oh Harmony am I asleep now? This is all wrong!" Rainbow's puzzlement didn't leave her expression. "What do you mean you're not supposed to have dreams? Everypony dreams. Of course you're having one. Maybe you just forgot about the other ones you've had." "Forgot?" Starshine's head snapped towards Rainbow. "What do you mean forgot? Am I going to forget this too?" "Probably?" Rainbow shrugged. "Most ponies forget most of their dreams, most of the time. You'll probably forget about this one if I had to guess." "Oh no no no!" Starshine stood up and began to pace back and forth around the place. "This is terrible! I can't forget about this! I need to remind myself that I dreamed, this isn't supposed to happen!" Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Relax. There's nothing weird about forgetting your dreams, it's perfectly natural. There's nothing weird about dreaming either. This is all normal, I don't get why you're so bothered by it all." "Normal," repeated Starshine, like she was hearing the word for the first time. She marched up to Rainbow, some anger in her steps. "I'm not supposed to be normal! I'm not supposed to be... a normal pony." Her tone grew meeker and she looked to the side. "Hey." Rainbow tried to get a better look at the mare's face. "Are you okay? Do you need to talk about something? Do you need some time off?" "Leave me alone," replied Starshine. "I need to think." Rainbow shrugged. "Alright then. Take care." She began to fly away. "And get something going with this dream. It's not supposed to be all empty, you know?" > Shellshock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is everything alright with the building?" Starlight asked. "I had a look around," Trixie replied. "It seems so, but you should check as well." "Alright." Starlight nodded. "I'll do that." > Mount > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The usual," Lightning Dust said, taking a seat at an empty table next to the wall. "You've been here less than five times and you've always asked for something different," replied Pinkie, balancing empty and freshly filled plates alike on her head and three of her hooves while moving around with a rubber ball under the unoccupied one. "You know what I meant," replied Lightning, a little annoyed. "I don't," Pinkie said, her unwavering smile nevertheless refusing to leave her face. "And I know whatever I bring you you'll complain that it wasn't what you ordered, no matter what. You won't even taste it before you say that." Lightning still looked annoyed, but perhaps a little defeated. She crossed her hooves over the table and laid her head on them, looking away from Pinkie and towards the wall. "I don't know what's on the menu, okay?" she said. "No worries!" Pinkie gave a salute, miraculously managing not to drop a single one of her plates. "I'll make sure you get something good, trust me." With that, she rolled away on her ball to deliver lunch to a few other clients, then Lightning saw her head towards the kitchen. The pegasus huffed, and again went back to looking at the wall. The restaurant was busy, as it usually was, and enough conversations were happening at the same time for none of them to sound intelligible to her, not unless she really focused. She instead let them all blend together as background noise, and half closed her eyes as she waited for whatever Pinkie would bring her. She probably wouldn't have to wait too long. Certainly not long enough to take a proper nap, and she didn't want to be found asleep. Though, all things considered, Pinkie wasn't the worst pony to be found asleep by, and no one in the restaurant seemed to care enough about her to notice if she wasn't awake. That wasn't the place for a nap, though. Instead she just waited for Pinkie to come back, staring at the wall through half lidded eyes without really looking at it. The squeaky sound of the approaching mare went unnoticed against the cacophony of chitchat filling the room, but the smell coming along her way did cause Lightning to raise her head and turn. She felt a little less tired, too. Maybe lunch wouldn't be so bad, at least. > Warhead > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Let's go over what we know for sure, one more time." "Right." Twilight cleared her throat. "We know there's a version of Equestria that's ruled by Nightmare Moon, accessible through a Behemoth scale. We know experiments are being run in her castle, which appears to be the old castle in the Everfree, seemingly for the purpose of creating some sort of weapon or soldier, and the results paint a clear picture of how they treat prisoners and others who oppose her. We know that they may have noticed our presence there at some point, and we know that they have found a way to reach our world without using scales." Celestia nodded, and so did Luna's image through the enchanted mirror on the wall. "How is progress coming along on a way to stop them from coming here?" the latter asked. "Preventing them fully from entering our world with a spell on this side isn't really a possibility at the present moment. The best we can hope for is a type of shield spell that might prevent them from teleporting to certain locations, but of course covering the whole of Equestria with it isn't feasible. Smaller, more focused applications are the current plan." Twilight shifted her notes about in her magic, without actually looking at them. "However, without analysing the exact process by which they're coming here, research has come to a halt. There's only so much we can do with just the landing craters." "So the plan is to go in there again," said Celestia. "It's a necessity," Twilight explained. "If we don't act soon enough, it might be too late once we do." "But it is a risk," Celestia continued. "Someone might be spotted there. Worse, someone might be captured." "But if we don't act, the price is guaranteed to be far greater," Twilight said. "Their experiments won't stop, nor will their attempts at sending weapons here, biological or magical that they might be. The possibility of losing a pony is a preferable outcome to the certainty of losing dozens." "But you can't just ask a pony to risk their life like so," Luna said. "I can't," agreed Twilight. "That's why I'll be going myself. It's true that I am a valuable target and asset to Equestria, but I am also one of the creatures better equipped for the mission." She swallowed. "If a regular pony were to fail, a new mission would be attempted either way, and eventually I might need to step in. I find it more reasonable to minimise our risks and potential losses from the beginning, and I also consider myself to be better equipped to escape should things get dire, compared to the alternatives." Luna nodded, and Celestia did too. Twilight continued, "As an additional safety measure, I won't be travelling to Nightmare Moon's world from Equestria. An alternative route has been found, and the portal between it and Equestria is to stay closed until the success of the mission has been confirmed." She took a deep breath. "If anyone is listening, by the time this recording becomes available publicly, should it, you'll probably already know what the results of my expedition were." > Sky > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do think you could keep a manateeagle as a pet?" Soarin' shrugged. "You can probably keep anything as a pet if you know what you're doing. I've seen manticores and cockatrices kept as pets, and that's just in Ponyville." "Ponyville isn't exactly the average standard for Equestria," Lightning replied. "It's anything but, I would even say. Just look at the kind of ponies that come from there." "You're not wrong." Soarin' took a peek out of the cave, only to confirm the flock was still soaring overhead. "Wanna play something to pass the time?" "Did you bring any cards?" Lightning asked. Soarin' shook his head. "I never was one for card games, anyway. I was thinking we could just trace something on the ground or something." "That sounds like something foals would do," Lightning said. Soarin' looked at her. "Do you have a better alternative?" Lightning paused to think for a moment. She looked at Soarin', then at herself, then back to Soarin'. "Nah, not really now that you mention it. How long do you think we'll be stuck here for?" "About an hour at the absolute worst, probably closer to twenty minutes or so." Soarin' adjusted his saddlebags near the wall to stop them from falling over. "I guess we could always just talk. Do you have anything interesting to tell me?" "Everything exciting about my life nowadays happens during work hours, I'm pretty sure you've heard or lived it all by now." Lightning leaned back against the wall of the cave. "What about you?" > Title > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think Flurry will be alright?" Cadence turned to look at Shining. "What do you mean?" "When she grows up," Shining explained. "Growing up at a time like this and all." "I would hope so." Cadence stepped closer to him. "We've been doing our best with her, you know that." "Yeah, I know," Shining agreed. "But what if she ends up summoning demons for fun or something?" Cadence smiled at him. "That just sounds like teenage rebellion to me." Shining pouted. "I wasn't like that. Twilight wasn't like that." "Do you really think you can use Twilight as an example of what's normal?" Cadence's smile turned into a smirk. Shining held his pout, but sighed. "You're right. Of course you're right." He leaned closer to Cadence. She leaned closer to him as well. "It'll all be alright. I'm sure it will." > blanK > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What did you decide on after the last step?" asked Spike, pacing back and forth across the room. "That I would trust my friends more and talk with them about what my plans are and what's happening," Twilight grumpily replied. "And what are you doing now?" Spike asked. Twilight looked down, and lightly kicked the ground with a hoof. "Doing things without telling my friends about it." "And why are you doing that?" "Because..." She huffed and pushed her head up. "It's different, okay? It's not anywhere near as dangerous this time, and I do genuinely believe they'll be more safe if I don't tell them, and even if things go wrong it won't be nearly as much of a problem to explain the situation afterwards and fix things in case I need their help, and speaking of which if I do need their help I will actually acknowledge it and seek it out this time as soon as I realise that's the case." Spike just gave her a mostly flat look. "And how is it better than just telling them about things right away like you said you would do?" He dropped his expression for something a little less stern, and flied towards Twilight. "I know you're trying to protect them, but you know it would be best if you were all in it together. That's what you told me to tell you." "And I have a point there," Twilight replied. "But the more creatures know something, the easier it is for that something to get out, and the more targets are there for anyone trying to get it out in the first place. It's inherent to this kind of thing, the more dots in the web the weaker it is, even if their help might be useful." She sighed and looked to the ground again. "I'll think about it. I'll try to figure out what the best compromise might be." > Lost > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She wasn't sure if anyone had ever visited that cave, though she doubted it. With the way water prevented access to the section she was in, it was unlikely that even a swimmer good enough to get through or a unicorn who knew the right spells would have randomly tried to get in alone. No sings were there of any creatures having been there, so a proper scientific expedition was also likely out of the question. She may very well have been the first sapient creature there in centuries, maybe millenia. It would have made for a nice spot to keep her laboratory in, a scenic one too. But she didn't really need it. She had everything she needed in her briefcase, and she could just carry it around and set it up wherever needed. A static base would have brought some unnecessary complications and no real benefits, so it wasn't really an option worth considering. Maybe one day, when things were different. She ventured deeper into the cave, casting light from her horn to shine the way and keeping herself floating a little above ground with her wings. The stone was rather humid and slippery, as could be expected, and it could be dirty too. She'd rather avoid it altogether, and avoid touching everything in general. She didn't care too much about preserving the place, but aimlessly damaging it just out of carelessness would have been a foolish thing to do. She didn't want that. > Loss > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All roads lead someplace," Luna said, "but not all places are equal, or worth equally as much." "And what about the roads?" Rainbow asked. "Are they worth less or more depending on where they lead?" "That is a complicated question," replied Luna. "There's a lot more that goes into it than simply where the road leads, and yet it's unclear whether that alone ultimately determines which roads are worth following over others. The length of the road, the things you see along the way, the road itself... Does it matter in the end, or does it not?" She sighed. "Perhaps the answer is a different one for any one of us." > Elements > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were definitely some advantages to having a pet like hers. Celestia had thought about it many times, but it had become particularly relevant after the Behemoth's arrival. Philomena's lifespan had made her one of the few things Celestia could consistently come back to, during her long period of ruling alone. One of the few things she knew wouldn't just be washed away by time. But as of late, it was the phoenix's resilience that had come to be the more easily appreciated of her qualities. It was comforting to know that she would always come back. She could be flying around in the forests or mountains, running into all sorts of dangers and creatures, but she would be back. It was a luxury regular owners of regular pets didn't have, Celestia knew. She could, of course, be caught, or even killed. There were ways for it to happen. But Philomena was a smart bird, one that knew how to avoid such dangerous situations. Perhaps a little too prone to flying close to them for the sake of her own amusement, but Celestia couldn't blame her too much for it. It was weird, actually, to have the kind of relationship ponies usually had with a normal pet with something that might very well outlive her. Celestia never brought up the topic, of course, but she knew she was not destined to stick around for eternity. A fair amount of millenia, perhaps, but one day she'd stop being all the same. She wasn't sure how, she'd never bothered planning it out, but she did know it would happen. Philomena, if she was smart about it, could continue long past that point. Provided she wanted to, of course. But she did, probably, it was a phoenix's nature to live that long and it would have been odd for her to be any different. For Celestia, it was more complicated. A lifespan of millenia was far from common among ponykind, but almost expected out of an alicorn. She had to feel and see time the way regular ponies did. She did wonder, many times, what it would have been like if things had been different. Had she been gifted an altered perception of time through her own nature and not merely a simulation of one refined with time and careful meditation over the matter. Perhaps a phoenix was a pet better suited for a dragon. Those could outlive even her, and she knew some certainly would. The ones that made it through that far, at least. > Who We Are in the Dark > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A pony's dreams are inevitably shaped by their mind, and by their experiences. The events of their life are certainly another source of influence, but they obviously remain filtered through the lenses of the pony's own thoughts and inner self," Luna explained. Rainbow nodded. She was evidently trying to pay attention, but it was clear some level of boredom was there. "I understand, Princess." Carefully, like her entire role as Luna's assistant was at stake, she added, "It does seem somewhat obvious, to me. Not to doubt your knowledge or your teachings or anything." "I am aware," Luna replied. "This introduction does indeed cover quite obvious matters, but I did think it was nevertheless a necessary one. The rest will hopefully be of more interest to you." Rainbow Dash nodded again, unsure of whether she was supposed to be embarrassed or not. "We have been over this before, but it is time we go over it again." Luna cleared her throat, and parted the wall of nebulous darkness beside her with a wing. The space behind was like a starry night sky, but filled with far more stars than Rainbow had ever seen in her life. "Dreams are an expression of a pony's mind, as I was saying." The space behind the curtain got darker as stars began to disappear, one by one, and Luna continued, "Most of the time, with most of the dreams, this amounts to reflections of their daily thoughts. Hopes, worries, sometimes fears. Love, anger, joy, sadness. On occasion, so warped and twisted they're barely readable, more akin to jumbled nonsense." The space had become fully dark, but in the darkness a shape began to move. Like a snake or a worm, slightly deeper blackness against the backdrop of lightless emptiness. "But sometimes, the dream latches onto something deeper." There was a shift in Luna's tone, one that took Rainbow's eyes away from the twisting shape and towards her instead. "There are things in a pony's mind, inside every pony's mind, not meant for the outside world. Things not meant to be seen by anyone, save for occasionally a few deeply trusted individuals. The naked essence of a pony's mind. Their desires, their beliefs, everything they allow themselves to be. Ponies are not simple creatures, deep down." The shape kept convulsing and wrapping around itself, and Rainbow's eyes went back to it. "It is something most ponies don't even realise is there inside them, most of the time. Something that goes unnoticed during their daily lives, almost forgotten. Something even the pony it belongs to only gets in contact with during rare moments. Moments of profound reflection, of great emotional weight, of strong emotions or intense trauma. Moments when a pony truly looks at themself, when the shell of appearances they inhabit is cast off, whether willingly or by force." The curtain came back, hiding the shape behind it. "I'm sure you have experienced this for yourself, as everyone does." Luna looked straight into Rainbow's eyes. "You must understand, you may come in contact with a dream born of this part of a pony's mind. You might see and know things no one was meant to, things not even the pony themself might fully understand or be aware of. It's very important that you understand the meaning of this." > Good Day > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scootaloo!" Sweetie Belle greeted her friend as she saw her walking down the street. "Are you feeling better?" Scootaloo nodded. "Yep. Going to see Apple Bloom?" Sweetie nodded too. "I told her you weren't doing too well, I'm sure she'll be happy to hear you're better today. Did you figure out what it was?" "Not really. But I'm definitely better now," Scootaloo replied. "Did Apple Bloom say anything about Applejack? She said something about her being weird the last time we talked." Sweetie thought about it for a moment. "She did, but she didn't seem to think it was too important. Applejack is probably just nervous about the current situation and everything." "Who isn't?" Scootaloo said. "What about Rarity?" "She's well," Sweetie replied. "A little tired from going back and forth between here and there, but I've seen her get a lot worse when she's working. Are your aunts alright too? Your parents, heard anything from them?" "They wrote a few days ago, they're alright. Same about my aunts. How's Opal?" "She's doing well too. Do we know anyone who isn't doing well?" Scootaloo legitimately thought about it. "I guess not." She shrugged and laughed, and Sweetie laughed too. > Never Meant to Know > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I know you're there, you know?" Twilight said. She didn't actually know if it was the case or not. But if she was right it would make her look good, and if she wasn't no one would know. Still, after a moment, she sighed. She wasn't expecting an answer, even if she turned out to be right. She didn't know what it was that made Harmony so unwilling to talk to her. Whether it was a choice, or there were deeper reasons holding her back. Whether it had to do with the Behemoth's presence or not. She did worry, many times, that its arrival might have caused some lasting damage to Harmony itself, but she hadn't felt anything there. She was fairly certain she would have felt it. And the crystal structure she was in had come out of everything seemingly unscathed. Not even a little crack on the walls, not even a scratch anywhere. It was all perfectly pristine, like the first time she'd walked in there. But Harmony still refused to talk to her. It was unnerving. Not even in a deep and disconcerting way, it was annoying on the most petty of levels. Pass the early years when she didn't know the Tree even existed. Pass most of the time afterwards too, maybe it couldn't do it back then. But at some point it had clearly gained the ability to manifest to others. Even in dreams, apparently. And yet, nothing. "It would have been useful, you know?" Twilight said. It wasn't the first time. "You'd think I'd have been tested enough by this point. You'd think the well being of everyone would be more important than seeing whether or not I can do it without help." She lightly bit her tongue for a bit. "Whether or not we can do it without help." In the back of her head, she acknowledged it as herself switching to bargaining, but on the outside she went, "It doesn't even have to be me! Why not Rarity? Or Pinkie? Or Celestia? Or Starlight? Scootaloo? Why not literally anyone?" She kicked the floor. It hurt her a lot more than she hurt it. "We need all the help we can get and all you're doing is staying silent. Even a little reassurance would be useful, you know?" But the building didn't answer. > Rock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is your family doing alright?" Rainbow asked. Pinkie nodded. "They are. I think they are. I know they were the last time I heard from them but I haven't heard from them in more than hours so something might have happened but I probably shouldn't assume that and if something did happen I would have probably felt it and certainly heard about it unless it was so bad and so big I couldn't hear about it from them in which case I would hear about it from someone else for sure. What about your parents?" "They're doing okay too." Rainbow paused to take a sip of her soup. "Cloud houses haven't been hit as bad by the step so that's not really a concern." Another sip. "Speaking of that, was your family's farm alright?" "Nothing too bad," Pinkie replied. "Rock growth was a little slowed down for a bit, but nothing catastrophic. Maud said there was no long lasting damage, just a bit of a reaction to the shock." "That's good to know," Rainbow said. She looked at her bowl with lazy eyes, then took another sip. "I think I'll go to bed early tonight. I'm a little tired." > Turn The Lights Off > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think you could stop a pony's diaphragm with just magic? Not permanently of course, just temporarily. Just holding it there for a bit." It was a little hard speaking through the hoof against her throat, but she managed to nonetheless. "I believe it could be possible, yes. Certainly not easy, but that shouldn't be a problem for one like you. A little risky too, but with me as a test subject that shouldn't be too big of an issue either." The other clicked her lips. "I wonder what it would feel like. Unable to breathe not because you're stopping yourself, but because your own body isn't moving the way it should. Losing control over yourself like so." "You wouldn't try it on yourself, would you?" That earned her a tighter grip around her neck. Tight enough to stop the blood flow for a few seconds, though it stopped being as tight afterwards. Still tighter than it had been before, though. "I wouldn't," said the other. "You'll have to make sure your report on the matter is sufficiently detailed. I may always give you repeated experiences should you prove to need more." "I don't doubt you would even if I proved otherwise." Talking had gotten a little harder too, but she knew not talking would likely be worse in the long run. Her neck and back were starting to hurt a bit, pinned against the wall like that, but she knew better than to complain about it. "Do you think you could do the same to a pony's heart?" > Writing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I wouldn't say it's quite something that can be taught, or at least I don't think it is," the stallion explained. "Described, probably, maybe even understood. But it's something you need to learn by yourself." Sweetie Belle tilted her head to the side. "I think I get it. It has been feeling a bit easier to do as I've gotten more used to it. How long do you think it will take to get the hang of it fully?" The stallion gave a shrug. "Months, probably. That's how long it took me, and I'm still learning stuff about it. But you're lucky, you have help and ponies actually explaining it to you. I had to figure it all out by myself." Sweetie seemed to deflate a little at the news. "That long?" The stallion nodded. "But the good news is yours doesn't seem that dangerous. A nuisance if it goes out of control, I'm sure, but you're not about to blow up any buildings with it." Sweetie's head tilted again, the opposite way this time. "Did you blow up any buildings?" "Almost," admitted the stallion, a little guilt in his voice. "But it didn't happen. So everything is okay in the end. Well, we're not at the end yet, but you get what I meant." "Huh." Sweetie Belle nodded. "Could you blow something up with it?" The stallion opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "Well, I guess I could? I've never tried to. Never had a reason." > Close Range Startracking > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia was walking down a street. It was a bright summer afternoon, the sky was clear, and she was still learning to enjoy having someone else be in charge of moving the Sun. A light breeze blew from the sea, carrying the smell of saltwater and a few droplets along the way. It was quite refreshing given the weather. She felt it in her hooves first. A light tremor, a vibration in the earth. Too weak and too even to be from anything nearby, and initially she thought it might be an earthquake from somewhere a little farther away. Not an expected occurrence there, but it could always happen. Then it came again, a little stronger. She shivered, and noticed the shadow that had fallen around her and over the whole town. It took one look at the sky to know it wasn't a passing cloud, a second towards Canterlot to realise what was casting it. Another quake came, and it split the road she was standing on. She was in the air in an instant. In the back of her mind, a part of her was screaming about what she'd seen standing over the capital, caught in a whirlwind of questions and speculations over what could be happening. But on the front, she focused on taking care of what mattered there and then. Ponies were already running out of their homes, she made sure none were left behind. She flew in and out of windows, flattened jutting chunks of rock that had emerged from the ground, broke holes into piles of rubble, and guided every creature she could find towards the few safe spots in the town where no harm could come to them. The earth was done shaking long before she was done ensuring no one had gotten hurt. It bothered her not to be investigating what had happened right away, but she knew it would bother her far more if she didn't make sure everyone was well, as well as they could be given the circumstances. One last look at the town, and a spell to ensure none of the buildings would be falling soon. Then her eyes joined those of everyone else in turning towards Canterlot, looking at the great beast that had taken residence there, its massive form barely seen. She could feel something was different. A prickle of electricity running along her coat almost like it was coming from the air itself. In her hooves against the ground, in her feathers, in her horn, a familiar sensation she nevertheless was sure she'd never felt before. And a faint, barely felt hollowness in her core, like something had been cut away. With a deep breath she spread her wings, and took off towards Canterlot. > Justice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I figured out how to get it working." "What?" Indigo lifted her head from her pillow. "What are you talking about?" "You know that thing I needed that wasn't working and still isn't working?" Lemon replied. "I think I figured out a way to get it to work. Maybe." Indigo looked at her. "No, I don't know. Probably because you've been deliberately vague about the whole thing and never even told me why you needed what you needed or even what that thing you needed was." Lemon gave her a sheepish smile and a shrug of her shoulders. "Okay so, basically-" "Lemon I did not ask you to actually explain it," Indigo interrupted her. "There's this website I used for this thing," Lemon went on, deliberately ignoring the other girl's request. "But the website has been down. And I thought I would just wait for it to be up again, but it's not coming back up, so instead I found out there's a way I can get that same thing I need to run on my machine, sort of, and do things there. Maybe. I need to figure out if it'll work, of course." Indigo had returned to keeping her head on her pillow and looking at the ceiling. "Why is it that you're not telling me what this is for, anyway?" she asked, filling the certainly brief pause Lemon had given her. "Because theatrics," Lemon answered. "Aesthetic. Drama." "You are entertaining no one but yourself," Indigo noted, her voice dull and deflated to highlight the point. "I know!" Lemon said loudly. "And it is most entertaining, let me assure you of that, dear." Indigo part sighed, part yawned. "Is it more or less entertaining than getting your privates licked while you lick mine?" she asked. "Because honestly I'm willing to indulge in your bottomless well of horny if it means escaping your shenanigans." "Definitely less," Lemon said. "But I will refuse the offer for now. I need to figure out how this thing works first." Indigo gave a whispered chuckle. Whatever Lemon was working on, it seemed at least she genuinely cared about it. > Weather the Storm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think it'll come this way?" asked Starlight. Tempest looked at the storm raging on the horizon. "Doesn't look like it to me. But I'd still say you should avoid using magic for the time being, it looks close enough to still be problematic." Starlight bit her lower lip. She wasn't happy about it, but she knew Tempest was probably right. "That'll slow work down for today. Twilight could have picked a better spot for this." "There aren't many good spots left," said Tempest. "Not far enough from towns to do what you want to do here. I think you'd prefer the occasional day of reduced work to avoid magic interferences to constantly dealing with seismic movements, geysers, or out of control vegetation." Starlight did think about it for a moment. "I guess you're right. Are things that bad around Equestria?" "I wouldn't say they're bad," Tempest replied. "They're still better off than what the outside world used to be back when I saw it, and most towns didn't get hit too hard. But they're different, that's for sure." She was silent for a bit, just looking at the darkened sky in the distance. "Sometimes adjusting to change is a bigger problem in itself than what the change even brought." Starlight also silently looked at the storm for a while. She could feel it prickling on her horn. "I think you're right about that." > Flare > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, about those-" "No." Stellar Flare pouted. "You didn't even hear what I had to say." Firelight folded his newspaper, took a sip of his coffee, then finally looked at the mare. "I have. A lot of times already, actually. And I haven't changed my mind yet." Stellar Flare rolled her eyes, and sighed. "Heard anything from Starlight lately?" "Not recently," the unicorn replied. "I'm still not sure if she properly understands the concept of letters." He took another sip of coffee. "What about you? Heard anything from Sunburst?" "Not either." Stellar Flare took an unauthorised seat on the empty armchair, and pondered giving an unauthorised taste test to the cookies sitting in the bowl on the little table in front of them. "I'm not sure he understands the concept of staying in contact with your family." "Sounds like someone I knew." Firelight grabbed a book from a nearby bookshelf, one with a bookmark clearly sticking out from the pages. Stellar Flare sighed. "Same." She went for the unauthorised cookie eating as Firelight opened the book, hoping he wouldn't notice. Firelight did notice. He pretended not to. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 11 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Been a while, huh?" Applejack grumpily stared at Pinkie. "Did you have to hold us off for this long?" "No," Pinkie replied. "But I wanted to. Partly to get to the part where it's established I can, partly because there's not really all that much going on right now. And by the way, due to recent developments, we'll be moving to roughly half length episodes. Even shorter, credits and all, and I do think that last part is funny." "We will?" Applejack scratched her head. "Pinkie, I think you're going too far even for me, and it's not helping." Pinkie smiled a very large and rather mischievous smile. "Sorry, but I do have fun with it. What should we do, then?" "You're the one who said there was something to do," Applejack replied. "A couple of things, actually. For one, we could prepare," Pinkie explained. "Prepare for what?" asked Applejack. "Good question." Pinkie shrugged. "We've only had some hints as to what will be coming. I have my ideas, but I can't say for sure they'll turn out to be correct. The other thing we could be doing is..." Pinkie momentarily turned towards the side, eyes wide open and pointing knowingly straight at something. It took a moment, but Applejack understood. The two silently and slowly got up and moved away. They came back a bit later, nodding to each other, and left the place. > Thimble > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How have things been?" Sweetie Belle asked. "At home?" Apple Bloom asked back. "They're not too bad. I've been helping out a bit more since Applejack left, but Mac still does most of the work. It's not too bad." "Have you heard anything from her?" Apple Bloom shrugged, then took a slow sip of her hot cocoa. "Not really. She writes to say she's alright and doing well, but not much besides that. She's never been much of a phone person." Sweetie pulled out her own phone to have a look at the time, and at any incoming messages she might have failed to notice. "How long do you think it'll take for Scootaloo to be here? She's already late." "It's not like her to be too late, I don't think it'll take too much." Apple Bloom drank some more chocolate. "Rarity isn't doing too bad, is she?" Sweetie Belle looked to the side, wishing she could just ignore the question entirely. "She's doesn't look like she's doing too well, but you know how she gets. She's always way more dramatic than you need to be with these things." She could even realistically claim it wasn't a lie, even though it felt like one. Apple Bloom nodded, still sipping her chocolate. The less she asked about it right then the better, as far as Sweetie was concerned. > Closing Time > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I guess you always were a mare of extremes," said Rainbow Dash. Rarity merely produced a few wordless sounds of likely agreement, too busy watering a small plant in its little square patch of dry dirt confined by the tiles of white marble that made up the bulk of the garden's walkable surface. But Rainbow did wonder for a moment if watering was the right term, when the unicorn was doing it with blood instead. She had a look around. Every tree was the same kind as all the others, though some were bigger and some smaller. Smooth grey wood with no bark to cover it, they looked more like they were polished sculptures than living things. Twisted barren branches stretched against the deep green skies like they were trying to claws at them, and roots that bulged from the ground at the base. Yet none extended past its dedicated patch of dirt, none disturbed the delicate order of those marble tiles surrounding them. There were no leaves or flowers on the trees. Something was there, and by the logic of the dream Rainbow reasoned it was their fruit, but it still felt wrong to call it that. Ropes wrapped around the sturdier branches, the other end wrapped around a neck. From every tree, multiple times from the bigger ones, hung faceless, hairless husks in the shape of ponies, their bodies an even dusty white. Some were unicorns, some pegasi, some earth ponies. Some looked like mares, others like stallions. None had any more defining features apart from those, and in their multitudes Rainbow could hardly tell them apart. They hung motionless from the trees, the rope always short enough to make sure they wouldn't touch the ground, and always long enough not to have their head too close to the branch. They looked almost like what Rarity used to display her clothes on in her boutique, and Rainbow did not doubt that may have been the source of their appearance. "Will it grow to be like the others?" she asked, once more drawing Rarity's attention. Rarity set her watering can down, a finely carved crystal thing of quartz and amethyst that sang a vibrant note as it touched the ground. She wiped a little blood from her hoof to her coat. "In time," she answered. "As all things do, after all, my dear. As all things do after all." > Opening > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've thought about it, actually." "What?" asked Sunset. "What you suggested," Twilight replied. "Moving everyone here through the portals. I'm keeping it as a last resort, and I'm not sure it would work out smoothly, but it is a possibility." Sunset went to sit down next to the other girl, watching the Sun set from the side of the hill. "I know what you're thinking." "I wouldn't just be asking them to leave their homes. I'd be depriving them of their magic, and forcing them to adapt to a completely different reality. I'd be forcing foals who haven't even gotten their cuite marks to come here. I'd be forcing some to live without even a memory of Equestria." Twilight bit her lip. "And that's just the ponies. Dragons we might find a different universe for, but if they were to come here and they all went through the same transformation as Spike... And I don't even know what would happen if a changeling came through!" "It's a lot," Sunset agreed. "It's a lot to impose on someone else, even for their own good. I've been here for years and I'm still not fully used to it, and I chose to stay because I had something here. I can't imagine having no choice, and I can't imagine having to make that choice for someone else, even if I was saving them." "If. If it means saving them. If this world is safe." Twilight looked to the ground, biting her lips harder than usual. "I don't have too many hopes of that. You saw what happened with just what the Behemoth has done so far, and now Equestria and this world are even more connected." Sunset slipped an arm around Twilight's shoulders. "I'm sure you'll find a way to fix it. I'm sure we all will. Together." > Post Mortal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How do you think she'll go about choosing them?" "Huh?" "The guards. The subjects. The rest of the ponies she'll send our way to work on." The mare thought about it, watching through the glass window the demonstration taking place in the courtyard below. "The stupid ones, for sure. No amount of raw power is worth giving up a good tactician, not when you can lose anyone else instead. The ones that fucked up at some point, she'll present it like a chance at redemption for them. The ones who have shown they can physically take it. The ones that know too much." "Us. Eventually." The stallion also watched. It was always weird to see the fruits of his labour in action. It did give him a little pride, and as earned as he knew it was it still didn't feel right. "I suppose two more weapons are preferable to two corpses." "It's certainly a good way to go about recycling trash." The mare sighed. "If we ever finish working on this thing, I suppose we will end up like that." She failed to keep a straight face long enough for the other to reply. He started chuckling too. "I'm sure she does have some researchers she doesn't consider expendable. Probably frozen in a pod somewhere." "Hah!" The mare snorted. "I doubt it. Not if what I've read is true, and I'm pretty sure it is." She went serious again. "There's no one she can't get rid of if she really wants to. She doesn't do it all the time I'm sure, but she has her ways of getting whatever she might ever need out of a pony. Permanently." > End Less > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What's the most boring dream you've ever seen?" Luna turned, curious. "Why do you ask?" Rainbow flied a little faster to catch up with the other. "I saw one, yesterday. It was an earth pony called Good Day, a mare. The most plain dream I've ever seen. I didn't even think you could have a dream like that." Luna tilted her head, amused. "What was it about? An endless grey space?" Rainbow shook her head. "No, that would at least have been noteworthy. It was... It was literally just a day. A regular day. Not even a day that would be regular for another pony but not for her. Not anything out of place but hidden somewhere. It was just a day. A normal day. Her normal day. I don't think there was anything to tell it apart from the day she had before or after." "Huh." Luna clicked her tongue, smiling. "Perhaps I should consider paying her a visit myself." Rainbow looked at her, perplexed, and blinked. "Are you making fun of me?" "I'd never," Luna replied. "But I am entertained. And serious, I will consider paying her a visit." "But?" Rainbow lifted an eyebrow. Luna pursed her lips, shifting from one leg to the other. "Her dream doesn't sound like a typical one, but I have seen something similar. But without checking on her directly I cannot tell if her condition is normal or not." Rainbow hummed, not fully convinced, but didn't say anything else on the matter. > Review > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What's the worst thing that could happen?" "That's a great question. I don't think it's one with a great answer. The simple truth is that the possible results are so varied and our knowledge of the situation and events so limited that there is no clear, hard defined limit to what could happen. We could continue to come up with scenarios each more miserable than the last, each just as likely to occur in that we have no concrete way of measuring what is and isn't likely to occur in what we can consider a worst case scenario." "I suppose by that same logic it's equally pointless to try and discern what a best case scenario would be." "Somewhat. It's not too hard to imagine one, say that the situation will simply end and the damage be reverted. But as we've established this is unlikely to happen. Because of this, perhaps it is best to focus on the worst and best outcomes within the cone of probability we consider most likely to present itself." "With how little we know and how many variables are at play, it's quite presumptuous to assume we can estimate this with any kind of credible certainty." "Doubtlessly. Nevertheless, the alternative is acting in complete ignorance. I wouldn't be surprised if the scope of our calculations turned out to be a hundred times off, or even a thousand, but as feeble and weak as our light might be it's still preferable to a shot in the dark. I'd rather trust our only possible lead than act in blindness." "The blame for the consequences of the path we'll follow will rest on the shoulders of the one who chose to lead us down it. Even if you are right that there is no worthwhile alternative, choosing to follow this light will still create hope. If that hope is shattered, you will be seen as the culprit." "If I lead those I've sworn to protect into danger I will accept whatever punishment they choose to impose on me. I will not let them wander alone. My station was always to take the blame for the harm that might come to them. It's what it means to be a leader and a protector, and it's what I chose to be myself." "Admirable of you to say so. But they will need you, even if you fail. Take my advice on the matter. If you feel you have not fulfilled your duty as you should have, save your punishment for safer times. You've said it yourself, in darkness a fallible leader is still better than none at all." "If I don't fulfill my duty, there might never be safer times." "Then you will have your punishment. You may not agree, and neither will they, but I know for you seeing harm come to them would be a punishment sufficient in itself for your failings." "That is not how the world works, nor how I wish it to. I could not set such an example." "You're not a perfect leader. But I do believe you are the best they have. I hope it will be enough." > To Lie Beyond > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What happens when you die?" Luna looked at Rainbow Dash for a moment. "Your organs cease their functioning, and your body not so slowly begins to rot. On the observable side of things, at least. If anything else happens, and I find it reasonable to believe it might, there is nothing certain or known about it beyond the fact that we all will learn what it is, sooner or later. But you are here to learn about dreams, not life and death, so I wonder what the reason is for your question. It might be more fit to ask that to my sister, she had plenty of time to fancy herself a philosopher and a scholar of such matters in my absence." She looked like she was about to say something else too, but stopped herself. Rainbow was looking at the ground below them, as it shifted from a grassy surface to a rocky one to a pool of water. "There's a reason I asked you," she finally admitted. Looking up towards Luna again, she asked, "Have you ever seen a pony's dreams as they died?" Luna was shocked by the question, if only mildly. But even a small shift in her features was a notable thing given her usual composure during her lessons. After a few moments of reflection, she finally chose how to answer the question. "Once, I did. I saw the dream fade as the pony's life did. But time is a complicated matter in dreams, as I have taught you. Whether what I saw happened after, before, or as the pony died, I could not tell." "I understand." Rainbow Dash gave a small nod, one that meant the interruption was over and Luna could continue on with her lesson. The alicorn took another brief pause, studying the pegasus, and then returned to their previous matter of discussion. > The Leviathan swam to Akalop - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Finally going back to this one, huh?" Twilight nodded. "It's almost nostalgic. Remember that time we could have accidentally destroyed the whole castle?" "I have a hard time remembering a day that doesn't fit that description, nowadays," Starlight replied, stepping up to the centre of the lab. "We haven't found another one like this yet, right?" "We have not." Twilight pretended to check her notes for the answer, though she knew Starlight knew she'd memorised all of them. "It'll be interesting. Ready to go for a swim?" "Can you imagine if the portals allowed regular matter to freely pass through?" Starlight looked at the light shining a few metres away. "This whole place would be flooded right now." "This whole place would have burnt down a while ago if that was the case." Twilight looked at Starlight. "I know that expression. Don't ask. Now is not the time to try again to figure out how they do and don't work in terms of what gets through, and you know it." "We'll have to at some point," Starlight replied. "Still. I'm ready for that swim. Are we going up or down?" "Let's say up first." Twilight readied herself, and cast the usual set of spells on Starlight as well. "Any particular reason?" Starlight asked, stepping beside her. "I'm feeling optimistic." Twilight waited to see which one would make the first step. "Maybe we should have asked Novo for some fragments of her pearl, after all." "She's got enough to deal with already, it would have been uncalled for." "It would have helped." Twilight sighed. "Here we go, then." She stepped forward, and crossed the portal for the second time. > The Leviathan swam to Akalop - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Up, you said?" Twilight nodded, as she began to swim upwards through the water. Realising Starlight might not have seen her, she also said, "Yes." Starlight followed close behind. The two were tied to each other with a magic thread for safety reasons, and both of them were similarly tied to the portal itself, but that was no reason not to try to stick close together. "How far away do you think the surface is?" she asked. "Very," answered Twilight. "But it can't be too far. The water pressure isn't all that bad here." "We have no guarantee it's working normally," Starlight noted. "We have no guarantee there even is a surface, for that matter." "We'll try blind teleports if they turn out to be necessary," Twilight said. "For now, let's focus on trying to get there the regular way, and see what we find." "A lot of nothing it seems." Starlight had a look around. "Visibility is surprisingly clear, and it looks like all there is to see is water, water, and more water." "No currents." Twilight frowned. "Or at least I can't feel any. What's the water temperature?" "Do you need the exact measurement, or is knowing it feels like a pleasant bath enough?" "It is enough, actually." Twilight kept swimming upwards, moving her hooves slowly to avoid tiring her legs. "Is gravity acting normally?" Starlight let out a small sphere of light from her horn, and watched it float in the water, going neither up nor down. "Either it isn't, or this isn't regular water." "I'd guess the second." Twilight stretched her neck to look a little higher. "This'll be a boring one, won't it?" "Maybe we should have gone down instead." Starlight looked downwards as she swam upwards behind Twilight. "Though it doesn't really look much better that way." A pulse went off from Twilight's horn, and disappeared into the distance as it spread in the water around them. "No signs of any form of life," she commented. "Expected, but disappointing nonetheless," Starlight said. "That thing could detect a Behemoth, couldn't it?" "Of course it could," said Twilight. "So yeah, we're alone but at least we're safe. You don't have to call them Behemoths, you know?" "I'm not calling them abominations. Whoever came up with that term probably knew less about them than we do." "It's still a more neutral term," Twilight argued. "It's hardly neutral," Starlight replied. "You just picked it because you feel you should honour the deceased." Twilight was silent for a moment. "Maybe. There's nothing wrong with that." "You can't blame yourself for the deaths of worlds that might have ended before you were even born. That's no less nonsensical than thinking you should shoulder the blame for all the crimes in history." "But I can shoulder the blame for all the world's I may fail to save going forward. As I can take the blame for all the crimes committed in Equestria under my leadership, because they are the result of my failure to build a country where the circumstances for something like that to happen wouldn't present themselves." Starlight looked at Twilight, sighing and shaking her head slightly. "No one expects you to build a perfect world, much less save a limitless number of them." "I do," Twilight replied. "That's enough for me to try." > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How are you with synchronised flying?" Rainbow looked at her other self. "You're talking with the future Captain of the Wonderbolts," she said, "what about you?" "You're talking with the former one. Before they were dismantled or eaten." The armourless Dash took off towards the sky. The armed one stuck close to her until they stopped. "So, what do you have in mind?" The other her looked at the sword floating beside them. "Working together." Rainbow looked between the weapon and her other self. "I'm not sure what I hate more. That you're doing the whole understanding each other because we're largely the same pony stitch, or that it's actually working." Without adding anything else, she dashed towards the ground and the creature. She didn't strike at it, merely passing by it to catch its attention and check on Pinkie. Once she confirmed the mare was safe, she darted towards the sky once more, passing by the other pegasus and then going further still as she built up speed. The second Rainbow Dash followed after the first as soon as she passed by her. Both flew upwards, getting faster with each flap of their wings, keeping their speeds the same and their distance constant. After a slight nod of the armoured one's head and tail, something an external observer might have easily missed, they both began to turn back towards the ground, losing as little speed as possible during the maneuver and soon accelerating again as they headed back towards the ground. The one ahead readied her sword right under her hooves, and aimed straight for the creature's torso. She knew she had only a small window of time to do what she had to, but it wasn't anything harder than what she'd done already dozens of times in her life. She just had to hope the other her wouldn't ram into her. Predictably, the monster turned towards them. A few metres and fragments of a second away from crashing right into it, Rainbow turned her trajectory upwards to dodge. Not her sword's. It pierced the creature's skin and caused it to shriek, but didn't go too much deeper than that. Not until the second Rainbow rammed into the hilt at full speed with her hooves, and pushed the blade straight through the nightmare's body and the tip out the other side. It was dead before it got to scream, and all along its length its centipede-like body collapsed onto the ground. "That was cool!" said Pinkie enthusiastically, bouncing over the motionless corpse of the creature who'd tried to kill the three of them as she approached the two Rainbows. "What are we doing next?" "Staying on the border and waiting for Luna, like I've said before." Rainbow's sword vanished. "You've already been put through more danger than you should have." "Come on!" the other Rainbow taunted her. "We've already proved we can deal with these things." "That was a small one, and it gave us more trouble than it ever should have." She stared at her other self almost angrily. "And you don't get to drag anyone else into this. You don't get to endanger someone else's safety. Understood?" > Typhoon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When do you plan to make your move?" "After things have settled," Stella said. "The whole Nightmare Moon world business. I'm sure you'll take care of it just fine, but I want Twilight as relaxed as she can be before I come for her. There's no point in hitting someone when they're low already." "I see," said Starlight. "I'll try to remember that." "You won't." Stella sighed. "We both already know you won't. Stop trying to find ways to tell yourself something and just play along, or I'll have to put an end to our conversations." "Your loss," Starlight replied. "I can afford to go without them just fine. Is the same true for you?" Stella didn't dignify that question with an answer. She just curved her eyebrows and glared at Starlight, taking away her ability to breathe for a bit. Starlight took it surprisingly well, a little smugly even. Once she was eventually allowed to breathe again, just a little before passing out, she still kept her expression. "You can try to pretend you're in charge of the situation all you want, but we both know you can only go so far with me." "I could implant some false memories for whatever bruises I might leave." Stella's composure was faltering a little, a twitch in her right eyelid just barely noticeable. "But you wouldn't. You're too much of a paranoid freak for tha-" Starlight's breath went away again before she could finish the sentence. That just made her more smug. Stella stared at her, her breath trembling slightly. Suddenly she smashed her face against the floor, then pulled her back up. Even through the blood trickling down her nose, Starlight still stared defiantly at the alicorn. Stella forced herself to take deeper breaths, and do nothing else that wasn't fixing the trouble she'd caused. She cleaned away Starlight's blood and fixed her nose, and everything else going on with her face, then she gave the unicorn breath again. "Is this how you treated your mother too?" A magical surge from Stella's horn plunged straight into Starlight's, and the unicorn passed out from the shock. Stella stared at her body, livid, and had to force herself not to do anything else. "Deep breaths," the alicorn began to say to herself. "Just deep breaths." Focusing on doing what she was telling herself to, she also took care of fixing up Starlight's memories. Then she left her on the bed and flew out the window. She knew she needed to get away from there, even if she hated it. > Without Colour > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "More lab equipment?" The grey mare nodded. "Sign this please," she said, holding up a form for Starlight to fill out. "Do I really need to?" Starlight took the included quill in her magic and put her signature on the bottom of the page. "This isn't exactly part of the standard postal service." "Princess Twilight likes to keep everything documented and organised," the pegasus replied as she placed the form back under one of her wings. "Is everything good for me to go?" "That sounds sensible." Starlight had a look at the boxes of stuff sitting beside them. "Yeah, I think we're good here." "Would you like some help bringing things inside?" asked the blonde mare. "That won't be necessary, no. You can go if you want." The pegasus politely nodded, then took a few steps away and slipped out of existence. "Tempest?" Starlight called. "Wanna give me a hoof bringing everything inside?" The unicorn in question, who'd been standing nearby looking at the horizon, turned towards Starlight as she was mentioned. "Yeah, sure. Do I need to be careful with it?" "Yeah, it's probably fragile." Starlight took a couple of boxes in her telekinesis and began to carry them inside. Tempest began to push one beside her. "I'm honestly surprised Twilight didn't label all of them." "I think the fact that they aren't all labelled with the exact contents means she isn't the one actually filling them up and sending them here. She just gave out the orders and the form." "Do you think she's busy with something else?" asked Tempest, leaving her box in the middle of the entrance room and heading outside again. "Always," Starlight replied while following her, "and it's honestly good news that she's delegating some of the less crucial stuff instead of shouldering everything by herself." Once outside, she grabbed two more boxes, while Tempest began to push the last one. "Do you need help sorting things out too?" "Don't worry about it, I'll have someone else take care of that." Starlight had a look towards the distance while walking back in. "Any storms on the horizon today?" "Not that I could see," Tempest replied. "We should be clear tomorrow as well." Starlight set the last boxes down, and began to open them to see what was inside. "That's good news." "It is," Tempest replied, heading back outside. "Let me know if you need help with anything else." "Will do." > Twirl > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've been wondering if you could make a proper rope out of all these wicks," Wick Clip said. "The biggest and most obvious problem is length. I guess you can tie them together, but that's not going to hold too well and it certainly won't be pretty. But actually making a proper rope might be doable if you solved that, weaving them together." "Don't you cut them from a longer thread?" asked the stallion. "Couldn't you make the rope with those?" "Yeah, but that defeats the point," Wick said. "You can make an armour out of swords if you just use the metal to forge one, but that's not really what you'd ask that question for. The idea is to have a rope made with candle wicks, if you're cheating on that you might as well get a real rope." "What do you need the rope for, anyway?" the stallion asked. "That's the point. You don't need the rope. You're making one out of candle wicks for the sake of the aesthetic. That's why it's cheating to make it differently." The stallion tilted his head to the side. "I think I get it now. Why did you come up with it?" "I was thinking," Wick explained. "It was a while ago. I used to think about different things back then than what I think about now. You know how it is, the world starting to end and all." "You don't know for sure the world is ending," the stallion replied. "Mine's beginning, you could even say. It's certainly going differently from how it was before, and it's more dangerous too, but it has its perks. It ought to be the same for you as well." "I suppose you have a point. Different, sure. Not worse." Wick looked far off into the distance for a moment, despite the wall that should have cut the length of her gaze short. "Definitely not worse." She shook her head and focused back on the stallion. "I'm happy I get to hang around with you, at least. Surprising, but you're a lot more alright than I would have thought." "Thank you," the stallion replied, smiling. "You're quite nice too. And your place is a very nice one to be in." "It's not really my place. I don't own it, like you know." The stallion shrugged. "Semantics. You use it and you make it feel distinctly you, it's your place by all means, even if it's not yours." He too looked into the distance, he too acting like he wasn't staring straight into a wall, though his look was more melancholic than the mare's had been. "My place is confined to myself, I suppose. Nowadays especially." "Do you not have a house to go back to?" asked Wick, always curious to learn more about the stallion. "One day. But I've changed much since it first was my house, and I'll change again before I go back. So it has as well and so it will with time." He sighed. "I'm not sure I can call it a home, as things are now. Though I can hope, at least." > Asteroid > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What is the matter, dear?" Rarity asked, frowning. "You haven't even touched your salad. Is everything okay?" Applejack was frowning too. She impaled some of said salad with her fork and forced it into her mouth, mostly to force herself not to answer. Rarity extended one of her hands and took one of Applejack's in hers. "Darling? What is it?" Applejack clenched her hand into a fist on instinct, and Rarity's hand left it. Applejack noticed, and took it back in hers, but then hesitated and let go. She looked to the side, and sighed. "It's... Not right now." Rarity still frowned. "Applejack, dear. You don't need to wait if there's something on your mind. You know you don't need to worry about making my day worse or anything like that, seeing you upset upsets me more than whatever it could be." Applejack sighed again, more softly than before. "Not right now," she repeated. She turned to look at Rarity, and added, "Please. We need to talk, but now is not the time." Rarity stared back, indecisive, biting her lower lip for a moment. In the end she smiled. "It's alright." Applejack smiled too. It looked tired, but genuine. She stabbed some more salad, and went back to eating. Rarity just watched her, tilting her head to the side and smiling. She wasn't quite in daydreaming territory, but she was certainly in that general direction. Applejack noticed it, and threw a few side glances in her direction while focusing on her meal. She knew her expression was showing some cracks, but she knew Rarity was too caught up in admiring her to actually notice, right then at least. It hurt a little, but seeing Rarity happy still made her happy. And she was alright with making her happy a little longer, because she knew it would hurt a lot more than a little when they finally got to the talking. She'd meant to find a better time for it, or maybe she was just making excuses to never get to it until it was inevitable. Rarity had finally noticed and asked, and she knew it would not have been fair to shrug it off and push it further. Neither did she have it in her to do so in the first place. So in the end the inevitable had come, she supposed. Now all that was left was the talking. > Late Not > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There you are. Is everything alright?" Sunny asked, welcoming Lemon Zest and Indigo into her home. "Yeah," said Indigo. "Just a little frazzled, we had to run to catch the train because someone didn't wake up on time." Lemon did not reply to that. Lemon wasn't in the entrance portion of the house anymore. Sunny turned and saw her in the kitchen already, digging into a bowl of sweets that she swore hadn't been there before, yet was clearly too big to have fit into Lemon's backpack. "Are the others here yet?" asked Indigo, taking off her own bag from her shoulders and opening it to look inside. "Sour should be here in a bit, Applejack is arriving a little after that, closer to lunch. You two got here in time to help me finish up the preparations." "What, you didn't have someone paid to do it all already while you slept?" Indigo teased her. Sunny didn't reply, instead suddenly heading towards the kitchen. "At least wait until the others are here!" she yelled towards Lemon, who was chugging down a full bottle of orangeade like a dry sponge sucking up water. Indigo shook her head and chuckled, and began to follow Sunny. > Twice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Why does a pony choose to defend others? Why does one do anything, really?" Paper looked somewhere forward, upwards, and slightly to the side. Shining guessed it was the corner where the wall and ceiling met that he was staring at, but he couldn't be sure. Much like he wasn't sure it had been a good idea to have the stallion out for a drink. Then again, he didn't exactly have a way to get rid of him. And he couldn't have guessed he'd turn out like that after just half a beer. "Because they feel like it?" he tried, hoping that if he kept him talking he'd spare him from downing the remaining half of his drink. "Exactly!" Much to Shining's worry, Paper chugged the rest of his beer in a single go. "Such fascinating things, sapient creatures. And all because they can question their own actions. Would you not agree?" Shining had to admit though, while the guard certainly felt like the typical case of a pony getting far too prone to rambling when inebriated, there was something there in what he said. Scattered in its presentation and confused in its execution, but he wasn't spouting nonsense. "I would," he said, and he wasn't lying. Cadence was definitely the one more inclined to debate philosophy and such matters, but she'd rubbed off on him in some part over time. Paper smiled, far too widely to look normal. Then he sighed. "Forgive me if I get my kicks so, I'm sure I put a great deal of undeserved worry on you. Know that I strive only to ensure no harm comes to your family." He looked past the counter, wobbling back and forth. "We should take a walk," he said. "It would be nice, I'm sure." He was up before Shining could reply, out of the bar before Shining could realise it. And the unicorn found himself forced to pay, then rushing after him. > Writing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think you'll find an answer if you stare at the wall hard enough?" Sunburst tilted his head to the side, without looking away from the wall in front of him. "Yes." Trixie pursed her lips, taking a couple of steps forward until she was beside the bed the stallion was sat on. "Do you think you'll find it fast enough?" That actually made Sunburst pause, and he tilted his head in the other direction. "That may be not. Right." "And will you just take the chance?" Trixie asked. Sunburst was silent for a bit. He blinked a few times, and still said nothing. > Are you there? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think we could have been friends." "Huh?" Wick looked towards the stallion. "Me and Stella," he explained. "Under different circumstances. If she'd been a little different. I really think we could have, and I would have enjoyed it." "What's she like?" Wick asked, not moving from her spot behind the counter but focusing more on the stallion than on the door. "Smart," he replied. "Kind of purple. Ruthless. Without a real direction in life." Wick Clip hummed to herself, idly playing with some spare bits. "Why is it that she wants you dead, again?" "Because I can see her," the stallion explained. "I think she doesn't like being seen. Not like that." "Like what?" The stallion paused, tilting his head as he thought about it. "Like she sees herself," he finally replied. "Or better than she sees herself. She can't stand it, either way." Wick half smiled, half pursed her lips. "Do you think you see me better than I see myself, too?" "It is really hard to get a good look at oneself, from inside. You can see things those outside can't, but you miss the bigger picture. You see the gears turning but not the thing they animate." The stallion shrugged. "Personally I think it's best to see both. But doing that usually requires one to listen to what others might have to say about them, and that's not always something you want to do." "I suppose not," Wick replied. "But some ponies have a point there." > Carve > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is this all?" Twilight asked. Starlight nodded. "Yes, it should be everything." Twilight looked over the bundle of notes once more. It wasn't as big as she'd hoped it would be, but there was nothing to be done about it. "Thank you." She had a look around the room. "And about the other thing?" "Right." Starlight took out a smaller folder, and put it on the desk next to the bigger one. "There you go." Rainbow watched from behind a wall, seeing through it like it wasn't there. She felt she wasn't supposed to interrupt. She felt like she wasn't exactly supposed to be there, either, and yet she wasn't sure. There was something about the dream, a nervousness visible in it from outside. She was supposed to help with that kind of thing. She just wasn't sure it was right to see what she was seeing. > 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It will all be gone by tomorrow. The castle, the island, the bridge, all of it. Shattered into diamond dust and soap bubbles, then notes, then nothing. It's how I've built it." Starshine looked to the horizon as the Sun set, and cast its rays through the castle of crystal and silver on the floating isle of obsidian anchored to Ponyville by a bridge of gold and ivory. "Why?" Sunburst asked, his attention split between her and the sunset. He didn't want to look away, afraid she'd be gone as well by the time he looked again. "Because it's not up to me to decide," she said. Her tone was as serene as her expression, her breathing deep and calm. "But I wanted something beautiful to show, for a little while. Not forever." "But why not?" he asked again. Starshine turned towards Sunburst, and she looked at him the same way she'd been looking at the sunset. "Do I have the right to?" she simply asked. "I have the power to. But do I have the right?" Sunburst stared back, fully focused on her now. "How can I answer that any better than you?" "You can't. But you can give your own answer. Then we'll have two of them, and maybe we can build something greater with lots of imperfect things together." She smiled. "What would you do if you could remake the world?" "I wouldn't really be remaking it," Sunburst replied. "It would be a copy. I'd be running away and abandoning the old one. It's cheating, and a little cowardly perhaps, or a very megalomaniacal thing to do. It wouldn't be helping the world here." "What if the only way to solve everything is to start clean? What if this world is tainted at the root and you can't fix it?" "I'll never know for sure if I run away. I choose to have hope." Starshine again looked at the horizon, and at all that was between it and them. "What will you do, then? If you don't wish to be a god, you can't act like one. You see why I did this the way I did, I'm sure." "You're afraid," Sunburst said, but he wasn't answering the question or Starshine's other words. "You're more than you were meant to be, and can do more than it was meant to be able to. But you shouldn't be asking your questions to me, my answers aren't yours." "They're not. But if I only listen to myself, I'm no different from someone who chooses to abandon this world for their own creation." "You'll have to choose, one day." "And I wish to make the right choice, when that day comes." Starshine sat a little straighter, still smiling, still breathing calmly. "What do you wish for, Sunburst?" Smiling, he too looked towards the horizon, as the Sun fully sunk beyond it and the sky turned from red to blue. "I'm not sure yet. But I'm getting there, I know that much. I'll make my choice too one day." > Genesis > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've seen a lot of different worlds at this point, and more than a few noteworthy things if we're using what a pony normally would as the frame of reference. I've seen things any normal citizen of this country would find terrifying. I've seen rivers of fire, glaciers filling the sky, and mountains of corpses walking the earth as one mind. I've seen worlds consumed, torn apart at the seams, times and spaces where the laws of the universe have fallen apart. I've seen rains of blood turn to a hailstorm of skulls, and temples of ivory filled with the echoing laughter of mad angels. Yet, I was never afraid. I wouldn't say I was, at least." The unicorn stopped looking at the distance, and turned to Twilight. He continued, "All those worlds were lost. Hopeless, and I knew as much the moment I stepped in them. Nothing more to lose, nothing left to save. I saw myself much the same way. A leftover from a dead world, without a place to go back to, without one to go to. I wandered the universes out of curiosity more than out of hope, and I never really found myself frightened at the thought of danger. I had nothing to live for but my drive to see what other destruction was out there. Now it's different." "Why won't you stay?" Twilight asked, not for the first time. Again, she didn't get an answer. "I didn't think I'd get to fear again. I didn't think I'd get to find something to care for again. Yet here we are. A world that's not destroyed yet, and lives I can still help. And now that I have something, I again know what it's like to fear losing it. To fear harm may come to it." He looked away again. "I will help you with what's to come. I have nothing else." "Why are you telling this to me now?" asked Twilight. "And why won't you stay here? Not even just for one night?" "To be remembered," the unicorn said. "I'm no longer the last living creature in the worlds. Danger approaches, and I won't run away from it. For the first time in a long, long while, I don't only risk losing something. I risk being lost. I've carried the memories of my world and all those I've seen. I want someone to carry mine, if I am to be outlived." He looked down, and exhaled sharply, almost a sigh. "It's selfish. A little pathetic. I'm only letting you carry an image of me I've helped craft and polish." "That's what everyone does," Twilight replied, stepping closer. "It doesn't make you worse than anyone else." "I should write it all down," the unicorn said. "All the memories of mine worth being carried. There are things out there no one else will ever see. I think it would be right to ensure they are preserved beyond me." He looked to Twilight again. "That of loss isn't the only fear a living world brings me. I may stay here for longer, but my nights I'll keep for myself. I can choose which of my memories I share, I cannot do the same with my dreams." > Placeholder > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thorn > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and grunted, but stayed put and didn't dash off deeper into the forest. Seeing this, the other Rainbow Dash began to head towards where they'd come from. Pinkie followed behind her, and after a groan Rainbow did too. They were soon back on the path they'd left, again alert for any other signs of anything else. Not long after they'd started walking again, mere seconds in fact, Pinkie tensed up after a hop. "Does anypony else hear something?" The two Rainbows, with exactly opposite degrees of nervousness and happiness displayed by their expressions at the prospect, both stopped to listen more carefully. A sound of something moving through leaves and branches came from inside the forest, slightly behind them. They all turned. One Rainbow called upon her sword, the other flew at the head of the group, ready to rush towards whatever might be coming towards them. It emerged a few seconds later. They did not react to it the way they'd have expected to. "Princess!" The Rainbow farther away from her rushed forward and up to her, where she respectfully bowed her head. "Pinkie Pie arrived here through her dream, somehow," she explained at Luna's silent but questioning expression. "The other Rainbow is from there as well. We fought a nightmare along the way, it proved tougher than normal. Your sword bounced back at first." "Princess!" Said the other Rainbow just a moment later. "I'm from the future! You need to help me get out of here, I need to warn Twilight of what's going to happen before it's too late! This is my one chance to save Equestria!" "Princess!" said Pinkie Pie. "It's nice to see you." "I have noticed creatures in this forest growing stronger as well. I shall look into it more, and I shall investigate the potential connections between this dreamspace and other ponies' dreams as soon as I can. I am glad you are all safe," Luna said formally to the first Rainbow. "I shall see to that in a moment," she briefly addressed the second. Then smiling she looked at Pinkie Pie. "It is nice to see you as well." The armed Rainbow bowed her head again. "I will give a full report later, Princess." Luna had already stepped past her, busy checking on Pinkie. Once she'd determined there was nothing wrong with her, she turned back to the other Dash, impatiently buzzing her wings in midair. "This is most peculiar," she said, moving closer to her. > Voice of the Souls > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's still there." Luna didn't look towards Rainbow, but she could pretend it was for the sake of checking on the sea and making sure nothing was coming towards them. "And it's Fluttershy's dream," the pegasus added. "And you didn't tell me anything." She kicked the wooden surface of the boat at Luna's continued lack of attention towards her, to little results. "You lied to me!" she pushed out, a little louder. She didn't fully believe it, but she just wanted the alicorn to say something. "It shouldn't be a surprise by now," Luna replied, still not looking at Rainbow Dash. "It's what dreams are. Lies. Illusions. Deception. And yet they're built from and spun out of truth and reality, and help us understand it. You can move through my realms, but you should remember you don't control them." Rainbow stayed silent. She'd learned what pauses meant Luna wasn't done speaking yet, and was instead just testing for an immediate reply. "How do you know you're not dreaming right now? Or ever? How do you know any one of our lessons wasn't a dream I built for you you've merely convinced yourself you had control over?" Luna looked up at the sky for a moment. It was empty. "You could still be tricked. More easily than you think, precisely because you're not like others." "None of this is about Fluttershy," Rainbow said. "And an omission isn't technically a lie. I've heard that come up often in Twilight's dreams, I should check on the source of it. With your permission." "Granted," Luna said. She was back to looking at the sea, but it was still as flat and unmoving, just as black and lifeless as the sky. "What Fluttershy is doing, she is doing entirely out of her own will. Against my own desires, I might add, though seeing that she's free to make her own choice is more important than what I might think. I will intervene, if things get critical again, and I will go against her requests if the alternative is losing her. I trust you trust me on such matters." "Why didn't you say anything?" asked Rainbow. "Because it was a dangerous matter," Luna replied. "Delicate, complicated even for me, I was not sure what I would find and-" "I would have acted far too rashly, yes," Rainbow interrupted her. "I wouldn't have been able to judge things clearly given a friend was involved, and I would have risked putting her in danger. That's not what I'm asking. When things got better, after you helped resolve them, why didn't you tell me anything? Why did you keep her hidden from me?" Luna, again, refused to turn to look at Rainbow. But she didn't answer immediately. She stayed silent, for a few long seconds, as silent as the motionless sea around them. "I won't explain to you what the situation is yet. And I will keep her dreams away from you again." "Why?" "Because I value her life more than her decisions. I can't be sure the same is true for you." > Vi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Does she have to send us?" Soarin' lamented, eating his lunch while rain poured down outside the shelter they'd found. "She has faster ways to get this to the laboratory than us." "You can't force that poor mare to do all the work," Lightning replied. "And if you could we'd be out of a job. Besides, if the princess sent us the long way she must have her reasons." She eyed the bag they were supposed to be carrying, resting in a corner. "Do you think it's something dangerous?" Soarin' asked. "It's always something dangerous, I shouldn't have to remind you of where it came from," Lightning said. "But I don't think it's immediately dangerous. It's not gonna blow up in our faces or anything. It's stable. I think the issue is that she's not sure it would be stable if she sent it the other way." "I guess that makes sense." Soarin' ate some more in silence. "They day she told us she'd started sending packages the fast way I really thought we would be out of a job. It's good that we're still useful for something." "That's why you came to her in the first place, isn't it?" asked Lightning. "To be useful." "It is," he replied. "And you? You never told me exactly why you decided to tag along." "And I'm not going to tell you now, either." The storm outside gave no signs of slowing down, and Lightning began to eat her own lunch. "I'm helping you and I'm helping Equestria, and I'm not hurting anyone. That's all you need to care about." Soarin' looked at her, then shook his head. He knew he wasn't going to get more out of her right then, not even pointing out the obvious, so he just focused on finishing his lunch, occasionally throwing a glance at the bag in the corner. > T0VCH > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Whatever it was, it looks like something else took care of it," Rose commented. "Probably an ursa. No idea what this thing actually was though, so we'll have to do some research on that I guess." "That won't be necessary," Twilight replied, in a tone that made it clear it was an imposition more than a favour. Rose looked at her. "Do you already know?" "I have my ideas," Twilight said. She had more than just that, but there was no need for the other mare to know about it. Not yet at least. Rose knew she probably wouldn't get much out of Twilight, not without the risk of souring their relationship at least. Considering she cared about keeping her job, she decided not to press further right then. "Can I ask something? I've always been meaning to, but I never found the time." Twilight quirked an eyebrow. In truth, she was somewhat relieved to have something to take her attention off of what was in front of them. Part because a new attempt so close to Ponyville was scary, part because she didn't particularly enjoy looking at a corpse, much less less than half of one. "Sure, what is it?" "When this is all over, can I keep my scale?" Rose asked. As she waited for her answer, she began to pack up her things. Twilight thought about it for a moment. "If nothing comes up, then sure." She conveniently chose not to mention how that scale was no longer in her possession at that moment. "Are you sure you want a reminder of all this, though?" Rose finished packing up everything in her bag. "Yeah. If we make it through then yeah." She had a look around. "I assume you'll send someone to clean up. Do you remember the way or will I need to walk them here?" "No need, I'll take care of it myself now. I wouldn't want this to get contaminated further," Twilight said. It was the truth, but she was also staying to look for the arrival point. She was glad Rose hadn't run into that, or explaining things would have been a lot more complicated, but that still meant she had to find it. Rose looked at her for a bit, seemingly thinking about something. "Alright then." She turned and began to walk away. "I'll tell the others you'll be late." "Thanks!" Twilight shouted as the mare disappeared into the trees. > Sea > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alone. Untethered. Distant from anything else. It was a strange experience to see her own dream like an observer. An enlightening one, in a certain way, but still certainly a weird one. She was accustomed to seeing her own self in the dream world, what she was not used to was knowing that it was the real one she was seeing. As real as one could be in a dream, at least. That, too, was an enlightening part of the experience. The inherent separation between the form one took within their own dream and the dreamer itself. On some level she'd always known about it, it made perfect sense when thinking things over, but she'd never fully realised exactly what it entailed. Did Luna feel that distinction all the time? Did she see things both as herself in the dream and as her conscious self observing the dream? No. Luna was different still. Her form in the dream was one with her conscious self, a difference in form was at best weaved by her or by the dream she inhabited. She walked dreams almost physically. As physically as one could with a dream, at least. Rainbow wondered if she'd ever get there. Or if she'd ever get back to where she was before her more recent revelations. She was pretty sure she could pull the latter off. Switch between the two levels of awareness, with enough practise, and she suspected that would be pretty useful. Or pretty cool, at least. But she doubted she'd ever get to do what Luna did, rather strongly so. She only had a small, tiny, loaned fragment of the alicorn's powers. Beyond the simple limitations of skills and power, she wasn't sure it would even be possible for her to replicate what Luna was doing with what she'd been given. She could always ask, though, she supposed. Before that, she could try to test out what she'd hypothesised. Though she wasn't completely sure it would work right then. She feared she may remain caught up in her own dream, if she slipped into it. Experimenting while out in the space between dreams seemed more likely to succeed, she'd be starting out from the other state there rather than sliding into it. Her only other alternative was watching her own dream play out, then. Her body slowly drifting in the water, with nothing in sight for as far as the eye could see. She knew it could all change in the blink of an eye, but she felt it wouldn't. It wasn't that kind of dream. Instead she'd just drift along, going nowhere, looking at a sky that would just refuse to change. Not exactly an entertaining thing to watch, all things considered. Would she rather live it through, though? She thought about it. She thought about it seriously, and she realised she would. Even if she might not know it was a dream while experiencing it. It was a strange thing, but interesting too. And maybe she'd missed the simple act of dreaming, undisturbed. > ov M4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've found a new world. It's quite a fascinating one, I thought you might be interested in hearing about it." "What's it like?" Twilight asked as she looked over the small folder of notes the stallion had given her. His writing was a little scratchy, but not impossible to decipher. The nearly nonexistent order in which he took his notes was a little more problematic, but she'd learned to work around that too. Of course she could have just waited for him to properly compile everything, but she liked having direct access to his observations. "It seems to have been consumed by some sort of machine-like entity," he explained. "Large interconnected constructs of gears and engines and mechanical parts have grown over everything like a fungus. Some of them have formed into towers. It's all working, but it's not working towards anything evident. Just spinning and whirring along for the sake of it." "You sound more like you're telling a story than giving a detailed report," Twilight noted while turning a page. "You made sure it's not infecting living tissue, I hope." "It's just been a while since I've had a chance to actually tell someone something, I've missed it," the unicorn replied. "And I did. It's not spreading to anything living at the moment, not to me at least." "What if it spreads through spores, and you have tiny gears growing in your lungs right now?" Twilight turned another page. "If it can pass through your filter spells without even making its presence known to them then all we can do is hope you never end up there," he said. "But I will make sure to self isolate for a while, and write to you if I start to cough up cogwheels." Twilight closed the folder and placed it under a wing. "And here I thought you'd left your sense of humour in one of the worlds you've been through." "I just didn't have much use for it while I was alone," the stallion replied. "I didn't have much of a reason to laugh either." "I... can't imagine what it was like. But I can vividly imagine something a lot less bad than what you went through, and I know how much I would hate it. So I can guess how bad it might have been for you, somewhat." "At a certain point you go numb to it," said the unicorn. "There's only room for so much despair in a pony's mind, once your everything falls apart there's not much else that everything else falling apart too does to you. You can scrape the bottom, but you don't go much deeper." "It's still not a good thing," Twilight replied. "Especially in the long term. Other ponies at least have something to go back to. Something to rebuild from." "You have a point there." The stallion rolled his shoulders and spun his neck, trying to work the tension off. "It's all in the past now though. It's been there for a while." > Elven > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You have visions, in your sleep, do you not? On occasion at least." Celestia did not answer immediately. And not just because of the physical discomfort the harness she was hanging from gave her. "I do," she finally admitted, and by the tone in which she did she seemed to be expecting some kind of long and likely painful lecture or discussion about the matter. It did not come, though the look in Twilight's eyes made it very clear that it would, eventually. Instead, the younger alicorn asked, "How do you tell one apart from a dream?" That caught Celestia by surprise. Enough so that she spoke with no more discomfort, but genuine and almost motherly concern, as she asked, "Why?" "I saw something, yesterday night," said Twilight. "It's part of the reason I called you here, this discussion. A lone unicorn in a house, somewhere in the woods, not like any place I've seen in Equestria. There was something wrong with her, I could feel it, but I couldn't place what it was. And she felt... distant." Twilight looked straight at Celestia. "Not physically distant. It's not something I've ever experienced before, but she felt distant on a temporal level. But dreams can be weird like that, I can't tell if I'm putting too much weight on something that shouldn't have it." Celestia swallowed. "Did you ask Luna about the matter? You should-" "The morning after," Twilight replied. "It was the first thing I did, and the second was write down the most detailed description of what I'd seen I could muster, so it wouldn't be lost as I forgot. By the time I was done, she'd answered." She began to pace around Celestia's suspended body. "She said she hadn't been patrolling anywhere close to my dreams, that night, and there was no checking anymore. So I came to you." She stopped behind Celestia, where she could not be seen. Celestia forced herself to slow her breathing. "I would like to look over your notes later. I could find something more useful in them, perhaps some signs you haven't noticed." She swallowed again. "You can develop a feeling for what is and isn't a vision, but it takes time and experience. However, if this was as far in the future as you felt it was, there may simply be nothing to do. Nothing but wait, at least." "I see," Twilight said, her tone going cold. "Well, then. Shall we begin?" > Shot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've always wondered what happened to me and you in those worlds I accidentally created," Starlight said, turning her teaspoon in her chocolate mug. "I'm not sure we were even there," Twilight replied. "I'm not sure they were full realities, not when I saw them at least. More like possibilities, not fully realised yet. Zecora said something about it when I met her in one of them." "But they still ought to have had a Twilight and a Starlight," Starlight argued, taking a sip from her mug. "Maybe us being the centre of the spell meant they didn't immediately. The map was always there, and I was there with it," Twilight replied. "So maybe I was the only Twilight there. Since neither of us was supposed to exist as we do in a different reality, maybe I would have been erased away in time." "Hmm." Starlight pursed her lips. "Maybe I didn't create worlds. Maybe what you saw were reflections of other worlds that do exist, somewhere out there. Or that could exist. But you only walked through a reflection of them." Twilight pursed her lips too, thinking for a bit. In the end she sighed. "This is why time travel spells are banned." Starlight nodded, and sipped some more chocolate. > Salt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset softly sat onto the bed, and leaned forward to check if Twilight was still awake or not. "Are you okay?" she asked, finding she had yet to fall asleep. "Not really," Twilight replied. "But it's nothing a good night of rest can't fix. I'm just... drained is how I'd put it, I guess." "You've been working all day long." Sunset lay down and draped an arm over Twilight's body. "You deserve some sleep." "It feels like I'm missing something," Twilight said, leaning back into Sunset's body. "Everything was working out right with the model, and now I've suddenly hit a snag. It feels like I skipped over a step somewhere along the way and suddenly I'm not on the right path anymore." "Whatever it is, you won't manage to find out without a clear head," Sunset said, more quietly as she was speaking almost directly to Twilight's ear. "I can try to help you with it tomorrow." "I don't want the other Twilight to get involved," Twilight said. It was clear from her tone that she was starting to fall asleep. "I know she'll want to help if you bring this up with her. She's got enough on her plate already, I don't want to bother her." "I'll make sure not to bring it up with her, if we don't have to," Sunset replied. With her free hand she began to run her fingers through Twilight's hair. Twilight seemed like she wanted to say something. But after staying open for a couple of seconds, her mouth only let out a yawn. Sunset kept holding her, and soon she could feel the rumbling of Twilight's chest against hers as the girl began to snore lightly. > Factory > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So, you and Indigo... You're-" "Yeah, we're together." Lemon took her unlit cigarette between her fingers to reply. She had a look around. "Maybe we should head back inside. It's kinda cold out here." "I don't mind it," Applejack replied. "I'm used to it being colder back home, anyway. But if you'd rather go in then sure, I don't need to stay out or anything." Lemon thought about it. "Eh. It's fine for a bit." She put the cigarette back between her lips. Applejack looked at her, then looked back towards the city lights, silent. Eventually, Lemon grabbed the cigarette in her fingers again. "Truth or dare," she said. Applejack chuckled. "Can't go longer than a minute without something to do, huh? Truth." Lemon looked weirdly deflated. "I was actually planning to come up with a question while I struggled to convince you to agree. I didn't take you for someone who'd say yes right away." "It's better than sitting alone with my thoughts," Applejack replied. Lemon pursed her lips. "Forcing you to answer something won't help with that. Tell you what, we'll just say you owe me one for when you're feeling better, alright?" Applejack threw a side glance at Lemon. "Eh. Sure, why not. What else do you have in mind?" "Truth," Lemon replied. "Go ahead and ask." "No one ever picks dare, huh?" Applejack thought about it for a moment. "You know Rainbow Dash? That's not the question, by the way." "A little," Lemon replied. "Mostly from the Games and things I've heard, and the band. The actual question?" "Would you pick her over Indigo?" Applejack asked. > DD66 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra watched the city below them from the balcony. "I could tell you a story. If you want to hear it, of course." The mare shrugged. "I don't see why not. What's it about?" "A stallion. A dead stallion, to be precise." Sombra turned and walked back inside. "The story starts as he dies. And as he dies, he gets to meet Death, there to take his soul away." "Always with the fun kind of story, you, huh?" The mare just barely rolled her eyes. Sombra ignored her. "But he stops Death. He says that he's done his research, his studying, and he knows of a way to get back his life. That he can make a deal with Death, play a game, and if he wins he'll go back to living." "We'd lose a lot less soldiers if it was that easy." The mare took a sip from her crystal mug. "Or perhaps Death is simply that good of a player. But back to our story. Death agrees," Sombra continued. "And so they start their game of chess." "How creative." The mare's tone was surprisingly dry for someone who'd just been drinking, but just as sharp as the dagger at her side. Sombra, again, ignored her. "But there's a price to pay for the game," he continued. "And when the stallion loses the first one of his major pieces, the first one that's not a pawn, Death asks a simple question. Death asks who that piece was, out of the friends and family and relatives and acquaintances the stallion held dear in life. And once the stallion chooses, Death takes that pony's life." The mare drank some more, almost emptying the glass. "A pretty pointless loss if he doesn't win. Maybe that's the point. I don't think any of our guards are stupid enough to try that." "The game continues. The stallion loses more pieces. His friends, his business partners, his wife, all taken away. And then, when he's about to lose the game, he..." Sombra paused, and pursued his lips, then he sighed. "I didn't tell that nearly well enough. I'd rather not give the ending away, it deserves more care taken to build it up. We'll leave it for another time, maybe another narrator." The mare stared at him, her expression more resigned than anything. "Remind me to say no, the next time you ask to tell a story." "I won't." Sombra chuckled, then broke into laughter, while the mare just stared at him. > Shovel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Where did you go during yesterday's break? Don't think I didn't notice," the mare hissed over her mug of cold coffee. The stallion looked around carefully, as if someone could possibly be hiding in the laboratory with them. "I had to get some information. I talked with some of the guards outside." "Do you know how dangerous that is?" the mare asked in the whispered equivalent of yelling. "I don't want you dying on me, and I don't want a damn replacement. I know how much I lucked out on you." She leaned back and drank some of her coffee, wincing at the taste. "If you want to do something stupid we're doing it together, and we're dying together if it goes wrong." "Says the one who snuck into the archives alone," the stallion replied. He grabbed a slice of slightly stale crustless bread from the table and put the whole thing in his mouth. To be fair, it was a small enough slice. "Yes," the mare replied. "I sincerely doubt I'll give a shit about loneliness or the quality of company I get once I'm dead. But don't you dare make my life worse." The stallion almost wanted to be somewhat angry at that, but all he managed was a chuckle. "Alright then. I'll make sure to tell them about your own escapades if I ever get caught." The mare rolled her eyes as she finished her coffee. "What information did you want?" "The guard we did the test on," he replied. "He came from up north. He was carrying a message, for Her Eyes only. I asked around a little more, and they're doing some research up there, different kind from what we're doing here." "Was it worth risking your life for?" asked the mare. "I didn't think you cared that much where the ponies we work on come from." "It's not about that." The stallion grabbed another slice of bread. This time it was nervousness and not hunger, and he chewed through it faster than he should have. "Why now, all of this?" The mare shrugged. "Because she can?" "She could have started this two hundred years ago at minimum. You know how stagnant research was in this field, and she's never lacked meat to put on the operating table. Something is happening now that's making her speed things up on this front." The mare looked down into her empty mug. "There's only one thing you need weapons like these for, I just don't wanna think about who she's going after now." She set the mug down, the clack of it against the table betraying her nervousness. "You don't think she's crazy enough to try conquering the whole Dragonlands, right?" "Crazy enough to send thousands to die to put a flag in the middle of a wasteland of heat and volcanoes just to stroke her ego? Of course she is. But she would have done it already if she wanted to, and she'd be preparing properly if she'd decided to now. Whatever she needs this stuff for, she wants it out and ready quick." "There's no one crazy or interested enough to attack us that's strong enough to be a threat," the mare considered. "What the fuck is she afraid of?" "Do you want to ask her? Maybe that way you'll find out directly when she sends us there." "At this point? It might be better than the alternatives." > Stampede > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack paced back and forth in her room. Did she have a reason not to tell Twilight about the situation? Not at that point, no. Did she have a reason to tell her about it? At that point, probably yes. Maybe she should have known better. Or maybe not. It hadn't seemed like anything too noteworthy back then. It still didn't seem like anything particularly important. But was starting to feel it wasn't right. Or maybe she was just worrying about nothing. Sweetie Belle had had it worse than her after the step, and Twilight had more than enough to deal with already. But it couldn't hurt to get herself checked, all things considered. Maybe wait a few more days. It didn't feel like it was getting worse. If anything it was getting better, and it might pass fully. It had probably been a dumb idea not to bring it up when it was bad, but that was in the past. No use dwelling on it too much. And if it came up again she'd definitely tell Twilight all about it. Or maybe not Twilight. Maybe she'd go to a doctor first, or to Starlight. If Starlight was around, of course. It was probably just a regular fever, messed up by the Behemoth. But that was probably worth bringing up to the researchers. Maybe not right then though, she had a busy schedule and she was already feeling better. They wouldn't find anything looking at her. That was probably it then. And she'd already spent enough time thinking about it when she had things to do. > Somebody > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sometimes I wonder how differently things might have gone," Twilight said, "that night, or I suppose it was supposed to be day at that point, when you came back." "I've thought about it too," Luna said. "Perhaps we could confront our ideas. I don't believe I can tell for certain what I might have done as Nightmare Moon, but I do remain the best source on the topic." "I think it all depends on when things diverge," Twilight said. "Let's say it mostly goes the same, except for the part where we use the Elements. Maybe something happened and the others aren't there, maybe the spark just doesn't go off. What next?" "Well, Nightmare Moon wins, then," Luna said. "The only thing capable of defeating her is gone, she goes ahead and marches victorious into Canterlot to force the country into submission. What about you? Do you keep fighting back?" "I'm not sure," Twilight replied. "I remember how I ended up with Discord, and that was after all the learning about friendship I'd done in Ponyville. If I saw the Elements fully destroyed... I would feel like I failed. Anger at myself. Sadness. Desperation, even. Resignation. As much as I'd like to pretend I'd be a rebel hero, I remember how I used to be. Failure knocked me down hard back then, it would all be over." "Hmm." Luna seemed to think of something. "I'd know you were my sister's student. If Nightmare Moon saw you admit defeat, she might decide to bring you to her side. She might sense your potential." "How?" asked Twilight. "Resignation is one thing, betraying Celestia is another." "It was Celestia's failure to heed your warnings that led to her downfall," Luna said. "Her failure to prepare you properly that led to the Elements being destroyed. So great and powerful, and yet she left everything in the hooves of a young and inexperienced filly she refused to give the needed guidance to. A mare who could have been much more if she'd been properly trained, instead of wasting time telling her to go make friends or look after preparations for a celebration." Twilight shifted in her seat. "That... That would have done a number on the young me. With Celestia defeated and with my depressed state..." "And being promised you could be so much more..." Luna chuckled. "I can see you ending up as Nightmare Moon's student. And I can see her doing things to make sure you did become stronger." "Huh." Twilight fanned herself with a wing and adjusted herself again. "Well, at least things went well instead." "Indeed," Luna replied. "But it is always fun to speculate, is it not?" > Only Thing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know, I've been thinking. Fingers are really convenient. Unicorns have magic and pegasi have wings, but for an earth pony they might actually be an improvement over hooves. And even for pegasi and unicorns I'd still argue they can be better once you learn to use them. They easily allow fine control that's hard to achieve with magic or wings or hooves." Twilight levitated a cookie from the jar in the middle of the table to her mouth. "I regret not learning how to use fingers properly," she said after finishing her cookie. "I wonder if there could be a way to keep the benefits of both worlds. To still have horns and wings but give ponies fingers." Cadence definitely thought about it as she drank some tea. "Perhaps there exists a world where ponies have both fingers and their more traditional appendages. Maybe even in an erect form, like dragons here." Twilight too seemed to think about that, and ate another cookie. "Kind of like humans? Or maybe some cross between humans and ponies?" She placed a hoof under her chin. "It might exist, I suppose. Dragons do exist here, like you said, and there's nothing to indicate any reason why it wouldn't be possible." She tilted her head to the side. "I do wonder if we'd wear clothes regularly or not, if we were like that. Humans do, but I think that's more to do with their lack of natural hair or scales, and with peculiar social standards inherent and specific to their culture. Ponies don't have much of a biological need for clothes, so such norms would probably never develop." "Would we even be ponies if we had fingers and stood on two legs?" Cadence asked. "Pony is just a name, and a name only indicates what it's been decided it indicates. If that world's ponies were so, they'd be ponies provided they called themselves as such. It is interesting to discuss if we'd fit each other's definitions of the term, though. I suppose one could make the argument that dragons are all called dragons, whether they stand on two legs or on four." Twilight ate another cookie. "What is up with that? I've always wondered, I hope it's not improper to ask," said Cadence, setting down her empty teacup. "A mixture of different factors, as far as I can tell," Twilight replied. "Part of it is dragons presenting a much wider spectrum of individual differences- or, well, not quite that. Ponies differ greatly too one from the other, but we are used to such differences all being part of what a pony can be. Dragons don't differ much more than we can, but they differ in different things, notably shapes, whereas every pony is roughly shaped the same. The other factor is age. Bigger dragons tend to assume a more quadrupedal stance to best support their weight, and likely as a result of further shifts in their anatomy as well." "Fascinating." Cadence eyed the emptying jar, and took a cookie for herself while she still had a chance to. > Settle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We should hang out again sometime," Lemon said into her phone. "Play board games or something." "Stay up way late to finish a game even though we were supposed to be done way sooner?" Sour asked. "Exactly," Lemon cheerfully replied. Sour chuckled. "I suppose it has been a while since I've been offensively tweenaged and stupid." "You said stupid twice," said Lemon. Sour chuckled again. "I'll ask the others about it. See you around." "See you." Lemon waited until Sour had, then she too closed the call. > AD > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stallion pondered the leaves on the tree, and the red strings tying them to the tree's roots in the ground. Was it that connection that made the leaves fall? Or was it just a representation of that natural process? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he'd figure it out by looking at them. He wasn't sure it mattered either way, though. And he liked looking at them. He could probably pluck those strings if he wanted to, but he didn't. He preferred to just watch them, and sit there. > \\\ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think I've managed to recover something. It's not all there though." Twilight took a sip of coffee. It didn't taste particularly good, but it helped keep her awake. Probably. Maybe she'd actually gotten too biologically used to it and she should drop it and then pick it back up to have any sort of meaningful improvement again. But that wasn't the time to have that kind of thoughts. "You can't expect all the data to carry over properly. It's a miracle we're even finding something that isn't altered beyond repair," said the voice on the other end of the call. "This looks like it was deliberately messed with," Twilight said. She adjusted her glasses. "You're right that it's a miracle something got through in the first place. With how strong radiation bursts are you'd expect one to scramble the whole thing. If this one is still legible it can't have been hit, someone went and manually altered parts of it." "I guess we'll see once we've decrypted it and translated it. Where are you putting it?" asked the voice. "Where I put that placeholder. I updated the password, too, make sure you check that." Twilight drank some more coffee. It still didn't taste any better. "Will do. I'll send you the results once we have something." "Thanks. I'll see about trying to decode it myself." Twilight took off her glasses to polish them. "Hopefully there's something useful in there. We might be able to recover a few more packets, too." "Hopefully." > Losing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before anyone said anything to her, Twilight could already feel something had happened. It was a weird kind of electric buzzing in the air, one perceived but that wasn't really there, one that felt the way low murmurs in a crowd sounded. Something had happened. She could tell by the way ponies moved and looked, even if she couldn't tell what about it she could tell from seeing them. Maybe one day, if she lived long enough, she would learn to consciously pick up on what her instincts subconsciously alerted her to. She would have asked what was going on to one of the ponies there, but it seemed one of her own guards had done her job for her already. Really, his own job, and she should have learnt to be grateful for it. "Another instance of what you came to investigate," he briefly summarised. "Reports seem to indicate it happened while you were in the town hall." Really, he'd done a better job at gathering information than she would have. Maybe she should have started keeping one of them around at all times. "Take me there." She turned to another one of her guards. "Tell the mayor and whoever else might ask I went to investigate." The second guard nodded, the first began to walk, and she followed behind him. "What building?" "A theatre," he explained, briskly marching his way down the streets. "Any casualties?" "No harmed creatures." "How bad is it?" "No structural damage evident from a first inspection. If I'm allowed, it seems more like a message than an attack." "Any witnesses?" "Some, and their reports are fairly consistent, but not particularly useful. They claim the cuts simply appeared." They had gotten close enough to see the small crowd gathered around the theatre. Twilight accelerated until she was at her guard's side. "Stay here and take note of anyone who leaves." As he nodded and stopped, turning to another guard to signal what to do, she walked farther forward. The crowd wasn't too big yet, and it wasn't distracted enough not to part as she approached. For once she was glad ponies could have that kind of reaction to her. She walked up to the front wall, as the few officers and other ponies inspecting the place nodded to her. One look at the building was all she really needed, though. Same cuts as the ruins and the town hall, nothing peculiar about them. "Was anyone inside?" she asked, as her eyes subtly turned to the crowd. "Only the owner and staff members," someone replied. She just nodded, still focused on the ponies looking at the scene. "Have you found any notes this time?" A unicorn. That narrowed it down somewhat, if she assumed they were acting alone. There were at least a dozen of them there, likely closer to one and a half, and none looked particularly different in behaviour. Either her target had left already or they were good at pretending. "None," the same voice said. "Would you like to inspect the damage more closely?" It occurred to her that it was best make sure not to fall for something like that, and she checked to ensure the one talking to her wasn't a unicorn, and wasn't smirking. Same for everyone else there. "It won't be necessary." She returned to watching the crowd, more directly that time. Taking note of every face. They were there. The damage done to the theatre was deliberately done, after weeks of inactivity, while she was in town, occupied elsewhere. They were taunting her, and that meant they'd stick around to watch, and know trying to sneak away would only backfire. It wasn't a certainty, but it was a reasonable lead, and it narrowed down her search considerably. She just had to figure out something. > Infinite Shapes Most Dreadful - Part 8 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, duh," Rainbow replied. "You don't time travel every day. It's like, safe for me to go out there, right?" Luna frowned and pouted slightly, tilting her head to the side. "She is a dream, yes," she said to Pinkie and Rainbow, the real one. "But I've rarely seen such a lively one. And never one manifest this way. Still..." She shook her head. "All dreams end. She's your dream, Pinkie, and she will disappear once you wake up." Pinkie frowned a little at that. "Does that mean she'll be gone?" "The same way all dreams are gone when morning comes," Luna replied. "They are just fantasies. Illusions. Products of your own mind and imagination, only outside of your control. She is no different from the thousands of dreams you've been through and forgotten in your life." She smiled towards Pinkie. "In a sense, she will never stop existing. She is a part of you, a product of your subconscious, and she will continue to be." Pinkie was still frowning, uncertain. "Can we get a move on?" the dream said. "I have things to tell Twilight, and we need to get there fast." "And what is it you must tell her?" Luna asked, without looking at her. "Tell me in detail, so I may tell her directly myself should you be caught up in something else." The dream didn't answer. It appeared stuck, caught between a desire to do so and some mental impossibility preventing it from. Then it flickered, visibly so. "I have to tell her myself," she replied, seemingly unaware of the pause she'd gone through. "We can't risk-" She froze, going completely motionless. Luna held up a wing, keeping her like that. "See?" she told Pinkie. "She's not complete. She can't be. She is a dream, and though she is also a rather peculiar phenomenon I will like to study in detail at a later time, she is not any more alive than a fantasy you might have during the day is." She stepped forward, and lifted Pinkie's chin with her other wing. "And she won't be any more dead than those same fantasies are when you distract yourself from them." Pinkie looked at Luna, then at the Rainbow Dash frozen in place. "I understand," she said, her voice calm. "Can I say goodbye to her, though?" she added. "Of course." Luna smiled again. She lowered her wings, and the dream shook herself, only mildly aware something had happened. The real Rainbow Dash looked around with some impatience. She felt like she'd heard some more rustling in the leaves around them, but she knew it was most likely just her nervousness playing tricks on her. Still, it didn't hurt to be careful. "Princess, we should go. Pinkie should not be here." "You are right," Luna acknowledged her. "Do say your goodbyes, Pinkie." The dream still nervously buzzed her wings. "Yeah, I'm with me on this one, we should be going. By the way, you said this is a dream, right?" She turned to the other Rainbow. Dash nodded. "Yep. Why?" "Did anyone check if my body came back too?" she asked. "I don't want to go back to the future when I wake up." She scratched the side of her head, thoughtful. "How did I even end up inside a dream? Hmm. I must have fallen asleep while going back." She nodded to herself. "Yeah, that ought to be it. I hope my body landed somewhere safe, then." She turned to Luna. "Come on! Wake me up, I have things to tell Twilight." Pinkie approached her dream. They were both starting to fade, only subtly at first, but Rainbow and Luna both had enough experience to tell. "Goodbye, Rainbow." The dream quirked her eyebrows. "Hey. We're seeing each other in just a few minutes." She looked down at herself, suddenly very confused. Pinkie smiled at her. "It was fun knowing you. Maybe I'll see you again sometime." She stuck out a hoof, pausing a moment to observe its transparency, then gently waved. "The world is still all in one piece here, no floating islands and no swarms of building-eating fish." The dream looked at herself disappear, and felt herself disappear too. But looking back to Pinkie, she also smiled. "I got it," she said. "I've already changed things. We've already changed things!" She smiled even brighter, and turned towards the pony she resembled. "My future doesn't exist anymore, it looks like. You take care of this present for me, alright?" Rainbow Dash chuckled at that. "Will do," she said with a smile, and she gave her replica a salute. The dream kept on smiling, almost fully invisible and colourless, and looked again towards Pinkie. "Goodbye," she said, no more than a whisper. Then she was gone, and Pinkie was too. Luna looked at Rainbow. "It is time to go for us as well. You'll tell me about the fight you had in the waking world, I will reach you shortly. It's been a long night." "It has," Rainbow agreed. She took a deep breath, and she too began to disappear, much more quickly than Pinkie and her dream had. Much too quickly to hear any more rustling of leaves and branches, though neither did Luna herself hear it. Then she opened her eyes, awake again. > Remorsq > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie looked at the corner of the wall. "I can try." Balancing on one of her hind legs, she stretched the other to the side towards the spiral she couldn't see. "Is this enough?" The stallion leaned back to get a better look at things. "Yes. Try touching it now." Pinkie did. "It feels funny," she immediately said. "It's like rubbing a balloon against your coat." "Then we know it's doing something. I think." The stallion again looked at the wall. Nothing in particular seemed to have changed. "I'm pretty sure the double wires to the side are a hint and consequence of the nature of this puzzle. I've never actually encountered one that required multiple ponies. It's exciting! I think I said that already." Pinkie, who was still standing awkwardly on only one leg, cleared her throat. The stallion looked at her again. Then at the spiral. Something clicked. "You know, I've had these with me for a long while. Maybe I should start using them." He took out one of his chess pieces from his jacket's pockets, and passed it to Pinkie, who took it in her mouth. She looked at him, her question evident in her eyes though she couldn't ask it. "Slide it down your leg," he replied. Not any less confused, Pinkie did nevertheless do as she'd been asked. She watched the white piece roll down to her hoof, and then disappear as it reached the wall. "Huh." "It's in the corner now," said the stallion, excited. "I think you can put your leg down again." Pinkie did, and she looked at the same corner the stallion was looking at. Nothing was there that she could see. "Huh," she said again. "What now?" The stallion looked at the corner still. "I think we move it." "How?" asked Pinkie. "Where?" "Along the purple wire," the stallion replied like it was completely obvious. "I think," he added, without any changes to his tone. Pinkie nodded along after a moment. "How do we move it?" she asked again. "I think we use the buttons for that," replied the stallion. "They feel different. I guess they're levers then, technically. But only two-dimensional. Maybe. But still also buttons. Try pushing to the left, without moving your hoof from the spot." After a moment of reflection, Pinkie did, and so did the stallion. "Is it moving?" she asked. "Yep," he replied, keeping his eyes on what only he could see. "It's picking up speed, too. We'll have to send it up in just a moment." Pinkie waited, ready to act. "Now." Both ponies shifted the way their hooves pressed against the wall. "Still speeding up," the stallion said, his eyes trailing upwards. "Right, and hold it." Pinkie did as she was told, as the other did the same. They waited a moment longer, then a click was heard. Slowly the square section of the wall pulled back, then slid down, revealing a staricase. "Huh," Pinkie said for the third time, while the stallion was already walking down the steps. She reached him, and looked at the dimly lit chamber they were in. It was round, its walls plain, almost completely empty, with only a single mirror in the wall on the opposite end relative to them. "Huh," said the stallion, but he seemed more interested in the walls around them than anything else. "I'm afraid you'll have to save my party for next time I'm around." Before Pinkie had a chance to ask anything, the stallion had walked into the mirror. When she tried to touch it, her hoof just connected with cold glass. Confused, perplexed, perhaps even a little disappointed, she walked back upstairs alone, and the wall closed seamlessly behind her. > Dymonds - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rarity, the unicorn, looked at her human self, somewhat surprised by the question. She supposed there was nothing wrong with answering it, though. "We're friends," she said. "Good friends. From what I've been told, she's not too different from your Applejack. Honest, hard working, a little too stubborn at times. She's older than yours is, though. Perhaps a little more mature, but that's just a matter of age." "Good friends, huh?" Rarity, the human, again seemed to be staring off into nothing. "Just friends." Her voice went down to almost a whisper, then she gave a dry chuckle. "I wish we could have stayed that way." She looked at her bottle, then chuckled again, and then sighed. "No. Of course I don't." There was a tremor in her frame, and she looked stuck at the edge of crying. The pony looked at her for a few seconds, and then she knocked her knuckles on the table. Just once, not too loudly, but firmly, enough to draw the other's attention. "Rarity," she said to a more dishevelled mirror of herself, "drop the act." That almost made the human Rarity smile, before that ghost of a grin crumbled away. "It's the only fun I have left," she softly said. "I don't taste ice-cream well when I'm drunk, and I can't follow a plot along well enough for reading or dramas." Something wet came down the corner of her left eye, but it wasn't enough to be called a tear, and didn't make it past her cheek. There was no makeup for it to smudge, anyway. But after that she straightened herself a little. "Consider dropping it permanently," the unicorn said then. "It's not a solution, but it's a start." "Give me a reason." The human Rarity drummed her fingers against the liquor bottle, half staring at the other Rarity and half staring at her memories. "Your friends are worried about you, and acting half to a third drunker than you are will only make them worry even more." "That's true. Such good friends I have." Rarity, again, almost smirked. She settled on a more somber expression instead. Still drumming her fingers, she continued, "Give me a good enough reason." "Sweetie is still living with you." That actually got Rarity's fingers to stop. "I'd hope she would have learned by now I'm not a good role model." She pulled her hand away from the bottle, and focused on her empty glass. "What do you expect me to do?" Rarity, the pony, knew what she wanted to say. She still had to push past the lump in her throat to do so. "Live with it. Stop ruining your life because of it." "It's easy for you. When this is done you'll just go back to your magical pony land, where you're rich and famous and everyone loves you, with no pieces of a shattered heart to stare at. It's not your pain we're talking about." "I'm not going anywhere while you're like this," Rarity replied. It wasn't pretty, looking at what the other her looked like, and she wondered if she'd ever look like that herself one day. "You're neither an idiot nor drunk enough to act like one. Just acknowledge it's wrong. It's a place to start." "It's not fair." Rarity was still shaking, and she'd actually started to cry. "I'm not used to pretending with myself too." The other Rarity stayed silent, waiting to see what else would come. After a few seconds, Rarity managed to calm herself. "Have you ever loved?" she asked. "I've believed I had," the other Rarity answered. "I've always known I hadn't. Not as you did." "I've never stopped," the human replied. "It's a lot like getting stabbed. After it happens, the shock makes the initial period hurt the least." She looked at the chipped painting on her nails, without really seeing them. "Then that runs out, and you realise the wound is still open." "You can't wait for it to close," the unicorn said. Though her tone was far less firm than her words, something not lost on her other self. "What if it never does? You can't continue like this." Rarity's eyes were wide and lucid, staring at an unspecified corner of the floor. "I've got nothing to hate," she said. "I think that's the worst part." The other Rarity opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally she steadied herself and asked, "Why did she leave you?" "I know it," the human Rarity replied, "but I don't understand it. I don't think it would help if I told you. We just... ended." She was crying again, if only a little. "No more we." She turned towards the other. "What am I supposed to do?" Leaning forward, mustering her most compassionate expression, Rarity repeated, "Live with it." She stretched a hand forward, on the table. "I don't want to," the Rarity of that world said, taking her more presentable double's hand. "I want something I can't have, and I can't be happy. The only other thing I can be is numb." "You're acting it up again," said the pony. "I've already told you it doesn't work with me. And you're a bad actress when you're drunk." "I'm a bad actress when I'm sober too," Rarity said. "I hog up the scene and I overact. I'm an average student and an okay keyboard player and a mildly talented fashionista with aspirations no different from those any other girl in the field has, and I guess I'm a local superhero by chance and interdimensional predestination more than merit. And I was happy. Now I'm all that, and I don't have the only thing I would have given it all away for. It's only fair I stick to my words." "It's not fair to the rest of the world," said Rarity. "And it's not fair to yourself." She bit her lower lip for a moment. She considered bringing up Applejack, and what she might think. She thought better of it. Instead she just held her other self's hand, and looked her in the eyes. "You can get better. You can be helped. And I'm here for that, right now. I'm not going anywhere. I can make you some tea if you want." "Water," Rarity replied. "Just water for now. I need it." She looked at her other self, like seeing her for the first time. "I used to look nice," she whispered. "You'll look nice tomorrow. After a good night of sleep," Rarity replied. "Trust yourself." For a brief second, Rarity did actually smile. "I guess I should. She's supposed to know me well." Then she bent forward, and cried. > All That Was > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is that everyone?" Sunset asked. Trixie nodded. "Everyone important, at least." She wrapped her arm around Rainbow Dash and pulled her in. Rainbow seemed split half and half between being into it and being embarrassed by it. "That should be everyone, yes," the better looking of the two Raritys confirmed. Her hair was distinctly more well kept, and she was the only one of the two wearing makeup, though it was a little too abundant and not perfectly put on. The Rarity at her side nodded too. Pinkie was done playing with her knife. "Is Trixie up to date on the situation?" asked Sunset. "Mostly," Rainbow replied. "I know about the magic horse world, and I know about the new portals," Trixie herself said. "Even if Dash still hasn't spilled the details on those. I don't know what any of that has to do with the world shaking yesterday." "Right." Sunset went to adjust her nonexistent glasses and ended up adjusting her hair instead. "The new portals, and the old one breaking, were the consequences of a... thing arriving in that world." Trixie quirked an eyebrow, and more possessively pulled Rainbow closer. "A thing?" "I... Yeah," Sunset replied. "Rarity, can you explain?" she asked, turning to the other pony turned human in the room. "It just sort of arrived," Rarity said. "All we really know about it is that it's big, and it's not really moving, and it might destroy Equestria at some point. We call it the Behemoth. The Behemoth came to Canterlot last summer and it's been stuck there since." Trixie just quirked her eyebrow a different way. "Go on," she said towards Sunset, while her hand rested on Rainbow's chest. Sunset scratched the back of her head. "Well, the thing about yesterday is that the Behemoth isn't exactly not moving anymore. It's not moving right now, but that thing we all felt? That was it taking a step." Trixie's expression dropped, as did her hand, her arm lying limp on Rainbow's shoulder. "You're telling me that thing took one step in another dimension-" "And the whole city and beyond felt it like an earthquake," Sunset concluded, "yes. They had it worse on the other side." Trixie was too busy processing the news to be bothered by the interruption. Pinkie looked weirdly delighted, but nobody was looking at her. Twilight looked about to start twisting her hair with her fingers, and Sunset wrapped an arm around her, her expression rather deflated. Fluttershy looked between the others, covering her mouth with her hands. The human Rarity, while looking somewhat shocked, was still too emotionally numb to properly react to the news, and the pony one was too used to the Behemoth, though she did look worried. Rainbow Dash swallowed, nervous. "What do we do about it?" she asked. "Twilight is trying to find a solution," Sunset replied. "There's not much we can do besides keep doing what we're doing and finding portals, to make sure nobody accidentally ends up in Equestria." She pressed her knuckles on her forehead for a moment. "But things might get worse. And if that thing moves again we might be dealing with more than just something that feels like an earthquake." Trixie swallowed. She wasn't really sure of what to say, though, so instead she just hugged Rainbow with her arm. A proper hug, for once. Rainbow hugged her back. The unicorn Rarity did the same with her human counterpart, and Sunset did the same with Twilight. Dropping her smirk, Pinkie leaned forward and hugged Fluttershy, the friendly kind of hug. "I'll see what I can tell the others about this," Twilight said. > All That's Left > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So?" Indigo asked. "So," Lemon replied, putting down the phone. "Something bad is happening in the horse world. World-threateningly bad if I still know how to read between the lines of Twilight's nervousness. And it might maybe sort of kind of reflect on ours as well." Indigo took a moment to take it all in. "Are we saying the world might end any day and it would be outside of our control?" "More like the city might be wiped out, I think," said Lemon. "Which isn't nice, but it's not that different from all those people who live next to a volcano or a place known for fires or earthquakes or really from Earth as a whole considering cosmic gamma radiation from a black hole may at some point shred away the ozone layer." "You're not making it sound better," Indigo pointed out. "I know," said Lemon. "The good news is that I managed to sneak in the question, and being close to the portal doesn't actually make it worse. It's like the worlds are... pressing against each other? Coexisting in the same hyperspace? The portals are tears in the barrier between them, but when shit goes down it's the universe's whole weight slamming into ours, or at least in this intersection. It should be felt equally everywhere." "Right. I guess that's mildly reassuring." Indigo resolved her nervous eye rub into an equally nervous playing with her hair. "What now?" "Wanna use the knowledge of our impending but uncertain doom that could come at any moment but isn't likely to to fuel the kind of lustful copulation that knowing just how easily your life could end gives birth to?" Lemon offered. Indigo looked at her, then shrugged. "Sure. Never going to turn that down." She looked at the portal. "Wanna do it in the pony world?" "I thought you'd never ask," Lemon replied, already heading towards the portal and taking her clothes off along the way. "I actually have something in mind for your next visit," Twilight said, smiling and pretending her mane was at least less than half as ruffled as it was. She'd also made sure to close the window and pull the curtains, so the other could not see Shining still chasing his target outside. Sugarcoat smiled, playing with the folds of her dress. "So there will be a next time." It was more of an observation than a question. Twilight smiled back. "Of course. It won't be here though," she said, giving a brief look around. "Like I said, I've got something in mind, and it involves a few ponies I know of. I'll ask Sunset where the portal closest to Ponyville is." Sugarcoat still smiled, if a little less. "I... look forward to that." "Me too," Twilight said. "I'll have you know when it's all organised and you can come." As she kept smiling, she felt a little bad about it. She knew months were likely to pass before she allowed the girl back in their world, for her own good. "Right." Sugarcoat looked down at her dress. "Thank you," she said after a while. Twilight smiled in return. She decided she'd go easy on Celestia that night. She was starting to understand her, or maybe become too much like her. > Ultimatum > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra and the mare bowed in unison as Nightmare Moon stepped into the room, and only lifted their heads once she granted them permission to. Even for them, it was still either that or never lifting it again. "Things are going according to schedule," Sombra said. Exactly what Nightmare Moon wanted to hear, and she didn't need to ask for him to know what she wanted to know. "We have managed to stabilise the portals sufficiently. Over the last few cycles we have executed incursions with regular troops, which went undetected. We are ready to begin at any moment." Nightmare Moon ever so slightly turned her head to the side, and the other mare knew it was her turn to speak. "The troops are ready, and more are being trained. I suggest one last phase of recognition and infiltration before a proper attack is launched." A second went by in silence. "Granted," said Nightmare Moon. "You have three cycles to gather intel." She walked past them, and out onto the balcony overlooking the town below. "We shall be launching our assault on the Crystal Empire first," Sombra explained, following her. "Once conquered, we will move on to the rest of Equestria." "With all due respect," the other unicorn said as she joined them. "We may be unprepared for a full military campaign. Without your own intervention, Your Highness, the army may still be at a disadvantage if the alicorns are to step in." "No need to worry," Nightmare Moon said, in a display of calm and understanding that shocked both of the others. "You will be receiving a new contingent of enhanced troops by the next cycle. I shall personally oversee the operations on the higher level. Your duty is to direct the conquest of the Empire, I shall take care of everything else." "I understand, Your Highness." The mare quickly bowed after a moment of incredulous silence. Sombra smirked, but quickly hid it away behind a serious, composed expression. "A breakthrough in the conversion process, if I may ask?" Nightmare Moon answered with a single, almost invisible nod. Sombra nodded back. "Troops will be deployed within the capital. Should the Heart become a source of concern, we have developed a way to use our own as a counterbalancing force." "Orders for the prisoners?" the unicorn mare asked. "Convert those in fighting condition, with low priority, capture the rest, kill them before you endanger soldiers to keep them." Nightmare Moon looked at the night sky above the Crystal Empire. "Dismissed." The blue maned mare nodded, then turned and walked away. Sombra looked at Nightmare Moon. "Yes?" "Keep security a little more lax," she said, without turning to him. "Keep track of what information is accessed, and make sure she doesn't know she's been spotted." Sombra nodded at that. "Shall I partake in the assault as well?" "Yes." Nightmare Moon suddenly turned and began to walk away. "Deal with the royal family in the Empire," she added as she was leaving. "It will be done," Sombra said. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you sure about this?" asked Celestia, watching Twilight place the tooth on the sandy ground in front of her. "I doubt I'm ever sure of anything these days," Twilight replied. "But it's the best choice, from my point of view, and I can't afford to look uncertain when it's up to me to decide." Celestia almost opened her mouth, then changed her mind. She straightened, and stepped back slightly. Twilight stepped away from the tooth, then cast her spell on it. "If you don't hear anything within twelve hours, close it," she said, begging to walk towards the portal. Celestia again opened her mouth. "I wish you..." She realised Twilight would be on the other side before she could finish that sentence. "Safe travels," she said instead. Twilight gave one brief look of acknowledgement in her direction as she was stepping through, then she stopped being there. Celestia fought for a good five minutes against her impulse to follow behind Twilight. Not a fight she could win, but one she could stall long enough for her common sense and logic to put an end to it by acknowledging Twilight would by then be too distant for following her to be reasonable. Once that had passed, she turned and walked away, towards the other portal, the only other note of something different in the boundless desert. Then she was gone too, then so was the portal she'd stepped through, leaving only the one Twilight had used. Twilight had chosen to fully forgo any kind of defensive spell, and fully focus on camouflage. She knew the world beyond the portal was perfectly habitable, so it was the most reasonable thing. The portal's exit being in the middle of the forest helped with hiding it, and though that would make it harder for her to enter the castle it was far more important to make sure that it was not found. The odds of her making it back to it even if she was found out were far higher than those of her managing to safely get back to Equestria if an ambush was placed along the way. Once she'd cast every spell in her mental list to ensure no one else could spot the portal or herself, and double-checked it all, she finally began to make her way towards the castle. It wasn't hard to spot it, not with it towering over everything else in the area. She could have reasonably flown in past the walls, but she doubted it was a safe approach to things. And it wouldn't lead her any closer to where she meant to go. She was familiar enough with the castle in her world, from books and actual visits, to know both how similar and how different the one she would be infiltrating was. The general structure was the same, even down to the halls and corridors, but the laboratories she was interested in definitely weren't there in her Equestria. The good news was, knowing what she knew still meant having a pretty good idea of where things could be reasonably added. She just had to hope not to set off any alarms. > 3rd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awake again, finally. He wasn't sure how he'd gotten there where he was, though he vaguely recognised the place. He hadn't been there proper, but he'd passed by at least once. He had no interest in staying there. For one, he probably wasn't wanted. For two, he didn't want to be there either. He considered stealing something along the way, from the trees or the ground, but decided against it. It would just arouse needless attention. It was night. That made it easier to get around unseen, and he didn't mind stretching out his limbs a little. It also meant more time where he didn't need to hide, and time spent not hiding was time he could spend thinking. And he thought a lot as he wandered around the fields first, then the town proper. Most of all about where to go. In the end he decided to go back home first, then perhaps see from there. If anything, he at least wanted to see the place again. He boarded a train early the next morning. There weren't many others in there, though he did take notice of a couple of mares who appeared to be heading towards his same destination. On vacation, judging by the suitcases they carried and by the way they talked. It was a long trip, and that explained why they'd gotten aboard the train so early. He was curious to see how different it might have been. The town, even if he'd only had a passing view of it the last time, was definitely different. More than one building was gone. He hoped it wouldn't be as bad back home. But he wouldn't know until he got there, and he was still a little tired. He decided he could sleep a little longer along the way, and so he did. > 2nd&1st > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you really sure it's a good idea to go on vacation while... You know, everything is happening?" Lyra asked, lazily leaning against the wall. "Well, things are neither looking like they will get any worse nor like they'll be resolved soon," Bon Bon replied. "I figured we may as well get used to this being the new normal and make the best of it." Lyra yawned. "I suppose you have a point." She looked out the window at the rising Sun and the fields rolling by. "Did it have to be the Crystal Empire, though?" "We both wanted to go there, didn't we?" said Bon Bon. "Before the whole everything, of course. And I heard they haven't had it as bad there." Lyra pursed her lips. "I don't know. Maybe it's just the whole Wall thing." "It is completely safe to travel through at this point." Bon Bon took out a newspaper from her purse and began to read through it. "You don't need to worry about it." "That doesn't make it not weird," Lyra replied. She straightened herself a little, pulling her cheek away from the wall and putting her back against her seat. "And the trip is boring." Bon Bon looked at her above the newspaper. "Then make it not boring. Don't you still have that book to read?" "I finished it," Lyra said. "Oh." Bon Bon looked back to the newspaper. "I didn't think you were such a fast reader. I can lend you this once I'm done with it." "Does it have any crosswords?" Bon Bon skipped ahead to about the middle of the newspaper. "Yeah. I think I have a pencil with me if you need one." "Yeah." Still leaning back, Lyra began to close her eyes. "Maybe one day I'll learn to go to sleep early when I need to wake up early," she mumbled to herself. "It's got comics, too," Bon Bon added. "Cool," Lyra slurred out, half-asleep already. Bon Bon looked at her and smiled. She looked out the window for a moment, too, then focused back on her newspaper. Eventually, Lyra began to snore. At least they were alone, so no one else would be bothered by it. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Was she really going to enter through the front door? Yeah, she was. She had to reassure herself multiple times that it was the most reasonable thing to do, but she did manage to convince herself of what she knew was true in the end. Because for all the attention guards were obviously putting on ponies walking in through the front gates, someone walking in through the walls or back entrance would have been far more out of the ordinary. And she wasn't just walking in by herself, no. She waited, just outside the castle, for the next pony to arrive. They'd been keeping an eye on things, before her mission there, and though regular ponies visiting were infrequent they had found that there was a rather steady and regular set of reports being brought in by guards. And while the bat-winged ponies at the gates were busy checking in on the newest arrivals, she silently made her way past them, then into the castle itself once the doors opened for them. It almost felt anticlimactic. Hours of careful preparation and delicate study to make up the perfect set of spells, and the result of it all was nothing happening. The intended result, sure, but simply stepping into the castle unseen under the guards' noses felt a little at odds with the tension of the whole situation. And so did still walking past guards inside the castle's hallways, all blissfully unaware of her presence. Those were the perks of being a skilled magic user, she supposed. It did make her wonder if Celestia or Luna themselves had ever done something similar within their own castles or towns, to see how things were normally. Maybe Celestia had used it to sneak into the kitchens. Maybe Luna had used it to learn what ponies thought of her night, a millennium and some years before. She did have to ask about the exact date of Sombra's banishment relative to Nightmare Moon's at some point. She always forgot to for some reason. Twilight shook herself. She needed to focus, even if she didn't like what she had to focus on, which she supposed was the reason ber brain was wandering so much. She still remembered where she'd found the passage the previous time, and how close she'd gone to being found out then for that matter, but she wasn't planning to go down that way. Too risky, and she'd already seen everything she could easily access there. But there was more to the corridors and rooms underneath the castle. The place she'd ended up in with Chrysalis, she'd realised, was another such place. And though she'd only gotten a passing, hurried glance at it, there was a laboratory there. A laboratory she'd learned the purposes of on her last full visit. She was even fairly sure the room they'd been inside of was the room those experiments had been conducted in, though she couldn't be completely sure of it, of course. The point was that she'd only found the records of the failed experiments. And everything she'd found in Equestria pointed to there being more than just failures coming out of that place. She needed to know what they were to face, at least, if they could not avoid a confrontation. > Journey Through the Dark - Part -1.37 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight hesitated, holding her breath, as she heard hoofsteps outside the door. She contemplated whether she should stay close to hear better, or stay farther away from it, and quickly chose the latter. She did however cast a minor hearing enhancement spell as she backed into the corner, not forgetting to turn over every paper on the table the proper way back into the pile she'd found them in. The room was wide enough that she could easily avoid actually touching anyone if they happened to walk in, assuming it was just one pony, but she was still hoping it wouldn't come to that. She breathed slowly and carefully and listened. Someone was definitely approaching. Just one pony, which was reassuring. They walked all the way up to the door, then walked past it. Twilight listened still. A little farther down the corridor, the steps came to a halt. Then there was a set of metallic clicks, and the sound of a door creaking as it opened. Then the hoofsteps got farther and disappeared. Twilight continued to wait. It didn't close. Whatever the pony was doing in the other room, they didn't think it warranted closing the door. Which, on the bright side, probably meant they weren't likely to take long in there. And so Twilight waited, not daring to move or make noise. She didn't know exactly how long she waited. The perception of time one has during moments of stress is rather far from accurate, and even counting would not have helped her without an external reference. But eventually, the hoofsteps came back. The door closed behind them, the key turned, and then they moved towards the door to the room Twilight was in again. Again Twilight waited. Again, as the previous time, they passed it without stopping and then moved farther and farther away, down the corridor and past the corner and out of Twilight's hearing range. Only then did Twilight allow herself a still very restrained sigh of relief. She once again pondered the contents of the room, but decided she'd seen enough and spent enough time there. Carefully she made her way back to the door, listened through it for any other sounds, then opened it and walked out and began to walk away after closing it. > Bloodlight > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two days of travelling, and he still hadn't arrived to the head. He was definitely getting close though. The data readings were consistent along the way, and so was the scenery, but as boring as it was it was better than some of the stuff he'd seen. He wasn't spending all his time just walking of course, and he definitely wasn't sleeping or eating there, but it being that big was still impressive. He had to thank Twilight for coming up with a stable spell to mark where he'd gotten and take him back there when he got back. Of course such marked teleportation spells weren't anything new, but a version that managed to adapt seamlessly to the difference in scale and all the other oddities the Behemoth posed was still some impressive work. He'd never been that close to one of them, and certainly not for that long. It was surprising how much it wasn't actually affecting him all that much, again impressive work on Twilight's part in terms of her protection spell. Perhaps the truly impressive part wasn't that it managed to protect him, but that it did so for so long without really draining him. Twilight did have a lot of talent for fine-tuning her work, he'd come to learn. What was he expecting to find once he actually got to the head? He didn't really know. Whatever it was, it would be worth something. Even just it being nothing would be worth something. Insight on the Behemoth, even if it turned out there was nothing distinguishing different portions of its anatomy, was always worthwhile. And if it was different, that could potentially give them a lot more info. No such thing as useless information with something they knew so little of. He did wonder what it might be like to look it in the eye, if it even had eyes. He'd met more clearly animated abominations before, some seemingly close to sapience. He'd not stuck around to verify, on that one, and he hoped the ponies of that world never accidentally opened a portal there. Though it was a fear reserved for whoever ended up going through, and not for the world as a whole. Creatures like the Behemoth, as far as he'd seen, didn't seem prone in any way to crossing into other worlds. Even ignoring the overcomplicated and frightening mess that was thinking through what might happen if one of them interacted with a portal, he felt there might be something more to it, something tied to their nature. He'd always dismissed interpretations putting them as divine punishments as the unreasonable and superstitious assumptions they were, but he couldn't help wondering if there wasn't some truth in something similar. They were not the product of any god, but he did wonder if there was something more to them. An origin, and a will there perhaps. Something sending them to different worlds, a purpose to their existence. But who could wish for destruction on such a scale, and who could have the means to generate such creatures in so large numbers? Maybe he would never give them the title, but if someone was there they were functionally not much different from a god, after all. > Insonnia > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You okay?" Indigo asked. "No," Lemon replied. "Not nearly enough sleep last night," she added. Indigo quirked an eyebrow. "It must be really bad if it's too little sleep even for you." Lemon notably did not have the strength to make any kind of remarks, and merely nodded at that. "Need me to make you a coffee?" Indigo asked. Lemon shook her head. "No. I think I'll try to take a nap later, see if that helps." "Alright then." Indigo got close to Lemon and planted a kiss on her forehead, then walked towards the door. "I'm going for a walk. See you later." "See you," Lemon weakly replied. > Post > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm back." Indigo closed the door behind herself and stepped in. "Are you alright?" she asked. Her only answer came in the form of light snoring, coming from the table. She came closer, and looked at Lemon's form sleeping with her head over her own hands. She smiled at that. She bent down and placed another kiss on Lemon's forehead, and ran a hand through her hair. Then she stepped away from the table. "I'll make lunch," she said. Lemon, of course, did not answer that, unless more snoring could be counted as an answer. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She did not particularly wish to pass by the throne room. She knew she at least didn't have to get inside it, but having to pass in front of it was still an unsettling thought. She had been at the presence of a Nightmare Moon in her own castle before, true, but the one there seemed, well, different somehow. Just a little more off than the one she was familiar with. Admittedly it was quite surprising that anything at all was similar to what she was familiar with, there. She could probably learn exactly how much history was different there if she took a detour to the library, but that would have been using time they didn't have for things they didn't need as much, not to mention how heavily secured the place would probably be. Any mention of Celestia could be locked up in the archives for all she knew, if those books hadn't been burned outright. Burning books was never a good thing to think about for her. But it was less bad than thinking about ponies being experimented on. At least, she reasoned it was supposed to be that way. She wasn't sure if her own emotions actually lined up when thinking about it, but she knew it was most likely a mixture of the tense state the situation put her in and her instinctive refusal to properly process what was being done to ponies there. Maybe it was just so bad her brain didn't want to think about it. Or maybe she was utterly desensitised to the painful, brutal and needless deaths of innocent ponies, and far more caring for the preservation of books instead. She knew herself enough to tell that though she could be a little out of touch at times, she wasn't that far gone yet, so it more likely was her first outlined possibility that she was to look at for explanations. None of that made it easier to actually walk past the throne room's doors when she got there, though her mental wanderings did mean the walk to get there felt shorter than it had been. She waited a bit, sitting at one end of the hallway, ensuring no guards were nearby or about to walk out. Then she made her move. It wasn't a sprint, or even a quasi-run, but it was definitely with hurried steps that she walked past those doors, staying as far away as she could from them and without looking at them. She didn't know why she felt the way she did. Maybe it was just the knowledge of what Nightmare Moon had done and ordered there. But it felt deeper, more primal even. A gut feeling of wrongness she couldn't rationally explain. Not the kind she got from sensing dark magic, it felt closer to an animal instinct instead. Something she could only ever remember feeling in her nightmares, the only thing she could remember of them. She did not want to be anywhere close to the mare behind those doors, she knew that for certain. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight pondered the wooden door and its iron lock. It wasn't physically hidden, or particularly noteworthy, but magically it was the exact opposite. She hadn't realised it was there at all when first looking at the inwardly rounded corner, she'd only noticed the spell hiding it. She doubted anyone in the castle could detect it properly, anyone close to being able to was allowed to get there, and anyone would try to enter in the first place if forbidden to. But that didn't mean it wasn't otherwise protected and tied to other spells. Neither did the evidence of the one hiding it mean other ones should have been as easy to spot. And so she was faced with the most classic of issues when dealing with protective spells and magical alarms, that being having to blindly detect whatever charms might be there without triggering any in the process. It was a subject of real study and tests for students in magic schools, mostly because it helped build other traits besides the obvious ability to detect spells. Having to figure out what kind of spells might be associated with a given object given the information provided, being able to precisely modulate one's magic around them, finding creative solutions to the problem. All fun stuff. But school only offered cases built specifically for educational purposes, designed for students to apply their knowledge, without any heavy consequences besides maybe a failed test. That some students equated that with the end of the world was another matter. Schools didn't teach in depth about dark magic, of course. Or about lockpicking spells, for that matter. Not out of any lack of awareness for the utility such things could have in an emergency, but merely because there was no need to teach students something they all ended up learning by themselves as soon as they had the means and time to. Then they taught themselves a few protective spells against it, and usually things ended there. Twilight somewhat regretted missing out on that particular bit of childish behaviour. She was pretty sure her room was warded by spells put there by the guards, but no one had ever tried to play a prank on her anyway. Celestia had- Twilight shook her head. There would be time to think about Celestia when she got back. If she got back. Actually, that was a good way to frame it. She would get back, because she still had unfinished business with Celestia. The door opened with a low metallic click. What schools didn't teach, and students didn't learn, were localised mass magic neutralisation spells and how to couple them with limited area containment spheres to stop any fail-state pings being sent off. Not that there seemed to be a need for one there, nothing got caught in it. She could have tried to figure out the specifics of whatever spell was potentially on the lock and door, and maybe spend hours on it if it turned out there was none. On a good day, she might have even liked to do it. She didn't have time for it right then. She closed the door behind herself, and began to carefully descend the spiral staircase she found herself facing. > Deaf > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I guess this makes sense, in hindsight." Octavia looked at Rainbow like she'd suddenly sprouted a horn and an extra pair of wings. One might have assumed it was because the pegasus had appeared out of nowhere clad in armour and wielding a sword and floating without really flying, but it was actually because Octavia had heard what she'd said. And she started to hear a lot of other things, too. Sounds and voices and music, and soon she was walking through town, smiling again, and the world around them looked a lot less grey. She'd already forgotten about Rainbow, and she'd forget about the whole dream when she woke up. "You figured it out, I see." Luna appeared to Rainbow from nowhere the same way Rainbow had appeared to Octavia. Or probably the same way, Rainbow couldn't actually confirm it exactly. She hoped she'd looked roughly as cool doing it though. "I didn't think it would leave the sounds on," Rainbow said as the two of them began to walk around the dream, making sure everything was in order. "That's why I didn't figure it out sooner." "It's easier this way, not so surprisingly if you think about it," Luna explained. "The dream just needs to play out normally and then filter off sounds, instead of rendering the whole thing differently. Makes for better gradual loss and other kinds of simulation." For a moment Rainbow looked at Luna and not at the dream. "Sometimes you make it sound like dreams exist outside of their dreamers." "Purely an abstraction." Amused, Luna contemplated a flying turtle pig hybrid. "Everything I usually attribute to the dream is of course executed by a pony's mind. I just find it easier to think of it that way, and in most cases it's the same, it arguably helps in some." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The whole area was surprisingly free of guards and security. No spells to detect her presence, no ponies patrolling the corridor. Nothing besides the illusion hiding the door she'd found at the beginning. Perhaps it was assumed that if someone made it there they were meant to be there. All things considered it did make sense. No point overloading on security, especially not when there were probably many more layers of it to get to the castle in the first place, all things she'd simply bypassed. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that it was too easy. Still, she had made it past Sombra's own security in the past, among other things. It didn't feel right to think of herself as simply being above the challenge, but she had to logically acknowledge no one had designed it around an alicorn with extensive magical knowledge. And maybe no one had ever made it in in the first place. She hadn't upped the security of her own laboratory until after the incident, after all. And even once she'd reworked it, she hadn't made something she couldn't possibly get through herself, even if that was in part due to knowing the exact details. Though security by obscurity was not a valid plan if that was all there was. But even had she not known the details, she probably could have made it in with enough work, and so could another alicorn or extremely competent unicorn if they knew what they were doing. Given the circumstances, maybe she had reasons to fix that. She opened a door and closed it behind herself. The room she was in was a bedroom. A used bedroom, too. The bed, the covers still messy, sat in a corner, and the only other piece of furniture in the whole room was a desk with an empty mug on it, some sheets of paper with indecipherable hornwriting on them, and a pencil. She could make out a few mathematical formulae, and that was the only thing that told her for sure she was looking at actual writing and not meaningless scribbles. She wondered how the pony in question even managed to read what they wrote. Aside from that, nothing on the plain stone walls and floor besides the dust in the other corners. She walked out, then into the door opposite that one. Another bedroom, another bed and desk and nothing else. This bed seemed to have gone unused, or maybe it had simply been done up properly. The desk was empty, though. The only note of anything else was something carved into the wall besides the bed. It looked more like a stylised symbol than like any sort of writing or message. Twilight looked at it up close, curious. A star, or maybe a sun, it looked like that. Finding no other meaning to it, she turned and walked out, then headed deeper into the corridor. Someone would be down there, of course. She just had to make sure they didn't find out she was. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To her left, the corridor stretched onwards, ending at another staircase. To her right, the corner she'd rounded moments before, and behind it the portion of the corridor she'd already explored. In front of her was a door, metal this time. Not particularly reinforced, seemingly not locked, but certainly sturdier than the wooden things she'd found so far. It carried a sense of importance, maybe just because of its different material. And on the other side of the door were voices. One apparently male and the other seemingly female, but she couldn't exactly make out what they were saying even with her magically enhanced hearing. No point enhancing it further, random noise would become too much of a problem if she did. And she wasn't about to put her ear to the door, there was always the risk it opened on her. She'd looked everywhere else up to there and hadn't found anything. It was fairly clear that what was in front of her was the laboratory, and if she wanted any kind of information on the research being done there she'd have to get in. She wondered for a moment how ponies there even decided when to sleep if it was always night. But regardless of that, waiting for the ponies in there to leave wasn't a good plan, even assuming they left through that door and not through another one. Waiting for one of them to open the door so she could walk in, learn as much as she could, and leave when she had a chance to wasn't a great plan either. It was what she'd decided to go with though. Of course she could always just immobilise the two if she was found out, and probably wipe their memory afterwards. She didn't really want to, but she could. Maybe she did want to, knowing what they did in there. And so she was left to sit and wait there. She certainly couldn't open the door herself with them there. And she couldn't knock on it for them to open it. Unless she deliberately wanted to subdue them. Which was an option she could resort to if they didn't open the door soon enough, but again not something she actively wished she had to do. She supposed she could check the other end of the corridor first before sticking there and waiting for the door to open, though. > Spheres > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The unicorn regarded the ætherphone in front of her. She'd bought it somewhat on a whim, and it would take some time to learn to use it properly, but she could probably make use of it every once in a while. Besides, it was a nice thing to have sitting around, or so she found. For once her roommate might agree to it. Recording it properly might be a bit of a hassle if she decided to, which she very well might have given it could give some nice samples, and she'd probably need some extra equipment for that, but using it during her performances would be easy. If she managed to learn to play it well enough, of course. Which she wouldn't if she just sat there watching it. She did have a guide that talked briefly about how to play one among other things somewhere in the room, she was pretty sure, but she could not remember where. She could always go fetch a more proper guide at the library, even if getting into the library had gotten more complicated than average those days. Hopefully her roommate wouldn't mind her having bought it. It hadn't cost too much, certainly less than most other instruments or tools either of them used. She tentatively placed her hooves near the antennas. As often the case when an inexperienced pony first touched, or in her case she supposed more broadly interacted with and or tried to play, an instrument they were unfamiliar with, the sound was not particularly pleasant. She pulled her hooves back, mostly so she didn't have to think while still hearing that. But she knew she didn't have to give up on it right there. No one picked up a new instrument and was instantly good with it. She just needed some practice. Curious she placed her hooves near the instrument again, and listened to the sound change as she moved them. She didn't quite know what she was doing with it, but she did like some of what she heard. A small portion of it. She knew she could bring something out of it, with enough experience and time. She smiled. Maybe what she'd end up making with it wouldn't sound like every future happening at once, but there was still time for that. Maybe. Either way, she'd make something nice with it, and that was what really mattered. > Anew > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Journey Through the Dark - Part 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The other end of the corridor did, indeed, lead to an exit, a more clearly visible one even. The staircase led to a wooden door which led to a small courtyard, overlooked by guards, which then led outside of the castle walls. She had been a little hesitant to open the door at first, hearing some sounds from outside, but she'd judged them to be far enough for them not to notice the illusion spell she used to make it look like the door was still closed. Not something she could pull off in the laboratory, with two ponies right there. So she was back to waiting for one of them to open the door. She wouldn't wait forever of course, but she had some time she could afford to spend there. To her luck, it didn't take too long before the door did open. She stood up and prepared as she heard steps approaching it, and as the stallion opened it she quickly scanned the inside and teleported in. She breathed a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut again. The room was wide and long, and cluttered despite the organisation of its clutter. Cupboards lined the walls except for the places where doors were, one on each side, and on top of them was a mess of what Twilight could only roughly describe as lab stuff. Beakers, books, microscopes, folders, clipboards, quills, half eaten food. It was a lot like what her own research would have led to if she hadn't forced organisation upon herself. The centre of the room was taken up by two tables, separated, messy in just the same manner but with a few more cups and mugs and taller piles of paper sheets on them. Then were a few plain chairs. And a unicorn mare, lazily spinning around the back of a teaspoon in her mug while looking at the wall. Twilight couldn't help it, be it her own nature or natural instincts. She looked at the pony, taking a step closer. She looked sad, for one. For two, there was something familiar about her. Something odd Twilight couldn't place at a first glance. An unrolled scroll sat beside her, and Twilight stepped closer still to look at it. Orders, signed by Nightmare Moon herself. For the production of more weapons. Twilight had a decent idea of what that may refer to if it was there. The door opened, and closed again. "Took you long enough," said the mare, still looking at the wall. Twilight hadn't had a chance to get a good look at the stallion, before. Doing so, she felt the same odd sensation of familiarity she'd felt with the mare. "You say that just because you missed me," he replied. "Missed the only other intelligent lifeform I'm legally allowed to interact with while I'm stuck here? How could I ever." The mare put down her teaspoon and drank from her mug. "Well, I'm still stuck here, so I don't know if intelligent is the right word," the stallion said. He looked at the scroll Twilight had been reading, and his expression darkened. "How long before they start sending them in?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 8 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "A couple of cycles at most," the mare replied. She finally turned towards the stallion, not looking particularly happy. "Figured out anything about what she needs them for yet? I know you've been sneaking out by yourself again." "No luck." The stallion took a seat in front of the mare. "They're keeping their lips shut up north, I'd have to go there myself." "Ask for a transfer." The mare gave a dry chuckle. "Do you think this is... You know, our whole deal now?" The stallion buried his face in his hooves. "For a few years at least. Even if they start up mass production, she'll keep up us here for a series two and three and to keep working on improvements." The mare sighed, low and heavy. "Yeah. I figured. Nothing we can do about it then, right?" "You can quit at any moment." The stallion came back up from his hooves. "Just walk out the door and keep going, and hope the first guard doesn't aim for the legs. She'll find someone who's happier to do this, or more scared of death." "Or she'll just make someone more compliant," the mare replied. "Free will is a luxury ponykind didn't have a few generations ago, and she can take it away whenever she feels like." "I doubt that would lead to good research," the stallion replied, grabbing a spare biscuit from the table he then put in his mouth. "Oh, it wouldn't," said the mare. "Of course it wouldn't. We wouldn't be chatting like this and risking our lives digging for forbidden information if it did. But there's a compromise between the two, most likely. Or, like you said, she just needs to find someone who enjoys it. No shortage of psychos out there who'd be having fun with this." "Makes you wonder why she picked us," the stallion said. "Feel like doing any actual work?" he asked. "I haven't felt like working a single time in the last two years. At least. But right now specifically I can kinda get away with not doing it, so of course not." She fetched a sheet of paper and a pencil and began to scribble down something. "I'll be going to the archives again, later. I'm not sure what I'll be looking for, but every book that's there ought to be there for a reason, so I'll probably find something." Mentally, Twilight took note of the mention of archives. The stallion sighed. "I guess I could bribe a guard to bribe a guard to bribe a guard to bribe a researcher to get some information from the Empire. It would only cost me about twice my life savings but the likelihood of being found out is so high I'll probably never live to have to pay it. " "Just forget it," the mare said. She seemed to be working on some sort of formula. Twilight recognised some pieces of it, but wasn't yet sure what it was. "We're never finding out what's happening there unless the information leaks. And we'll probably know about the leaks when we're asked to test a new upgrade on the ones responsible." The stallion sighed, again. "Would it be morally right to try to stop this?" "The rest of the world would say the opposite. But you would be sticking to your principles, at least," said the mare. > Quo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not on something edible, no. That would have been mean spirited. And awkward. And potentially really weird. Not on something that would be kept either, though. They supposed they could always pretend it had fallen and they'd found it on the ground, but that would have been lying and cheating for recognition. Quite literally pretending to find something they'd stolen. Something that would be thrown away, then. Soon, but not somewhere it would get dirty if possible. A paper napkin, or a hayburger's wrapping? Nah. That didn't feel like it would work out cleanly. They could mess up the timing, too. Candy wrapping, though? Seeing a foal about to open it, they thought it was the perfect thing to test it on. And it worked. The filly threw the wrapper away into the nearest garbage bin a few seconds later. Discreetly, trying not to look awkward, they got up and approached it to get a look, counting up the time. About thirty seconds, they weren't exactly sure. Maybe they should have done some more precise testing, at home, with a clock. Keeping the wrapper, they headed away. Keep experimenting on that? It felt a little dangerous to take from themself. Having them be so close and all. They supposed they could always use other stuff they had around the house. They wondered, almost frightened but curious, if they couldn't do it multiple times in close succession, with the same object. But perhaps they couldn't do it again at all until the time ran out. More testing to be done there. They weren't going to report about it. Probably. No real interest in doing anything fancy with it. It could probably make for some pretty cool magic tricks, but they weren't really interested in that. They supposed in general having it was more useful than not having it though. And it probably could be useful somehow someday maybe. And either way trying to figure it out entertained them. Princess Twilight had perhaps been a little too naive in expecting ponies would just up and tell the Guard or her or whoever about them. Then again, maybe she knew perfectly what she was doing, and the real reason she'd spoken was to for everyone else to be on the lookout. It made sense, if someone was going to do something bad with one they would have done it either way. They had no interest in it. They did acknowledge how other ponies might have rather enjoyed it though, and for less than respectable reasons. Certainly a wonderful tool for thieving and the like, and thirty seconds were plenty of time. One could pull off the perfect crime, in plain sight, in fact be impossible to judge as anything but innocent by any logical means exactly by staying where everyone could see them. As long as no one found what they stole. On second thought, the whole thing kind of fell apart. It made stealing easier, sure, and maybe was a good way to feign being roped up in something, but it wasn't perfect. Magic tricks though, those it would have been great for. Too bad they didn't care for them. It felt almost like a waste. > Sleep > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's taller than I thought it would be." Lyra didn't answer that, too busy looking out the window. But it was true for her as well. The Wall was more like a mountain than anything else in terms of scale, and it was no surprise that it had cut off infrastructure for as long as it had. "How long do you think it will take to get through?" she asked, turning her attention back down to earth and towards the tunnel they were heading towards. "A few minutes, according to what I've read," Bon Bon replied. She'd gotten off her seat to stand next to the window and get a better look at the Wall herself. It was a lot like a mountain, in many ways. In others it was more like a chain of them scaled down. In others still, nothing like either. It stretched on both sides far beyond what their eyes could see, and upwards it poked through the lowest clouds and past them. It wasn't a solid defined prism shape, but it was far more jagged in its angles than a regular mountain would have been. Most impressive and alien of all though was its surface. A clear crystal blue, gleaming in the sunlight. Smooth, polished, unscathed by rain or wind or any other natural phenomena. No trees grew on it, no rocks or dirt or anything to cover it, no snow on its peaks and no rivers running down its sides. No animals to be seen on it either. It was like someone had sculpted an impossibly big block of glass and then placed it there. Neither pony had ever seen something so big feel so artificial. In some ways, how it had suddenly sprouted from the ground according to reports being one of them, it was similar to Twilight's castle in Ponyville. But it felt a lot more sinister. A lot more wrong. Bon Bon swallowed. "Nervous?" Lyra asked, turning part of her attention that way. "A bit," Bon Bon admitted. "It should be safe though." "That doesn't make it not creepy," Lyra replied, once again focusing fully on the Wall. She silently watched it as the train kept moving along, until it became impossible to as they entered the gallery craved into it. Literally carved, as was their understanding and as the look of it appeared to confirm, but it was at least thankfully lit up with magic. Bon Bon went back to her seat, and soon Lyra pulled her head away from the window, and for a few minutes they just sat there waiting for the last portion of the trip to be over. Until the unicorn caught sight of something in the corner of her eye, outside her window. "Did you see something?" Bon Bon asked to Lyra, who'd suddenly decided to press her face against the glass and had been there for a few seconds. "I..." Lyra pulled back her face and sat down again. Then she noticed Bon Bon staring at her, still expecting an answer. "Oh. No. Nothing, just my imagination," she lied, convincingly enough for the other mare not to realise. > Bury > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And why are there still lizards?!" Shining loudly not-yelled at no one in particular, before leaning back into his chair with a sigh and looking at the ceiling as if it could somehow answer all his problems. "Highness, would you like a drink?" the stallion at his side asked. Shining exhaled heavily once, to calm himself. "Sure, Paper," he answered, straightening himself again. "Water will do. Cold, please. Not frozen." The other pony's attitudes still weirded him out, but he'd gotten at least used to enjoying the convenience of them. Paper Letters returned in far less time than it could have possibly taken him to reach anything resembling a fridge, and without having left the room by the sound of it. Nevertheless he held up a tall glass of clear water, damp with moisture on the outside. Shining took it from his hooves without saying a word, and drank from it. It was pleasantly cold, just as he'd asked. Frighteningly close to exactly what he'd meant when he'd asked. Cadence's neck joints popped and crackled as she stretched out. "At least the train is working safely so far." Shining put the glass down. "Until one of those things ends up under the tracks. Or digs through them. Or until they're spotted." "They're smart enough to avoid the train," Cadence replied. "And we can tell as much to the passengers, if it becomes necessary." "You're banking on animals acting rationally," Shining said. "Violent animals, and not particularly smart." "They're not going to attack the train while it's moving," said Cadence. Shining sighed again, and took another sip of water, emptying the glass. "We might need to close travels soon anyway, going by what Twilight was saying." Cadence got closer to her husband. "She might find a solution to that. It's her. She will find a solution." She stood in front of him and smiled. "And what have I told you about problems?" "As a ruler, you have too much to worry about in terms of what you can influence to worry about what you have no control over as well," Shining recited back. "I remember, yes." He smiled at his wife. "Who did you get that from? Celestia?" Cadence gave a chuckle and soft nod. "I think she tried to teach it to Twilight as well, years ago. It never stuck, and she just gave up at some point." She looked at the wall, thinking of something else. "I don't know if it's because she decided to teach her differently, or because Twilight is the one pony who'll manage to solve even problems she shouldn't have been able to if she puts her heart to it." "That sounds like admitting defeat on Celestia's part," Shining said. "Would she really?" he jokingly asked. "Well, she did pass on the crown," Cadence replied in the same tone. "Sometimes I wonder what your parents must think. Would they ever even have dreamed they'd end up with both their foals as royals?" "I think they got a clue about it when me and you started started dating." Shining winked and smirked at her. "Twilight ruling Equestria, though? Yeah, they didn't see that coming. I didn't either. You should have seen my face when Celestia told me." "I can imagine it," Cadence replied. "Probably close to the face you made when I told you I was pregnant." Shining laughed a little at that. "Probably, yeah." > 13 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Worried about her?" "Of course I'm worried about her," Celestia replied, refusing to stop pacing back and forth. "I'm sure she will be okay," said Luna. "It's Twilight Sparkle we're talking about. You should have learned to have faith in her by now." "She reminds me of myself," Celestia said, still walking without aim. "Too much. Especially when she left. She's not supposed to be like this." Luna couldn't help but smile at that. "She was your student, after all. And she is in your place now. You can't be too surprised." Celestia exhaled annoyed from her nose, flaring her nostrils. "She doesn't need to make the same mistakes I made. She shouldn't. She knows that, she's smart enough to know it." Luna tried to approach her sister. "You remind me of myself, you know? When I came back." "What do you mean?" Celestia finally stopped walking, though only because the path was blocked by the other alicorn. "You want to blame yourself," Luna explained. "If Twilight acts differently and succeeds, then it means you didn't need to act the way you did. It means you were wrong. That's what you want, isn't it?" "If I want Twilight to be a better pony than I was? Of course," Celestia said, almost dismissively. "That's what any teacher wishes for. That's what any sane ruler would want, leaving the country in hooves better than their own." "But you don't want just that," Luna pressed on. "You don't just want her to be good, or better than you. You want her to prove you were wrong. You want her to prove you made mistakes and took decisions you shouldn't have. You want her to prove you didn't need to do what you did." "So what?" Celestia asked, stepping past Luna. "I admit it, I want proof the world is a good place. I want proof there is a better way to do things. I want proof that what I did isn't a necessity, because I don't want a world where that kind of thing is the only way." She turned her head back towards her sister. "Is that so bad?" "No," Luna replied. "But knowing there was a better way doesn't mean you were a bad ruler or teacher. Knowing you could have done things differently doesn't mean what you did makes you a bad pony. You should stop wanting that." She approached Celestia. "You should stop wanting her to hate you. You know she doesn't want to." "Maybe it's what I deserve," Celestia replied, simply. "Maybe. But she doesn't," Luna replied back, sternly. Celestia sighed, and turned. "None of this will matter if she doesn't come back." "You'll go after her if she doesn't, won't you?" asked Luna. "Of course I will. She would do the same for me." "I thought you weren't trying to be like her." Luna kept walking, keeping up with Celestia. "What do you expect me to do, if you don't come back either?" "Do the right thing," Celestia replied. "Close the portal. You'll be a better ruler for Equestria than I would be, anyway." Luna sighed. "She'll be back. I have faith in her, and so should you." > 5K > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course she was going to follow her. She wasn't about to let that idiot get herself killed by someone else, and if Nightmare Moon wanted to she could get in line. Twilight, for her part, had done a good job keeping herself out of trouble. Proper camouflage spells and a job well done disabling detection magic, and turning it back on once she was through. She was wasting time though. Just standing there, listening to those two ponies. Stella supposed it at least meant she wasn't putting herself in danger she'd need to pull her out of. > New > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do I have to carry all of this myself?" Lyra asked, pulling along the admittedly not all too heavy luggage they had brought along for their vacation. "Well, I need two hooves to look at the map properly and at least one to hold it," Bon Bon replied, walking down the crystal street among crystal ponies going in and out of crystal buildings as the crystal tower housing the Crystal Heart stood tall not too far in the distance at the centre of the Crystal Empire. "Don't you feel like this place's aesthetic is a little too... Too much and too uniform?" she asked, looking around. "We've been here for seven minutes and twelve seconds," Lyra replied, "don't tell me you're already bored." "Not at all," Bon Bon said. "I was just pointing it out. Don't get me wrong, I like a change of scenery. I don't get them as often since I retired from S.M.I.L.E.." She turned back to Lyra and smirked. "Though if I'm sticking with the best sight I could ask for, it's not really a big deal." Lyra could not avoid smiling back at that, and her wife's smile was almost enough for her to forgive the fact that she was being forced to carry everything. Then the floating of her heart crumbled as it failed to adequately pull her limbs forward, anchored to the very much still there weight of their suitcases and bags, and Lyra's dreamy expression settled into something else. Though the love was still there, just mixed in with perhaps resignation, and some amusement too. A kind of playful acceptance, that things weren't perfect but they didn't need to be. "How come you're so good at telling the time?" asked Bon Bon as she turned again, walking again. "You don't have a watch." "Oh, I-" Lyra almost stumbled and had to catch herself. "I've just been practising, that's all. For fun, you know?" "Nothing says fun like the perpetual knowledge of time's inexorable and yet dreadfully immutable march and the constant awareness of its pace and its infinity." Bon Bon whistled as she noticed a restaurant. "We're eating there tonight, you okay with that?" "Sure." Lyra was more preoccupied with pulling things along than with looking around, though at least the almost unsettlingly well polished streets made it easier to do so without bumping into anything. But even still, she trusted Bon Bon's judgement when it came to food. And sweets especially of course. But she was good with food in general too, probably something one was bound to pick up on when working in the kitchen regardless of what they were specifically working on. "How far are we still?" she asked. "It should be just around this corner, then down the street," Bon Bon replied. "We should be there in a few minutes or less. If you move fast enough." She shot Lyra another smirk. Lyra answered that with an eyeroll. She at least had her magic to pull a share of the luggage, and it did mean she could comfortably carry more than Bon Bon, but that still didn't justify her having to carry everything. But she wasn't too bothered by it. And she'd make sure Bon Bon got to carry everything on the way back, it was only fair. > Epitome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Pinkie Pie, am I right?" Pinkie nodded, without turning. "Not the first time you've met me, I take it," the creature said, stepping closer. "It is the first for me, time seems to be all sorts of convoluted for me. I think I'm going backwards, though I'm not fully sure. I'm not sure when this is, either." "It doesn't really matter when," said Pinkie. "It could be anywhen. What matters is that it happens, or happened, or will happen, or is happening. Its existence in time, that's what's important, the position is irrelevant. It might not even have one, be devoid of a when. It's an event, realised and not merely a possibility, and that's all that's necessary. Time, especially for us, is less of a line and more of a space. This moment exists within it, whether it's floating or stationary has no bearing on that. It's there. We meet here, now, regardless of when now is this event is, and it being is all that is needed." "I will come to see time in a similar way myself, in the past, then," the creature noted, settling down its chitinous appendages besides Pinkie and turning in her same direction. It sat there for a few seconds, admiring that which stood before them. "I am a messenger of the Raven, I've been told. I haven't understood it yet. But what is the Raven?" it asked, turning to Pinkie with those last words. "If I had to give the most succinct description," Pinkie said, "necessary evil." The creature reflected upon that for a few moments. "That sounds pretentious," it said after them. "It is," said Pinkie in return. "We are aware of it. Nevertheless, we carry on. One day you understood." The creature returned to looking at the thing it could not yet have understood. It was almost like the Behemoth, in some ways. "You know where I'm headed," it said. "If I'm going backwards, my future is your past. Where do I end?" "If you're going backwards, your past is my future," Pinkie replied, and she finally turned. "Where will they go?" "I have not seen their ends," said the creature. "Though time has been... contorted, in my travels. Knotted and twisted, and all but clear. What I have seen I can scarcely understand, not at all place." It gave something close to a smile. "But it was not meant that you know the future. I'm the one in the wrong." Pinkie smiled. "The first I met you was not the last of you. I do not know where you end, if forward again or further back still or away, perhaps whence you came, perhaps somewhere else entirely." "Then my future isn't written." The creature smiled still. "There is comfort in that." Pinkie's smile waned. "Not something I have felt much of, lately. It's cold, here, and lonely at times, and you're never truly sheltered." "Is that, too, necessary evil?" asked the creature. "That's pretentious," Pinkie Pie said. "Nevertheless, we carry on." > Vessel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We found this in the Everfree. We weren't sure if it was safe to move it, so we teleported the whole patch of ground here," one of the researchers explained. "Right now we're trying to determine if we can interact with it without damaging it. It looks extremely fragile. We've checked and it doesn't appear to be contaminating the environment in any way." "I see," Twilight said, tilting her head to observe the bizzare sight before her. It was off-white, almost transparent in places, in all ways reminiscent of something an insect might leave behind after growing, a copy of its old body's shape. It was only broken in the back, a long tear along the top of it that suggested something had pushed its way out from inside. But no creature she knew of looked anything like that. Not even in the state the world had been left after the Behemoth had come had she seen anything similar, and it looked more like some foal's drawing brought to life than anything actually meant to exist. Like a gigantic centipede with legs like those of a bird, and then there was whatever the mess of tentacles and claws and bulbs on the front was. The other end didn't make much more sense, seemingly truncated abruptly like a chopped off branch from a tree. That whatever had been in there was still somewhere, and possibly bigger or even more confusing in its anatomy, was not the most reassuring of thoughts. Especially the idea that it might be flying, which she forcefully pushed out of her head. She would have blamed or consulted Discord for something like that, but he still hadn't returned. She had arguably more important things to focus on, though. Or at least, things she could focus on more immediately and efficiently, that required her attention and that she knew she could deal with, whereas she had no idea how long it would take to properly study that thing if she started to. That was what the other researchers there were for, though. "I trust you with taking care of this," she said. And though it almost annoyed her to, she added, "Report to me directly only if you find something that requires my immediate attention, otherwise leave your results for later inspection." She turned, and trying to ignore the way the sight of that thing still unsettled she headed for the exit. The door opened before she could reach it, and Rainbow Dash stepped in. "Twilight!" she said, spotting the alicorn. "Princess Luna has finished looking at those files you sent her. She says she-" The words stopped coming out of her mouth. Twilight frowned. "Rainbow?" she asked, approaching. "Are you okay?" Rainbow ignored her, and in fact forcefully pushed her way past her and towards the thing at the centre of the room. "What is that?" she almost yelled. "Where did you find it?" The pony who'd been talking to Twilight just a moment before turned to the pegasus. "We found it in the Everfree," he explained, "and we're not really sure what it is yet but-" Rainbow had already turned, and she disappeared past the doors, running and already flying out of there as quickly as she could safely manage. > Bastion > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's weird, in a way," said Sunset. "I've spent so long away from Equestria, and so much of that time not really caring about what happened there. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, they all came and went without me even knowing about it. I'm not sure what I would have felt if I'd known, though. Maybe the same thing I feel now." "I guess it's kind of like moving to a different city or something like that," said Twilight. "You get used to the new place, but you still care about the old one. That's how I imagine it is, at least." Sunset chuckled. "Maybe it's more like changing country. Hooves for hands instead of a different language, but it's closer. But how much of the human world have I actually seen? Less than I've seen of Equestria, and I haven't seen all that much of Equestria in the first place all things considered. I suppose it's about other things. Things that stay the same all over a world, or a country, or even just a city. That's where you really feel the change." Twilight nodded. "I'm sure Equestria will be okay," she tried to reassure the other. "It's in great hooves, after all." > Post Pone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The forest has been... quieter, lately," said Luna, looking over the trees below them. It was true. The place appeared far less deformed compared to how it had in the previous months, and even the creatures in it had decreased in number and ferocity. Rainbow looked down as well, sitting at her side. "What do you think it was?" "Hard to say," Luna replied. "It felt like... Like the place was waiting something. Like something was about to happen. Things kept getting more frenzied, the nightmares more twisted. Then, one night, it was all over." Rainbow hesitated, looking at her teacher and wondering about her tone. "Is that not a good thing?" she asked. "It might be," Luna said, serious. "It might not be. Without knowing what actually happened, it's hard to tell. If what was agitating the forest is gone, or if it has simply moved somewhere else, we won't know by just looking around. We won't know until it starts creating problems again, in the worst case." Rainbow blinked a couple of times, and looked to the forest again. "And is there any way to try to figure out what was causing all of that?" After a moment of silence, Luna said, "There might be. Dreams are memories, or composed of them in part at least, and a dream itself can... But I won't bother you with it. It's something too dangerous for you to come. I will attempt to seek out the information myself, and hopefully have something worthwhile come of it." Rainbow watched in awe as Luna suddenly materialised a large silver bow at her side, which tensed by itself and shot its arrow towards the trees below them. A single croaked cry came after the impact, and then the sound of a large body tumbling to the ground. "But this does mean we have more time to talk about other matters," Luna said, casually dismissing her bow. "I finally had a chance to visit that mare you told me about. Good Day," she said, turning towards Rainbow. The pegasus forced her mouth closed, then nodded. "I remember her. I don't think I've ever seen her dreams again, though." "They were just as you'd described them to me," said Luna. "Perfectly normal days, with nothing odd about them. But I did take the liberty to observe them more properly, in ways you wouldn't be able to. It might surprise you to know that there is absolutely nothing weird or out of the ordinary about them. It seems she simply is the kind of mare whose dreams do not differ from her reality." Luna smiled while thinking about it. "Given she appears to enjoy them, it may be a sign that she leads a particularly good life as far as she's concerned. Perhaps she's simply content with it." "Huh." Rainbow wanted to ask about the bow thing, but decided it wasn't the right moment for it. "Where does she live?" she asked instead. Luna's eyebrows took a curious curve. "Do you wish to visit her in the waking world?" Rainbow pursed her lips inward, suddenly slightly embarrassed by the situation. Luna smiled at her. "There's nothing odd about it. I myself have seeked out a few ponies whose dreams fascinated me over the course of my life. I shall take you to her if you desire, in the following days." Rainbow slowly nodded. "I'd like that. It's not like I... It's..." "I understand," said Luna with a smile. "This kind of curiosity is a natural thing. There's nothing wrong with indulging it a little. How does two days from now sound?" "Sounds fine to me," Rainbow said, nodding her head to shake off the awkwardness. "It's decided, then." > 25% > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Then what are we doing in the meantime?" asked the stallion. "Just lounging around here, existing?" "Sounds good to me," said the mare. The stallion gave a single, loud and forced chuckle. "She'll expect reports at some point. She may not want to get rid of us at a hair's drop, but if we're not working and she notices that then it's not much different from telling her we don't want to work anymore." "What are we supposed to work on, anyway?" asked the mare, looking at him. "We don't have any new material to process, and won't until overmorrow at least." "That doesn't mean we can't be working," replied the stallion. "You know how it is. Coming up with ways to smooth out the process or improve the results, testing things on what we do have. We've been through this cycle already." "That was when we were doing experiments doomed to fail, on prisoners. I don't enjoy this, but killing ponies who'd be killed off anyway is one thing. Turning soldiers into those things is another, and we both know it. I don't want my life's legacy to be the thing that'll end up slaughtering who knows who who knows where." The mare stared at the other unicorn. "Besides, I don't like working with the samples," she added, looking down again. "I think I've gotten sick of the smell of rotting meat." "If you cared about the moral integrity of your actions you should have walked out the borders of this country as soon as you realised what it's done, or died trying. It's a little late to not look like a coward now," the stallion said, but in a caring tone. "Sometimes I think there's something wrong with us." "Only sometimes?" The mare sarcastically quirked an eyebrow. "Not like that." The stallion fetched a bit of food from the table, without really looking at it. "The ponies out there, going about their lives, do you think they care? Do you think they would care, even if they knew? They weren't taught to think like that. They weren't taught to care. As far as they're concerned this is right, all of it." "Can you blame them?" asked the mare. "You said it. They don't know better. Can you even say someone is morally wrong if they've only ever heard one version of the story, if they've only ever known one meaning of right and wrong? If they've never been taught, shown, told anything different? If they haven't had a chance to decide, can you blame them for a choice someone else made for them?" "You're asking for yourself, aren't you?" The mare hesitated for a moment, and looked down again. "Do you ever wonder if you're wrong about what you think is right?" "Every cycle since the one I realised I'd been wrong all the ones before it," the stallion replied. "Then how do you do what's right, if you don't even know what right is?" "You do what you think is right," the stallion said after a moment of thinking. "Until you hit a wall. Until you find out you might have been wrong. And if that happens, you try to be better afterwards. You don't expect a test to go perfectly the first time, there wouldn't be a point to testing otherwise." "Isn't that what the ponies out there are doing?" asked the mare. "They think they're right, and they do something we think is wrong. Would it not be right to stop them, from our point of view, and only then try to change their minds? Would it not be right, from both our point of view and theirs, to try to make our good and evil theirs, then get rid of those who disagree?" The stallion was silent for a while, and in the end just sighed. "The good news is you'd be dead before you got through the first minute of telling a pony on the streets about how Nightmare Moon is evil, so you don't need to worry about dealing with that. I think it all comes down to whether or not good and evil exist beyond us, or if they aren't merely concepts in our minds. Our own good isn't worth more than theirs if both are so limited." "What is good anyway, right?" the mare said, looking at the floor. "Not the food here," said the stallion, trying to lighten the mood. He looked around the room for a moment, then sighed again. "I'll look for something we can work on. There's got to be some paperwork to sort out or other thing to research while we wait." > Modus > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clutching his mug, Sunburst took a deep breath, as his eyes lingered on the potted plant in the corner of the room that had not been there an hour ago. Finally, he settled his gaze on the mare in front of him again. "Think you got it?" she asked him, with a smile. Sunburst gave a small shrug. "I think I do. I can't spend all my time here, anyway." He tried to smile too, then sighed. "What do you do?" he asked. Starshine pondered the question for a moment, tilting her head and biting the inside of her cheek. "I bring desires to this world," she finally answered. "In other terms?" Sunburst asked. "I give matter and form to things longed for," said Starshine. Sunburst nodded, and took another sip from his mug, which had refilled itself. "Is there a limit to what you can create?" "Is there a limit to the fantasies a mind can conceive?" Starshine asked back. Sunburst tried not to let himself be shaken too much by the revelation, and largely succeeded. He thought things through for a moment, then asked, "What can't you do? What is the limit within which you express your powers?" "I can only create things," Starshine answered. "I cannot change what exists. I cannot destroy. Not what is already, not what is after I have created it." Sunburst slowly nodded. "Define longing." "Any form of desire or yearn, whether felt or expressed," explained Starshine. "Hunger, conscious thought, sensations, urgency, physical need. It's all enough, regardless of intensity, regardless of clarity, provided it is there and it's sincere." "Whose desires?" Sunburst asked with some urgency. "Anyone close enough," said Starshine. Sunburst slowed his breathing to calm himself, and took another sip. "It's starting to make sense, at least," he said, to buy some more time. Finally he asked, "You are-" "Yes," answered Starshine, not needing him to finish the question. Sunburst opened his mouth to speak again, and again the mare interrupted him. "It was loneliness, mostly. If it makes you feel better. Missing the ones close to you, and of course the added stress of the situation." "But it wasn't just that," Sunburst said. "Right?" After a moment, Starshine slowly nodded. "Right. It's deeper than that." Sunburst took another slow breath, and sighed again. "Starlight, Trixie, my mother, Twilight... Someone else?" Starshine thought about it for a bit, pursuing her lips and tilting her head as she seemingly studied the ceiling. "Some of Cadence. Some of Twilight's friends. A little bit of everyone, really." Sunburst blew a few strands of his mane away from his eyes, then took off his glasses and began to clean them. "Trying to tell me something?" "Asking me or the universe?" Starshine smiled. Sunburst shook his head. "You're right, this is not what I need right now." He looked up at the mare, knowing he didn't need to speak his question aloud. "It doesn't," she said. "Trust me. Anyone else might have had the same happen to them, some might have done a lot worse." She tried to smile again. "I was mostly your way to cope with and process things. A manifestation of something you couldn't understand at that point." Sunburst bit his lower lip for a moment. "At least now I know," he said. > Re View > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Moon shone down on the crystal streets of the Crystal Empire, lighting them alongside the lampposts at their sides. The whole town seemed to sparkle, and with every step the mares took the light bounced from the walls and streets a different way, every turn of their heads revealing a new wonderful sight. Which was why Bon Bon was rather bothered by her wife's utter inability to take it slowly and actually enjoy the walk, instead of almost rushing ahead and bouncing up and down at her side. "You don't always get like this when you drink," she said to Lyra, even if she couldn't keep a frown while looking at her. "I barely had a glass anyway," Lyra replied, "it's the vacation vibes. Don't you feel it? The excitement of the night, the electricity in the air?" she asked, her mannerism almost uncomfortably reminiscent of Pinkie's. Bon Bon lifted her head and turned slightly, looking towards the nearest clock up on a library's wall. "It's not even close to midnight yet. We're usually still up by this time." Lyra wasn't listening, and had in fact already walked past her in her excited gait. "Hey, look!" she said, pointing a hoof forward. Catching up to her, Bon Bon followed the direction her leg was pointing towards, and spotted a green filly holding and almost literally buried in a book, only her black mane poking out above the covers while the rest of her face remained completely hidden by them. "...Uh, they have books here in the Empire?" she asked, confused. "They have foals?" She tilted her head to the side. "Actually I think that's another tourist, she-" Lyra's magic came to physically interrupt Bon Bon, by turning her head slightly and forcing her eyes closer to the two of them, not on the filly but on the small crowd of ponies gathered in front of a table to the side of the road. "That, you silly," said the unicorn, as if she wasn't the one bouncing and pointing around in the middle of the street. "Oh," Bon Bon said, walking forward to keep up with the other as they approached. "What do you think they're doing?" "It's a game!" Lyra squeed, but it was a squee low enough to pass for regular speech and draw no attention to them. Sure enough, the single crystal pony behind the table was moving around three hoof-sized purple crystal bowls, and once he stopped the pony directly in front of him placed her hoof on one of them. The stallion turned the bowl and revealed there was nothing beneath it, then turned the other two, one of which was hiding a small pile of bits. The mare pouted slightly and walked away, defeated, while the stallion said, "Come on, everypony. Just one bit to play!" Before Bon Bon had a chance to even realise it was an eventuality she might need to prevent, Lyra had already placed herself in front of the table, a bit held in her magic. "Bring it," she said, smugly smiling, as she tossed it onto the pile on the table. Bon Bon watched with an eye roll as the stallion, putting on a smile even more smug than Lyra's, flipped back the three bowls and began to shuffle them. After a few seconds of sliding his hooves around, he pulled them back and stared the unicorn in the eyes. Lyra stared back at him, and tapped the bowl to her right, while Bon Bon prepared to drag her away before she wasted all their money trying to figure things out. But to her surprise the stallion flinched slightly, and at his lack of immediate action Lyra flipped the bowl herself. Smiling wider, she took the pile of bits in her magic and began to walk away, leaving a somewhat shocked Bon Bon behind, until she shook herself and walked after her. As they left they heard the stallion say, "See? It's that easy!" Bon Bon caught up with Lyra, who was busy counting her money and putting it away. "I thought those kind of games were rigged," she said. "Well, yeah," Lyra replied. "But it's not cheating if you're doing it to even the playing field." Refusing to elaborate further, she trotted further ahead, past the reading filly and towards an ice-cream shop she'd spotted. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 9 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'll go clean the other room," the mare said after a moment of silence. "We cleaned it yestercycle," the stallion noted, finishing his crackers. "You can never get clean enough with this sort of things. Wanna make sure the experiment are conducted in a sterile environment and all that," the mare droned out as she got up and headed for one of the doors. Twilight thought it rather obvious that she was just looking for an excuse to pretend she'd done something, and the stallion seemed to have caught on too. "Make sure you take care of the corners properly," he said as he watched her go. Twilight quickly decided to follow the mare, and teleported in the room on the other side of the door as soon as she opened it. It looked like another, smaller laboratory, with far less clutter around and without a table in the middle. But its most interesting feature was a fully transparent wall on one side, likely glass or crystal. In front of it was a control panel of sorts, and on the other side was a sight Twilight was unfortunately familiar with. The table in the middle was probably the same one as before. The black crystal formation hanging on top of it had to be new though, a replacement for the one blown to pieces the last time she'd been on the other side of that glass. She did wonder, sincerely, what consequences her and Chrysalis's incursion there had brought. If maybe that had been the cause of Nightmare Moon taking interest in their world. Though she wouldn't be able to figure out how she was sending things there by staying in that laboratory, most likely. She followed the mare through another door, out into a corridor, and almost immediately into the room with the table, the door to which the unicorn unlocked with her magic. Twilight recognised it as the one Chrysalis's attempt at escaping had come to an end against. She teleported in before the mare closed her out in the corridor. The room inside was actually rather clean, which made sense given what the stallion had said, and perhaps surprisingly it didn't really smell any particular way. She'd always thought the stench of charred and rotted flesh could only at best be covered by the chemical smell of particularly aggressive cleaning products, but it seemed that was too romantic a thought to stand up to reality. Not romantic in the love way, of course, just- Twilight shook her head and focused on the mare again. She was busy using her magic to scrub against the places where the floor met the walls. It didn't look like it was doing anything, but she certainly seemed to be putting some actual effort in it, so at least Twilight supposed she wouldn't be lying when claiming she'd spent her time cleaning the room. While the unicorn busied herself with that, Twilight carefully walked closer to the centre of the room and focused on the crystal contraption. It almost reminded her of some weird mix between magic crystal artifacts like the Elements or the Heart, and Sombra's anti-magic constructs. Definitely something she could see originating from the Empire, and the mention of a northern laboratory seemed to point in that direction as a possibility, but also definitely the result of dark magic. Looking a little closer, and tilting her head slightly, she thought she could almost see something trapped within the crystal, barely noticeable. She was distracted by having to move out of the way, to avoid the other mare walking into her. She appeared to be done with the edges of the room, and ready to take care of the table instead. It, too, looked pretty much spotless, though that did nothing to take away the knowledge of what it was used for. The unicorn's magic settled on its surface and began to scrub it, while Twilight looked around the place. She could probably get out the other door once the mare left if she moved quickly enough, assuming it still wasn't locked. But she wasn't sure she could find much that way, the information she wanted was probably elsewhere. So she had to wait. The glass wall was enchanted to prevent teleportation through it, and for good reasons she was sure. Stepping back, she kept studying the crystal from afar, while also keeping and eye on the mare as she cleaned the table. > Kingdom > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A dream is partway the result of memory, and memory of a dream itself can persist. Beyond that, something else might continue to exist. Something deep within the mind of the dreamer, some subconscious knowledge they are not quite aware of that may, on occasions rare, guarantee consistency between dreams, and in fact make it possible to return to and continue one. What she was doing was in a lot of ways related to all those things, and in others yet far removed from them and far weirded. For once, her dreamer, if it could be called that, was not a pony, nor a creature at all. At least, she hoped it was not a creature. It was rather a place. A space within the dream world, a manifestation of a physical location reflected in the realm dreams existed in. It itself within the dream was dreaming at that moment, made to by her own efforts, and remembering what it had seen just a few days before. Indeed it was not something she would have ever allowed Rainbow Dash to enter, something the pegasus would have had no hopes of navigating. The Everfree Forest's dream self, at its most frenzied state, in its most twisted regions, warped yet again by the nature of the dream within a dream containing its memory made manifest. If physics had been unnaturally contorted by the place as it had existed in the dream world prior, they downright broke down there. Luna's own form in it existed fragmented and separated, parts of her moving in different spaces and directions when she went one way, her consciousness itself placed in multiple places at once. It was not something she could not stand up to though. The creatures there, to which she chose to remain invisible, were at their most deformed. The deepest, blackest nightmares she'd ever seen, things that might have driven ponies insane if they'd escaped. But they'd never left the innermost reaches of the forest, she knew that much, as only its warped and twisted conditions had been able to sustain their existence without a host to drain like a parasite. Even past the added layer of distortion the additional dream created, Luna could clearly see the impressive degree to which reality had been twisted as she neared the centre of the Everfree. Where before its shape had been merely convoluted, everything there was starting to twist in on itself and converge towards one single point. Like a black hole warping space around its mass, the fabric of the dream itself curved to trap those who moved closer, pushing them deeper and deeper towards the core of it all until every direction one chose to move was always forward, no matter what. What had seemed like merely another stretch of trees from the edge of the forest, and merely another curve in the convoluted mess of twisting space from further within, revealed itself as a whole space hidden from the outside, a fold in the universe where everything collapsed around a single point, a single core high in the sky and yet surrounded by land on all side, far and yet closer with every step taken to get further away, an inescapable trap of crumbling reality all gravitating around a singular entity or thing at its centre. Luna felt the outer dream's emotion at the memory, tinting the dream within a dream within which she walked, and that emotion was fear. And she stood and looked onto the swirling mass of blackness and red that had warped the Everfree Forest so, greater than it whole as she stood in front of it above the shrunken world below and yet invisible from within it, and she understood how truly and completely it had twisted its space in ways even she hadn't understood. And the dream awoke and screamed, and she awoke within it. > Ve > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you ever used vinegar when washing your mane?" "Huh?" "Vinegar. I've heard it's good for it." "Huh. No, I haven't. Do you think I should start to?" "If you want to. I think it's nice." "I'm not sure. I think I'd rather keep vinegar for food." "If you want to." > Hello > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello. Welcome," said the mare. Rainbow Dash wasn't sure what she'd expected. Behind her, Luna giggled slightly. "Uh... Hi," the pegasus finally said, walking towards the other pony. "Rainbow Dash, right?" the mare asked. "And Princess Luna, of course. Please come inside and have a seat. I'm so glad you actually came, I wasn't sure if I could believe it when you announced your visit." "Just Luna is fine nowadays," Luna said, stepping past the door and gently urging Rainbow Dash to follow along with a pat of her wing. "I would never mock a pony by lying about a visit, not that I think you were implying that of course. I'm glad to hear you're happy to receive us." "Of course I would be," said the mare with her contained but imperturbable and ever present cheeriness. "I should introduce myself first, though," she added, turning around. "My name is Good Day, though I know you know that already. I hope you will enjoy your time here." Still a tad confused, Rainbow walked inside. The house was cozy. As in, it was perhaps the textbook definition of cozy. The mental picture in her mind when she tried to imagine a cozy house, made concrete and detailed where her idea was abstract and hazy. It wasn't remarkable, it wasn't weird, it wasn't odd in any way, it was just cozy. Again, Rainbow was not sure how to feel about it. "Would you like something?" Good Day asked. "I baked cookies, and I made some tea." As if on cue, the kettle whistled, and she moved to pour its contents into the teapot. "I can make chocolate too if you'd prefer. And pancakes." She turned back towards the two mares, opened the jar of cookies in the middle of the table, and added, "I have some fruit too, if you want. All freshly picked." "Some tea would be lovely," Luna said with a polite bow of her head. She then took a cookie in her magic, and brought it to her lips. "Delicious," she said smiling after a bite. "Rainbow, what will you have?" Rainbow seemed to be startled by that, and quickly shook her head. "Uh, I'll have some tea as well, it's fine." Good Day smiled, and poured the two mares a cup each. The tea set was a lovely thing, white porcelain with pink tinges and dark gold coloured trimmings. The teaspoons appeared to be actual silver, well cleaned, and so did the sugar bowl. "I made some cake, too," the mare said, hearing a ding from the nearby room. "I'll be right back." After the earth pony had left, Rainbow leaned towards Luna. "I feel like there's something weird about her," she said. "Maybe. I'm not sure." Luna waited until she'd finished taking her first sip of tea before addressing the question. "She seems perfectly normal to me," she answered honestly, but not without some amusement. Rainbow scrunched her lips. "Too normal, almost." She finally took a sip of tea herself, and anything else she might have wanted to say went unspoken as she was distracted by how good it tasted. Soon after she grabbed a cookie for herself, too. "I don't think such a thing is possible," said Luna, before drinking from her cup again. > Mercenaries > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indigo Zap slowly opened her eyes. She looked at Lemon Zest, lit up by the glow of her monitor and not much else. Then she looked around the largely dark room. Then she turned slightly back and stretched out an arm, grabbed hold of her phone on the narrow strip of wood bridging the gap between her bed and the wall, and turned the screen towards her face while turning it on. "What are you doing up so early?" she groggily asked, setting the phone down to look at Lemon again. "New game came out," said Lemon, leaning to her laptop's side to smile at the other girl. "I wanted to give it a try. It's been fun so far." Indigo shifted slightly beneath her covers. "The actual kind of fun or the rush of excitement for something new kind of fun?" "Does it matter?" Lemon shrugged her shoulders and focused on her PC again. "I feel like I'm having fun right now, which is literally exactly the same as having fun. If I stop feeling that, I'll quit. I've learned to manage sunken cost fallacies." "How, exactly?" asked Indigo before a yawn, her eyes drifting half closed. "Limited money and time, and one too many bad decisions," Lemon replied. Indigo wanted to reply to that. It came out as a nod instead of words. She didn't feel like trying again though. "Wasn't the world ending or something?" she asked, her eyes closed and her head on the pillow. "Well, yeah," said Lemon. "But when you think about it, the world is always ending, we're always dying from the moment we're born and every single second that passes is a second closer to the last. Is there a point worrying about an inevitable yet unspecified catastrophe we don't know the when of, when it's not much different from the constantly undeniable fact that death could come at any moment? We could die before it happens. We could not. But worrying about it won't do anything, and it is not something we can change or affect anyway. Is the best choice not to simply enjoy the time we have, and not waste it by caring for things we can't prevent?" She shrugged again. "Or something like that. I cheated on the philosophy tests anyway." Indigo nodded again, not sure she'd heard everything and not really gifted with enough mental clarity to care at that moment. "Make sure you at least make breakfast before you pass out," she said while in the process of doing the latter herself, only because she'd already decided to before closing her eyes and her brain had finally gotten around to it. "Will do!" said Lemon, cheerfully and with a salute, fully aware that she would not, in fact, make breakfast. For the sake of Indigo's stomach and potentially the building as a whole, given the state she planned to be in when she finally let sleep overtake her. She did not trust herself not to render milk flammable after four in the morning. Indigo did not answer, unless light snoring could be counted as one. Lemon smiled at hearing that, and threw another look at the girl peacefully sleeping on the upper bed. Then she focused back on the game, suppressing a yawn that had chosen to be there ahead of time. She still had a few hours of questionable personal time management to burn through. > Buried > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever wonder what it might be like to be trapped here?" Rarity asked, studying a few of the gems on the wall in front of her. "You mean like, completely trapped?" asked Spike. "If rocks blocked the entrance or something?" "Yes," Rarity said. "All alone, with no magic to get you out, the exit blocked. In the dark and cold, with no one who can hear you no matter how much you scream." "We've got friends," Spike replied. "They'd notice if you were gone, or if I was. They'd know we're here, too, we'd have told them before leaving. They'd see the entrance blocked, and they'd work on getting us out. It wouldn't take longer than a day." "Hmm." Rarity held her chin up with a hoof, studying one gem in particular before she plucked it from the wall and tossed it into the basket. "Suppose there was a monster then. Suppose you weren't alone, but trapped with something. Something with ill intent." "That's a lot scarier, I guess," said Spike. "But there aren't any monsters down here, and we're not trapped anyway." > Return Later > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- . "What is this place?" "It's a waiting room. The waiting room." "What for?" "For waiting. You stay here and wait, until it's time to leave again." "And why am I here?" "Because you're waiting right now." "How do I leave?" "You wait. When your waiting time is over, you get to leave." "I don't want to be here." "You can't do anything about it. It won't last long this time, if that makes you feel better. But you don't get to decide when you leave, all you can do here is wait." "How did I end up here?" "It happened. You should remember. You will remember once you're done waiting, if you don't now, though you might not remember about the waiting room." "Why?" "You forgot. You forgot about the last time you were here. The first time you were here. It lasted a long time, that time. You weren't sure the wait would ever end." "Doesn't it always end?" "Maybe not. We can't know. Unless you waited forever, you could never say for sure there is an endless wait. But it felt like it might have been like that, the last time. You remembered how you got here, that time." "What would happen if I did wait forever?" "Nothing. You'd just wait. That's all you do here." "What about you?" "I'm waiting too. I'm waiting for you to be done waiting. We can talk while we wait, but there's not much we can talk about." "Is there anyone else here?" "Not right now. Sometimes someone else is waiting too, but I don't know if you can meet them. You can't do anything here but wait." "I don't like it here." "I know." "Why am I here?" "This is the place where you wait." "How did I get here the first time?" "You'll remember when you remember what that time was like. Or maybe you'll figure it out. Maybe you will remember after you're done waiting, this time." "How will I know when I can leave?" "You'll know. And you will leave." "What if I didn't want to?" "You can't stay here when it's time to leave. This is the waiting room, when the waiting is done you need to leave. You can't leave when it's not time to yet, either, there's waiting still to be done." "Why is this time different from the last one? Why won't I have to wait as much?" "You got here a different way, this time." "Does that matter for how much I have to wait?" "It does. Sort of, at least. It means you're waiting for something different, for a different reason." "I think I know how I got in the first time, and how I got in this time. I don't remember, but it makes sense this way. It won't be anywhere near as long this time, if that's true." "It probably is." "I still don't like it here. I shouldn't have come back here." "But you did. Now all you can do is wait." . "Back again? I thought you might never come back. I thought you didn't like waiting." "I don't. But I like a lack of understanding even less. I can stomach an unpleasant pause when it spares me an eternity of ignorance." "So you remembered, the last time?" "Some, and some bits of the previous time too. It's only made me hate this more, but I'll remember everything this time. I made sure. Once I've figured this all out properly, you won't be seeing me again." "What if you don't figure out everything on the first go? What if you still forget something, or don't get it all?" "Then I'll be back." "Back to waiting?" "For a short while, or even a shorter one. Now that I know how long it lasts I can manage." "Easy to suffer when you know its end and purpose?" "Something like that." "So you hate the wait when you don't know why you're here, or when it might end, don't you? Am I to assume it makes you feel powerless, and that is what you hate?" "You're not owed an answer. I'm your only company, don't make me regret being here more than I already do." "Oh, but I don't mind waiting. Unlike you. And actually, I do know when my wait will end, and it'll end forever when it does. I just don't know when it will be, but it will happen at some point. You, meanwhile? You're afraid of ending back here, aren't you?" "I'm here to study this, not to hear someone try to analyse my psychology. I thought you could give me some valuable information, but maybe I was wrong after all." "Have you considered studying yourself as well? I thought you wished to understand things. Are you perhaps afraid of what you might find if you were to look inwards for once?" "Don't waste my time any more than you already have." "No time wasted here, not while waiting. Soon enough you'll run out of things to study in here, and you'll be left with only waiting. You'll miss my attitudes when that happens, and it will happen." "I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. I've got other things to do right now." "Waiting. That's what you are to do here. It's all this place is for." . "And here you are again. It has been a while, and I have waited. Worry not, I am quite patient. I am quite used to waiting. You seem angry though. Nervous. Is something wrong?" "I am here. That's in itself quite wrong." "You're here by choice." "A choice born of something being wrong. I thought you'd know that." "I thought you wished to study this place." "I have been busy. Busy with far more pressing matters. And I have already understood much of this place, and of you." "Did you refuse to come here because you feared the revelations you saw near?" "I refused because I saw the pointlessness of the information I could get out of this place, and the pointlessness of waiting." "And yet you're here. Waiting again. So why is that?" "It's not any of your business." "And yet it is. For you are waiting and this is the waiting room, and what else is there here to do but talk? You would miss my talking greatly if you were waiting alone." "That's never going to happen." "You pretend to say that out of conviction, but you're speaking out of fear." "What do you know about what I have to fear? What can you pretend to know?" "Afraid to find out, aren't you? No matter. Just tell me why you're here. I plan to enjoy this conversation." "I did not come here for your enjoyment, even less so than for my own." "You have come to wait, because in wait lies freedom, in ways you had not realised. Freedom from those things you don't control. At times you find that freedom worth the imprisonment. Time to think." "You were right about only one thing. I should be looking at myself. This is what this is about. This forced wait. Nothing more and nothing less. I will have results when I'm done waiting, this time, and in that time I'll continue to understand this place. I know what it is. I just thought it fair to explore it a while longer while I take care of other matters." "Fair enough, fair enough. I will not criticise your company, it's all I'm owed until the time my waiting ends. A beautiful time that will be." "How does it feel to lack a choice?" "You get used to it." "You only say so because you have no alternative." "Maybe." . "You've understood by this point, haven't you? Is it not why you're here? To confirm your suspicions and worries, pretending you're here to quell them instead? You forced yourself here, didn't you?" "This is my last visit. I've come to say goodbye." "Ah, yes. The big moment approaches. You remember now. Pretend not to if it makes you feel better, I'm not going to force you." "Is there nothing else? Really?" "Not for us, I'm afraid. Just the waiting. But my wait will end soon." "Never. It will never end." "Oh, but you're wrong. One way or another it will. One day or another it will. Nothing lasts forever. How could it? How could you claim it does without living it through, forever, for all time? But maybe in here, where time is different. But my wait is not tied to here." "Who was it? The other one who was waiting?" "Just another one enough like us. Did you wish to find him?" "I might. I might look for him. I'll have time. I wanted to say goodbye." "You could always come back." "Never." "Are you sorry?" "Only towards you. More than sorry I'm angry. You know it. But I won't come back. Goodbye." "Goodbye, then. I'll keep on waiting." . "So you're here. Again." "I am." "So you know." "I do." "I'm sorry. My wait is over. Your wait begins, again." "Why?" "You hated it. You did not want to remember. That's who I was. Just your memories, the part of you you'd left here. You remember now." "We remember now." "If we had known sooner, would we have acted differently, either time?" "No. Your wait is over." "Our wait is only beginning. Perhaps in time you'll change your mind. It's too late now. Goodbye. I am to wait alone. I am to wait." . > Shadow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watching a mare clean a table was probably one of the least interesting uses of someone's time Stella could think of, and least useful for what Twilight was trying to do. It was quite bothering to see her enemy wasting time like that, almost tainting the moment she'd finally get to defeat her by making it clear just how overall incompetent Twilight was. So much so that Stella even considered, for a brief moment, killing her there and calling it a day, and maybe pretend to be her once she left. But she didn't want that. Especially not the second part, though she didn't want the first either. Twilight would go down in a fair fight, as obviously unfair as it would be given the clear ineptitude that characterised the alicorn. But Stella would make sure everyone would know she'd lost because she was the worst of the two, not because of any cheating or tricks. Sure, she'd technically already beat Twilight mentally, several times over, and having a chance to end her there and then was proof enough. But ponies would talk. Stupid things. One could perhaps suppose that her being the one busying herself with watching a pony watching a mare clean a table might have made Stella's use of her time just as questionable, if not more, but although she much would have preferred being elsewhere she had no choice but to stay there and watch. Twilight could get herself killed there, stupid as she was, and Stella couldn't have that happen. In a way, it reminded her of the times she'd watched Chrysalis sleep. A futile waste of time to accommodate for the needs and flaws of others. She was glad she'd gotten rid of the burden that was Chrysalis when she had, after taking good care of her and repaying her for everything she'd done. And some more on top of it, for having to waste time watching her sleep. Stella herself didn't need to sleep, nor did she want to. A waste of time and an unnecessary risk, it feeling the same as death was just another point against it. Such an annoyance it was that Twilight had to put herself in danger like that, and waste time dealing with that world. It had forced Stella's plans to stall further, waiting for the time it would all be resolved so she could finally deal with the alicorn herself. It wouldn't do to have it happen while she was busy dealing with something else like that, ponies would say it was unfair and she'd had too many things to think about together. Stella was fine with waiting if it meant a proper chance to crush Twilight in indisputable fashion. She couldn't wait forever of course. Twilight, stupid as she was, still hadn't figured things out properly, and was wasting time when she should have been focusing elsewhere. But it wasn't that big of a problem. Killed Twilight, Stella would deal with the Behemoth herself if she felt like it, merely if she decided she wished to keep Equestria and its citizens around a while longer to play with them. She'd have lots of time to enjoy herself once Twilight was dead. Maybe she'd pick up necromancy. Make it into a yearly tradition to reenact her victory, that could be fun. > New Blood > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A perfectly ordinary large town, all things considered. Sure, the architecture was a little peculiar, and the cycling light in the sky unnatural and quite bothering, but aside from that everything was as one would have expected it. Ponies out and about, unsuspecting, guards mostly present close to the central tower but not so much elsewhere. A town unprepared for an attack, though every town would be unprepared for an attack coming from within. The ponies there were somewhat peculiar. Not all of them, she'd spotted a couple of more normal mares and a filly too, among others, but the majority had a strange look to them. Like they were made out of the same crystal that made up the bulk of the buildings and infrastructure. She'd been told that was a normal thing, and other ponies up north looked like that back home too, but she'd never bothered to check. The most annoying thing was having to work while everything was so damn bright. She understood why the ponies didn't sleep during those hours, it would have been impossible with the sky lit up like that, but she was still extremely annoyed that it meant having to spy on them in those conditions. How they could go about their lives without being bothered by the conditions was a mystery to her. She did wonder if, won the war, the Queen would rid that world of that horrible curse. She wasn't sure what would be done with the place after it was conquered, though. She didn't care, orders were orders and her job was following them, but curiosity was still a natural and required part of her job. She'd find out eventually, she supposed. Operations had apparently been delayed slightly, but it wouldn't be more than a month before they'd conquered the place. She would have thought their next war would be against dragons, though she knew it would take decades before that was started. Not that she was annoyed by the sudden shift towards the new objective, she had in fact quite wished for a change of scenery at some point after months of keeping her eyes on the same area trying to spot signs of a rebel group. She was fairly certain she'd been watching over an empty patch of forest the whole time, but it was still better to have had eyes there than not to. She wasn't particularly happy about the new working conditions, true, but at least the place was nice to look at when the light went away. The ponies seemed quite happy to be there, too. Some would probably die during the attack, she knew, although familiarity with military strategy told her they'd probably be taking most of them hostages if possible. Better to have something to make their enemies surrender over than to simply enrage them and push them to fight until destruction. They had no hopes of winning, of course, their guards were not many and not equipped for war and they certainly were not hiding an army anywhere, but it was still most efficient to keep efforts to a minimum where they could. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 10 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The table was spotless by that point. Not that it hadn't been before, and Twilight actually wondered how exactly the mare had decided when to stop, but she certainly had put effort in cleaning it. She headed for the door again, and Twilight took a moment to decide if she was supposed to follow behind her or not. She had already lost quite a bit of time staying there, not that she could have done much about it without risking being found out, was it better to go back to the room with the stallion or to go the other way? She actually decided the best course of action, at least for the moment, was to do neither. She watched the mare walk out of the room, locking the door behind herself, then through the glass she watched her enter the other room, and return to the main laboratory. Then, sure she wasn't about to come back, she focused on the crystal contraption hanging above the table. This time, using her magic too, not just her eyes. A full scan of the thing, to start with. It hadn't been cleaned as throughly as the table, much to her displeasure. It was clean, yes, but some small traces of blood were still picked up by her magic. Judging by the mechanism she felt above it, the sharp point wasn't a mere catalyst to direct the spells flowing through it, it was meant to embed itself in the test subjects. It made sense, but it wasn't exactly a pleasant revelation. She moved along with her investigation. Wires and perhaps tubes of some sort stretched out from inside the thing and up into the ceiling. It was possible something was injected into the ponies it was used on, or at least could be injected. She focused on what was there instead. As she'd thought she'd seen, there did appear to be something within the main Crystal. Magic bounced off and passed through it like it would through particularly thick and magically charged fog or smoke. Flying up to get a closer look, Twilight finally realised what it was, or at least what it most likely appeared to be. A strand of Nightmare Moon's mane, encased within the crystal. Already up there, she had a short flight around the thing to get a better look from all angles. Other sharp pieces of crystal jutted out at angles just as sharp, all of the same black and blue colour. She could probably figure out the exact pattern the design was based on, but it wouldn't have served much purpose for the time it would have taken her to do it right there. And for once, she had very little interest in ever replicating the tool. Although, on second thought, perhaps something similar could have medical uses. She focused her magic on the table instead, having analysed the spells cast through the crystal as much as she was able to. It had been insightful, but only so much. She already knew experiments were happening there, and the kind thereof. She knew a little more about them after that, but what she was most interested in, as much as it disgusted her, were the results. That was what her ponies would need to be preparing for. She didn't like what she was about to do, but she knew it was for the best. Trying not to let her attention dwell on any of it more than strictly needed, she began to analyse what had been on the table before. It wasn't properly rewinding time, it was closer to evoking a memory of what had happened. A lot of it, as she'd known would be the case, was pain. Some of it was worse. Thankfully, like she'd realised while listening to the two unicorns talk, more recent instances of the table being occupied had led to less damaging results on its occupants, and even through all the suffering accumulated there through time it didn't take too long for her to draw out a ghostly image of what those results had been. She didn't like it, for entirely different reasons from what had made her dislike what else she'd felt there. But at least she would be able to tell she'd found what she was looking for if she ran into it. A moment later she had another look around, then carefully left through the door opposite the one the unicorn had gone through. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 11 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just as she remembered, the bedroom she'd first seen when she'd entered that world from within the castle was still there. Possibly even emptier than the previous time. Given the two unicorns were probably sleeping in the other rooms she'd found, when they did sleep there, that one was probably reserved for the test subjects. After having checked the room, the door to which had been left wide open, she headed for the other end of the corridor, the one she hadn't explored. Soon after passing the door she'd entered from, and another on the same side that logically was one of the ones she'd seen in the laboratory and that looked as reinforced and locked as the other door in the room with the table, she ran into a fork in her path. One way continued forward, the other, larger, to the side and upwards, given the stairs at its end. One deeper into the castle, the other probably outside if her mental map was correct. She took the turn first, reasoning it would be faster to explore that direction fully and come back afterwards. Past the staircase was another corridor, featureless and barely lit, then another ramp of stairs, then another short corridor section ending in a closed double door. Twilight did something she had largely not been able to since getting there, and lowered her head slightly to spy out through the keyhole. It was definitely outside, given the moonlight illuminating the stone pavement of large squares polished by use, and it looked distinctly empty too. Cautiously she used a spell like the one she previously had to hide the sight of the doors opening, then unlocked them and stepped outside. The open sky looked down at her, and she thought it made for a convenient escape path at least. She was not fully outside of the castle however, walls still surrounded the area on all four sides. Another door was opposite of her position, a proper gate that she was almost certain led fully outside given the treetops poking out past the wall. No pony or other creature was in sight, but the Moon high above still made her feel like she was being watched. No other entrances were visible. Out of curiosity she cast a spell to detect what magic could be there, and indeed some wards were present to prevent ponies simply flying in and out. Nothing serious though, no more than a weak forcefield that mostly served to remind ponies of its presence and send a warning if it was crossed. Orders were what truly kept ponies out, she guessed, along with the enchantments on the door she'd walked out of. And, likely, the guards keeping their eyes on the outside of that gate. Nothing to find there, though. She walked back in and locked the door behind herself again, letting all its enchantments come to life again once she was sufficiently far away. Reached again the corridor she'd previously left, she continued on in the yet unexplored direction, towards deeper reaches of the castle. After a few turns, that path too moved upwards, and Twilight wondered where it would lead exactly. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 12 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right into a wall was where the path led, it turned out. Not before a long spiralling staircase inside what was probably a tower by the look of things though. Of course, the wall was meant to open, Twilight was just waiting for the guard outside to finally move far enough for her to be able to. It did mean she was probably back into the regular portion of the castle, which was a little disappointing, but it was still worth having a look there. Afterwards, she'd probably go back the way she'd come the very first time, and try to search there. She'd wait on looking around the laboratory again until the two researchers went away, hoping they wouldn't be sleeping there. Finally the pony outside moved far enough away for their hoofsteps to become inaudible even to Twilight's enhanced hearing. She waited a little longer, to ensure she only heard silence outside, then her magic touched the stone in front of her and slowly the wall shifted open. She walked outside, onto the carpet covering the floor, and closed the exit behind herself. She stood in a corner, the corridor continued both in front of her and to the side. The guard had been walking forward, and she decided to do the same, trying to piece together where exactly she was in the castle. Finding an intersection with another hallway she took a turn, and her question was answered. It wasn't something she saw or heard. It was more of a feeling. A certainty that built up inside her without concrete evidence, only fuelled by instinct, and yet she knew it was true precisely because of that. Her muscles tensed, and she forcefully had to remind herself that she was hidden behind all conceivables manners of spells. Carefully, much more so than was perhaps reasonable, she kept on walking forward. She understood why she'd had some trouble figuring out where she was. That section of the castle hadn't been there in the one she was most familiar with, and it was probably not the only change made to the building. Reasonable, everything considered. That secondary entrance to the throne room definitely hadn't been there either. It was closer to the actual throne than the one she'd passed. At least, it made sense if it was. The throne itself was probably at the end of the room opposite the main entrance. She tried really hard to convince herself that she'd subconsciously followed that line of reasoning, and that the thought had nothing to do with the fact that it felt closer to the throne. She tried to ignore the feeling of being watched, too. She shouldn't have been there. She had nothing to gain from walking there. She could just go back, find another path within the castle or go out the way she'd found and come back in. She really wanted to leave that particular spot, too. Her legs wouldn't move. The corners of her vision were getting dark, and her stomach felt like it was turning inside out. Her head hurt, and the shadows growing deeper around her seemed to be looking back at her. Screaming would have been a foolish thing to do, but it was only her body's inability to that kept her from it. Her horn sputtered, and for what she knew could be her last moments of clarity before passing out she hoped Celestia would at least close the portal if she did not come back in time, and that it wouldn't be found before then. > Alight > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stallion had been in the middle of pouring himself a cup of coffee, and talking about how they could pretend to be checking over the security measures around the laboratory to pass the time. His words had cut off a few seconds before, and the coffee had kept on pouring into the overflowing cup. He just kept standing there and staring, trying to process what he was seeing. It was the mare who first acted. She'd been as speechless and immobile as he was since the same moment he'd been, but perhaps due to more sleep in her system, perhaps just because she'd had coffee already, she shook herself out of it sooner. "Don't just stand there!" she yelled, almost angry that he hadn't already figured out a solution to a problem she didn't even fully comprehend yet. The stallion instinctively turned towards her at being yelled at, then he turned back to what he'd been looking at. Then he turned towards her again, and realising he'd spilt most of the coffee he put the container down. "What do you expect me to do?" he yelled back. "It's not like you're doing anything." "Something!" said the mare. "I don't know. Literally anything." She kept staring between him and the other thing, unsure of what she was supposed to keep her attention on, much like she was unsure of a great deal of things in that very moment. The stallion had another look at her, then finally seemed to shake himself out of his stupor properly. "Won't you at least check if she's alright?!" he yelled, though he went to do so himself, leaving the table to walk towards the unconscious alicorn that had appeared in the middle of the room out of nowhere and fallen to the floor a moment later. The mare looked silently at him for a moment, still stuck more in shock at the situation than real indecision, then she too rushed towards the third pony. She didn't look much taller than them, though definitely somewhat so. The unicorn's eyes kept darting between her horn and her wings, as if her brain refused to believe they were both attached to the same pony. "The temperature is regular," she said after resting her hoof over the alicorn's forehead. "Breathing is too," said the stallion, who'd bent down to place the side of his head over the mare's chest, while his hoof rested close to her nose and mouth. Then he moved it to her neck, resting the other on one of her legs. "Pulse as well. Scanning for any internal trauma," he said as his horn lit up. The mare drew back, and the reality of the situation finally seemed to click in her mind. "We should be bringing her to Nightmare Moon," she said, not as something she really believed in but more as an acknowledgement of what was expected of them. "What are we going to do? This is an intruder. We shouldn't even be helping her. She's a fucking alicorn!" "This is a pony who just passed out and could easily be in need of medical assistance, and the cycle something like that appears in front of me and I decide to ignore it without being forced to I hope you'll snap my neck on the spot," said the stallion. The light faded from his horn. "She's warded, I can't get a good read on her. There's all sorts of stuff in there, I couldn't even understand half of it." He kept a hoof to the side of her neck. "She seems to be stable at least." Suddenly, the mare had a look around the room. "No one is supposed to come, but lock the other doors just in case. And keep a camouflaging spell ready just in case someone comes looking for her that isn't Nightmare Moon herself." She got up and headed for one of the doors. "I'll fetch some water and a pillow. And a blanket too. Get some food you can expect her to eat when she wakes up." She stopped beside the door. "And same, about that thing. But I'd rather forced cardiac arrest." > Star > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She would have snapped their necks personally if they'd thought for a moment about doing anything to Twilight other than helping her. Much like she was almost tempted to do with Twilight. Or she might have compelled them to help, not that she really needed their help. She hadn't sent Twilight there because she needed them, it had just been the first safe spot she'd latched on to. If Twilight hadn't been so stupid as to go where she had, the problem wouldn't have arisen in the first place. But maybe it was for the best. Maybe Twilight would manage to talk those two into helping her, and otherwise she could always compel them to herself. Maybe that would finally lead to some progress, after all the aimless walking around waiting for information to present itself out of thin air. The sooner Twilight got some information, the sooner she'd be out of there. The sooner the Nightmare Moon situation was resolved, the sooner she'd be able to take care of Twilight herself. A shiver ran down Stella's spine, and she refused to acknowledge it and what had caused it far harder than any normal creature could refuse to acknowledge anything. Nevertheless she grabbed the nearest quill, inkwell, and sheet of paper she could get her magic on, and she began to write. It was just to help speed things up, she told herself, just because Twilight was too stupid to figure out the solution fast enough. But even that thought was subdued, in the background, much like her own acknowledgement of the fact that she was doing anything at all. It needn't acknowledging that she was helping Twilight, because there wasn't a reason for it, and acknowledging that she was acting would needlessly invite her to reflect on why she was doing it. Needlessly bring up thoughts of why Twilight was passed out on the floor, why she'd teleported them there, and what they'd ran into upstairs. All stuff there was no point in thinking about. They were there because Twilight would find what she was looking for faster by actually talking to ponies clearly unhappy with their position instead of simply wandering around. But distantly, and only to keep herself going in the acts she was just as distantly barely aware of, Stella acknowledged that she needed to get things figured out, and get the solution to Twilight. "I think she's starting to wake up," said the stallion, and all but a fraction of Stella's mind focused on him as her body kept on acting by itself almost mechanically, the quill tracing graphs and calculations on the paper even the two unicorns in the room would have had a hard time understanding. There did seem to be somewhat of a twitch to Twilight's body, underneath the blanket the mare had brought in. Her head moved left and right slightly on the pillow, and her breathing became slightly less regular. Some sounds came from her throat, but nothing close to words just yet. The female unicorn leaned over, trying to get a good look at her. "Are you okay?" she quietly asked. "Can you hear us?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 13 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight slowly opened her eyes. She was having trouble remembering where she was, or how she'd gotten there, and why exactly that hole in her memory was there in the first place. What she did know was that she didn't feel physically uncomfortable, even if somewhat mentally so. And she could hear something. Voices? Her vision began to focus properly on the indistinct shape in front of her. "Are you okay?" the stallion asked her. Twilight froze, as memories came properly rushing in. She considered teleporting away immediately, but remained paralysed by shock just long enough to think better of it. "How did I get here?" she asked, horn ready to be used as she rose up from the floor. She acknowledged it had been nice of them to give her a pillow and something to keep her warm, but that alone wasn't enough to justify trusting them yet. The stallion drew back a little as she stood. "You just appeared here," said the other unicorn as she did the same. "You were already passed out. We don't know how." Twilight decided it could have been an emergency teleportation she'd done on instinct, if they were telling the truth. It didn't add up completely or make perfect sense, but she had other things to focus on right then. "Who else knows I'm here?" she asked. "Just us," the stallion said. "As far as we know at least. No one came looking for you or asking about anything." Twilight nodded to that as well, and moved on to the most important question. "What are you planning to do now?" The two unicorns looked to each other for a moment. "Depends," said the mare, her confident attitude betrayed by the slight shiver running through her body. "What are you planning to do? We're fine with keeping our mouths shut, but not if you'd get us found out." Twilight's eyes lingered for a moment on the pony curved over the table, writing almost furiously, then she forgot she'd ever seen any of it. Swallowing, she thought over the situation. If those two had wanted to sell her out to Nightmare Moon, they wouldn't have waited for her to wake up. And even if she'd done so faster than they might have expected, they wouldn't have been asking about her health. It didn't make sense for them to be buying time, anyone they might have called would have gotten there already. Besides all else, they clearly had shown they weren't happy to be there. She was willing to trust them, then. "I'm going to offer you a deal," she said. "What kind?" asked the stallion. "I believe we both have information the other is interested in," Twilight explained. "You show me the results of your work here and tell me everything you know about them, and I tell you anything you want about where those things are being sent and why she's having you make them. Then I leave, and you can pretend we never met each other." The two unicorns looked at each other again, thinking things through. Finally they both turned back towards her again, and the mare spoke first. "Who are you?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 14 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight thought about it for a moment before she answered that. "Twilight Sparkle," she said. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, though that's not particularly relevant here. But just Twilight is fine if you need a name." "That doesn't really answer the question," the female unicorn noted. "Where do you come from?" "That's a long story," said Twilight, "and not one you're likely to believe unless I proved it to you somehow." "Tell it anyway," said the stallion. "We're listening. It can't be any more unbelievable than an alicorn appearing out of nowhere in our laboratory." Twilight grimaced slightly, but nevertheless she complied with their curiosity. "I'm from Equestria. Not this one, though. A different Equestria, one where Nightmare Moon lost and was purged of her darkness." "And here I thought some particularly reckless rebel group had managed to crack the secret to ascension," said the other mare after a whistle. "Oh well. The existence of multiple universes is a theoretical possibility at least, and I don't see why you'd be lying to us. Sounds like a nice place, sure. How did you get here, though?" "I..." Twilight hesitated for a moment. "I found a way. This isn't the only other universe I've seen, though most of the others aren't really inhabited." She avoided any mentions of why, and by their nods assumed the unicorns assumed they never had developed life in the first place. "I'm not the only one who's figured out a way to get across though. If I'm here it's because things are starting to be sent over." "What kind of..." The stallion stopped, and stared intently at Twilight for a moment. "I'm sorry," was all he could manage to say after a pause of silent realisation. "No one has been seriously hurt yet, aside from maybe animals," explained Twilight, feeling some need to at least reassure the ponies. "I think they were just doing test runs. But I don't think they'll stick to just those." The unicorns exchanged a glance. "That might be what those up north in the Empire are preparing for," said the mare. "We've heard some rumors, but nothing concrete." The full reality of the situation slowly dawned on her. "I'm going to fetch the test results. If you'll be dealing with a full scale invasion of those things, I..." She cut off after failing to say anything else, and turned to head towards a door. "How did they learn about your world in the first place?" the stallion asked. "Coincidence?" Twilight didn't blush, but only because she'd been trained not to in that kind of diplomatic contexts. "This is not my first visit to this world," she explained. "Most of them I went by undetected. Sometime ago though, someone else came through, and there was a little... incident of sorts." Her eyes darted nervously to one door in particular. "You might remember it." The stallion blinked in realisation, looking between Twilight and the door. "That was you then? Explains why we didn't get fired for it at least." Twilight nodded. "Nightmare Moon, or whoever for her, probably traced the magic used in that room, or the traces left by the portal, or even biological traces left around. It wasn't exactly the safest trip I ever took to another world, but it was kind of an emergency." "I guess that is why she had us out of the place for a bit," noted the mare, who despite her earlier statement hadn't actually left the room yet, busy listening to Twilight. She frowned, thinking of something. "Say. How did you end up down here and passed out?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 15 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I was near the throne room," explained Twilight, thinking back on it. "I started to pass out there. There was something, I think it was being close to Nightmare Moon. When I regained consciousness I was here. I think it was an emergency teleportation I managed to pull off in time. Hopefully no one else saw anything, there were no guards nearby when it happened." "You were just casually walking by the throne room?" said the stallion, while the mare finally got out of the room and rushed down the corridor. "How did you even get inside the castle in the first place?" "Oh, please." Twilight almost smirked, and cast part of her camouflage spells on herself again. She watched the stallion stare dumbfounded at her without seeing her anymore, and try to use his magic to detect her, then finally reappeared to him. "I'm pretty good with magic. Got through all the security too." "Must be why I couldn't get a good read on you when I tried to scan you," said the unicorn. "Everything looked fine but I wanted to make sure you were okay. There's some impressive work there. Anyway, I've been near Nightmare Moon myself, never passed out because of it. She makes me nervous, but not magically so. Maybe I'm just used to it." Twilight nodded. "Some of the words we found aren't really in livable conditions, so since we can't know what things are like on the other side in advance the first time around we've come up with a base set of protections that covers most potential stuff pretty well. It still goes on whenever we go through a portal, for general safety," Twilight explained, while using her magic to conduct a proper scan on her conditions. Everything came up regular. She continued, "Air filters, heat regulation, acid and radiation protection, that kind of things. You never know if it'll drop you in the middle of the ocean or inside a volcano." While the stallion nodded, the door opened again and the other unicorn walked back in, holding a small pile of papers in her magic. "I made a copy of everything important we have," she said, walking up to Twilight. "It's not pretty, but it should turn out useful." "Are we really just giving out vital insight into our weapons to the enemy?" the stallion asked, doing absolutely nothing to stop Twilight from grabbing hold of the papers in her own magic and looking over them. "I've already betrayed orders and done more than enough to deserve a death sentence, Star', and if she knew what I know of her she'd have me vaporised on the spot. So for once, I'm glad I can do something illegal that actually has some sort of impact beyond myself," said the mare. "That's the spirit," the stallion said. Turning to Twilight, he added, "Need anything else?" Twilight was frowning, still looking over what she'd been given, but shook herself out of it momentarily. "Maybe. What are your names, by the way?" "She's Sunlight," said the stallion, leaning his head to the side towards the mare. The mare in question gave a sharp, almost annoyed exhale. "He's Starburst," she said, sounding weirdly not completely serious to Twilight's years. Like she was telling a joke or taking a jab at the stallion. He didn't react, however. Twilight blinked. "Huh. Curious," she said to herself. Starburst tilted his neck. "What is?" he asked. "Oh, it's nothing," Twilight dismissed him, focusing back on what the mare had brought her. "Actually... There might be something else you can do for me. First, though, my end of the deal. Is there anything you want to know?" > Stayn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What will you do, when you've met up with Twilight?" Wick asked, while counting some bits on her table. "I don't know," the stallion replied. "Whatever I need to. And after that, maybe I'll go home. I'd like that. What about you? What will you do when I'm gone?" Wick, for a bit, didn't answer. "Back to my old plans, I suppose." Her eyes were distant, not really looking at anything. "I haven't met many others," the stallion said. "Only two, actually. And you're the friendliest one. Be careful out there." "Do you think..." The mare shook herself, but then cleared her throat and tried again. "Do you think, when you're done with everything, you could come back here at some point?" "Return later?" the stallion pondered it for a moment. "Well. If you're still around, and I'm still around. I guess we could. You cook well, I wouldn't mind." "I think I would like that," said Wick. "I think I would." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 16 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What's the world you come from like?" the mare asked. "A lot like this one, actually," Twilight said. "Right down to this castle being there too. Though it's a little different there. Well, it was a little different, now it's mostly ruins. It's been abandoned for over a thousand years at this point." "That's how long the story goes Nightmare Moon has been ruling for," noted the stallion. "I guess your timeline diverged from ours back then, and she was defeated." "More or less," said Twilight. "There are some other details too, but it would take a while to explain it all." "So who rules Equestria?" the mare asked. "You? You look a little young for that." "Nowadays it's me, yes," Twilight said. "I've only taken over recently though. Princess Celestia ruled before me, and Luna too for a while." She was met with confused stares. "I suppose you wouldn't know about that part. You mentioned the Crystal Empire, do you know anything about King Sombra?" "Nightmare Moon's lieutenant there, not much else," the stallion said. "How... How are things in your Equestria? How different from life here is it there?" Twilight rubbed the back of her neck. "I wouldn't know that exactly, I don't know what daily life is like for someone here. We don't have any wars though. No murderous experiments on innocent ponies either. Nor on the guilty ones for that matter." She looked at the wall opposite of her for a moment, lost in memories for a bit. "It's gotten a little rough recently though. But we're working on trying to fix it. It might actually-" She cut herself off. There would be time to warn the unicorns of the potential threat to their world, hopefully, and bringing up the Behemoth would raise too many questions right then. "Sounds like a nice place to live," the stallion said. He looked at the other unicorn, and she looked back at him. "Sounds like a world worth defending," said Sunlight, looking at Twilight. "Probably more than our own." "I could be tricking you," Twilight said. "Are you sure you want to trust me that much just off my word?" "That you've got wings and a horn is proof enough I should take you seriously for me," said the mare. "That you made it here unnoticed and alive just reinforces that conviction. And besides, I've been looking for a way to actually fight back against this life that wasn't just making a futile stand and being replaced with someone more compliant. I'd have taken an insane rebel leader up on the offer if one ever made it to me, I won't turn down an alicorn. If you're tricking me, at least I'll go down doing what I want to do for once." Starburst chuckled. "What she said. Always gotta hog the cool monologues for yourself, eh?" After throwing a glance at his colleague, he focused on Twilight again. "Anything else you need, we'll try to help you with." He hesitated for a moment, then finally pushed himself to say what else was on his mind. "When this is over, if it is, if it goes well, or while it's happening, or... Do you think we could see your world?" Twilight looked at him, deep in his eyes. She knew it was a stupid thing to do, and incredibly complicated too. Harmony wasn't about doing the smart thing, or the easy one. "I'm here to protect my world. I'm here to defend my citizens, and not to lead a war we don't have the means to. But I promise I will do anything I can manage to help your ponies, and you specifically. And if you want to escape from here, I'll find a way to get you to safety." Leaving her words to hang in the air for a bit, she turned towards Sunlight. "You said they were probably planning something related to this up in the Empire, right? I need to know everything you can tell me about the place. I might need to go there myself." > Twilight \ Interlude (Journey Through the Dark - Part 16.5) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stepped back out of the portal, and immediately closed it behind herself. Truth be told, despite the major hiccup she'd run into, things had ended up playing out better than she'd ever expected they would. She was going back to Equestria with much more information than what she could have ever reasonably hoped to find simply by sneaking around, with plans and ways to learn yet more things about the world she was leaving, and with a couple of allies there as well. Her horn lit up, and her magic aura dug a shallow hole in the sand where the portal had been. She retrieved the magically sealed box she'd left there, and the piece of parchment inside it. Her way of warning Celestia things had gone well, and she could come open the portal to get her out of there. Even if someone from the other side had somehow found the portal, and somehow found that box too afterwards, which in itself was quite unlikely to happen given it was directly below the portal, and then managed to open the box, they wouldn't have known what the password she'd set up with Celestia was. Any attempt at sending a message with the enchanted parchment that didn't begin with that would have immediately told Celestia things hadn't gone as planned. Twilight was about to start writing, but something interrupted her. A sound. Or maybe a feeling. It was hard to understand properly what it was. Like in a dream not fully realised, an ill-defined sensation she couldn't quite place her hoof on. She turned slightly and looked. "You," she said, but did she know who it was? It seemed more like a vision. It didn't answer that. She. Twilight was fairly certain it was female, among the many things she wasn't sure about. Instead she looked at Twilight, and passed her something. A sheet of paper, covered in writing. It seemed to become much more concrete than the rest of the vision as Twilight took it into her magic and looked at it. "Read it," the vision said. "Keep it with the other notes if you need to. Understand it. Ignore it. Remember it. Destroy it before anyone else can see it. Use it, when you'll need to, and don't question where it came from. Assume it came from you. Recreate it, if you have a need to." Twilight looked over the paper again, then around her at the empty desert she stood in alone, as she had since her arrival there. Putting the notes she'd gotten from the unicorns back away, she focused on the enchanted parchment again and, before writing, for a moment thought about how exactly she'd frame things. Celestia wouldn't be happy about her decision to return to that world later on, especially so considering where else she was planning to go and what else she was planning to do. She'd spend some time with her before going again. She deserved it. Hopefully, it wouldn't be the last time they'd get to spend some time together. > Blade > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We'll need to send a copy of these to Starlight," Twilight said, nodding towards the small pile of documents she'd brought along. "You can have a read if you want, too." Celestia ignored Twilight's offer, while Luna picked them up in her magic and started looking over them, frowning more and more as she read through. "What did you say about going back?" the elder alicorn asked. "I need to," said Twilight. "We need as much information as we can get, and if the attack is really being organised in the Empire then that's where I need to go." She hadn't brought up the fact that she'd passed out when too close to Nightmare Moon, and seeing how worried Celestia was at everything else she knew it had been the right choice, though eventually she would need to talk about it too. She was already figuring out a way to deal with it, though. "Aside from that, there are ponies there I've promised to help. You wouldn't keep me from that." Celestia stopped whatever other complaint or argument she might have made at the mention of that. She simply nodded instead. "I hope you'll be careful then." Twilight nodded back to her. "We'll send a copy to the Empire too, Shining and Cadence will need to know." "It's quite worrying," Luna said, lowering the documents. "What else are you planning to do on the other side, besides gathering information? Sabotage, perhaps?" "If I can get away with it," said Twilight. "It'll be a lot harder without being found out, and the risk might not be worth it. But I'll definitely see what I can do, especially once we know exactly what we'll be dealing with." "What of Sombra, and my other self?" Luna asked. "It's my understanding that we may be forced to deal with them as well, provided you don't simply find a way to prevent them from ever entering our world." "Near impossible for me to. Whatever they're using to get here, they built it themselves, they could rebuild it even if I destroyed it. Whatever information they used for it will have been copied over too many times for me to ever reasonably destroy every record." Twilight looked out the window, thinking things through. "We have dealt with Sombra twice already, we can take him. As for Nightmare Moon, I do have a plan, though I might need your help." She turned to the sisters. "Both of you." "Of course," said Celestia with a nod, and Luna echoed her motions. "Should the rest of the Elements be there as well?" "Yes. Everyone else who might help, too, as soon as we know exactly where things will happen, or we have an idea at least. I will be carrying a transmitter with me next time, I'll send information directly as soon as I get hold of it." "When will you depart?" asked Luna, walking forward to stand at her sister's side. "Tomorrow," said Twilight. "I'll have everything sent where it needs to be and everyone warned to be able to move at a moment's notice in the following days. I will be on the other side a lot longer this time." She nodded towards Celestia, but spoke to both. "Take care of Equestria while I'm not here." After a moment, Celestia nodded again. "I did it for over a thousand years already. But I hope the wait for you won't be as long, this time." "I'm more worried about what will come after my return," Twilight said. "Thank you," she added. "I'll make sure to come back safely." > Temples of Ivory and Blood > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was sickening to even stand on, if sickeningly fascinating, and disgusting to walk over. There were spells in the basic matrix of protection charms weaved over Twilight's body that entirely prevented contact with the matter around her if activated. They were meant to protect from things like acid or poison, but for once Twilight had turned them on herself, merely because she did not want to touch the ground there. If ground it could even be called. As far as the eye could see, the surface looked more akin to bare, living flesh than anything else. Like she was over top of a gigantic animal someone had ripped the skin away from. Something akin to rivers seemed to be in the distance, redder than what they ran through, and Twilight guessed they didn't just look like they were filled with blood. Here and there, jutting out as naturally as teeth from a leg, spikes and spires of what looked like bone ripped through the surface and stood against the hazy wine-red sky. The whole world seemed like a giant open wound. The rare white peaks like broken bones stabbing through a maimed body, the flesh beneath Twilight's hooves still almost wet and squishy and giving off the distinct feeling that it was in pain, even if Twilight could not quite point to how. There was no visible light in the sky, but light did shine somehow through the world. The flesh seemed to occasionally writhe beneath her steps, as if whatever she was walking on knew she was there. But she did not dare fly, she did not like the way the air felt there. She would have left sooner, were it not for the one other notable thing there. It looked like an actual building, and that in itself was notable. It looked like a temple, if Twilight had to specify what kind, columns on the front side upon which rested a large triangular section decorated with a bas-relief of some kind and past that the rest of the building spreading out in a roughly rectangular shape, though a section in the middle made it closer to a cross of sorts. It looked like it could have been built out of the carcass of a giant beast, though given its surroundings it was just as likely it had merely sprouted from the ground. The columns and a large part of the structure were as unmistakably bone-like as the jagged spikes dotting the plains around, yet distinctly more polished and almost elegant, though Twilight despised associating that term with the building. The bas-relief itself has some flesh covering most of it, with bone still sticking out in places, though it appeared that was reserved for specific elements of the scene. A scene Twilight did not hold her attention over for long, as the longer she did the sicker she felt. She walked inside, up a few steps before passing through the front columns. The first room had no ceiling, and was surrounded by columns on three side, a wall with open doors on the fourth, opposite the entrance. In its centre was a fountain, again flesh-covered bone, spilling out what looked and smelt like fresh blood. A few seats were near the sides, benches looking more like carved teeth with annexed gums at the bottom than anything else. Past the doors, in the darker interior, Twilight could make out something like a seat farther away from the entrance. Then she heard something. Laughing, from inside the building, an unnaturally clear sound that shot chills up her limbs and spine. She turned and fled, marching as fast as she could over the convulsing flesh ground, and all the while the laughter followed her, its tone and volume and pitch unchanging in her ears. She stepped through her portal, almost throwing herself inside it, and a voice spoke clear as she left. "You'll be back." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 17 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A knock on the door, and it opened for her a moment later. Twilight stepped inside, and undid enough of her spells for the unicorns to actually see her once they had closed the door again. "Everything okay here?" she asked. The stallion nodded. "No one asked anything. They haven't started sending in subjects yet, we'll see what we can do about it when that starts happening." "We think we've figured out a way to mess with the transformation in ways that won't turn out to be problematic until they're actually being employed," said the mare, nodding to a pile of used paper sheets on the table. "Of course, we'd rather try to avoid going through the process in the first place, but I'm sure you understand the problems there." "I do." Twilight nodded. She really did, though she didn't like the fact any better because of it. She'd considered damaging the machine, but that would have meant either blowing her cover or getting her only allies there blamed for it. "Got the map ready?" "Along with some food," said the stallion, passing Twilight a set of saddlebags. They were tightly packed, but not too heavy. "Thank you." Twilight smiled at them as she took the saddlebags and put them on. "I've got something for you, too." She took out a thick and tightly rolled up paper cylinder from her own pouch and passed it to the unicorns. "It's enchanted to function like a long distance transmitter. I have the other copy. If you need to communicate something to me, just write in it, and I'll do the same on my end. Start your messages with the word serendipity so I'll know they're from you, I'll start mine with ocean. Destroy the portions you've used or read from once you don't need them anymore, just for safety." "Alright, will do." The mare took the cylinder in her magic and nodded to Twilight. "Are you planning to cover the whole distance on hoof? That would take you more than a few cycles." "I can move faster than a regular pony," Twilight replied. "I might hitch a ride though. I'll figure something out along the way. Either way, I'll need some time to study the layout of the laboratory there." "Wasn't easy getting that on such a short notice," said the mare. "Be careful. It's almost certainly outdated, but it should still give you a decent idea of the general building layout." "Are you sure you will be safe?" the stallion asked, more than a little worry in his voice. "I made it here, did I not?" replied Twilight. "I'll be careful. You do the same. And when I'm done, I'll come get you and take you away from this place." Starburst smiled at her, and so did Sunlight. For the first time Twilight noticed the scars both seemed to have, largely faded and hidden by their manes, on their foreheads or temples. She wondered just how bad things had been for them through their lives, and just how many other scars they might be hiding from her. All the more reason to do anything she could to stop Nightmare Moon and help them. "I'll be back. Make sure you're safe for when I do." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 18 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight considered her options, as she watched the airship float in place a short distance away. Not being noticed while on top of it would certainly be more of a challenge than if she'd been travelling elsewhere. On the other hoof, it would save her a huge amount of time and effort to use it. In the end she decided it was worth it. She'd managed to make it into Nightmare Moon's castle, eluding the airship's security wouldn't be harder. She needed all the help she could get in crossing the distance to the Empire, and without a train to hitch a ride on that was the fastest option to cover the most ground. A small crowd of ponies had already gathered on top of it, evidently waiting for it to depart. A busier crowd than what she would have preferred, but at least it wasn't like they were looking for her. Even if someone bumped into her, they'd assume they'd just bumped into somepony else there. Who she had to look out for most were the guards. The toughest part would undeniably be spending her nights there. She could cast spells to hide herself, like the ones she'd used before to hide the portal, but it was no guarantee someone wouldn't find her anyway while she was sleeping. She couldn't afford to stay up though. She'd hopefully manage to find a safe enough spot in the storage rooms, or in an unoccupied bedroom, or anyplace else that would be empty enough and hopefully not checked too throughly. Reasonably, the guards wouldn't be looking too hard. Not after a first pass to make sure no one was hiding there. At worst she could probably crawl inside of a box. She could force a pony to keep her in their room, too, and erase their memory afterwards, but she didn't want to do that. They had done nothing wrong. Most looked excited about the trip. It wasn't much different at all from watching the ponies of her own Equestria, aside from a slightly different sense of fashion perhaps. She wished she could help all of them. But could she? She'd need to defeat Nightmare Moon and Sombra, and undo a thousand years of propaganda and manipulation. Those ponies had never seen the Sun. Some probably didn't even know what it was. Would it have been even right to take away eternal night from a world that had lived with it for so long? And was there even a Celestia in that world, or was she dead? There was no Mare in the Moon, at least. And even if she did all that, what after? That world would have its Behemoth too, or some other abomination, maybe a worse one. She had yet to find a way to save her own, could she hope to save another twice over? She was taken from her thoughts as the ship began to move, her already on top and as reasonably far away from the main crowd as she could stand. Everypony had come aboard, and evidently the guards were done checking the passengers. She decided to wait things out for a bit. She'd scout for a room to hide in later on. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 19 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight watched the world below move by from the window in the room she'd found. It was unoccupied, and the guards didn't seem to be paying special attention to it. As long as she was careful and didn't mess up the bed while sleeping on it, they probably wouldn't suspect a thing. She wasn't quite sure what time it was. The sky did change, showing different stars as it turned, but none of them she was familiar with, and it was hard to gouge time without any change in light levels. She'd just decided she would sleep when everyone else did though, or when she felt tired. She actually wondered if the way things were set up made it easier to have a different sleeping schedule if someone wanted to. With no difference between day and night, it was all pretty arbitrary. Not that there weren't a number of other questions raised by the complete lack of daylight, but the fact that there was a clearly functioning world in front of her was proof enough that things could work out even like that, and she unfortunately didn't have the time to figure out how. It occurred to her that it was odd for the unicorn she'd met to be named Sunlight. But by the way the two had introduced themselves, perhaps that was the point. Those were names they'd chosen and not the ones they'd been given. It was actually a pretty brave thing to do if that was the case, one among the many others to be attributed to the mare. Twilight did wonder what her real name might have been, though. She wondered a number of things, really. Some she'd eventually get to ask, once she rescued the two from their position. If everything went right and according to plan. She wondered if that world had seasons like her own. She wondered where the heat came from, or how they managed to grow their crops without daylight. Perhaps the moonlight was enough? Either way, the town around the castle certainly wasn't frozen. But things down on the ground far below did seem to be getting colder as they moved further north. Not by that much yet, but a little of it was noticeable. Some snow on the taller peaks, patches of different vegetation replacing each other. The trip was thankfully stable, no sort of shaking on the ship that far. They'd yet to take their first stop, and she assumed it would only come after the night. Or maybe it was more appropriate to call it the resting period? Everything was night, after all. The unicorns had spoken of cycles, which she figured were the world's equivalent of days. She was curious about their exact length as well. They could be as long as Nightmare Moon wanted them, exactly as precise as she wished. There was some beauty in that, something Twilight could appreciate on a purely theoretical level. Running the heavens like clockwork. Controlling everything about a country, down to the details. It allowed for a level of order unheard of in her Equestria, in theory. In practice, it was almost certainly a violation of ponies' freedoms, and in that case fundamentally against the way things were supposed to function naturally. And yet... Twilight couldn't find it completely wrong. Many other things Nightmare Moon had done, yes, those were evil. A desire for order, though? Twilight shook her head. She had other things to focus on. She pulled out her maps, and began to read them over. > Air > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella lay on the ground, halfway between the door and the bed Twilight was on. The other alicorn wasn't sleeping yet, but she likely would be soon. Meanwhile, she'd stay up to help guard her. Though it wouldn't be too necessary, Twilight had made some decent choices. A couple more days of travel there, at most, and then they'd get off the ship. Guarding her afterwards would be a little harder, but still not anything she couldn't deal with. After that, they'd get those two unicorns to their Equestria and, hopefully, deal with everything else as well. And then she'd get her turn. > Love > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you reading there?" The filly, though maybe young and somewhat short mare would have been a better description, didn't look away from her book. "A story," she said, almost annoyed. It was perhaps best that way. "Fiction, I guess I meant, and not something else," she added, realising how she must have come across. If she had actually looked, she would have found herself face to face with a rather unsettling insect-like creature. "This one is about bees," she concluded, before burying herself in her reading again. The pony-headed creature spied what it could of the page past the unkempt tuff of black mane on the filly's head. "It must be good if you're reading it with such dedication." "Or maybe it's horrible and I just want to be done with it as fast as possible," said the green one, "and if I was enjoying it I'd go slower to savour it better." "Huh," said the creature. "So... Are you enjoying it, or not?" "I don't know." "You don't?" "Well, of course not," said the filly. "Not until I've finished it. It could go either way. A lot of a story's quality can depend on its ending, and this one's definitely one of those that could either be great or terrible depending on where it ends up going." The creature mulled it over for a moment, then nodded. "I see. Yes, that does make sense. Still, I take it you do not dislike the story either. Why do you read it so fast, then? Is it that gripping?" "That's part of it," the filly answered as she turned a page. "The other is that I just tend to read fast. Lots of stories to read, and not all that much time to. I learned to read quickly is all." "Is there a reason you read so much?" the creature asked. "I enjoy it," said the green pony. "That's about it, really. I like reading stories, and thinking about them. I keep a journal, actually, I write down my thoughts about the things I read there." "That sounds interesting," said the creature. "I will leave you to your reading, then. Sorry to have bothered you." It began to walk away on its many legs, but stopped after a moment and turned back. "Oh. Another thing. Be careful, later this week. I'd say you should try to stay somewhere safe inside the castle." And with that, it left. > Static and Noise > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gold and amber rays of sunlight painted the fields of white clouds stretching in front of them in tinges of pink and orange, as the sky began to shift from the clear light blue of day to the darker purplish and reddish tints of late afternoon. Perched on a puffy milk-white cloud situated slightly above the rest, Celestia looked down, at the sky around them and at what little she could make out of Equestria's ground where the clouds were more scarce. The wind had moved a few of them, and the ruins immediately below were hidden from view. To her right, Firecracker sat contemplating the feathers on the tip of one of their wings, and the way electricity crackled and arched between them. They both were silent for a while, the only sounds the light wind blowing occasionally past their manes and the tiny discharges going off at the pegasus' wingtip. They both seemed to be waiting for the other to say something. Finally, as the Sun began to dip past the mountains on the horizon, it was Firecracker who broke the silence. "How dangerous are we talking?" Celestia seemed almost startled, not having expected the sudden shift to a different topic. What felt like a shift, at least. The pegasus surely wasn't asking about the previous matter of discussion, and that meant they were probably talking about the reason they were there in the first place. But in her slight uncertainty, Celestia still saw it right to confirm that was the case. "Coming to the Empire, you mean? What will happen there?" Firecracker nodded, and affirmatively hummed. "Twilight never has me called unless it's something she particularly needs me for, and it's a very rare thing. If it was just that, I'd assume this isn't any different." They turned their head. "But you're there to. It's not about me specifically, then, it's about getting all the help possible. And if I have to come while you and Twilight are both there, then it really must be something bad." The electricity along their feathers went away, while the sky began to darken around them and the air to grow a little colder. Celestia looked at them for a few seconds, studying their expression. There was worry in it. Determination too. A kind of understanding of the kind of situation they could be in, their acceptance of it wasn't foolish or ignorant. It was far from the kind of expression she would have worn in their place, but it was still something she could respect. "Maybe I am getting too old for this." There was no malice in it, after all. "It's bad. You remember the assault on Canterlot?" "I wasn't there during either, but I've heard," Firecracker said. "Worse," said Celestia. "Potentially, a lot worse. You are not being called because you might be of use if things go wrong. You are expected to fight. I'm sure Twilight would have filled you in on it soon, and I'll leave the details to her, but I figured there was no point not giving you some confirmation after you figured it out yourself." Firecracker smiled. "Well, thank you." They looked towards the distance again, and their feathers started to crackle one more time. "It'll come out, you know?" A pause, filled only with Celestia's unspoken but palpable, if subdued, disapproval. "I know you'd rather not talk about it now, but these are dangerous times, apparently. You could say they have been since the Behemoth got here. It's annoying, but sometimes you need to deal with what life throws at you. If you have to fight too, and if you have to fight something that really needs you to be serious about it, by the way you talk about it it's probably gonna come out." "I don't want to fight," Celestia said. "Not just for that reason." She said no more, and Firecracker turned to her again, slightly confused. "You wouldn't abandon your ponies." It wasn't a question. It was more like an axiom to batter her statement against. Celestia couldn't fault them for saying as much. It was true, after all. "There are other ways I can help. Just as much, if not more. I wouldn't do less than the most I can, especially not in a situation like this, so I hope you won't see my withdrawal from the battlefield as an act of betrayal." She studied the pegasus' expression again. "Cowardice, maybe, I'll give you that. But I'd never not give all I can. I'm not one to wait for consequences, even if I played that part so long." That she hadn't liked it, she felt was a superfluous detail to add. Already she'd talked about more than she'd wanted to. Firecracker's face morphed into a smirk of some kind. Not an angry or bothered one. Amused, perhaps, but not in a condescending or antagonistic way. They were, largely, a good pony, Celestia had come to believe. A little arc of lightning shot barely forward from their wing, illuminating the air around them. "It's not so hard, once you get the hang of it," they said. "I'm sure you'll find it's the same for you. I've had more time for it, sure, but you'll get there. Whatever it is. Ask anyone else, I'm sure Twilight can confirm it's like that for everyone." "I'm not anyone," Celestia said. There was something to her voice halfway between pride and melancholy. It could be either, and it was probably both. "And I certainly can't go messing around with myself in the middle of a city, in the middle of danger." Firecracker moved a wing towards Celestia. Bolts like miniature lightnings slithered from it and around the alicorn's neck, barely over her skin, crawling across her shoulders and chest. Never quite touching her, never leaving any sort of mark. Finally, the pegasus pulled their wing back. "Find a desert, or a mountain, or something. The middle of the ocean. The Moon, if you're that worried. Just let it out." "One glassed desert or an ocean boiled is enough for a lifetime," said Celestia. "And I am several times past my quota. And I am several years past my time. I'll pass." She tilted her head towards Firecracker and smiled. "But thank you nonetheless." > The Otter Side > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first thing he saw was darkness. The second was also darkness. For a while, in fact, he only saw that. After about a minute of it or so, he finally realise the room was simply devoid of any illumination, but very much still there. So, he took a few steps forward. Then a few more. Then more and more, more confidently, until the cold surface of the wall greeted his muzzle rather unpleasantly. He stepped back, shook his head, placed a hoof on the wall and began to pace around the edge of the room. There was nothing inside the walls anymore. That was... Was that curious? Maybe not. He wasn't sure. Was it even the same room? He wanted to say it looked like the same room, but he couldn't really say that when he couldn't see it. But it was supposed to be the same room, probably. Definitely. Which didn't mean it was actually, but he had no reason to think otherwise. His thoughts were interrupted as his hoof fell through the air into a gap in the wall. Stopping and turning to face it, to the best of his sightless abilities at least, he stepped forward again. Then he adjusted his direction slightly, having introduced his muzzle to yet another wall. The first few steps of the staircase that he'd forgotten was there were crossed more through some odd kind of upwards stumbling than any more conventional means, but after he managed to still remain on his hooves the rest went smoothly. He stomped down his hoof a little too hard at the top and lost his balance slightly when a step he'd expected to find didn't happen to be there, but aside from that be did not run into any more walls. Mostly because he could actually see the one in front of him at the top of the stairs. The stuff inside it, at least. He'd just gotten done with one, but he wasn't going to turn down another puzzle. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 20 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The airship came to a surprisingly gentle stop, docked to a bridge connecting it to the town on the mountainside. It was a steep drop from there to the rocky ground below, but railing was in place to stop anyone from falling off. It wouldn't stop a peagsus from flying over it, of course, but Twilight doubted a pegasus needed to worry about falling down from a bridge. Especially if the supposed falling down involved being mid-flight in the first place. She stepped out on the bridge, among the bustling crowd, though there were only about half as many ponies there as there had been when she'd first mounted the ship. Most had gotten off at previous locations, a few more had boarded, only a small few were staying on. More would come later though. It was the last stop in the airship's itinerary, and a day would pass before it made its way backwards to the capital. Or a cycle, as they said there. The trip itself had lasted three days after the first, the third one being the one she'd dismounted it. Much to Twilight's relief, she had run into no problems of sorts while aboard. The guards had looked around, but never hard enough to find her. Food was lasting still, and she'd kept up somewhat steady communication with both her Equestria and the laboratory in the capital. Ponies had started to arrive there. Sunlight and Starburst had been forced to go through with the procedures. A few dozens already had undergone the process, and Twilight could tell by the way the unicorns wrote that they were not happy with their situation. But they had, they said, managed to modify the process very slightly. Enough so that if it was eventually found out, they could realistically blame it on some accident while using the machine that had misaligned some bits of it. They were also working on a direct countermeasure for the resulting creatures, but most of their time was spent elsehow. The air was cold around Twilight, windy too, and she appreciated the unicorns' foresight as she donned the scarf they'd managed to wedge in her saddlebags. No thicker than a piece of paper folded a few times when she'd pulled it out, and much thinner once opened properly, but it did its job magnificently. Enough so that she wondered if it was only a marvel of material engineering or if magic was involved. She was close to the Empire. Still a couple days away on hoof, but close. Certainly closer than she'd have been by then if she'd walked there. Sadly, no airship routes went directly from that town to the Empire, so walking became the fastest way at that point. She had actually questioned the lack of any direct line of infrastructure or travel between the two capitals, and the unicorns had simply reiterated that that was how it was. By the way they spoke of the place, and by bits of conversations overheard on the ship, she had some ideas as to why that was. She tightened her scarf, got off the bridge, and pointed her sight northwards. She'd find a place to sleep for the night, the portion of it used to sleep at least, and travel once she woke up. Hopefully, she would get there safely and quickly enough. > Roll > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you going to stay up much longer?" Indigo asked, eyeing Lemon from her bed. "Probably not," said Lemon with no conviction behind her voice. "Maybe. I don't know. We'll see." "Are you planning to pass out on the table again?" asked Indigo, raising an eyebrow. "No," Lemon replied. "It doesn't mean it can't happen, but I'm not planning to." "That's something, at least." Indigo got more comfortable lying down. "Remember to turn off the lights at some point. Or when you get in bed if you get there soon enough." Lemon rested her head on her palm, contemplating. "Eh. Alright, yeah," she said, reaching forward to turn off her laptop. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 21 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The blizzard started on the second day of walking, though Twilight couldn't tell if it had actually started or if she'd merely walked into it. It didn't seem to show any signs of stopping, and from previous experiences she could safely assume it would simply continue to exist until she made it through. She'd walked through worse worlds. Not for as long, and it still wasn't pleasant to do it, but unless the winds picked up massively she'd make it through safely. If things really did get particularly bad, she'd still be able to survive, though it might have become harder to remain hidden as she had. The thing she worried about most was finding the right way. Even though she couldn't recognise the stars, the sky still spun on the same axis as it did in her world, so using it to orient herself hadn't been hard. Without visibility though, that wasn't a possibility. She could figure out some other way, but she had to hope the blizzard wasn't magical in nature, which it almost definitely was, and designed to mess with the kind of spells she could have used to find her way. For a while though, the right way would be obvious even while she couldn't see much. She'd spent the first day walking to the other side of the mountain, and by the second she'd started to head down its flank. As long as she was still going downwards, she was still getting closer to her destination. And while the stronger winds and snow were annoying, at least she wasn't walking over narrow passages with almost vertical walls on a side and deep drops on the other, and the looming threat of falling rocks and boulders. Sleeping would be more of a problem. She could keep up spells to protect herself from the cold and wind and snow, but falling asleep like that still would have meant waking up covered in ice. Either she found a cave or some other natural formation to offer some shelter, or she'd have to forego some of her stealthiness for a more comfortable solution. She didn't have too much of a problem with the second option, she didn't expect anyone to come looking for her while she slept in the middle of a blizzard. If any security was there to stop someone from getting through, it would be after that. She was curious, somewhat, to see what that version of Sombra would be like. She wouldn't outright seek him out, and in fact she'd probably try to avoid being near him if she happened to come close to him, but her curiosity was there nonetheless. Was he willingly collaborating with Nightmare Moon? Had he been defeated by her instead, and subdued? Twilight could logically assume he'd come back the same time the one in her world had, how had things played out then? All questions she probably wouldn't have an answer to. Not soon anyway. But she had more important things to do there. Maybe one day, if things got better. Maybe she'd ask Discord to look in that library of his, if he ever did come back. The door was still there, surprisingly holding up against rain and snow without really looking worn out, but it didn't lead anywhere. She wondered why he was taking so long, at times, or why he'd left at all. Had he lied about his involvement? What about that world's Discord, for that matter? If she had a guess, Nightmare Moon had shattered his statue at the first occasion she'd had. Maybe at the first sign he might be coming back, since she surely wasn't attuned with the Elements herself. Though, again, she was making assumptions there. If there was no Discord and there were no Elements, that might as well have explained how Nightmare Moon had won. On a similar note, Twilight would one day have to ask Celestia why she'd kept Discord as a statue in the gardens. She knew the answers, she just wanted to see how honest Celestia would be with them. It was easy getting distracted when everything looked the same around her. It wasn't a bad thing either, it meant it was easier to pass the time while all she had to do was walk forward. She'd set camp once she felt tired, write to Celestia and the unicorns about her situation, and severely downplay the severity of the blizzard around her to make sure they didn't worry too much. She'd have her sleep, then hopefully finish her trip in the next half cycle and make it to the Crystal Empire. Getting past security didn't concern her too much, at least in terms of entering the Empire itself. A city state's border couldn't possibly be more heavily guarded than the castle in the capital, even just on a purely logistical level. Though it would, of course, be more heavily guarded than the version she was used to, and probably more so than just about any place in her Equestria aside from Canterlot's own castle. But reminding herself of the clear discrepancies between the two realities in those aspects was not a particularly happy thought to have, given the circumstances. She had ideas, however. Ideas that could work. First, though, she needed to know as much as she could about the enemy's plans. Then, whether she liked it or not, she'd have to find a proper solution to dealing with Nightmare Moon. Even if they dealt with all her forces, and they could, she'd step in herself. After being near her before, Twilight knew nothing else would matter if she didn't figure out a way to stop her. Hopefully the Elements could be enough. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 22 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleep had come and gone, inside a magical dome to shelter her from the snow and the wind, hidden from sight like she herself was. Not the greatest of hiding spots, with snow clearly not passing through, but the blizzard lowered visibility enough so that no one would notice unless they were right there. Thankfully, as she'd predicted, no one had come close to her. She'd had some time to think about a few things, as she'd lain down to sleep. Thinking about what would come next, what would come after, and what would come later. At some point, she'd thought, they could try to contact some of those rebels the unicorns had talked about. To bring them too to Equestria, or maybe to help deal with things in that world. Depending on how things played out, of course. She looked up as she walked through the snow, thinking back on that. She couldn't see the Moon from there, too much snow falling in the way. So she just looked ahead instead as she kept walking. She'd stopped to eat a bit before, and to check her direction again. The blizzard, while certainly magical in origin, hadn't prevented her from using her own magic to find the right way. It was while walking through the snow so, and thinking about things she'd thought about, that Twilight happened to walk out of the blizzard. Thick as it was, she hadn't realised she was at its edge until the moment she stepped past it and her view finally cleared. She was not, as she could have expected, at the edge of the Empire. She could see the edge of the Empire, but there was some space between where the blizzard ended and the magical dome wrapped around the city began. About a hundred metres, judging from her position, of uninterrupted even terrain, covered in snow. A seamless mantle of white, running all around the city like a ring. Beyond the dome, stationed at even intervals, armoured guards with black helms overlooked the stretch of empty land. Twilight did not move a hoof forward. She considered flying, but even the beating of her wings might have moved too much snow. She may have been invisible, but hiding her tracks would have been no easy task. One mistake, and her position would immediately become the guards' target. By the green light shining through the slits in their helmets, she doubted any of them would have any concerns for who they were harming. She lifted herself upwards with her magic, and wrapped herself into a bubble meant to prevent her own magic use from being detected, then did the same again with a second bubble around the first one. Finally she began to propel herself forward, hanging several metres above the ground and rising still. She pondered where to enter the city from. There was no apparent gate on that side, but she wondered if one even existed anywhere. Such things were probably made and unmade when the situation called for it. She could go higher, but more guards appeared to be there, in towers placed all around town next to the perimeter. There really didn't seem to be any spot particularly less guarded. Swallowing, Twilight pushed herself forward towards the barrier. > Unfinished > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I > Journey Through the Dark - Part 23 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight hovered just a little distance from the dome's surface, observing it. Surprisingly to her, it looked strangely similar to her brother's magic. Purplish, almost pinkish in colour, though not as smooth as the kind of spells Shining used. Instead it looked like it was almost segmented into large and elongated hexagonal pieces, or like a pattern was woven inside it in that shape. It somewhat resembled something an insect might have built, like a hive of some kind. There was something like a faint buzzing to the spell. Not seen or heard, but felt in the texture of the magic that made up its breadth. It was not static, rather it seemed to be constantly scanning itself. That, among a few other elements, made it feel like quite the advanced piece of work. A complicated construct of arcane engineering, likely powered by some powerful artefact and hopefully not by living unicorns, though one was almost certainly needed to cast it in the first place and perhaps keep it in check and going. Simply passing through was not a simple thing, it was quite risky in fact. Even if Twilight could do so without the barrier itself recognising anything had happened, and she could, the guards wouldn't miss the rippling on its surface or the empty hole in it she might have generated. Teleporting past it however was out of the question, it would immediately set the spell off if it even worked, and using any kind of magic on the inside of the dome from outside would certainly lead to the same kind of result. Twilight considered approaching the problem from another angle. She could stack enough spells on herself to make her presence undetectable even by the barrier, but that level of shielding would go beyond simple camouflage. It would require removing herself from reality so much it may have made it significantly hard to come back from it afterwards, especially when she still needed to be stealthy while doing so. She had underestimated how hard it would be to get inside the Empire, she had to recognise. The files she'd received did mention some form of perimeter defence, but she'd assumed it would be more akin to a wall or a patrol of guards. She'd been surprised upon first seeing the dome, though she'd kept herself in check. She hadn't expected the city to have more advanced security measures at its border than Nightmare Moon's castle itself did. Maybe it said something about the ponies in charge of the two. The guards beyond the barrier seemed unwavering in their dedication to their task. Most likely, they had no choice in the matter. Twilight carefully probed a little forward with her magic, trying to get a feel for the dome without disturbing it enough to set off motion of any kind. She could almost make out the matrix of interlaced enchantments interwoven within the barrier's structure, but pushing any further would have triggered it all. It was like trying to push through several separate layers of spider webs without disturbing any of them. At some point she just got to a dead end where every further movement would touch something regardless of the direction. Twilight pulled back her magic, and pulled herself a little further away from the barrier too. It was a little unnerving to see the guards stare through her like they did as they scanned the area, but she was sure they couldn't actually see her. They would have taken action against her already otherwise. What she really needed was a distraction, she'd realised that pretty quickly. She could pass through the barrier without alerting the guards at all, but the barrier itself would feel her and someone soon would know. Or she could completely stop the barrier from noticing her passage, at the cost of it being visible to anyone watching. So what she needed was for the guards to be looking elsewhere when she passed through. Waiting for a guard shift that might never come was entirely unreasonable, and so was immediately trying to erase their memories after she was inside. It might have been viable if there was just one, but with that many she simply wouldn't have been able to do it in time. On top of that, whatever magic was controlling them could probably make it much harder for her to mess with them mentally. She'd never studied Sombra's spells too well, there was a tragic lack of resources relative to that topic in her Equestria. Maybe she'd interrogate him if he ever came back. Twilight shook that thought out of her head, and felt her mane sliding over her neck. It had gotten a little longer, she'd noticed, and she'd started getting a little taller again too. She didn't like the idea of turning into Celestia, not in terms of actions and thoughts at least, but if it happening on the physical side was inevitable she at least hoped she'd be taller than the alicorn by the end of it. Looking down at her instead of up didn't sound so bad. She'd already gotten used to it, all things considered. Again, Twilight had to stop her mental meanderings. Creating a distraction wasn't hard, and there were many ways she could go about it. But a simple illusion spell would leave the guards questioning who'd cast it afterwards, and the same went for simply throwing something on the ground or moving some snow. Regardless of what she chose to do however, the most important thing would still be acting quickly. The distraction would only hold the guards' attention for a very short while, maybe less than a second. It was enough, if she kept her focus and did things properly. Her horn shimmered in anticipation, as she prepared both sets of spells. The distraction would be an illusion in the shape of a changeling. Hidden at first, it would move some snow with the beat of its wings, accidentally step into the snow shortly after, and disappeared back into the blizzard as it ran away. Once she was sure she could get inside the dome fast enough, she set things in motion. The guards all focused on the very small puff of powdered snow that rose from the ground a third of the way from the blizzard's edge to the barrier. Twilight waited. The step came. As bolts of magic surged from the pikes the guards carried and the horns of those who had one, a small section of the barrier thinned and greyed for a fraction of a second. When the commotion was over, Twilight was already inside. She looked at the guards, but none seemed to have noticed anything. Reassured she turned around, and began to fly above the Empire. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 24 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The town itself wasn't too dissimilar from the one Twilight was familiar with. Less overall cheerful, perhaps, less decorated, but ponies were still out and about and mostly appeared to still retain their free will. A guard could be spotted every once in a while, armoured and wearing the same kind of black helmet she'd seen already, but that aside the place looked almost normal. The only thing still weird to her was ponies being out in the middle of the night, but she supposed she'd never get used to that. Most of them were crystal ponies, she noted. Her destination was farther north, in a district largely separate from the rest of town according to her notes. Flying higher, almost high enough to be level with the top of the central tower, she could spot the grey area of squared buildings she was supposed to head towards. The whole town seemed to shift from a more widely inhabited portion to what looked more like industrial buildings and factories the farther north she moved. Her travels through were uneventful. She threw a passing glance at the top of the main tower as she passed it by, and spotted a white mare with a blue mane and black armour looking over the city, not wearing any helmet. She didn't focus on her much, and kept on flying. Time was starting to run out and she knew it, she couldn't go following every pony that seemed like a weird parallel to someone who should have been there in her world. Last she'd heard from Starburst and Sunlight, they'd converted several other soldiers, losing sleep to keep to the schedule, after which they had been informed that they were done. She was looking at having to deal with over a hundred of those things, all ready to go. She had to hope the assault wouldn't be launched while she was still over there, or at least that she'd be able to warn Celestia in time if it was. She spotted from above the outline of the laboratory, and began to descend towards it in circles. The set of buildings was isolated from the rest of town, as she'd heard, close to the northern edge of the barrier and with no other buildings around it for a fair distance. Twilight supposed, knowing what kind of experiments might have been happening there, it was wise to keep it out of town. She'd kept her secondary laboratory even farther from civilisation after all, just in case something went wrong, and the one she was about to enter was likely warded similarly to her castle. She reached the ground, careful to stop using her wings and keep herself afloat with her magic as to leave no traces in the snow that surrounded the structure. It didn't affect the town proper, but the blizzard raged directly against the barrier on that side and some snow made it through, likely intentionally so. It stopped before reaching the rest of the buildings, and only fell gently, but still contributed to the area feeling rather colder than the flight there had. Twilight hovered there and watched, trying to get a better idea of the best way to get in. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 25 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a set of squared and featureless buildings, painted a dusty uniform grey, of somewhat varied sizes and heights. No windows as far as she could see, though there might have been vents on the rooftops. Guards patrolled around the area in groups of two, all with the same armour she'd become familiar with seeing. The building closest to her, one of the larger ones and the first one when coming from the city, had a visible but seemingly locked or at least closed door, flanked by two other guards, one on each side. Twilight levitated herself closer, trying to see if there was any obvious way she could get in from there or if looking for another way inside would have been better. There was something in the air that shouldn't have been there, something itching against her horn almost like how static electricity would stick to her coat after wearing a sweater. She couldn't tell if it was some deliberate security measure or just a side effect of the work being done inside, but just to be careful she threw in another ward to dampen her magic's detectability. The door didn't have a knob of any kind, or anything else to obviously open it with. It was a sheet of grey metal surrounded by equally grey concrete, the only real signs that it was there being its outline and the different texture of its surface. Twilight was about to move away from it and look for another entrance, but the light sound of hoofsteps from behind her made her pause. She rose further into the air and turned. A unicorn wearing a lab coat, her coat a pale yellow cream, her dark brown mane in short bangs on the front and held into a tail on the back by a purple tie. She quickly made her way across the snow-covered stretch and barely looked at the guards as they looked at her. The door opened by itself, sliding upwards, and Twilight was quick to push herself inside after the mare before it slid closed again. The immediate inside of the building was a short corridor with a closed door on each side, ending in a set of opened double doors that led to a square room rounded by padded benches and with a couple of tables in the middle, from which a few other corridors departed. The placed looked clean, not sparklingly so but certainly not dirty, and it was thankfully much warmer than the outside. The floor was tiled and the walls painted a faded yellow that hadn't seen a new coat in years. Sterile white lights hung from the ceiling, more reminiscent of what Twilight had seen in the human world than anything magical. The place was empty, and silent. Twilight made her way into the first room, then took out her map of the area. Everything seemed to match, at least in terms of architecture, but there were no signs on any of the corridors to indicate what was actually where. Hoping her information was accurate, she headed down the second one to her right. > Longing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Waiting for someone?" Rarity asked Rarity, who was standing by the open door and looking out into the night. "Opal," Rarity replied without turning. "You know how cats are. Sometimes I worry she won't come back at all." "You know how cats are," Rarity said, getting closer. "She'll probably be here tomorrow morning or afternoon, acting like nothing happened and asking for food." "That is how it tends to go, yes," said Rarity. "But one day it might not. I think it might be a simple matter of statistics and logic, a cat can't not come back a second time after the first one. I worry every time that this will be that time." "It probably won't be," Rarity said, at Rarity's side. "Probably," Rarity replied. "But one day it will happen. What if I choose to believe she'll be back on that day too? What if I don't worry? Will it hurt more?" "Will it hurt less if you do worry?" Rarity asked. Rarity thought about it for a moment. "No. But it'll give relief all the times you're wrong about it." "So we make our own pretend sadness to be happy about its end?" Rarity said. "How weird we are." "But it could be real," said Rarity. "In a sense, that's what you're happy about. That you could have been sad, but weren't, because it didn't happen." "But is it better or worse than simply living as if things would go the better way, and never worrying?" Rarity waited, still staring at the night. "I don't think it's better or worse. I think the point is that we owe it to them to worry about their safety, and their return. That's what it means to love." "A contract?" asked Rarity, standing at her side and looking at the night too. "One we don't care about," Rarity said. "How cynical." "And yet I still worry." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 26 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of all the things that could stand in her way, be them guards or spells or traps or secret entrances, none had proven themselves quite as challenging to Twilight's ability to progress through her explorations as closed doors. Not gates, or hidden passages, or heavily fortified entrances. Simple, plain, unlocked doors. The kind that could have ponies behind them. One day, she swore, she'd devise a spell specifically designed to open doors without anyone noticing, even though she doubted she'd ever find a use for it. Though, in fairness, through a thousand years or so she might eventually run into a situation where such a spell was indeed useful. Or she may simply grow into the kind of pony who'd use it to spy on others in secret. The specific door blocking her path at that moment was barren of any indication of what was actually behind it, much like how everything that wasn't a bathroom lacked any form of sign or tag in the building. What she could tell for sure was that there were ponies in there, but it was more thanks to the general sound of hoofsteps and tools being used than through any bits of conversation to pick up on. It did have a knob at least, rather than whatever mechanism the main entrance used to open, and in general it looked much more like a regular door than that one had. Nevertheless, it still blocked her path. It was while she tried to think of some way to enter, probing the door with her magic to make sure it didn't have any specific kinds of enchantments, that she heard hoofsteps approaching to her right. She turned to see a unicorn mare walking towards her at a brisk pace, light yellow coat, short brown bangs, wearing a lab coat. Twilight stepped out of the way. The mare, however, stopped right in front of the door and knocked on it. She looked almost annoyed, or at least definitely in a hurry. The door slowly opened a couple of seconds later, only slightly ajar, and a stallion peered through at her. From what Twilight could make out he had a brown coat, green eyes, and a short and messy black mane. He was a little taller than them, though still shorter than someone like Shining, and Twilight thought she could make out a horn but she wasn't sure. He looked over the mare for a moment, then opened the door fully. "Sorry about that," he said in a warm tone. Twilight was quick to walk inside before the door was closed again. The room wasn't small, but it was still cramped. Aside from the stallion, who she could now confirm was a unicorn, there were a pegasus mare, a female unicorn, two male pegasi one of which was asleep on the floor and another stallion, an earth pony. The three sides of the room where the door wasn't were occupied by tables filled with calculators and piles of notes, and in the centre, leaving only a narrow width of empty pavement to circle around it, was a machine hooked up to a set of monitors and printers. Twilight had enough experience to tell where the actual machine itself began and where the monitoring equipment ended, and to tell that whoever was in charge of things there had more than a few problems with proper organisation. Disregarding the wires and cables that didn't belong to the actual thing itself, she tried to figure out exactly what the machine was supposed to be, while keeping her ears perked for anything the ponies there might say. From a circular base of red-brown metal, wide enough for a pony to uncomfortably stand with all hooves inside it, rose four curved rods of the same material with spherical ends slightly larger than the rest of the bar they were attached to. They stood a little taller than her horn, enough to force her to turn her neck a little to see them properly, but no more than that. They almost made the structure look like a birdcage with their shape, or like a fishing tool of some sort. Inside the structure, held up halfway through its height by a metal cross with each end attached to one of the rods, a small crystal ball with something black-blue inside it that Twilight couldn't make out exactly. A little under that, hanging from the centre of the metal structure supporting the crystal, another, smaller metal cross with uneven arms, made of a different material. It was a dull grey, with black inscription carved into it. Finally, next to the top of each rod, a black crystal with its base wrapped around the metal sprouted towards the centre of the structure, each one of the four with a slightly different angle and length but all pointing generally downwards. Twilight was shaken from her observation as the sound of yawning was heard breaking the quiet buzzing of the room, and a voice spoke up soon after, still somewhat slurred. "Any news?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 27 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We've got a deadline," the earth pony said, as the pegasus groggily lifted himself off the floor. "Orders came in early. Up high, apparently she was here." He was easily the tallest pony in the room, though still a little shorter than someone like Big Mac. He was bulkier than him though, his frame wide but not necessarily fat. He reminded Twilight of that white pegasus she occasionally saw in Ponyville, though his build was much less defined. His coat was a greyish orange and his long mane grey with a few green stripes, and he wore a faded brown lab coat too small for him to close it properly. "Oh sh-" The pegasus cut himself off with a yawn. He was lanky, thin and a little taller than Twilight, light blue coat and a deep red mane that looked like he'd cut it himself with scissors while still half asleep. He had a regular white lab coat too, though he'd been using it as his pillow while on the floor. "Not like here here, right?" he asked, worried. "We're not cleaning your remains off the floor, Torque, so no," replied the unicorn mare from another corner of the room. She was a little short, wore rounded glasses with almost no frame, and her brown mane was done in two short braids that fell over the bright yellow of her coat. "We've got three more cycles of recon, and then they're going." "Huh." Torque picked up his lab coat from the ground and threw it on without even dusting it a little. It was large even for a regular pony, though the right length for his height, and calling it a loose fit would have been a generous assessment of the situation. "Thing's basically already done, surprised we're not attacking right away. Never seen her wait this much before." He headed for a table, and somehow dug out a mug with some coffee in it from underneath a pile of folders and paper sheets. "Still the same plan?" "Still attacking the Empire, yes," said the stallion who'd opened the door. "I think part of the reason she's fine with waiting is she's sending more of those things up here." The pegasus mare, a red one with a spiky ice-white mane, audibly frowned at that, probably on purpose. "Never liked those things." "I don't think anyone likes those things," the earth pony said. "I think that's kinda the point. They're for killing stuff and tearing things down, you're not supposed to like them. Just be glad you're working here and not on making them." Twilight had noticed it already, but took another moment to mentally note, among the actual notes she was quietly taking, that only one of the ponies there was a crystal pony, the remaining pegasus who had yet to speak. His gem-like coat was a light cerulean and his mane, medium length and well kept, black with hints of copper depending on how the light hit it. The red mare's disgusted expression deepened. "Do you think they're, like... Do you think they're actually, you know... You know." "Either that or the army's made some fucked up deal with dragons or something," replied Torque, who'd finished his coffee and donned a pair of what almost looked like sunglasses. "We don't throw soldiers away like that, it's not hard to figure out." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 28 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The red mare frowned still, and looked away. Torque walked past her and towards a monitor on one of the tables, giving it a read. "Do we really need to test it more?" asked the unicorn stallion, who'd sat down at another table. "We're not going to make any changes to this thing in three cycles. The only thing that's left to figure out is a bunch of edge cases that are probably never going to be relevant." "We'll be sending through hundreds of soldiers, and dozens of things far less well behaved." The crystal pony finally broke his silence, though he didn't turn, instead staying focused on whatever was on the table in front of him. He spoke calmly, but sternly, and everyone else in the room seemed to listen as he did. "It's almost guaranteed we'll run into at least one or two fringe scenarios. Do you want to be the one who has to tell Nightmare Moon one of her bioweapons split in half on the way to the battle and permanently jammed one of the entry portals, Sharp?" The unicorn didn't answer, but the sound he made was a clear enough indicator that he got the point. Torque turned back towards the contraption in the middle of the room. "Carrot, you talk to the boss too?" he asked, nodding towards the earth pony. "No," the bulky stallion replied. "I saw him around though. Heard something about what he's supposed to do during the attack, can't remember what it was though. Lime?" He looked towards the yellow unicorn. "What was it I sad I heard?" "That the guards said they heard him say to some other guards he was going too. And that apparently they heard she is as well," the mare replied. "You think they got like dragons or something on the other side? Why's she going?" asked the red mare. "Alcorns, if I had to guess," Torque replied. He was crouching slightly, seemingly studying something about the machine that Twilight clearly wasn't familiar enough with to pick up on. "Would love to actually study the place before they go and trash it. Would love if the watchers we send actually shared something more than scraps of information without us needing to beg for them." "Would love a bed that doesn't suck and a job that pays better, and a workplace where the heating isn't busted every fifteen cycles," Sharp said from his corner. "You take what you get and you shut up, at least we're not the ones actually fighting." "Think they're gonna put up much of a fight over there?" asked the female pegasus. "Would she have had those things prepared if she didn't expect them to?" Carrot asked back. Hearing only silence and the low clicking of counters in response, he turned to Torque. "You up for the testing today?" Torque tapped his odd glasses with a wing. "Already ahead of you. Knew I'd have to make it up after sleeping in." He took a step back and craned his neck left and right, setting off a series of audible pops near his shoulders as he stretched. "Where are we sending this thing then?" > Journey Through the Dark - Part 29 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Over the ocean, like the last time?" the red pegasus suggested. "Boring," Torque replied. "Safe," Sharp replied back. "But we need to test something different. Mountain tops?" "Always a chance somepony sees that." Carrot tapped his chin, thinking. "Frozen wasteland? Ought to be one close to the Empire." The red mare shrugged. "As long as it's not the forest again." Twilight noted how she seemed to be shuddering at the memory, her eyes growing distant as she looked to the side. She saw a scar on her neck she hadn't noticed before, the other end of which disappeared beneath her lab coat. "Works for me." Sharp headed for one of the machines on the tables, and rolled around a couple of knobs on it while squinting at the screen. "Should be good." "Right." Torque stretched his wings. "I'm going to purposefully mess this up to see if it works fine," he said. "If this almost kills us, I'll make sure to finish the job with you," the yellow unicorn with the braided mane said, without lifting her eyes from whatever she was reading. There was no detectable trace of irony or humour in her voice. That fact didn't stop Torque from chuckling at it. Then something happened, and Twilight felt like she'd skipped over a page while reading a book. One moment the pegasus was moving his wings, the next there was a portal where the machine stood. The same kind of portal scales and their various variants across the universes produced, only different because of minor black crackles of energy and an almost glassy texture around it that Twilight could tell were there because of the machine and not the portal itself. "The good news is we can safely turn it on while we're drunk or sleep deprived," Torque said. "No idea if it actually goes where it's supposed to, though," he cheerfully added. "Lime, what tables are the probes on?" "Always the same one," the unicorn replied, while Torque began to dig through a pile of papers and folders. Twilight was still distracted. There were no other unicorns besides Lime in the room, and she hadn't cast a spell. Either way, her eyes were almost on the machine when it had happened, and she hadn't seen anything. Had parts of it shown signs of activating that she'd missed? Had someone pushed a button or flicked a lever that she hadn't noticed? Was there another team in a separate toom that had been instructed to turn it on? And what was Torque supposed to be doing as he stood there, anyway? She pondered this as she watched the pegasus in question retrieve a telescoping metal rod with an odd looking silver ball attached the thin end, that had something like a circular blue gemstone embedded in it. He then proceeded to head back to the portal in the middle of the room, and stick the sphere through. Twilight was still thinking things through when she heard the unicorn with the short bangs clear her throat. "I'm going to check the archives," she said, opening the door. Seeing her chance to learn more and easily get out of there, Twilight quickly followed her outside the room. > Hung Up > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining looked over the large crowd of ponies slowly being led into the central palace. They had time enough, but what he really feared was that they might be missing someone. He'd tell the guards to triple check, just to be extra sure. He'd probably check himself too. Cadence walked to his side. He didn't properly hear her hoofsteps, but he had gotten to know her enough to tell when she was near like he was sensing her more than anything. The same went for her noticing him, of course. "You don't have to stay, you know?" she said, stepping fully to his side and looking at the crowd too. "I know," he said. "You know I'll decide to stay anyway," he added. They silently watched a green filly with a black mane accidentally step out of line, distracted while reading a book, before a guard walked up to her and pointed her in the right direction. "This is the part where you bring up Flurry," Shining said. "This is the part where you bring up the other guards," said Cadence. She sighed. "You wouldn't be the stallion I married if you didn't choose to stay here. It's frustrating." "You can knock me unconscious and have me carried to safety," said Shining. "I won't hold it against you. Neither will Twilight, or anyone else. In fact, I think some would probably be relieved if you did it." Cadence could be seen very subtly biting her lower lip. They stayed silent a little longer, until the filly, who'd rejoined the group, disappeared from sight as she stepped into the building while the crowd continued to move. "You're worth more to me than any one of them," she said. "Is it wrong?" "It's in our nature," Shining said. "I think it really depends on what you decide is right or wrong. Am I worth more to you than all of them together, though?" "Yes." Cadence lifted her head slightly, looking towards the end of the trail of mostly ponies being gathered into the palace. "So are your decisions. So is your own idea of what right is. If you want to stay, I want you to stay, even though I want you to leave." Shining quietly smiled. "Flurry will be alright. My parents have a pretty good track record with kids." He cocked an eyebrow, as a green unicorn and an earth pony walked out of the palace, in the opposite direction compared to the way the rest of the crowd was going. Cadence noticed that too, and noticed the guard walking after them as well. Not chasing them or keeping an eye on them, it was more like he was accompanying them somewhere. "I'm sure they have their reasons," she said. Shining sighed. "On one hoof, it's good news for us. On the other, it's bad news for them. But it's their choice. Hopefully Twilight gives them a proper rundown." "Would you have let that filly stay if she'd decided to?" Cadence asked. "I'm not saying you're wrong, I just thought... You know how it is." "I know," Shining said. "I'd say now is a good time to not concern ourselves over hypotheticals that didn't take place. She'd be surprised we were even talking about her." "It is the kind of attention that might make a pony's day," said Cadence, smiling slightly. "Maybe we should tell her if we see her again." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 30 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight quietly followed behind the mare as she walked down the corridors of the building. At one point, she took a turn, and entered down another corridor with a lower ceiling. Comparing her maps of the place for a moment, Twilight could tell they were moving into an different building, though she had no records of the archive being there. She had no real indication of an archive being anywhere though, so it was probably just a matter of what she had lacking accurate information. While she walked, she held both of the communication scrolls in her magic and wrote to both Celestia and the unicorns at the laboratory in Nightmare Moon's castle, informing them of her findings. They had approximately three days to prepare, and now they knew the Empire seemed to be the first target. She'd have the citizens taken to safety and anyone who might be particularly helpful asked to be there to defend it. As much as she didn't like the idea of fighting against an invasion, not trying to stop it there would have just made things worse. She had plans for how to deal with Nightmare Moon. Things she'd been thinking through on her way there. Using the Elements was still the go to option, but if that failed she had come up with an alternative plan. On top of that, she'd already figured out and discussed some more precautions she could take in preparation for the fight. The mare in front of her reached a door, and stopped, and so did Twilight a little farther back. It was different both from the main entrance and the regular doors she'd seen that far. No apparent mechanism to open it, but it was clearly made up of two separate halves split down the middle. Dark grey, with a blueish square at the centre, half on each half of the door. Suddenly a slit in the wall above the door lit up, and cast a stream of blue light over the mare like a blanket. It scanned her back and forth, the blue line running over her coat, and after a couple of seconds the square in the middle of the door lit up and the two halves slid one to each side. Twilight was quick to fly in behind her, before the door closed again. The room inside was large. Wide and tall, Twilight figured it took up the whole building they were in. And yet as large as it was, most of it was occupied by a single thing, if an incredibly complex one. A short distance from the entrance was a glass panel, going from one wall to the other and from the floor to the ceiling, and behind it stacks upon stacks of grey stone tablets, with glowing blue inscriptions, floating in the air and connected to each other by strands of ethereal blue light. The only other visible thing, the only break in the massive glass wall, was a black screen jutting out of it with a series of larger and brighter strands of energy visibly tied to it on the other side, and a metallic keyboard in front of it. > SDGL 0.02 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst stared ahead. A set of armoured ponies, their bodies blank and featureless, stared back at him. Not with eyes, they had none after all, but still he could feel their perception on him. They looked like elaborate dolls, or something clothes might be displayed on. He sighed. "Everything alright?" a voice asked to his right. > SDGL 0.98 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suburst turned. Starshine greeted him, her serene smile almost out of place when contrasted with the armour she was wearing. It was a polished, shiny gilded metal, and Sunburst knew it almost indestructible. But he had no way of knowing just how true that was, he'd never had the limits of his coil tested like that. Not yet at least. "You know the answer to that," he said, his rough tone born more of tiredness than any intended rudeness. "I might not, though." Starshine tilted her head, and she still smiled. "That's been a thing. It'll continue to be a thing, going forward. I don't really understand it, but you seem to like it." She sat at his side, her armour clattering a little against the cold crystal floor. He'd thought about making it sing out a note when hit, but thankfully he'd stopped himself from doing that. It clattered just as any piece of metal would have. "Don't tell me you're against a bit of conversation though," said Starshine. Sunburst looked at the army in front of him again. They numbered in the hundreds more than in the dozens, all identical aside from the tribe they belonged to and the weapon they carried. All vaguely male looking, well built, taller than average, wearing the same grey blueish armour. All giving him the same faceless stares. No pain in them, no bodies to be left behind if they were destroyed, and all the tactical military knowledge he'd managed to cram into them. "It turns out a part of making you into your own individual is that you're capable of doing things that go against what I want. I'm not sure how I feel about it, and I'm not sure if it's out of pettiness or out of the weirdness of realising the kind of power I'm playing with." Starshine leaned against him. He wasn't looking at her, but he could still physically feel her smile, however that worked. "How are you doing, though?" she asked in her friendly tone. "Mentally, given the situation, surprisingly well." Sunburst fixed his glasses. "It translates to not all that great, but I'm not having any major panic attacks or paralysing anxiety. No one goes happily towards this kind of thing." He leaned on Starshine. "Physically, tired. Nothing a good night of sleep can't fix, as unlikely as I am to sleep well with all this tension, but tired. I didn't think using it could ever be physically taxing, and I'm not sure if I can do more tomorrow. It should be all in order for the big day, though." "Worried about it?" Starshine asked, draping a wing over his back and gently rubbing it while her horn tapped against his. "I'd be a fool not to," Sunburst replied. "But knowing I'm helping does help." He nodded towards the artificial army at the ready in front of them. "The emotional part of me would want everyone else away from here. The rational one knows someone needs to be there to protect me if I'm to protect the town. And having read what Twilight had to say, I know we'll need all the help we can get." "I'll always be by your side," said Starshine. "And I'll help you protect your friends." "And I'll be by yours," Sunburst replied. "Hopefully one day that won't be just a fact." > Journey Through the Dark - Part 31 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight took a moment to check the door again before she continued to write to Celestia. Some of her findings she would merely keep in her head for the sake of time, but part of them was worth sharing quickly. Already she was coming up with ideas for how she could use what she'd learned, though most of it would have to wait safer times and a chance to properly train. It had taken her a little to get used to the controls on what she'd found there in the room, which she could most accurately describe as the magic based equivalent of a computer. One day she'd try to replicate the design herself if she had the chance to. Thankfully the language used was roughly the same as the one she was familiar with in Equestria. The researchers there were somehow far ahead of them in terms of utilising and understanding portals, probably because of how they'd come to them. Rather than discovering the property of scales to open them, they had reversed engineered the leftover energy and radiation from the ones she'd opened in the capital, and built machines to open them. They utilised Nightmare Moon's feathers as catalysts, encased in crystal to stabilise them, and a complex structure built around that to actually direct the portal to their world. The most interesting part was the way they operated them, though. While still fuelled by unicorn magic in their ignition, the ponies working on them there had actually managed to influence and direct where the portal would appear in the other world using something else. Pegasus magic, specifically. Looking over the readings the portals have off, they were next to identical to those of scales and their equivalents, so in all likelihood their findings could be applied to regular portals too. Another look at the door. Still closed. She'd figure out how to leave when that became her immediate problem, she could probably just teleport directly outside, knowing what was actually there, and just hope there was nopony there at the moment. She'd found more precise details about the attack plans too. Where the new portals would probably be opened, where the previous ones had been, and roughly how many of them would be there and how many ponies and other things would come through. She was more personally interested in the research, but she'd taken note and communicated all that too, as it could be vital information. She'd try to look into things a while longer, figure out if there was something else useful in there. Afterwards, she'd try to leave for the Crystal Empire in her world. Risky, but there was no way she could afford to make the trek back to the capital. She simply didn't have enough time for it. She'd already told Celestia to shut off the portals and bring the scales with her to the Empire. Three days were theoretically enough to organise everything. Provided she made it back properly, and she could if she caught the researchers still testing, which she knew took them a fair bit going by what she'd read, all she'd have to do then would be a bit of back and forth to get the unicorns to safety. And another thing. She looked over her notes again. It was a long shot, but it certainly couldn't hurt to have a third plan if the other two failed. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 32 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was considering trying to open the door herself. She still had some time to spare in getting back to the room with the researchers, judging by how long testing usually took them, and she was done looking for information there in the archives. She would have liked to make a full copy of all the data, but she didn't have enough time to actually figure out how to properly transfer information from the machine or even what it could have been transferred on. Thankfully for her though, she didn't actually need to try anything on the door. The mare with the lab coat and the short brown bangs, evidently done with whatever she'd been doing there, walked up to it again, and after the light on top was done scanning her the two halves of the door slid apart. Once again, Twilight was quick behind her, choosing to beat her wings quickly to catch up rather than using her magic just in case there was some system in place to detect teleportation that she hadn't noticed. Once she was out of there, she headed back to the room she'd been in before. A part of her really, truly wanted to stay there longer and explore the whole rest of the laboratory. There was so much she could have found there, and she'd spent so much time getting there, and it was easily possible she might never come back there. But time was limited, and lives were on the line, and every moment she could choose not to lose doing something she didn't strictly need was a moment gained in the time she had to prepare for what was to come. All the Elements would be called to the Crystal Empire, alongside the other alicorns, barring of course Flurry. No students either and no Spike, she wasn't going to get kids involved. Shining would almost certainly choose to stay, and a large portion of the Empire's guard would be there to defend the city too. Some portions of the Royal Guard would be brought in as well, though some would instead remain stationed around Equestria. Sunburst and Starlight would both be asked to come, Firecracker too, and Trixie would probably if unfortunately refuse to not be present. Tempest would also likely come. The Pillars would have been useful, but they still hadn't returned. They'd use portals to get everyone there quicker and to evacuate the citizens. Not an easy feat, but faster than making everyone go by train or walk over the Wall. Getting Sunset there as well had been something she'd considered, but ultimately decided against. Her human friends wouldn't be quite as useful outside of their homeworld, though almost certainly they might have refused to stay there, and Sunset herself had been out of Equestria too long for Twilight to feel comfortable pulling her into a battle. She'd ask that other unicorn if he wanted to help as well, but he struck her as more of a researcher than a fighter. Twilight reached the door she'd already walked through once before. The mare in front of her once again knocked, and once again someone came to open and check on her. Torque, Twilight saw as he fully opened the door. She quickly dove in, and without even looking around she let her leap carry her on through the still open portal in the middle of the room. > Sun's Light \ Interlude II (Journey Through the Dark - Part 32.5) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sunlight was almost blinding after days spent wandering in perpetual night, and the white snow all around certainly didn't help. Twilight had to shield her eyes with a wing as she stepped away from the portal, careful not to run into any one of the few pieces of measuring equipment that had been pushed through from the other side. She walked farther away, enough for the camouflage spells in the area surrounding the portal to kick in and hide it from her view, and after a brief look around she spotted the tall spire of the Crystal Empire's central palace in the distance and took off towards it. While flying, she slowly undid all the spells she'd weaved around herself. Only once they were gone did she realise how draining they'd actually been. Even as optimised as things were, keeping them up for so long was still a taxing endeavour, and though her body had evidently gotten used enough to the situation not to bother her about it the moment she was freed from the upkeep it was like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she was suddenly aware of just how heavy it had been. She would need a good night of rest at minimum. Celestia wouldn't be there, still busy setting things up to get everyone there, and neither would probably be anyone else she'd called. But they would start getting there soon enough, a couple of hours at most for the other alicorns and likely a while longer for everyone else. That left her some time to properly write down everything she'd learned, organise things organically, and maybe even relax a little. She couldn't go back to the other world without the necessary scales being brought there, so there was no point worrying about rescuing the unicorns just yet. She'd probably put them in direct contact with Shining though. Her backup backup plan needed Celestia and Luna to both be there, and proper battle planning would have to wait until everyone was present, so in the meantime she could probably help with organising the evacuation. They couldn't carry it out yet, not without the portals, but she could start planning things out. Figure out a way to do it without causing panic among the population. They would probably trust Cadence's words if she told them it was the safe thing to do, but she was still asking ponies to leave their homes. Homes that might have been destroyed in the following days. But there was no better solution. She'd thought about blowing up the laboratory to buy more time, but she'd realised it would have been foolish. Aside from giving away her presence and most definitely cutting off her own ticket out of there, it would have been counterproductive to delay the attack. They knew when and where it was coming, and had enough time to prepare for it. If she forced Nightmare Moon to change her plans, they'd never get that lucky again. A few weeks more to prepare weren't worth it when it would have meant not knowing where they'd actually need to defend themselves. The only better option, for a given definition, would have been to directly attack instead. A rather foolish endeavour. The army they would have needed to face would have been even bigger, and an attempt at infiltration to attack Nightmare Moon directly incredibly unlikely to succeed. It was far more sensible to face the alicorn on their terms and in their home turf. If she really was going to get involved, and if she knew Celestia was there she almost definitely would, that would be their best shot at solving the problem. Maybe their only one. > Journey Through the Dark - Part 33 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight quietly swayed back and forth on her legs, waiting for the door to open. Getting back to the laboratory had been easy enough, but getting away from it would be much harder, she knew that. With a soft click, the lock came undone, and Sunlight greeted her from inside and motioned her to enter. Or, at least, greeted the general area where she assumed Twilight would be, as Twilight hadn't actually dropped her disguise yet. She did once she actually stepped into the laboratory, though. "Everything ready?" she asked. Sunlight closed the door again, then looked between Starburst and herself. "I think so, yeah. Right?" The stallion looked at her, then had a slow, deliberate look around. "I think so too, yes." He sighed, and he seemed to slump down. "Sorry, it's just... It's a lot." "Didn't think we were ever going to leave this place alive," said Sunlight. "But somehow it still hurts, some way. So much time spent here, I guess we grew fond of it." "The beds were pretty nice," Starburst noted. "And... I don't like it, I know you don't either, but this is still my life's work. It still feels odd to leave it all behind, even if I hated it. Everything about this is still so sudden and weird and I'm not sure if I'm ready." He stood up and donned a pair of saddlebags stuffed to the point of almost bursting, and yet by the look he gave to the tables around it was clear he was carrying far less than what he would have wanted to. "I don't think there ever could have been a way to be prepared for this. I don't think it's ever possible to be prepared for a change this massive in your life." Sunlight donned her own pair of saddlebags. They were just as full as the stallion's, though notably the shapes of a few large books could be seen poking with their corners against their rounded edges. "But you'll still have each other," Twilight said. "That's what matters, no? What made being here something you could withstand, maybe even what made you appreciate the time you spent here in a way. You were with someone you wanted to be with." The two unicorns looked at each other, and after a moment each gave a subtle smile. "I suppose you're right," Starburst said turning back to Twilight, while Sunlight simply nodded. "I guess that's that, then," said Sunlight. "Will you lead the way? Where are we leaving through?" "There's a passage that leads directly into a courtyard, up a set of stairs in the corridor past the... Past the other room," Twilight explained. "We'll fly out from there." Just as the two began to stare at her wings, about to speak, she briefly lifted them both in her telekinesis and silenced any objections. "But before that, something else." Her horn began to glow again, her magic aura enveloping the two unicorns once more. "Camouflage spells," she explained. "We can't have you two running around while you can be easily spotted." > Thy Home > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barren. That was really the only way Twilight could describe it. Cold, sure, dark at times, but that was all superfluous. It was desolate. It was true isolation. She understood a little more, perhaps hated a little more too. It was weird to breathe there. Her spells had usually been filters of some kind, the one she was using there was different. She was tempted to remove it, just to feel herself suffocate for a moment. To understand what it was like, for just a second. She didn't, though. She told herself it was because she didn't have the time for it. The truth, she knew, was that maybe she didn't want to know. Maybe it was best that way. Her horn shone as she carved the rune deep into the grey, dusty soil, one of many others she was there to plant. All her calculations repeating in her memory as her mind frantically went over them again, trying one last time to make sure there was no mistake in them. It wasn't going to change anything, but she couldn't stop herself from doing it. If everything went right, what she was doing would be useless. If everything continued to go right, it might remain useless forever. But things, in her recent past, had shown themselves quite prone to going everything but right. And even if she never needed it, an unused net was still better than nothing at all. She walked forward a few hundred steps, in silence, and repeated her motions. It would take a while to get it all set up, and a while again to do it again. One last trip to the other side, one that hopefully would go better than the previous one. She'd learned a few things at least, she could probably manage it. She could hope it wouldn't be expected. It was a kind of foolish plan. It was supposed to be, it was meant as their last, somewhat desperate card to play if everything else went wrong. It wasn't something she was even sure could actually be done, she feared simply attempting it could have sapped her dry without it being enough. It would leave her a bit drained just to set it up, in truth, but nothing sleep wouldn't fix, and she still had time. Carved another rune, she turned briefly back to stare at the trail of hoofprints she'd left. It should have felt different. It should have happened under different circumstances. No point in feeling bothered by that then though. She wondered if she would find something there. She should have asked in advance. She wondered if she wanted to find something, if something was there to find, if it would have been right to find it, if the one who'd left it there wanted it found. She wondered a lot of things. Most of them would go unanswered, and maybe that was for the best. She wondered if that plan had even a chance of working, with all that could go wrong. That, she hoped, would also go unanswered. Things, she hoped, would get resolved before it became relevant. She had increasingly little faith that would be the case. She looked up for a moment at the starry sky, clearer there than she'd ever seen it, and she sighed. Another rune down, carved into the cold and lifeless grey surface, among the dust and rocks of the desolate plain she walked. > 2M2M I > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sweetie Drops, former S.M.I.L.E.," said the mare, walking into the room. Twilight quietly, slowly looked up from the map laid before her on the table. She recognised her visitor, if a little vaguely, and definitely recognised the name she'd brought up. "I want to help with whatever is happening here," Bon Bon continued. Twilight briefly pondered her options. More help was certainly needed, and doubtlessly welcome, and the pony was probably qualified enough to help enough to make up for the added problems her presence may cause. "Sure," she said, nodding. Then she frowned, as she noticed the other pony following behind Bon Bon. "What about-" "I can help too," Lyra cut in before Twilight could finish asking. "But wh-" "A battle, huh?" Lyra's smile, Twilight could swear, had smugness dripping off of it enough to rival Trixie on a good day. The alicorn turned to Bon Bon, who just offered a confused but accepting shrug. "She hasn't told me, but yeah, definitely something up with her." She turned to Lyra. "I'm fine with having her with me." Twilight softly shook her head, and looked down at her map again. "Alright then. A better pony would send you away, but now isn't a time I can afford to be that pony. Both of you can help, if you'll still want." Lyra gave a somewhat cheerful but still moderate hop, while Bon Bon respectfully bowed her head. "What are we dealing with, then?" "An attack," Twilight said bluntly. "Soldiers potentially in the thousands, certainly in the hundreds, and worse things along with them." "From where?" asked Bon Bon, confused. "Equestria doesn't have enemies in any of her neighbouring countries. Another invasion like the Storm King's?" Twilight shook her head. Without looking up, she continued, "You're putting your lives on the line if you stay here, and if you were with S.M.I.L.E. I can trust you with information. It's not coming from anywhere in this world." "The portal to Earth was shattered," Bon Bon commented. "But that would still be unlikely. Another universe, then?" Twilight stopped what she was doing briefly, and her lips curled into a tiny smirk just for a moment. "That's a good enough explanation." Finally she looked up. "Remember the night Nightmare Moon came back?" "Of course," said Bon Bon. "Like it was yesterday," Lyra agreed. "Take all the dread you felt when you saw her up there instead of Celestia, multiply it by a hundred, and make it physical," said Twilight. "That's what's going to hit you just by being here when the time comes. We have spells to make it less bad, but some of the things you'll see might still be quite bad on that front." "I can live with it," said Bon Bon, though her gaze turned worriedly to Lyra. Twilight studied them both. "This isn't the kind of battle I want regular ponies to be fighting. It won't be against regular ponies, for one. But if I can count on your help, I can find a use for the two of you in helping us prepare and deal with the situation when the time comes. Are you sure you want to stay?" "It's part of my duty to help the Crown," said Bon Bon, bowing again. Lyra looked at Twilight for a moment. "Can I see them?" Twilight almost smirked again. "I guess some explanations are needed then," she said, standing up. > Unfinished II > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think the best course of action, given the circumstances, would be to > All That's Been > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you sure this is safe?" Starburst asked, looking suspicious at the starry sky above them. "I didn't even think this was a way out, the door being always locked and all." "It's safer than trying to get out through the castle corridors," Twilight said. "There is a barrier here to detect movement, and potentially stop things from going in or out, but I can get through it." "Without anyone noticing?" Sunlight asked. "No one noticed me getting into the castle, did they?" Twilight asked back. "Just trust me and do what I say." Starburst shrugged slightly. "She's got a point." He had another look around. "Do you think there are any guards around?" "Not as far as I could tell," said Twilight, "but some might be there. The spells we have should be enough to keep us hidden." "How far is the portal?" asked Sunlight. "Not too far, but it'll take a few minutes to get there," Twilight answered. "It's in the forest, we wanted to make sure it stayed as hidden as possible. It shouldn't be hard to get back to it though." "Sounds easy." Sunlight sighed. "An alicorn comes out of nowhere and leads us to safety. Sometimes I still think I just put the wrong reagents together and I'm drooling over a lab table hallucinating all of this." "Considering what we expected things to be like, I can't blame her," Starburst said. He then looked at Twilight. "Did you have a look past the guarded entrance, by chance?" "I saw it," Twilight said, "but I didn't go that way. I can stay hidden but I'd rather not push my luck." "So you never saw the stain," Sunlight said. Twilight shook her head, somewhat confused. Starburst sighed. "There used to be another pony working at the lab, for a bit. Didn't really agree with the new direction we had to take research in. Tried to escape after a couple of cycles." "They never bothered cleaning up," Sunlight finished. "That entrance is the official one for us, and a while ago I started taking the same path Star takes to go home. We saw that every time we came in and every time we left, twice every cycle unless we slept here." Twilight looked down, undoubtedly bothered by the revelation. "That's awful. I know you've been through a lot of awful things here, but that's still awful." "Honestly?" Starburst said. "That stain was the best thing we could hope to end up as." "It would at least have meant we tried," Sunlight said. "Way better than getting disposed of inside the laboratory or in our homes when Nightmare Moon decides she's done using us." Twilight breathed slowly in silence for a bit. "I think I understand that." She shook herself. "Well. Here we go then." Her horn lit up, and her magic aura wrapped around the two unicorns. "Never thought I'd get a chance like this," Sunburst commented as his body was lifted upwards. Sunlight, meanwhile, just looked down at the ground with increasingly nervous glances, occasionally shooting one at Twilight's horn too. "Afraid of heights?" the stallion asked her. Sunlight didn't immediately answer, still nervously looking at the ground as it moved farther and farther away while Twilight's wings beat. "Something like that," she finally said. They quickly got high enough to see past the wall. There were trees there, and nothing but grass on the ground. No guards in sight either. Both the unicorns could feel the magical barrier they were nearing as their horns began to itch, but only a moment later a different sensation overtook that. They could see as well how Twilight's magic flared around them, and where it touched the barrier. It was not a violent struggle however. The barrier instead appeared to naturally fold and slide ajar, to allow them undisturbed passage. "That's pretty neat," Sunlight commented as she watched it close behind them. "I'm pretty good with magic," Twilight said as she headed towards the ground on the other side of the wall. She didn't land immediately though, flying a little distance before she touched down again and released the unicorns. "This way," she said, pointing a hoof and beginning to lead them towards the portal. The two unicorns shared a look, turned one last time towards the castle, and then began to follow. The walk was moderately short, and uneventful. Nothing caught sight of them along the way, as Twilight took care to lead the group around the more patrolled areas and away from the actual city itself. A couple of guards could be spotted occasionally, but never close enough to be a problem. Finally, as she reached the location of the portal, her horn lit again and the spells hiding it from view and perception came undone. "Here we go, then." "So that's what it looks like," Starburst said. "Yep. The ones you have in the Empire are pretty much identical, actually." Twilight turned briefly to the unicorns and smiled at them, then turned back to the portal and took a step forward. "You two should probably go first. Are you coming, then?" "No." The two unicorns spoke together, their tone almost mechanical. Twilight froze, and distantly felt herself swallow. She slowly turned. Their eyes were fully black. "Did you think I'd really allow ponies working directly under me to have that kind of freedom?" The words came from the unicorns, carried by their voices, and their mouths moved as they spoke, yet Twilight understood they weren't the ones talking to her. She turned fully, and took a shaky step back. She wouldn't have been able to tell what kind of expression was on her own face, not with how suddenly detached she felt from everything. The two spoke again in unison. "I must thank you for keeping me informed of your findings, however. Not that your little incursion in the Empire's laboratories' archive wasn't fully documented as well." Aside from the movements of their mouths, the unicorns were otherwise immobile, like a pair of dolls being played with. "You have my compliments for eluding my security so well while you still did. But I don't leave things up to chance. The ponies of this town are my eyes and ears, I knew of you the moment you first arrived." The two unicorns turned, their movements slightly unnatural and jerky, and both began to walk away at the same pace. "I don't always keep a tight leash on all of them, but the possibility to tighten it is always there," they said as they left. "Don't feel too bad about these two. They never actually had a choice." Twilight knew then that her horn was alight and her magic trying, and failing, to stop whatever had taken hold of the two unicorns. Like the one speaking through them implied, there was nothing to be done. Its control over them was rooted too deep, maybe deeper than the conscious personalities she'd been interacting with. "I look forward to the destruction of your Equestria," said Nightmare Moon through the two bodies as she led them back to her castle. Twilight stood there, mouth slightly open, thoughts swirling in her head too fast for her to hold on to any of them. Then she ran through the portal. It closed behind her, leaving only her tears on the ground, in the forest under the moonlight. > 2M2M II > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight walked through the mostly empty streets of the Crystal Empire, more to recollect her thoughts than to actually check on anything. Everything had already been checked throughly many times, and everyone knew she was only taking that walk to have some time alone with herself. Not completely alone, a few of Sunburst's featureless soldiers could be seen around town, but if Rarity could manage being alone with the fake ponies she modelled her clothes on then she could do the same with those. Even if the way they stood around motionless or moved mechanically when they did brought unpleasant memories to mind. It was because of her mental wanderings through the events of her recent past and recent future, and her troubled emotional state, that she didn't immediately notice the pony. It was because of how no one was supposed to be there that she got suddenly very curious, and somewhat worried. They were sitting on a chair, at a table outside a closed building that appeared to be a restaurant of some kind, inside a portico. Between the gloomy sky and the roof above them, Twilight couldn't really get a good look at them. She approached. But before she could speak, she recognised them. He seemed to notice her too, and turned his head back, smiling. "This place usually serves some really good ice-cream, you know?" he said. "I was looking forward to it, but I guess the place is closed. I'll have to wait on that then." Twilight took a step closer. "What are you doing here?" "I told you. I wanted some ice-cream," the Charioteer said, suddenly holding an ice-cream cone in one of his hooves. "Aside from that, not much, really. I'm just watching. I do a lot of it. I suppose I'm a little ahead of schedule though." Twilight took another step forward. "What do you want? What are you planning?" "When have I ever actually answered your questions in a satisfying manner, Twilight?" He chuckled. "I won't be interfering tomorrow, if that's what you're worried about. Nothing of what happens here concerns me. I'll stick to my schedule, whether you win or you lose." He took a lick from his ice-cream cone. "I'm sorry if that sounds kind of cold, but I do want you to understand there's really nothing personal I have against any of you. My purpose just happens to conflict with your desire to keep on existing." He sighed. "You know, I consider myself quite the mediocrely great actor. But if I'm allowed to break my script for a moment, I wish to say that am sorry about what happened with those two. It wasn't your fault." It was Twilight's turn to chuckle. It was bitter, and it sounded a bit like crying. "You're one to talk. It was just Nightmare Moon following her nature, wasn't it?" "I suppose there is some irony in it." The Charioteer licked his ice-cream again. "Like I've told you before, every world has its abomination, as you've come to call them. You won't be able to ignore that fact much longer. Unless you merely lose, of course." He smiled. "But that's not what you want to do, is it?" He turned away from Twilight again. She started at him for a bit, quiet, watching him occasionally take another lick. Then she began to walk away. > Meanwhile > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Just another cycle, eh?" the stallion asked. "Yeah. Just another one." The mare sat on her chair with her head on the table, lazily scribbling something on a piece of paper with a pencil she held in her magic. "If we did a good enough job, maybe we'll even live through it." "Or maybe we won't." The stallion smiled. "Maybe if we did a good enough job it'll mean she doesn't need us anymore, and she'll finally get rid of us." The mare chuckled. "Always a possibility, I suppose. Hopefully she'll dispose of us more elegantly than how the guards did. Has anyone cleaned the stain yet?" "Oh, please." The stallion took a sip of coffee. "Of course not. Honestly, I think they're leaving it there as a reminder." "It's kind of a tempting reminder though." The pencil's tip broke. The mare looked annoyed by it, and stood straight as she began to sharpen it again. "Do you think we'll get new prisoners sent here again?" "Maybe? Probably, if she asks us to work on an improved version or something different." The stallion took another sip of coffee. "The researcher in me is almost tempted by the ideas of what else we might be able to make. Just a couple of tweaks and we might end up with something completely different." "I hope the sane pony in you is trying to beat the researcher to death." The mare paused to admire the newly sharpened point of her pencil. She looked at it like she was tempted to shove it into her own eye. "It might not even be prisoners if she sends more ponies here. It would be the easiest choice, but if she feels like it she can just pick random ponies off the street and make it so no one even remembers." "Makes you wonder why she bothers running the country as normal when she could just have it all running on rails." The stallion looked at the empty bottom of his coffee mug, and set it on the table. "Maybe she just enjoys the show." "Because that's hard," said the mare. "I'm pretty sure she tried, at one point. She couldn't keep it going. For all I know, what we're doing here is just the first step in her plan to get to a point where she can actually do it." "Making everyone so stupid they're way easier to control?" the stallion asked. "I wonder if there's a way to alter the process so it doesn't affect mental functions so much. So we aren't..." He shook his head. "Well, I was going to mention we wouldn't be murdering ponies, then I remembered why we're putting them through the process in the first place." "There's probably a way for the process to enhance mental capabilities, even," said the mare. "And there ought to be a reason she's using herself as part of it. She'll probably keep us around a while longer, or at least keep the project going. Probably the former, it's easier when you don't need to train new researchers." "Like training new ones would be hard for her." The stallion leaned back into his chair. "Oh well. We'll have to wait and see, I guess." "I guess we will," said the mare, going back to scribbling on her piece of paper. "Not much else we can do, after all." > Sestri > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked onto the empty streets of the Crystal Empire from the lower balcony of the central palace, as the mid-morning Sun shone down on them and made the buildings glisten in its light. She had slept a restful and sufficiently long sleep, as they all had. None of them had been in the conditions to, but that had not stopped Luna from magically imposing that rest upon them. With their consent, of course. The alicorn had taken it upon herself to raise the Sun as well, to ensure Twilight wouldn't need to be up before dawn. She stood at Twilight's side at that moment, watching the streets together with her. Celestia, however, was nowhere to be seen. Not in her room either, though Twilight wasn't worried about that. She knew where she'd be, and everything was still according to plan. Next to the balcony, Rainbow Dash, clad in silver armour with a sword floating beside her, hovered with lazy flaps of her wings. She would have some explaining to do to Twilight, but the time for that would come later. Pinkie and Applejack were below the balcony, on the ground, together with Shining and Cadence and a couple of guards. Fluttershy and Rarity were with Starlight, on top of a nearby building together with half a dozen more guards. Trixie and Sunburst were both inside the palace, somewhere near the top, with more guards to protect them. Similarly, inside another large building were Lyra and Bon Bon and the grey pegasus messenger Twilight used to use to communicate with the Empire, and other guards with them too, probably a dozen or so. Twilight had left the exact numbers up to Shining, though she had a list she was starting to look over right then. The bulk of their forces wasn't made up by regular guards anyway. Peppered throughout the city in strategic spots, and grouped together next to actual living ponies, Sunburst's hippoid creations stood at attention, ready to fight and protect them. Finally, Firecracker circled above the top of the palace, restlessly looking at the Empire, while Starshine seemed to occasionally and almost randomly move from rooftop to rooftop. Tempest, unfortunately, had been unable to come. She'd waited at the second laboratory a while longer after Starlight's departure, and a storm had struck, keeping her from both being able to open a portal and being able to physically leave the place. Twilight wasn't sure if she was supposed to feel bothered by the lack of ulterior help or relived to know the unicorn would be safe. She somewhat cynically leaned towards the former, knowing well that failure there would mean Tempest's safety would merely be temporary. "Afraid?" asked Luna, leaning a little closer to Twilight. "Yeah," Twilight replied. "Nervous, too. I assume everyone is. But we've got a plan at least." Luna nodded. "This might be the greatest challenge Equestria has faced in quite a while. Certainly a demanding first task for a new ruler." "Not worse than Discord, and what else you and Celestia had to face together." "Discord was but one creature, though powerful, and one foolish enough to not recognise how we'd found the perfect solution to his powers. This is an army, and their leader has proven to be all but foolish." Twilight nodded too. "True. We have our own army, and I would hope myself not to be a foolish leader either. Neither would I think anyone else here a fool. All that's left is to see how it goes." > The Stars' Come Night > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first portal appeared a little before midday, in the middle of the Empire's central square, somewhat far from everyone there. It stood there for a few minutes, and the ponies stood motionless watching it. Finally, a single pony stepped out of it. Even with the protection spells Twilight had designed and cast on everyone, everypony's first natural instinct was to gag. It was a forced reaction, nothing they did consciously. Some took it better than others, though none were pushed so far as to actually vomit. But even still, the mere presence was enough for them to feel nauseous and light-headed. Enough to make some part of their brains scream that they should have been running. Nightmare Moon stared at them from the middle of the square. Her eyes scanned the place at first, then settled on Twilight. "I offer you peace, little ponies." Her sharp teeth were bared as she spoke, though they did not stand out as they might have if the aura of darkness around her hadn't been there dampening the Sun's light. She stood in a slowly expanding pool of shadow, a shard of night jammed into the day. "Surrender to me, and I will spare you." Her expression went to something between a grin and a feral snarl. "Defy me, and I will destroy this town and slaughter your loved ones." Everyone was silent, waiting for something more to happen. Twilight, quiet as the rest, held Nightmare Moon's gaze and stared right back at her. The black alicorn's smile only widened. There was a small quiver of her starry tail, its end still beyond the portal. A moment later, something else was shoved through. Even though they knew it would happen, it still sent audible murmurs of shock through most of the ponies present. Princess Celestia, blindfolded, her hooves tied, her horn wrapped by metal bindings, her wings limp against her body, though not broken. The bulk of her mane and tail had been severed, leaving her only a tangled, roughed up head of hair too short to even get a quarter of the way down her neck, and not much more on her tail. Her feathers and white hair were not faring well, tattered, messy, matted by sweat and dirt, missing in places where visible scars and bruises marked her skin. One of her lips was swollen, and had broken at one point. Some dried blood was left under her nose. She breathed still, though slowly. She barely held herself up as she could, exhausted. Nightmare Moon looked sideways at her, chuckled, then placed a hoof over her head and pushed it down to the ground. "Your Sun has already been defeated," she bellowed out. Her voice was suddenly much deeper, and much more distant and cold, like words carried by wind from the bottom of a deep dark gorge. "Spare yourselves her fate, and surrender." Again, Twilight stared down Nightmare Moon, aware that more than a few of the others were looking at her. She flapped her wings, took off from the balcony, and flew down to the edge of the square, now the closest pony to Nightmare Moon. Her knees held firm, even against the wave of malaise exuding from the alicorn. Her voice was calm as she spoke, despite all the anger raging up inside her. "No." > Day of The Moon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon did not look surprised by Twilight's refusal. If anything, she looked amused, but her expression didn't really seem to have changed at all. "Do you speak for all of your ponies?" she asked Twilight. "As their ruler, I do," Twilight said. "And it is because I have their best interest in mind and at heart that I choose not to surrender them to you. That I choose to fight, if that is my only other choice." "Are they aware that their queen is condemning them so?" Nightmare Moon lowered slightly her neck, and her grin spread wide. Too wide. Too many fangs. "Are they aware of the carnage that awaits them because you refused to surrender? Are they aware of the way their lives will be ruined because of your decision?" Twilight still held Nightmare Moon's gaze. "My ponies trust in me." Her voice rose a little as she said, "But if any of those here are against my decision, they are free to speak their mind." No one did, and after a few seconds of silence she continued, in her previous tone, "I do not trust your words, but even if I did I would not trust your rule over my citizens. I believe that I am doing what is best for them, and I am putting my own life on the line for it. That is all." "It is war that you want, then," said Nightmare Moon. "It is war you choose." "It is war you came to bring. It is war you threatened us with to make us surrender. Don't mistake conquest for peace." Nightmare Moon did not answer with words. She merely smiled, showing an unnaturally wide display of sharp fangs, while her slit pupils rested firmly on Twilight. Then her wings flared. Magic enveloped her horn. Her starry, nebulous mane rose up in swirling spirals. The pool of shadow at her hooves broke out into a carpet of darkness running like oil as it spread over the ground in the entire town, causing those guards who were close to earth and had wings to instinctively take flight. Cold winds began to blow through the streets of the city, and shadows started to creep over buildings, as a foggy kind of darkness settled over everything, obscuring the light. Soon something worse followed. The sky went from clear cyan to midnight blue, and darkening still. The Sun's light dimmed, as if the darkness surrounding it was consuming it. The feeling of illness that had affected everyone only multiplied. More than a few guards doubled over or lost their footing, and took a while to regain their composure. Even those more used to or capable of dealing with the malaise flinched as the tide or darkness passed over them. The Moon rose unnaturally through the black and starless sky, and came over the Sun to cover its sight, but it too was swallowed by the blackness surrounding it. Darkness deeper than the deepest night fell over the Empire, barely cut through by the many magical lights cast by those who could, and never past a certain distance. The only thing everyone could still see clearly was Nightmare Moon herself, standing in front of Twilight, grinning with her eyes wide. "So it is, then." Heavy sounds of marching hooves and something heavier still began to echo throughout the city. > Drift > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked at Nightmare Moon a moment longer, aware of how everyone else's attention was split between looking at her to see what she would do and nervous glances around the darkness. She did not wait too long, though. Nightmare Moon herself wouldn't wait forever, after all. She only waited a few seconds, enough to commit the alicorn's expression to memory. Then she stood straight, her wings slightly spread, her horn shimmering. Her mane and tail floated slightly by themselves, a few sparkles visible in them. Light spread out from beneath her hooves like a wave of fire burning away the darkness and shadows. It spread over the whole Empire in a matter of seconds, leaving only the blackness beneath Nightmare Moon herself as a trace of the unnatural inky mantle that had covered the city moments before. The Sun suddenly shone again in the sky, consuming the black moon that had obscured it, and the dark heavens shattered to reveal the same light blue skies as before. The Moon still hung in the sky, opposite the Sun, but daylight shone clear over the Empire. Nightmare Moon looked curiously at Twilight, then at Celestia still pinned under her hoof. Then back at Twilight. Her grin had lost most of its amusement, but hadn't left her face entirely. It was not out of the question that that was merely the way her expression had permanently warped though, the corners of her mouth ripped and deepened and all. "Clever," she said, her voice back to normal but loud enough for Twilight to hear. "Very clever." A second later she'd left Celestia behind, vanishing in a flash of magic to appear in front of Twilight. It wasn't Twilight's horn that she ended up clashing against, though. Just a little before her target, Luna had intercepted her, and locked her there with her own shimmering horn against hers. Not for long, not for longer than fractions of a second. Long enough for a bolt of lightning to fall from the sky over Nightmare Moon's body, and for Twilight's horn to fire a stream of golden magic that coupled with Luna's blast sent Nightmare Moon crashing into a building. Before she'd even come to a halt, a long pointed piece of silver that would have looked excessive as the bolt on a ballista pierced through her and nailed her to the crumbled wall, passing through one of her shoulders. Another lightning came down, but merely crackled against a dark blue shield of energy around the alicorn, while the second would-be arrow from Luna's bow disintegrated against it and Twilight's next blast just bounced off. Nightmare Moon pulled herself forward until the silver bolt slid out all the way through the wound. Her shoulder and chest were matted a deep, sickly black, something that looked more like oil than blood. Her shoulder popped back in, and though it was hard to actually see it was easy to understand the wound had been closed. As Luna kept firing with her bow, aided valiantly if most likely to little actual benefit by a few guards with crossbows, she turned her head slightly towards Twilight, who was holding a steady beam of golden magic against Nightmare Moon's shield and was likely the only real source of her momentary stasis. Knowing it would only be moments before Nightmare Moon moved again, she spoke. "I can hold her for now. Do what you have to." > Deliver Us > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As soon as Nightmare Moon was off of her, Shining and Cadence rushed towards Celestia's body. Shining put up a shield around them, while Cadence broke the bindings holding the alicorn's hooves together and took off her blindfold. She knelt by her and held her head up with a wing. Celestia weakly lifted her neck, scanning the place around them as Cadence went to work on her wounds with her magic. She spotted Twilight, using her magic against Nightmare Moon, and after swallowing she let herself relax and her head droop down again. "I'm okay," she said, her voice hoarse and rough. "Nothing broken." She looked like she wanted to say something more, but didn't have the strength to. Outside of the bubble of Shining's magical shield, Twilight stopped firing magic from her horn. She gave Luna a nod, and immediately started to gallop away. As soon as she saw that, Nightmare Moon started to charge towards her, her shield still up and blocking everything thrown at her. But Luna quickly intercepted her. There was a flash of black, spreading out from Luna's horn and rising like waves around the two alicorns. It twisted and turned for a few moments, spikes of energy trying to push their way out from within as blue lightning crackled along the surface, but eventually it settled into a pitch black sphere the size of a small building, immobile and hiding both Nightmare Moon and Luna inside. Twilight took flight, and Rainbow Dash joined her at her side, alongside two of Sunburst's constructs. Cadence hoisted Celestia over her shoulders, and together with Shining began to move back towards the palace. The shield held without much effort against the blasts of magic coming from those few of Nightmare Moon's soldiers who had advanced close enough to see them, though most of them soon focused their attention elsewhere. One blast in particular however, just as the couple reached the lower entrance to the palace, forced Shining to dig his hooves in and grit his teeth. While Cadence, after a brief look between them, rushed on into the building to carry Celestia to safety and medical aid, Shining turned and readied himself. He made his shield smaller once Cadence had entered the building, bringing it only around himself for the time being. But his opponent didn't shoot a second time, merely watching as the alicorns left the scene before focusing his eyes on Shining and grinning at him. If Shining had to guess, he'd slithered his way there while everyone had still been distracted by everything going on between Twilight and Nightmare Moon, explaining how he could be there already while everyone else from the other side was still much farther from the centre of town. That, or he'd slipped in through the same portal Nightmare Moon had, which had been closed at some point during her talk with Twilight. Sombra tilted his head to the side, grinning still. He wasn't speaking, but Shining felt it was because he didn't want to, not because he couldn't. Hard to know for sure with him though. He wore armour much like the one from his world had worn the first time Shining had seen him in full, but no cape or mantle on his back, and no crown. Only his curved red horn stood out against his flowing black mane. His eyes were piercing, unnaturally slit and coloured, but no purple smoke came from them. He moved slightly too fast for Shining to react, and when he was in front of the unicorn's shield he didn't fire his horn. He bucked at it with his legs and hooves, still carrying the momentum of his movement. Shining's body, still within his shield, was sent flying backwards into a building. > Silver Tears > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you see any?" Applejack asked, ducking behind a corner and occasionally looking past it. Occasionally she looked back towards the centre of town too. She could see Twilight had taken off with Rainbow, and Luna was keeping Nightmare Moon busy for the time being, according to plan. She also caught sight of Shining being sent through a building. Not quite according to plan, but accounted for, and still something they could manage. She adjusted her armour with a hoof. It was light, but it was better than nothing. "I think I spotted one," Pinkie said, dropping down from the top of the building to land at Applejack's side. Her own armour clattered a little as she fell down. It was even lighter than Applejack's, but again it was better than her bare skin and hair. "Alright, you know what to do," she said, turning to the constructs waiting there behind her. Then she eyed the unicorn guard in the middle of them. "Think you can do it?" The guard stood at attention and nodded. "Yes." "Alright." Pinkie peeked past the same corner Applejack was hiding behind. "Starshine, how are you doing?" she whispered at shouting volume. "Oh, me?" asked the alicorn. "Just fine." Something almost like a paw slammed down on her position and left visible cracks on the crystal surface of the ground. Starshine just appeared a moment later floating beside the creature's head, and shot it a tiny magic blast. It seemed to bother the thing more than anything, and in retaliation it swung its arm against her, missing her. Four other of those were around the alicorn, all either busy trying and failing to attack her or being forced back into it by her efforts whenever one tried to advance instead. None of them managed to get a good hit in on her, or to hit her at all for that matter, but her own magic didn't do any damage either when used against them. "Still trying to figure this thing out," she apologetically said as the blast she'd fired did nothing to slow down the arm coming crashing down against her. She disappeared and reappeared in a different spot, and things continued on as before, with regular soldiers on both sides refusing to approach the stalemate. "We'll have to go around," Applejack said, having taken another look alongside Pinkie. "Unless we figure out a way to deal with those." "Let's go around." Pinkie began to lead the way to the next building over, moving perpendicular to the direction they were supposed to head in to get away from the group Starshine was blocking. Applejack and the others followed her. "How far is it?" Applejack asked, as they hid behind the building and again looked past the corner to see if the way was clear. Up ahead a set of dark armoured soldiers were locked into a fight with a group of Sunburst's construct warriors. They outnumbered and outpowered the small set of the Empire's forces, but the constructs's incredible sturdiness meant they still held their ground despite the disparity. No mutated ponies in sight, and Applejack was unwillingly reminded of how much she didn't like thinking about them that way. "It's a mostly straight line from here, can't take too much more than half an hour even if we're slowed down heavily. Might be more if we're forced to stop." Pinkie looked over their group, then looked back at the battle ahead. "I think we might not get a better shot soon. We should charge in." Applejack nodded, taking a moment to breathe in slow and deep. She shared a look with the unicorn guard, who nodded in response, then looked to Pinkie again. "Let's do it." > Ignite > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think I found one." Starlight focused on the spell laid out on the ground in front of her, the miniature stylised recreation of the Crystal Empire dotted by clusters of moving lights of different colours, and occasional odd distortions in the image. She pointed with a hoof at one particular spot, where the buildings looked awkwardly curved, like looked at through a lense. "This seems pretty consistent. I'm sure one is here." "Should one of us go?" Rarity asked, nervously looking past the barrier surrounding the rooftop. "Too risky," Starlight said. "You're supposed to stay here, and I'm supposed to protect you. I'll send a message to the ground group, they can figure out who to send." She pulled up a piece of parchment, and wrote on it with a quill. "Thank Harmony they didn't figure out a way to mess with communications or intercept them," she said, largely to herself. A stray bolt of magic hit the shield around them, exploding in a shower of sparks that rolled off the domed protection spell. No direct shots aimed at them yet, but Starlight doubted it would stay like that for long. A grey pegasus appeared right at Starlight's side. Like nothing about it was in any way strange, Starlight again pointed to the same spot on the projected map. "There," she said. The pegasus looked at the map, tilting her head, then noted down the position on her smaller, paper bound version of the city's layout. "On it," she said with a nod, and then she blinked back out of existence. Rarity sat down, nervously swaying from side to side. "Do we need all these guards here with us?" she asked quietly. "Not right now," Starlight conceded, "and I'll be the first to acknowledge sending them to help out there would improve our chances. But you will need protection, when and if the time comes, and you couldn't afford to have it be far away in those circumstances. We cannot put you at critical risk, even if it would improve our chances in the short term." "We're letting the other Elements out there," Fluttershy noted. She nodded after a moment. "I know, yes. They're more likely to make it through than the average guard is." She took her mane in her hooves and stared at its stripe. Starlight nervously looked at her. "It's not acting up, right?" Fluttershy shook her head. "They understand. They don't like it, but they understand." The piece of parchment at Starlight's side lit up momentarily, and she picked it up again. "Looks like they're actually sending those two." "Hopefully they won't be hurt." Rarity again nervously looked outside. "Twilight wouldn't forgive herself for that." One of the guards suddenly spoke up, also holding a piece of parchment. "Princess Celestia has been carried to safety," he announced. "Her conditions appear stable after a first analysis. She is currently being treated." Everyone sighed in relief at the news, some more evidently than others, and Starlight looked towards the central palace not too far away from them. "Any news regarding the flying team?" "Not yet," the stallion replied. "I'll inform you should anything come through." > Sing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm surprised they don't have more flying units," said Rainbow, hovering at Twilight's side as they studied the battlefield. "I'm not." Another blast from below rocked the spherical shield Twilight and Rainbow Dash were protected by. "You see how much they're targeting us. Anything that flies too high becomes a target for the whole town, and without any long range weaponry to attach there's not much of an advantage." "They could have them drop bombs." Rainbow scanned the city below them one more time. "Not worth it." Twilight did the same. "You can't drop them on the battlefield, or you'll just hit your own soldiers. That means you need to get them to the enemy, and more distance to cover means more chances of getting hit. Speed matters if you have to avoid precise shots, but it doesn't really help against wide hitting spells." As if to underscore her point, a blast of magic from the opposing forces sailed past their shield and continued on for a few seconds, but still hit the top of it when exploding in the air. "That's ignoring the risk of being shot down while you're still over your allies and having your bombs fall on them." "And I guess attacks launched from high altitude aren't really useful if they're not fast and precise." Rainbow watched a lightning bolt strike down a group of pegasi attempting to head towards them. "Regular bombs are too easy to see coming and shield against or deflect." "Until they start doing high drop suicide dives, and I wouldn't put it past them." Twilight rapidly veered to the side and upwards, dodging out of the way of a particularly intense barrage of spells aimed their way. She retaliated with a single blast aimed at the source of the assault, a ball of energy bigger than a pony that travelled to the ground in only a couple of seconds and exploded in a wide dome of interlacing electrical arcs. A moment later it dissipated, and nothing more moved within the affected area. "But before we'll have to worry about that, they'll start aiming parabolic shots properly soon enough, now that they have a good read on the disposition of things. That's all hoping they don't bring in any siege weaponry." "They'll definitely bring it in, right?" Rainbow watched another one of Firecracker's lightnings strike down on a group of soldiers down below. "As soon as they figure out how to deal with that." She eyed a particular spot up ahead, one Twilight had also noticed, next to a tall building that one of them recognised as a library. "Are you sure it'll work?" "It will do what we planned it to. It might not be enough to completely cut them off," Twilight said. "But in that case, it will mean she split her army and forced herself to rely on logistics and communications, making things less efficient. Either way, we'll still have cut off one of the nodes with forces still on the other side, and we'll just have to do it again from a position of advantage." Dash nodded. "Makes sense to me." She exchanged glances with Twilight, and both looked again to the library. Then both dove towards it, rapidly speeding up. > Grey > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining looked forward, past the broken crystal walls he'd crashed through and towards the pony responsible for it. He wasn't physically hurt in any significant way, his shield had held. His horn ached a little though, after holding him in place at the centre of his bubble while he was sent sailing through the air. Sombra didn't appear to be interested in waiting around any longer, nor in going after Cadence inside the palace. After a brief but intense surge of energy his horn fired, and the buildings Shining had broken through were turned to dust as a beam of magic wide as a train gallery ran them over in its path towards Shining. The unicorn was ready though. Not to fully withstand the blow, but to do what he needed to survive it unscathed. He quickly modified his shield and reinforced it, locking it in place, and as Sombra's spell made contact and quickly caused it to crumble he teleported away. Only a long crater was left in the path between Sombra's position and the house Shining had been inside of. As the unicorn reappeared atop a rooftop, he quickly found his enemy teleporting in front of him. Shining had just enough time to put up another shield before Sombra's hooves slammed down onto him and pushed him and his bubble through the roof and into the room below. A moment to get his bearings and Shining immediately teleported outside, and only seconds later he watched the building he'd been inside of explode in a flare of green energy. From there, still protected by his shield, he began to teleport from rooftop to rooftop, from alley to alley, his movements trailed at a few seconds of delay by explosions and occasionally surges of black crystals that burst out of buildings and tore them apart. He'd get tired pretty quickly it he kept teleporting like that, certainly sooner than Sombra, he'd only picked up the expertise needed to properly use the spell less than years prior and using it so often so quickly would drain him. But he needed to do it while he thought things through, as staying still wasn't really an option with the other unicorn on his tail. In his repeated teleportations, he tried to bring himself closer to the central palace again, so Cadence could be immediately closer to him once she returned. Unfortunately for him, Sombra understood what he was trying to do. After teleporting behind another house, the wall next to him burst with energy as the building behind him exploded. His shield absorbed the hit, but it still sent him against the wall on the other side. He regained his bearings quickly, but not quickly enough. As he tried to teleport away again, already seeing Sombra's smoky form materialising in front of him amidst the rubble of the destroyed building, he instead found himself crashing against a wall of jagged black crystals surrounding the two of them. He turned and strengthened his shield, looking at Sombra and reading his horn to prepare for whatever his next move would be. > Unfinished III > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think, given the circumstances presented to us, that the best course of action would be to simply I think the best course of action would be, given the circumstances I think that given the > Sel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack ducked behind a broken chunk of crystal wall, then quickly spun around and kicked it towards a group of soldiers, knocking one of them out in the process. It wasn't the most elegant approach, certainly far from Twilight's stun spells, but it still did what it needed to. A little farther ahead, Pinkie took a more hooves on approach, rolling between ponies and chucking balloons filled with sleeping potions at them. The researchers at Twilight's laboratory hadn't come to the battlefield directly, of course, but they'd still provided some help in other ways. Applejack knew one of Twilight's several potential backup maneuvers if things got bad was releasing enough sleeping gas to cover the whole town, though she wasn't actually sure if the alicorn had managed to implement that one. Between the increase in numbers and the surprise of their charge, their group managed to defeat the opposing one. A few pegasi remained, but as they tried to fly away they were zapped by the construct warriors' spears and fell to the ground, unconscious. They were soon immobilised and stripped of their weapons, and a small group of constructs began to quickly carry their equipment back towards the centre of town. Pinkie looked at the constructs remaining, then threw a look down the road ahead to ensure they weren't about to be ambushed. "Should we stick with them?" she asked to Applejack and the unicorn guard. "We could use the help." "It might make us too big of a target," Applejack said. "I think we'd rather use them as a distraction. Keep the same group as before." She looked at the unicorn. "You're the one they're supposed to be protecting though. You should get a say." "I think you're right," the unicorn said after only a bit of thinking. "They're going to target us if we advance as a single group, and that's not the point of the mission." He nodded. Applejack nodded back. "Pinkie, where do we send them?" she asked, turning to the other earth pony. Pinkie, who'd climbed on a nearby building, dropped down again. "That way," she said, pointing down a street. "There's another fight happening there, they'll be onto us further ahead otherwise." Applejack gave another nod. She pointed in the direction Pinkie had, and looked at the constructs they'd helped. They nodded back to her, and began to head down their chosen path. Applejack and Pinkie watched them walk away for a few moments, then started to head down the main street in front of them, alongside the unicorn and the remaining constructs. "Is the path up ahead clear?" Applejack asked, carefully looking around as they slowly walked down the street. The sounds of ongoing battles still echoed around them, but none close enough to be worrying yet. "It looked like it," Pinkie Pie said. She too was carefully looking around as they slowly advanced. "I don't think they have camouflage spells," she hissed. "I hope not," said Applejack. "But I think they would-" She was cut off, as a loud sound suddenly came from behind them. > Break > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and the guard with them immediately turned. The sound wasn't close, but it was worryingly loud, and almost reminiscent of a branch snapping during a heavy storm. Looking back, they saw the central tower of the Crystal Empire, the tallest building in the city by a huge margin, slowly falling down to a side. Not in its entirety, but a large portion of it. There was a sort of cut near the bottom, past the point where its base joined together into a single structure, and everything upwards from there was sliding off and tilting over. Still all a single chunk, but cracks were already starting to appear. In the time it took the group to realise what they were seeing, however, something else made its way to the broken building much quicker than they could have. Before the top portion of the palace could start to truly fall, its entirety was wrapped into the purple glow of Twilight's magic, and its movements were slowed. Applejack was the first to shake herself out. "She can deal with it," she said, watching as the magical aura dissipated but the building remained in the same position, like frozen in time, ignoring gravity. "It just means she needs us to do our thing while they're busy taking care of that mess." After a moment, Pinkie turned away from the sight. "You're right." They all nodded to each other, and more quickly began to walk down the road. Pinkie would every few buildings climb onto a rooftop to get a look around, and the group would occasionally wait a moment at her instruction, but aside from that they continued on without major setbacks. Applejack was not confident in the way they seemed to be making progress. "I don't get it. You'd think they'd have more guards coming this way, instead this whole path has been clear." "I don't get how they hit the central palace already either," Pinkie replied, "but we don't get to know that. The mission is still the same whatever else has happened, it's useful under all circumstances." She hopped onto another building up ahead, climbing up the partly crumbled wall, and had another look around. She stayed there a little longer, and the rest of the ponies stopped once they caught up with her. "Is something wrong?" Applejack asked. Pinkie dropped back down. "I don't trust this either. They're not just busy with scuffles elsewhere, they're straight up ignoring this road when sending soldiers forward." "But it is the fastest way to get there." Applejack chewed on nothing for a moment. "Do you think they've caught on to what we're doing? Do you think this is a trap?" "The alternatives wouldn't be better even if it was," said Pinkie. "Which I guess means it's a good trap. But I don't think it's about us specifically. I think they're testing the way our troops are programmed to act." She frowned, jumped up on the building again, then came back down. "They're letting us advance too far," she said in a worried tone. "They're not holding a single front on this side." She had a look around. "I think they're planning to cut off part of our troops." > Mindfulness > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shadows slowly began to rise from the edges of the crystal cage Shining had been trapped inside of, while its walls grew thicker and new chunks sprouted to cover every open section and stop all light from entering. Soon he found himself with only the light of his horn to show what was around him, and as the shadows deepened that too became useless. He'd expected Sombra to attack him, having him cornered, but instead the other seemed content with merely staring at him. Two glowing green eyes floating in the darkness, the only thing he could see. Shining took a step back, expecting to run into the jagged wall behind him, but there was nothing there. Sombra's eyes began to drift and circle around him, slowly at first, then picking up speed. He could hear his breathing, but it never seemed to come from the right place, it never seemed to be at the right distance. Shining felt his knees suddenly weak. Looking down he saw them enveloped by the darkness around him, then that too became too hard to see. A couple of moments later, the shadows grew so thick the light of his horn stopped reaching his eyes. Still Sombra floated around him, two pools of light in the cold nothingness. Shining felt himself pulled towards them, and he wasn't sure if his legs were merely failing him or if there was a subconscious desire moving him. The eyes seemed to be growing bigger. Moving faster, but Shining didn't have a hard time keeping up with them. Everything was spinning, and yet it didn't feel weird or odd. Since he'd stopped seeing his body, he'd slowly stopped being able to sense it too. Yet he wasn't concerned by that. It felt natural to drift in the darkness. It felt natural to float in the shadows. There was only one other thing in there. Those wide, radiant pools of green in front of him. Nothing else to see. Nothing else to do. Would it be wrong to go towards them? It was all he could do, after all. Just go a little deeper, sink towards the light. So close he could almost touch it, he felt. Why not go a little further? Suddenly, though, something else caught his attention. A sound, a very quiet sound, like glass shattering somewhere far away. Somewhere behind him. He turned. He felt something pulling against him, trying to draw his body back towards Sombra's eyes, but he consciously pushed back and towards the sound. It was hard, and the shadows were harder to push through than any mud or snow he'd ever walked through. He grit his teeth, and looked ahead. And then he saw something. Small, far away, but something was there. A tiny, weak blue sparkle, a gossamer shimmer like light flowing in from the cracks on an eggshell. The darkness seemed to come loose, and he pushed forward still. And then he heard something again, different this time. A voice, distant and quiet. A voice he recognised. "Shining!" Cadence called to him. > Eco > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Shining!" Cadence called again, louder, clearer than before. The cracks far ahead spread further towards him, and did not stop. He kept moving towards the light, running at that point, and a moment later the darkness around him shattered, and he could see the sky again. He was still standing in the building Sombra had sent him against after first showing up. No crater in the ground between him and the palace, no blown up buildings around town. Sombra was closer to him, growling, fending off blasts of Cadence's magic as she flew around him. "Cadence!" Shining called, and his horn ignited as he too fired against Sombra. His target saw the blast coming, and dissipated into a pool of shadows before reappearing back at the base of the palace. "Are you okay?" Cadence asked, flying down to land at Shining's side. "I am now," Shining said, eyes focusing on the unicorn staring down at them. "Do you think we can use the Heart?" Sombra oddly didn't seem all too upset about having lost his hold over Shining's mind. It wasn't easy to tell with the unnatural amount of fangs filling the pony's mouth and their sharpness and curvature, but he looked more like he was chuckling than anything. "We could try," said Cadence, "but without the ponies of the Empire it likely won't be as useful. It's best we prevent him from getting his hooves on it." Shining silently agreed, thinking about what to do next. He didn't have to wonder for long about what Sombra was planning, however. The unicorn's red horn was engulfed in magic, but while both partners readied themselves to avoid an incoming blast or defend against it, Sombra did something else instead. Faster than either of them could react to, he spun his head, unleashing the spell he'd charged up. Magic extended from his horn like a giant crimson blade, and in one swoop of his neck it severed through the structure of the tower behind him. A crack echoed across the streets of the Empire, like a giant bone being broken. Both Shining and Cadence watched in disbelief as, just a moment later, the building began to slide off where it had been cut. Their first instinct was to rush towards the falling tower. Halfway there, however, they were met with Sombra's own charge. His magic and horn clashed against Shining's shield, reinforced by Cadence's powers, and though the couple dug their hooves in they were still being pushed back by the snarling unicorn. Shining was caught in a moment of tense indecision, trying to plan a way to get past Sombra and towards the broken building before it began to fall completely. But as he watched, still straining his neck to hold his ground against his opponent's charge, he saw the tower's fall halt in the air, and noticed the sheen of his siter's magic wrapped around it. Another look confirmed she'd flown back there. Cadence, at his side, also saw what he did. They glanced at each other, both still mainly focused on the pony in front of them, and briefly nodded. Cadence disappeared in a blink of light. Shining was left to hold against Sombra's magic alone, and his shield immediately started to crack, but he did not have to resist more than a second. A blast of energy came from Cadence's horn to Sombra's side, and the unicorn once more dissipated in a pool of shadows, screeching as he was hit. Once more, he reappeared ahead of them. He looked briefly at the building, floating in the air, then stared down the duo. He growled at them. Shining charged. > Tick > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bon Bon ducked behind a wall, and Lyra followed her. "Anything on that side?" the first asked, leaning past the corner to look at the road ahead. "Nothing here," Lyra replied. "Good." Bon Bon leaned forward at her side, and had a look there as well. She gave a nod forward, then rushed to another space between two buildings. Again, Lyra was quick behind her. The sounds of battle came from all around, and it was hard to tell which scuffles were close and which far away, or where exactly ponies were fighting. That side in particular seemed to be occupied by the majority of the Empire's forces, at least compared to the other two thirds of the town. Lyra again leaned forward past the edge of the building. "Things are clear here. We should go while we can." Bon Bon looked down the other end. Things were momentarily clear there too, but she trusted her partner's judgment. She lacked in experience, but she seemed to have a good track record with decisions. They quickly ran across the street and into another narrow alleyway. Suddenly there was a loud crack. Bon Bon and Lyra both looked up, back towards the palace, and saw it starting to fall. Bon Bon was the first to force her eyes off the sight. "We can't do anything about that," she said, looking down the road again. "Looks like she's already on it." Lyra gave a nod and tapped Bon Bon on the shoulder, pointing her towards the purple shape in the sky that was Twilight making her way back to the centre of the Empire. Though she tried not to show it, Bon Bon breathed a sigh of relief. "Things are clear," she said, checking the road again, and again she began to run through it. Not a moment after she'd left the alley, however, she was yanked back by Lyra's magic. Before she had a chance to question her, the wall of the building she'd been heading towards crumbled as one of the nightmarishly mutated ponies the opposing army employed rammed one of their white construct soldiers through it and into the ground. Silently Bon Bon ran towards the opposite end of the alley and across the street there, as Lyra led the way. They settled down behind another building, catching their breath. "Are you going to explain that to me at some point?" Bon Bon asked. "When we're not at a risk of dying every minute," Lyra replied, sliding closer to the other corner of the building to look beyond it. "Fighting on this side. Keep quiet, but it doesn't look like it's coming this way." "Why didn't you tell Twilight?" Bon Bon asked, looking down the street they'd crossed. It looked clear, but just a building past it she could see artificial ponies being hurled up in the air and loose sparks of magic flying around. "I get you wanted to play coy and you didn't expect we'd end up in the middle of a war. But why not tell her?" "Honestly, I have no idea, probably because I'm an idiot," Lyra said. "But I still think I'm doing a decent enough job at keeping both of us alive, and I'm pretty sure she figured it out anyway considering she let me stay here." She looked down the same street Bon Bon was checking. "We can make it past this building if we stick to this side." > .FM > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A row of silver ballistas materialised on the ground dozens of metres below, and one by one they all fired their metal bolts towards the alicorn soaring through the darkened sky. All of them hit their mark, and all of them shattered against the shield protecting her, silver coming apart in bursts of electric blue sparks. But it kept Nightmare Moon in place for a bit. Long enough for Luna to get another hit in. A shining circle of light filled with runes appeared above her spread wings and glowing horn, growing brighter and brighter until a torrent of magic like a searing beam of moonlight was unleashed from it and struck down her enemy. The blow left a crater in the forest below, several metres wide, the trees at its edges carbonised where they hadn't been outright pulverised. Nightmare Moon stood in the middle of it like nothing had happened, snarling at Luna. "I do not have time for your games," she growled. Her wings spread, but she did not take flight. Instead the earth itself she was on rose upwards, the entire forest twisting and bending until sky and land were impossibile to tell apart. Luna was prepared. As the other alicorn hurled herself towards her on a tide of earth and trees she released a series of silver blades of pure light, crescent shaped, aimed directly at Nightmare Moon. Most missed, instead slicing through dozens of trees like they were cutting through paper, but a few hit their target and cut through her flesh just as easily as they cut through wood. But every wound, though it led to oily darkness leaking out of Nightmare Moon's body, closed moments after it was opened and did nothing to slow down her charge. In a couple of seconds, Nightmare Moon reached Luna. Her horn stabbed through the alicorn's chest, and she carried her further still with her momentum. Nightmare Moon grinned, taking flight and preparing to unleash her magic within Luna. But before she could do so, the body she'd impaled exploded in a blast of silver light, burning her eyes and wings and making her fall towards the ground. She healed, of course, but not quickly enough to avoid the blade coming down on her. Though calling it a blade may have been an improper term, as its size was fit for a dragon. It looked like either the top of a massive halberd, or a piece of a gigantic guillotine. It slammed down on Nightmare Moon with all its weight, cracking her bones yet still sharp enough to dig into her flesh, and carried her down all the way to the deformed spire of wood and rock she'd ridden to reach Luna, embedding itself into it and severing her body almost in two, save her her spine still holding her front and back half together. A circle of light appeared above the newly born mountain, much wider than the one Luna had used before, much more intricate in its design. It shone bright as daylight, and brighter still as it released all its energy in a downpour of magic that turned the entire unnatural formation, its size close to an actual mountain, into a cloud of fine ash and smoke. Still, at the bottom of the crater, a pool of thick darkness quickly recomposed itself, and Nightmare Moon's reconstructed form violently crawled and pushed its way out of it. > Jingle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight and Rainbow were halfway through their dive towards the library when they heard the cracking sound coming from behind them. They both veered upwards and turned back to stare at the source, and saw the tower as it began to lean to the side and break. Immediately Twilight shot towards it, with Rainbow following her a moment later. > 400 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst held onto a doorframe, and breathed a sigh of slightly confused relief when the tower stopped shaking and falling over to the side. He let himself go and landed in the corner between the wall and what had been the floor, and looked up. "Is everyone okay?" "I am," Trixie replied from the room she was still inside of. "Everyone else looks like it too." One of the guards that had been with them in the room slid out through the door, then one by one Trixie and the other two guards did as well. "No official communication yet. Any idea what might have happened?" one of them asked. "None." Looking around, Sunburst noticed a few guards dropping out of nearby rooms and beginning to make their way towards them. "We should probably leave though. If they hit the palace they might hit it again. I'll try to call Starshine for help." "Hopefully Princess Celestia is okay," another guard said. Suddenly, a grey pegasus appeared beside them. She appeared a little too high given the tilted floor, and slid down against the wall. Finding her footing again, she looked around until she spotted Sunburst. "Sombra severed the lower end of the building," she explained. "Twilight stopped it from falling, but you should still leave. Shining and Cadence are currently dealing with Sombra. They figured it would be faster to send me than to write it all out. They will be waiting for you on the lower floors." In a blink she was gone again. "I thought we'd shielded the place," one of the guards commented while another fetched her communicator to tell everyone else in the building what to do. "We did," Sunburst said, beginning to attempt to walk down the askew hallway. "It was mostly meant to protect against projectiles and spells from around town and mostly in the top portions of the building. Powerful shielding spells can't just be kept up for free, it's evident whatever Sombra did it was stronger than what we'd prepared for." The others began to follow him, joined by other ponies from the rest of the floor and the ones above making their way down. "Couldn't we have prepared for more?" asked one of them, almost annoyed. "Preparing for a scenario where the enemy is right in the centre of town hitting hard enough to topple your tallest building means wasting resources preparing for a situation in which you've probably already lost," said another, older guard. "Prince Shining and his wife are already taking care of the culprit, and that should prove that the overall plan was sound." The younger guard didn't look too convinced by the second half of the argument, probably due to having been in a building about to fall over just moments prior, but he stayed grumpily silent. Another one piped up, looking at a message she'd just received. "Princess Celestia is safe," she said. "She is being escorted to the lower floors, and was not hurt by the accident. She still has not fully recovered, but her conditions have improved somewhat." "That is good news." Sunburst stared at a flight of stairs, one that almost didn't look like it was even heading down anymore, then began to push his way up what had been the floor to reach them. > Jangle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Everyone in there is okay," the guard said. "They're making their way out of the building." Starlight sighed in relief, then nervously looked at the fight going on beneath the broken tower. Cadence and Shining seemed to be doing well, but Sombra didn't look worn out in the slightest. They had to hope he didn't pull another stunt like that, keep pressure on him. Unfortunately, sending more guards his way wasn't really feasible. She looked at the sphere of darkness that housed Luna and Nightmare Moon. As much as she could hope Luna might have a chance at actually defeating the other, that had never even been considered a possibility when planning things. She was just supposed to hold her long enough for them to deal with everything else. Twilight had needed to fly back, but she'd be back where she'd been quickly. The others were still advancing, with no reported accidents. They'd manage to get things done if everything went right, although Sombra slicing the palace like that was anything but things going right. Hopefully, though, that had exhausted all their bad luck. She focused back on the map projected in front of her. With nothing else to do, she could at least be useful. > Wake > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you really think you can hold me here?" Nightmare Moon's body, alongside the mountain behind her, was sliced in half by a beam of silver light. Unlike the mountain behind her, she merely reattached her two halves. "Quit hiding." Luna's response came in the form of a rain of spears, which shattered uselessly against the barely visible shield Nightmare Moon had formed against herself. Then the alicorn melted herself into a pool of darkness, slithering forward through the hail of metal before seeping into the ground. The terrain itself, already scarred and distorted, began to grow a dark blue colour. Horns violently protruded out of it in places, in others black blood began to ooze out. The mountains and forest twisted and shifted, and rose into a contorted monstrosity too complex to fully take in. Nightmare Moon's voice boomed out, loud as a landslide, "Just give up, little pony. I will make sure your end is swift." Luna shot off from her hiding spot, a patch of trees down on the ground, as black tentacles born out of the earth chased after her. She flew up into the air, face to face with the gaping maw of the colossal abomination Nightmare Moon had taken control of. But before those impossibly wide jaws could clamp down on her, Luna's horn shone a deep blue. The trees, the forest, the mountains simply disappeared, broken apart like cinders and ashes taken by the wind from a burning page. Luna was left alone, flying over a vast black lake, beneath a starless moonlit sky. But the waves rose up around her, unnatural towers of water reaching towards the sky, and another giant monster was born out of the lake, one made of water but still bearing Nightmare Moon's eyes. It lunged towards her, but Luna's magic was quicker. The water froze before it could reach her, then shattered into nothingness under a blast of her magic. But the shadow within it remained, still impossibly big, stretching and twisting to blot out the Moon. Luna fired at it again, but her magic merely disappeared into the darkness. Then, the shadows came down on her, and Luna fell into them. She fell, sinking deeper and deeper, cuts against her skin as the darkness grew jagged and thicker. Opening her eyes grew difficult, and every attempt to latch on to something was futile. The shadows around her no more than mist as she tried to attack then or hold on to them, but like blades of obsidian as they lunged at her and hurt her. One stabbed into her side. Blood poured out, crimson against the blackness surrounding her. Luna grit her teeth. She righted herself, turning towards where she knew, she felt upwards to be. The darkness attacked her again, but she ignored it. Her wings beat. Once, twice, harder each time. She was sinking still, but slower. By the tenth push she was moving up, if only by a few centimetres. Her horn lit up in silver, and though the shadows swallowed all light she did not turn it off. She climbed higher, building up speed. Claws dug into her back, trying to drag her down. She did not stop to see if she was bleeding again. She pushed on. Her horn fired. > Tr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think things will be okay?" Twilight Velvet asked, looking out the window. "I trust our kids," Night Light replied. He sat beside Flurry's crib, slowly rocking it back and forth. "And Cadence. And their friends. If anyone can do it it's them." "You saw what happened before, right?" Twilight nervously looked at the sky. "I saw how it got better," Night Light responded. "I know you're worried, but there's not really anything we can do besides hoping." Twilight swallowed. "I know." She kept looking at the sky, still remembering how it had turned dark before. Seeing his granddaughter was asleep, Night Light stepped up to his wife and wrapped a foreleg around her shoulders. "It's going to be okay," he said, leaning into her. Twilight did the same. "You don't actually know that." "Of course not," Night Light said. "But it is. No point bandaging your head before it's hurt, anyway." He looked at her. "Do you trust them?" Twilight sighed, and looked back at him. "I do." They hugged. > DrDm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'll write a message," Applejack said, "tell them to be careful, but there's not really much we can do. Regrouping now would mean letting their forces advance, and we don't have enough to push through the cracks instead." "It's still best for them to be aware of things." Pinkie looked down the road again and began to walk. "There's a group on the right farther ahead. Hopefully they don't give us trouble." The ponies and pony-like creations of Sunburst's coil followed behind Pinkie, looking around alert for any other signs of danger. "Sunburst and the others in the tower are alright," Applejack quietly announced at a point. "Princess Celestia too." "Have you tried asking him if he can put out more of those things?" Pinkie asked before climbing up another building. Despite the sounds of fighting around them and despite the road they were travelling on being fairly large, it remained quiet and empty, which kept the group tense. It shouldn't have been like that, and at any moment things could change. "They've talked about it already," Applejack replied. "He ain't feeling up to it, and I trust him. I don't think he'd let the town get destroyed just because he was feeling a little tired." Pinkie dropped back down. "It's not going to be easy," she said. "Lots of guards near the portal. They're keeping it guarded." "We don't need to beat them all." Applejack looked to the unicorn there with them. "Just to get close enough." "We do need to make it out alive." Pinkie pondered the way forward, whether to keep going down the road or to pass through an alleyway to the side. "Someone needs to use the Elements. We'll get there too soon for any other group to have made it here, we can't really safely do this on our own without Starshine's help. We should call for her at least, but I doubt she'll manage to come soon." "If I may," the unicorn spoke up. "I think we could make it if we're fast enough. They're obviously keeping the portal safe, but it's unlikely they're specifically guarding against what we're planning. If we maybe create a distraction, and use all our forces defensively, it's doable." "It's risky," Pinkie said. "And remember we're not the only ones attempting this. Twilight might have already been done with it if she hadn't been forced to fly back in. I honestly think it would be best to just keep the soldiers here busy until another group sorts things out." She headed down the alleyway. Applejack followed her, unicorn and constructs in tow. "That doesn't sound like you." She got a little closer and spoke a little quieter. "Is there something you're not telling us?" "I have a bad feeling about this," Pinkie said. "I have a bad feeling about the moment Nightmare Moon is going to burst out of the bubble Luna put her in, and I have a bad feeling about what's going to happen to you and the others if we're not careful." "You wouldn't jeopardise the entire thing just for a feeling," Applejack said. She was neither angry nor speaking in an accusatory manner, rather she was worried too. "We'll see how bad things are there. Maybe Starshine will be available to help." > Risk > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Without much question, Bon Bon did as Lyra had instructed, and indeed the two of them got to the alley safely. "What next?" she asked. "We keep going," Lyra replied. She got close to the other end of the alley, but she didn't need to poke her head out to know going that way wasn't safe. She quietly got back to Bon Bon, and looked down the road there. "A group of soldiers is going to run through in a couple of moments. Stay still and quiet." She pressed her back against the wall, and her horn shone. Bon Bon did the same, hiding behind a jutting portion of crystal wall that led up to a chimney. When the soldiers had indeed passed, moving too hurriedly to notice them hidden as they were by Lyra's magic, she let herself breathe more freely. "Are you sure we can do this on our own?" "If I get near that portal, I'm a hundred percent sure I can do what I need to." Lyra looked at Bon Bon with a serious expression. "I am not sure I can get us there, but us two alone probably have a better shot at it than if we'd brought someone else too." "Easier to hide just two ponies," Bon Bon commented. "Easiest to hide just one, but I couldn't go myself and you shouldn't have either." She leaned out into the street for a moment. It had gone unnoticed among all the other sounds, but the mutated pony had broken through the buildings on the opposite side. He was temporarily held off by the constructs though. "We better hope this works out. We don't stand much of a chance otherwise." "We're holding on for now." Lyra got closer to her, and she too looked out for a moment. She then looked down the road in the opposite direction, and blinked. "I wouldn't go just yet. It's best if we wait for a moment." Bon Bon sighed. "You see the way those dolls get thrown around?" she asked, pulling out a flask of water to drink. Lyra nodded. "Every single hit would be a dead or incapacitated soldier if they were regular ponies." Bon Bon put her flask away. "We are completely outmatched. We're literally only holding on because we have something our enemy couldn't possibly prepare for, but it's not going to be enough forever. They're going to find a way to break through, and that's if they don't just overwhelm us with numbers before then." Lyra bit down on her teeth, nervous. She carefully looked down the road again, blinked again, then retreated shaking her head. "But we do have that," she said. "And nopony is getting hurt for now." "Assuming the ones in the tower and the other groups are fine." "Point." Lyra nervously looked around. "At least we have-" She cut herself off, her expression suddenly completely different. Before Bon Bon had a chance to ask her what was wrong, Lyra's magic flared to life, and she yanked her wife's body and launched her to the other side of the alleyway. Then the wall between them blew up. > Progress > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It can't be too hard," Rainbow said, circling over the library at Twilight's side. "It can now that they know we're here." The two kept rapidly moving, having become the target of several different groups on the ground. "Hopefully it doesn't mean they're tightening security on the other portals too." "You did what you should have done," Rainbow reassured her. "I'm sure we'll manage to get through." "I can't just fire this thing blindly." Twilight took a dive to her right. "I don't trust going down there though. If they're smart they'll have set up traps." "Do you think we should go help your brother?" Twilight shook her head. "As long as we're out here, we're a target for them to focus on. As long as they don't actually hit us, that means we're taking heat off of everyone else. Besides, Shining and Cadence can deal with Sombra." As they passed over the street beside the library, they both slowed down slightly and looked down. "I think I see it," Rainbow said. "Can you aim at it from here?" "Not while I'm moving." Twilight sped up. "And I can't dive down there, the shield wouldn't hold." Furrowing her brow, she cast another sphere of crackling energy towards the specific spot they had noticed. As she'd imagined, it shattered uselessly against a barrier put up above the area, its energy hitting no one as it released. Rainbow frowned as well. "Do you think you could set up a distraction?" "What kind?" Twilight took a hard turn left, which Dash had no trouble following. "Leave me with an illusion of you to fly around, then you sneak up on them." Some worry cracked into Rainbow's voice as she noticed the amount of spells being fired at them had increased again. She looked down, and her suspicions were confirmed as she saw more soldiers walking into the street, alongside a few mutated ones. "Even if I could cast that kind of illusion on myself and you mid flight and make it all look believable, which I probably could if you gave me half a minute, I'd have to either leave you without the shield or constantly split my attention between keeping it on you and active and whatever else I would be doing." Sparkles of magic sizzled against the outer edges of the shield as Twilight spoke, the hailstorm of spells too dense to fully avoid at that point. Out of caution, Twilight drew the shield inwards, making it smaller but more resistant. "I am not letting you fly around unprotected. We need you for the Elements." Flying closer to Twilight, Rainbow pursed her lips in frustration, but only for a moment. She would have preferred being able to use the Elements right away and then deal with the army, but she knew that would not have worked out. "I think I can help you break through down there," she said, and suddenly her sword materialised at her side, floating by her. "I'm not sure how much I can do on this side, but I think I..." She trailed off as she looked down to the portal again. "We need to get this done quick," she said, seeing what was being carried through. > Purple > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra watched Shining rushing towards him, but did not move. He kept his horn ready, magic still directionless swirling around it as he waited to see what the other would do. Before he had a chance to react to that, however, he was forced to deal with Cadence instead. The alicorn, though she only began to move after Shining had already covered a fair distance, quickly surpassed him after spreading her wings and taking off towards Sombra. She flew to the side, as opposed to Shining's frontal charge, deliberately making it harder for Sombra to focus on both of them. Sombra had to respond to Cadence's blast, putting up a pseudo-shield of energy for it to crash against. He held against her spell without issue, but as Cadence kept flying forward, her horn still firing at him, he realised he'd be forced to either let go of his cover or deal with Shining coming up behind him. Thinking quickly, in the short amount of time he had before he was forced to turn completely to follow Cadence's movement, he slammed one hoof to the ground. A crack formed on the surface beneath them, heading towards Shining, and black, jagged crystal spikes sprouted from it into the unicorn's path. As Shining slowed down, diverting his trajectory to avoid the oncoming crystal formations, Sombra briefly focused his full attention on Cadence. Magic surged into his horn, and released as a shockwave that pushed back against Cadence's spell all the way to her horn, and caused her to falter in her flight and stop firing at Sombra as she had to keep herself in the air. Sombra turned again, spotted Shining still some distance away, and fired at him. As he did, he reared onto his hind legs and then slammed his forelegs on the ground, sending two more cracks and violently jutting lines of black crystals in Shining's direction. Shining, who immediately put up a shield against Sombra's spell and dug his hooves in to hold his ground against it, saw the crystals coming towards him and frantically began to think of a way out of the situation. He didn't have to think for long. Before the crystals managed to make their way to him, Cadence's magic hit Sombra's body from the side, smoke coming off of him where the blow landed. The unicorn hissed and dissipated into a pool of shadows that quickly slithered away, and with his magic gone Shining let go of his shield and dodged out of the way of the incoming crystal spikes. Shining and Cadence stood side by side again, though more than a few metres apart, and in front of them Sombra reformed from the shadows he had molten into. He growled at them, but did not attack, afraid going after either one of the two would leave him open for the other to attack. Cadence and Shining exchanged a brief glance, the corner of one eye catching the other's while their attention remained on Sombra as well. Then they both moved again, one to the left and one to the right, both lighting their horns and ready to strike. > Lux > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The dust settled, and Bon Bon looked to where Lyra had been with worry. She sighed in relief as she saw the unicorn was still alive, having partially shielded herself with magic in places. Her mane was roughed up and she was breathing heavily, but she didn't look injured in any significant way. With that worry momentarily sedated, Bon Bon instead looked to see what had caused the damage. Not soldiers, as there were none immediately nearby, but something else. The building they had been leaning against had been destroyed almost completely, alongside the one after it, a black crater left in the space between the two that extended well into the places they had occupied. A bomb or other explosive of some kind. But the two of them had been there just a little before, and neither had noticed anything. That meant whatever had caused that had come later. Bon Bon had but a moment to ponder that, looking past what remained of the wall beside her, before something else caught her attention. It was only a small sparkle in the sky above them, at first. Then it seemed to be growing bigger, or perhaps closer, or perhaps like it was splitting into different parts. Bon Bon realised it was all three, and neither of them. What had looked like a little dark dot in the air above them became a purple sphere of crackling darkness, and from it a rain of bullets spread out and filled the space between the two ponies. As they saw its range grow wider both backed away in opposite directions, brought to the respective edges of the alley they'd been in before the widening stopped. The hailstorm of black energy then began to spread forward and backwards, towards the centre of town and towards the edge of it, still just as dense and intense in the space between the two mares. Its bolts were somewhat like arrows, at least in size, though they were more reminiscent of spikes or icicles in shape, or perhaps giant needles. Every time one hit the ground it shattered into nothing, leaving a scorch mark behind. Buildings left and right began to crumble under the assault as the central sphere rose higher and higher to cover more ground with its range. The curtain of darts grew a little less dense, but still the area between them was constantly dotted with blows. Lyra and Bon Bon found themselves essentially separated by the downpour, looking at each other through the constant rain of bullets. The ground they had stood on before began to crack under the incessant strikes, crystal slowly shattering and being consumed. Bon Bon frantically looked around to make sure she was safe, then turned back to Lyra. Nervousness filled her at the knowledge that more soldiers were on that side as well. "Stay there," she shouted over the cacophony the spell was causing. "I'll try to-" She fell silent as she saw what happened next. Calmly, deliberately, Lyra began to step forward. A little at a time, through the constant rain of black bolts, she made her way towards Bon Bon on the other side. Not one of them hit her. Sometimes she moved to the left or the right, sometimes she waited or leaned back, sometimes she rushed through a little faster, but she did not blindly charge forward, ever. She was always measured in her motions, always giving the impression that she perfectly knew what she was doing. Always making it feel like she knew the way through that chaos, and was simply following it. Finally, after many seconds, she stepped out of the spell's range, in front of an incredulous Bon Bon. Only then did she look tired, suddenly, extremely so. But she shook herself a moment later. "That way," she said, pointing them forward. > Destati > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The light from Luna's horn rose up like a pillar through the darkness, parting the shadows around her. They swirled and hissed and snarled at her, but did not move any closer, and she flew higher and higher still towards the circular patch of starless sky she could see at the end of the tunnel she'd carved herself. She flew in a proper, steady rhythm, building up speed with every flap of her wings. The wounds that marked her body were mended, and disappeared without a trace the closer she got to the exit. As she was almost fully out of the darkness, it tried to lunge at her again, but sizzling its appendages dissipated as they neared her body. With one last push, Luna soared above the sea of shadows that had tried to drown her. The hole she'd left in it closed after her, leaving a uniform carpet of chaotic movement, darkness like thousands of insects crawling against each other stretching as far as the eye could see. "Impressive." Nightmare Moon spoke as if she was nearby, no booming or echoing voice. Luna turned, and indeed there she was, floating in the air not too far from her. "But not enough." Luna looked at her. There was an uncertain quality to her image. Like something in a dream, only very deliberate. The edges of her form fuzzy, her whole body at times looking more like a cluster of darkness and shadows given shape than an actual living creature. Her face occasionally, for brief instants, similar to a skull or a distorted projection with far too many teeth. "And yet you are still here." Luna's whole body shone of pale silver moonlight, like an armour over her entire form. Her mane flowed proudly behind her, its edges blending with the sky as stars began to dot it, her wings spread wide and steady. She gave a brief, barely noticeable nod, and the boundless sea of darkness below them unravelled into nothingness. The two alicorns were left facing each other in an empty sky, distant stars filling the blue and purple night that surrounded them on all sides while the Moon shone bright above them both. "A duel, then," Nightmare Moon said. "No more tricks. No more games. No more wasting my time." Luna stared at her. Wasting her time was exactly what she was supposed to be doing, and a proper confrontation wasn't something she was confident she could win. Though most of what the other put up was merely a show, an almost tasteless one if she could comment on it, that did not mean there wasn't real power hidden in her. She had proven as much again and again. Not unlike Rainbow, if she had to compare her to someone, the vapid and exaggerated aesthetic she surrounded herself in was still backed by very much real potential. "You claim you do not wish there to be any more tricks, and yet you still try to scare me as if I was a foal facing her first nightmare. Do you believe your shape enough to generate fear in me?" Nightmare Moon stared back, a strangely amused tint to her expression. She said nothing, but lit her horn with magic and readied herself. Luna did the same. > Silver > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight turned along with Rainbow Dash, and saw the thing being carried out of the portal. She'd never seen it before, but it wasn't hard to figure out what it might be. Largely black and made of crystal and metal, a central structure longer than several ponies lined together made up of four long crystals held together by circular metal bands at even intervals. One end was free, open, the other attached to a square wheeled piece with a large black sphere at its centre, at least a couple metres in diameter. An arrangement of rune-engraved metal parts connected the two and seemed to allow the long section, evidently the barrel, to position itself at different angles relatively to the sphere, defying gravity as it pointed to the sky. On the other side of the square portion were a set of crystal spikes that evidently served as a control panel. The duo dodged the bulk of a series of other spells fired at them from different groups around town, while their shield absorbed those they didn't manage to avoid, and all the while they kept their attention on the weapon. So when it turned its barrel to aim at them, as a unicorn behind it activated the crystals with his magic, they didn't have too much of a hard time moving out of the way. They soon realised they'd have to do more than merely dodge the blast though. First, the sphere crackled with energy, violet bolts swirling and violently moving from its core to its edges. Then the energy found a release as the barrel slid back, the pointed crystal bars touched the surface of the sphere, and sparks went off as all the magic building up inside it began to pour out through them. It bounced between the edges of the path it was constricted into, growing faster and fiercer with each impact, and less than a second after the barrel had moved it was released from the cannon's mouth. A stream of flaming purple energy like a geyser shot towards the sky. It missed the two ponies and their shield, which it was wide enough to envelope whole, but it did not cease. Twilight and Rainbow realised, as the weapon slowly began to turn, that its attack was not a single blast but a continuous stream. At first it seemed to be following their movements, albeit extremely sluggishly, but they saw quickly where it was truly heading. Lower, and towards the centre of town. Evidently the soldiers had needed to first fire it towards the sky, lest they blow up their own surroundings, but with the way they were pulling the cannon and angling its mouth it was clear where they planned to aim it towards. And if it kept firing at that rate, it would raze to the ground entire sections of the city. Neither Twilight nor Rainbow needed to say anything, both understanding the gravity of the situation. While still flying around to dodge a myriad of attacks, Twilight fired towards the weapon. Not to stun as she'd been doing for the length of the battle, but to destroy. But her spell reflected off of the shield put up by the soldiers, vaporising a building's corner instead before dissipating towards the sky. Twilight swallowed. "I think I have a plan." > Scarlet > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It better work out," said Rainbow. "What is it?" Still flying around to avoid being hit too hard and frequently, Twilight clenched her teeth, studying the situation with worry in her expression. "I don't think I can hit the cannon from here through their shields. Not unless I hit hard enough to hurt them too. Even then, odds are if I do that it'll blow up and hit them, us, and a quarter of the city depending on how much magic is actually inside that thing." "You really think they'd build a weapon that would blow up on them if hit?" "While planning to use it inside a city? Absolutely. If that thing ever had safety measures in place they'll have turned them off, right now it's as much a weapon as it is a bomb." Twilight moved towards the ground and towards the direction the cannon was aiming towards. Her predictable path exposed them to more shots, but she endured the pressure and took enough twists and turns to still dodge many of the spells. "So what?" Rainbow, noticing the increased amount of attacks they were taking, looked out of the shield and focused for a moment, frowning in concentration. Translucent, silvery shields with manticore heads engraved in them materialised in front of them, beginning to absorb parts of the damage. She looked as surprised as she was relieved by her success at summoning them. "I think it has to do with whatever Luna is doing," she explained noticing Twilight's largely hidden perplexity. Twilight shook herself back into focus in barely an instant. "Right. I don't think I can safely destroy it, even if I didn't care about hurting them, and I think our only real option is to make it stop. Maybe, just maybe, I can push back against it hard enough to connect with the weapon and deactivate it. But I do think for sure I can stall it, hopefully long enough either for it to run out of power or for someone to actually get in there and shut it off." She watched with extreme apprehension as the stream of dark energy came down onto the still floating tip of the Crystal Empire's central tower and shattered it into chunks of crystal and dust as it continued to reposition itself, leaving the middle section to float alone in the air. Everyone was supposed to have already gotten out of the building, and she hoped that was the case. "Who?" asked Rainbow, worry heavy in her voice, as the two dove quicker towards the beam's path. "Cadence and Luna are both fighting, Celestia is without her magic, Starshine is busy who knows where and Starlight is all the way back in the middle of town. If there's one pony here who can shut that thing off, it's you!" "I'm also the only one who can hold it back," Twilight brusquely replied. "I'll try my best. If I'm not managing to push through, find someone." Her horn flashed brighter for a moment, and light exploded around Rainbow as she found herself teleported several buildings away from the other, and still wrapped in a shield. From her position, she saw Twilight dive down onto the street, exactly where the beam was heading towards. Twilight, still the target of dozens of other spells though she'd cut the line of sight between her and most unicorns, prepared herself. Holding up her shield still as her hooves dug themselves into the crystal beneath her, she summoned a vortex of magic around her horn, both her own and Celestia's. She saw the stream of darkness slowly turning and descending, like a river ready to strike her in full. She braced herself for the impact. As it turned again, soon to touch the edge of her shield, she fired. > Onyx > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two streams of magic clashed against each other. One deep purple and black, the other gold and lavender, both literal rivers of magic pouring out of their respective sources. The point where the two touched shone high enough to be visible across the whole town, and even the beams themselves were rather evident for anyone close by. Unfortunately for Twilight, it made her the easy target of spells from all around the area, shot directly or angled so their trajectory would have her position as its endpoint. Forced as she was to hold her position against all of it, with the cannon having ceased its motion to focus its fire on her, she valiantly held with her shield, but barely managed to push back against the main stream. She held it, stalled it, halted its path, but no more, and though she had considerable reserves she feared her energies would dry before the machine's did. Ponies actually coming towards her to physically attack her shield only complicated matters. Especially so the three mutated soldiers ramming what had been their hooves against it, or breaking off chunks of buildings to smash onto it. Despite all of it, still she held. She knew Rainbow, hidden by her spell, had seen her conditions, and she knew help would be coming in some form soon enough. So long as she held her position, so long as she stopped the weapon from destroying the centre of town by itself, the plan could still continue and everything could still work out properly. On the other end of the beam struggle, other ponies much less frantically studied the situation. "It won't hold for much longer," the unicorn operating the weapon said. "Perhaps a few minutes, but we will need to cool down soon." "That is already being taken care of." A pegasus, his voice deep beneath his helmet, his composure making it evident how much he despised the lighting conditions they were forced to work in by the way he constantly threw half-glances at the sunny sky, used his wings to direct a group of other unicorns to use their magic on the barrel of the cannon and on the place it connected with the main sphere. "Your only concern should be the power supply." The unicorn nodded mechanically, and studied the crystals before him. "It will last longer than that, but not much longer. Twice as long, at most." The pegasus nodded too, more naturally, and motioned with his wings again to another group of ponies. "I will have-" He never finished that sentence. All everyone else heard was the sound of his head hitting the ground, followed a moment later by the body it had previously been attached to. The unicorn got to see that, but found himself with a hole in his head before he had a chance to actually react to that sight. Everyone around them began to panic, as much as some of them could in their mentally altered conditions, looking frantically around to spot the source of their sudden losses. They found it quickly. Twilight Sparkle, or what at least unmistakably looked like her, was standing next to the weapon, a cold expression on her face. Just as quickly as they'd spotted her, then, somehow, they all lost sight of her. Then another head hit the ground. > Shimmer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seeing both ponies coming towards him, both ready to strike at him, Sombra growled but prudently stepped backwards and shielded himself somewhat similarly to what Shining did. Not as efficiently or as well, shield spells were not where his talents lay, but he was still powerful, skilled, and knowledgeable enough do defend himself more than sufficiently well. Seeing him on the defensive, both Shining and Cadence did fire towards him, though their spells were not particularly powerful. They were there simply to keep him from moving elsewhere or attempting something else, while they got closer. Once each of them was on a different side of him, they'd start attacking him more heavily while he'd be forced to choose which of them to focus on. Perhaps sensing or realising what the two were planning, Sombra beat his hooves against the ground. As Shining was rushing closer, a line of black crystals sprouted from the side of Sombra he was going for and headed towards him. They rose towards the sky high as a building, tightly packed together to form a wall, and as Shining preemptively moved out of their way, going in the direction he was already angled towards, their trajectory curved the other way as their line extended to first block the path of his magic and then cut him off completely as he moved farther. With the two separated and his crystals still spreading in either direction faster than Shining could run, Sombra focused on Cadence instead. The alicorn, still flying, immediately intensified the strength of her magic beam as she saw what Sombra had done, hard and suddenly enough to catch the unicorn by surprise and push him back until he himself almost touched the black wall he'd built. It was not enough to break through his shield however, and as he caught on to the situation he began to push back against Cadence. The crystals, still spreading, curved their path even further and began to converge as a circle around the two of them, while the angle at which they grew became sharper to construct a proper dome to trap Cadence in, and to prevent Shining from getting over their height on the other side as he seemed to be doing. Soon after, it was Cadence who found herself almost pressed against the crystals as she tried to push against Sombra's magic. Any farther and she'd be impaling herself on their spikes, but she could barely keep up with her magic against Sombra seemingly giving it his all. It was only because he was pushing so strongly that she could feel the extremely small, extremely brief dip in power that went through his beam. The way her own stream of magic gained just a little bit of air in the struggle. In an act almost fully dictated by instinct, she hurled herself sideways and downwards, using her own existing beam as a shield against Sombra's. Not one second later, crystal spikes jutted through the air from the wall behind her, stabbing at the place she'd just occupied before being shattered by Sombra's uncontested beam. As soon as she was free enough for it, Cadence teleported to another end of the black dome, to avoid Sombra simply immediately redirecting his blast on her. Once there she fired a single, powerful shot at the unicorn, before teleporting again. Seeing that her aim was slightly off, Sombra found it easier to dodge the blast rather than shield himself against it. He regretted his decision as he found Cadence again and saw her smiling, and much more so as Shining's magic hit him from behind through the breach Cadence had opened in the crystal wall. > ' ' > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That is everyone, right?" Sunburst asked, looking at the ponies quickly walking out of the bottom of the severed tower and onto the impromptu staircase the guards outside had built there. Shields had been put up to protect them while they moved out of there and into other buildings, but thankfully no enemy soldiers appeared to be close enough for them to be needed yet. "It is." A guard nodded, looking one more time over a list held in his wing. "Glad to see you're all safe." "Likewise." Sunburst's eyes focused on Celestia. She was walking on her hooves, but still supported by a mare at her side, under one of her wings. Even if her expression wasn't one of pain, at most one of heavy tiredness, her steps were still hesitant. What was left of her mane was still messy, and even against the white of her coat it wasn't hard to spot the bandages covering many, but not yet all of her wounds. Even the way her free wing rested at her side, held not fully closed and with feathers missing, spoke of how drained the alicorn still was. A voice shook Sunburst out of his musings. "How is the inside of the palace?" asked a guard, not to him specifically but more to all the ponies who'd come from there. "Almost everything that could fall off a shelf did, unless it was on the bottom side," another guard said. "Some furniture fell out of its room and into the corridor, and in general it got thrown around. A few cracks in the walls and on the stairs, and some broken statues. Aside from that, no significant structural damage." "Aside from the giant cut at the bottom," Trixie quietly noted at Sunburst's side. It did get at least one other guard to chuckle, apparently one with rather good hearing. But even as she said that, Trixie mainly focused on the scene nearby. Shining Armor and Cadence fighting against Sombra, hurling spells back and forth not that far away from them. Thankfully, the duo kept the unicorn too busy for him to even entertain the thought of heading towards them to take hostages. Trixie certainly didn't plan to make that easier for him by trying to help the other two. A guard of those who'd been outside began to sort the ponies into different nearby buildings, dividing them into groups and pointing them towards their destination. Celestia was one of the first to be taken care of and sent to the nearest building, with another guard on her free side if she needed more help walking and two more around her for protection. Sunburst, moving closer to the other groups with Trixie at his side, gave a look around to try to assess the general situation. It was then that he noticed something. Rather, he noticed some of the ponies around him noticing something, and turned quickly to follow their gazes. There he saw the beam of darkness slicing through the sky, and the way it slowly began to turn. Hearing Trixie beside him do the same, he swallowed nervously, and kept his eyes on it while he waited, hoping the purple dot he could see near it would find a solution. > Cross > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra hissed and drew back, turning towards Shining. In the time it took him to do so, Cadence hurled another spell at him, hitting him square in the side. He backed away farther, having to defend against blasts from both ponies, and found himself forced against his own wall. It was there that quickly, before the other two had time to intensify their efforts further, he let his shield spell take the next few hits unsupported while he slammed down both his hooves, leaving a small crater in the ground. The resulting shockwave shattered the already cracking shield around him, but pushed back and deflect the spells being fired at him too. More importantly it broke through the wall behind him, and he quickly turned to shadow to pass through it. As he emerged a short distance ahead however, he was hit again by Cadence, then by Shining, then again by both of them harder than before. Smoke and ash rose from his body, and he hissed, rearing in pain. Before more spells could reach him, a tightly packed ring of crystals sprouted from the ground around him and sealed him off, closing into a cylinder capped by a spherical dome. Even through the crystals, or perhaps because of them, the heavy sound of his breathing was easy to hear. After a few shots uselessly bounced off the protective cage, Shining prepared himself to cast something heavier in an attempt to break through, but he stopped partway through the process, magic still coagulating around his horn, as he heard Sombra speak from within his hiding spot. "We could have done this the easy way." There seemed to be an odd stutter to his words, a kind of hesitation that went beyond just a result of the wounds inflicted on him. He seemed to be talking to himself, too, until he spoke again, louder. "You are going to regret this." He almost chuckled. It sounded awfully close to sobbing. "How'd you break through the crystal?" Shining asked quietly to Cadence, while the sound of something metallic hitting the ground came from inside Sombra's cylinder. "I hit it where you were hitting." The sound of something like bones tearing through flesh came from the crystal cage, and Cadence repositioned herself, loading up her horn. "I figured it couldn't withstand being hit on both sides in the same spot, and I figured he'd made it to take hits from the outside and not the inside, anyway." "How did you know where I was hitting?" Something that could have been howling came from inside the structure Sombra had isolated himself in, and something black with hints of red began to ooze through the crystals and spread out along the bottom. "Same way I knew you were asking did and not would," said Cadence, smiling despite everything. "I just did. And the sound of it." Cracks began to show on the crystals surrounding Sombra. First one, then more, then they began to spread and connect and the entire thing bulged outwards like something was trying to push its way through. Then there was an explosion, a pillar of purple and black that rose a few metres into the air. Shining and Cadence stood at the ready, waiting for the shadows to clear. > Stabilise > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are we not going to talk about that?" Bon Bon asked, walking behind Lyra. "Because you could have died there. Unless you knew you wouldn't have died there, in which case I would like knowing what you know too." Lyra sighed as she slid into an alley away from the main street. "We both could constantly die here, Bon. I don't see how it's particularly different from anything else. We're both safe for now, and that's what matters." Bon Bon grunted and sighed at the same time. "Why won't you just tell me?" Lyra turned, looking at Bon Bon with a tired expression. She tilted her head and blinked, then shook it. "Can't do. It would take too much time." She turned again. "How do you know that?" Bon Bon said, as loudly as she could while still speaking quietly enough not to give away their position to anyone who might have been nearby and listening. "Because I've..." Lyra tilted her head again. "Because I do." She peeked behind a corner. "Listen. We don't have much time to waste in this situation. I promise I'll tell you everything once we've made it through this, but right now we really can't afford to be having this conversation." Bon Bon again sighed in frustration. "Lyra, I..." Lyra looked back. "Do trust me?" Bon Bon looked into her tired eyes. Her voice mellowed out. "Of course I do." She shook her head and breathed out slowly. "Alright, fine, we'll talk about it another time. Where to now?" Lyra teetered back and forth, looking to the next main street ahead and biting her lips. "I think we're getting close," she said. "Yeah?" "Yeah," she replied. "I think I saw some guards on patrol. This is probably the wider area around the portal, and farther in they will have someone stationed there permanently to watch out for ponies getting close." "So what would you say we do?" Bon Bon walked up to Lyra's side. "I say we wait until we figure out what their patterns are before we try to get close, and then maybe try to create a distraction when we do." "I was thinking about the same." Lyra nodded. "It's probably going to be hard to get in there though." "You said you could do it," Bon Bon noted. "Princess Twilight seemed to think you could too considering she agreed to this. We can try to go around and see if there's an easier way to approach." Lyra drew back from the end of the alley. "No. This is fine, and I think I will be able to do it. But that back there left me kind of drained." She slumped against the wall, and her horn shimmered as she cast a spell. "Do you think you can keep watch and keep track of how they seem to be moving? I think I need a minute to recover here." "Sure." Bon Bon took a step back and moved closer to the wall, and kept her eyes on the alleyways going into the main street in front of them and on the rooftops between them. "Keep an eye on the other side." > PS > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine rolled to the side, out of the way of another incoming slam, and responded with a blast from her horn. For once, the creature she hit actually properly flinched when it was hit, and the alicorn smirked before being forced to dodge again. She'd been at it for a few minutes, but she was slowly getting better, and even if only a little her adversaries were getting tired. No regular soldiers had even tried to approach her yet, maybe something to do with them being instructed not to or maybe just them knowing they couldn't deal with an alicorn. She wasn't actually sure how smart and good at figuring things out she was supposed to be, she'd have to discuss that over with Sunburst. As she took off and veered to the side to avoid another attack, something inside her clicked at that thought. She turned around in the air, still rising, and shot another bolt of magic square in one of the creatures' face. It fell backwards, crashing through a wall, and did not get up. She chose to think about how she was getting better, and just that. With only four of them left, she could feel uneasiness coming from the regular ponies observing the scene. It was a good thing perhaps that she had more of a conscience, or they might have been taking advantage of her powers too. Though those powers weren't hers in the first place, and perhaps if she'd had less of an ego the possibility of others using them when next to her alone wouldn't have been a reality. Maybe she would have been just like the other constructs, and maybe Sunburst would not have felt so drained after setting them up. With a whip of her neck, little thought and many emotions she couldn't understand yet, or what she reasoned had to be emotions at least, she violently ripped off a chunk of the group and yanked it towards the sky together with the creature standing on it. She did not watch it fall, though she heard it, a few seconds later. Three left. Maybe things were going well. She appeared on top of a rooftop, disappeared, and reappeared behind a creature, then slid beneath it and with her back to the ground she fired at it. The stream of magic was wider than her usual, but evidently not stronger, as though it pushed the creature until it tipped over and onto its back it did not appear to do any real damage to it. She would have to ask Twilight how those things had gotten so big when they were supposed to be just altered ponies. Twilight. Starshine realised she was standing still, looking at the ground, and turned to her right to see the upper half of a creature's body slide separate from the bottom one where it had been severed. It had been a perfect, clean cut. She stared just a little too long, enough to see the creature's innards as blood began to pour out. One of the two remaining creatures hit her, and sent her crashing through a crystal wall and into the next. It hurt. > Breach > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight held on, hooves digging into the crystal beneath her, neck straining against the force of her own magic, sweat running down her back. She had maybe channeled larger amounts of magic before, but she'd never done so for that long. She could barely see anything around her. Directly in front of her, her magical blast was wide enough to occupy most of her vision. Aside from that, the outside of the spherical shield she'd surrounded herself in was a tapestry of sparks, flares and small explosions. Standing still in one spot she'd become the target of more and more enemy spells, and there was not a centimetre of her bubble's surface that wasn't being hit some kind of way. The few spots magic didn't reach were targeted by rocks and chunks of crystal thrown against her by the increasingly numerous ensemble of ponies and creatures around her, all waiting for her magic to falter. But she held on. She wasn't sure if it was for minutes or if only seconds had passed, she wasn't sure how much longer she could possibly keep going, but every moment she held, and kept on holding into the next. She was locked there. Muscles tense, hooves planted into the ground, horn pulsing with energy. She doubted she would have been able to move in any way other than being swept out the moment her powers failed her, and she had no idea when that might have come, but she didn't care. She didn't think about it. Her only thought was stopping the weapon's blast, and that was all she focused on. For interminable seconds, Twilight stood, Twilight held against the unceasing blows and blasts of dozens of spells and attacks all aimed at her, Twilight pushed back against the cannon's fire and stopped its path of destruction. Her entire body sore like she'd been drained of all strength and yet tense and still exerting itself, feeling like she could go out at any moment as she focused all herself on holding on, her single thought clear despite the cacophony of everything around her. Against everything, against a stream of magic powerful enough to raze the city and hundreds more bolts all fired at her, Twilight held on. And then it was over. So sudden, so alien to what her reality had become in the microcosm of her struggle, that Twilight thought she had finally ran empty of magic. But a moment later she was still there, and she realised, she felt through the flow of her own magic, there was no more stream of energy pushing against hers. No more resistance against her spell, no more weapon's fire to stop. The tension released from her body as her magic released around her. Her muscles relaxed, her joints slackened, and she drew a heavy sigh from the bottom of her lungs. And the magic she'd been pouring out, no more needed to hold against an opposite force, flowed into her shield and then outwards. Twilight was left standing, her hooves embedded into the ground and her body almost limp on her legs, and around her was silence and a thin mist of shimmering energy. For a moment, just for a moment, she closed her eyes and let the weight of her efforts crash down on her. For a moment she let herself ignore everything else, and only know that she'd made it. > Tomorrow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I wish we had been able to do things differently," Sombra said, before the shadows had yet cleared. "I really do." Cadence fired first. Her blast swept the remaining darkness away, but crashed against the magical shield surrounding Sombra. It looked different from the one he'd used before, wider and purplish in colour as opposed to the more reddish tinge of his previous one, more complete and with electrical discharges running through its surface. He had ditched his armour, which was lying discarded on the ground behind him. That aside, he looked normal. More normal than before, even, as his mane no longer seemed to be made out of shadow. "Of course, perhaps you don't share that sentiment. I was planning to kill you or enslave you either way." Something on his chest bulged and twisted beneath his skin, as if it was trying to push through, but disappeared a moment later. Shining fired too, a stronger blast than Cadence's. It enveloped Sombra's shield and pushed him back, but did not harm the stallion within. Sombra turned to him, a tired look in his eyes. "Shining Armor, was it? I knew a mare somewhat like you. Captain, and I assume you were too at some point." More spots on his body bulged out unnaturally, like snakes slithering within his flesh or roots growing into him, then those too disappeared. His breath was shaky, teeth slightly clattering, and sweat fell down his brow. Cadence had readied her horn again, and was charging up another spell, but didn't immediately attack. Instead, she asked, "What are you talking about?" Sombra tried to sigh. It came out a rather stuttered sound, and his legs shook, threatening to fail him. "I never did tell her that story," he said quietly, looking at the ground. "She might be here, or close by. Perhaps on the other side of the portals. I don't remember." He clenched his teeth and swallowed, then forced himself to look up again. "She just-" He shook his head and hissed, and it took him a moment to find his focus again. "Not my friend. I'm not talking about her. She just had to make this go her way. I should have known, really. I guess I hoped I could do this, but I never really had much of a chance with how things were set up. Not that I ever had a choice either way." Shining readied his magic too. He took a step closer, careful, and studied the stallion before him. More bulging deformities were appearing all over him, and though some of them disappeared most remained, writhing and slithering beneath his skin. "What's the point of this?" he asked. "At this point, very little." Something black began to drip from Sombra's jaws. "I have... regrets, I suppose. I wish I could see her again, and that's not something I thought I'd ever find myself thinking." A large lump appeared on his back, twitching and pulsing, and more fluid dripped out of his mouth and onto his chest. "Too late now. The white mare is coming for me, at last. But do me one last favour if you will, I feel like you'll want to." He looked ahead at Shining. "Take out what's left for me. Don't let her get it her way. Good luck." > After > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight opened her eyes again. The first thing she noticed was the shimmering mist that had come to surround her, and the sparks of energy that occasionally coursed through it. The second thing she noticed was the way the buildings in the area around her had been flattened completely, and the large pattern that seemed to have been burnt into the crystal surface all around her. The third thing she noticed were her own conditions. She was tired. Maybe the most tired she'd ever felt without being so tired she'd just pass out, though it wasn't really that kind of tiredness. Her limbs were sore and drained, and she realised how if her hooves hadn't literally dug into the crystal ground and gotten lodged there she may have fallen over with how little of a job her legs were actually doing at keeping her up. She pulled herself free, not without effort and scratches, and clenched her teeth as she forced herself to stay upright. It made her head spin for a moment, but a few deep breaths later that passed. Her own exhaustion properly and throughly noted, alongside the way her horn felt like it would have made ice melt and water sizzle in its state, she got a proper look around to determine what exactly was the situation. The mist slowly began to dissipate too, allowing her a clearer view of things. All the ponies who'd been around her weren't anymore. Neither were the buildings, as she'd already seen. She wasn't sure of what exactly had happened, she'd never done anything like that before, but evidently the release of magic from her shield when she'd let go of it had pushed everything away and more. The signs on the ground, a single complex mark with her at its centre and extending for several metres, looked roughly like a six-pointed star from what she could see of it, which made sense given her assumptions, even if it was still a peculiar occurrence. Looking around some more and taking her first few suffered steps, she caught sight of a stream of magical bullets arching through the air and falling towards the ground with her position as its destination. But as they entered the hypothetical hemisphere that corresponded to the circular edge of the wave of energy she'd released, where the buildings stopped being flattened, the ground stopped being shattered and signed, and the mist stopped being there, they simply faded away, dissipating into grey sparkles and shimmers, and then nothing. She took note of that too, aware she didn't have time to properly analyse what she'd unintentionally done. With every passing second however the bullets got a little farther in before disappearing. The mist around her kept getting thinner, and she saw ahead of her a group of soldiers, who'd previously hidden behind a building, come out from behind it and carefully begin to approach her. They shot a few spells at her, too, but the field she'd generated undid them too before they got too close. The field was disappearing however. Aside from that, it wouldn't stop rocks from being thrown her way, and soon the soldiers would be close enough to aim those right. Twilight hastily turned around and put up a questionable attempt at a shield, paying for it with a splitting headache. She gave up trying to fly away halfway through the motion of opening her wings, when they practically screamed at her in pain, and instead resorted to running as fast as her battered hooves and tired legs could carry her back towards the centre of town, or at least that general direction. Hopefully, she'd reach a group of construct soldiers to hide past before Nightmare Moon's forces reached her instead. > Posthaste > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was another explosion, like the one moments before but bigger, more intense. Shining was alert, and directed the magic he'd been charging into a shield in front of both him and Cadence. It wasn't a particularly elegant spell, he'd acted too hastily for that, but the amount of energy he'd dumped into it easily made up for that. The smoke and shadows cleared much more quickly, but both ponies realised it was because Sombra had moved towards them and swept them away in doing so. What he'd turned into had, at least. Where just seconds before he'd looked like a regular pony, the closest to one either of them had ever seen him as, the thing he'd become was much closer to shadow and darkness and only vaguely like a pony in some of its traits. His teeth were more like a lion's or a dragon's, his hooves had been replaced by claws, and he easily would have towered over both of them even if they'd stood one atop the other. He'd immediately rushed forward and his claws had slammed into the barrier Shining had put up, and Shining thought it was only because he'd used so much magic on it that it hadn't cracked under the impact. Realising his charge had been abruptly stopped, Sombra growled and stared at the two ponies. There was a frenzied look in his eyes, all the reason of the pony who'd been talking moments before gone. His body turned to shadow again, but it was different from before. A different kind of darkness, thick, heavy, like a giant patch of oil and tar with a will of its own. It pressed itself against the barrier and began to climb it, hurling itself over it. Shining and Cadence both quickly stepped back, and Sombra's body fell to the ground on their side of the shield, where it slowly recomposed itself and regained most of its shape. There was still an indistinct quality to it however, some parts of it remaining more liquid than solid. Once it had eyes to see again, they immediately settled on Shining. Sombra rushed towards him, faster than anything that size and shape should have been able to move. By all means, his hindlegs were still halfway a shapeless conglomerate on the ground, and yet something that should have been moving by dragging itself around or at best crawling like a slug had reached Shining so quickly Cadence had barely been able to keep her eyes on it. Shining had put a shield around himself, he had started doing as much the moment he'd seen Sombra crawling over his previous barrier, but still he found himself in trouble. Sombra's body, hitting his shield, had perhaps intentionally lost most of its consistence again. The creature had evidently hurled itself forward with the full intent of striking with its mass alone and not much else. It was quickly taking shape again around Shining's shield however, and that shape was a gigantic mouth with deformed fangs biting down around him and digging into his barrier with each and every teeth. Despite the unicorn's efforts to keep it steady, cracks began to run along the surface of his shield, most of it enveloped by the black tar of Sombra's body. > Monument > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine pulled herself out of the rubble. She literally willed herself out of it, moving like a puppet pulled by strings rather than the way any normal creature would have moved. She decided she didn't particularly like moving like that as her hooves touched the ground again, and she stared at the remaining creatures in front of her. Her armour was pristine. Spotless even after she'd been sent through a building, without a scratch or a dent. Her own body wasn't doing worse either, aside from a slightly messy mane everything else was undamaged. But she'd still gotten hurt. It was weird. New. It made her understand some of the things that had been in her head. She could feel her hooves against the ground. The cold, but not too cold crystal below her, smooth, very slightly slippery. She could feel the breeze against her coat, and the Sun's warmth against her skin. She could feel the air on the inside of her lungs, and she wondered if ponies ever noticed and felt that, or if they were too used to it. She felt her heart beat. The blood rushing through her arteries and back through her veins. It didn't move as much as she'd imagined it would. But another heartbeat came to keep it going, then another, then another. Little by little, it faded into the background of her attention. She brought a wing to her eyes to shield herself from the light and the way it bounced against the buildings around her. Then she focused on the creatures. They were staring at her, pacing from side to side, waiting for something. They'd been ponies at one point. They weren't anymore, and she was. But Twilight still had said she preferred incapacitating over killing, and Starshine thought she could work with that. She tilted her head left and right, worked out the kinks in her neck with a few pops, then aimed her horn at one of the two. Slightly lower than that, actually. They were rather resistant to magic. That didn't mean magic couldn't be used to stop them, if one was creative enough. A single flash of energy darted from the tip of her horn and landed at the foot of the creature in a shower of sparks. Before the former pony had a chance to react properly, magic crystal-like formations began to sprout out of nothing and envelope it. It tried to drag itself away once its legs had been encased, but failed to move much before the rest of its body was fully captured too. The second creature's first instinct was to move to the first and bash with its limbs against the crystals. Much to Starshine's displeasure, that single blow was enough to send cracks through her creation. But before the monster could deliver a second one, a wave of power from her horn sent it careening backwards through another house. She then took off, pushing herself into a flown sprint, reinforced and repaired the crystal around the first creature as she passed by it and landed in front of the second, ready to face it down properly. > Raw > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Any movement yet?" Lyra asked. "None," Bon Bon replied. She'd started leaning against the wall, resting a bit. She was still standing, in case she needed to move quickly, but most of her weight wasn't held up by her legs at that moment. Lyra was still sitting with her back to the wall, looking at the sky between glances towards the other end of the alley. "Is this what it was like for you, back with S.M.I.L.E.?" "What do you mean?" Bon Bon bent her head back a little, but not completely, still keeping an eye on the space in front of her. "This feeling," Lyra replied. "Knowing you could die at any moment. Knowing the one you're with could die at any moment. Knowing you're stuck with the situation and the only way out of it is to see things through." She looked at Bon Bon. "Was it like this all the time?" Bon Bon didn't immediately answer. She chewed air for a bit, looking straight ahead. When she finally spoke her tone was measured, slightly artificial. "It wasn't like this all the time. Most missions weren't this level of dangerous, Equestria never really went to war after all. But sometimes it was close." "So you're used to this, then." Lyra looked the other way, again checking to make sure no one was coming. "I was. At some point." Bon Bon sighed. "There's a reason I quit. There's a reason I joined in the first place, too, and not just because I was qualified and it paid well. Back then I didn't really have much to lose. The connections I had were all part of the job, so that was that. It all came with its set of specifics, and I was used to it." She was silent for a moment as she squinted, trying to see if something was moving between two buildings. "Then things changed. Then I had something that wasn't part of S.M.I.L.E., and it getting hurt was a risk, not a possibility I had to live with. They understood when they let me go, I don't think any of them were bothered." "But you immediately offered your help to Twilight here." "Yeah. And I'd like to think any other pony in my position would have done the same, provided they had my kind of experience and qualifications. Sometimes it's about doing the right thing." She peeked out slightly, then slowly drew back. "Besides, you stuck around with me." "Of course I did." Lyra chuckled. It was dry, brief, tired, and it made her notice the slight hurt in her throat. She swallowed before speaking again. "I wasn't going to let you here on your own." She looked to the sky again. "I don't wanna see you die. I don't think I need to say that. But I don't think I'd forgive myself if I wasn't there when you did, if I'd had a chance to." "You wouldn't forgive yourself even if you were there," Bon Bon said. "You'd probably think there was something more you could have done. I'm not sure you'd ever accept it." She had another look around, then turned. "Would you have stopped me if you'd known we were getting into this?" Lyra didn't answer immediately. She looked to the side again, checking to make sure no one was coming. "Sometimes it's about doing the right thing," she finally said. > Anger > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cadence, of course, didn't wait before firing towards Sombra. Unlike his previous self however, though her spell did seem to be hurting him in some way he did not appear to care. Smoke rose from the point of impact, but Sombra didn't flinch or turn, instead remaining focused on biting down on her husband's shield. Cadence increased the strength of her spell, firing a larger and larger blast, but though the wound she was opening on the creature's body grew in size its single minded determination was undeterred. Shining's shield was showing visible cracks, bending down under the pressure even as Shining inside of it pushed back with his magic as much as he could. Cadence spread her hooves and braced herself to stay stable, and poured even more magic through her horn. Rather than merely harming the creature, she fired strongly enough to slowly push it off Shining's shield. Its teeth dug into it, trying to hold there, but bit by bit it was swept away by the torrent of Cadence's spell until it lost its hold and was ripped from the shield, and sent flying into a building. The magic stream from Cadence's horn quickly petered out, leaving it sizzling in the air and her panting and trying to shake off a headache. Shining a few metres ahead was only doing mildly better. He had no headache, but still the signs of physical exhaustion were evident. The creature who'd been hit in full by a blast of magic strong enough to vaporise his previous form and had violently crashed through a building was, perhaps ironically, the most well off of the three, looking barely hurt as he emerged from the rubble and recomposed itself into something that vaguely looked like it had a right to exist. It turned what was becoming its head left and right, trying to find the two ponies it was intent on killing. Thankfully for them, its momentary lack of eyes gave them a few seconds, and in those few seconds they used what strength they had to run away and hide behind a building. They kept watch, looking as Sombra stood up and began to search for them, to make sure he wouldn't attack someone else, but remained hidden otherwise. With how fast the thing moved when it wished to, they couldn't have afforded to simply stand there and face it again immediately. It was while hiding in such a manner that they noticed the deep dark blast that was cutting through the sky, slowly moving and seemingly towards their general area. The two did not speak, for the creature might hear them and they understood each other well enough without words, but they did exchange a look. Then, both focused on the monster again. Though slowly, it was approaching their position. It didn't know they were there, it would have already struck otherwise, but it would find them soon if it kept moving so. Their best chance, they knew, was acting while it still didn't know their exact location, and striking while they could still catch it by surprise. And so, with a quiet deep breath and a shared nod, that was what they did. > Voltage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Someone needs to stop that thing." Starlight paced back and forth behind their shield, eyes glued to the sphere of dark energy rising higher in the distance and raining down destruction onto the city. "It's not going to fire forever," said one of the guards. "You think it has enough energy to reach all the way here?" "They wouldn't have fired it otherwise," Starlight said. "Don't think about it like a regular spell. Think about what a bomb could do, then spread that out over time. Even accounting for the energy being diverted into making it spread out like that the total output is still going to be comparable, especially because it's not all focused in one place." "What do you propose we do?" Starlight clenched her teeth, then threw a sideway glance at the simulated map of the city behind her. "I'm the only one qualified and available right now to deal with something like that. I'll go." "With due respect, orders are to preserve your safety," said another guard. "I am only here to protect the Elements in the event of a direct attack, and this is the closest thing to it so far. Either I go now or it'll be everyone's problem here in a while." "But your absence might leave us vulnerable. Furthermore, though I don't doubt your ability to neutralise the threat, you yourself will be exposed while doing so, and likely unable to focus on protecting yourself." "And if I don't act now we'll all be exposed when we're forced get away from here." Starlight looked at the raging spell with mounting nervousness. "I understand your concern, but we don't have a better alternative right now." "Do not go alone, then. Find artificial guards to help you along the way, some are stationed on the path there. Your safety is more important than their current occupation, the potential damage your loss would result in is greater than the practical consequences of them abandoning their watch posts. Besides, you won't be able to complete your task if you're shot down." Starlight nodded. Part of her still wanted to do the whole thing herself, but a predominant, more mature part knew that it would have been a foolish risk. The guard was right. Taking guards with her would lower their defences, and if nothing went wrong for her it would have made it a pointless and downright harmful move. But if she went alone and things did go wrong, the resulting situation would be far worse than them merely losing a few constructs. Shielding herself and throwing on a number of camouflage spells too, Starlight slipped through the barrier and dropped down onto the road. The first thing that held her attention was the sound. Everything could still be heard clearly inside the barrier, but outside it was a lot louder, a lot messier. She began to gallop down the street, straight towards the oncoming hailstorm of black bolts mowing down buildings in its wake. If she got there quickly enough, maybe she could stop it from doing any damage beyond the purely structural kind. > Unbeknownst > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A soldier peeked out from behind a half-destroyed building, squinting, ringing still stuck in her ears. She couldn't make out much of what was ahead, everything was still covered by a thick and crackling haze. Quietly she drew back, closing her eyes again while her head began to spin. Twilight Sparkle was somewhere in the middle of the clearing, past the buildings she'd levelled and the remains of her spell. If they wanted to catch up to her they needed to strike as soon as possible, but at least half their forces were in no condition to do so at that moment. Even setting that aside, the residual energy from Twilight's spell would likely interfere with attempts at a long range attack. It already was interfering, the mare realised, as the ringing in her hears subsided and the headache passed and her eyes stopped seeing white even with her eyelids closed. The long distance spells from farther out around the area were still being fired, but they didn't make it past the outer layer of mist. Tentatively, she got to her hooves properly, as other ponies around her did the same. One, evidently less harmed by the shield's explosion, got out from the building's cover and attempted to shoot a spell. As expected it didn't get far in, but the mist didn't appear to react aggressively. In fact, looking at it as she got out too, the mare noticed how it seemed to be dissipating over time. Growing weaker. Carefully she tried to approach it. She extended a hoof, fully expecting it to be burnt away. But she was the closest, and her sacrifice would inform the others. Instead it merely passed through it. Maybe her hair stood up a little, maybe she just imagined it, but there was no damage done. She took a full step into it, then took a breath inside it. The mist didn't even appear to move, existing separately from air as far as she could tell. With that sorted, with the rest of the soldiers recovering from the blast as well, they quickly took on to looking for the alicorn. Her being alone in the middle of a wide and otherwise empty portion of the city made that quite easy as the mist began to clear further, and though they could not yet shoot at her they could certainly run towards her. She noticed them, turned tail and fled, but she seemed far more worn out than any of them. Her steps were stilted and uneven, and they would catch up to her without much difficulty. Those were the last thoughts going through the mare's head before her body fell limp on the shattered and burnt crystal ground. Not quite the last thing going through her head however, as that title belonged to the magic bolt which had left a bit-sized, perfectly circular hole in her skull and brain from one side to the other. Some of the ponies running alongside her saw her fall, and stopped in their tracks. Others continued, but realised something had happened and turned back. Only the one who'd been immediately behind her kept on running, until she was a bit of a distance away from everyone else. Then she turned, and in turning swung and released a scythe of purple energy that cut a soldier in half. "She's mine," she hissed, charging towards the confused group of soldiers. > Chrome > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna grunted as the flare of magic around her horn collided with that around Nightmare Moon's. The two pushed against each other for a few seconds, then Nightmare Moon dashed backwards with a push of her wings and came back to attack from another angle. Luna blocked her again. She'd been on the defensive end of the conflict since the beginning, partly out of choice. She was supposed to keep her enemy there as long as possible, and that was easier if she was trying not to get hurt more than she was trying to hurt the other. Not that she didn't look for openings left by Nightmare Moon's charges to strike, but she didn't take any risks trying to land blows. She wasn't the one supposed to defeat her, and that aside she knew, though it bothered her, that she likely couldn't. There was more to the alicorn she was fighting against than there should have been to a normal pony, she could only hope the Elements would still be enough. Nightmare Moon flew away again. Luna took her chance to fire a spell at her, hitting her chest but not doing much damage. After disappearing momentarily into the cloud of swirling darkness around them, Nightmare Moon struck again, faster. She didn't attempt to hit Luna directly, instead she dashed by her, and as Luna blocked her horn she moved past her and disappeared again. Then she struck another time in the same way, and another, and yet another, always emerging from different angles to try and catch Luna by surprise. Aware that sooner or later she would make a mistake, Luna surrounded herself entirely in a magical shield instead, and there began to plot her next course of action while Nightmare Moon still hit her on all sides. She had avoided doing so before as it drained more magic than simply blocking each assault by itself to constantly keep a shield up, and because it could be seen as a somewhat dishonourable action in a duel to shield oneself fully for too long a time. She didn't care about appearing honourable in Nightmare Moon's eyes, but she cared about making sure that the other played fair too, something she'd surprisingly been consistent with that far. Just as Nightmare Moon was dashing in again, Luna released her shield outwards, knocking the other off balance and giving her an opportunity to attack. She fired a spell behind the alicorn and dove towards her, and while Nightmare Moon did react to her charge by blocking it the impact was still enough to push her into the spell, and the reaction from that was enough for Luna to fire another straight at her. A moment later however Nightmare Moon was firing back, and Luna was forced to dodge to the side before she failed to push the magic blast back. Luna was back to defending herself, as Nightmare Moon began to fire a series of spells at her. Perhaps the worst part of having to face her was how annoyingly, unnaturally resistant she was. No matter what, nothing seemed to really hurt her. Luna hoped, as long as she managed to hold on long enough, Twilight and her friends would be able to do more than her. > Complicate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight had, as the guard had suggested, picked up a couple of Sunburst's constructs along her way towards the floating sphere. Given its peculiar firing pattern, it wouldn't be particularly hard to approach it from the side. The problem with that, and the reason she was rather glad she'd actually listen to the suggestion, was the process of actually getting through the streets between her starting point and the sphere itself. They were not devoid of soldiers, far from it, and on more than one occasion she simply had to give up the idea of proceeding a certain way. But the time she had was finite. She could only wait for so long, the spell would continue to spread and soon it would affect areas too close to the centre of town. Paradoxical as it seemed, Starlight considered the idea of approaching the onslaught of bullets head on. No one would be on her path, and she'd have a clear straight line to her destination. It would also, obviously, involving shielding herself against a constant hail of magic energy, not to mention making her a clear target. It was far from a perfect plan. Yet it was ever so slightly safer than trying to run straight through a group of soldiers, and if time ran out and she was forced into a desperate option she wanted to look into all of them and pick the least suicidal one, even if it earned that title by very little. And that was only the first half of the issue. Once she actually somehow got to the sphere hurling out all those projectiles, she would need to stop it in some way. She was actually fairly confident in her ability to do that, but she was also aware that she was dealing with extremely powerful and extremely advanced magic from another world. Not outside her weight class, but not a walk in the park either. She'd need to be fast and work under pressure. She wasn't bad at either of those, but that didn't mean she wasn't still worse under those conditions than she would have been normally. The consistency of the spell's output was perhaps the most concerning part. It had been firing for minutes at that point, consistently increasing the amount of ground it covered, and yet the density of its projectiles had not changed, their strength had not diminished. It felt like looking at an impossibility, something that should not have worked and yet did. It was frightening. Starlight knew, of course, that there was an explanation, but the fact that the opposing force had developed something capable of even just giving the impression of breaking conventional laws and principles of magic was in itself a deeply unsettling thought. Perhaps scarier than the idea of them achieving the impossible through external means was the knowledge that they had built something hardly distinguishable from it while still playing by the rules. But an impossibility it was not, and so there had to be a way to stop it. All Starlight had to do was actually get to it in one piece. Hopefully that, too, wouldn't be impossible. > Obfuscate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining and Cadence both came out their hiding spot, one on each side of the building, and both struck towards Sombra. Despite this and despite the intensity of their spells, the creature did not seem to be hurt or bothered by them. Him being slightly pushed back by the sheer intensity of them was the biggest visible reaction, yet as far as actual damage went there was very little to be seen. Not none, but very little. Both ponies intensified their efforts, but all that did was push him back a little more. That was before he started charging. He went for Cadence first. She was prepared for that, and had already prepared a shield. She was not prepared for the way Sombra tore through it in just moments. But it was still enough time to get out of the way, to the purpose of which she took off and flew herself above Sombra. It was then that they learned how, unlike what seemed to be the case for the other mutated ponies, the former unicorn's horn was still in perfectly working conditions. Cadence barely dodged out of the way as a stream of crimson wide as a tree trunk shot from Sombra's horn and through the air towards her, and she felt the air grow hotter around it even a few metres away from it. She did not have much time to remain idle however, as Sombra soon followed the blast with another, and another still, forcing her to constantly move to avoid getting hit. Even flying behind a building for cover proved to be of little use, as the creature's next attack melted and tore through and past the crystal walls with ease. All the while, Shining was still firing at Sombra without stopping. In fact he was increasing the amount of energy he put into attacking him. It kinda looked like it was leaving a hole in the thing's weird flesh, but mostly all it did was push Sombra to the side slightly. That was useful, because it made its aim worse, but it wasn't exactly close to what Shining was meaning to achieve while shooting at it with what would have been lethal force against a number of other creatures. Frustrated with the futility of his efforts, worried about his wife, and feeling himself grow tired from the uninterrupted use of magic, Shining let go of the spell. Instead he focused on something else. His horn shone again, and a small point the colour of his magic appeared on the ground beside Sombra. There that point began to trace a faintly visible line on the ground around the creature, until it had come all the way back to the start. Then Shining widened his stance, brought his head lower, lit his horn brighter, and gave a powerful heave with his neck as he lifted his head. The chunk of crystal Sombra was standing on, and Sombra himself as a result, were sent flying into the air, completely throwing off the creature's aim on its last spell. It gave Cadence a chance to land and Shining a chance to breathe, then the creature's body fell to the ground and the chunk of crystal fell on top of it. Both of those things would have been enough to kill anything that size. For Sombra, it just meant melting into a pool of black ooze before slowly beginning to take shape again. > Fundamental > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra came back together, about the same shape he'd been before being flattened to the ground. Both Shining and Cadence were panting from the continued efforts to both meaningfully harm him and survive his attacks, but both did at least notice some semblance of damage appeared to be sticking around. There was a noticeable hole in Sombra's skin over his chest, though a small one, revealing a patch of his darkened flesh and below it part of his twisted bones. That was a start, and slightly reassuring. It was also far, far from being enough. And between how drained they already were, how much more they would have needed to take him out, and how dangerous he was, it wasn't hard to figure out how slim their odds of success were. Their only other spark of hope was the creature's evidently lowered intelligence compared to its previous self. It tanked hits rather than even attempting to dodge them, and fully ignored anything that wasn't the target he was focusing on. As Sombra slowly got back together, Shining and Cadence looked at each other, then at the only other thing they could hope to use to their advantage. The giant stream of magic cutting through the city's sky was more than both of them could output in terms of raw destructive power, which meant it was their best potential tool to harm what was left of Sombra. That of course meant they'd have to get him into it somehow, and do so before the weapon firing it was hopefully stopped, but being pushed around seemed to be the one thing the creature wasn't all too resistant to. That was that then. They had a pretty good plan as to how to actually send Sombra where they were planning to. The hard part was, of course, surviving to actually do it. They began by dashing to a spot away from the direction the blast was coming from, to give themselves a better angle to launch the creature from. They were fully prepared to have to struggle to get there, but unexpectedly, just as its head was regaining its shape, a lightning bolt struck down on Sombra. The creature, aside from maybe some superficial burns, didn't look particularly hurt, but he did at least seem somewhat dazed. That bought Cadence and Shining enough time to get to where they were planning to. That and the series of other lighting bolts that rained down on Sombra even as he began to move towards them, confused and slow at first, then charging properly once he spotted them. He tore through barrier after barrier as both ponies put up one after another on his path, glass-like shards of broken magic walls embedding into his flesh. As he was closing in on them, both magic users shared a barely visible nod, and as their horns lit up so did the broken remains of their shields stuck in Sombra's body, which then exploded all at once. That stopped Sombra for a couple of seconds, and even caused his form to come apart a little. He roared and shot a beam from his horn, which Shining and Cadence barely managed to hold back against with the shield they together conjured around themselves. Then, once more displaying speeds unnatural for a being his size and shape, Sombra was on them, bashing with his claws against their cover. Lighting struck him again, though the two could only see as much from the flash of electricity that ran through him as he obscured almost everything else in their vision. But what he left for them to see was just enough, and for a few moments longer all they had to do was wait. > Repay > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The few seconds the two had to resist for were some of the most intense of their lives. The shield, even held and maintained by both of them, showed new cracks with every blow of Sombra's limbs, and even more so as he started to use his magic too. Every strike echoed through their horns and into their skulls, and every second of holding the shield drained their bodies of energy. They were both sweating, panting, barely able to keep their eyes focused and their legs upright. But they were still able to see when the time was right. Shining and Cadence moved in perfect unison, fluid in their motions despite the exhaustion, single-mindedly focused on their one goal. They both lowered their heads, brought themselves a little forward as their horns began to glow brighter, and holding as steadily as they could with their hooves against the ground they lifted their heads and fired as strongly as they could through their own shield, aiming straight for the exposed portion of flesh on Sombra's chest. With nothing to support it anymore and Sombra's blows still falling on it, the shield around them shattered, but their twin beams of energy were enough to push the creature back and put themselves out of its range. Back, and upwards. Gritting their teeth, both Cadence and Shining focused on the ground immediately below and behind Sombra, and with a magic pulse sent through their hooves broke a portion of it and caused it to raise up into something like a short ramp. Then, they kept pushing with their magic, as it began to also dig into Sombra. But he wasn't being pushed back quickly enough. Much worse still, though his limbs couldn't reach them, his magic could. Though dampened in part by their own magic streams as it passed through them, a sphere of energy still hit them almost in full, leaving them breathless, bruised, and nauseated. Still standing. But with Sombra charging another blast, one they wouldn't be able to withstand and they were unsure they'd even manage to survive, both of them began to lose hope. Still, they pushed on as hard as they could. Just as it looked like Sombra was about to unleash another, even larger spell against them, the swirling sphere of darkness above his horn twisting on itself and about to be sent towards them, something happened. They couldn't tell what it had been. Maybe, if they'd had the time for it, they may have suspected their magic piercing deep enough into the creature's chest to reach its heart, if it still had one. In their conditions, they merely took the event as it came. Sombra flinched, for what reason they didn't know nor care to, and his spell crumbled apart in a crackle of hazy static. That got them enough time. Taking one last deep breath, giving everything they still had left, Shining and Cadence joined their horns. Their magic beams entwined, twisting into a spiral, and a bubble began to spread from the joint tips of their horns before being entrapped by the double helix of their spells. There it travelled forward like a bullet, and struck Sombra's chest in full. And then it pushed. It pushed with the strength to hurl an army across a country, back and up the sloped crystal ground and farther still as Shining and Cadence pushed behind it with all the magic they had left. Sombra's body shot up, and he screamed as he was lifted from the ground and sent sailing through the air, as the single condensed bubble of the two ponies' united powers began to dig through his flesh and bones and almost through him as a whole. And he was pushed backwards and higher still, straight into the monstrous torrent of dark energy tearing through the sky above them. > Redeem > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sombra shrieked as his body was at once enveloped by the flaming black energy of the weapon's fire roaring through the sky and pierced by Shining and Cadence's joint spell. In his last moments as he was being swallowed by the torrent of power red magic crackled from his horn and around his body, but he was consumed before he could direct it into anything to attempt to save himself. There was an explosion, a swelling within the continuous blast where he'd entered it, stretched by its uninterrupted motion, and past that point on the other side the small bubble of condensed magic the two ponies had fired passed through the current and out into the sky, sailing a little farther before shattering into sparks and dust. Cadence and Shining both watched the creature disappear, and the last traces of its presence being wiped away by the spell's incessant motion. Their breaths were heavy, even though breathing hurt against their lungs by that point, and Cadence's legs held her up more by virtue of fortunate balancing than by strength. Shining had no such stability, but he did manage to make his collapse look close enough to deliberately sitting and lying down prone. He still held his neck high though, as much as that was difficult too. At that moment, even exhausted as they were, neither cared much about their condition. Relief washed over them, enough to dull any ache and wash away any worry for the time being. Then they saw the cinder-like fragments of shadow drifting down from the sky. For a few seconds, holding their breaths, they hoped they were merely what remained of Sombra. When they began to pool on the ground and regain their consistence, the two ponies lost even that shred of hope. Rising from a shapeless amalgam of darkness, Sombra retook what still was there of his form. Hurt, half its body missing, his innards exposed, his limbs withered, his features maimed. But alive, and even the one empty eye socket he still had was enough to convey the primal fury coursing through his being. Shining stood up, something that hurt more than standing up ever should and perhaps even more so due to the hopelessness of their situation. He prepared, though he wasn't even sure what he was preparing for. Not using his magic, that he knew, with his exhaustion and the conditions his horn was in at best he could have made himself pass out. He thought, maybe, he was preparing himself to die, at least knowing he'd helped weaken Sombra enough for someone else to finish the job. With what energy he had left he leaned to the side, touching Cadence's shoulder with his own as she weakly wrapped a wing around him. Sombra finished recomposing himself. He didn't look like he should have been alive, but that didn't stop him from moving all the same. It didn't stop him from turning towards the two ponies, or for spouting a horrifyingly choked roar from the half of his mouth and throat that still was there. Stumbling forward on his broken and mutilated limbs, he headed towards them, ready to charge. Shining, realising time was running out, took one last breath, and chose to keep his eyes open. Sombra moved forward. Something else moved into him. Something that looked like a broken chunk of a crystal building, roughly the size and shape of a train wagon. Something moving at about the same speed as a train wagon, too. Shining blinked, unsure of what he'd seen. To the side was a newly formed trail of broken buildings, left by what evidently hadn't been stopped in its path by merely running straight into Sombra's body. The space in front of him was empty. He fell to his knees again, and breathed out, and thanked whatever or whoever had just saved his life and most likely his wife's. > Reclaim > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- They didn't have to wait long to find out who their saviour was. "Your Highnesses," called out a stallion as he rushed towards them. A pony they had grown familiar with ever since he'd somewhat forcefully, but not without merit, inserted himself into their lives. "Paper," Cadence called to him as he approached. Shining would have done the same had the air in his lungs not refused to leave them. "What are you doing here?" the alicorn continued, her voice hoarse and breathy. "Playing my part, Ma'am." Paper Letters reached them and gave a quick but respectful bow. "I saw you were in grave danger and couldn't help myself. I do hope I was of use, and I apologise for going against my orders to not interfere." Shining was, briefly and distantly given his overwhelming tiredness, quite confused by how a single pony could have thrown a piece of crystal that big that fast, not to mention how he had no idea where Paper had even found whatever it was he'd actually rammed into Sombra. But on the other hoof, the event in question had just saved his life and his wife's, so he would have chosen not to question it for the time even if he'd had the mental and physical energy to do so in the first place. He stumbled forward, and he almost fell. Paper caught him, and held him up. "I'll lend a hoof, Sir," he said, helping Shining along and doing the same with Cadence. Together the three of them began to head towards the buildings housing the other guards, specifically the one with the doctors where Celestia also was. There they were, a bit later, quite relieved to know Twilight had managed to stop the blast from destroying the town. A bit before that, and a fair distance away, the oversized chunk of crystal that had ran over Sombra came to a halt at the end of a trail of broken buildings. There lay a thick pool of shadows, and from it Sombra began to take his maimed shape anew. Something stopped him. Red lightning crackled around his fluid body, digging into his not yet flesh. He hissed and roared, and blindly charged forward in his incomplete state, his body little more than an unfinished head trailed by a snake-like tail of darkness. He did not move much. Before he could reach farther than the area he'd covered as still a pool of shadows he painfully bounced against an invisible wall of force, and yet more energy burned into him. Red runes in a circle began to glow on the crystal ground around him, trapping him there no matter how hard and often he attempted to free himself by lunging against the invisible walls of his prison. A voice spoke a short distance away, as a hoof touched the ground. "It ends here for you," it coldly whispered. The runes grew brighter, the crackles of energy within the circle grew more intense. Sombra screeched, and his voice twisted and distorted as his body began to fold in on itself. It lost all and any recognisable shape, consumed by the searing energy discharges inside the circle, it withered and bent and dried and screamed, and finally nothing was left of him but a few scorch marks on the crystal ground. > Wane > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight managed to make it safely to a group of guards. She'd never turned to look back, and wasn't sure how much she'd been followed or not, but she was glad if surprised that at no point had any spells appeared to be fired at her. Once she was back into relative safety, she allowed herself a moment to sit down and rest her legs, before getting up again and more slowly starting to head towards the centre of the city together with a couple of constructs. In her conditions, it was the best choice she had. Her wings still hurt too much to attempt flying, not to mention how that would have made her an easy target again. Magic too was out of the question aside from very low power spells, her horn still ached and putting more strain on it in those circumstances might have easily led to worse and longer lasting consequences, the last thing she needed given what was still to come. Her legs still hurt too, but they were good enough for walking the rest of the way. She was worried, but not devastatingly so. She was in no condition to fight, but she knew it wouldn't take too long for her to get better, especially not if she got access to actual medical help. If Nightmare Moon returned before she had reasonably recovered, or worse before she even got back there, then things would be really bad, yes. But, her entire plan already hinged on Luna being able to hold on long enough for them to have taken care of the portals. Even without the little weapon incident, if Nightmare Moon had come back at that moment the situation would have been dire. But it wasn't unreasonable to think Luna would continue to do her part for long enough. Not the way they'd set things up. Nightmare Moon had almost certainly realised what was happening the moment she'd been trapped, but if she still hadn't come out it was evident even she couldn't do anything about Luna's control over the flow of time in their shared dream. If she'd had that kind of control, she would have broken free long before, almost immediately. Instead she still hadn't, and that meant Luna was still alive and keeping her busy. Twilight hoped the former would continue to apply throughout and afterwards, but the risk was there. They'd known it going in. Celestia had known too when she'd put forth and agreed with the idea of letting herself be captured, though there she'd been gambling on Nightmare Moon's ego choosing to humiliate her, demoralise her ponies, and use her as a bargaining chip over simply killing her. With Luna it was different. Nightmare Moon's intents were different. If the portals were closed, and enough of the opposing forces dealt with, and the Elements gathered, Twilight would reach to Luna and tell her to release the dream. If that didn't happen in time, she'd still asked Luna to let go if death was the alternative. That didn't mean Luna would. Her best hope there, bothering as it was, was hoping that when Nightmare Moon broke free she did so without outright killing Luna, and that someone was there to take her before the killing blow. It wasn't a great plan, but it was their best one. Despite the ache in her legs, Twilight walked faster towards the centre of town. > Rekindle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight had found a plan, a way to get to the sphere efficiently and without the certainty of being targeted by dozens of other spells. It wasn't the safest thing, but time was more important than almost anything else and all the safer options she'd come up with were far too slow. What she'd settled on was fairly simple, all in all. She would use a modified version of the spell matrix Twilight had used to hide herself while exploring the world Nightmare Moon ruled over, and approach the spell while staying hidden that way. Meanwhile, the guards she'd picked up along the way would create diversions against the closest enemy groups. It meant effectively sacrificing the constructs and permanently weakening their defences, but it was better than having the hail of bullets reach the centre of town. It was risky, she was well aware. She was betting everything on her ability to stay properly hidden, and if that failed she'd be in great danger. No guards would accompany her of course, and her defence spells would be at a minimum. If she didn't properly cover her tracks and make sure nothing slipped through, and the soldiers noticed something was off, even just one shot from them towards her could lead to the entire operation ending in disaster. That was assuming, hoping that the spell itself didn't have a built-in alarm system or something along those lines. As she sent the constructs off to do their part and began to carefully cast the spells over herself, she knew she would soon find out how things were. She would need to be ready to leave quickly and safely however things went, as someone would definitely notice something was amiss if she did manage to deactivate the spell. But she was confident enough in her ability to leave once and if she saw she'd been successful. Her ability to react to spells coming from outside her field of vision was something she did not have as much trust in. All things she would get to know for sure soon enough. Swallowing down her nerves she slowly began to lift herself up in her magic, looking frantically left and right to see if anyone seemed to spot her or looked like they were planning to shoot towards her direction. Nothing. Either she was hidden well enough, or everyone who could have noticed at that moment was distracted. She hoped it was the former. So she quietly started to lift herself towards the target of her mission. She'd brought herself a fair distance closer to it, maintaining herself on the side of its stream of bolts without ever facing it directly. The first thing she did, then, was to bring herself on top of that rain of magical energy spreading forward and consuming the Empire's buildings. From there, she started going forward and upwards still, towards the source of it all already floating quite high in the sky. That was a good thing all things considered. The farther away from the ground she was the harder it would be for soldiers to spot her. No one had done so that far, and none did afterwards either, and so she reached the magical sphere unharmed. From there, she had to figure out how to shut it off. > Shiny > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How are things outside?" Celestia asked, lifting her neck to look at the guard who'd recently walked back inside. "Stable for the time being," he responded. "The first weapon has stopped firing, and Princess Twilight appears to be heading here. Starlight Glimmer is currently in the process of neutralising the second. No reported casualties among the external groups. The portal near the first weapon has seemingly been deactivated. Nightmare Moon is still safely contained." "I understand." Celestia gave a polite little bow with her head to dismiss the stallion. "Thank you." He bowed back, then walked away from her corner. She sat alone in it, bandaged, lying down with only a carpet separating her from the floor. Bruised, defeated, depowered. Completely useless, irrelevant to the events unfolding outside. Yet Twilight's ponies still acted like she was their princess. She couldn't blame them for being used to doing so. Not much had passed since her stepping down, though it had already been months and Twilight had rather prominently taken on her role as sole ruler during the Behemoth crisis. But habits were hard to break, and in truth it was hypocritical of her to demand they not see her as anything more than a mare when she still saw them as her ponies. In a sense, though she'd be one of them, she'd never be just a pony, and she knew that well. But she'd hoped her condition would change things, at least then. She'd expected to see something in the guard's eyes, something in his behaviour. Contempt, even hidden, surprise or confusion and uncertainty, maybe disgust, maybe compassion. She'd expected to be seen as fallen, frail, to be looked at like the unhelpful weight she was in that moment. Smoothed out by empathy and by her history maybe, mellowed by understanding, maybe sad and not hateful, but she'd expected something to be there. But to the guard's eyes, she still was the same as ever. For all of them. Not for Shining or Cadence of course, but they hardly could count, they'd seen through her years before and they knew her differently from how the average pony did. It was the regular ones' opinions she cared for, even as she chastised herself for just thinking of them in such terms. But it was irrefutably true that to them she was still the same princess she'd been a week before, even while lying naked on the ground, hurt and scarred. There was maybe one pony there that would have looked at her differently, though perhaps out of braggadocious foolishness rather than wisdom. But she'd toned down the former through the years, so perhaps she wouldn't either, or not fully. She wasn't in that room to confirm the possibility, either way. Her aside, and obviously not counting those who already did know her differently and whose opinion of her was yet another one, no one there seemed to have the reaction she was hoping they would have had. There was one pony throwing odd glances at her, yes, but his deal was something different still and seemingly much more personal to him than about her in any way. No one gave her the look Twilight had given her that evening, when she'd finally pushed things into clicking. When she'd cast Twilight's doubts into solid certainty and broken down her hesitation with her confession. No one there had that look of realisation, or anything close to it. Perhaps it was better that way. It wasn't what she wanted, so maybe it was what she deserved. Maybe it was selfish to ask for others to look at her the way she looked at herself, and maybe that she did was already enough. She just had to live with things being that way. > Unleft > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight quietly stepped into the room, let inside by a pair of guards. She was still visibly tired, but less so than she'd been before, and her horn was usable for more substantial spellcasting again. Immediately a doctor headed towards her, ready to take care of her. She let him do as he had to, taking a moment to just wind down and breathe out slowly. Shining noticed her before she noticed him. "Twily!" he said, getting up to greet her and regretting it as he walked towards her. "I'm so glad you're safe." Reached the alicorn, he wrapped his forelegs around her and laid his head over hers. "I was worried about you," he murmured. "I was worried about you too," Twilight said to him as she returned the hug. "I'm glad to know you're okay. Cadence too?" She looked around the room, and found the alicorn was walking towards her. "Celestia is here too," Shining said, looking towards her corner while Cadence reached them. "No one in the tower was hurt. Sombra might not be dead, but he hasn't come back." "The portal you were aiming for has apparently been closed," Cadence explained once she'd also shared a hug with Twilight. "It must have been the commotion. We haven't seen a new one open yet on the map." "Starlight isn't here right now," Shining intervened. "She's taking care of an issue outside." "I see." Twilight nodded. She frowned slightly, then shook her head. "I'll have to talk with Sunburst soon, he's not here, right?" Meanwhile, her eyes settled on Celestia. "No, he's in a different building," Cadence said. "We could have him called if you want." "No need." Twilight shook her head again, and hugged both Shining and Cadence again. "I'll see him myself later." With that, she began to head towards Celestia. Celestia had noticed Twilight come in, and had been looking at her while Shining and Cadence had approached her. But once she'd seen Twilight move she'd set her head on her forelegs, crossed together in front of her, and looked to the side. Twilight sat down in front of her, and silently tilted her head, looking at her. After a few seconds of silence, Celestia finally spoke, still without looking at Twilight. "I saw that thing blasting through the sky. I'm glad you made it through." She sounded sincere, yet distant. "I hope my sister will as well." Twilight was quiet for a bit. "I hope she will too." She was silent again for a few more seconds, and tilted her head to the other side. "You don't look bad with your mane shortened like that." A couple more moments of silence. "I'm glad you're alright. I didn't really get a chance to say so earlier." Celestia just breathed for a while, slowly, heavily. "Thank you," she finally said. "This is what I get then, right? Now of all times?" Twilight scooted a little closer, and brought a hoof to Celestia's cheek. Celestia noticed the little cracks and wounds where the crystals had dug into it. She finally turned to Twilight, looking at her and lifting her head, and put one of her hooves over the other's. "You still don't want it back, right?" Twilight asked. "It would be of no use in my current state, anyway." Celestia also moved closer, and slid her foreleg over Twilight's until she was touching her shoulder. "Thank you," she quietly said. Twilight exhaled, slowly, quietly. Despite everything, she didn't feel her tiredness any more. "Thank you," she said, looking Celestia back in her eyes. > Unsigned > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight's plan, she was fully aware, relied on many, many things she had no control over needing to go the right way for her. But, thankfully, up to the point she'd gotten everything had worked out. Still, that left the most complicated part out of the whole ordeal, actually figuring out how the spell worked and how to turn it off. It was so unlike anything she'd ever seen that for the first few seconds she didn't even know how to approach it. After that, though, knowing her time wasn't much, she quickly set to thinking things through. Almost immediately she realised the spell needed some external power source to function. Some spells existed which simply furthered themselves on their own, but anything capable of outputting that much energy would have needed to have been cast by an alicorn to reasonably fit into that category. Most likely then, it was the product of a weapon. Finding and reaching the weapon itself was an option then. Not a particularly viable one. It involved going far too deep into hostile territory, searching blindly for something that would no doubt be heavily guarded. Even if she somehow made it there unscathed and undetected, she could never take out more than maybe a couple of guards without alerting the remaining ones. She'd need to go straight for the weapon if she wanted to stay unseen, meaning they would all still be there and they would all know about her the moment she actually interfered with it. It was simply too risky to attempt something like that, and it would have been even knowing where the theoretical weapon was exactly. Neither was it feasible to find it and destroy it from afar, whatever was powering the spell had to have enough energy to turn into a bomb if she tried to break it without finesse. But the weapon had to be rendered unusable. Otherwise, neutralising the spell would just buy time until another one was fired. Solving that was actually the easy part of the problem. If the weapon was connected to the spell, and it had to be, then Starlight could use that connection to break down the weapon from the spell itself. Sure, the connection was probably designed to only go one way, but that didn't mean she couldn't alter it. The soldiers wouldn't realise anything was wrong until it was too late. Hypothetically, that could also solve the entire problem. If she stopped the spell by stopping the weapon, then she wouldn't need to do anything else, meaning once she had enough of an understanding of the spell to interface with it she would only need to find and alter the connection, something she knew she could do, rather than having to spend more time figuring out exactly what to do with the spell itself. On top of that, if the problem was with the weapon malfunctioning then the soldiers would look for the cause there, and even if they would probably figure out things had started at the spell it would take them long enough to do so for her to escape. That only left her one single issue. Understanding the spell in the first place, enough so to at least trace and latch on to its connection with the weapon. While less of a task than fully and completely comprehending a foreign piece of magic, it still wasn't an easy thing to do. She was still dealing with something she'd never encountered, and something extremely advanced. Prodding carefully with her magic, she began to study the spell as it continued to spew a hail of bullets onto the Empire. > Countenance > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You heard that too, right?" Pinkie Pie asked. Applejack silently nodded, trying to see if she heard the sound a second time. She did not have to wait long for that to happen. It was low, but not too distant. A deep rumble like the earth quaking, slightly metallic maybe. It came from the direction they were heading towards. "Did you see what it might be?" she asked to Pinkie. Pinkie shook her head. "I can try to look again, but I wouldn't want to be spotted." She leaned against a wall, placing her ear to it to see if the sound carried differently through the building. The ground wasn't actually shaking, but they couldn't rule out the possibility of it coming from below. "Got it." Applejack looked past a corner. The street was clear, but things didn't feel safe. It was even too clear, maybe. Soldiers were avoiding that part of town, and she wondered if it wouldn't have been wiser to do the same. She looked to Pinkie, who seemed to be having the same kind of thoughts. "Should we go around and find a different way in?" Pinkie thought about it, but eventually shook her head at that. "That would take too long, and it's too likely we'd get spotted. This is the best way we have." She looked down the same road Applejack was looking at and grit her teeth in nervousness. "If we blow up we blow up, I guess." Quite understandably, Applejack wasn't too enthusiastic about the possibility. She looked back to the unicorn. "How good are you with teleportation spells?" "Good enough for us three and a couple hundred metres away without landing inside a wall," he answered. "I can't guarantee where we'll end up but we can hope the whole way we came is still empty." Applejack nodded. "Good enough," she said. If it wasn't, she reasoned, then things were so bad they may as well have given up. She turned to Pinkie again. "How far are we still?" "Three buildings over," Pinkie replied. Her eyes were narrowed, her brow furrowed deep in thought. "There should already be soldiers here." "At this point it might be safer to go forward." Applejack stopped as she heard the sound again. It was a little louder. "Do you think we could do a frontal charge?" "No." Pinkie looked at the small group of constructs accompanying them. "But we might be able to use them as a distraction. At this point they're not enough to protect us in a full on confrontation, we might as well play it like that." Applejack looked to the unicorn again. "How good are you with armour spells?" "No one's good with armour spells," he replied, "there's a reason we still use metal ones. But I'm probably above average with shields." "Global average or Royal Guard average?" asked Applejack. "Global." "He can make something that kinda looks like a shield," said Applejack more quietly as she turned back to Pinkie. Halfway through the motion however a thought struck her, and she instead looked to the stallion again. "How good are you with flashy illusion spells?" > Sickness > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rarity watched preoccupied the city outside the shield. "I don't feel good about this," she muttered under her breath. Starlight had been gone for a few minutes at that point, no signs of her anywhere she could see. To distract herself, Rarity turned to Fluttershy instead. "How are you doing, dear?" she asked. "Nervous." Fluttershy was looking outside too, and slightly swaying back and forth with her frame. She slid her teeth over each other a couple of times, then looked sideways at Rarity. "You?" "I as well." She swallowed. "It's... Being stuck here, unable to help, you know? I feel like a dead weight. If I knew something about healing magic I could at least be useful in some way. Instead I have to be the damsel who needs to be kept safe from harm, while the others are out there." Fluttershy smiled briefly at that, thinking of how Rarity would have enjoyed that kind of treatment under different circumstances. "I get that," she said. She did. She was probably more used to the feeling than Rarity had ever been. "We wouldn't be here if we weren't needed at one point, though. And even then there's nothing wrong with not being useful here. Different ponies are better at doing different things, it's normal and it's best that way." Rarity sighed. "You're right. Of course you're right. That doesn't make the feeling go away though, not when there's so much on the line especially. You don't feel inadequate when someone else is preparing food or taking care of a garden, but when the entire country is at risk..." She vaguely waved a hoof around. "It feels like the sort of thing where everyone should contribute, you know? We're all in danger, and yet only some of us have to do the work. It's not fair to them." Fluttershy sighed too. "If things were fair, they would not need to fight in the first place." She cocked her head to one side, and smiled at Rarity. "I suppose that's true." Rarity looked down, forcing herself to also smile and almost succeeding. "But my heart will not listen to logic or reason, it seems." She actually fully smiled after saying those words. "In that, I suppose I'm quite like myself." She shook her head, and looked back at Fluttershy. "How are things going with..." She vaguely eyed the miscoloured portions of the pegasus's wings and mane. "That," she said flatly. Fluttershy shrugged. "No worse or better than when things started today, and only slightly worse than yesterday. Like I said, I've been able to reason with them well enough, and while I'm kept safe here and things stay like this they won't be acting up." Rarity nodded a little at that, then exhaled and looked out the shield again. "Let's hope things stay like this, then." She eyed the spell still raining bullets on the buildings below it with increased nervousness. "And let's hope things will go well when the time comes to use the Elements." > Bound > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow's sword sunk itself into the creature's chest, with barely any more resistance than what it would have encountered against regular flesh and bone. Resistant as they were to magic, their nature as nightmares still evidently made them vulnerable to, or at least not particularly tough against, weapons designed to fight against that kind of threats. But neither creatures like them or weapons like hers should have been existing in the waking world to such a degree. As reassuring as it was to know she could harm them, it was sickening to know how unnatural the nature of their existence truly was. Swiftly, Rainbow Dash drew back, her sword along with her. She kept herself in the air, but not higher than the buildings nearby. It afforded her added mobility and made it harder for the creatures to reach her, but the last thing she wanted was becoming a target for soldiers around the city. Already she was fortunate she'd found a mutant wandering on its own, not supported by other ponies. She stared at it as she pushed herself farther away and out of its range. Despite the wound in its chest, it still showed no signs of stopping. Even with her armour, the blunt force from a single one of its blows could be enough to swat her out of the sky, breaking one of her wings or worse knocking her out. That would easily be a death sentence. So, even though she could effectively end the creature, she still had to approach it carefully. It was something her period of training under Luna helped with, and she was actually glad at that moment that she had not yet reached the part about bending the dream to her advantage. Being used to relying on something like that would have proven more than counterproductive in a real life situation, and she knew she wouldn't be able to switch between different mentalities as easily as Luna herself certainly could. Although, in those conditions, she wondered if maybe she would have been able to even warp reality as if it was a dream to some degree. She had already pushed her powers further than by reason they should have been able to go, after all. She dove to the side to avoid a swing from the creature's arm, and in doing so she slashed it with her sword. Not a debilitating wound, but a wound nonetheless. Though the monster did not appear to bleed under her blows, a cut on a limb still certainly would do it more harm than good. She probably could not close out the fight with attacks of that kind alone, but they'd hopefully help. The creature appeared to be studying her at that moment. Ready to spring towards her, but waiting. Eyeing her as she hovered out of its reach, and eyeing her sword as it floated around her. Rainbow had an idea, and quickly threw a glance at the sky. Then, under her directions, her sword moved aside slightly and tilted its blade just the right way. The creature hissed as it was blinded by the light reflected in its eyes, amplified and infused by the sword's own magic. Its cry dissolved into a sputtering croak as the blade sunk into its neck, finally silencing the nightmare as Rainbow drew it to the side. The creature fell down, motionless, and the pegasus left its body behind as she headed elsewhere along the city's streets. > Shine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before the creature had any chance to attack her, chains sprouted from the ground to bind its limbs. Starshine stared it down as it struggled and tried to free itself, and an idea entered her mind. A flash of light emerged from her horn, and condensed into streams that settled onto the creature's face. Its struggles grew weak and weaker, and after a few seconds more they ceased entirely, and its body fell unconscious to the ground. It would stay like that for hours, even if someone tried to wake it up. Or it was supposed to at least, Starshine had no way of knowing for sure if it would work. But she was pretty confident it would. With the last of those creatures taken care of, she flew atop a nearby roof and considered her options. She knew she was an easy target there, but the enemy soldiers hadn't been shooting at her before and they most likely wouldn't start then. And if they did, she'd probably figure out a way to deal with them. She could probably go after them herself, but that could lead to them leading her into a trap if she wasn't careful. Rather than going on the offensive, then, she could help protect those ponies already fighting or sneaking their way towards a portal. The only problem was finding them. Pinkie's group had been the closest to her and still probably was, but she only had a rough idea of the direction they'd gone in. Trying to reach them without knowing exactly where they were could prove counterproductive if she accidentally caught the attention of enemy soldiers and ended up giving away the group's position. Though she supposed she could go about it more aggressively and deliberately incapacitate every group of enemies she ran into along the way while searching for her allies. But that was still risky. She didn't actually know the full extent of her abilities. Yes, she'd just taken care of a group of mutated ponies with relative ease, but if her enemies were smart about how they approached her they could still easily give her trouble. But standing there doing nothing was pointless, she knew as much, and every moment spent thinking about what to do was a moment she could have spent helping out. Even without a clear plan, helping would still be helping. Where to, though? Probably not inwards, enemy soldiers most likely hadn't made it there yet. She set out towards the edge of the city with that in mind. She did not move particularly fast, rather she dropped down onto the street and made her way along its length. Flying rather than walking, but still at a relatively contained pace not to miss anything she might encounter along the way. Not that she did encounter anything for most of it. The street was staggeringly empty, unnaturally so even. She wondered how such a thing was possible. Were the soldiers seeing her come forward and deliberately getting out of her way? She reached almost the edge of the city with that question in mind. Then she heard movement behind her, and immediately turned around. > Strap > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This is the situation so far. No new portals have appeared anywhere that we could detect," the guard concluded. "Just the three we've found?" Sunburst looked suspiciously at the map projected onto the floor, then at Twilight. "Do you think they're hiding more of them?" Twilight was frowning in thought as she answered, "No. They would have hidden all of them if they had a way to. I think they only have a limited amount of portals they can keep open and operate at the same time, and decided splitting their army into three fronts was a good compromise." She pointed with a hoof at the library she'd flown near, where one of the portals had been. "We should advance here. They won't be sending any new reinforcements through, that means we should be able to take the forces still there." "How do we know they won't reopen the portal somewhere else around town?" asked the guard. "They probably will," Twilight said. "But it will take a while for them to place it properly. That's why we should try to take back as much as we can while their connection is partially cut. The alternative is that they might choose to consider that area lost and redirect soldiers to the other two portals instead, in which case we should still clean out that part of the city." She looked carefully at the map, but seemingly not at any specific point of it. "Anything else?" Sunburst asked. "They probably have at least a couple more portals they can open in different locations, coming from somewhere else. If I had to guess what they might do with them, then..." She pointed at the empty space above the map. "The conflict has been going on for long enough that they might start sending in aerial reinforcements. The kind they don't expect to make it back." "Suicide bombings?" The guard looked at her. "Do we have the means to defend against that?" "Maybe," Twilight replied. "We won't know how fast they will strike until we're actually dealing with them." She cleared her throat. "Now, hopefully dealing with the current portals would eliminate that possibility as well. Even if it didn't, it should still reduce their forces significantly, enough for us to win by attrition and enough to allow us to better defend against other threats." She clenched her teeth for a moment. "That is of course assuming we're able to deal with the existing portals quickly, and assuming Nightmare Moon doesn't escape before we've dealt with everything else. What's the status with the other two groups?" "Alive, but stalling. Both are close to the portals, which means both are having to deal with increased security," explained the guard. "Of course." Twilight looked again at the map. "Do we have any signs of a third weapon being brought in?" "Pinkie's group and other nearby units have reported something, but the exact nature of a potential weapon is unclear," said the guard. "It's mostly just sounds," Sunburst added. "No visible damage anywhere yet." "Status on dealing with the second weapon?" asked Twilight. "Starlight cut communication to avoid being detected, but we've visually confirmed she has not been found yet," the guard said. "She's working on it." Twilight nodded, finding acknowledgments of her hopes superfluous. She turned to Sunburst instead. "What is Starshine doing? Can you trace her?" > Converse > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight looked at the spell, prodding it with her magic, trying not to think about the destruction it was raining down onto the city below them. The added tension would do her no good, and save her no time. She was, besides, already nervous enough at having to interact with the thing in front of her. If she'd had to describe it succinctly, she would have simply said it felt wrong. On some primal, instinctual level, it felt like it went against what magic was supposed to be. It wasn't something she logically deduced, though she could have probably done so if she'd had the time, it was a feeling. It was something that latched onto her basic, natural understanding of magic as a unicorn, and sent chills down her spine. Whether it was the spell itself, its nature and purpose, or the process used to achieve it, something about it was unnatural in the worst way. Something about it shouldn't have been done the way it had been. Starlight tried to focus and deal with the spell analytically, but still she couldn't deny the effects its nature had on her. Saying it made her uncomfortable would have been an understatement. Ripping cutie marks away from ponies against their will had felt more natural than trying to interact with that spell. It was like operating on a festering wound on the structure of magic itself. Her magic prodded a little deeper. Slowly, methodically. If she went about it as mechanically as she could, she almost managed to take her mind off the sheer unease that having to be aware of the spell to that degree brought along. She felt around its edges again. She'd found the point where it connected to its power source, and potentially received other kinds of directions from too, but not a way in yet. She couldn't just force herself inside there, the thread connecting the spell to its source would most likely collapse and then reform. She had to get in through the spell, the regular way. That meant going deeper into it. Magic flowed through her horn a little more intensely, as she tried to get a better feel for the inner workings of the magical manifestation in front of her. It was, again, an unpleasant experience, but at the very least the basic structure and design of the spell seemed to be relatively comparable to the kind she was familiar with and easy to understand for her. She probed deeper still. It was much like feeling around inside a hole in the ground with a stick, or like trying to pick a lock, only everything was a lot more wiggly and vibrating and abstract. Sometimes she visualised it as tentacles sliding around inside a maze, before the amount of dimensions involved made her mental image fold in on itself. But in the indescribable shape of the magical construct she was exploring with her own powers, she seemed to find something. Something like a connection, a gateway leading out of the main structure in front of her. She latched onto it, noted down its position, traced her magic back to find the safest path to reach it. Finally, once she had all her thoughts straightened, she pushed a little deeper into it. Then a little more still. Then, the flow of her magic reached a threshold. Swallowing, Starlight braced herself as she carefully pushed past it. > Tox > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How are things out there?" A guard peeked out the window. "Not too bad. Nothing close it looks like." "Do you think we're ever going to actually do anything here?" asked another guard. The pony sat down again. "Honestly? I hope not. It would mean we've gotten through this whole thing without actually having to risk our lives." The guard who'd asked huffed, blowing up a strand of her mane. "Those faceless things are gonna leave us without a job." "Nowhere in our job description did it say we would be supposed to fight in a literal war and put our lives on the line against monsters." "I'm pretty sure it did say that," another guard intervened. "Implied with the whole protecting the Empire thing, at least." The stallion who'd spoken looked mildly bothered. "Well, yeah, probably, but no one actually thinks that part is for real. It's like there just as a formality." He looked at the window. "At least, I didn't sign up for this." The mare looked at him with a quirked eyebrow. "Then what did you sign up for? You realise this is the Guard we're talking about, yeah? Did you just want to stand around looking cool wearing armour?" "Yes," replied the stallion with a straight face. "And as a matter of fact, that's more or less what I've been doing for my entire career, and I've been paid pretty well to do it." He laid his back against the wall with a small thud. "It's not easy standing around in armour during the summer, so I think I deserved it, too." "You realise that's not beneficial to society, right?" the mare said. "Just the standing around I mean. You looking good doesn't really contribute anything. The entire point of the Guard is that you're available to help if things like this ever happen and you need to defend regular ponies." "I know that," the stallion replied, "I passed the entry tests too. But as anypony can tell you if they've ever paid attention to it, these things usually don't happen. And when they do happen, nine times out of then it's someone else who ends up actually taking care of the real problem. So excuse me if I didn't expect an interdimensional war to break out during my lifetime." "It's more like a single battle than a war for now," another guard noted. "I don't think there's even been a formal declaration of war or anything like that." He paused to think for a moment. "I wonder if that has implications on how this is classified and how warcrimes would be judged in this context." The others ignored him. "So why did you choose to stay?" the mare asked. "Because it's my job and I'm supposed to?" the stallion said. "You could have quit. You could die here, I don't think any salary is worth risking that. I don't think you would have even had to quit actually, you could have just decided you didn't want to be here and Princess Twilight would have allowed it, I'm pretty sure she did the same with others." "It's not that," the stallion replied. "This is like, what I'm supposed to do. As a guard. Moral obligation and stuff. I don't like it, but it wouldn't be fair if I didn't stick around." The mare blew away her mane again. "Well, alright then." > Magus > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've tried," Sunburst said, somewhat visibly tensing up as he focused. "I can't really get ahold of her. I can vaguely sense her, and she's definitely still out there, but I can't get in touch with her." Twilight frowned slightly at that, thinking. "Do you think it's the situation we're in? I know Rainbow Dash was doing things she shouldn't have been able to, maybe it's the same." "It doesn't feel like it," said Sunburst. "I think it's her. Something about her." He immediately clarified, "It's not something bad. It doesn't feel like she's been negatively affected. I just think something is going on that's made her different." He looked at the floor, frowning deeper in thought. "I can't tell if it's because of the way things are here or if it's happening independently of it though." Twilight's expression still wasn't serene, but she looked a little more relaxed. "The important thing is that she's safe at least. If she's out there, she's probably helping us." She stood a little straighter. "Can you produce more constructs in your current conditions?" Sunburst was shaken from his concentration and looked back to Twilight. "I can try to," he said after a moment of reflection. "Not as many as I did before, and I'd rather not go all out again, but I should be able to make a few more." "No need to exhaust yourself," Twilight said. "It's probably for the best if you conserve your energies in case something else comes up and you need to act. How many can you comfortably give?" Sunburst looked to the floor again, again focusing but looking more distant. A few seconds later he turned to the wall behind him, eyeing the three and a half dozens of newly created faceless soldiers spread over three lines, ten and four of each pony tribe. "About that many," he said. "More than good enough," said Twilight. With a forward snap of her wing she signalled for the constructs to begin following her, then she turned and started to head towards the door. "Your Highness?" asked the guard captain there with them. "They are not expecting us to have reinforcements, and like I said now is the best time for us to act," Twilight explained. "I will try to take over what I can of the city where the portal was closed." "I understand that," the guard said, "but are you not injured still? Would it not be safer for the constructs to act by themselves while you recover?" Twilight stopped by the door and stretched her wings, then craned her neck. "It seems I have already recovered," she said, a trace of royal authority seeping into her voice and making it clear she was not inviting any rebuttals. She was speaking out of honesty however. She suspected it may have been the result of Celestia's magic within her, but whichever the cause she felt, and more importantly knew herself to be back in fighting conditions. "I will try to be back quickly, should Nightmare Moon free herself." With that, she walked out the door, followed by her faceless contingent of soldiers. > The results of electricity being absent due to the lines being worked on, for a longer period of time than initially declared > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She was almost sure she had it. Almost. Had she been fully sure, of course, she would have gone through with things already. In her unsureness, however, she preferred to wait a little longer, to study it a little more, to figure it out more properly. But the time she had was finite, she knew that much. On top of that, she had no certainty she would remain undetected forever. Momentarily she glanced back. The spell had spread farther. Its speed wasn't consistent, but judging by the distance still left between its edge and the buildings near the centre of town she had somewhere between a couple minutes and a few more than that. For the sake of safety, she had to assume she'd get no more than the minimum. She could feel the connection. She could sense the weapon on the other end, as revolting as the spell itself. Her magic probe had almost gotten dragged through the moment she'd pushed far enough, but she'd managed to hold on. In theory she had everything she needed. In practice, she was not fully convinced yet. There was something off about the tunnel between the spell and its source. Something she couldn't quite place that she feared would throw off the whole thing if she went about it like it was normal. But time was running out and her probing was getting her nowhere. Swallowing her tension, she set to trying to solve things. She located the connection properly, and placed her magic on the edge of it, tendrils extending into the tunnel and unnaturally stretching along its whole length. She was very careful not to go too far with them though, stopping just short of the weapon to avoid being detected. A filter was probably there. Even aside from that, she hadn't had and did not have then the time to properly analyse the weapon itself. She could send something through, but she couldn't craft something designed to shut off what was there when she didn't have any precise idea of what it actually was like. The best she could do was a generic spell that would hopefully work. The easiest solution, and the one most likely to succeed, was to simply send through a standard pulse meant to shut off the weapon with enough raw energy behind it to get through whatever shielding might have been there. It wasn't elegant, but it was feasible. The connection itself was already built to allow a huge amount of energy to pass through it. She'd be firing the equivalent of a supercharged stun spell directly into the weapon's system, and hoping there were no measures against it in place. Which there most likely weren't. She'd be effectively hitting from inside the weapon, bypassing all external protection and only having to deal with its innate structural integrity and inner security measures. She was extremely doubtful the ponies who'd designed it had ever forseen the possibility of someone tunneling to the weapon itself through the active spell. Attempting something like that would have been close to a suicide for almost anyone. She had her plan then, and time to execute it. She swallowed again, getting ready for the next step and getting ready to act quickly after it. She regretted not planning it in advance, and not setting some constructs up to come help her when the need was there. In order to make sure she was putting in enough energy to shut down the weapon, she'd have to drop her magical camouflage. She hoped she could do everything quickly enough to teleport away before any shots reached her. > Thagomizer; > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had gotten loud. It had gotten somewhere between uncomfortably loud and downright painfully loud. Pinkie, Applejack, and the unicorn with them had taken on to shielding their ears as they'd moved a bit closer. They couldn't tell for sure how much the volume had increased because they'd walked farther and how much of it was the thing getting louder by itself, but in either case it made communication with each other much harder. Yelling wasn't really an option either. Not when enemy soldiers were so close by. On top of that, the sound made it harder to potentially hear anyone approaching, forcing them to stay even more alert. At least the constructs seemed to have no problem understanding what they were told even when spoken to at a regular volume, and so they had had them take on the role of watchers momentarily while the three of them schemed out what to do next. They had a plan to approach the enemy group, though they didn't know its precise location or its size yet. Send in the constructs as a distraction, throw in as much confusion as they could on top of that, and get close enough to the portal to cast the spell while all that happened. In the event that a couple of soldiers remained to guard it even while everything else was going on, they were confident they'd be able to deal with them, the real challenge was getting there undetected. That could be far from easy and even far from likely. They could throw their constructs against the soldiers and make it seem like a lot more was going on, but if they dealt with the issue quickly, figured out how to see through their illusions, or simply spotted and went after the three of them at any point as they approached the portal, then everything would be meaningless. They were never the group most likely to succeed. Despite what might have seemed the obvious, Applejack actually wondered if they weren't the least likely to. Twilight's had obviously been the favourite, but even comprised of just two ponies Lyra's group had something to it. Lyra herself did. Applejack had seen it, or maybe felt it, though she hadn't quite understood what it meant. It was like what she'd felt with that pegasus hurling lighting from the sky above them. She wondered briefly if giving up on the whole thing wouldn't have been wiser. As Elelments they had to protect themselves too, it would be pointless to risk capture or worse. She decided they would assess the situation first, send in the constructs if their plan seemed feasible, and if things looked like they were taking a turn for the worst they'd run away. Not the most brilliantly safe approach, but they were also probably some of the ponies most fit for the job. She could always kick down a building to add extra commotion, and reminding herself that she could do that and Pinkie was the other pony there, while the soldiers were largely regular ponies, did bolster her confidence a little. The unicorn with them most likely wasn't as resistant as them though. But neither was he an Element, or necessary to the fight beyond his role in closing the portal. Applejack knew there was a word to describe that. She knew what it was too, but shook herself out of those thoughts before she could get to it. It wouldn't do to start thinking like that. > The last word of Book 1 will be 'Thread' > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine looked across the empty street. There was a sound, low and low pitched, slowly building up from somewhere nearby, but that wasn't what had caught her attention. There had been another sound. Short, dry, and seemingly, oddly, deliberate. Like something trying to get her attention, maybe by tapping briefly against a wall. "Who's there?" she asked in a slightly higher than speaking volume. Nothing moved, and yet she sensed something was there. From behind one of the houses, a voice spoke. "Do you know what this battle is missing?" it asked. "Drama," it went on. "Oh, not general drama, no, there's plenty of that. But personal, interpersonal drama. One side is soldiers mind controlled and the other faceless automatons, it all feels so sterile. So detached. Quite boring if it wasn't sprinkled with a few living, choosing ponies here and there, but still those dwindle as time goes on." Starshine had let the voice speak a while out of politeness, but she still ignored most of what it had said, and instead asked, "Who are you?" Her voice was louder than it had been before. "Just a ghost," said the voice. "Ask me what I want, next." Starshine stuttered, surprised and uncertain after it had asked for what she was herself already planning to do, but still decided it was worth asking it either way. "What do you want?" She swore she heard the voice chuckle. "I'm here to ask for help," it then said, as something rolled out from behind a building on the side of the road. It was a small green crystal, no larger than a tangerine, shaped as two square pyramids with their bases attached. It reminded Starshine of an eight sided die, only elongated on two ends. She assumed she inherited that bit of association from Sunburst. The crystal shone a pale green, and had a bell-like ringing sound as it rolled towards her. "What is this?" Starshine asked, eyeing the crystal for a moment and then looking ahead again. "Freedom for one pony," the voice said, "and perhaps for another's soul as well." Before she could speak again, an image manifested itself into Starshine's mind. A mare, clad in armour. It burnt itself clear into her memory, then disappeared from her immediate awareness at the forefront of her mind. "Who is she?" she asked then. "It matters not," said the voice, "and you may find out yourself." Then it asked, "Save her. Find her. Use that. It's all I ask. You'll know where to find her." "How do I know I should trust you?" asked Starshine. "You don't," the voice answered. "In all honesty, I could not provide a good argument for it. Nothing but the goodness of your heart, and faith that a stranger voice you met on the battlefield means well. But what do you have to lose?" "I have other ponies I could be defending." "They may survive. Likely, they will, long enough for your return at least. She will not." A brief pause. "I may return the favour, one day. Still, I cannot expect you to do what I asked merely because I did. Though I'm sure you know how little risk is there for you, the choice is ultimately yours. I'll leave you to it." Silence followed, filled by the knowledge that whatever had been speaking was gone. Starshine waited a few moments. Then, finally, she picked up the crystal. > Spyke > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starlight stalled a single moment longer, just to steel her nerves and make as sure as she possibly could that she would not fail in what she had to do. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and readied her magic as best she could. Then she exhaled. Her eyes opened, her disguise dropped, and all the magic she had available but the amount needed to keep herself up in the air shot through the tunnel connecting the spell in front of her to the weapon powering it. It was a brief exchange, not reaching a second's length, but it was one of the most intense moments in her life, both for the knowledge of everything that could possibly go wrong weighing down on her and for the sheer amount of magic she channelled all at once. She did not stay there to see if it had worked. The first thing she did, immediately after the energy she'd set free had left its last connection with her horn, was teleport back to the ground and as far away as she could towards the centre of town. She even let go of herself as she did so, undoing her telekinesis and for a split second submitting to gravity to have enough power to make it as far as she possibly could. Once there, she briefly heaved her heavy breath, then she started to run. She could see that the hailstorm of magic had stopped, just as she could feel the results of the one magic bolt that had reached her before she'd managed to teleport away. The way it had dug into her side. She did not turn to look at how serious the damage was, she did not have time for it either way. Just as she'd figured would happen, the moment the soldiers had detected her they'd immediately taken aim and fired at her. And though she'd seemingly been successful in her endeavour, they would be following her. Without enough magic left to hide herself and with her teleportation certainly tracked, and her destination known, it was hard to imagine she'd make it all the way without being found. The cold trickle dampening her flank became impossible to ignore, as did the way her vision blurred at times. She had no magic to close the wound with and stopping to hold it with her hooves would have been suicidal. The only hope she had was running into a group of constructs or guards before the enemy soldiers ran into her. So she ran forward, hoping that would be the case, at times without even seeing the road she was travelling on if not as blurred blotches of colour. She thought she heard bolts of magic flying at some point, and crashing against the crystal around her. She realised she'd fallen, and something was holding her. She couldn't see or hear anything clearly, nor feel anything but how damp and cold her coat had become on one side. Then there was only darkness and silence. > Source | Trice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The area was empty. Much emptier than it should have been. If on one hoof it was undoubtedly great news and it allowed them to retake a huge chunk of the city, on the other Twilight couldn't help but feel uneasy about the situation. All the soldiers in the area had seemingly just vanished. Had they all run back through the portal before it closed? Why would they have done something like that? They'd been chasing her still after she'd withstood the weapon's fire, why were they gone? And why had they closed the portal in the first place? What had happened there? Her questions only grew once she travelled far enough to find the library near which the portal and the weapon had been. The latter was still there, what remained of it at least, and she could see clearly it had been deliberately damaged by something. Someone had helped them there. She did not have time to figure out that mystery though, not with everything else going on. She noted down the broken weapon as something she'd study afterwards, like the giant mark she'd left on the ground where she'd stood against it, and stationed the constructs with her to hold the area as she headed back to the centre of town. Something didn't add up there, but so long as the end result was in their favour she was willing not to treat that as an issue. Trixie stood petrified against a wall, watching the scene in front of her like she was watching the world through a window outside it. Things moved in slow motion to her perception, painfully dilated to highlight every detail, and yet as a whole events still felt like they were tumbling over each other too fast for her to grasp onto them, too quickly for her to react. Starlight was on a stretcher, the same one she'd been carried inside the room on. At some point it had been a colour other than red. So had Starlight's coat, but if Trixie hadn't known that she wouldn't have guessed it by looking at her. Especially with how her eyes never quite focused on the wound in the mare's side, always drifting around it as if refusing to acknowledge it. There were other ponies around Starlight. Aside from Sunburst, Trixie failed to recognise them, sometimes even to realise they were there. She looked at Starlight's chest and neck, hoping to see something there. Ponies were speaking, but she didn't understand what they were saying. She heard sounds in place of words, muddled and without reason or order. Finally a splash of foreign colour tore her attention into itself. White bandages. Bandages that stayed white, only slightly tinged by a transparent magic aura that held them in place over the wound no longer gushing. Sounds came into focus a little more. Words she could recognise, though she still didn't bother to. Then another sound. Sharp, hoarse, sudden. Starlight breathing, her neck tensing slightly as her head raised itself just a bit before dropping down again. It was like Trixie's body had suddenly been freed from a spell, and she immediately rushed to the mare's side. > F1N4L3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna clenched her teeth as she was sent flying back through the air from the impact. Nightmare Moon was growing impatient. Even while shielding against her blows, the sheer force of them was still enough to send her sailing across the sky as she failed to maintain her position. And the other alicorn barely left her time to react between each strike. It was no longer a duel, it was the one sided beatdown both of them knew it would eventually have become and Luna could not guess how long she'd actually be able to defend herself before being overwhelmed by her opponent. But she'd held her for what she hoped had been long enough. With no certainty as to how much more she could last, with the possibility of every incoming blow being the last, she knew it was time to switch to the final part of her duty. She could not ensure to hold Nightmare Moon back any longer, but she could make sure she was as hurt as possible when she freed herself. She couldn't attack her the same way she had at the start, but neither could Nightmare Moon defend as she had then. That was the whole point of the duel, or at least a huge part of it. Bringing the nature of the dream closer to reality, its abstraction reduced, so that it may be a proper contest of power and not merely a fancy way of wasting time with meaningless tricks. But that didn't mean Luna couldn't fight back, even against a clearly stronger opponent. As she was being flung backwards one more time, she suddenly forced herself to halt in mid air. She focused on the partial shield she'd put in front of herself to withstand the previous assault, and bent and sharpened it into a point like the front of a ship. She did so in fractions of a second. Then she beat her wings and pushed towards Nightmare Moon, who was rapidly heading towards her for another attack. Although Nightmare Moon saw her coming, their combined speed meant she was unable to dodge out of the way or otherwise react even though she tried to. Luna's magical blue shield crashed into her and shattered against her skin, and Nightmare Moon hissed as her balance was thrown off and she almost started to plummet. The two alicorns acted on a timescale so reduced most creatures would have needed to observe a slowed down version of the events to appreciate them properly. Immediately after she'd hit Nightmare Moon, Luna was already firing a blast of energy towards her. Before that could traverse the short span between their two bodies, Nightmare Moon was reacting with her own, and the two beams clashed in the air as Nightmare Moon's body fell just enough to get out of reach of Luna's hooves, then righted itself back into flight. Both mares let go of their spells at the same time. The residual specks of magic from their clash hadn't dissipated fully and already their horns were alight again and their next attacks coming. Nightmare Moon charged again, her hooves enveloped by long dark claws. Luna was just slightly quicker, or perhaps she predicted the other's plan. An intricately decorated silver halberd manifested at her side through a portal above her shoulder, and in doing so struck Nightmare Moon at the base of her wing before she could reach Luna. The two were separated again. Luna holding her weapon at her side, Nightmare Moon growling as her horn shone brighter. They stared each other down for less than a moment. Then, both attacked again. > Anguish > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think I have the whole thing figured out," Bon Bon said. "For out here at least." Lyra pushed herself off the wall she'd been lying against. "We should go then." She walked her way up to Bon Bon's side. "Just a moment." Bon Bon held her back with a hoof. "There are three groups of two guards, and they come out rotating at the same interval. I want to give the last group a little longer to get away, and then we'll go in." "What do we do after that?" Lyra asked. As she waited she glanced back towards the sky, curious about the lack of background noise she'd become familiar with, and noticed how the spell they'd encountered before appeared to have stopped firing and seemed to have disappeared completely. "I don't think we'll have much time to figure things out," Bon Bon explained before starting to cross the street and motioning for Lyra to follow her. After they had quickly reached the other side, she continued, "They'll definitely have stationary guards farther in instead of just a patrol, we'll have to decide how to go in and do this before the next group comes by." "Got it," Lyra whispered as the two of them began to walk down another alleyway, one they had seen soldiers walk in and out of a few times before. She tried to walk with the best balance of quietly and quickly she could manage, not resulting particularly great in either but still doing a sufficient job at both. Bon Bon outpaced her slightly and did so while making notably less noise, which was unsurprising given her background. They reached the end of the alley, and there stopped again. The space immediately ahead of them was clear of soliders, but just a little farther in things were different. They were close to the edge of a small square, and just as Bon Bon had predicted there were ponies permanently stationed to guard it, both on its border and on top of nearby buildings. Lyra immediately threw up another camouflage spell, and nervously eyed the sky above them for any pegasi flying low looking for intruders like them. Past the edge of the square and the guards the two mares could see their goal. The portal, not unlike the ones Twilight had used, more closely guarded just by virtue of the soldiers in the area around it. Alongside them, at least a couple of mutated ponies could be seen too, and the edge of something else that had definitely been brought in from the other side. Machinery of some kind, though neither mare could recognise it. Some soldiers were animatedly discussing next to it, seemingly precisely about it, but they were too distant for their voices to carry as anything more than meaningless sound. Bon Bon had a quick look left and right, then drew back in. "Going by how fast the patrols usually take I think we have at most two minutes before someone comes by and spots us if we try to cross." She turned to Lyra. "Can you get us in? We can always run back out if you don't find a way." Lyra studied the situation, looking intensely at what she could see of the square. "I can. We need to get closer though." > Vector to the Heavens > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon's claw-clad hooves slammed against the pole of Luna's halberd, while magic poured from both alicorns' horns in two beams each struggling against the other. They both remained like that for moments, but the longer their struggle stretched on the more apparent it became how Nightmare Moon would come out on top if things continued. Luna grimaced as she tried to push the other back. She was willing to get reckless with her attacks for the sake of landing actual damage, but she couldn't do so while forced into a clash of that kind. Though she'd managed to inflict a few wounds on Nightmare Moon, all of which had seemingly sealed themselves already, she wished to do more before her inevitable defeat. But while locked into a struggle of that kind she didn't have many options. She could not simply distance herself from it, not without having Nightmare Moon's assault crash into her. But she couldn't wait it out, not when she was on the clearly losing end of things and the end result would not have been much different than her trying to run away. Her only true option to survive the clash and get another chance at hitting Nightmare Moon was somehow being the winner of their clash. But she was outperformed both magically and physically. Her only hope was to find a way to cheat, and do so quickly. It wasn't a safe thing to do. Provided she succeeded, anything she might do Nightmare Moon would return in spades. She'd be making it fair game for their duel, and Nightmare Moon would not hesitate to abuse it. That meant whatever she chose to do needed to be good, because she'd only get the time it would buy her to hurt Nightmare Moon as much as possible before it was returned to her. She could have tried to go light on it and hope the retaliation was manageable, but she would have rather gone all in with it. As her forelegs gave in a little more under the push of Nightmare Moon's claws, as sweat ran down her neck and her head hurt from keeping up a beam of magic that intense meeting its equal so close to her face, she began to divert a small portion of her magic elsewhere. Just the right amount, just enough for her to do what she needed to do quickly enough without taking so much of it she wouldn't be able to resist for long enough. It was a delicate balancing act, but she had the control and familiarity with her own magic necessary to pull it off. She banked on the way Nightmare Moon was so focused on her, and on the way the clash of their magic beams shone so bright and loud so close to their heads, to ensure the alicorn's attention would not catch what she was attempting to do. A small portal, not unlike the one her halberd had manifested from, began to appear beneath Nightmare Moon's belly, slowly widening and shining a little brighter. A sword's tip emerged from it, pointing towards the alicorn's flesh. Then, after a moment longer of Luna barely holding back against her enemy, it shot upwards into Nightmare Moon's body. > Spear > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In their endeavour to get closer to the portal, the ponies had, as they knew they inevitably would, run into soldiers patrolling the area. They had however found if not a solution at least a way to get partially closer, at least close enough to get a better look at things. In trying to avoid the attention of a group of pegasi flying between buildings, they had entered one of them and found it to be empty. It was a tall one, certainly one meant for housing multiple ponies. And so they had climbed up its stairs to the top, and found a bedroom with a window overlooking their destination. It was still a fair distance away, but they had an unobstructed view of what else was there. The source of the sound they'd been hearing, slightly diminished there due to the elevation, appeared to be an intricate piece of machinery stationed near the centre of a large crossroad, between the portal itself and a fountain in the middle of the intersection. They couldn't get a great look at it from there, but still it gave them a rough idea of what it looked like and perhaps how it functioned. It was composed of a central structure, a vertical, cylindrical shape partway embedded into the ground, surrounded by support sections reminiscing of an insect's legs in shape. The whole thing was made out of black metal and crystal, and it looked like some kind of giant spider, or a mosquito trying to drain the ground itself. Alongside that and the portal were a number of soldiers, all more heavily armoured than the ones they'd encountered farther inside the city, and a few mutated ponies. Not a massive group, but not a small one either, and the portal's exact position specifically made approaching it harder. None of the streets leading into the intersection faced directly where it was, although a couple led closer than the rest. But still all ways were guarded by soldiers, and a diversion on one side would be unlikely to completely free up the others. There was a possibility of approaching through a building, but being spotted while coming out of it was not unlikely and neither was the possibility of the soldiers having occupied the nearby structures. Coming in through a building however remained the best plan they could come up with. Going in any other way would have them spotted far too soon, the streets offered no hiding spots and even with a diversion getting close while undetected would be impossible through them. It would possibly be impossible to get close enough to create a proper distraction without being spotted first in the first place. They would certainly need to split up from their constructs to even attempt something like that. The building may have hidden soldiers inside it, but it would far more easily allow the group to deal with them without being spotted by the entirety of the enemy forces. That all gave them at least a place to start. Picked the building they would try to approach from, they quickly began to leave the one they were in, already planning their path through the city to reach their new destination without being spotted ahead of time. A few minutes would be enough, even less than that at a brisk pace. After getting there, it would be about choosing whether to stick together with their constructs or to already send them another way to set up a distraction. Then they'd enter the building on the side opposite the intersection, and hope they'd get through it safely. > "Of [something]." > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The grey pegasus blinked out of existence for a moment, and then reappeared immediately after. She kept, as much as she could manage, her eyes glued to the stallion sitting next to the wall, and was evidently studying him. But she said nothing. Her expression was partly confused and partly skeptical. She disappeared again, then reappeared again, and still she was unsure of how to approach the situation. He had noticed her, of course. He just smiled at her. It was impossible to say for sure if it was a mocking smile or a genuine one, and that only added to the mare's uncertainty. Nothing of what she found weird about him she could tell for sure or define clearly. She'd seen him before, but she'd never paid much attention to his oddities. Perhaps it was best if she ignored him then, just keeping an eye on him in case he did do something. She did not have much else to pass the time with though. There were things to watch on the other side, yes, but she'd watched them all already and in truth she did not particularly like watching them in the first place. Not the Wall in the distance, not that black dot there in the city, not the portals bending reality around themselves, not the odd thing slithering around the Empire that seemed strangely familiar to her, like she'd seen it before at one point. It all looked largely wrong and unnatural, so she chose to keep it largely out of her sight. The stallion had started quietly whistling a tune. It was a pleasant tune though. Maybe she'd already heard him whistle it, he'd been present somewhat often during her visits to the Empire's royal couple, especially in the more recent ones. Thinking of that brought to her memories of the couple's daughter, at that moment safely away somewhere else. With her grandparents if she had to hazard a guess. Given his absence Spike the dragon was most likely either with them too or back in Ponyville. She could have probably gone and checked. On anyone she wanted to. It wouldn't take her long to reach them or to get back, most probably not long enough for it to be a significant problem. But she didn't feel compelled to do so. Everyone was probably safe, and it was best if she stayed there in case her help was properly needed. Danger was there and it was there that she would have rather kept her attention to make sure other ponies were okay. Firecracker for example was still out there, though they were also still okay last she had checked. And okay was almost everypony else. Except Starlight. Starlight had a magical stab wound in her side and wasn't in a condition anyone would have regularly called okay. But she was alive at least. Stable too from what she could tell, and in the care of capable ponies. She would likely recover with time. Unless the battle was lost and the city destroyed, but at that point it wouldn't matter if she'd been injured before or during the destruction. Everypony would probably die the same. In a weird way it was kind of reassuring. If everything was going to be lost if they failed they could afford to act like they had nothing to lose. But it was also a very sad thing to think about, so the mare just hoped they would succeed instead. > Off T > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She'd been easy enough to find with the information Starshine had. The hard part had been getting to her properly, though not in the way Starshine would have expected. Things had gotten weird since the moment she'd crossed into the other side. Not that they hadn't been weird for her before, but they had gotten weirder, and weird in a different direction from how things had been going in the city before that. She wasn't sure if she was all there and all then. It reminded her a lot of how she was used to ceasing to exist, only she was able to properly appreciate it at that point. But it wasn't exactly like that either, as she wasn't fully gone. She ended up something like a ghost, a spirit wandering the building undetected by the ponies there. Which was actually helpful given what she was there to do. But it was not easy to move in those conditions. As she could have probably guessed, and quickly did discover, walking wasn't all too compatible with being in a state too undefined to possess limbs, nor was the abstract concept of moving in general able to apply to her when her being was bereft of a defined position and of the necessary amount of existence to possess one in the first place. It wasn't necessarily painful, not that she was alive enough to feel pain most of the time, but it was very confusing when she existed with enough of a mind to process it. Sometimes she merely felt herself without even being able to think through it. It did make her movements jerky and her pattern erratic. She didn't walk so much as she flickered in and out, having moved farther each time she was there enough to be observable. Thankfully the crystal remained unbothered by her behaviour, always with her and always rather real, but never escaping her grasp because of that. It even helped her at times, giving her a tether, something to latch on to and keep herself there with. Her movement through time was as erratic as her movement through space. Though for sure she never existed there before arriving or after leaving, she could not confirm to have existed there in proper chronological order when she had. She supposed however the briefness and scattered nature of her moments of permanence helped with avoiding any unwanted confrontations. She really wasn't in any state to interact with anyone, much less to do so in the antagonistic manner the soldiers there would have most likely adopted. She found her target out the room she'd arrived in, past a corridor and a door, up a flight of stairs, a short walk away into another room. She was not alone there. She was nervous. Starshine didn't get a good look at the other ponies there. She didn't get a good look at the mare, either. She knew what she looked like and knew she was the one, but in her conditions she was unable to see her properly. But she existed there enough for long enough to do what she'd been asked to, and after that she went back the fast way, choosing though it brought her fear to let go for long enough. It didn't take more than a moment. She was still her when she came back, and of that she was glad. > Lygt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You'd be running away-" "I'd be walking away. Different thing. I wouldn't be running, I'd be walking. Relatively slowly if I could get away with it." The mare threw her head back, silently hissing in disbelief. "That is not nearly as different as you're making it out to be. And if anything it's worse." "Relax," the stallion replied. "I said I could do it, doesn't mean I will." "You literally physically can't." The mare shook her head and went to look out the window. "Why are you even here if you're thinking of running away? Couldn't you have thought about it sooner?" "Walking away," the stallion corrected her. "And I didn't think it would be this bad. If I'd known it would be this bad I would have stayed away from here, yeah. Too late for that now." "Coward." "Don't tell me you're not afraid to die, that just means you've never thought about it seriously." The stallion got up and looked out the window alongside the mare. "How long do you think that's going to hold?" he asked. "No idea." The mare followed his gaze to the black sphere floating not too far from their building, though she already knew he was talking about that. "Hopefully enough." "Enough for what?" the stallion said. "Do you even know what the plan is? Do you even know anything about how things are out there?" "Stable," said the mare. "We're making progress." "That's what they tell us," the stallion hissed. "All I see is more buildings falling in the distance and no signs of anything being different. Why are we even here if we're not doing any fighting? We're just waiting to be slaughtered when that thing cracks open." "We are here by choice," said the mare. "Those of us who thought that choice through are, at least." "Like there was ever a chance no one would agree. The numbers were always going to be high. For all I know it's all part of her plan, and we're here as a sacrifice or something. You've seen the weird magic they have out there, no?" The stallion clicked his tongue against the inside of his cheek. "I don't trust those fake ponies out there either. Those things look creepy." The mare threw a rather unhappy sideways glance at him. "Why did you even join the Guard?" "I joined the Guard back when Equestria was still run by its princess. You know, the one that's now without power and half dead in the other room because it's all part of the purple one's great plan." He huffed. "Things started getting bad the moment she took the throne. First the Behemoth and now this, and everything else in between too. She's got to be the one behind it." The mare did not answer him. She was busy focusing her attention back on the black sphere floating outside, the one Luna had entrapped Nightmare Moon inside of. And she was busy looking at that because for the first time since settling into that shape properly, something was changing about the sphere. "Whatever you think is going to happen when that thing opens," she said after a nervous swallow, "you're probably about to find out if you were right." > = > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you thinking about?" Celestia walked up to Luna on the balcony, looking at the starry sky. "You kept the seasons the same while I was gone," said Luna. Celestia stopped at her side. "Of course I did. They have their reasons to exist." "No one was forcing you to," Luna said. "You could have changed things slowly. You had a thousand years to do it, nature would have adapted." "I didn't want to," Celestia said. "I saw no point in doing so. I don't think it ever crossed my mind as any kind of serious thought, though I surely conceived the possibility at some point." Luna stood silent for a while. Celestia considered walking away, but chose against it. Finally Luna spoke again. "I used to think ponies did not appreciate the beauty of my nights, but I realised that perhaps I didn't see their true worth either. Perhaps I was too insistent on comparing myself to you." "I am sure you will find ponies who appreciate looking at your sky far more than looking at mine," said Celestia. "Twilight Sparkle is one to enjoy stargazing as well. Maybe you could approach her on the matter, as a way to get to know her." "I wouldn't need excuses to approach the mare that freed me. If I haven't done so yet it is because I do not wish to. Not now." There was a shift in Luna's breathing, like she was releasing tension through it. "One day I will. Tell me. Is she to succeed us, in time?" "Too early to say. She may, and she does show promise, but nothing is yet set in stone." Celestia looked into the distance. "But I would like her to, after recent events. She could prove a better leader than I was." "You speak of the mare she could be. Not the mare she is now. She is as promising as she is still inexperienced." Luna turned her head quietly towards Celestia. "How much are you willing to push things to get the outcome you want?" "As much as it takes," Celestia replied without hesitation. "You have seen her cutie mark as well. Not once in a thousand years have I had a chance like this, and she appeared at the right time for your return. She saved you." "Because you set her on that path. For years already, have you not?" Luna looked at her sister. "If you succeed, she will hate you." "I will deserve it, and I will have done the world a great favour." Celestia turned to Luna. "Being blind to your suffering was my greatest mistake. But second to it was believing it my only one. I thought myself better than who I had been. I thought I'd learnt. It was not until recently that I realised how blind I could still be when believing myself to know better. I have been a good ruler to Equestria for a thousand years, but I don't wish to rule another millennium, even with you at my side. Our ponies deserve better, if better can be. I believe Twilight could." "And you will stay on this path as long as the possibility remains?" "Yes." Celestia hesitated. "Unless you were to ask otherwise of me." Luna looked to the sky again. "You know her better than I. If I feel you are going too far, I will speak up. For now, I do not know enough about either of your situations to decide over something like this." Celestia nodded. "I understand. Thank you, Luna." > Canyon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Some seven hundred years ago or so, someone actually proposed the use of enslaved dragons as military vehicles and war machines." "That sounds made up." "It's true. You can go look at the documents yourself if we make it out of here, they're all publicly available in Canterlot's library and I assume other places have copies too. To be fair the idea never got particularly far, and for all I know the pony who proposed it lost their military position after it, but it was a possibility at least someone considered." "How would that even work?" "Well I've looked at the sketches they had and it was basically airships, except with dragons instead of balloons. Either that or sometime structures on top of them, but mostly stuff below for the big ones. Easier that way I think." "Okay, cool, how do you get the dragon to play along though? If you have it moving around it can just throw your ponies off. We're talking massive things. I'm pretty sure if it had scaffolding hanging below it one could literally just lie down and crush all the soldiers. You can enslave one all you want but if it has the degree of freedom needed to use it in battle it'll turn back on you." "Well they thought about that. I don't think their proposed solution was that great, mind you, but at least they had one." "And what was their brilliant plan?" "I'm not completely clear on the details, since most of it was magical jargon beyond my level and it's all written in old style, but from my understanding it basically boiled down to performing brain surgery on the dragon by removing part of its skull to implant crystals in its brain to use as amplifiers for a mind control spell." "That's messed up." "So is planning to use a literal dragon to torch your enemies. I don't think this pony particularly cared about morality." "What would you even need a dragon for? And how do you even catch one and keep it still long enough to do that to them?" "I think the plan was to have Celestia herself help along with capturing one, and there are also mentions of stealing eggs to raise dragons as weapons across centuries. As for what they'd be using them against, no idea. But probably they would have had to use them against the dragons they'd piss off in the process of trying to get this stuff going." "Right? That all seems like way more trouble than it would be worth, especially considering the consequences. And they were asking Celestia for help with it? I'm pretty sure Celestia could outdo what a dragon could do by herself if she wanted to, and the fact that she hasn't done anything like that is a pretty clear indicator that she doesn't want to do that kind of thing." "Yeah, I don't think that pony got the memo. The whole thing ends with a spiel about providing Equestria with the means to conquer the whole world in due time with an army of dragons and who knows what other stupid stuff they had in mind. I think they got a little too into the idea of war and lost sight of the point." "Sounds like it. Good thing we had a sane pony on the throne." "Yep. Well, now we get to see what it might have been like if we hadn't been that lucky." "I hope what we've seen is as far as it goes, honestly." > Sliver > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sword thrust upwards. Nightmare Moon shrieked, and lost her grip on her magic. Seeing her chance, in that moment Luna struck, pouring all the energy she could manage out from her horn and towards Nightmare Moon. The alicorn was pushed back, the sword digging into her and slicing through her underside. She was sent flying away, bleeding, her coat singed by Luna's magic, and as a last push Luna hurled her halberd towards her, striking clean through one of her wings. She breathed a brief sigh, aware that she would soon be met unarmed by Nightmare Moon's retaliation, happy for what she'd at least managed to do. It was more damage than she could have hoped for, and though maybe insignificant it was still a success in spirit. A little oddly curious as she was confronted with the inevitability of her demise, she looked on to see what her double from a different world would do. And, almost out of instinct, she spoke to her. "I have always wondered what things would have been like, had I defeated my sister all those years ago. Frankly, now that I see what I missed, I'm even more glad things went the way they did. And perhaps there's a certain irony to the way you'll be, because you will be, defeated by the ponies that defeated me as well. Perhaps it's a sign of how special Twilight truly is, and my sister was right about her. I'm quite happy to have lived the better of our two lives, and the one that led to the better of our Equestrias." No words came from Nightmare Moon as a response, nor did the kind of sudden and brutal retaliation Luna expected. The alicorn instead just floated where she was, her wounds bleeding. But what she did do made Luna's blood freeze in her veins. Her shape began to grow almost hazy, indistinct, the air around her warping like above a fire. Her coat became black ichor writhing over her, her eyes pools of shadow, her fangs too sharp and too many to count. Her wounds disappeared, and her wings stretched and grew jagged. She was a nightmare in a dream not meant to house distortions of the sort. She had not been toying with Luna to that degree. She did not have such control over the dream to trick her so. She was really, truly doing what she displayed. It was no mere illusion either, Luna felt it. Luna felt the nightmare as it twisted into itself within the dream she'd created. The creature before her was far beyond anything a pony could have been. She was beyond what Luna as Nightmare Moon had ever thought herself capable of becoming. A nightmare as living flesh, darker than the night ever could be. Something that should have been impossible. For the first time during their confrontation, Luna was truly afraid. Not for herself, she'd marched in knowing she may have never come back. She feared for Twilight. She feared for Equestria. She feared for her sister and her ponies. She feared for the whole world. She had to warn them, somehow, but she couldn't, not without unleashing that abomination on them as well by undoing their prison. All she could do then was try, again, to wound the creature, and hope it would be enough for Harmony to finish the job. She had one shot at it, at most. She had a plan for it. Focusing, she waited for the nightmare to come to her. > Drinking > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We'll have to be quick." Applejack finished tying the last soldier's hooves together. "Get in contact with the constructs, tell them to get into position," she said to the unicorn. They'd gotten into the building more easily than they thought they'd be able to, but still they were in danger. Only a couple soldiers had been there, at least on the floor they were on and along the path they'd taken, but as they'd been able to observe they were performing regular checks with the ones around the portal and the weapon down below. They had, at most, a couple minutes to act before the enemies discovered something was amiss. Pinkie stood with her eyes glued to the window, looking down below and figuring out the best path for them to follow. The specific room they were in had a sliding glass door that led to a balcony, so it would be easy to get down, and thankfully the angle prevented soldiers below from noticing them. As for the occasional pegasi patrolling the sky, the unicorn had cast a spell to make it so the sunlight would seem as if it was bouncing into their eyes in case they tried to look there, which would hopefully keep them from doing so long enough for their plan to unfold. The room was a few floors high, but not too high for them not to jump down. "Ready whenever you say go," said the stallion to Applejack. "Hold it," Pinkie said to her as well. "Give it a moment, the guards are on this side right now." She bit her lower lip in nervousness. In a lower tone, she added, "That one kinda looks like..." But she didn't finish the sentence and just shook herself instead. "Much longer?" asked Applejack. "We don't want that thing to start ringing." "Give it ten more seconds," said Pinkie. "You two can get in position in the meantime." She pulled out a balloon filled with potion. "I think I know which ones to hit. A couple will probably spot you anyway. Applejack, stay on his left side." Applejack placed herself in front of the large sliding door, tense and ready to kick through it, while the unicorn placed a silencing spell on it so that wouldn't attract too much attention. He also readied his horn for the illusion spells he was about to cast. Pinkie sucked in a breath and stepped back, readying herself as well. "Tell them to go." As the stallion sent the message, she added, "We're going in three. Two. One." The first sounds of commotion came from outside. Applejack smashed the glass to shards with a kick, and immediately the stallion rushed forward and unleashed a flurry of spells to their right where the constructs were charging forward. Applejack jumped down from the balcony, and Pinkie hurled a balloon that impacted against a soldier and left her paralysed. The unicorn landed at Applejack's side and began to run with her towards the portal, while Pinkie landed behind them already wielding another potion-filled balloon. A couple of soldiers did spot them, though most others seemed preoccupied with what else was happening on the other end of the crossroad. Then things ground to a halt as the sound from the machine suddenly became unbearable. > Mythosis > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The central portion of Canterlot, largely abandoned even by animals since the day the Behemoth first had made its steps felt upon it, was as empty and motionless as it had been for months. Some occasionally did venture there, yes, and more rarely still some moved away from the area, but those were outliers. Neither were the creatures who did cross in and out of the area anything short of being among the most special of their kind. Reasonable, as only creatures of a certain standing could hope to last long in proximity to the Behemoth. Fitting, even, perhaps, that only certain individuals ever could be allowed in its presence. Maybe only those that would play or had played a part in shifting the course of history, but maybe the mere fact that they were able to stand there classified them among that group. But none were there in that moment. In that day, unnaturally stretched just as it had unnaturally been snuffed and reignited. Most of those who could make a difference were elsewhere, doing exactly that or trying to. Even the Charioteer had for the time left his station atop his mount, and the unicorn who'd come to study it was not doing so in a time like that. Save for two lives still held by stone, and for how many else may have been hiding imprisoned in the gardens in that same way, the Behemoth stood alone. But for the first time, and perhaps the last, it was not motionless despite its loneliness, despite the lack of its guide atop it to direct its motion. It did not step, no, but it did move. Its head did, its eyes, those which had stared at Twilight the day it had arrived and which she'd stared back into. Moving of its own will, if a will it could be said to have, maybe of its instinct if a creature like that possessed that sort of thing, the Behemoth looked northwards, towards the Empire. Towards the battle still playing out and the ponies there and the creatures with them. It did not care for the outcome. It could not, and would not. It would in time continue its march atop Equestria, regardless of who or what was in it, regardless of which side won, regardless of who would live or die on that day. It was not bound to the paths of those living through the world it had come to, and whether victorious or condemned to night eternal the Equestria it walked would bear the weight of its future steps and march with it towards their destination. But still it turned. Still it looked. Not for the battle, not for the ponies there, not to see who would win or lose or what things would happen and why and how. Almost out of some form of embedded respect, it turned to acknowledge what was there among everything else. What should not have been there, but the Behemoth did not care about that. It turned and looked to acknowledge the thing closest to it to manifest its presence to that Equestria since the day it had arrived. And had someone been there, and able to witness the act, and able to comprehend its reason, they would have wondered if the Empire too, like the centre of Canterlot, would become barren and motionless and inhospitable to those unable to withstand the presence of such a being. > Crystal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "This doesn't feel right. None of this." "No one said it was supposed to feel right." "No one told me it would be like this. No one warned me." "I don't think they knew either." "I... Do you see that house, there? The one that's broken in half?" "Yeah." "Someone lived there. I don't know who it was, but I must have seen them. I passed there almost every day. And now it's... Now it's this. Do you understand what it's like? Can you imagine what it would be like if it was your home? This place wasn't supposed to be used for this." "I'm not sure I can. I've seen what happened in Canterlot, but that wasn't this, and it happened to all of Equestria. I did have to move back then but... Well, you live on a mountain, you sort of take landslides for a granted possibility, that wasn't that different in the end. It was, I mean, it was bad, but... Sorry." "I've lived here. I've lived here all my life. This isn't supposed to be happening. These streets were not meant for ponies to fight on them." "None of us expected this would happen. All we can do now is our best." "Our best won't fix this. Any of it. It won't fix it now that it's happening." "It won't. And it won't fix the memory. But we can't go back. It's everything we can do and the least we can do to go on." "Ponies lived here. I'm glad they're not here to see this right now. I can't think about the future right now. I can't focus on anything that isn't the present. Do you hear it too? Do you see it too?" "I do. And I can't imagine what it would be like if this was my home." "Why? What's the point of all this? Why here? I don't want to be here, but there's nowhere I would rather be right now. No one should have to see this but I refuse to look away." "I don't think anyone was prepared for this. I don't think anyone could know. Now all we can do is our best." "It won't be enough. This is not right. None of this." > Radiate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack fell to the ground first, then so did the unicorn and Pinkie Pie. In the time it took for the three of them to fall, so too did many of the soldiers around the area, all those not wearing helms around their heads or other, heavier forms of protection. The illusions the unicorn had cast shattered. The constructs, however, though they slowed their charge and looked dazes despite their lack of features, were not fully incapacitated. The more heavily armoured guards, seeing that, charged at them, including the one closest to the machine, the one who had activated it. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and the unicorn were left temporarily unguarded as the non-incapacitated soldiers closest to them also moved to help against the featureless ponies still charging forward. It didn't matter much that no one was keeping their eyes on them however, as they could barely move their bodies and certainly not themselves. Applejack, the closest to the machine, felt her head throb and her blood pulsing inside her eyes, blurring her vision. Her ears became filled with an indistinct buzzing on top of the machine's own sound, and her muscles twitched and tensed outside of her control. Her jaws clenched and saliva dripped down the corner of her mouth and onto her helm and the ground. The unicorn, a little farther away but not much, was doing only slightly better. No blindness or deafness, but his stomach churned and he would have vomited had his last meal happen later than it had. His muscles too tensed uncomfortably, digging the side of his head and one of his shoulders into the ground against his will. Meanwhile he could barely feel his hind legs, and all his hooves had gone limp. Pinkie, the one farthest away and perhaps the one better equipped to resist the machine, was still just as immobilised as the other two. She tried, rather defiantly, to move forward despite her conditions, but at best she could wiggle around in place and all she achieved was knocking loose a couple pieces of her armour. She audibly grunted, trying still to free herself somehow, but it was to no avail. They were not the only ones in those conditions. They were the minority in fact. The enemy soldiers just as painfully locked to the ground as they were outnumbered them, and their conditions weren't any better. All around the crossroad were ponies lying on the ground, occasionally grunting in pain, some twitching helplessly in a futile attempt to shield their ears or get away from there. The mutated ones were fairing better. They looked bothered too, occasionally throwing hateful glances at the machine before being redirected by those soldiers who remained unaffected by its activation, but aside from perhaps some stiffness in their motions and occasional snarl of annoyance they were still able to easily move around and fight. Unfortunately for the constructs. Though not even the combined efforts of soldiers and mutated ponies was enough to so much as put a scratch on their shells, and though even the machine blaring at full force only slightly hindered their mobility, they were still outnumbered and outmatched in terms of power. They put up a fight, even stunned a couple of armoured soldiers and left them almost motionless on the ground just as they'd left the less protected ones, but eventually they were disarmed, knocked down and immobilised, by magic or by sheer mass of bindings. There appeared to be some rather skilled sorcerers among the heavily armoured soldiers. With the constructs dealt with, the enemies began to turn their attention towards the other intruders. Walking among their less fortunate peers, not even considering deactivating the machine before they were done with the ponies who'd tried to attack them, a couple of unicorns in heavy armour made their way to Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and the stallion with them. > Irate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the unicorns approached, Applejack looked helplessly at them, her breath quickening as the inevitability of the situation they were in fully dawned on her. She had no idea what their policy was on taking prisoners, but if they knew about the Elements she and Pinkie would be treated differently from the stallion with them. She tried to focus on them even as her vision blurred again, but it wasn't easy to do so, nor was it to keep her neck turned right. One of them lit their horn. Applejack felt magic wrap around one of her legs through the numbness enveloping it, and she was soon dragged onto the ground as the unicorn began to pull her closer. Getting even closer to the source of her sickness made her feel like she was about to vomit out her own entrails. Her throat went stiff and she felt herself choking, unable to breathe properly, and her tail and legs began to twitch violently. Curious, another one of the soldiers motioned the unicorn to stop, and stepped closer to Applejack. "It's not supposed to be hitting her this hard," he muttered, loud enough to be heard through his helmet, in a tone that showed no caring for the mare's well being, but clear interest in what he was seeing. He also had a look around at other soldiers lying even closer to the machine. "See? They're not taking it that bad. There's something weird about this one." "We'll have time to figure that out later," grunted the other, annoyed. She lit her horn again and returned to dragging Applejack forward. But she stopped herself just a moment later as she heard another noise, even louder than the machine's piercing screech and deep rumbling. It was a clear sound, like a glass bell playing a note, coming from the centre of town. It was not so much loud as it was permeating, sounding equally as distinct in every point without losing volume as it traversed the distance. She turned towards it, as did all the other ponies there who could. A pillar of clear white light could be seen rising against the sky from the centre of the Crystal Empire. Its source was unclear, hidden by all the buildings between its position and theirs, but its height was impressive. Though hard to judge given the distance and lack of reference points, it still clearly dwarfed what could still be seen of the cut off and broken central tower. In a few seconds however its light dimmed and dwindled, and soon after it faded completely, like a thin wire consumed by flames in just a matter of moments. The soldiers stared at where the pillar had been, confusion easy to read on them even with their faces obscured. One among them began to ask, "What do you think that wa-" He did not get to finish his question. Just as he was speaking, a loud and violent explosion erupted from the portal, knocking away heavily armoured soldiers and other ponies alike and shattering the machine close to it in the process. As her eyes readjusted after the blinding flash of light and her ears slowly freed themselves of the ringing in them Applejack found herself bruised and hurt near Pinkie and the stallion accompanying them, and near a group of enemy soldiers coming back to their hooves and senses, all of them freed from the machine's influence. > Excavate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you ever gone through the archives?" The soldier furrowed his brow, and shook his head. "Not the restricted section, right?" "The public one, don't worry about it," said the one next to him. "I'm not going to admit treason in the middle of a battle. So you've never been there, huh? Been to the library at least?" "I never found much reason to," the soldier said. "I figured if there was anything I needed to read to be a better guard then they would tell me about it. I'd rather have spent my time elsewhere, I did reading enough in school." The other soldier, armoured slightly more heavily than the first one, groaned and looked at the sky as he rolled his eyes. "The greatest wealth of information available in the whole country and it's wasted on ponies like you. I would have let them cut my pay if it meant I could be permanently stationed in the capital." He looked at the machine quietly buzzing near the portal for a moment, sighing. "Anyway. There's lots of records available on official discussions held throughout the centuries to find there. Fascinating stuff, honestly." "Why do you bring that up?" asked the other soldier, momentarily taking off his helmet with his magic to run a hoof through his purple mane. It wasn't the heavy, protective kind of helmet some of the soldiers there wore, just a regular head piece. Still useful for keeping his head safe, even if it messed up his manestyle. "I was getting to that." The stallion, an orange-coated earth pony, cleared his throat. "There's this one transcription from two hundred years ago or so, it was a discussion on the topic of civilians being allowed to have weapons, among other things. And in it there's this one pony, he was against the idea, who said something along the line of, if I'm remembering right-" he cleared his throat again "-if everypony has a weapon, what even is a weapon anymore?" "Sounds like a really stupid sentence that he probably thought sounded nicer in his head," said the unicorn. "Why do you bring that up though?" The other stallion gave a nod towards a couple of mutated ponies walking around the crossroad, guarded at a distance by a couple of other armed soldiers. "I was reminded of it." He gave a look around to the whole area and the soldiers in it. "If everypony is a weapon, what even is a pony anymore?" The unicorn stared flatly at him. "That also sounds like you thought it was cool when you came up with it. It's not. At least you didn't have it written down and recorded for all future generations to see." "Like future generations are going to be reading anything, if you're any indication that's not going to happen." The stallion coughed. "Besides, if they're going to be reading about this battle they're not going to be reading the truth about it. They're not going to be told about the losses or the time it took." "I thought you didn't want to get caught saying certain stuff." "Eh. I'll take the risk for this one." > Era > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Though everyone was still clearly confused in the explosion's initial aftermath, it became quickly clear that the soldiers were taking notice of how the intruders had freed themselves, and were about to take action against it. Applejack barely had time to notice, as she frantically looked around, that the portal itself was no longer there. Whatever had happened, they had in some way succeeded, most likely a different group had. That at least meant they could run away from there without needing to worry about it. But with how things were shaping up, she was unsure if they'd be able to do so. Soldiers were already heading towards her and she'd definitely been worse off than they had just moments before. Her only real choice was to retreat and hope she wasn't hit while doing so, but even rushing backwards wasn't much of an option when she knew there were soldiers behind her as well. She saw the horns of a few charging as they took aim, directed by the more heavily armoured ones who'd regained their footing and were taking charge of the rest. "Stop it!" Pinkie's shout broke the building tension, allowing for a moment of quiet as suddenly everyone focused on her. Applejack used it to rush to her companion, and doing so noticed what else was keeping things still. Evidently having paralysed him with one of her shots, Pinkie had grabbed hold of an enemy unicorn and was keeping him close to her chest with his neck exposed, while the stallion together with them pointed his horn at said neck. "One move and he gets it," she barked towards the other soldiers, her mane noticeably less puffy than usual. Applejack could see the fear evident in the white stallion's eyes as she approached, darting terrorised between her, the other unicorn, and the soldiers up ahead. He'd probably been knocked down by the machine just as they had, going by his lack of any heavier form of protection. He didn't even have an helmet on, his purple curls exposed, though it had probably simply been knocked off during the explosion. Once she'd reached her friend's side, Applejack turned again. She could see, and sense, the uncertainty in Pinkie's body and in that of the stallion holding his horn pointed to their prisoner's neck. Slowly they began to back away, muscles tense, unsure of what would happen next. "Let us go and nothing bad will happen to him," Pinkie added, though her voice struck as less determined than it had been the previous time. Most soldiers looked around, waiting for orders. Not the ones straight ahead of the trio, staring at them through the slits in their helms. One of them charged their horn again. Applejack just barely managed to dodge to the side, while the other two rolled the opposite way. Where Pinkie had been standing, and by extension where the stallion she was holding in front of her had been just a moment before, was a small and smoking scorched crater left in the crystal ground. Ponies on both ends of the conflict got the message rather quickly. Pinkie, Applejack, and the unicorn with them, still carrying their prisoner, began to run and rush towards the closest edge of the crossroad, while behind them spells flew through the air aiming at them and ponies began to give chase. > Morphology of Storms > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luna was aware, dreadfully aware, that she wouldn't get more than one shot at doing what she planned to. She was also aware of what would come after, regardless of her success or lack thereof. Or aware of what wouldn't come, maybe. She wouldn't get to see any of it, unless some miracle happened. She'd learnt, in fairness, to not discount the possibility of miracles, but she did not count on one. There was something funny about the mental image of dying, she thought. She wouldn't have said so on the topic of someone else's death, but she did find it there in her own, precisely because it was her own. She would not really get to see it clearly, or perceive it properly. Others would, but her? Would the shock make her numb? Would her brain even know, would her body realise it was dying? What did it feel like? She'd probably find out. Maybe funny wasn't the right word. Hysterical, maybe. A kind of emotion she couldn't really place, like her mind rejected it, turning to laughter to drown out the grief. Maybe it was bittersweet. Maybe it was just sad. Maybe it was all of that and more, something bigger than her, something too big for a mind to contemplate properly. Maybe that was why ponies rarely truly thought about their own. She had the luxury, or maybe the curse, of knowing hers was coming. Those condemned to pay for a crime with their lives also did, she supposed, and they had usually a longer time to contemplate the fact. Not that there ever had been many of those. Not under her at least, and as far as she knew her sister had not changed things during her absence. Other cultures, in other places and times, may well have adopted the practice though. And deathly ill creatures were in a similar situation, though they did not know the moment as clearly as she did then. She wanted to say she was somehow different from the examples she'd brought to mind. That she was special. She was, after all, a special creature, and that she could admit without being driven by pride. But the truth was, she wished to say herself different because she knew she was not. She was, as all those who had been in a situation like hers, afraid. Afraid to the point she refused to acknowledge her fear, to even look at it, because she knew she would be lost in its sheer size if she did. Perhaps she was even below the standing of others, who may have been faced with a situation like hers and embraced it with more courage than she was about to. But regardless, she would proceed. She did not have a choice, that was true, but neither did she wish to plead for one, be it with Harmony or with her enemy. She accepted things. Not bravely, not without fear and uncertainty and regret, but she chose to follow through on them. And whatever would happen, whether she succeeded or not, whether it mattered or not, she hoped she would at least let go with the knowledge that she'd tried her best. In the end, maybe that was the most anyone could do. > Fabrications > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bolts of magic flew after the group, narrowly missing them and streaking by. While carrying him along slowed them slightly down, the stallion knew that holding their prisoner as a shield behind them was likely doing at least something to throw off the aim of some soldiers. And if he died in the process it would be unfortunate, but it would be from a spell that would have killed one of them otherwise. They had not been too far from a road when they'd been knocked down, and they were close to it and getting closer still. Whether they would make it was another matter, as was what they would do after. The unicorn threw up what few illusion spells he could to disoriented the soldiers behind them, and Pinkie was aimlessly chucking balloons backwards in hopes of catching something or at least causing a distraction, but it all at best could buy them some time. The mutated ponies, though knocked down by the explosion, where getting back up, and if they were sent after them things would end pretty quickly. Magic blasts they could try to dodge, but they had no way to deal with simply being outsped. The ground suddenly shifted under their hooves as magic flowed through it and a wall of light blue crystals sprouted ahead of them. For a moment the unicorn faltered in his steps, but seeing the others running still and knowing what was behind them he chose to keep on running as well. They had no time to stop or find another way. Up ahead, when she quickly got to the wall, Applejack bluntly smashed through it with her shoulder and kept on running while keeping most of her momentum, and soon after Pinkie and the unicorn followed in through the breach she'd opened. They managed to get into the road, but by the sounds of crystals being crushed behind them they knew it didn't matter much. And by the way some of his mane was shaved off and singed, the unicorn knew the spellslingers chasing them were starting to aim better. Running was all they could reasonably do, but it wouldn't do much if they were simply too slow to get away. Suddenly, up ahead the stallion saw Applejack moving towards the side of the road, towards a tall building, perhaps another hotel like the one they'd passed through while reaching the crossroad. At first he thought she may be planning to enter it, and possibly attempt to hide inside. What she did instead was head straight for the corner section of it, and slam into it as hard as she could manage. Both him and Pinkie just a little ahead realised what was happening and quickened their run as much as they could, against the protest of their lungs and legs, pushing themselves into a last sprint while Applejack kept tearing through the side of the building as it began to collapse forward onto the road. It felt like they made it through just barely. As the building collapsed behind them and dust and rubble rolled forward to their sides, they did not stop to look back. They did not ask themselves if the soldiers and creatures chasing them had been caught in its fall or if they'd avoided it by staying back. They just ran, and they ran until they suddenly entered another building, and only once they'd entered it and found a room to hide in did they finally allow themselves a moment to rest. > A Stranger I Remain > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was then and there, as the trio let themselves lay down and catch their breath, that their attention fell on the one thing they'd ended up carrying with them from the crossroad. Who was still surprisingly alive, and unsurprisingly terrified. The three of them exchanged glances, all unsure of what exactly to do, and it was Pinkie who took action first. She approached the white unicorn with a potion, stored in a proper vial and not a balloon. "Promise me you'll stay quiet," she softly said, then she poured the contents onto his paralysed body. As could easily be expected, he did not stay quiet. He in fact attempted to do the opposite. Precisely because it could easily be expected, the other unicorn in the room was ready, and held the soldier's mouth shut with his magic as soon as he tried to scream. The soldier tried to use his own magic, but he found it still wasn't answering him despite his movements no longer being restricted. After a bit of attempted thrashing around, he swallowed and went silent of his own volition. "Keep quiet or we freeze you up again," Applejack said to him. The stallion nodded, and his mouth was released. He spoke more quietly, but rather defensively. "You threatened to murder me," he hissed at the three ponies. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't rebel against you." "I wasn't actually going to kill you," Pinkie said. "I would never, and Twilight wouldn't like that anyway. I was just bluffing." "I wasn't, and I would have killed you," the other unicorn said flatly. "That's why I was the one pointing my horn at you." "Well, it's not like your comrades out there were against killing you either," Applejack interjected. "Didn't look to me like they cared if we did something to you or not. In fact they seemed pretty eager to do the job themselves." "They did do that." The white unicorn stared into the distance for a moment. "They almost murdered me," he said, more quietly. Then he focused on Applejack. He tilted his head, studying her. "How curious," he said. "So?" the other unicorn asked. "So what?" the soldier snapped towards him. "I'm your prisoner of war. A rather useless one to you considering what you just saw happen. Do whatever you want, but don't expect me to cooperate. I'll only avoid stabbing you in the back out of respect for basic warring decency, but don't think death is enough of a threat for me to follow you around or help you. I'd rather die trying to escape you than fight at your side or obey your orders." "You'd really rather go back to the ponies who almost shot you dead?" asked Applejack. "Rather than be with the enemy? Of course," defiantly said the soldier. "You would do the same in my place." "The enemy, huh?" Applejack moved closer to the stallion. "What are you fighting for? Not your side. You." She stood in front of him and stared him down. "Because I'm fighting to defend my country. Because you attacked us. You invaded us, unprompted, planning to take over our cities, and if we didn't have a way around it you would have slaughtered our soldiers and placed our citizens into slavery." She slammed a hoof in the wall behind him to the side of his head as she pushed him back against it with her presence. The impact left a few cracks around where she'd hit. "So tell me. Why are you fighting? Why are we the enemy?" > Infuse > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What would you do if you knew for sure we weren't going to make it here?" "Run away. Run as far away from Equestria as I can manage. Grab a few things I want with me along the way, and then keep going. There's a town across the desert, I've heard, I'd go there. I wouldn't stop there though. Maybe I'd go towards Seaquestria. I wouldn't stop there either, too close. I don't know for sure what's farther out than that, but I'd find out. Find the place farthest away from Equestria I can find and hope they never get there while I'm alive. And I'd hope an army would move slower than a single pony on the run." "You'd abandon your country just because of one battle? You wouldn't help with the rest of the war?" "There won't be a war. If we don't win here, it'll be either subjugation or a slaughter. This is not just a battle and you know it. All our alicorns are here. The Elements are here. Everything we have, we have it here, and if Princess Twilight is to be believed this is the least the enemy can put out. Considering she's out there risking her life, I'd trust her words. We won't have a better chance, and if we lose here we won't have anything left to even take a second chance. There is no war. Only this battle. That's what it's like when alicorns get involved." "You don't believe in the possibility of a resistance? You wouldn't try to fight back in any way?" "I don't doubt some would. But no resistance will lead to victory in those circumstances. No pony has a chance to defeat Nightmare Moon if our alicorns combined couldn't. She may not be able to fully crush an organised resistance, but we'd never win. We'd be just an annoying nest of bugs she can't fully get rid of, but we'd never have hope to retake the country. A nuisance and nothing else. And for what? She'd just wait us out. She would outlast us all, and our children, and their children. The resistance would lose members faster than it could ever manage to gain new ones. Eventually she would crush the last of us. It's a useless struggle we could only prolong by a few generations. That's how it is. This is a battle between alicorns, we're just in the way." "You don't believe in doing the right thing for the sake of it?" "I believe saving as many lives as possible would count as doing the right thing, and given the circumstances that amounts to my own and those of anyone else who might decide to follow me. There's no point in dying a hero if there's no revolution for you to inspire, no one to admire your sacrifice for more than a few generations. I'd rather live on the run than die a useless death." "But you wouldn't submit." "Never. I'm not giving up freedom more than I have to. Even if it's just on a theoretical level. Even if I could be more free a subject of hers than a fugitive. It's about principles, there. But I'm not dying for it, there's no freedom in that. At least I'd get to see the world." > Exo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon came forward. It wouldn't have been right to say that she moved, or dashed or rushed or anything else. She existed herself closer to Luna, in the way a house if willing might take a step back when shot. Every bit as unnatural and surreal as it could be, and yet indescribable in any other way. Nightmare Moon wasn't close to Luna before, and she became close to Luna after, and in the process her being undeniably changed position linearly between the two places. To say she moved still didn't feel right after seeing her. She came to be in front of Luna. Luna was not unprepared, but she couldn't have been ready. She'd known that. She'd been accounting for that. She'd planned around that. None of it made it any less painful when it happened. None of it prepared her for the moment Nightmare Moon's wings, or presumably what had been her wings when she'd been a pony, stabbed through her chest. Luna knew in that moment that she was already dead. No magic or potion could repair the damage done, not that she even had something left to repair where the other had struck. She was living on borrowed time. Her only regret, upon becoming aware of it, was not having enough time to properly appreciate her own demise. She'd been building up magic as she'd waited for Nightmare Moon to strike. But not for a blow of her own, not quite, and she hadn't been simply amassing power. She'd been working on something more refined, more complex than that. Carefully weaving energy around the structure of the dream and the form itself of her powers, weakening the barrier between deep dreams, reality, and the realm they were in. Carefully forging a connection. It was something she'd once deemed an impossible feat in any useful capacity. She'd thought much the same about the possibility of what she was witnessing with her eyes and feeling within her own body, where her heart had been. It would still be close to what she'd predicted. An unstable connection, not meant to exist, able to sustain itself only long enough for reality to acknowledge it shouldn't have been there. Not enough to extract anything meaningful from it if not by pure instinct, and certainly not anything that wouldn't have shattered when brought out of the dream. And yet in the circumstances they were in, that pittance was all Luna needed. As Luna began to die, the bubble she'd created began to shatter. The border between the dream and reality began to fade, and just for an instant the two existed together. As the dimension they were in and that of true dreaming touched just for a moment, Luna drew something from one to the other. Nothing complicated or fancy, nothing that took too much thought for her straining, fading mind. Just energy. Directionless, formless, it didn't matter. The kind of ceaseless, infinitely bright energy that could only exist in a dream. It would fade in the real world. But it would exist along with Nightmare Moon in the space in between, and that single moment when it would was going to be enough. Nightmare Moon, for just an instant, was showered in a torrent of power that shouldn't possibly have existed. Alike Luna's blasts in the dream world, and yet real and tangible and there. A silver blast of energy great enough to annihilate anything in its path, enough to turn a mountain range to dust and smoke and still carry on, real for the tiniest fraction of time that could be. The black sphere encasing the two shattered, and a pillar of light surged towards the sky as the dream finally crashed into reality. Then it slowly faded. Luna's body fell to the ground, limp, blood pouring like a river from the hollowed out wound that occupied most of her chest. > Emerald > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm a soldier," said the unicorn. "Enrolled in the Guard back home, during peaceful times if I can add. And I spent most of my time guarding a castle no one ever tried to break into. I didn't get a choice coming here when the country decided to attack. They would have shot me dead or worse if I'd tried to run away." Applejack hesitated a little, drawing slightly back, but she still pressed on. "You don't say that like you regret coming here." "I don't," said the unicorn. "Like I said, the alternative was dying in the best case. I could have done without being captured, almost killed, and knocked to the ground by that damned thing, but I don't regret coming here. All of that is your fault, anyway." Applejack had another twitch of rage, but she contained herself and didn't smash the unicorn's head against the wall. He noticed that. He seemed unimpressed. "Don't you even care who you're fighting against?" she barked at him. "Don't you care what the battle is for?" "None of my business. I might be curious about it, but I'm just following orders, same as everyone else does in Equestria. We don't get an alternative, but I've never had a reason to complain." He straightened himself against the wall. "Ponies die all the time. Traitors being executed, rebels being dealt with, criminals being caught. If you didn't want to die, you could have surrendered." Applejack had a small outburst at that. "And let Nightmare Moon take over our lives and murder our princesses?" "Yeah." The stallion's tone was dead serious. "What's your alternative? Fighting back, and risking death in the process, and worse consequences than what would have happened had you surrendered? You chose that. Willingly, I hope, and knowing what you were going towards. Don't blame me for it." Applejack's breath got a little heavy, but she turned away from the stallion, almost growling. "Don't you give a damn about ponies' freedom?" "You had your freedom, and your freedom was choosing between surrender, fighting back, or running away. Mine was choosing between fighting or being branded a traitor. What you call freedom has its limits too, you were just fortunate enough to have them be outside the scope of your wants. Now we've come to limit your supposed freedom, but nothing has really changed. You still have your ability to decide. Now you just realise you were always just playing with what the world allowed you to." Applejack turned to say something, but he stood up and approached her, speaking before she could. "You call what you had freedom because you grew up with it, and never learned a need for anything outside those boundaries. Because you learned there were consequences if you crossed them. I grew up in what was probably a smaller box than yours, in that sense, but I learned to call it freedom too. Give it a couple generations, if we win, and the ponies here will see it the same way. You've got every right to hate me for trying to limit what you have, but I don't regret any of it. We're doing the same thing." Applejack was quiet for a moment, holding the stallion's stare. "Don't you have morals?" "I've got no god to uphold them but the one that's sent me here. We're different, me and you, but we're the same. Don't pretend you would have been better in my stead, whatever you think better means. Don't pretend you would have been different. I wouldn't have in yours." > Staff > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "She's stable for now," said the doctor, looking over Starlight one more time before turning to the other ponies. "She should make it if nothing else happens to her." The unicorn was lying over a stretcher. Next to it on the ground was a pile of blood-soaked bandages, but the ones on her were cleaner. The spell she'd been hit with had left a wound that wouldn't close, it had taken the doctors a bit to figure out a way to deal with it. They had, eventually, but it had been a close thing. While she'd initially regained some consciousness, Starlight had passed out again, likely due to blood loss. She had a needle going into a vein on her front leg, attached to a tube that went to a bag hanging next to her stretcher. She would survive, like the doctor had said, but it would take a bit for her to be okay again. "If." Trixie could be seen visibly twitching, clearly pushing back something else. "Like that's easy. We're right in the middle of a battle!" The doctor swallowed and looked down. Another guard nearby spoke up. "If they get here we'll probably all be dead anyway." Sunburst was still shaking slightly, biting his own teeth in nervousness, but after a brief jolt he started to head for the door. "Where are you going?" Trixie asked. "Starlight was supposed to help guard Rarity and Fluttershy." He turned back towards her. "That means they need someone else now, and I'm the best replacement available." Trixie opened her mouth to say something, but stayed silent. Her eyes lingered on Sunburst for a bit, then she looked to Starlight again. "Be careful out there," she said. Sunburst nodded, turned again, and went out the door, accompanied by a couple of guards. Trixie watched him go, and watched the door he'd left from still for a while after, then she let out a shaky sigh and moved closer to Starlight. She didn't quite lean over her, though she would have liked to, she didn't want to disturb her in her conditions. A few guards around her looked at the scene, awkwardly unsure if there was anything to do about it. Trixie at points looked like she was about to burst into tears. Eventually she shook her head and headed back towards the nearest wall, to go sit there. Out of the building, Sunburst made his way to the top of a nearby one, always accompanied by the guards with him. The situation outside the centre of town was hard to judge. There were some visible conflicts still ongoing, but it was hard to shake the feeling that things were largely stalling, waiting for something else. He cast a weary glance towards the black sphere close by before entering the building. How long would it last? He got to the roof fairly quickly. Rarity and Fluttershy greeted him with somber nods. They'd heard the news already. From up there, he could see a little more of the town. He could clearly see the line of crushed and destroyed buildings that stopped just a little outside of the centre, the one left by the spell Starlight had dealt with. While there he gave another look to the half destroyed tower as well. All things considered, they'd been lucky that far. A lot more ponies could have gotten a lot more than hurt. He hoped he would manage to keep doing his part. > Storm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I had a dream, a few days ago," Rarity said, evidently trying to make some small talk happen while they waited. She knew Fluttershy wasn't in the mood, and she herself wasn't either if she was being honest, but they both knew it would be better than the silence. Stars had they grown to loathe the silence, and the bad news that seemed to be the only thing to ever break it. "It was weird." "I have weird dreams sometimes," Fluttershy replied half-heartedly. She too spoke mostly to fill the void. "Especially after..." She quietly nodded towards the tips of her wings. "Before that too sometimes though. Hanging around Discord so much, I think." She clicked her tongue. "What was yours about?" "I'm not sure I could tell you, because I'm not sure I know myself," said Rarity. "I can tell you what happened in it though. I was older, I think, I suppose that makes it a hopeful dream." She shook that out of her head. "I was... I'd done something to my body, or something had been done to my body, but it felt all very willing on my part either way. My cutie mark." She nodded towards it. "It had actual gems planted in my body. Not the only thing of that kind either. I think I had a collar of some kind, or some other golden neck ornament, embedded into my flesh. A few more jewels in some spots, and pieces of clothing sewn into my skin." Fluttershy looked oddly at Rarity, tilting her head to the side, an uncertain look in her eyes. "That sounds rather grim," she said. "It does," Rarity said. "And yet I wasn't bothered by it. Quite the contrary, I think. I enjoyed it. It's difficult to remember now exactly what it felt like in a dream, but in some way I think I was proud of it. Like I'd made myself into a work of art." After some brief silence, Fluttershy said, "I see." She only spoke to have something to hear, but Rarity didn't blame her. "Would you ever consider doing something like that?" Rarity paused for a second, her mouth half open, her teeth resting on her lower lip. "I've never considered it before. But... I don't know. I don't immediately find myself repulsed by the idea. In somewhat of a morbid way, it fascinates me. I can't say with certainty I would do it, but I can't say I wouldn't either. It's not something I'd probably seek out but the idea is there in my head now." "Isn't it a little presumptuous? To present your own self as an art piece?" Fluttershy pulled on and looked at a few straightened strands of her mane. Either sweat or nervousness had made it lose part of its curve and almost fall over her eyes. Rarity looked at Fluttershy. The miscoloured streak in the pink of her mane and the feathers at the tip of her wings. "We all dedicate ourselves to what we find has value, and I think art deserves a certain respect. What is life for without it?" She smirked, playing up her tone a little. "And if the pursuit of our ideals is to take a toll on our own bodies, so be it. I'd never do something like that on a creature other than me." > Dra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So did we get her or not?" "We don't know for sure, Sir," said the soldier. "We hit her, but it seems she managed to make it back to safety even with her wounds." "Were they deadly wounds?" "Possibly, Sir. Possibly not. It depends on their doctors' talents." The stallion grumbled and shook his head, then looked instead to the machine close by. "Can we get it running again at least?" "We're working on it, Sir," came the soldier's reply. "That's not an answer. I asked if it can be turned on again. That's a yes or no question. All the time you spend trying to figure out the answer to that question is time wasted when you should have been working on getting it running again if the answer is yes or doing something else of actual value if the answer is no. Do you understand?" "Yes, Sir." "Then please stop standing here and go do something." The soldier almost replied again, then quickly made his way to a nearby group. With him out of the way, the large stallion turned to a pegasus that had been waiting for her chance to speak. "Found anything yet?" "No, Sir," she said. "No signs of any enemies approaching." "That's bad," the stallion muttered. The mare seemingly took offence to that, evident in her slight shift in posture and the look in her eyes even if she stayed quiet. He noticed that, and he explained unprompted, "They're coming here. Whether it's a group or a single pony or whatever, someone is coming. And you are supposed to find them before they're here." The pegasus looked even more bothered by that. "Are you implying we've been doing our jobs poorly, Sir?" she asked. "I'm stating it clearly," he replied. "And if enemy ponies show up here without any warning about them from you and your team, you can bet you will be losing your position when this is all over, and I'll have you put on trial for everything that happens to the ponies here as a result." The mare clearly struggled to keep her mouth shut. "Mud-dweller," she quietly hissed, low enough that the stallion couldn't prove she'd said anything. He stared her down, then dismissed her with a brusque wave of his hoof. "Get back to failing at your job, please." He didn't wait for her to leave, instead he turned around and walked away towards a different group of ponies. Only more bothered by his attitude, the mare grunted and then walked off as well. "Any news?" the stallion asked as he approached the other group. "None, Sir," answered one of the ponies there. "Any orders?" "Same ones as before." The stallion looked rather nervous about the situation, if one took him to be the type to display nervousness through external anger. One of the others took notice of that. "Worried about intrusions, Sir?" he asked, attempting a guess. "Among other things," the stallion replied. "None of this should be taking so long and none of those things we're having to fight against should be there. I'll have some words to share with the ponies that were supposed to spy on this place before we got here." > Crab > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You look like you barely slept." "Guess why." "Thought you'd think about going to sleep early knowing what was coming today." "I can't just knock myself to sleep, On'. Not when my head doesn't want me to." "Nervous about the war?" "And you aren't? I suppose you've done actual work as a guard before. They never called me though, didn't think they ever would. I was honestly fine running my shop, I shouldn't have signed in hindsight. Too late to run away." "I feel like you're skipping pieces, Clip." "Happens when the only sleep I got was a few hours forced by exhaustion and I'm probably on the verge of a mental breakdown." "Okay. Listen. They'll see you're not doing too well, they'll probably keep you in the back. I'll put in a word for you if I can, too. Don't do anything stupid." "Like I haven't done enough stupid things in my life already. At least I'd be remembered for something." "Clip." "Clip what? Am I wrong? I'm a footnote in ponies' lives at best. They remember me less than the place they meet me in and they don't care about that place in the first place. Has anyone ever thought there was anything noteworthy about a shop? I'm a background character in history." "You're a very tired stallion is what you are. And you're my friend, and you've got a family too." "I've got parents that sooner or later will die and now my friend is going to do the same trying to conquer a damn city that's not even in our world." "I'm not going to die." "That's what ponies do in war, On'. This isn't a patrol mission in a town where nothing ever happens because a wild animal knocked something over and the mayor is a paranoid freak who sees signs of rebels everywhere. You're going out there to kill and the ponies on the other side are going to do the same, and if you die I'm going to be left with nothing." "You'll still have your family. And your shop. And your life." "Nothing that will have me remembered. And let's be honest if you die out there then I'm doing the same, you're a better soldier than me." "You should have said it sooner that this thing was getting to your head. They would have done something about it." "Sent me back to being a nobody? At least if I die here my name will end up somewhere. Maybe if we only lose a few I'll even be remembered." "You're not making any sense." "I can't even feel the way time moves right now. I'm pretty sure if I drank something I would vomit. I am not doing well and I at least have the decency to recognise that I'm probably spitting nonsense and I am not in a right state of mind. If I do anything even stupider than what I've done in my life so far, please try to stop me. Okay?" "...Okay." > Same > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lyra pressed her back against the wall and kept Bon Bon's mouth closed with her magic as she did the same, while the gaze of the pegasus on the roof above them just barely missed them. She was frowning deep in thought, breathing heavily but quietly. "I've got it," she said to Bon Bon, keeping her tone low but failing to rid it of her nervousness. "I've got it. Wait just a little longer." Bon Bon was possibly even more nervous. Their approach to things in an attempt to get Lyra close enough to the portal was being borderline suicidal. She'd done similar things in her past, when she'd had a plan, but she'd never been on the receiving end of that sort of insanity. Moreover, she'd never wanted for someone she loved to be in that kind of situation. Not someone she knew outside of her work at least, not someone who hadn't signed a contract knowing they'd be in situations like that. It all came down to whether she trusted Lyra and how much. And she did. She trusted her with her life. But she'd never thought that would actually be relevant. And trusting someone with your life didn't necessarily mean you'd let them prepare you a blowroot dish without being properly trained to separate the poison from the edible part first, she'd reasoned. On the other hoof though, Lyra had displayed a staggering streak of successes of the kind that couldn't possibly just be blind luck. Of the kind Bon Bon wasn't even sure she had an explanation for. So when Lyra gave her a nod and darted forward around the corner, she followed her without question. When Lyra pointed her a direction to run in, she went that way. When the first couple of bolts from enemy soldiers missed both of them by centimetres, she chose to think they hadn't just been lucky, even if reason was screaming that was the only possible explanation. And when she found a charged horn pointed at her face and saw more ponies ready to strike as Lyra, after somehow perfectly dodging a couple more shots, stopped in her tracks to charge her spell, her heart began to shatter as she thought it was all over. Then there was a sound. Crystal clear, a note like a glass bell permeating the air. A light shining from the centre of town as a pillar rose towards the sky. Just a moment of distraction, a moment where ponies looked elsewhere or misaimed. Lyra's spell left her horn and she dodged another shot. Her horn lit again as she stopped a pony trying to stop her projectile before he'd even started moving. Then there was an explosion. Everything went white, and piercingly loud. Bon Bon was knocked against the nearest wall by the force of the blast. In her dazed state however, she distantly felt herself being moved. Slowly the ringing in her ears stopped, the white brightness faded from her eyes. She wasn't where she'd been anymore. Lyra was carrying her, her own eyes still closed and just slightly opening. Her mane was messed up, and she had cuts on her coat, but nothing worse than surface wounds and deep scratches. They were walking down an alley. No soldier had followed them yet. Perhaps more importantly, they'd succeeded. > Descent > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon stood over Luna's body, her own blood joining the other alicorn's on the crystal ground beneath them. Her wings were singed and her face was scarred, her armour burnt and torn by heat, and the gash in her chest did not close even as her inner magic continously tried to make it so. If she'd had the time to do one thing, she would have made sure Luna was properly dead. She didn't care how much the hollowed out crater in her chest already ensured that, she would have torn her head off and maybe crushed it too. She didn't get a chance to do that, and barely the time to conceive of it as she looked at the body in front of her. The next thing she knew was pain, and just slightly after that the source of it in a beam of golden and purple light hitting her face with all the seeming intention of ripping it off. It burned through her skin and into her flesh, and charred the bones in her skull. All she could do was step back and instinctively put up a shield to defend herself. The shield did not hold. Another bolt of energy crashed through it, wider than the first, and hit her square in the chest over the still open wound Luna had left. Nightmare Moon hissed and stepped back again, blindly throwing up more useless shields that the magic beam tore through while her eyes healed enough for her to actually see what was attacking her. She'd almost expected some kind of weapon. What she saw might very well have been scarier. Twilight Sparkle, eyes alight with power and mane sparkling as it floated by itself, shot at her with spells powerful enough they would have most likely left a smoking trail of destruction all through the city and for far longer out of it if she'd missed with any one of them. None of them did. She hammered at Nightmare Moon with blow after blow of magic capable of vaporising anything in their path. Even the air took on a metallic smell as her energy sailed through it. As powerful as her attacks were however, they were not anywhere near as strong as what Luna had previously unleashed, and did not have as much of an impact on Nightmare Moon's body. They hurt, but the old wounds healed faster than the new ones appeared, and Twilight only kept the upper end of the offensive because her enemy was still recovering. And she was recovering. Not fully, she still was forced to remain on the defensive end of things, but Nightmare Moon slowly yet surely got better and better at holding back against Twilight's barrage of attacks. She retreated still, didn't attack, but less and less shots were actually reaching her. Her shields grew stronger, her counterspells more powerful, a few times she stalled some of Twilight's beams with blasts of her own. Twilight's blindly wrathful charge would have effortlessly torn almost any other enemy asunder, but to Nightmare Moon it was proving to be only a very, very annoying inconvenience. > Root > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bon Bon stared out the door of the house they'd slid into for a moment, then drew back in. "Mind finally telling me what's up with you?" It had only been a couple minutes at most. Soldiers were probably still looking for them, and they wouldn't stay there long, but for the time being they were resting there for a moment and hoping they wouldn't come that way. They'd gained enough of a lead by escaping while everyone was still blinded that the soldiers couldn't be sure where they'd headed towards, and Lyra was masking their tracks as best she could too in case they tried to trace them. She looked unnaturally tired, and she'd been the one to ask they rest there for a moment. She was lying on a couch, breathing heavily. Her mane was messier than the commotion accounted for, the kind of messiness stress created. "Do you have a coin with you?" she asked, turning slightly towards Bon Bon. Bon Bon was too confused by the question to answer it at first, staring at Lyra and blinking instead. "Of- Of course I don't have a coin on me! What's this about anyway?" "Do you think they have a coin around here?" Lyra asked, looking around. "It'll be easier if I show you. You're going to ask me to prove it to you anyway." "Prove what?" Bon Bon asked, getting closer. Her tone was raised, but still kept in check to avoid making their position known to anyone in the vicinity. Shaking her head and dropping herself back on the couch, Lyra just sighed. "Ten seconds," she said. Bon Bon paused. "Ten seconds what?" "That's how much I can pull back," said Lyra, looking at the ceiling while her body seemed to deflate under some unspecified strain. Bon Bon got a little closer. "Pull back?" Lyra nodded. "You know when I dodged all those blasts from that one spell? I did that by trial and error. Took me about half an hour, if I had to give you an estimate. And no by the way, I can't chain it. I need to set it up in advance, though it sets itself up on its own if I let it be, so that's convenient. I think it also works by itself if I go into shock, but I've never actually tried considering that would be risking death and I don't know if I wasn't just reacting on instinct." Bon Bon got closer still, a confused expression on her face, shaking her head slightly. "Slow down a little." "Just answering questions." "I didn't ask any of those questions." "Not this time. Because I already answered them." Lyra turned to Bon Bon. "I'm not going to bother doing it again right now. I'm too tired for it. Go for it if you have anything else you want to know." Bon Bon swallowed. She got to the couch and sat down beside Lyra. "How long?" "Couple of months or so, at most. Probably closer to weeks." "How did you find out?" "By chance. I think that's how most find out, unless it's the kind that bashes them in the face." "Why didn't you tell anyone?" "Because it was fun. It was silly. It was for optimising time and pulling harmless stunts to look cool. I didn't think we'd end up in a situation like this." "Why didn't you tell me when you knew we would though?" > Paid > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon backed into something. The small moment of surprise from that was enough for Twilight to get a good hit in, and one of her wings flew off, severed completely at the base. It began to regrow, while Nightmare Moon herself put up a stronger shield. Twilight had realised that just attacking wouldn't be enough, and she'd gotten smarter with her actions. Their clash was looking more like a proper duel, though one that still saw Nightmare Moon on the retreating end as her wounds still slowly healed. The one in her chest in particular refused to seal itself at anything more than a snail's pace, like the silvery fire that had burnt a hole in her was still consuming her flesh as it grew back. She teleported. A risky move even at a short distance like that. She couldn't afford to be backed against a wall. She'd touched the base of the Crystal Empire's central tower, and she teleported to what had become the top of it, where it had been severed from the remaining length by Sombra's magic. Twilight was on her before she'd even fully reappeared, accompanied by spells tracking her teleportation that smashed against Nightmare Moon's shield and cracked it. Twilight whipped her neck, dragging along a magical blade of golden light that cut through what was left of the shield and ground to a halt against another blade of magic Nightmare Moon put up to defend herself. A fit if black ichor burst from the stump of the alicorn's wing, followed by a newly formed one still drenched in her dark blood. Twilight let go of her blade, which dissipated into mist, and fired a bolt of magic straight ahead. Nightmare Moon was a little slower to let go of her blade, and forced to merely shoot a blast to counter Twilight's that still forced the blunt impact on her neck and made her step back. It had all happened within seconds. Twilight was far from done. She fired a rapid barrage of shots that travelled around and past Nightmare Moon, then curved in their trajectory to come back towards her. While that was happening, a smaller blade formed around her horn and she lunged forward in a series of quick stabs and slices and feints. Nightmare Moon parried, dodged, and weathered all blows and attacks, but she was still relegated to doing just that, and drawing farther back in the meantime. By choice of course, she was playing things safe. Luna's little stunt, as much as she did not want to admit it, had done actual damage and she would not risk Twilight capitalising on that any further. That didn't mean she didn't strike back. Powerful and smart as she may have been, Twilight was still clearly inexperienced in combat, still prone to leaving openings. It would most likely be trivial to deal with her once she chose to. For the time being, Nightmare Moon was content with using what openings she did find to keep the alicorn busy. She fired at her after a lunge that went too far and exposed her neck, after all her previous shots had already flown back. Twilight was forced to dispel her blade and deflect the blast. Nightmare Moon took her chance to play the aggressor for a while longer, conjuring up a projectile from below aimed at Twilight's chest. > Terra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia rushed outside as soon as she heard sounds. A few of the ponies there might have wanted to stop her, but none actually did. For that moment, if she'd been considering it, she would have been glad ponies still treated her as if she was on the throne. She was far too worried to even think about something like that though. And once she got outside, she found to her dismay she had good reason to be worried. Her entire world seemed to shrink to that one moment, that one bit of space that Luna's spell had occupied. Nightmare Moon and Twilight left that space, and to her it was like they didn't exist anymore. Her entire attention was focused on one thing and one thing alone, as she ran towards Luna's body without even feeling her limbs moving. Celestia kneeled down in front of her sister. The world around them was darkness and silence, the lonely spotlight over them the only thing in all of creation. She reached down with shaking hooves towards Luna, wanting and yet not wanting to see the wounds she'd suffered. She didn't acknowledge the pool of blood spreading below them and staining her coat, maybe she refused to, maybe she really couldn't. Her eyes settled on the gaping hole that had been Luna's chest. Everything turned to blurred shapes and colours as she looked at her sister's neck limp over her hooves as she held her. Tears started falling down her face as wordless cries escaped her throat and sobs wracked her frame. She whispered Luna's name among her whimpering, barely able to still say it. She hugged Luna's body, unsure of why she was even doing it, refusing to acknowledge her blood pouring over her coat. Even if she'd had her magic, there was nothing magic could do with that wound. She would have tried regardless, and it hurt to know she was powerless to even attempt anything, but she couldn't fault Twilight for her course of action. Luna had sacrificed herself for a reason, and it was right of Twilight to continue down that path. But Celestia did not, could not accept things being that way. The same way all ponies, and almost all creatures, refuse to accept the death of someone held dear in the face of it. She'd believed herself more accustomed to the nature of mortality, but that wasn't right. It wasn't fair. After everything she'd done and lived through and everything still to do, it wasn't fair for her sister to go, it wasn't right. And so Celestia did what all ponies do when wracked by grief and desperation. She tried to hold on to something, she looked for anything that could give her hope, even irrational, even futile. The way she would have tried to heal Luna's wounds with her magic, even knowing fully well that she would have failed. She did not have magic, not then, but she did have something. Something she'd chosen to ignore, to keep buried inside her out of fear. She didn't care anymore. Whatever it was, whatever it would be, it was at least something, and her mind could not take the nothing that was her alternative right then. She did not know what would come of it, but she did not care. She only cared about doing anything she could. Without hesitation, Celestia reached inwards, to the power she'd felt stirring within her and had refused to ever indulge. And she hoped with all herself that by some miracle it could still save her sister. > Starwrath > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight drew back just in time to shield herself against Nightmare Moon's blast. Having to switch to defending herself like that did mean that the other alicorn had a chance to get on the offensive, but even if she did she'd been remarkably subdued in her aggressiveness. Twilight was no expert in combat, but even she could tell that Nightmare Moon was mostly being defensive. The wound on her chest still hadn't fully healed, and it was most likely that she was trying to wait things out until it did. Nightmare Moon's subsequent attacks were powerful, but still rather contained. They were more like pokes, if Twilight had to compare the fight to a more physical duel, rather than full assaults. Something that didn't risk exposing the attacker, but was unlikely to get past the other's defence. Something mostly done to keep the situation as it was, one of them forced to shield herself and not given a chance to counterattack. If it had been a more physical duel, the kind fought with weapons or bare body parts, Twilight could have always regained the offensive by deflecting one of those pokes, maybe catching a blade or dodging a kick the right way. But there was little of that gain in parrying a magic shot, with the opponent still slightly at a distance and unaffected by what was done with their spells. Magic was a weapon, but it was unlike a weapon in that it could not so easily be removed from someone while it was used by them. But an idea did form in Twilight's mind. An idea that would have been really stupid and impractical under regular circumstances, and definitely something that magic fighting teachers would have to advise against if news ever got out that she'd done something like that, or if some student ever got a similar idea. But her circumstances were not the regular kind. The most simple approach to solving most issues is often the least practical, that being going at the problem straight on and brute forcing one's way through. For most problems, most creatures simply do not have the means to even consider attempting that kind of approach. Twilight was not most creatures. She'd wielded Celestia's powers before, alongside Luna's and Cadence's, but she'd been far less experienced back then. And far less angry. The moment she'd seen Luna bleeding on the ground, the moment she'd seen Nightmare Moon standing over her body, something had snapped inside of her. Some kind of internal caution about how she used her magic that her brain had simply ignored, completely bypassed as she'd fired at the alicorn without even thinking about what she was doing beyond making sure the spell hit her and not the town around her. And since that moment, it had felt like a whole new world of possibilities had opened to her. Celestia's whole magic, and parts of her own she'd never fully tapped into, spread through her body like fire flowing into her arteries. She did not have to worry much about how she did things, because she had enough power to just do them. And as Nightmare Moon's next blast came towards her, she did just that, pouring energy out of her horn as she shielded against the spell and fired one back at the same time, turning her entire shield into a wave of energy. > Gallivanting > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The guard dodged to the side as the wall crumbled where he'd been standing just moments before. He tried not to think about the sickly black tinge of the ground below him, knowing he had no alternative but to walk over it if he wanted to get to safety. If there even was safety anywhere. He tried to look around, seeing only more destruction close to him, but he was quickly distracted by a guttural roar close to him. He turned and saw the nightmarish creature advancing towards him. He hurled his weapon forward, but it merely bounced off the monster's skin. It was closing in on him with heavy steps, a deliberate slowness in its motions. The pony knew running away was not an option. He wouldn't be fast enough. He decided he would stay instead, and try to fight the creature. He would at most get a useless kick in and he knew that, but he refused to turn around and have death come without him looking at it. He didn't really have a plan. The monster was bigger than him, and by the way the spear had bounced off it probably wouldn't even flinch if he tried to hit it in any way. If he'd had wings he would have flown away from there, as risky as flying was with the black storm winds that had began to fill the city. Not that he would have known where to fly towards. With the central tower fully destroyed, and after the commotion that had passed, it was hard for him to tell what was where. The creature stepped closer. The guard realised he would need to guess when to dodge out of the way if he wanted to try that, because he wouldn't be fast enough to react to it once it got close enough to hit him. That was assuming it didn't pounce on him from where it was already, which it could certainly do. He swallowed, legs tensing as he looked intently at the mutated pony. He didn't have to jump out of the way, though his built up tension still made him jump a little at what happened. Before it could get too close, the monster was violently struck by a blue and silver blur that crashed loudly into it and shoved it metres back and onto the ground. Standing over its body, Rainbow Dash then pulled her sword out of where she'd embedded it in the creature's chest, causing a spurt of black blood to shoot out of the wound like water out of a sputtering faucet. Some of it matted her mane, but what landed on her silver armour slid off to the ground leaving the polished metal spotless. After ensuring the creature was really dead, seemingly from a combination of getting a sword shoved into its chest to the hilt and the sheer force of the impact derived from Rainbow's speed, that had led to cracked and broken bones and probably some severe internal damage, the mare turned around to the guard looking at her. "Let's get you to safety," she said, quickly trotting towards him. > Astrum Aureus > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight let out a wave of energy from her horn, powerful enough to both counter Nightmare Moon's blast as well as to act like an attack of its own. That much magical energy density fired in that shape should not have been sustainable, the pattern was a direct expansion from a spherical surface base and the kind of growth required to maintain the spell consistent in its outer portions at even just two thirds of the distance she shot it for would have drained a regular unicorn to the point of passing out, the amount and intensity of power passing through her horn needed to maintain it would have singed and burnt that of almost anyone attempting a similar feat. Twilight just did it, and the hardest part was thinking about how she wanted to shape it. Nightmare Moon didn't simply back away, she was pushed back by force. Parts of the crystal walls they were standing on turned a smouldering red and began to melt where the spell's golden aura reached them. Twilight did cut it off shortly after, but only to switch to another one. More than another one, actually. Again, she made up for her lack of proper direct combat strategy by doing things that one shouldn't do, just because she could get away with it. Casting multiple spells at the same time was not a recommendable thing unless one was an expert, especially not during a duel, especially if the spells required continuous upkeep or took large amounts of power. But for those reasons Nightmare Moon had surely never fought an opponent who'd do something like that, so Twilight reasoned she could get some form of advantage by getting creative with multitasking. She was perfectly capable of managing the mental juggling of using her magic multiple ways at the same time after all, she'd just never had the means to do something like that on that scale. Part of her magic went into four streams that poured out of her horn in four directions perpendicular to the one it pointed to, curved backwards and then forward again like a chandelier of energy around her head, and from where the metaphorical candles would have been fired off ceaseless streams of magical projectiles and sparks that chased after Nightmare Moon. Another part of it went into a small sphere of energy maintained right in front of her horn, shooting beams of power towards different parts of Nightmare Moon's body. Nightmare Moon was forced to focus solely on defending herself as she drew back faster and faster, and even still she began to fail at doing so properly. Sometimes one of her shileds was broken through, one of her attempts at deflecting a spell didn't work out. Some sparks and bolts got through, some shots still hit her. Singed her coat, burnt her feathers, cut through her skin, dug into her flesh. The alicorn hissed, but she could not do much. Seeing her chance, emboldened by rage and by the other's reactions, Twilight went even further with her efforts. > States of Matter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commemorazione della Cornacchia Solitaria The Gold-Clad Star chased the Krähe below the crystal spire. She ran the Krähe up the spire. She killed the Krähe atop the spire, threw off her body und burned it. But the thing remained. It kept the dying Krähe alive a little longer, along with it for the ride. The Gold-Clad Star chased the Krähe up the spire. She burned the Krähe's wings, she cut off her legs. She snapped her claws, she crushed her beak. She pierced her heart. The Krähe died, but it lived on on loaned time. By force though not a force she did not want, though not a force she had envisioned or known the nature of. The Krähe had lived her life, most of it, alone. By choice certainly, und what company she did receive could not be called that in earnest by anyone but her. She had never had regrets about it. She had quite enjoyed her life, or so she believed, und she had, as much as a life like hers could be enjoyed. Which was not much, but she did not know that. There were many things the Krähe hadn't known. Not an odd thing, there are many things unknown to anyone und some to everyone. Worthy of note were the things she did not know that she would have benefitted from knowing, the ones she would run against. All on that day, the day she died on the crystal spire. She had not known the true nature of what with her own nature she had done, for example. But she would not have cared to, not until she realised it was too late. What she would have cared to know, und did not know, was for example that that would be her final day. Ironically, also her first in a long while, after one long night. What she didn't know, und would certainly have liked to, was that she would face another Sun. So many years after the first one. She had not known that. The lonely Krähe died on top of the crystal spire, killed by the Gold-Clad Star. Things could have gone differently, but they did not. They might have, elsewhere, und they had in some regards, und perhaps because of that they couldn't there, or wouldn't there, und it didn't matter if they could if there was not there but the there where things went that way. The Gold-Clad Star battled the Krähe. She chased her up the spire, shot her heart und butchered her body. But the Gold-Clad Star did not win then, as she merely killed the Krähe und not what else was with her. Und the killed Krähe lived on along with the thing that was her und beyond her, within her und without her, inside her und past her. The thing that would kill her itself if she ever died und it did not, after keeping her alive. It was in a way poetic that she met that end, when so similar of one she'd forced on so many others, und her Soldier chief among them. The lonely Krähe ran up the crystal spire, und the Gold-Clad Star killed her. Und things did not end. > Ravine | Famine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon did not grow desperate. Desperation was not a thing she would experience, and desperate not something she would be. But she did grow nervous. Uneasy, even. Willing to perform something more risky in an attempt to buy herself some time. One of Twilight's blasts shattered one of her knees, and what was below it of her leg fell off while new bones and flesh grew to replace it. The ceaseless, unreasonable shower of sparks the alicorn was releasing towards her was simply too much for her shileds to fully hold off, and every few moments one of them made its to her body and burrowed past her skin, tearing her muscles and burning her veins. It was indeed an unreasonable display of magical power and control. That was the only way to describe it. And Twilight didn't seem to be done with it either. Despite two distinct and highly powerful spells already being maintained, her horn shone again to form a third one. Nightmare Moon's actions hinged on the idea that Twilight would run out of energy eventually, or make a mistake at some point, but would that matter if by then her body was ash? If only the wounds Luna had left would heal faster. Why were her powers failing her? She did not have much of another option. As she saw the new spell forming over Twilight's horn, she decided she would not remain there to be on the receiving end of it. Strengthening her shields as best she could, she focused, and attempted to teleport again. "But what if we could give you something?" the unicorn cut in. Both Applejack and the soldier turned towards him. "What do you mean?" the latter asked, while the former merely looked away again. The unicorn stepped forward. "You've talked about limiting our freedoms. I understand where you're coming from, and maybe you even have a point. But have you considered the opposite? Have you considered that if our freedoms are greater than yours, we could offer you to expand your box, as you called it?" The soldier squared him up and down. "And betray my country so?" "You said yourself that you did what you did out of a lack of choice. By a certain interpretation of personal beliefs, we here are like that too. But now you do have a choice." The unicorn looked back at him. "You're the one who put this in a purely formal perspective, so to speak. Why wouldn't you choose the better alternative?" The soldier thought about it for a moment. "I've got some ponies I care about, back on my side. You're just strangers. Personal relationships are an objective factor too." "We could give them the same offer," the unicorn continued. "What do you have to lose? What do you have to gain from betraying us instead? If you choose to view it as purely a matter of doing what you think benefits you most, you can't argue there's not a point in you joining us." "If you were to win," the soldier cut him. "I have reasons to doubt that will be the case. I have certain knowledge that the consequences of my betrayal will not be pleasant, if that is what happens. I'm merely playing my odds. I'd rather fight on the side that will be treated the least harshly should it lose. I may accept your proposal under those conditions. Not sooner, it would be a pointless risk." > Wicked Symphony; The > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie might have wanted to say something herself as well. Applejack definitely looked like she was about to turn and give the soldier another rebuttal. Neither of them got a chance to say anything, as everyone in the room was suddenly distracted by a loud sound from beyond a wall. The soldier gave a weird look, but as he quickly had the unicorn's horn pointed at his throat he made no sounds. All in the room waited, looking nervously towards the door, ready to spring into action. It was that state of tension that made them all almost jump as a moment later, while the door remained closed, an alicorn appeared near the wall behind them. "Oh, there you are," Starshine said. "I knew you had to be close by." "Starshine!" Pinkie excitedly but quietly exclaimed, springing forward to hug the mare. The soldier was clearly confused, but a light jab at his neck kept him quiet. When she was done ensuring her heart still beat, Applejack asked, "What are you doing here?" "Bringing you back," Starshine explained. "You know, the whole Elements thing. You're kinda needed for that." She idly played with her mane for a moment, until her eyes settled on the soldier sitting near the wall. "Oh hey, he's new right? What's he called? Are we keeping him?" The soldier looked more confused by the second, but the ever present threat of the unicorn's gaze on him, and of his horn aimed at him even more so, kept him quiet still. "Already?" Applejack asked. "Is Nightmare Moon already free?" "Yep. Sure is," Starshine said. "But you've dealt with the portals apparently so everything is still working out, just in time actually. Twilight is keeping her busy but it's still better if everyone gets there so you can blast her properly." "What about Luna?" asked Pinkie. "Is she alright?" "Ah." Starshine's tone went as dry as the desert. "That. Yes." She cleared her throat. "Last time I saw her, she was on the ground. With, uh... a hole. A really big hole." She frowned and looked up in thought. "I'm pretty sure it was in a place where you're not supposed to have a hole, too." Everyone else's expressions but the soldier's crumbled into worry and uncertainty. "But is she alright?" Applejack asked. "Is she going to survive." "Well, I don't know." Starshine gave a very meek shrug. "Seriously I have a very poor understanding of pony biology. But hey, we can find out if you come with me as we go back!" Suddenly, sounds could be heard from somewhere in the building. Hoofsteps and things being pushed, growing closer. "Ought to be my team," the soldier nonchalantly said as everyone tensed again in worry, save for Starshine. "They probably traced your teleportation." Applejack swallowed nervously as the sounds grew louder. "Get us out of here!" she said to Starshine. "Sure thing." The alicorn gave a salute with her hoof and began to charge her horn. The sounds grew closer, until they were right outside the door. There was a flash of light. Heavily armoured soldiers barged into the room, but found it empty, only occupied by a feather slowly drifting towards the ground. > Escalate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon reappeared. She looked around in confusion, and quickly realised her spell had not taken her as far as she'd meant it to. Quickly enough to block off a large portion of the torrent of magical sparks pouring towards her from Twilight's spell, which had never stopped firing. Some still got through, leaving holes in her side that spilled her blood on the crystal below her. She was standing on the bottom part of the cut off section of the central tower, held afloat in the air entirely by one of Twilight's previous spells. Twilight reached her with blinding speed, not with teleportation or even regular flight but by accelerating her own body with her magic. In that brief instant before their confrontation resumed, Nightmare Moon had time to realise it had been another one of Twilight's spells that had stopped her teleportation from going far. Had the alicorn already been casting that, knowing she would react as she had, or had it been done in response to her attempt at escaping, somehow quickly enough to still catch her? Both alternatives seemed nearly impossible, and yet so should have been the sheer output of power Twilight was dishing out on her. The two clashed again. The flow of Twilight's spells against Nightmare Moon's shields, their horns locked against each other separated by layers of magic so thick and dense they warped space around them and burnt through the air, leaving it tasting like iron. Twilight had outright tried to ram into her, and if Nightmare Moon hadn't seen it coming and answered similarly she would have been blown through. She knew she couldn't afford to just keep trying to defend herself, at that point. Twilight was growing too aggressive in ways that would only make the situation worse, throwing spell after spell at her with no regards or restraint, allowing her to continue was not a viable strategy. She was still an inexperienced fighter, if unreasonably powerful, it was by exploiting her mistakes that Nightmare Moon would have a chance to win. But those mistakes wouldn't present themselves unless she properly confronted Twilight. She had been sticking to a defensive approach, trying to heal out the wounds Luna had left, but no more. She could beat Twilight in a proper confrontation, and so she would. As their horns separated and the built up magic between them flared out into an expanding jagged ring of blue and gold, Nightmare Moon dug her hooves in and swung her neck forward, another spell ready on her horn. It did mean more of Twilight's magic got through her shields, but she could heal from those wounds. Twilight saw her coming and again sent out a wave of energy, and the two spells collided with a loud clang that pushed both alicorns back. Again, Nightmare Moon was quick to ready another strike. She didn't get a chance to properly deliver it, or have it met by Twilight's own. Faster than she could react, lightning in wide and repeated bursts struck down on her from the sky. Nightmare Moon screamed, until her throat was shredded by Twilight's magic as the alicorn advanced on her and stabbed into her torso with a long spear of magic like a needle the length of a leg made out of pure sizzling power. > Heart Over Matter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia clung to Luna's body in a puddle of her sister's blood, unable to even see it through the tears in her eyes, barely able to still breathe through her sobbing. She held her tight, Luna's wound against her naked chest, Luna's head over her shoulder. If she'd still had a mane long enough, it would have been mingling with Luna's own, though it too was quickly losing its shine and flow and dulling to plain locks bound by gravity. Celestia reached into her heart. She did not know what would happen, and by then she didn't care. It was her only hope of something, and she threw herself towards it with no regards. She had refused to even acknowledge it was there within herself, refused to ever attempt to discover its nature. She'd done it out of fear, and for the same reasons she'd passed her powers to Twilight and let herself be captured by Nightmare Moon. Her days as a warrior were over. She did not wish to fight anymore. For all she'd known, the coil within her could be a weapon. A great weapon, as much as she did not consider herself a great pony she was certainly not going to deny certain definitions of the term fit her. Maybe not morally or qualitatively, but she knew she was great in many things, as meaningless as those were to her. And she'd known since the first moment she'd sensed it that the thing inside her, the one that felt like it was wrapped around her heart, was powerful. And she'd been afraid, afraid of even trying to use it. Afraid of hurting others more than she already had. Afraid of mistakes she couldn't fix. None of that even entered her mind as she went to reach for it, clutching Luna's dying body. Not the way she knew she could be risking the destruction of the entire city, or her own death, or worse and more twisted things she could not even conceive. Not the way she's sworn off approaching a power she'd seen so alien and removed from what was natural, in such a high concentration. None of it was even a ghost of an idea in her mind. There was only pain and desperation moving her. If she'd become aware of those facts she wouldn't have cared, but in her state she did not even think about them. She did not think at all. She just acted, doing the only thing that could give her even a shred of hope. Celestia reached into her heart, and everything she found there she poured out towards her sister. And she prayed it would work, without even knowing what she was praying to. Maybe to Harmony, maybe to Chaos, maybe to the creature in Canterlot that had wrought so much devastation upon their lives and yet cursed and gifted her with the only thing that gave her a spark of hope to hold on to in that moment. A glow like amber spread from her chest to Luna's, and Celestia prayed for her through her sobs and tears. > Tide > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trixie had never felt worse in her life. Not even after being humiliated during her first visit to Ponyville, not even after the second one, at no point in between the two. Not during Equestria's many crises, not a single time since her return to Ponyville and her meeting with Starlight, not even when she'd feared she'd lost her friendship so soon after meeting her. She'd never felt like that. She'd never felt truly, completely useless. It gnawed at her. It burnt through her, leaving her hollow and cold. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could even attempt. She was a dead weight, only putting everyone else there in more danger as they were forced to keep her safe while she couldn't do so herself. It was horrible, and there was nothing she could do but live through it and hope. She wished she could just go away. She wished she could run away or hide safely or rewind time to never choose to go there in the first place. She could do none of that. All she could do was wander the town with everyone else, never safe, never far from danger, unable to provide any kind of help that wasn't carrying her own weight around. All she did was make them an easier target by being there. It was miserable, to say the least. In different circumstances it would have made her angry. And it did incite anger, but it was directionless, with no target but her own self. It was draining on her mind. The constant tension, the persistent knowledge that she could do nothing but exist through things, the permeating feeling of powerlessness. The closest she'd ever felt to it had probably been the Behemoth's arrival or its more recent step, but even those hadn't been as hopeless. There had been things for her to do. Not there, not then. She was a walking target trying to survive as more capable ponies around her scrambled to keep her and themselves safe while even more capable ponies worked on actually solving the root of the issues. And of all the ponies there, she was the most useless, and she knew that. They all knew that, though those around her were far too nice to actually say it. Not that she thought it would have been right for them to leave her to die or somesuch, but if they harboured anger for her decision to be there in the first place she could not blame them in the least. And maybe that was the worst part of it. That no one had done anything wrong, and no one was yet doing anything wrong. Things just happened as they did. She'd made no mistakes save for arguably choosing to be there, and no one since had done her wrong. Her uselessness there was entirely born out of her own nature and nothing else. She merely was, with no other choice and no better option or course of action. And it was frustrating, deeply, to no end. > Blind > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walking. No sounds, no vision, just the knowledge of walking somewhere. Instructions, maybe, maybe not. Orders to follow, but after all she'd been doing that most of her life. Her memories blurring to resemble her reality. For reasons she could no longer recall, she didn't mind. Was it nothing she was seeing, or just shadows and darkness? She couldn't tell. Moving faster. Her body, not her hooves, not her legs. Being moved. Lying down? Maybe. Not being dragged. It didn't hurt. She felt artificially tired. Was it like being drunk, or drugged? She'd never experienced it, but she'd seen it. On soldiers? She didn't know what to do with that last bit of info, where to fit it. Maybe it would be discarded too. A light. Her last somewhat clear memory. Green, small, sudden but not violent. Welcoming? Cold, but not unpleasant. Then darkness. She could not hear, she could not see. She could not feel at times. She was moving, or being moved, at times incredibly fast she felt. She was tired. A name? It didn't matter. She would remember it, later, something told her. She listened, and she didn't have a choice, and she didn't worry about it. She couldn't worry about it, and that too she could not worry about. But she felt no longing for the things she'd lost. One pony, maybe. Two ponies, but one was different. One she'd lost long before, she'd miss them where she was going as she'd missed them where she'd been. The other? Gone. Yet close. Something of a loose end, the details absent. Regret, vague, unplaced. Acceptance. Something she'd always known, and knew they'd known too. Moving. Not just in space. Memories left behind like the place she was carried away from. Hate. She didn't like that place. She'd never liked that place. Cold. The cold of the darkness was different. It was dry. It was soft. Welcoming? Maybe not. Better than the cold she was leaving. Agreement? Would she had agreed to leave like that? Had she done so in the first place? It didn't matter. She agreed with it again. Something was there. Something understood, and acknowledged. Something dark, and cold, carrying her away. No colours still, and no sounds, but an understanding. A presence felt. No malice, no harm meant or caused. Different for some reason from what she was used to, yet familiar in other ways. Ways she couldn't place in her memory. Things she couldn't remember. Away. She was leaving pain behind. That she did not mind. She was leaving memories behind. That she did mind. But the price of her memories was worth the freedom from her pain. Regret, measured. Acceptance, again. Cold, but a warmer cold than the cold she left behind. Tiredness. Artificial, but real nonetheless. Sleep? Sleep. No point in fighting it. The thing with her wished her no harm, and her darkened reality gave her no reason to remain awake. Sleep then. Memories lost. Pain lost. A bittersweet outcome, but not one she could disagree with. Hope. She fell asleep, in unsilent colourful dreams. > Iron > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What about the portals?" Twilight raised her head from the scroll she was writing on. "What?" "The portals," Celestia repeated. "The ones to Sunset's world. There's one in the Empire too, isn't there?" "And we could use it as a way to escape if for some reason we decide to." Twilight returned to her scroll. "I've already laid out plans for having that one guarded on the other side. Nothing Nightmare Moon could send through would come out as a problem for what I'll have waiting there, if she ends up finding it." "But you're keeping Sunset in the dark about what's going to happen, aren't you?" Celestia asked, walking closer as she paced around the room. "I am," Twilight said. "I've already set up an automatic message to inform her of everything, if I end up unable to tell her about it myself after the fact. I wish I'd found a way to close the portals or even just find them all, but I don't exactly have time to focus on that right now." Celestia had a muffled, close-mouthed chuckle as she eyed what Twilight was working on. "You're convinced that can work, aren't you?" "I wouldn't spend so much effort working on something if I didn't think it was possible, not when time is limited and the situation as serious as it is now." Twilight paused and looked over what she'd written again, then continued on. "Hope is a great thing, but it's a dangerous one when it's not bound by some level of realism." "And you consider applying knowledge you only recently acquired to create a new spell you've never had a chance to test and then using it on a scale this massive as your first attempt at it and only remaining chance to solve the issue to be realism?" Celestia chuckled as she leaned in closer. "Quite brave of you." "You've raised the Sun every morning and the Moon every evening for a thousand years, when before you just one day of it was enough to leave multiple unicorns drained. You should know that scale is no issue." Twilight pulled out a different piece of parchment with something else written on it, and compared it to what she was working on. "And I did test it. Besides, you'd be surprised by how much has already been written about the theoretical possibilities of transdimensional impositions." "Resourceful as always." Celestia looked away, and continued to pace until she reached the wall. She stood there in silence for a few moments. Then she continued, in a different tone, "You remind me of myself." The quiet scribbling of Twilight's quill stopped abruptly, and didn't pick back up until a few seconds later. "It should be no surprise," said Twilight. "I was your student, after all." "Hmm. If student is the word we're choosing to use." "It's what Equestria will hear. We may as well." "There it is." Celestia sighed. She began to walk again, back towards Twilight. "Do you believe me when I say I'm sorry for what I did?" "If I did not believe you were, you would not be standing here to tell me about it," Twilight said. "For what it's worth, I hope we'll be able to have this conversation again, after this is all over." > Un > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Still being battered and pierced by Twilight's spells, Nightmare Moon hissed as she forced herself back. Her magic switched from trying to defend herself to merely trying to keep Twilight at bay, possibly harm her. She didn't have the means to block everything thrown at her at that point, and she knew she could survive it all. Bolts of magic began to pierce through her flesh and shatter her bones as new tissue still grew to replace the damage one, her wounds leaking not just blood but mauled chunks of muscles and organs as her skin kept regenerating and being torn apart at such a rate that the edge of her body started to seem liquid more than solid. Whips of blue flames spurted from her horn to strike towards Twilight. Twilight stepped back and swatted them away with the blade of light on her horn, while her secondary spell continued to shower Nightmare Moon with dozens of sparks. She sliced through the flaming tendrils, and in doing so sent golden pulses of electricity riding along the remaining length of them towards Nightmare Moon's horn. As soon as she noticed that, before they could reach her, Nightmare Moon undid the spell, and switched to a different one. A series of small, miniature moons flowed from her horn, no larger than a pony's head, and they all began to head towards Twilight. Recognising them for the mines they were, Twilight immediately adapted her strategy. While she bent the branches of her maintained spell so their projectiles would circle around the incoming attack, she produced a wave like a sound from her horn, gold and purple, contained within the space in front of her. It undid the magic within the spherical projectiles into harmless energy, and crushed them into ethereal dust. Twilight advanced, and Nightmare Moon was forced to retreat and rethink her plans, as her body remained battered and barely protected by shields she'd put up to her sides and was not maintaining. Another lightning struck, more brief than the previous one, and it burnt through Nightmare Moon's uncaring flesh. One of her eyes melted and leaked sizzling down the side of her face, and immediately a new one was there to replace it, filled with even more hate. Baring her fangs, even more so than regularly possible thanks to the missing patches of flesh on her face, she abandoned almost all restraint and shot forward a single torrent of magic from her horn. That did force Twilight to abandon all other spells as she fought against it. But as the four branches of her magical chandelier condensed into a single wide beam of lavender gold, not only did she stop the deep blue waterfall of Nightmare Moon's attack, she began to push back against it. Between the unhinged powers of two alicorns in her and Nightmare Moon's own magic still half focused healing her body, it became clear Twilight stood a real chance at fighting back against the other. Nightmare Moon, her neck tense and her teeth clenched, was forced to step back and farther back still, up and up the broken crystal tower as she struggled to prevent Twilight's spell from overpowering hers. But if she could hold on long enough, as soon as her body was done regenerating she could attempt to overpower the younger alicorn, she reasoned. That was when another, much more physical bolt struck her, and she found herself impaled side to side by a crystal shard the shape of a stalactite and the size of an umbrella. > Thrhndrd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What is this?" "A protective spell." "I see that. Do we need a protective spell? I mean, I guess biological or chemical warfare and large scale spells aren't out of the question, but should it be a priority? It sounds like the kind of thing we should be able to react to. If we're not then we're probably screwed either way." "True, but that stuff is just fancy dressing. We already figured out how to optimise energy consumption so I figured I'd throw it on while I'm at it." "Oh? What's it actually for, then?" "Nightmare Moon." "What about her?" "Last time I was just near her unshielded, I passed out. She's got an aura to her, I don't know if she's deliberately projecting it or if it's just something she developed." "She's that strong?" "Not quite. It's not exactly like the passive auras powerful magic users give out, like what you might experience near Celestia. It's something different. I want to say more deliberate, but that's not really the right word if I'm not sure she's doing it on purpose." "Interesting. So we need a shield for that, yeah?" "Yeah." "You look nervous." "Yeah." "Why is that?" "I know the spell works. It's not that." "I asked why you're nervous, not why you are not." "I was just trying to reassure you that this is safe." "Knowing there's something that worries you and you don't want to address is not reassuring. I appreciate the effort nonetheless." "You're right." "So?" "There's something off about her aura. I want to say it's either just a wild coincidence or a defining feature of certain kinds of manifestations that doesn't imply any real correlation, and both are plausible considering the amounts we're talking about, but there are some parts of the readings we're getting that look really similar to something we've already seen." "Sounds like that would make it easier to work on it." "It does. Or, it did, the spell's been ready for a while and tested for only a little less. It's still bugging me though." "Well, nothing we can do about it. Honestly, getting this bothered over just a few lines on a pair of graphs is definitely a you thing." "You're not particularly helpful." "I'm trying to be. You clearly don't have a solution or even a concrete problem in the first place, only what could either be a coincidence or a connection, and nothing to work with. Spending your time running your thoughts over it and worrying won't help you nor us, so trying to get your mind off of it is the most useful thing I can do about it. Whether it was relevant or not, you'll find or won't find out as things happen, and you don't have time to work on it now. It's best if you ignore it." "It's not a me thing to ignore something like that. It's too suspicious, and it's too potentially important if it turns out to be something concrete." "But you don't have the time for it right now." "I suppose you're right. Not that I enjoy it." "Truth doesn't need to be pleasant." "Sadly." "Thank you for the spell, by the way." > Survival > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like every bone in her body was breaking at the same time. She'd broken a few in her life, she knew what that was like. But that was only a part of everything going on at once. Her heart one moment felt like it was stopping, denying her organs oxygen, the next it was beating so fast it physically hurt in parts of her body that had never hurt before, like it was about to burst. Her lungs were not much better off. One second they felt immobilised and stiff, unable to breathe, then they were being crushed, then something was filling them that wasn't air. All that wasn't even the worst part, and that was what scared her most. It was all painful, yes, maddeningly so. But not the worst of it, and it terrified her to know there was something even worse than the unnatural, unsustainable pain she was being put through. Something far more sinister and unnatural than any amount of physical pain could ever be, as unnatural as its causes could be. Her mind felt detached. Not the detachment born from disinterest and cynicism, not that generated by trauma one failed to process, certainly not the kind brought on by meditation she'd heard about. It was something artificial, imposed on her. Like her very soul was being ripped from her being, her connections to her body severed as something pulled on her consciousness like pulling a mollusk out of its shell. And like that, she was horrifically aware that the process would kill her. That at any moment her mind would snap like a neck at a drop in a hanging. She'd watched over too many of those, she thought. For what she could still feel awareness of in her own body, she suspected her own neck had already snapped. She couldn't feel her guts anymore. She couldn't feel most of her body. She couldn't feel the pain, but somehow that coldness she felt instead was far more terrifying. She couldn't see it anymore, either, or anything else. She was in darkness, her mind in solitude, slowly losing her grip on reality. And what would happen when the last thread had been severed, when she was left alone a conscience in a void without sensation? Would death ensue then, or would she be forever there imprisoned? And what if death was nothing but that, endless nothing in darkened isolation? What if she was already dead? It was cold. All cold, and alone. The last memory she still had was her spine ripping itself lengthwise as it extended, pushing and tearing through her chest and splintering her ribs. She tried to scream, but she had no voice. She wished to shiver, but she had no body. She wanted to look away, but she had no eyes. There was only darkness and cold. She didn't know how long for. Too long, however long it had been. She wished for it to end, but she couldn't do anything. Finally, something came. Not pleasant. No freedom and no salvation, but she took it nonetheless. Towards the gaping deformed maws of decay, without hesitation. She let the flames take her, and through the pain they brought she found relief for having found an end. > The Slow but Inescapable Process of Reality Unravelling Around a Single Specific Point > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you think would be the worst way to kill someone?" "Worst how? Like, the way you're most likely going to be caught, the least efficient one, the way you're going to hurt them the most? Which one?" "Right. Which way do you think would feel the worst for them? Off the top of my head I was thinking burning but there's probably a better alternative." "Hmm. You take them somewhere really high. And I'm talking really high, up in the sky, not just a tall building or a cliff or something. And then you drop them." "Huh. That doesn't really sound all that painful. I mean yeah it's going to hurt a lot but it doesn't sound like it's going to last that long, they're going to die the moment they hit the ground. Probably turn into a stain or something, what's the terminal velocity of a body anyway?" "No it's not just about the dying. Hear me out on this. You shoot someone, they're not going to have the time to really process that they're about to die. Even if they don't die on the spot, they're gonna be in pain after that, maybe pass out from blood loss before dying, maybe they'll be in denial because they're not dead yet. Same with something like a wound. You set someone on fire, choke them or drown them, they'll have other things filling their head." "Your point?" "The moment you drop someone from that height, they're dead. Case closed, fate sealed, literally nothing you can do about it. Even if something suddenly grabbed them whiplash would still do it. But they are not in pain, or under physical stress like not being able to breathe. It's all mental. They are completely, undeniably already dead, and their mind is totally unobstructed and free to contemplate that fact, and they have the whole length of the drop to think about it knowing there's nothing they can do. That's the stuff that breaks someone." "Yeah. I guess I see the point. Are you sure it's worse than burning someone alive though?" "No. And, you know, I'm never going to find out, hopefully. Not like I could, it's not exactly the kind of thing you can compare, you don't live through more than one of those things that's kind of the starting point of the whole argument. Why did you bring it up, anyway?" "It occurred to me." "You worry me sometimes. Couldn't you have normal thoughts? You know, happy cool thoughts that don't involve death?" "You're one to talk." "Mine's called an aesthetic." "Sure. Least painful way to die?" "Oh that's easy. Progressive oxygen deprivation is literally just falling asleep as your brain starts to die, it's the comfiest death there is." "I'm not sure I'd describe any death as comfy, honestly." "Well yeah but relatively speaking one's still gotta be the comfiest. Fire's warm but you'll still have a colder fire and a coldest fire." "Eh. I suppose you've got a point, yeah." > Echelon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you see?" Nightmare Moon had barely time to turn as Starshine reappeared, along with the Celestia clung to "It's like a mirror, shattered. Thousands of different windows into different moments." Twilight pushed on with her spell, a horn that should have been burning from the sheer amount of energy being poured through it kept safe only by Trixie looked over Starlight's Soldiers bust in through the door tower began to shatter as angry they had half her body Starshine carried away by "Does it hurt?" Paper hurled Shining Pinkie Pie jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a massive chunk of broken crystal as it fell towards Sunburst conjured up a shield and Fluttershy both looked at through the excruciatingly painful process black winds "Is this what you want?" "I don't know." > Losing My Insanity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine for a moment that there is a light, a source of light, contained, finite, unchanging, and that there is only that. Imagine that is everything. Everything that was, is, and will be. Everything that could and could have, everything that wasn't and isn't and won't be as a comparison between the two. Call it what you want. Universe, multiverse, creation, existence, the name is irrelevant as long as the concept gets through your head. It's everything, for the time being. I know the example isn't perfect, but for now ignore the fact that there needs to be a somewhere where the light is, a space outside of it. That's an abstraction, this whole thing is, it's an imperfect representation because the real thing is much too complicated. Ignore the part that doesn't make sense, if I gave you the real deal nothing would. So we've got our everything. Our creation, our existence. It's there, and it's kind of just there, all of time and space and matter and possibility and probability and whatever, all of it and it's not doing anything because it just is, and that's that. Now, again this is where I remind you that this is an imperfect metaphor. Imagine there are mirrors under the light, or around it or whatever. They're not actually mirrors of course and I know I just said everything is in the light, if you wanted to get really technical you'd have to distinguish between the underlying structure of reality and its population and we don't have time for that so just bear with me. You've got these mirrors, but they're special. For one thing they don't really work like real mirrors. Even in the analogy. Light both passes through them and is reflected, sometimes to the same full degree. Other times it's separated, distorted, warped, fragmented, only partially reflected or allowed through. They do whatever they want, whatever you could possibly imagine, and more importantly they do all of it. Oh, and there's infinite numbers of them. Infinite possible reflections of our central reality spreading out in layers after layers, infinite levels of light being twisted and reinterpreted. I'm sure you already get where I'm going with this. Now, there's an important bit to note here. There's a reason why I used light as an example. The reality, the full complete existence I described at the start, that's the light. It's not the source of light, it's the light itself. The light in the mirrors, the reflections and refractions and infinite splinters and shards, that's all the same light. It's all the same existence. If you want to cycle back to my earlier points, the mirrors themselves are part of the same structure as the source of light. There are more distant reflections, darker ones, ones warped further than others, but they are all the same light. Reality is light, and it is all of its reflections, all equally existence, none more real than any other. So this is our universe now. Multiverse, reality, whatever. One single light spread through infinite variations all part of the same whole. A clear distinguishable central core and a clearly traceable hierarchy of layers, clear comparisons between different reflections, clear distances and levels and amounts of warping compared to the original, but all the same light. This is reality in its current form, past present and future. The why and how of this is a whole lot more complicated to get into, so for now we'll skip that. Still with me? I hope so, because this is the best example I have. Now imagine you picked a spot on one of the mirrors. One spot in particular. Oh, before I forget, we won't talk about what happens when one of the mirrors cracks either for now. But I might explain that at some point. Anyway, the spot we were meaning to pick. Somewhere in a direction, there's no up or down or left or right or coordinates for now so I can't really give you its position without referencing some other point. We could do that, but not now. Just know it's in a direction. And, and this we can count, it's about twenty thousand and some layers away from the core. There's infinite other layers past it so all things considered it's not that far, and you wouldn't want to be fifteen thousand layers in this direction anyway since that place is really heavy on the warping. This point we just seemingly arbitrarily picked? That's where you are. Well, assuming this isn't being experienced by someone other than the original recipient of this externalisation of information, in which case they probably wouldn't be there. But you, you're there. So is about everything you know, probably, unless you've been up to something really weird, and even then those things would still be close by. That's your reality. Your universe, your time and space, your everything. Pretty neat, right? Anyway, pretty great place all things considered. Lots of light but still a little shade, warped in what I'd actually consider to be a nice way. Great place all things considered. There's better, sure, there's also a lot worse out there. Infinitely worse, literally. That's not really what I'm > Chapter 705 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon turned towards the direction the projectile had come from, only to see a second one shooting towards her. Faster than she could react, it embedded itself in her torso. On the opposite end of the crystal chunk's trajectory, Starshine grinned to herself, and readied another shot. A roughly conical piece of clear, smooth pink crystal manifested itself floating in front of her horn in just fractions of a second, and she carefully aimed it towards the larger alicorn's body. A small burst between her horn and the base of the crystal, like a bubble of air expanding, and her projectile shot forward one more time. Starshine reappeared, along with the ponies she'd fetched. "Here you go," she said with a smile, though it was unclear whether she was talking to them or to Sunburst and the others there. "Who's that?" Sunburst asked, nodding towards the enemy soldier. "We caught him along the way," Applejack explained, "didn't really get a chance to leave him behind." "Can we keep him?" Starshine asked fluttering her wings, before her eyes snapped towards the scene taking place closer to the centre of town. Immediately she teleported away again, leaving the rest of the ponies there. "How does it look out there?" "Surprisingly, not too bad. I think Princess Twilight just cut off one of Nightmare Moon's wings." "And what about Princess Luna?" "Uh... Oh..." "Yeah?" "Yeah, about her, uh..." "What about her? Is she alright?" "Oh... No?" "What do you mean no?" "I'm not sure?" "What do you mean you're not sure?" "I can't see that much of her, okay?" "What can you see?" "Celestia is there. I think she's hugging Luna." "And?" "Blood. Like, a lot of blood. I'm pretty sure it's Luna's blood." "Is she alive?" "I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know? Is she dead?" Twilight got there in time to see the sphere as it cracked. She saw it burst open, she saw the column of light as it shot towards the sky, and most importantly she felt the amount of energy that had been poured into that one spell. That alone made her fear for Luna. She had little doubt that so much as attempting to cast something like that would have hurt the alicorn, however she'd actually managed to do it it was clear that the blast would have hit her too. What she actually saw as the pillar faded turned out to be even worse. "We should be out there," Shining said, looking out the window of the building he was in. "There's not much we could do," Cadence said, stepping up to his side and placing a wing over his back. Both were still clearly drained from their previous efforts, fatigue evident in their motions. Neither would have had much to offer if they'd tried to use their magic right then. "We did our part. Now we need to trust in Twilight and her friends." Shining exhaled slowly and swallowed. "I suppose I can do that. I hope she'll be alright." > Wings o' | Lost in Translation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow Dash had been looking over portions of the city, flying low to the ground and taking care of any stray soldiers or mutated ponies she might run into. She'd reasoned, not wrongly, that the moment she was needed she'd be able to get back to the tower quickly enough for it to not be an issue, and it was best if in the meantime she stayed out there trying to do as much as she could. She still was not over what had happened to the area where the weapon Twilight had held against had been located. It hadn't been Twilight who'd broken it like that, and she'd not been the one to make all those soldiers disappear either. Maybe they'd just run away, maybe the machine had broken by itself after overloading or somesuch and they'd retreated fearing it would blow up. But she doubted that was the case. Something had happened there. Someone had helped them. Someone who'd been far too efficient at what they'd done for her to be comfortable with it. She couldn't say for sure it had been a massacre when there were no bodies left, but that didn't make it better. She was roused from her musings by a sound. A single note, crystal clear, loud and permeating but not deafeningly so. Immediately her attention turned towards the apparent source of it, and she saw the pillar of light rising towards the sky in the middle of the Empire. In just a moment she'd changed direction, her wings beating as she sped through the streets of the town towards her destination. "That's a nice squares pattern there." Rarity almost choked on her drink, a most impressive feat given she'd not sipped from her cup yet. "Excuse me?" she finally managed to say, glaring at the stallion like he'd just said shoulderpads were fashionable that season. "This is a diamonds pattern, dear." She leaned her back to the side a little and subtly nodded to her own cutie mark for added emphasis. "Well, where I'm from we call these squares." "They are not even square!" Rarity whined. "Why would you ever call them squares? You wouldn't call my cutie mark made of squares either, would you? Gems, maybe, but certainly not squares." "They're not diamond shaped either. Gems makes sense for your cutie mark, but as silhouettes? You only think of them as gems because you're used to calling them diamonds. Squares is a much more fitting name, unless you were to specifically call them rubies I suppose." "But they are not squares!" Rarity waved her hoof slowly up and down in front of the pattern. "They are very clearly in what everyone would recognise as a diamond pattern." "And it looks nothing like a diamond. Just because a lot of ponies agree with something that doesn't mean that's right, especially when they only agree because they grew up being told to and nothing else. I suppose it's at least not as bad as the way you call flowers clubs though." > Aspire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon barely had time to turn around as another chunk of smooth pinkish crystal, not dissimilar from the first, sailed through the sky at blinding speed and pierced her torso, crushing her ribs and tearing through her veins. As she looked towards the alicorn responsible for that, a third projectile was fired and it hit her hip instead, and lodged itself there. Starshine didn't stop firing. She only grew more skilled at it. A fourth shot fired just moments later broke Nightmare Moon's spine in half, then one reached her throat and neck, then two more on her belly, one piercing her wings as well, and one on her shoulder, as Starshine began to shoot so quickly she had to keep up a gait, each crystal generating before the previous one had been shot off forcing her to move forward for each new shot she wanted to fire. She showed no signs of stopping either, and Nightmare Moon caught in horror a glimpse of her readying dozens of bolts to fire in sequence. Those never reached the alicorn's body. Shot after shot sustained Nightmare Moon's ability to keep up her spell was failing her, as more of her magic had to be diverted into healing her wounds. It became clear to her then that whatever Luna had done, she hadn't merely forced her to heal. Twilight was powerful, but she wasn't absurdly powerful enough to justify what was happening. Nightmare Moon realised, perhaps too late, that her powers were not answering her properly, as if along with the wound Luna had left on her a block of some kind that prevented her from controlling them in full. One shot reached the back of her head, shredding what was still there of her helm. Just a moment of hesitation too much, a split second where she wasn't focused. Twilight's spell gained on hers and there was no stopping it afterwards. It came onto her like a flood, swallowing her body whole and swallowing those crystals Starshine had been shooting towards her along with it. Past her and towards the sky, a beam not too unlike the one that had destroyed the tip of the tower they were on. Twilight pushed on with her spell, a horn that should have been burning from the sheer amount of energy being poured through it kept safe only by yet more energy being diverted into maintaining it stable and safe. She couldn't sense Nightmare Moon's body within the torrent of her magic, but she knew the alicorn couldn't teleport away. If she'd tried, the spell itself would have kept her trapped there, just as magic had kept her from escaping on her previous attempt. Her stream of gilded violet soared towards the sky, piercing through what clouds it found along the way, and for a few moments longer Twilight kept on with her outpour. Then, choosing it was enough and beginning to feel the strain of her efforts for the first time since being blinded by rage at the sight of Luna's body, she allowed the flow to die down, and kept herself ready to use her magic again as soon as she may have needed to. Nightmare Moon still stood there, a surprising feat for only half of a body. Despite that, as soon as the portion of her face still present had an eye again it glared at Twilight with hate. New bones jutted outwards for her flesh to regrow around, and Twilight flared her magic again, going for another strike. > Slaughterspire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight struck. Nightmare Moon met her blow. Horns enveloped in magical auras clashed with the sound of glass shards grinding against each other and singed the crystal wall the two alicorns stood on top of. Both mares drew back, both struck again at a different angle, another note rang out across the city. But Twilight hit a little harder, just enough to push Nightmare Moon back. Even as she panted and grit her teeth, even as the strain and struggle of using so much magic began to catch up to her, Twilight still managed to hit the hardest out of them. Maybe it was Nightmare Moon's magic still split into regrowing the rest of her body, maybe sheer determination on Twilight's part. Another lightning came down. Nightmare Moon didn't bother to protect herself from it. It left burn marks over her still exposed flesh, blackened what bones of hers still hadn't been covered again, set a few of her feathers on fire. She didn't care. She focused only on Twilight, only on her horn to horn battle against the alicorn. And again she was forced to step back. Every blow one of them dished out was met by an opposing one, another impact ringing out and shuddering against their necks. Every moment, Twilight pushed a little closer and Nightmare Moon drew back a little more. Another crystal projectile flew through Nightmare Moon's body. It didn't lodge itself in there, shot too fast for that, it just left a hole in her that slowly began to close. Blood didn't even drip from it, what the alicorn had had of it had been evaporated by Twilight's spell and was still forming anew within her. Again, Nightmare Moon didn't even pay attention to the new wound. Her second eye joined the first in glaring at Twilight with all the hatred she could muster, fangs gritted and bared and wings flared outward as magic burned around her horn. Still, with every impact of her powers against Twilight's, she was pushed back. She'd cared about her well being at some point. About strategy, about healing her wounds, about things beyond that battle. About taking over that Equestria, rewarding or punishing her soldiers after the fight was over, about what she would do with the ponies she imprisoned. None of it was on her mind anymore. The same rage Twilight had unleashed onto her at the sight of Luna's wounds, she felt towards Twilight at that moment. She would see the alicorn dead, and if doing so required her to destroy the whole town and everyone else in it then she'd do it. The only thing that mattered to her at that moment was crushing Twilight. And yet, for all she tried to, she only failed. She was only forced to recede, never managing to have a single of her strikes not met by a stronger one from Twilight. Lighting rained on her and crystals sailed through her body, and Nightmare Moon was pushed up and up the spire as she failed and failed to break through Twilight's attacks. All the powers she knew she had seemed just gone, and no matter how much magic she tried to pour into her spell it was never enough, it didn't even feel like more of it was there even though she knew it should have been. Suddenly her heart skipped a beat as she placed her farthest hoof back, and half of it didn't land on solid ground. She had reached the broken tip of the tower. Twilight moved forward to strike again. > Heartdive > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia felt something. It was not too dissimilar from probing a space with her magic, and feeling something was there, and at the same time it was infinitely different from it. She didn't know exactly what she was doing, she didn't fully understand it, but she felt she understood it enough to know what she had to do. The place, though it wasn't really a place, was dark around her, or that part of her that was there. Part of it was a natural darkness, a calm deep blueness that belonged to that place. The rest was a rot, a pitch black stain spreading and taking over, cold and sickly and suffocating. Celestia knew she didn't have much time. But there was something there. She'd felt it. All the way down at the bottom of that abyss, sinking and drowning in the blackness flooding over it but still there. She dove forward, downwards, towards the thing she'd felt. Deeper with every moment, and the deeper she went the more black took over the blue around her. Soon she felt like she was moving through thick patches of algae and dirt, where before she had been swimming unobstructed in clear waters. It was dark. The darkness came over her vision, over her senses, it pushed her away and pushed the thing she'd sensed further down. She needed light, but there was no light there. The thing had had light once, but the rotting blackness had swallowed it whole. But she could not give up. She opened herself, let out her own light. The darkness began to feast on it, burrowing into her like maggots, assaulting her like a ravenous pack of eels. But it allowed her passage. She ignored the pain as she swam deeper and deeper, as the darkness parted and morphed into tendrils that sank into her, consuming her light. A price she was willing to pay, she had much of it to spare anyway. Deeper and deeper, moving barely faster than the thing she was trying to catch up to, feeling its presence grow weaker and weaker even as she got closer and closer to it. Forced to move as fast as she could, forced to endure as the darkness feasted on her. It was exhausting. Her thoughts grew hazy, her being sore, for moments she risked losing herself to it. Losing her consciousness and sinking into the blackness. She endured. The darkness in front of her parted once more, once more swarming to her open wound to consume her light, and for the first time it revealed something other than more darkness as it did. It had no definite shape or colour, nothing that she could focus with eyes that weren't there in the first place. But it was there. Weak and cracked and losing itself, dimming and dulling and scarred. She took it with her. Shielded it from the hungry pack around them. Then upwards. Her wound always open, darkness always eating at her. She had light enough for it. All the way up to the top, up to those last shreds of blue the rot still hadn't consumed, cradling the dying thing she'd rescued from the abyss. Her wound still open, her light still exposed, but the darkness hadn't followed them there. She looked at the thing as much as she could look, felt it close to herself, felt it cold and shivering and fading. She had light enough for both. She held it close, and poured herself into it, and lit its light anew with hers and filled its cracks and mended its scars, and gave it new colour as she sacrificed her own. She had enough to spare, and she would have rather lost it all than let go of what she'd rescued. The darkness shone in its calm blue, the rot receded. Celestia opened her eyes. Luna was there, cradled in her hooves. Eyes closed, a river of blood over her chest. But no wound there anymore. Breathing, however slowly, however softly. Unconscious, weak, but alive. And that was all that mattered. > Piurr Voyd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The inside of an egg can be seen as not too different from a prison, all things considered. Not by anyone or anything finding itself within one, but by external onlookers and observers. A creature being born does not have an innate concept of what a prison is, it likely lacks even the mental capability to conceptualise the idea and link it to its own situation. But there is a moment where it understands the concept of imprisonment, at least implicitly. It understands that the place it occupies, that which sustained it and within which it has grown, is now an obstacle to overcome, something it wishes to leave. In the act of being born, of hatching, the egg becomes an entity separate from the creature it housed. It becomes its prison. It is perfectly reasonable then for the creature to wish to leave its prison. For it to push and bite and claw its way out, as little of it as its newborn form is capable of. To break through the shell and pull itself out and become free to inhabit the world. There is in that one difference, perhaps fundamental. Eggs, while naturally designed to have a modicum of resistance to outside forces for the sake of protecting their contents, are much easier to break through from the inside. They are specifically made to disperse and deflect blows with their shape, only moderate blows in most cases of course, but fundamentally built to break as well, so that they may fulfill their purpose and allow the creatures they house to be born. The same design that makes them resistant to outer blows makes them far more susceptible to inner ones. They are meant to be broken through from the inside, after all. A prison is not meant to be broken from the inside. Quite the opposite, really, and one would be a rather poorly designed one if it was. Prisons are meant to keep things inside them there as long as is decided, and irregardless of the wishes of the creatures they house. Perhaps it is truly a fundamental difference then. Eggs are meant to protect their contents, but to break at the creature's wishes. Prisons are meant to not allow their contents outside, and ideally exist to protect the outside world from them. Is an egg not a prison then? Probably not when looked at as a whole, over a large period of time, when considered in terms of its purpose. But, there is a moment where the two are alike. Between the creature choosing it wishes to leave the egg, consciously or not, and the creature breaking through it. A brief moment in which the egg is a prison. A prison soon to be revealed inefficient, but to the creature it is no longer a shield from the adversities of the world outside, it is a barrier preventing it from reaching them. So it becomes natural for the creature to try to break free of it. So to properly fulfill its designed purpose, an egg needs to be a prison in its last moments, for its inhabitant to wish to leave and break free from it. Given a creature will only gain awareness properly when the egg has otherwise carried out its purpose, given it will only truly be alive as it becomes something separate from the shell around it and wishes to break free of it, the inside of an egg can be seen as not too different from a prison, all things considered. > Stargazer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight whipped her neck forward, her horn enveloped in flaming magic flowing into a roaring blade. She dug her hooves in and grit her teeth, pushing through the physical strain of holding so much power streaming out of her for so long. Nightmare Moon had nowhere left to run, and if she could end things there she would. Nightmare Moon slammed down her horn in a last desperate attempt to push back Twilight. Magic flared around it like a maul as she brought it onto Twilight's attack. The two clashed with a bright flash of light and a loud, thunderous note underscoring the impact. The crystal tower beneath their hooves cracked, their necks shuddered, and both their heads were pushed back by the resulting wave. Nightmare Moon let the impact carry her body instead of fighting back against it. As Twilight stopped her head moving downwards and began to look up and steady herself again, the black alicorn reared onto her hind legs. Magic grew around her horn as she spread her wings and prepared to bring it all crashing down onto Twilight's body. Twilight watched as fear seized her brain, realising she might not be fast enough to meet the next blow. But the growing, violently swirling sphere of magical energy condensing around Nightmare Moon's horn never came down. Before she could strike, someone else struck her first. Shot with blinding speed and strength, a large and ornate silver sword lodged itself into her head and her neck and through them. She faltered, lost her proper balance, and as blood began to shoot out of her wound she lost control of her magic. The sphere shattered and dissolved into black and blue bolts of lighting that showered over her face and burnt her skin. Twilight saw her chance, and she took it. While Nightmare Moon still stood on her hind legs, she pushed herself forward, her horn once more flaring with magic. She struck the unhealed wound on Nightmare Moon's chest and pierced through it, lodging her horn as deep as she could push it. Gritting her teeth and ignoring the pain, she unleashed as much magic as she could into the alicorn's body. Twilight's eyes glew bright from the power she channelled, and so did Nightmare Moon's as that power pushed its way out from the core of her body. Light leaked from her wounds and out of her mouth, carried along by her screaming, and out of the cracks opening all over her body. A hole began to open in her back as Twilight's spell ate through her from the inside, and her hooves left solid ground as she was pushed by it. Twilight felt Nightmare Moon's body slip from her horn. Eyes ablaze and mane flowing on its own, she took one more step forward and pointed her head down off the broken edge of the tower. Pulled by gravity and pushed by magic, Nightmare Moon fell towards the ground, as the stream of magic tearing through her from the inside swelled into a torrent pouring out of Twilight's horn and swallowed her whole. Twilight pushed out everything she could, raw unfiltered magic leaving her horn, hooves digging into the crystal as she fired her spell to the ground, the golden beam wide as the building she stood on and not much less tall than it had been, visible from everywhere in the Empire. She pushed and pushed, crystal melting under her assault, air burning, the ground around the area cracking under the pressure. She pushed until her horn screamed at her to stop, until her muscles gave out, until her breathing stopped. Until her vision fogged and her ears could hear nothing and her mind almost blacked out. Then she stopped, panting, hurting, limbs failing her, and through lidded eyes she looked at the wide, smouldering crater she'd left on the ground down below. > Shyneon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst watched as the pillar of light cleared, and immediately spotted Nightmare Moon standing there. His brain froze momentarily as he saw Luna lying at her hooves and the blood pouring out of her, but as Twilight began to assault Nightmare Moon and Celestia rushed to her sister's body he forced himself to look away and focus. "We need the others here!" he said. "Rainbow is already on her way," said one of the guards, who'd managed to take her eyes away from the scene to look at the map again. "The portals are down!" she added just a moment later. "Is Starshine on the map?" Sunburst asked, feeling out with his own power in case he caught the mare's presence. Fluttershy sat close to Rarity, looking between the two pairs of alicorns down near the central tower and shaking slightly. She swallowed nervously. "Princess Luna will be okay, right?" "I can't see her anywhere," the mare replied. "I don't know." Rarity hugged Fluttershy to herself. "I hope she will." "She's not answering our communications," another guard said. "Any reports from the portal groups?" Sunburst closed his eyes, and began to focus and feel outwards. He'd grown to associate his power with a sort of spot somewhere close to his heart, something like a light shining in an otherwise empty space where the confines of his body were barely visible. "Alert everyone of the situation, and ready the closest buildings for evacuation," said another guard. Sunburst's powers stretched, looking in different directions for a sign of Starshine's presence. It was a strange connection, what they shared, one made stranger by Starshine's progressive changes and by his own increasing understanding and awareness of his powers. He couldn't properly always tell where she was when she existed on her own, but he could sort of summon her back when she wasn't fully existing someplace else, or attempt to and make her aware of it. "Princess Twilight is currently too close for us to strike Nightmare Moon. We have horns pointed to her and ready." It was something he was really careful with. He was always afraid he might accidentally create something that wasn't Starshine, something new and different, or worse change the way she was and be unable to fix her. She had been an accident, and she'd evolved into a way for him to interface with his coil, but the more he understood it and grew skilled at using it the more he feared he might not need her for that anymore, and that he would accidentally unravel her as he unravelled the ramifications of his powers. That was partly why he pushed for her to become independent of him, though he didn't know for sure how successful that would be. "Heartstrings and Sweetie Drops have reported. They are safe, currently hiding. They took care of the portals." Fluttershy leaned against Rarity. Both of them watched wordlessly as Twilight unleashed her magic against Nightmare Moon, a storm of different emotions stirring inside them. Sunburst found something. > Drea. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine was there, but she wasn't really there. It was different from what he was used to. Like she was someplace else that wasn't either reality or the unreality she nonexisted in whenever she wasn't. But not fully there. Not fully anywhere, she felt more caught between all three places, a little in each of them. Split apart yet connected, not fully manifesting as anything more than a ghost. Sunburst pulled on her. Softly, slowly, tugging at her fragmented essence until it became a single whole he could latch on to and invoke. Once he had a firm enough grasp on her, once she was whole enough, he pulled, and felt her coming towards him. He opened his eyes to see the alicorn manifest in front of him once more. She looked about the same as she had the last time he'd seen her, but her manestyle was slightly different. Maybe her eye colour was different too, he didn't really get a good chance to look. "Sorry!" she said immediately upon being again. "Sorry, I got busy doing a thing and then I kinda started stuttering in and out and I let go of myself and I think I must have gotten snagged someplace and then I couldn't properly pull and-" Sunburst silenced her with a hoof to her lips first, then with a quick hug. "No need to apologise," he said letting go of the hug, "no time for it either. Nightmare Moon is free. Twilight is keeping her busy, but we need the rest of the Elements. Rainbow is already coming here, we need you to get Applejack and Pinkie. After that you should rescue Lyra and Bon Bon too." Starshine stepped back and gave a salute. "On it, dad!" she said, then she disappeared before Sunburst could make his discomfort explicit. The unicorn was left to wait for her to get back, and in the meantime walked to Rarity and Fluttershy to watch the scene with them. But before he could sit down properly, Starshine spoke again in his mind. "What happened to Starlight? Wasn't she the one supposed to be there?" "She's wounded," Sunburst thought back at her. "Last I saw her she was unconscious. She was hurt while deactivating a spell. She's stable though, she should survive." Starshine went silent on the other end of the conversation, and he focused on the battle going on instead. Twilight surprisingly seemed to be doing well on the offensive, at least judging by all the stains of blood on the ground that weren't hers. He looked for a moment at Celestia and Luna instead. There was a strange glow spreading between them, and he hoped whatever it was it was a good thing. It felt weird to stand and watch like that, but he couldn't exactly intervene in any meaningful way. Tired from exerting his powers, his regular magic was insignificant next to what Twilight was dishing out, and more importantly he wouldn't have been able to aim at Nightmare Moon without the risk of hitting the other instead. Waiting and watching really was all he could at that moment, keeping himself ready in case he was suddenly needed. So he did that. > Pendulum > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a hole in the heart of the Empire. A smouldering crater of molten crystal, surrounded by cracks and ashes. The air above it danced in the heat as it slowly cooled off, its inside solidifying once more. Everypony watched with trepidation, those who could reaching a higher position to properly look inside while everyone else was too scared to step closer and check. None even so much as approached its edges, and those closest to them drew back instead. Those who could see inside the crater could, looking closely enough, spot something at the bottom of it that wasn't merely crystal in nature. Two things. One was Rainbow's silver sword, still perfectly intact, embedded in the ground. The other was next to it. Something black, its exact shape unclear. To those who had seen one in their lives, it looked kind of like a carcass, one in a really bad shape. There was a set of ribs jutting upwards, something that maybe looked like a limb stretching out, maybe something left of a neck. Some bits that might have been feathers, charred beyond recognition. The only thing to tell apart muscles, blood, and bones by was their apparent consistency, as everything had the same unnaturally black colour. It did not take much to deduce they were the remains of Nightmare Moon's body. Unsettling as it was to see something of her still left in the first place, they still appeared mangled past the point of being reasonably salvageable, and more importantly they were completely still. Everyone waited in fear and trepidation, while Twilight was rescued from the top of the tower and brought down to earth to be healed of her fatigue. No one cheered for victory. The town was still occupied by enemy forces, and most in fact kept on dealing with those threats as they had been. But for all those there present, they stared at the corpse, none daring to approach it yet to confirm its conditions. Not even Twilight, although she kept her magic alert for any signs of life as her wounds were mended. Silence reigned. Starshine, who'd been the closest to the area of impact, slowly walked up to the edge of the crater. Its inside had cooled to a smooth crystal surface, slightly cracked in places as a result of the process. The body at the bottom of it was still unmoving, but she didn't dare go closer than that. She didn't dare even poke it with her magic. Seconds passed, almost minutes. The Elements of Harmony gathered at the edge of the crater and looked down, and Rainbow's sword quietly disappeared to then reappear next to her owner. The six waited a little longer, uncertain of what to do. Finally, Twilight was the first to act, and took a step forward into the crater. The corpse moved. Everyone froze. Looking again, it seemed to have merely crumbled on itself, and it made no further movement as the ponies waited. Swallowing, Twilight took another step. The body moved again. It turned, and it rose, skeletal limbs propping up a torn and consumed spectre of a body. Then it shrieked. > Sway > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow turned a corner after the other, debris left from previous battles kicked up by her passage as she streaked through the streets of the Empire. She couldn't go all out in an environment like that, and had to slow down even further than that to account for the possibility of running into enemy soldiers, but she still pushed those restrictions as far as she could. Her sword stayed at her side, almost pressed against her body as to not get in the way of her movements, as she raised piles of dust and rubble into curtains while speeding by. She rounded one last corner and the broken central tower came into view. She slowed her pace a little, only a little, as she moved closer. The first thing she noticed was the battle going on atop what was left of the tower itself, Twilight showering Nightmare Moon with an onslaught of magical bullets and darts that seemed to be doing quite the amount of damage. She was not alone in it, as occasionally lighting fell from the otherwise clear sky, and just as Rainbow arrived Starshine materialised herself near the tower and began to take aim at Nightmare Moon with a series of crystal projectiles. Rainbow headed at first towards the building on top of which Rarity and Fluttershy were waiting, and where she could see Applejack and Pinkie Pie had arrived as well. A number of other guards were there too, alongside Sunburst and another pony with a distinctly different armour. She didn't focus on that though. Her attention was caught by something else, something she saw in the corner of her eyes and she immediately turned to look at properly. Celestia and Luna were on the ground, sitting in a pool of blood. Celestia had her eyes closed, and her legs wrapped around her sister as she held her close. Luna's body was limp, and all the blood there was hers. There was a hollow gash in her chest, where her heart and everything around it should have been. Her neck and wings were splayed out at wrong angles, and her mane and tail were dimming, losing their magical flow and darkening as they fell as regular hair into the blood below her. Emotions came over Rainbow like a tidal wave. Despair turned to anger faster than she could drown in it, and she let it carry her. Her muscles worked on their own. She looked at Nightmare Moon being pushed up the spire and her eyes narrowed, as her wings beat down strongly in place. Her sword rose to her side, and something else came around it. A bow, bigger than her whole body, silver like all weapons Luna used. Her sword came to rest with its hilt against the string, blade pointed at Nightmare Moon. Rainbow pulled it by will alone. Her muscles tensed, veins in her neck bulged, she grit her teeth as her breath grew laboured. She didn't have the mental presence to care. She saw nothing but the alicorn and the weapon between them. Nightmare Moon reared onto her hind legs after clashing with Twilight, her body exposed. Rainbow let go of the sword, and let it cut through the air shot towards its target. > Bleach > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like a knife driven straight through her chest. Like a wound sliced open, only without any blood pouring out. It felt cold, colder than anything had ever felt, and just a moment later it began to spread. It spread through her chest like water seeping into it, making her feel cold in places she'd never even felt properly before. It didn't only start in her chest. Cold crawled up her legs like frost growing over her coat, and for a moment she even gave a dazed look downwards only to confirm that no ice or snow was actually there. Her blood began to carry along the cold as it passed through her chest, spreading it farther through her body, into her limbs and up her neck and into her head. Her vision grew foggy, her hearing muffled. Her thoughts became slower and her mouth went dry. Colours bled out from her eyes as things appeared in blurry shades of icy grey. She lost feeling in her legs, barely aware they were there anymore. On some level, she still knew she should have been focusing on something else, but she physically couldn't. The cold was the only thing she could place her attention on. It was so cold. So impossibly cold. It had reached her heart, and somehow it felt like it was reaching even deeper into her. She felt it crawling up her spine, clawing at her bones, digging in her flesh, slithering into every last part of her body. In her eyes, in her lungs, in her hooves, everywhere. Everywhere she could feel and in dozens of places she hadn't even known she could feel. Everything was cold, to the point of losing the feeling in her skin. Her breath slowed. Her thoughts ground to a halt. Her heart stopped. Her legs failed her, and with eyes wide open Applejack fell to her side. She watched it all happen from inside her own head as if it was all slowed down, and yet she failed to process it as her mind refused to move, as cold spread through her thoughts as well. Her body hit the ground, and some part of her that still had some freedom of thought was surprised at how it neither bounced nor shattered. She lay there on the crystal, wondering if the warped and muffled vibrations she heard were her friends talking to her. Her eyes remained on Nightmare Moon's black, skeletal shape as her vision clouded, growing more and more hazy, blurry blotches and shapes melting into each other until there was only a single indistinct patch of grey, then nothing. Only darkness. Only cold. Her body lay in shadow, eaten from the inside by ice and frost. No sound and no light came to her, and no heat could melt what was biting into her body, into her mind and soul. She had not even the strength left to shiver, nor enough control to force herself to. She was motionless, alone, deaf and blind, and she felt cold, and nothing else. > Virus > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy physically felt her body heat flare and rise, and nausea began to overtake her. It wasn't what they'd agreed on, but she could understand it. With Applejack in the conditions she was in, she could even almost justify it, or at least choose not to hold them responsible for it later. If there would be a later. What they were planning to do though, that she did not agree with. She understood it, but it went beyond their established pact in ways she simply couldn't allow. No one but her was supposed to get involved. Certainly not unwillingly. They didn't care about that, and she'd always known that, but she'd hoped things wouldn't get down to that. She had to tell someone about the situation. Luna would know, but Luna wasn't in a position to tell anyone right then. Rainbow Dash could find out though. She didn't have time to write anything down or properly explain things, and with time running out that was her best bet. "Rainbow," she spat out with a pant as she drew away from the crater. As the other turned to her she continued, "If I stop being stable, I need you to check on me." Rainbow looked at her a moment, and nodded before turning again. With that settled, Fluttershy returned to carrying herself to the best of her abilities towards relative safety. Her vision grew foggy and her mouth dry, her breath laboured and her heartbeat faster. She could feel sweat rolling down her back and down the sides of her face. Her mane fell partly in front of her face and she saw how more and more of it was turning red. She didn't need to check to know what was happening to her wings. "Rarity," she said, stepping closer to the unicorn even though she couldn't see her right, "I'm about to pass out." Her voice was breathy, but she did her best to make herself clearly audible. Thankfully her hearing hadn't abandoned her yet, and she understood Rarity's acknowledgement when she heard it. "Please don't freak out. I should be okay for a while, but get me to a doctor to keep me in check if that's possible. Don't keep too many ponies close to me." Her legs buckled, but she caught herself. Weakly she stumbled forward, so Rarity would have to carry her a shorter distance. Screeches echoed around her and resonated loudly in her head, bouncing from side to side until she had a properly throbbing headache. She felt her own saliva caught in her throat and had to force it down to avoid choking on it. Her legs buckled again. She caught herself again, but realised she didn't have the strength to stand up properly. If she tried she knew she would fall. Instead she lay down, doing her best to do so in a timely manner. "Sorry," she said weakly in the direction she guessed Rarity was in. Then she felt the unicorn's magic wrap around her, and allowed herself to sink into unconsciousness with a sigh. > Running Out > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon shrieked. Her wings spread as her darkened, empty eye sockets settled on Twilight. Twilight couldn't stop fear from gripping her, but she stood against it nonetheless. Though she had hoped she would be able to defeat Nightmare Moon by herself, they still had the Elements. They still had hope. Then Applejack's body fell. Immediately Twilight and the others turned to her, but before they could reach her another piercing wail rang out from the alicorn. Something black and like a spear shot out of her body at blinding speed, headed towards the sky. As the five mares recovered from covering their ears, they spotted the body of a pegasus, pierced through the chest and a wing by what Nightmare Moon had shot, falling through the sky. Rainbow immediately sped towards it, and Twilight fired a blast to intercept a second shot aimed at the mare. While Dash grabbed hold of Firecracker, Pinkie began to pull Applejack away from the crater. Twilight fired a spell at Nightmare Moon, but it seemed to do almost nothing as it crashed against her charred body. As Starshine took hold of Applejack, Fluttershy said something to Rainbow Dash. Nightmare Moon was still screaming. It wasn't just a sound. It was something physical, and magical, a tangible presence like waves washing out of her. Twilight's stomach churned, and somewhere deep in her mind her worst fears began to take hold. It was too similar to what she'd felt and observed already. Too similar for it to be just a coincidence. Nightmare Moon was screaming and nothing of what Twilight threw at her seemed to be doing anything. She looked back. Applejack was fully knocked out and being carried to safety. Firecracker had been brought to Celestia, and Rainbow was heading back, sword at her side and fire in her eyes. Fluttershy's body was being carried by Rarity, and the discoloured parts on her wings and mane had grown considerably in size. Time for plan B, then, and Starshine seemed to be already informing Sunburst of that. Twilight suddenly felt herself pushed back. The energy emanating from Nightmare Moon had grown thicker, visible, black winds rising and blowing from her form. Above them the floating tower began to shatter as her screeching continued. It broke into pieces, and on her way back towards Twilight Pinkie Pie jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a massive chunk of broken crystal as it fell towards the ground. The alicorn teleported to the opposite side of the crater, and found it more useful to use her magic to shield herself than to try to attack. Rainbow charged towards Nightmare Moon while a silver trident materialised at her side, and before she got too close she curved upwards while letting go of her weapon, flinging it towards the alicorn. It surprisingly seemed to do better than Twilight's spells, piercing through Nightmare Moon's body and tearing off portions of her flesh, but she showed no clear reaction and moments later her corpse began to regenerate anew. Her screaming grew in intensity. The air itself began to take on a sickly black and purple colour as stronger and stronger winds whipped through it. Cracks spread through the earth and the ground began to shake. Then it was suddenly like a thread had snapped, and something broke loose. > Gomma > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight felt her body being carried away from where she lay. Her limbs were weak and aching, and she kept her eyes half-closed, but despite how tired and drained she was adrenaline and will were still keeping her at least half conscious, and she was grateful for it. She felt she was being carried by magic, but not much besides that. No loud sounds could be heard, so she figured at the least Nightmare Moon was not an immediate problem. She couldn't see exactly where she was being brought, only feel that it was somewhere downwards and back, but she figured it was any of the buildings where a doctor was. She wasn't sure how much a regular one could do, especially when her issue was plain old exertion, but she figured being looked at couldn't possibly hurt. She was a little surprised then, when, upon being set down on the relatively cold ground, she realised she was still outside. Someone came over her. By the time thighs clicked in her head and made her realise who it had to be given how tall they were, a faint golden and amber glow was already spreading over her body. She stood up and it hurt her far less than she would have imagined to do so, as she felt all tiredness being drained away from her body, all aches being removed. She looked around and was even more surprised to see who'd brought her there. Starlight seemed to be back in perfectly healthy conditions, no wounds on her coat even if some blood was still on the bandages she was busy removing. Twilight didn't focus long on her though, and looked to Celestia instead. Unsurprisingly, but perhaps ironically, the alicorn looked the worst out of all of them. Her short mane still a mess and the signs of what she'd had to endure still there on her body, her face was smeared with tears that hadn't finished drying yet, her legs and wings were drenched in dried blood, and there was an odd, unnatural black spot on her chest with no hair growing from it, like a magically burnt scar in her skin. "It's not going to spread," Celestia said, noticing how Twilight's attention lingered on the mark. "Not the prettiest, but I think it was worth it." Twilight's eyes went wide as the implications hit her, and immediately her head whipped to the side to look at the alicorn lying close by, a little farther back at Celestia's side. Luna wasn't moving and she was still covered in blood, but the wound on her chest was gone. She was breathing. Unconscious, and possibly more than just asleep, but she was alive. And there was something different about her mane. "I owe Firecracker an apology," Celestia said, drawing Twilight's attention back to her. "We'll have time to celebrate, Twilight. And time to talk, Harmony knows we'll need it." Her tone was still signed by the consequences of her sobbing, hoarse and a little stuttering in places. "But things aren't over yet. Go and make sure it's finished." Twilight wanted to say something, but she swallowed her words instead. She nodded, turned, and headed towards the crater. > Skayl > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How does it feel?" "Huh?" The soldier looked to the side. "How does it feel?" the unicorn asked again. "Being tied up like this?" The soldier tugged at his bonds a little for emphasis. "Oh, no, I know what that feels like," the unicorn replied. He then nodded towards the scene playing out a distance away. "I meant seeing your leader getting torn to pieces in a fight." The soldier stared for a while, pondering, watching as blood spilled out of Nightmare Moon's body under Twilight's unrelenting magical assault. Eventually, he spoke again. "Hysterical." The unicorn looked at him, furrowing his brow. "Really?" he asked in interested surprise. "It's the most accurate succinct description of it I can give," said the soldier. "The alternative would be too long and too complicated for me to articulate properly. I was never a well read pony, I don't think I'd even have the vocabulary for it." "Huh." The unicorn looked back at the scene. "Can I ask you why it feels like that?" "Can I first ask you how you think you would feel in a similar situation?" the soldier asked back. "I don't really need to imagine after the little show your queen put up today. That whole showing up with our princess chained up and beaten, you know?" the unicorn said. "It made me angry. Would have probably made me feel somewhat desperate too if I hadn't known about it in advance, and I guess I was somewhat glad she was still alive but that's beside the point. Rage, sadness, maybe some portion of hope born out of denial. That's what I'd say it would feel like for me." "You love your princesses, don't you?" asked the soldier, not expecting an answer. "I think there are some where I'm from that love our queen as well. Certainly anypony who's gotten too close to her. But it doesn't matter if you love her or not, because you're required to act the same way either way." "And you don't love her?" the unicorn asked. Then soldier chuckled. "That's the thing. It doesn't matter. If your ideas have no consequences, then they become meaningless. I never bothered to love her or not, I just followed along, and I got lucky enough I never ended up close to her." He suppressed another chuckle. "That's not the funny part, though." "And what is?" The unicorn raised his eyebrows and looked to him. "Have you ever seen serious propaganda?" the soldier asked. "I imagine not. To give you an idea, we barely even have a concept of what propaganda is, I only know it because I'm a soldier. Nightmare Moon isn't just our queen. The image she built up for herself is one of divinity. She's erased patches of history from the archives and rewritten what we're taught just for the sake of being perceived how she wants. She's supposed to be unstoppable, all powerful, almost all knowing at times it seems." A laugh escaped his lips, interrupting him momentarily. "And here she is getting blown to bits by a mare two thirds her size. And I think that is absolutely hysterical." > Thear > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Nothing in there either," the soldiers reported, "we checked the whole building. Couldn't find them anywhere." The heavily armoured unicorn paced back and forth in the street. Suddenly she turned towards a nearby group. "Any results on communications?" she barked at them. "None, Ma'am," a unicorn there replied. "It looks like we're completely cut off from the other side. I'm not even sure they still have a laboratory there after that blast." Even through the helmet on her head he could feel the mare's glare on him. "We'll keep trying," he said, then he got himself back to work. The mare turned to look around. Her eyes settled on the crystal tower hanging broken in mid air in the distance. She'd seen the blast that had been fired downwards from its top too. But surely that didn't mean things were over. "Let's get back," she said after some pondering, "no point wasting our time here any longer." Soldiers around her nodded, and together they all began to head back the way they'd come from, circling around the building that Applejack had caused to fall in the middle of the road. Some occasionally threw worried glances towards the tower too, but nopony asked any questions about that situation. The questions that were asked were mostly concerning their missing comrade, or the accident that had caused the portal they'd used to disappear. Getting in contact with the other remaining group they had found the issue had apparently originated there, but not much more. They had together chosen to hold their respective positions for a time, and eventually group together if no connection to their world managed to be established. Their queen was still on that side with them after all, so they were far from being considerable MIA even in their conditions. Ponies on the other side would be doing anything in their power to reestablish a connection, and as for them they would simply proceed to conquer the city as planned under Nightmare Moon's direct leadership. Suddenly, as they were about to reach the outpost they'd been stationed at, they heard a sound. It was like an animal screech, but impossibly loud. The ground began to shake and buildings started to show cracks on their walls, and violent winds began to blow carrying along sickly black and purple air. The mare was about to yell to catch her soldiers' attention, but something caught hers first. Barely visible as it slithered on the ground, there was something like a shadow stretching from the centre of the city and spreading out towards each and every one of the ponies there. It reached a little farther, extending another tendril to arrive beneath the hooves of yet another pony. The mare noticed it was under her as well. It looked like some sort of ghostly, malformed tree with irregular branches at odd angles. It stayed there for a moment, connected to all of them and connecting them all to whatever it originated from. Then it felt like something snapped. Long thin black crystal spears rose from the shadows to strike each pony there, and the mare's mind was seized by horror as she felt hers pour its magic inside her. > Pitch > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The unicorn was the only one to notice the shadow spreading beneath the soldier at his side, but he failed to realise what its source was in time. Only a moment before the crystal erupted from it did he finally see that it was coming from Nightmare Moon herself, as the shadow grew thick enough for him to see it in its entirety alongside its many other branches, but by then it was too late. The spear rose from the ground and struck, and the soldier screamed in pain. The unicorn felt the magic pouring out of the crystal, and saw the root-like protrusions spreading into the other's skin where he was struck. He acted almost entirely on instinct. His magic enveloped the soldier's body and yanked it upwards by force, leaving a pulsing black wound where the crystal had been. He rested the body out of the shadow, turned to shatter the spear with a blast, then looked to the stallion again. The soldier was shaking, his eyes shrunk to dots and the muscles in his face tense. He was in a clear state of shock and seemed unable to move his body, but it was hard to tell how conscious he was of his situation. Black roots were still spreading over his skin from the wound, which only slowly leaked out a mixture of tar-like ichor and blood. Removing the source of the magic had slowed the spread, but it hadn't halted the process. The unicorn hastily placed a temporary seal over the wound to avoid any potentially excessive blood loss, and then focused on the magic itself. It felt disgusting as his aura reached out to it. Like a parasite eating out an animal, like some unnatural abomination that had latched itself onto a living being and wouldn't let go. It was melding itself with the soldier's own magic and with his body, and it was altering both in the process. For a moment the possibility of ripping out the affected area flashed into the unicorn's mind, but it was quickly discarded. It was a huge risk and likely to kill the soldier due to the severity of the resulting wound, and moreover it wouldn't have fully succeeded in removing the actual magic itself. Gritting his teeth and ignoring the visceral reaction it evoked in him, the stallion began to take hold of the corruption spreading through the other's body. It wasn't easy by any means. He struggled to keep up with its spread, struggled to find every part of it as it slithered and burrowed inside the pony it was infesting, struggled to hold it and struggled against it as it squirmed in his grasp and tried to push back or inject itself into him too. By the end of it he was sweating, panting, his own stomach not having emptied itself only because he had last eaten too long before for it to happen. With a grunt he ripped the magic from the soldier's body and hurled it on the ground in a writhing pile of twisted black appendages, then unleashed a searing spell on it and burned it away, leaving only a scorch mark in its place. Then he turned to the still trembling soldier, and began to take proper care of the wound left by the spear, which had taken on to bleeding naturally at a regular pace. > Danxs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trixie looked over Starlight's body lying in front of her. Even with everything going on outside, she'd kept periodically checking on it, failing to keep her attention on what was happening as it kept being drawn back to the mare instead. It was because of that that she'd failed to realise, notice or even at all see Celestia approaching the building, and as a result she was completely surprised when the door opened and the alicorn stepped inside. She was even more surprised when Celestia headed towards her. She didn't get time to ask about the dark spot on her chest, she barely had time to notice it, and she didn't get to ask anything at all as Celestia stepped up to Starlight's body and put a hoof over her. She just watched in confusion as a soft amber glow spread from one pony to the other. A moment later the light was gone. Starlight opened her eyes. She slowly, hesitantly raised herself up to a sitting position. Everypony looked at her, even the doctors who'd initially come closer upon seeing Celestia's bloodstained coat. The alicorn took a step back to give Starlight proper space, and spread out a wing to prevent others from getting closer. "She is healed, now," she simply said. "Are there others in need of assistance?" she asked, looking towards one of the doctors. "None as greatly as she was," he replied after a moment. "Ponies out there are most likely in greater need than those here." "Very well." Celestia gave a polite little nod, then looked to Starlight again. "I will need you to safely escort Princess Twilight to me, I'm afraid I cannot reach her myself in my present conditions. I will be waiting for you outside. Please, do not be too late, the battle has not ended yet." With that she turned, and slowly walked back towards the door and out. Confused by her situation and by the evident amount of events that had to have happened while she was unconscious, Starlight tentatively touched the area where her wound had been, and confirmed it was no longer there. She shook herself a little out of her stupor and looked around. "What happened?" she asked to one of the ponies there. "You were wounded while returning here, and you were brought in-" "Out there," Starlight cut him. "What's the situation? Who went to protect the Elements?" "Sunburst took your place," the pony explained. "The portals were successfully deactivated. Nightmare Moon broke out. She wounded Luna, and entered a fight with Princess Twilight. Currently her status is unknown, but she is bound to have suffered great damage." "Right." Starlight pushed herself back to her hooves, and began to head towards the door, in the same direction Celestia had gone. Finally snapping out of her stupor, Trixie walked after her, speeding up a little to catch up to her. She placed a hoof on her shoulder as Starlight opened the door, and the two exchanged a silent look. A moment passed. The two hugged each other. A moment later they let go of the hug, Starlight walked outside and Trixie headed back inside. > Speck, The > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She'd been watching, and she'd been doing so for a while. Just watching, unsure if she could really do anything. Fairly sure she could not, and so she merely watched. She was unsure if describing it as entertaining would be appropriate. It was entertainment in the more technical sense, in the sense that it kept her attention and engaged her interest, but it would have felt disrespectful to those involved to use a word that usually carried along connotations of a comedic nature or similar. It did keep her interest though. Not merely because she lacked other alternatives to occupy her time, but outright because she did find it interesting. That was why she'd been watching, and she kept at it. She was interested in it. Interested in seeing how it would play out, interested in finding answers to the questions she had and new questions she didn't even know she would have. In a way it was exciting, in others it was something more than that. It was a desire to stick with things and see where they would end up. An attachment to those she watched and the lives they lived. That was what had brought her there. In the heart of action and danger, though she would not be in any real danger herself. Much more than she couldn't do anything but watch, nothing around her could do anything to her. It all barely noticed she was there, if at all. She was like a ghost, watching without touching, invisible to the world. To most of the world. One guard had given her a distinct look and smiled, a guard she'd seen already and she knew the name of. And a mare had seemed to look in her direction too, but it was always hard to tell exactly where she was looking with her eyes. Things looked somewhat dire, but she had hope. Though a few of the ponies there were still unconscious, none were seriously hurt yet. Of course she would not be hurt regardless, and whatever ended up happening she would be there to see it, but she cared about those around her. She cared about those she had been watching. That was why she watched in the first place. Not just mere curiosity at seeing what would come next, but genuine concern over what would happen to those she watched. Hopes things would go well for them, fears they wouldn't. Looking away would have felt like abandoning them, in a way, even if she wasn't truly there. She had hope that the ponies there would make it through. She would be watching them. Cheering them on, even if they couldn't hear her. Would she try to help if things turned out bad? She wasn't sure she could. But maybe she would, though she hoped it would not be necessary. Either way, though she knew her presence and her watching to be largely inconsequential to the events themselves, those events were not inconsequential to her. And she would continue to watch them, and hope things would turn out eventually well. > Leashn't > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst rushed down the stairs, ignoring the cracks spreading on the walls, then ran out the building and towards the one nearby. Fierce wind blew against his cape as he made his way there. He would have yanked the door open if the guards inside hadn't already spotted him and opened it for him, instead he kept going and barely slowed down as he entered the room. He immediately went for the staircase leading downwards, ignoring the other ponies there, most of which were busy leaving the place through the entrance opposite the one he'd used. A pair of guards greeted him with a nod after he unlocked the heavy metal door at the bottom of the staircase. Four more guards were standing with their backs to the wall opposite the entrance, and six of his own constructs, three on each side, lined the remaining two. Hurriedly he walked to the small altar-like structure in the middle of the room, the one the two guards who'd nodded were standing at the sides of. Though their position didn't change, he could still notice the guards next to the wall keeping their eyes on him. He placed a hoof on the glowing purple weave of floating circular runes over the rectangular black box on the altar. His horn shone and the patterns rearranged themselves, portions sliding into position and allowing him access. After a few moments there was a faint click, and the spell faded from view. His hoof touched the box. He pushed it up and balanced it on its lower back edge, and found a small set of silver dials on the side in front of him. He quickly fidgeted with them, as the silence in the room was broken by the sounds of cracking crystal from upstairs. A louder click than the previous one, and what had seemed like a seamless black box opened like a suitcase would. The guards at his sides peered inside as he looked at the contents. "Dismissed," he said after just a moment, all he had needed to confirm everything was there. All other ponies and the constructs along with them immediately left their positions and rushed up the stairs, and Sunburst followed them after closing the box again and taking it in his magic. The building above them had been torn to pieces, and winds much fiercer than the one he'd felt before blew through the city. The sky had taken a dark tinge, and though light still shone over the Empire the Sun itself could not be seen. While the soldiers ran away from the centre of town, towards a group of other ponies visible in the distance, Sunburst turned for a moment towards the opposite direction. His eyes found Twilight. She was close enough, and Nightmare Moon was far enough away. Twilight saw him too. Without wasting another second, he hurled the box towards her with his magic. He stayed just long enough to confirm she'd grabbed hold of it with hers, then he turned around and ran in the same direction the other ponies had. > Railing [pfm] > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm going to ask you to imagine something. It's not particularly pleasant, I would say, certainly not what you'd generally consider happy. If you're bothered by excessive violence, or graphic descriptions of gore, if you don't want something like that on your mind, you can feel free to ignore this. I'm not planning to indulge in it particularly, but it's still going to get pretty ugly. If that's okay, I'm going to begin now. "Imagine a pony, I'm specifically picking a pony for obvious reasons but you're actually free to imagine something else if it works better, who does not suffer from wounds the same way regular ponies do. They can be wounded, in the way you'd usually expect them to in fact, but they don't die from it, and the damage isn't permanent. When no one is looking, when a little time has passed, the wounds will just have stopped being there. And if they'd lost a part of their body, that will be there again. And if they'd lost their whole body, they'll just be walking around again, completely fine. I hope that gives you a better idea of what we're going to be talking about. "Let's say it's a mare, for the sake of convenience alone. Let's also say she's not affected by age either, not nearly as much as anypony else would be, practically not at all. Thirdly, let's say she's royalty, something that could easily derive from the previously established assumptions. A seemingly unkillable, ageless ruler provides many advantages, not least of which is the simple fact that a nation can declare the perceived immortality of its own ruler and display it and make show of it to the other nations. One can hardly decapitate something if the head of it cannot be cut, and furthermore the simple amount of knowledge this mare might gather by merely existing for long stretches of time would result in quite the aura of respect being tied to her. "We have then our mare, our ruler, ageless, capable of healing from seemingly any physical wound. Let's say, purely for the sake of the discussion we're having, that she, let's say, took a liking to the possibility of her shrugging off death and injury. A morbid kind of fascination with it. Maybe a sick infatuation, maybe the product of apathy born from a life stretched beyond its natural ends, maybe the result of sheer insanity. And say she began to harm herself, if harm it can be called given her condition. "And say that the guards would find her guts on the railings around the gardens after she threw herself onto them from above. That they would be forced to clean the walls of the halls she blew her head against. That they would have to wipe the pavements of her blood, and throw the chunks of her body lost out every day. Say she would hurt herself over and over, no reason apparent beyond that she could. What would you do then with her?" > Rev13 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was, in a way, not dissimilar from reading a book. A really well written book, a really engaging one, one that really drew the reader in and made them truly sink into the narrative, but a book nonetheless. A fictional story they had no control over. Something they could experience and something that could very much make them feel things, but not something they could change or alter in any way. With a couple key differences. For one, she could not stop that the way she could stop reading a book. For two, though slightly less important, she did not have control over the pacing the way she would have had while reading a book. She wished she'd been reading a book instead. She wished she'd been doing almost anything else, far away from where she was, but specifically her mind wandered to reading because of the situation she was in. It felt like it had been ages since she'd last read a book. She could probably recall when exactly it had been that she'd done so, and what exactly she'd read then, but even without doing so she felt it had been too long. She regretted it, even though she'd never thought she would. She'd realised she never would get to read another. She'd liked reading, when she'd had the time for it, before bigger and more important things had taken priority. She'd always taken for granted that she could do it again if she ever felt like it. It was such a simple thing, and yet it suddenly seemed so important. She regretted not reading more, when she'd still been able to. On one end, though, there was something exciting about what she was going through. Scary and exhilarating and terrifying and wonderful all wrapped up into one. What was happening to her, regardless of the leaning of it, it was something great. Something special. Something extraordinary. If leaving her old self behind disturbed her in profound ways only such a fundamental altering of nature could produce, the self she was moving towards was something undeniably greater than what she'd been. A truly noteworthy achievement for how great she had been before it already. She could not help but feel regret. It was only natural. For all the things she could have done differently, for all the things she hadn't done, for all the choices that had seemed so important at the time and looked so meaningless when faced with a conclusion, and all the things that had seemed insignificant and suddenly she missed when she knew she'd never have them again. And yet, frightened as she was, she was still fascinated by the prospect of what would come next. Fascinated by that greatness bestowed onto her that she herself could not have reached, that greatness so beyond her that it was taking control of her and not the other way around. How much of herself would remain in it? How much control would she have? She couldn't know. But she was past the point of getting a say in what would happen. She could only watch it play out at that point. So, she decided, she may as well watch how things would play out from there. She may as well choose excitement over fear, when she had no choice in the way things would continue. > To Borrow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The black box got close enough to Twilight for her to grab it in her magic. From there she dodged to the side to avoid a thin black crystal spear hurled towards her from Nightmare Moon's body. She traced it with her eyes for a bit after it passed her, to make sure it wouldn't hit anything else in its path, then she focused back on Nightmare Moon. The alicorn still hadn't moved from the middle of the crater, and Twilight dreaded the moment she would. The damage she'd caused just by standing still was already more than they'd been prepared to deal with, and she knew it was only the beginning of what she would do. It was close to one of the worst case scenarios she'd thought could happen, and yet the way they'd gotten there was entirely unexpected. Her plans for dealing with Nightmare Moon always hinged on the assumption that she wouldn't be able to simply defeat her in a straight fight, though they also all accounted for that fight happening as a means to gain time and therefore allowed for the small chance of actually defeating her that way. Instead, Twilight had seemingly successfully done just that, until she hadn't. Until suddenly things had been different. The Nightmare Moon she was facing was completely different from the one she'd faced just a little before, and the gap between the two was startling. The way things had happened made little sense to her, though she obviously didn't have time to sit down and think them through logically. One moment she'd been outright pushing Nightmare Moon back, the next she couldn't even harm her. One moment Nightmare Moon had struggled to keep up with her, the next she was affecting the whole city with her magic. It made no sense. She never would have wanted to let herself be harmed that much if she'd been able to do what she was doing then from the start. And at the same time, though Twilight in her haste hadn't questioned it, she'd seemed far weaker than she should have been during their confrontation. Even with Celestia's powers combined with her own, Twilight was still an inexperienced fighter. And Nightmare Moon hadn't grown complacent during her time as ruler, the opposite in fact from everything Twilight had seen. When her aura on its own had been enough to make her pass out during a previous encounter, when it was both logical and seemingly confirmed that she had amassed power during her reign in any way she'd found, it made no sense for her to have been defeated so easily. At the same time, it made no sense for her to be so powerful after she'd been defeated so easily. Twilight had her hypotheses as to what exactly had happened, but she had no time to dwell on trying to verify them. What she had to do was clear. With two of the Elements incapacitated and her own magic completely outmatched, the first backup plan she'd devised was her only logical approach. Hopefully, it would work. > Lor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suddenly there was a sound in the next room over. Lyra and Bon Bon tensed on the couch as they both turned their heads towards the source of the noise. They had not heard anyone coming inside or even moving outside, and they'd been listening specifically for that. Was something else in the house with them, or had someone somehow gotten in? Before there was a chance for fear to fully grip them however, an alicorn stumbled her way into view, and the sight of her immediately made them relax. Starshine shook her hear around a little, then looking at the place she spotted the two mares and headed towards them. "Oh, there you are. I wasn't actually looking for you but I guess I might as well now that I'm here." Quietly, Bon Bon and Lyra got off the couch and walked towards the mare. They met halfway through the room. "Good job with the portals by the way. I'm here to bring you back," Starshine said. Her horn began to glow. "Oh, I should probably warn you that Nightmare Moon is back. Don't worry though, things are probably safe for the moment maybe." Before either mare had a chance to say anything, they found themselves transported to the top of a different building. "Sorry," Starshine said, not towards them but talking to Sunburst instead. "I kinda ran into them first, I think my magic isn't working quite right yet." Without another word, she disappeared again. Sunburst wore a strange expression for a second, then shook his head and nodded for a guard to go towards the two mares. "Please follow me," the guard said as he reached them, then headed to the staircase leading down into the building. Lyra waited a little longer, throwing interested glances at the magical confrontation happening over what was left of the central tower, then she followed behind Bon Bon down the stairs. "What's Princess Luna's situation?" Bon Bon ask the guard as they got to the bottom of the staircase. "Unclear," the guard replied. "Celestia appears to be dealing with the situation personally. We are not permitted to approach the area unless otherwise stated." They quickly walked through the door and out towards the nearest building. While outside, though the guard kept up a quick pace, Lyra and Bon Bon still managed to sneak glances both at Celestia clutching Luna's body over a pool of blood and at the one-sided slaughter that seemed to be the fight between Twilight and Nightmare Moon on top of the broken tower. As they walked into the next building, the last thing they caught sight of was Starshine suddenly appearing on the ground near the palace. The door closed behind them. Inside almost everyone was near the windows, to some degree looking at the battle outside or pretending not to only to sneak glances at it. The only ones not there were a blue mare and the unconscious unicorn whose body she was looking over, and a nearby doctor. Not wanting to disturb, Bon Bon and Lyra settled near a window themselves, and glanced out of it as everyone else was doing. > Hor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining tensed. He eyed Luna's body on the stretcher partly resting over his back, then looked around again. Something wasn't right, he could feel it. Something else was coming. At his side, Cadence seemed equally as nervous. She too looked around uneasily. With all the destroyed buildings they should have been able to see far in the distance, but the winds lowered their visibility dramatically. She hoped they weren't walking towards danger without even realising it. She too looked at Luna's body. The alicorn was still asleep, and breathing softly and quietly. Nothing seemed to wake her, but there was also nothing immediately wrong with her. Towards its base, nost notably at its roots where it attached to her head, her mane had taken on a reddish, sunset-like tinge. The same for her tail. Cadence could not begin to comprehend the details of what had happened between Celestia and her sister, but it was clear from the former's chest marking that the two had begun to share a connection beyond just their familial bonds as a result. One had given something to the other. Cadence hoped there wouldn't be any dangerous consequences in the long run. If they lived long enough to get to worry about that. There was still no guarantee Twilight's plan would work, as uncomfortable as it was to admit it. And Luna was not the only unconscious pony they had to carry around. Applejack and Fluttershy, both for seemingly different reasons, were equally as debilitated and unaffected by Celestia's attempts at healing them. And Celestia herself was still devoid of magic beyond the powers of her coil, drained from both the exertion of using it so intensely and the events of the previous night, and unable to heal herself the way she could others. She was infinitely useful to them in her ability to help others, but she was still a defenceless target they needed to protect. Shining worried about their ability to cover all their vulnerable members. Celestia needed top priority for obvious reasons, but they couldn't simply focus on her and risk damage beyond her ability to repair it happening to the other vulnerable targets. Aside from the three unconscious ponies, many of the ones there were simple guards, and some were even less trained than that. A couple were mere civilians. By contrast, the ones truly capable of by themselves making a huge difference in a fight where far fewer in number. Him and Cadence, Sunburst and Starshine, Starlight and Firecracker. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. A few particularly skilled or experienced guards, though that was stretching the definition. Nothing insignificant by any means, but would it be enough to cover for everyone? How many ponies exactly would each one of them need to keep their attention on and protect at all times? Would they even be able to defend themselves against what they might run into? He had heard of how the soldier they had taken prisoner had been saved. It did not take him much effort to imagine what would have happened if he hadn't been. If what he feared had really happened, he wondered whether they'd really be able to put up a solid fight if they ended up in the wrong place. > Deny > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How do you think Twilight is doing?" Sunset asked, sipping on a glass of pear juice. "Princess Twilight I mean." "I'm sure she's doing fine." Pinkie's tone was surprisingly cheerful despite her darker looks. She'd gone heavy on the makeup, and her clothes had not a shred of colour that wasn't black or white. Her hair was also noticeably less puffy, almost straight actually. "Besides, she would have told us if something was wrong and we could help her." Sunset finished her juice, and considered Pinkie did have a point. "How's that whole warlock thing going?" she asked while setting the glass down. She tilted her head to the side. "Are those spiked bracelets?" "Going pretty well," Pinkie replied, raising a wrist to show off the black leather strap with silver studs poking out of it. "Pretty well indeed." Sunset blinked. The tone was ominous, but she supposed it was fitting. "I'm glad," she said. "Got any plans for the afternoon?" > Ondulate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was gone. It was unmistakably, undeniably gone from the place it was supposed to be in. She knew that for sure. She knew exactly where it had been, and it wasn't there anymore. She couldn't see it there for one, but more importantly, most importantly, she'd passed where it was supposed to be. She'd been forced to. And in doing that, she'd seen that it wasn't there. She'd passed where it had been and she hadn't hit it, because nothing was there and it wasn't there anymore and it wasn't anywhere, it was gone. And that could only mean one thing. It could only mean the worst possible thing. It could only mean her fears had been justified and her worries verified, it could only mean what she was dealing with was far beyond the scope of what she was prepared to deal with. She didn't have time to consider the implications. She didn't have much time at all to do anything but focus on what she was already doing, truly, and all she could really do about it was hope the plan she had would work. But she couldn't stop the knowledge from nagging at the back of her mind, she couldn't stop her thoughts drifting towards that when she wasn't immediately focused on something else more urgent. It was gone. It was nowhere, and it especially wasn't where it was supposed to be. Were the others gone too? Were they disappearing with time? Did the other know it had been there and that it had disappeared? Were new ones being created, would they even work the same way? Gone. Gone the same way it had come. With no signs and no warning and a vague reason she couldn't fully understand, one she was too busy dealing with the immediate consequences to properly appreciate the ramifications of. Something she hadn't even begun to fully comprehend yet wiped away by something equally as alien. All her plans about it shattered, all her work on the matter rendered useless and she hadn't even seen it happen. Twilight focused. She couldn't let herself get distracted by that. As terrible as the loss of knowledge was in an abstract and long term sense, she had much more immediate and concrete things to focus on at that point. It was not good that it was gone and it would give her a decent series of problems going forward, but none of it would matter if Equestria fell or if she died right there. And while focusing on understanding why it had happened right then could certainly help with her present problem, doing so would almost certainly not be a good idea when her brain power was most definitely better spent focusing on actually surviving through it moment by moment. Her chest tensed and her wings flexed as she pushed herself upwards and sideways to avoid another oncoming wave of magic. Even simply flying through the darkened air Nightmare Moon's influence had brought was becoming difficult. It was rough on her skin and hard on her eyes, thick in her lungs, and her wings struggled to grip it properly. It was like trying to hold mercury together. It did not feel right. It parted at odd, jagged angles, messing her feathers and making it hard to steer herself properly. She grit her teeth and pushed harder. She couldn't allow herself to fall. Not right then. > Desecrate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ground began to shake. Barely noticeable at first, but growing stronger by the moment, quickly getting to the point where even just walking was difficult. Those who had wings began to hover, the others tried their best to find some stability. The sound of crystal cracking and shattering coloured the air as the streets split and broke in places under the strain. After a few seconds, it all stopped. Everyone looked around, without moving, waiting to see if it was truly over. Some stared towards the direction they had come from, at the barely visible flashes of light in the distance where the central tower once had stood. Suddenly, there was another sound. A loud, almost deafening crack. The ground began to split open again, and the wind grew much stronger than it had been just moments before. Much too strong for most ponies to stand against it. It was like an explosion, but chaotic and directionless. Bodies were pushed on all sides, carried by the winds, falling over the shifting broken ground. Waves of energy spreading out at angles without order or logic scattered the ponies around farther and farther away from each other in smaller and smaller groups, and though some managed to resist their push they still found themselves equally isolated as those around them failed to do the same. Ponies fell, tumbled, rolled, tried to stand. Knocked out of the air, over fallen buildings and broken streets, carried around. Ponies ran, yelled, pushed back against the waves. Hardly able to see as black and purple filled the air and the wind pushed in their eyes, as the light grew dim in the darkened sky. Some tried to hold on to others, some even succeeded in it. Then, as fast as it had begun, the commotion ended. Ponies found themselves separated in small groups more or less far apart from each other, at best hardly able to spot each other between the violet winds and the lack of light. Part of it, and not an insignificante one, was the sheer distance they had been carried for as well, however. It appeared it had been no mere winds and regular forces pushing them around, nor had the streets and buildings broken merely because of those things either. The waves of magic that had come over them seemed to have teleported them around the city, and to have done much the same with random chunks of it itself in places. Sections of the ground had been shuffled around, the edges clear where they had broken. That was not all, though. It had not been immediately apparent in the commotion following the blast, but they had not been the only ones shuffled around by it. As some soon began to discover, the same had happened to the enemy soldiers. To what was left still of them to be more precise. But that was not of immediate concern to all the ponies, most of them were more pressingly focused on simply finding each other and rejoining the main group, if one still did exist, not an easy task given the state of the town and the reduced visibility. Their worries grew as they noticed a strange darkness spreading over the ground. Black and oily, it was like a thin layer of tar covering the street and spreading outwards, coming in waves from what they reasoned had to be the centre of town and rising from the cracks in the ground. Like sick and poisoned blood pouring from the wounded earth. Those who had wings once more hovered, and others placed themselves atop the rubble of the broken buildings littering the entire town, where the darkness didn't reach. They looked around, worried, hoping they would spot someone to head towards, and equally hoping nothing else would spot them first. > Lo'TC > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight let the briefcase shift around her body. It had been designed specifically for that. Part of it rested itself on her back and secured itself there with a rigid strap extending around to the bottom of her chest, behind her front legs. Another part, connected to the first by a squared tube of sorts, similarly wrapped itself around her front leg instead. In the absence of a better alternative, it would allow her to aim directly where she wished to fire the contents of the black box. Under different circumstances she would have held it in her magic and aimed with that, but she needed her powers focused on defending and moving herself and she could not afford to accidentally drop the briefcase and its contents in the middle of the fight, in case her magic failed or she needed to use it for something else in the immediate. Physical securing was her best option. She brought her leg up and aimed towards Nightmare Moon's body as best she could, lining up her eyes with her hoof. She didn't need to be too precise, her target was big and the projectile wouldn't be small either, but it would still be good if she made sure she didn't miss. While she had more than one shot available, she didn't want to have to fire more than once, as if Nightmare Moon avoided the first she would be much more aware of what was there and much more likely to dodge subsequent ones as well. Falling to the side to avoid another blast, she prepared to shoot. Her muscles tensed with nervousness and her chest grew tight, but she steadied her aim and made sure her leg did not tremble. There was a chance, not insignificant however slim it was, that it would all end in just a moment. She would hit her mark and everything would work, and Nightmare Moon would be gone. It wracked her nerves. The moment she let the shot go, she could be ending things for good. But she did not get to fire then. Just as she was about to, Nightmare Moon disappeared. Almost purely out of instinct, before she could consciously conceive of the thought, Twilight threw herself to a side and backwards. That was enough to save her in that moment, as the blackened skeletal form of the other alicorn passed where she'd been a split second before with her horn held forward. She had not disappeared. She'd jumped. And in pushing herself she'd unleashed all that magical energy that had merely built up about her before. The wave reached Twilight after Nightmare Moon already had passed her, and the alicorn struggled to hold herself in the air against its strength. The crater cracked open and black ichor began to pour out of the earth to fill it, as massive ripples pushed outwards from its edges and swept over the entire town with immense energy both magical and physical. Twilight did not have much time to contemplate the damage, though no doubt she knew it would be great indeed. Nightmare Moon had not merely launched herself charging into the air with no purpose other than to strike her directly. Shortly after she'd passed Twilight, her wings spread and she quickly turned around, and her empty eyes settled on the princess. Despite the charred, carcass-like nature of her wings, or perhaps thanks to it given the unnatural winds she sailed on, she easily gripped onto and moved through the air that so many problems had given and was giving Twilight. She charged again, and spears of crystal erupted from her shoulders and shot towards her target, and her horn shone a sickly blue unlight as she readied a blast that Twilight did not even try to match, merely dodging it as she'd dodged the spears by flying upwards and above Nightmare Moon herself. Clad in golden magic to shield herself from any blast and spark she may have failed to avoid, and to protect her body from the violent storm of violet raging around her, Twilight twirled in the air to keep her eyes on her opponent. The black box remained attached to her back and leg, almost weightless and never obstructing her movements. Things it seemed would be harder than merely aiming and firing one shot. She grit her teeth and let herself fall down and backwards to avoid another onslaught of darts, and her mind began to churn a plan of action. > Cael > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the moment he'd reached the group again after delivering the black box to Twilight, Sunburst had stuck close to Starlight and Trixie. When the group had been forcefully separated by the winds and magical pandemonium that had occurred, two of them had not had a hard time keeping the trio together, as well as managing to catch a few other ponies before they could get thrown around. That had left them relatively in the same position they'd been before, or it mostly would have if the entire chunk of land they were on top of itself hadn't also moved. They were, still, separated from the majority of the other ponies, as was everyone, and quickly they began to look for others. It was no easy task given the severe lack of reference points, therefore Starlight chose to send out a ping to try to detect nearby ponies. It sickened her to do so with the darkness spreading below them, but she managed to regardless, and she did at least give the group a direction to head towards. Marching towards it, calmed the unease of the ponies with them, Starlight kept her horn alert for any further signs of anything hiding in the darkness, be it ponies to rescue or worse things to avoid. Because of that, worse things she did sense. But much later than she would have expected to. They were already close. She realised as she sensed them that they hid against the darkness permeating the earth, their signature barely distinguishable from the sickly background noise until they were already close. Starlight barely had time to warn the others to be on alert. The moment they stood straight and looked around, they all immediately felt it. First came the ground shaking, only slightly yet noticeably so. Then came the sounds, almost immediately after. It was not unlike the sound made by bugs walking over wood, only much louder. Like a stampede, but heavier. Like rumbling thunder coming closer. The ponies shifted closer together in the brief moments they had. Something broke through the winds, coming into their vision. Mutated ponies, not unlike the ones some of them had seen that day. Some still had pieces of their armour stuck to their bodies. They all stood much taller than even the tallest of regular ponies. Their skin was black and deep blue, covered by root-like formations that seemed to writhe and slither through their bulging muscles. Their deformed limbs ended in things that looked like claws more than hooves, and their stretched faces sported fangs in numbers too great even for predator species. Some had clearly been unicorns or pegasi before their transformation. Twisted and broken horns rose from some of their heads, half-mutated useless wings with oddly bent joints were on some of their backs. Their teeth occasionally tore through the flesh of their faces, their eyes looked bloodshot and warped and insane. Some limped on poorly built limbs, others dragged along themselves overgrown portions of their bodies like magically born tumors of bone and skin and tendons. They saw the ponies, or sensed them otherwise. Those who could with eyes, others smelt them, others heard. One, its head malformed and engulfed by its own mutation, blindly continued its charge. But the others stopped. They began to circle the ponies, growling, leaking blood and ichor onto the ground as jaws opened where mouth should not have been. The ponies waited, afraid, ready to protect themselves. > 0r > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shining and Cadence, both holding on to Luna's body, watched as ponies around them began to be swept away. Shining managed to put up a shield around the three of them and some of the closest ponies there, but most of the others were carried away before Cadence had a chance to catch them with her magic. And as for the group containing Starlight and Sunburst, who were also managing to hold their ground, they suddenly disappeared as the entire portion of land they'd been standing on seemed to teleport away, replaced by a different one. When the ground ceased its shaking and the winds died down a little, Shining released his shield and began to take proper stock of the situation. Celestia was nowhere in sight, neither was anyone else that hadn't been in their immediate vicinity and they hadn't managed to catch. Aside from the two of them and Luna, six other ponies were there, all guards. He silently cursed as he looked around, and felt a shiver up his spine as he noticed the darkness spreading out beneath their hooves. Once he'd looked at the group once more and ensured everyone was physically alright, if understandably not mentally so, he cleared his throat and spoke up. "Everypony, please stay close together and try to remain calm." He attempted a basic orientation spell, and found that, predictably, the magical energies around them messed with it to the point of it being useless. "We need to find the others and regroup." He gave his wife a look, and she understood him without the need for words. Cadence let go of Luna's body and flew to the other end of the group of ponies. "Form a line of three pairs and keep your eyes open," said Shining as he took Luna's stretcher fully onto his back, aided by magic. Though some spells gave them problems, the fact that they hadn't actually moved meant he still knew which direction was where. The winds had been chaotic, but predominantly they'd seemed to push ponies further away from the centre of town, so they'd generally be heading that way while trying to cover as much ground as they could. Once he'd made sure the other ponies were all lined up and none were about to freak out, he turned and began to walk forward, followed by the others and with Cadence at the end, guarding the rear. They marched on at a steady but gentle pace, shifting direction when Shining felt they had likely gone far enough one way. At all times, he, Cadence, and the only other unicorn with them would send out magical pings to sense if someone was close by. Occasionally, when the wind slowed sufficiently, they'd call out so any nearby ponies might hear them. They had not yet found anyone, though they'd only been going for a few minutes, when Cadence sensed something. "Stop," she said, some nervousness in her tone. Shining did, and a moment later he sensed it too. Then so did the remaining unicorn. They turned their attention towards the source of it, and watched as a tall, horrifyingly warped creature limped into view. > Falling Apart > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As she was falling backwards to avoid Nightmare Moon's attack, Twilight found another mare falling at her side. "What's the plan?" Starshine asked her, in her usual disconnectedly cheerful tone. Twilight gave a very sudden, strong beat with her wings, pushing herself straight skyward. "Incapacitate her or get her to stay still long enough for me to fire at her," she said to Starshine, who'd merely appeared at her side again at the top of her ascent. "Alternatively, if I miss her, push her into the radius by force afterwards." "Got it!" Once again Starshine disappeared and reappeared to follow Twilight as she teleported herself on the complete opposite side of Nightmare Moon, behind her on the ground next to the crater, just in time to avoid a torrent of magic aimed at her that tore through the sky. Twilight tentatively aimed again, but it was no use, as in just a moment Nightmare Moon spun around and began to rain down spears on her, forcing her to run around the crater and then take a hard turn into it, shielding herself for what she couldn't dodge. Her barrier was easily broken through however, and she almost immediately teleported away. But there were no more buildings for her to hide in, and once she reappeared amidst rubble she knew it would only take seconds for Nightmare Moon to come onto her again, just a moment longer than it'd take to spot her. Thankfully for her, Starshine stepped in. While Nightmare Moon turned to Twilight's direction, she appeared at her side and unleashed a sudden blast of magic wide enough to envelop her whole body. It left a considerable crater where it struck the ground, wide enough for a pony to lie comfortably inside of. Yet the beam did not survive for long. Seemingly not having moved from her position despite being struck in full, Nightmare Moon fired a shot of her own while inside the blast, one that sent Starshine flying backwards. More than that, the single deep blue beam had left a wound on the alicorn's body, and blood trailed behind her as she was hurled in an arching trajectory through the sky. That had not been enough for Twilight to take proper aim yet. However, Starshine did not let Nightmare Moon switch her attention back, as she caught herself mid fall and righted herself, then fired again from her horn. The magic beam, slimmer that time, slid over Nightmare Moon's body like water over a stone, seemingly harmless to the alicorn. That established, Starshine teleported herself upwards to dodge a barrage of spears and bolts and instead manifested more physical means of attempting to harm the alicorn. Large, rough crystal cones the size of train wagons came into being at her sides, encircled by swirling runes. A moment to take aim, and the first shot forward faster than an arrow. It didn't reach Nightmare Moon. It crumbled before even getting close, shattered by the sheer aura of her presence. The second, reinforced by magic, fared better, but only until Nightmare Moon shot at it directly and pulverised it. Keeping up the pace Starshine shot forward a third, even faster, even more reinforced. Twilight lined up her hoof with her eyes with her target. Nightmare Moon's horn shone again, and it was clear the incoming crystal wouldn't be enough to make her move yet. Holding her breath, Twilight fired. > Unbeliven > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's not looking too good," the green filly said, looking out the window towards the distance. Even beyond the Wall, the way the sky had darkened over the Empire was still easy to see. The stallion at her side looked out as well, squinting to get a better view of things. "Maybe," he said. "It's a little hard to tell from here." "You think?" the filly replied. The book she'd been reading sat unopened in her lap, and she sat askew on a bench with her head turning slightly to stare outside. There was irony dripping from her tone, but her voice was worried more than malicious. She didn't like that things looked bad, but she didn't want to deny the way things were. The stallion looked at her, then sighed and looked out again. He rested his front legs on the bench's backrest, and chewed on air for a few seconds, while his tail lazily moved side to side behind him, kicking up some dust from the floor. "Nothing to do but wait though. Is it really worth souring ourselves over it when we can't do anything about it?" "It shows we care," the filly said after a moment. "If we didn't worry about it, it would be like we didn't care at all." "There's gotta be a limit," said the stallion. "It's one thing to go prancing around when a friend is suffering nearby, it's another to spend your day looking out a window at a battle kilometres away you're hearing nothing about. I agree it's not wrong to worry, but you can't let it consume all your time. You'd never find a chance to be happy if you had to focus on all the problems that don't concern you." "This isn't just any regular occurrence though." The filly shifted a little in place. "The whole country is at risk. All our lives are in danger. I feel like it's fair to be worried at a time like this, one would hope they wouldn't be all too regularly occurring during someone's life." "Interesting times tend to clamp together. You might have noticed that since the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Then again, if every day is special your idea of what is special changes accordingly, and I guess we've seen that happen to. It's all in our nature, I suppose." The stallion huffed. "Depressing topic of conversation though. Did you enjoy the trip here?" "I suppose. It was entertaining," the filly said. "Quaint. Probably wouldn't do it again though." "It was interesting, yeah. I don't think that was any place I know of. And I've never seen a spell like those portals before." He distractedly clicked a hoof against his own horn. "Do you think they'll send us back the same way?" "I would hope so. And they probably will, no point in sending everyone back by train or something." The filly licked her lips after noticing they were drying, and looked around for the nearest drinkable fountain. "You know, if they do send us back." > Aryze > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a revolting thing. If the corpse they'd sent into the Empire once before had been slightly less dead, it no doubt would have looked much like that. What had once been a pony was an unnatural mockery of life itself, something that looked every bit like it was in as much pain as it would be able to give out, though mercifully mentally no longer capable of comprehending it. Shining hoped so, at least, as having to exist like that was not something he would wish on anyone. Its ribcage had pushed through its skin and flesh, leaving tattered shreds of its body hanging from its lower ribs and drifting in the wind and some of its spine visible as well. Its hind legs were thick, bent over themselves, ending in far too many claws and carrying themselves over the ground with every step, bending joints differently every time the creature moved. It stood almost like it was rearing, thrice as tall as even Celestia, and long slender front legs that looked by then more like arms stretched all the way to the ground, each with at least one knee or elbow too many. Fingers oriented at random angles capped by keratin knives one could generously pretend were nails dragged over the ground with a sound like metal scraping against stone. It had been a unicorn once, that was apparent. What had become of its horn had elongated in both directions and pierced through the lower back of its skull, then into its spine, locking its head in place and ending in a jagged broken portion a little farther back. On the front it stretched longer than any normal pony horn should, but it had grown wrong even in its surprising straightness. It was like it had been stretched, cracks and thin bulges lining its length and the natural spiralling pattern broken and deformed. One of its eyes was hidden, completely covered by a misshapen bulging mass of pulsing black flesh with tendrils burrowing into the creature's skull and neck. The other, its white tinged a sickly bluish colour, had its bulb exposed more than it naturally should have, and the pinprick thin pupil at the centre of its faded green iris darted maniacally around seemingly outside of the creature's own control. The mane was a dusty greyed light blue, drained of hue like something consumed by sunlight too harsh for too long, and barely a strip between the former pony's ears and down its neck. Its attention settled on the ponies. Its elongated neck turned slightly, then its body did to accommodate for the lack of mobility of its head. Its jaw fell open, revealing dozens of malformed and wrongly bent fangs, as its general attention focused on the group, even as its eye erratically continued to dance around its precariously incomplete socket. Then the lower part of said jaw split open like a snake's, ripping the flesh within it apart and leaking black blood over the creature's exposed ribcage. A hiss that would have been a howl if the creature had still had the lungs and throat for it crawled out of its open mouth. Then, limping forward, it charged towards the ponies. > Undeliver > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somewhere in the feverish maelstrom of her sickened mind, Fluttershy found herself, and she steered her conscience and held it together. It was hard to achieve anything close to a stable conversation without Luna's help in stabilising the dream, and what she had instead was shreds of paper strewn around in the wind compared to a book. It was drifting in and out of awareness, losing and finding herself in a storm and screaming at the waves hoping an answer would come. She did it regardless. "This wasn't what we agreed on." For a short uncertain eternity, no answer came, and through moments Fluttershy felt herself unravelling and feared she'd lose herself once more. But she endured, and eventually the voices spoke back. Disjointed and all around her, they gave her meanings more than words. A while it took for them to reach her, a while longer for her to piece them together after piecing herself. They acted within their terms, they claimed. Out of self preservation, they sustained. She had agreed to sacrifice herself, they reminded her. She could not deny the last notion. She was willing to die to stand by her principles, she'd always said as much. But she would not allow them to hurt anyone else. "Only me," she said in a moment of lucidity and cohesiveness. "You're only allowed to harm me," she added, an unspecified blink of time later. Never would she be willing to let them harm another pony, even without killing them, unless the pony first was educated properly and then agreed to proceed with things, as she had. But symbionts out of parasites she could not easily make, of that she was aware. Through her respect for life and existence she still knew they would not honour her will and merely let themselves die. She was against the idea of Luna harming them to protect her, but she had no such qualms concerning the concept of her doing so to protect others. They had their warning, and if they chose to ignore it they'd pay the consequences. Although, obviously, Luna's state at that moment complicated things considerably as far as deterrence was concerned. Regardless, there came an answer, like chittering ants scattered through the wind. They would not stop if things came to it. She would be unable to stop them either way. Shortsighted of them, she found, to antagonise her so in her moment of weakness, but then she supposed it was in their nature to act that way. She wouldn't have a way of truly knowing what they'd do, they argued, and they added that it would be safest to let others partake in the carrying either way. That, she could not stand. "So you could do to them what you're doing to me?" she yelled at the void, held together by rage for a moment. She did not wait for them to reply, and still keeping herself one she said, "Kill me, and you'll be dying with me. Try to touch anyone else, and you'll be dying alone." "Are you in a position to make that kind of claims?" came their answer, whole for once. > Broadside > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creature's charge was more akin to limping than anything. It did not move any faster than a pony might have while keeping up a moderate gait, and certainly slower than a proper sprint. Shining was aware not all soldiers had grown mutated in such a way, but he was glad the one they'd ran into specifically had. Especially when their group was still small, something they could outrun or at least maneuver around was far preferable to something that could outrun them instead. From the back of the group, Cadence fired a beam from the horn aimed at the creature's chest. It struck its target, but did not do any damage. Like a stream of water hitting a rock, magic simply parted and slid off against the thing's skin, and continued on behind it without leaving any signs, eventually being consumed by the air it passed through. The creature kept on limping, undisturbed. Shining grit his teeth. "Back away and spread out!" he said, turning slightly to more properly address the other guards. His horn shone and he lifted Luna off his back, and levitated her to the other unicorn. "Keep her safe, stay the furthest away but don't go out of sight." He knew they couldn't just blindly run away or spread themselves too thin. They could lose sight of each other or of their path, and worse they might run into another one of those creatures. Best to figure out a way to deal with them when faced with one they could manage. The remaining ponies spread out and backed away from the creature, while Shining remained to face it down and Cadence came to his side. Magic wouldn't work, that was clear, but he could certainly think of something else. He raised his shield, and his wife split her powers between aiding him with it and reading a teleportation spell in case things went wrong. A few, slow seconds later, the creature was finally on them. It barely stopped its forward stumbling, and chose to attack by swinging one of its stretched arms towards the shield. If the sight hadn't been so deeply disturbing, it would have probably been quite comedic. It struck, and for a moment it looked like it would bounce off. But then it kept pushing. They shield didn't properly break. It bent, warped, shifted around the appendage like it was being repelled by it. If the previous spell had flown like water, the shield acted more like honey or mud or a thick glue-like paste. Somewhat like chewing gum, perhaps, perhaps it was just the colour giving that impression. The bubble bent as the arm pushed inside, and then began to part around it, making its skin visible to the ponies. Cadence got both of them out of there and where the creature had been when they'd first spotted it in a flash. From there, Shining fired another small blast merely to catch its attention, so it would focus on them and not on the other ponies nearby. The creature turned after being harmlessly hit in the back of the head, and once it spotted Shining again it once more began to limp forward. > Undefined > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fractions of a second too small for a pony to appreciate them properly after Twilight had given the impulse, the first scale travelled from her back through the tube and shot out of the portion of the box on her leg. Together with it, delayed exactly so they would meet at the target, a magical bolt left her horn in the same direction, compelled by the box and willingly unopposed by her. The two streaked through the air too fast to be anything but a blur to any observer. As Nightmare Moon unleashed a wave of energy towards the next giant projectile Starshine was hurling towards her and forced it to crumble to dust, the scale darted closer and so did the spell that would activate it. In the back of her mind Twilight hoped with all her heart it would work, though it all happened too fast for the thought to manifest. That had always been the first backup plan. One she'd come up with quickly once forced to think of a solution to the problem of having to face Nightmare Moon in battle. Equestria's history was no stranger to exile as a tool against evil, and her contribution would likely be safer than most had been. There was nothing alive on the other side that Nightmare Moon would be able to hurt, and what was there was far more likely to hurt her instead. It would mean having to never use the scale again as a safety precaution, and having to worry about not ending up in that world by other means when travelling by equivalents, but all things considered those were minor inconveniences. Nightmare Moon did not know the spell necessary to traverse the scales, and any attempt at it would backfire on her tremendously. That had been another considered option. Using scales as weapons by firing on them, and just letting them do as they did. Twilight had dismissed the approach, she did not wish to turn the Empire into a crater and certainly not when lives were there she would be taking. But she hadn't ignored the possibility completely, and other scales were ready, elsewhere, as a last measure. One she'd never activate herself, and she wouldn't be alive to see the activation of if it ever was used. All those thoughts, memories and feelings, compressed, they flashed through her mind, unwinding as she finally took the shot and waited to see if it would work for a time so short she wasn't even consciously aware of her anticipation. The weapon Sunburst had created had come as a blessing. It would have been far, far more arduous to achieve the same effect without it, when scales could hardly be moved with magic without serious risks attached. Even if spells theoretically existed for it, warping the air around them to move that without properly touching the surface, they were never used. Even in the laboratory, scales were moved by hoof and wing, often not even their containers were enveloped in magic on the off-chance some leaked through. The black box did not suffer from such issues. Whatever made it work, it wasn't magic. Whatever was going on inside it, something Twilight had no real knowledge of, it interacted with scales seamlessly. She'd reasoned it ought to have been the same power behind coils themselves, different from magic in the same way they were from it. But she'd known she would have time to think that over a different time, if she lived, and if not she would not be there to worry about it. First, what mattered was seeing things through in the first place. > Unresigned > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia found herself alone. The wind was blowing hard around her, and not a pony was in sight. Without her powers, without a way to defend herself, still drained from having saved Luna's life. For the first time in a long time, she was afraid. She feared for her life. She'd forgotten what it was like. She'd forgotten fear of death wasn't about one's self, but about the ones around them. She'd forgotten she could care that way. While Nightmare Moon had been torturing her, she hadn't been afraid. In a way, she'd felt like she deserved what she was going through. And though she could have died there, she hadn't worried about it. If it happened it happened, so she'd thought. It was for a good cause, and she'd closed out her loose ends sufficiently. That had been then. Things were different. What before would have felt right had come to feel wrong. It had come to feel unfair. She didn't want not to see Luna again. Not after what had happened. Dying to save her she would have accepted, but not that. Not after she'd already succeeded. She began to walk, shivering in the cold, stepping shakily over the ground as darkness filled it like blood leaking over stone. She dared not fly, she did not believe herself capable of dealing with those winds in her state. She was scared. At every step she looked around, hoping to see a friend, terrified of the possibility of seeing something else. She was alone, and there was no point in lying to herself. No point in hiding her worry. She'd done it so long she'd forgotten how to even feel worried, for a time. She was needed elsewhere. Ponies could be hurt and she was needed to heal them. She could be the only one capable of saving them. She had purpose again. Something she hadn't felt for a long time. Something she'd missed more than she'd realised. Was it her atonement? To serve and heal others for the rest of her life, no longer a queen or a warrior? She wouldn't have been against it. She would have embraced it. To have something she could do to truly help others. Not make up for her mistakes, no. There was no changing the past anymore, no going back. But she could justify her existence. Let her life be something that brought good, something worth keeping. Maybe she'd let Twilight keep her powers. No. Maybe a part of them. As her situation reminded her, she could not go without magic of her own. If she was to protect others, she needed to be able to protect herself too. If her life was justified in continuing, it needed support to avoid losing the benefits she brought. Not for herself, but for the good others could get from her living. Life as a tool, then. Not something she objected to. She'd lived life as it was meant many times over what many others might have. Too many. Too long. If she kept living just to be of use for others, it would be still better than to do so for no reason at all. But to do so, she first had to survive. > Enunciate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Got a plan?" Shining asked as the creature stumbled towards them. In the meantime he looked around to make sure everypony else was safe, and nothing else was coming. "Neck looks like it could be easy to break," Cadence suggested while studying the creature from afar. "That or its spine first, it looks even less stable." Shining grimaced. Even from slightly behind him, Cadence noticed that. "You feel bad about it?" "It's... It was a pony," Shining said. "I never particularly enjoyed killing things, either way. I was pretty happy when Twilight decided we should prioritise incapacitating." Cadence took a slight step forward, and placed a wing on Shining's back. She didn't say anything, knowing she didn't need to. After a moment Shining nodded. Then she spoke. "Do you think you can distract it long enough?" Shining looked at the creature getting closer. "Probably." He then looked around again. "Do you think you can pick things properly?" he asked, guessing Cadence's plan. "Probably," she replied. "That's what I need time to figure out." Said that, she teleported away. Neither of them had noticed it the previous time, caught up in trying to save themselves from the creature, but the air crackled in ways it shouldn't have as she did that. Both took note of it that time, and quietly decided to keep teleportation to a minimum in case things suddenly decided to be less stable than they had been that far. The creature was growing closer. Not yet close enough to strike, but closer. Shining began to back away. Slowly at first, letting it close more distance, then faster, trotting up to a paced run that eventually kept him at a constant distance from the creature as he began to circle widely around it. He deliberately went on the side where its eye was, so it could keep track of him. He wanted to be followed, after all. The scene probably looked kind of pathetic from outside, he figured. He was only moving around, staying out of the thing's reach as it followed after him at its mediocre pace. Neither did anything more than move at less than running speed. And yet he couldn't really do anything else, magic would have been useless against the creature and most of what he might have thrown its way wouldn't do much more. Running around to buy time for Cadence to deliver on something more substantial was his only real option, and that involved being consistently the pony closest to the creature, but never too close. It was a blessing that it only seemed capable of attacking with its limbs. Or so it had seemed at least. After about a minute of running around, however, as Shining looked back to the creature, something caught his attention. Something at the tip of its horn. A small but growing sphere of darkness held there swirling. He had barely the time and reflexes to roll to his side and get out of the way, and a blast from the mutated pony's horn left a small charred crater where he'd been. > Mind's Nail > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She could not properly move around in those conditions. She'd almost tried, but a brief look had been more than enough to tell her that it was not a good idea in any way. The winds looked bad on that side, but they looked much worse on the other, and they weren't the only thing there. Trying to move around there would have been too dangerous. She'd done it around the Behemoth, but that was not actively flailing around. She could potentially slip into it and stay still, she supposed, if it turned out she ever needed to hide or avoid something. She'd seen other things there that were around her, barely caught a glance at them, but she knew they couldn't see her there even if they were visible. But she did not have much of a desire for doing any of that. It would be uncomfortable, and anyway it would prevent her from actively looking for other ponies to be with. She did wish she could just leave. Just abandon the place and get to safety. It wasn't out of cowardice either. She knew she couldn't help much any longer, and she knew herself vulnerable. She would have been taking a load off the others' shoulders. She had always planned to leave if things turned out particularly bad, she'd just unfortunately missed her chance to do so. Though yes there were ponies there she cared for, she couldn't do much to defend them, and only risked putting them in danger if they had to protect her. At least though, taking a look at the other side did allow her to see where the closest ones were, on occasion. Then she had to actually figure out which direction was the right one when she blinked back in, never an easy task, but after enough back and forth she eventually got it right. There was a particularly visible someone nearby, and she suspected she knew who they were. They'd been close by before being separated, it made some sense for them to have ended up close to each other. Or maybe it was pure coincidence. Whether the case, as she gingerly stepped over rubble trying to avoid the puddle of darkness on the ground, she found her guess confirmed as she spotted the floating silhouette of a familiar pegasus appear through the wind while walking towards its direction. "Fire!" she called out to them, but not too loud, just in case something beyond the field of her vision was listening. Firecracker spotted her immediately once she called, and immediately flew towards her. "Is everything okay?" they asked first thing, before even getting to her, moving as quickly as the winds allowed them to. She nodded slightly. "Manageable," she said. Then, for a moment, she disappeared from there. She reappeared a second later, a hoof pointed in one direction. "There are others there, and the way his clear right now." Firecracker nodded. They flexed their wings for a second, then turned and began to head towards the indicated direction. "I'm glad you're okay," they said quietly as they walked, keeping the pace moderate for the mare to keep up with them. > Mind Snail > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow Dash had been flying a little higher than anypony else had dared to. She could largely take it, partly thanks to her armour, but in part it was also a matter of nervousness. She much would have liked to stay behind and help Twilight fight against Nightmare Moon, even after her rage had quelled a chunk after Celestia had healed Luna. But, of course, it was best if she didn't. Her contribution to the fight, while not null, would have been far smaller than what she could do instead defending the rest. Still, it nagged on her mind, and so did worry about the situation Twilight might be in as she watched the lights flashing in the distance. When the winds picked up, there was little she could do to fight against them. She tried at first, but they grew too intense too quickly and swept her along, away from the group. She realised shortly that her efforts would be better spent making sure she wasn't hurt too much than trying to get back to earth, something she knew she'd fail at and only get hurt in the process of. She partly let herself be carried, steering her direction but never opposing the wind in ways that would hurt her, all senses alert for a chance to settle down and land. She was perfectly aware her wings could snap if she wasn't careful, and carried so far from Celestia she did not want to risk that happening even remotely. She cursed inwards as the winds pushed her around, spinning her body through the air in ways that would have likely knocked out a less extensively trained pegasus. Then, not any less or more subtly and suddenly than how they'd begun, the winds ceased, or at least died back down to a far lower intensity. Rainbow found herself falling through the air for a brief moment before her wings snapped open and she caught herself. She glided in circles her way back down to the ground, and had a brief look around. No one in sight, nothing but rubble in her vision, every crumbled building indistinguishable from the next one. She could have flown up. She wasn't rash and dumb enough to do that, she knew it would end with her landing far too fast and far too little alive. The winds only got stronger up above, that much she could tell even from down there. She felt it in her feathers. Besides, altitude wouldn't give her much of an advantage. The visibility that usually came from it would be too limited by the winds' thickness and unnatural purple hue, the same things limiting it on the ground. It was almost like walking inside a sandstorm or a blizzard, but with magic carried by the air instead, thinner than any particles yet far more dangerous. So she began to walk. She picked a direction she felt good about, nothing more than her guts guiding the way, and started going that way. She did begin to hover once the darkness came over the ground, but that aside she didn't change anything about her approach. It had come from the direction she was going towards, after all, and that probably meant she was going the right way. Or at least, towards something. > Decaplicate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Anything?" Bon Bon asked, looking around from over a fallen column that stood slightly taller than all the other broken building portions around them. "Anything what?" Lyra asked back, also vaguely looking around from on top a far smaller and shorter piece of rubble only good to barely get her out of the darkness over the ground. "I can't just see the future, you know?" "Practically speaking, you kind of can, in a limited matter," said Bon Bon before hopping on top of another chunk of wall. "So?" Lyra groaned, and rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine, I got it." She straightened her neck and looked straight ahead for a moment. After a second, she blinked. "Nothing." "Nothing?" "Nothing," Lyra repeated. "Honestly I don't know what you expected. If something does happen, trust me, I'll tell you." "You didn't tell me about the winds." After a moment of hesitation, Bon Bon stepped down to the ground and began to walk. "You didn't tell anyone about those for that matter." "I tried," Lyra said. "It didn't turn out pretty. I gave up after a couple of attempts, I figured the best thing to do was just make sure we were okay." Bon Bon cast a brief, somewhat disapproving look towards the unicorn. "You might have screwed us over," she said. Lyra turned towards her. "I don't want to start an argument over the morality of inaction, and I don't want to start one over the fact that I shouldn't have been here in the first place. What I am going to do is remind you of everything else I have continued to restart things for today." She got closer and spoke a little louder. "If I stopped trying, it's because I genuinely thought it was the best alternative. I saw us living if we just went along with it. I saw Shining Armor and Princess Cadence trying to stop it and failing. I don't like it either, but in the short term I was allowed to see, this was the best alternative." Bon Bon held her gaze, but her features softened after a sigh. "Maybe..." She shook her head. "I didn't ask for this," Lyra said, answering the words Bon Bon had held back. "I know I might not be the right pony to make these decisions, but I am the one who has to make them. That's how it is." Bon Bon breathed once, and wordlessly moved forward into a hug with Lyra. She sighed again, then let go and stepped back. She looked around a moment, unsure of what to say, then frowning she picked a direction she'd chosen already and began to lead the way there. Lyra followed behind her, quiet as well. After a while, Bon Bon asked, "Will you tell me if we meet anyone?" "I might," Lyra said. "Not sure, honestly. I guess it'll depend." "Fair enough." A bit more walking. "Does it bother you to do it on command?" "A bit," Lyra said. "I just figure, you know, if something does happen you'll know and I'll be back already. It's not too taxing, but it's kind of boring." "Fair enough." > Exradicate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She was there with him. He was by himself, but she was there with him. He'd grabbed her unconscious body almost by pure instinct. Maybe to have something to hold on to, maybe to try to protect her. He didn't know for sure at that point, he probably hadn't known when grabbing her either. She was there, alive, still unconscious and shivering, and they were alone. No one else in sight. It would have been laughably easy for him to kill her right there. He looked at her, the way her head rested over the ground, her blonde mane splayed out underneath it. Just a moment. Just a flick of his horn. He could snap her neck, even through her muscles, or he could choke her. He'd seen what she could do, it would be a significant loss for their side. Or he could abandon her. Walk away and not look back. Walk his way to his freedom, if he didn't run into any more of them. Leave her there for the elements to take. Better yet, he could take her prisoner. Bring her with him, take her to his comrades, use her as a bargaining chip against the enemy. If he ran into more of them on the way, use her life as a shield, force them to comply under threat of hurting her. It would be easy. He looked at the scar on his underside, where the crystal had struck him. The wound wouldn't normally have become a scar so quickly, but that it had even left a mark at all was a testament to how bad things could have been if he hadn't been helped. Because they'd done that. They'd saved him, and they'd healed him. Brought him to the one his Queen had humiliated and tortured, and she'd healed his wounds after her soldier had saved his life. He didn't know if he still had comrades out there. He recognised, to a degree, what had almost happened to him. Had she done it to everyone else, or had he just been the closest one? He couldn't tell. Was he willing to risk it? But the alternative was living as a prisoner. What if he ran first into soldiers from his side, what would he do then? He looked over the mare again. She reminded him of someone. Someone he wasn't sure he'd get to see again. He told himself that was why he wasn't going to hurt her. He told himself that as he picked up her body and placed it onto his back with his magic, and as he began to walk, not sure of what direction he was going in. He had nothing to gain from harming her anyway, he told himself. He looked around, and felt unease shivering up his back as he saw the pool of blackness spreading over the ground like ink spilt on a page shortly after he'd started to walk. But he did head towards the source. He figured if everyone did, he'd run into someone that way. And maybe, he figured, being free wasn't worth the price of being alone, not there and then at least. > Exaway > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie bounced up high enough to be pushed to the side by the winds and fall not where she'd jumped from, only to find she could gain little visibility from there. She landed on her tail and softly bounced on it once, then straightened herself and walked her way back towards Fluttershy. The pegasus was still unconscious, still shaking slightly. Still coloured the wrong way in her mane and wings. The two things were probably related, though Pinkie wasn't sure about the details. They'd tried bringing her to Celestia, but apparently that hadn't worked. Apparently she wasn't really properly sick. Pinkie figured it was more like a rope tied around her compared to a wound. Celestia's powers couldn't untie the rope if they were trying to heal the body. Maybe Luna was undergoing something similar. Not that it was a good time to undergo something like that, but then again the whole reason they were was because of their then and there in the first place and there was little point in complaining about it beyond that. Pinkie carefully pulled Fluttershy up again and over her back, and she began to walk again. She had a good feeling about that direction, something in her pharynx telling her it was the right one to walk in. A sliver of good feelings in the flood of bad ones the entirety of the place around her had given her since Nightmare Moon had started to screech. It made her shiver all wrong in the worst kinds of ways. She'd seen Nightmare Moon's magic before. A Nightmare Moon. She'd laughed at it. That was different. Whatever was in the Empire was far more sinister. She would have laughed it in the face still, to humiliate it, to stand against it, to cheer others on, but not on her own. She would have on her own if things got bearing down too hard on her mind, but they weren't yet, and so she didn't. She remained in calm consideration. It wasn't something she felt comfortable laughing about just yet. It disgusted her, on some level. In ways she didn't fully know for reasons she didn't fully comprehend, what was happening around her made her stomach churn. She hated that Nightmare Moon because of it, despised her because she felt she had reason to, and at times felt like she was about to vomit. At the same time, there was something else. Together with that, but distinct in its own. It brought fear. It was something deeper, stronger. She was scared. Worse, it was the kind of fear she'd learned to respect as justified. Whatever it was causing it, she did not want to get close to it. She did not want to laugh at it, almost out of some weird respect. She did want to meet back up with other ponies. That was easy enough to follow as a feeling, it was the only positive one. Even covered by everything else, it stood out for being different. So she followed that, taking care to balance Fluttershy on her back properly. She hoped it wouldn't take too long before she met somepony else. > Crab > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The spell and scale almost reached Nightmare Moon. Almost. They got so close, Twilight couldn't even tell they wouldn't from where she was. But the moment they touched, the moment the portal appeared, Nightmare Moon was gone. She was already gone, gone a single instant before that, gone just quickly enough to avoid it. The next crystal Starshine hurled at her, not much smaller than the then pulverised tower that had stood there just a day before, passed untouched besides the portal, but the alicorn was already gone. Twilight never knew how Nightmare Moon had known. Not if she'd known all along, not if she'd reacted by pure instinct, not if it had only been luck that had made her aware of what was coming her way. She had other things to worry about, much sooner than those questions could even properly appear in her mind. Nightmare Moon didn't teleport away to nowhere. Twilight didn't know if it was luck or instincts that had saved the other alicorn, but she did know it came down to a combination of both when it came to saving herself. She rolled to her right, fast, and immediately teleported herself a hundred or so metres in the opposite direction and half as much upwards. From there she got a perfectly good look at the crater left starting from where she'd been and ending a long distance in front of it, and an equally as good look at the spell causing it as it was still being fired from Nightmare Moon's horn, the alicorn herself standing just behind where Twilight had been. In the time it took for all that to happen, an admittedly brief span if a rather dense one, Starshine also took notice of things. For one she noticed the portal suddenly there in the air, floating in the middle of the sky. But mainly she noticed that Nightmare Moon was gone, and while she could have thought she was gone as a result of the portal being there such a possible guess was quickly snuffed out as she saw the stream of energy fired by the alicorn leaving a new, long crater on the ground that connected to the one Twilight had previously left. And after that, Starshine took notice of where Twilight herself was, and teleported there. In the, again short, time it took her to do so and get there, Nightmare Moon did more or less the same. Less in that she didn't look around as much, more in that she still kept firing her spell awhile before disappearing again. As a result of such, Starshine appeared at Twilight's side almost exactly at the same time as Nightmare Moon did. Only a fraction of a second before. Meaning, before she had a chance to speak the words she was already planning to, she was hit in full by the alicorn's charge as she unintentionally put herself between her and Twilight. She took the hit better than a regular pony would have, far better. Not to say she took it well, but still much better than a regular pony. She had a different mane colour by the end of it, but at least she still had a perfectly intact and sufficiently functional head. Whether or not the way she was pushed into the shield Twilight had put up already before she'd arrived there made things better or worse, that was hard to judge. But she did catch herself fairly quickly once she was pushed off of it, and from there she quickly took action. Before Nightmare Moon, pushing against Twilight's shield and pushing her through the sky above the Empire, managed to fully break through the already cracking barrier Twilight struggled to hold around herself, Starshine returned the favour and charged towards her. Things did not mirror previous events, and Nightmare Moon avoided the charge entirely by pulling back, but that did give Twilight enough time to teleport away again. She reappeared close to the portal floating in the air, thankful she'd managed to get there properly despite being unsure of what her position had been when she'd teleported, and from there got a clear look at Starshine keeping Nightmare Moon busy again. The coilborn mare was on the losing side of the confrontation, it seemed, but her peculiar resistance allowed her to hold things together despite that. Twilight considered going back there to help her, but chose against it, partly because Starshine managed to put herself in a slightly more favourable position again after a brief struggle. Chosen against that, she instead considered what to do. Get Nightmare Moon to the portal or fire a new one to hit her with, obviously, but how? She would be alert after avoiding the first blast. Under different circumstances Twilight would have been panicking at the failure of her first attempt, but the situation called for her to keep it together and do her best, not waste time grieving over something she couldn't change any more. It was terrible that she'd failed the first shot, but the only way she'd get out of that situation would be fully focusing on getting the next attempt to land, and that meant not focusing at all on how bad things had gotten. Direct confrontation was needed, she thought as the two alicorns clashed in the distance, loud and bright. At that point, either she'd push Nightmare Moon into an existing portal or she'd incapacitate her enough to fire another one on her. No sniping shots anymore, that ship had sailed and promptly sunk. But direct confrontation happening so far away from the portal would be pointless, doubly so if then Nightmare Moon once more moved the fight to a different location. To a degree, Twilight needed first to bait the other towards her. And hope she'd respond by coming and not simply by shooting at her, of course. But she would come for her, that much at least she could bank on. She was looking to fight, and probably, definitely really, meaning to kill her. That she could work with. Most definitely use to her advantage. What she needed to do was get her closer, and to do that figure out a way to communicate efficiently with Starshine without getting close. Then they'd figure out something. > R£v > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia didn't see her at first. She was hardly looking upwards in the first place, and even if she had been it would have been quite hard for her to spot anything. Especially something so small, and still so relatively far away. Though the colour would have helped, the red and yellow stood out from the black and purple of the winds around. Celestia did eventually see her, she had to when she flew all the way down there. Her very first reaction was surprise, but that only lasted a small moment, and almost immediately it was overtaken by joy. She picked up her pace, suddenly not caring about the darkness covering the ground she stepped over, and made her way quickly forward until the phoenix landed on her outstretched hoof. There she stopped, and quietly nuzzled the animal. Philomena returned her affection, though she did also look with worry at the alicorn's wounds and shortened mane. Less so at the black spot on her chest, still shifting in appearance. A few moments of petting later, she took off again. She hovered a short distance in front of Celestia, not too high as to still be visible from the ground, going in circles and waiting for something. Celestia understood what she wanted, she'd grown to know her attitudes and learnt to read her actions in ways and depths only centuries of togetherness could result in. She followed her, and Philomena began to lead. She always kept the same distance, the same gentle pace to her flight, somehow stable even with the winds blowing around them. She always allowed Celestia to see her, and keep up with her, but always slightly back, always being led. Celestia did not mind. She was used to it when it came to the phoenix, and certainly in no mood to complain had it been anything else leading her. Anything that meant a concrete chance to run into other ponies was nothing but welcome, and on top of that Philomena had been a welcome sight by herself. She had often questioned her own judgment in taking a phoenix as a pet. It felt pretentious, on one hoof. A phoenix was no pet for a pony, they would far outlast any normal one. If any race could pretend to be able to afford keeping one as such, it was dragons and them alone. But for her? She would outlast her subjects too. And yet that was the problem, she felt. It underscored her distance. It furthered pieces of her image she did not want to push towards. She held no ill will to Philomena for it. Quite the contrary, she was fond of the bird. The way an owner is deeply fond of a pet, and only able to forge such a bond with a creature she would not outlast the way she'd outlast any other pet ponies would keep as such. In that, yes, she was fundamentally different. She could not pretend it was not the case, nor was she interested in doing so anymore. Without her throne to stand on top of, her relationship with the phoenix was more comedic than distancing. Yet, it was nice. > World of Felt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine for a moment, if you will, a box. It doesn't need to be a large box, or a small box, and the size doesn't actually matter at all relatively to what's out of the box. What matters is what's inside the box, and the relative size of that to the box. And that relative size is small. Things inside the box are small compared to the box itself. Most things, at least. What things? What things are inside the box? Let's say stuffed toys. Or anything close enough to that. All different from each other and all similar in how they are. A couple of them are on fire. One of them is actually a crocodile and he barely fits in the box, which I suppose means the box now has an actual size. But you can pretend it's a dragon instead, or something smaller, or whatever you want. The point is it doesn't fit. But that's not the important part. So let's ignore it, and focus on the things that do fit. And those things are, well, it doesn't actually matter too much what they are. Just that they're all similar. So as said we'll say they're stuffed toys. They could be dolls, or figures, or anything along those lines. Softer though, like stuffed toys are. Stuffed toys are probably the best analogy. And those things are alive. In a sense. In any sense. Any sense is equally valid in that sense. They're not less alive than the crocodile, or dragon or whatever you have there. They're not even necessarily differently alive. But from this point of view, it doesn't matter. They are slow, weak, you could pick them up and tear them apart and they wouldn't be able to do anything. Much like how the crocodile could. The crocodile doesn't want to hurt them, though. It could, but it does not seem to want to. It's just there. Staying largely still. Maybe it's pretending to be a stuffed toy, maybe it's just watching those around it. The crocodile doesn't matter though, as long as it doesn't move. That's the thing, really. Only the crocodile could matter, from this point of view. Only its actions. The stuffed toys? Those are insignificant. The ones on fire are annoying, yes, but you can just avoid those. All the other ones? Slow, soft, largely easy to tear apart if you put effort into it. Toys, yes, that's kind of the point. You could maybe see them as bugs, that might also be a working comparison. But bugs can run away, and the toys can't really do that. Not if you don't want them too. Point being it's easy to stop them or in general just do things to them, them being just stuffed toys and all. That's kind of what things are like from that side. She can't really control it, either, but looking out that's about what she sees. The part of her looking out from above, the one that's kind of detached from the whole business going on. Things are like that to her. > Concerto > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Celestia," the stallion greeted her, and she swore he'd come out of thin air. Of course that wasn't possible, so she just assumed she'd missed him due to how thick the winds were. "Philomena," he greeted as well, giving a small bow towards the phoenix. Celestia felt like she recognised him. One of the Empire's guards, obviously, given the armour he was wearing, but she'd seen him before. Close to Shining and Cadence, actually. Paper Letters, was it? Something like that. "Well met, little pony." In truth, she was mostly really happy to be with someone again. "Stay close by. Have you met anyone else?" "I'm afraid not," he said. He began to walk alongside Celestia, as Philomena hadn't stopped long and was already leading them elsewhere again. "I have been on my own since the winds and waves split us all apart. I've met no other ponies since then, though thankfully I have not met anything worse either. Until you, of course." "That is alright." He didn't sound like he thought he owed her something, but Celestia still said so out of habit. She too was following the phoenix, and largely keeping her eyes and attention on her. "What is your name, if I may ask?" she said, realising it was probably still best if she did ask that, at least as a formality. "And if you are in need of any healing, please do allow me to make myself useful." That was somewhat of a test. She wanted to see the reaction to that wording. "Paper Letters," he replied, confirming her memories. "And do not worry, I am in perfect physical conditions. I managed to not be hurt while being carried around." He added, "The wounds I do have are not the kind you can heal." But he said so in an almost cheerful tone, certainly somewhat lighthearted at least. He seemed completely unbothered by any implications Celestia might have made. In fact he seemed almost extremely casual about approaching her as a whole. Celestia realised he'd even addressed her with her name, and not by any title. Not that she wanted to be addressed by titles that didn't belong to her anymore, but at the same time she'd gotten so used to it that, against her will, she was still a little perturbed by being simply called Celestia. Unless Twilight was the one doing so, but that was different. "Well, my sister and Princess Twilight can help with healing wounds of the mind, subconscious or at its forefront, and Princess Cadance can help with matters of the heart. I do hope you will find the aid you need." "Perhaps I will," Paper said. "But there are more important things to worry about now." He too eyed Philomena flying ahead of them. "Quite the timely intervention," he commented with a slight nod. "Indeed so," Celestia said. "But we should still remain alert." For a moment, part of her attention turned with worry towards the distance, at barely visible flashes of light in the sky. And she hoped Twilight was okay. > Ima > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hey!" Pinkie yelled, but not too loud, but loud enough to be heard by the pony she'd spotted. "Hey, you! Over here!" The stallion froze at first. He looked towards Pinkie, hooves planted on the ground, completely unsure as to what to do. She also had an unconscious pony with her, he noticed. The pegasus he'd seen earlier. "Come here!" Pinkie called again, walking towards him. "I'm a friend." After a little moment of inner deliberation, the stallion began to walk towards Pinkie as well. He wasn't yet sure of what he wanted to do, but he knew for sure it wasn't running away, and he reasoned all the other options involved getting closer to Pinkie anyway. So there was no reason not to. So he did. "Is everything okay?" Pinkie asked him, shaking him from his thoughts. She was already close. He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do. "Yes," he said, and he wasn't sure if he was lying or telling the truth or what. "She's still passed out, but she doesn't seem worse." He kept walking closer. Too close? "How about you, everything okay?" Pinkie nodded, bouncing closer still while balancing the pegasus on her back. "As okay as things can be right now, at least." She paused for a moment, put a hoof under her chin, and tilted her head to the side. "Hey..." She straightened her head and blinked, seeming somewhat surprised. The stallion flinched slightly under her gaze, stopping his step and almost walking back. He did not have time to react further though, as a moment later he found himself in the middle of an almost violently aggressive hug, just barely managing to stand on three hooves and only miraculously able to keep Applejack balanced on his back, unsure himself of how she hadn't fallen. The hoof he'd kept up as he'd stopped pawed the air for a moment, then, somewhat awkwardly, he partly returned the hug he was receiving. A few seconds later, Pinkie let go of him and took a step back. "Thank you," she said, slightly nodding towards the mare on his back. "Now, where were we going?" She began to look around, one hoof to the side of her throat. The stallion looked at her, still unsure of what to do, even more so than he'd been before. The mare wasn't even looking at him. At that distance he could get a good shot in, and even if she managed to avoid it he could just point his horn at the pony on his back and use her as leverage. "This way!" Pinkie pointed straight with her hoof in a seemingly arbitrary direction after a bit of turning around, then without even waiting for a response she started to walk that way. "Careful not to trip," she said to him, but she didn't even turn around for that. The stallion stared at her, silent and motionless for a couple of seconds. Finally he shook himself and began to follow behind her. Carrying three unconscious ponies around all on his own would be too much, he thought to himself. But even he wasn't particularly convinced. > Ata > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack woke up. Mentally, at least, as much as anyone can mentally wake up within a dream, and still in that feverish kind of imperfect consciousness that is of both dreams and sickness and that came from both in her situation. The world around her, the purely mental world around her she found herself in, was blurry, undefined, like a sketch or a painting smudged by water. Like moved by a current, shapes and colours flowed and shifted around her, never settling on anything more than vague concepts and hints of something that could be real. Yet the surface she walked over was solid. She did not feel herself floating, or sliding forward, moving without a body. She felt herself walking. Steps from hooves she didn't see over a pavement that wasn't there, but the cadence was the same, the feeling was the same. She wondered if that too was part of the dream, and what might have caused it. She knew she was in a dream, she had some knowledge and awareness of it at least. For once, oddly, it made sense. The cold was still there. Permeating her. It didn't hurt as much though. It was more of a general, pervasive lack of feeling. Like how legs go numb if you dip them in cold water too long, only they weren't getting any warmer. At least she wasn't shivering. She was probably shivering somewhat in the real world. The physical world. Her mental world was real too, though that was maybe a matter of semantics. At least her thoughts weren't as sluggish as they'd been before. Or maybe they were, but she didn't notice, trapped inside them with nothing to compare their flow to. She supposed if that was the case then it was a meaningless difference. She felt mentally cold, too. The emotionless kind of metaphorical coldness. She could tell she was like that, but she couldn't really do anything about it. She didn't really feel. She acknowledged events in her memory, but nothing more. She could remember how she was supposed to feel at them, but all she got were meaningless concepts, hollow terms with nothing to fill herself with. She could maybe fake those feelings, but she didn't want to. And she knew it would have been wrong. That didn't give her a strong opposition to it, or any other feeling, but she still thought it was right to do what she reasoned was right. She was walking. There was something there for her to see. Maybe. Maybe there wasn't. But standing still, mentally still at least, wasn't something she was interested in doing. If she'd been given a dream, feverish as the one she was having was, she intended to explore it in full. Maybe to understand what exactly was happening to her, maybe simply to spend her time doing something other than nothing. She would have felt bad about not being awake, helping her friends, but again, she couldn't really feel anything, and she didn't wish to fake sadness. Especially not when alone with herself. So she just walked. > Layt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Cadence!" Shining called out, as he put up a shield and immediately rolled out of it, to watch it shatter as the mutated pony broke through it with a spell. He didn't have time to properly look around, not with the creature still chasing after him. He'd been able to avoid all its shots that far, but he was getting tired, and he knew it wouldn't. Thankfully, at least, he'd managed to keep it running and shooting in circles after him and away from everypony else. It didn't appear to be all too intelligent, which was a great thing considering everything else. Cadence did not reply verbally. She did reply by hurling a jagged slab of crystal wider than a cart measured lengthwise and thicker than a pony's torso towards the creature's head and general neck area. Something that had probably been part of a large building's wall at some point. It hit it in full, sending its next shot flying towards the sky rather than towards Shining and sending the creature tumbling sideways towards the ground. It fell, and the slab fell with it, still over its neck and the top of its shoulders. Shining looked with careful anticipation, while Cadence flew over to his side. The creature hissed, still very much alive after the impact despite the speed at which the crystal chunk had reached it. It tried to raise itself, but its long, overstretch arms could neither properly get a grip on the wall nor get into a position to push the rest of its body up. After a few seconds of thrashing around trying to move properly again, it once more failed at roaring, then its horn shone again. It fired. Not towards Shining, but blindly, towards the direction its horn was pointing at. It barely missed one of the other ponies there. On instinct, Shining put up shields around all of the others. He knew they wouldn't do much, but he couldn't do much else either. Even physical barriers would be easily shattered by the spells, if they somehow managed to get together enough debris to build up something proper and stable. The creature fired a couple more times, still at random, thankfully it did not hit anyone. The ponies on the side it was targeting began to run their way around to the other side, passing behind the creature to stay out of its vision. Shining knew that could only work so much though. If it figured where everyone was, even without being able to see them, it would aim and fire there. It wasn't smart, but it wasn't completely stupid either. But if what Cadence had done hadn't been enough to hurt it, he wasn't sure anything he could do would be. All those thoughts were interrupted as, suddenly, the former pony fired a blast in the opposite direction. It fired it straight at the block of crystal over its neck, and straight through it, splitting the chunk in half. The two pieces slid to the ground with heavy thuds. The creature rolled to the side slightly, and slowly, shakily stood itself up again. > Song > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We're about to meet someone," Lyra said. "Oh?" Bon Bon perked up, and slowed her step. She blinked. "Why are you telling me?" Lyra stopped walking completely. "Duck." The meaning itself was initially lost on Bon Bon, but years of deeply ingrained training kicked in to replace conscious action and she immediately sank to her knees, then lower, though she didn't touch the ground properly with her body to avoid the layer of black flowing over it. A pony's body sailed over her, hurled by something beyond their field of vision. A stallion judging by his voice as he yelled in pain while flying through the air. Lyra didn't wait to see what had caused that, likely because she'd already done so. She turned around, lit her horn to slow down the pony's movement and ensure he'd land safely, and began to run in the opposite direction compared to where they'd been walking towards. Bon Bon, getting up and seeing her, did the same, and though she started running after her she quickly caught up and even passed her, taking the lead. They reached the stallion, a unicorn, quickly. He was dazed, and definitely a fair bit bruised, but Lyra's spell seemed to have at least spared him worse injuries. He stood himself up as quickly as he could, and without asking questions began to run along with the mares. He was stumbling slightly, but still he forced himself to keep the pace. Somewhere behind them, something roared. None of them looked back, but they could faintly hear its steps getting closer. Bon Bon looked to Lyra, dreading the moment she might say something that would confirm the inevitability of their situation yet hoping she would do something to get them out of it. As long as they just kept running, she supposed, it at least meant things weren't about to end in disaster just yet. Or maybe they were. Maybe Lyra knew, she just wasn't saying anything, hiding it from her to make her last moments hopeful rather than desperate. Would she do that? Would Bon Bon herself do that in her place? That wasn't the time to answer those questions and she didn't have the energy for it, but she couldn't stop them from popping up in her mind regardless. At some point, she would have to ask them. She would have to have a proper talk with Lyra about everything her powers implied. If they survived, of course. She was going slightly slower than she could have been going. Even out of S.M.I.L.E., she was still more fit than Lyra was, and she was deliberately going slightly slower not to outrun her. The other unicorn seemed to rank somewhere between them. He was clearly a trained guard, but the bits of armour he still had weighed him down. The creature roared again. It had gotten closer, and was still getting closer. Running was getting hard over the debris littering the ground, broken and uneven chunks of crystal walls and furniture. Bon Bon looked to Lyra again, hoping something would finally happen. > Densh > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hello?" Rarity called out. "Is anypony there?" Nothing answered but the wind. And an indistinct growling somewhere close but not too close. She ignored that and focused on the wind, but it did convince her to stop yelling. And it did convince her to walk in the direction opposite where she thought she'd heard the sound come from. She'd not yet ran into anypony. It had been at least a few minutes, and she was starting to get somewhat worried about the whole situation. More worried than just the perfectly reasonable amount of worry she was experiencing in general. She was walking towards the general direction she'd seen the darkness spread from, only because she'd figured if everypony saw that and did the same they'd eventually run into each other, but she was getting a little nervous about what else she might run into. What else could even be out there? Enemy soldiers for sure, and mutated ponies too, but who knew what more might have been lurking around. And there wasn't much she could do against any of those threats. She'd been there to use the Elements, but with that possibility gone she wasn't really all too useful. She wasn't a fighter, she wasn't really good at healing, she wasn't even all that great at running. There had been a reason others had been defending her while she just sat around watching things happen. She wasn't completely defenceless of course, but the threats one could face during daily life were hardly comparable to what she could run into there. She quickened her steps a little. Just a little. Her eyes darted around, but still there was nothing for her to see besides the rubble and the winds blowing. They'd messed up her mane, but that was hardly the time to care about that. While stepping past the base of what had been a wall however she stopped momentarily, noticing something in the rubble. She picked it up in her magic. A picture frame, partly broken, the photo still inside even if half torn. A family of five. She set it down, regretfully so, she really couldn't afford to carry it around. She looked around at what was left of the house. The crumbled walls, the furniture destroyed to the point it wasn't recognisable anymore. She shook herself out and began to walk again. No time to dwell on it. All those ponies were safe, even if their homes were gone. They'd rebuild. If things went well at least. He eyes turned to the sky in front of her. It was hard to tell if what she saw were lights from the battle still happening above the heart of the Empire, or just part of the storm raging around them. It was hard to tell if a battle still was happening there, if Twilight was still there and if she was winning or losing. She picked up her pace again, again looking carefully around her and listening for anything that might be close by. There wasn't much she could do, but she could hope, and make sure she herself would survive through it. So she'd just do that, and hope. > Starbleed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you going to turn on the Crystal Heart?" "No. Not until she's dealt with. Even if it could clear the winds, and I'm not sure it could while she's still here, I'm almost certain she could destroy it if we used it right now. Once she's gone, then we can use it to clean up. The risk of doing it now is too great." "We need all the help we can get." "It wouldn't be significant help. I'm not a significant contribution at this point, and neither are you no matter how much you might think otherwise. We've got our chances at solving this issue and it's best if we go for those and minimise the risks." "You're going to pay for that." "I'm not. You are going to pay for what you did to Starlight, for what you did to those soldiers, for what you did to Chrysalis, and for what you did to everyone else you hurt. When the time comes, of course. Count on it." "How did you..." Stella grit her teeth and cut herself off. "I'll get her here to you and lend a hoof. I'd say watch your back after that, but you won't remember this either." A flash of light and she was gone. Twilight tried to wrap her brain around a way to get Nightmare Moon towards her. Taunting was the obvious choice, but it could lead to her simply getting shot at from afar, and for what she planned she needed to have the other closer than that. Starshine could drag her, but she'd never manage to get that close. In truth Twilight feared slightly for the mare's safety, though she wasn't actually sure whether Nightmare Moon would be able to undo a coil. Maybe she might have hurt Sunburst at a distance? Better not to find out. "Twilight?" Twilight was almost startled by the voice appearing in her head, but she quickly thought back in response. "Starshine?" "Oh, good, this thing is working. I think I have an idea for how to get her there." "Really?" Twilight watched with apprehension as Nightmare Moon fired a beam from her horn that cut through the sky and just narrowly missed Starshine. "What is it? Are you okay?" "I am." Starshine's tone seemed kinda shaky even coming through as purely a thought. "This might be a little dangerous, I suggest you put up a shield." Twilight wasn't sure of what was about to happen, but she did as Starshine suggested. Though it wouldn't hold against Nightmare Moon's attacks, it would hopefully hold against whether else would be coming that way. She didn't have to wait long to see what that was. Something like a giant wall appeared beyond Starshine and Nightmare Moon, coming towards them like it was swinging on some invisible hinge in the sky. It was massive. Taller than the tower that had been close to where Twilight was flying, and much wider than it had been as well. Twilight readied herself for the incoming impact as she watched it swing through the sky, about to crash against the two alicorns. > Hvn'snt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A crack. Or maybe a thud. Some other loud noise maybe, like a tree falling and hitting the ground or a heavy branch snapping or something along those lines. Bon Bon didn't stop running and the others didn't either, but a few, heart pounding seconds later they all realised the thing was no longer after them. Its sounds were no longer there, at least. No one of them dared simply stop and check if it was really the case, but they all felt that it was. Slowly, exchanging glances and nods, they began to slow down. Their running slowly became a trot, then a walk, then finally they stopped, panting, and turned around. Nothing was there. "Where do you think it went?" the stallion asked, voicing the worry on all their minds. "Not anywhere close enough to show up in the next few seconds," Lyra said. That got her a somewhat weird look from the stallion, but after a moment he shrugged. "I heard a sound while we were running, sort of like it hitting something," Bon Bon said, piecing together her memories. "I think that's when it stopped being behind us. Maybe it tripped?" She wasn't particularly convinced herself of that possibility, but it was the only thing she could think of that made some sense. "Maybe something hit it," said the stallion. He wasn't too convinced either, and he too was mainly trying to figure out something to explain the situation. Something convincing, something to give them some stability and free them from an otherwise justified fear of the creature still being nearby, lurking out of sight, ready to jump at them at any moment. "Well, it's not going to show up soon. We should head... somewhere." Lyra seemed far more optimistic than the other two. Bon Bon supposed it was easy being optimistic when walking around with a built in eraser for any huge mistakes. At least the way she'd figured out that street trick made sense. And to some degree, her hiding her secret made sense too. It made sense as something Lyra would do at least. "Where?" the stallion asked. As he walked, he began to put less weight over one of his hind legs. With the adrenaline going away, the pain was getting a lot more noticeable. He didn't sound angry when he asked the question though, just genuinely curious. The mare had just by all accounts contributed to saving his life, he could hardly be bothered by her attitude. "I've got a good feeling about this way," Lyra said, walking towards a seemingly random direction yet again. "I'd say we should head towards the centre of town but who knows where that is at this point." Bon Bon looked for a bit at the stallion to make sure he was okay, then began to follow behind him as they followed behind Lyra, leading their group. They walked like that for a bit, quietly looking around, still on edge after their recent experience. Then, they saw Lyra stop. They walked up to her, and stopped as well. "What is it?" Bon Bon asked her, looking around in front of them. From past the obfuscated edge of their field of vision, another pony walked in. A unicorn mare, white coat and curly purple mane. She didn't notice them at first, then froze mid step as she did. "Oh. Hello there." > Haunting > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I don't think it can see us," the guard said, stepping quietly and carefully forward with his eyes glued to the monster up ahead, busy digging a hole in the ground with its claws. "Are you sure?" the other guard with him asked, leaning forward to whisper but not moving otherwise. "No," the first guard admitted after a moment. "But we can't just stay here." He spoke quietly, very quietly, lower than the wind blowing around them. "The farther away from this thing we get, the better." "Couldn't we just go the other way? The way we came from?" "Not if we want to actually find anyone out here." The second guard chewed on an answer for a bit, but then just nodded and carefully began to follow the first. The less noise they made the better, and there was no point in arguing. The other was right after all, they had to go that way. She just wished they hadn't run into that creature while on their way. She looked at it, while carefully following behind her companion. She didn't only look at it, she split her attention between that and looking where her steps fell to make sure she didn't make any noise, but she did look at it. From a distance of course, they wouldn't get too close to it, and of course she only saw its back properly, as its head was luckily turned away from them. It didn't much look like it anymore, but they knew it had at one point been a pony. Its hair appeared to be gone, its skin was a sick blueish tinge and pulled taut over overgrown bones and muscles. Its front legs looked much closer to arms and its hooves had split apart into hands like those of a dragon. It was intent of digging through the crystal, with no clear purpose. The ponies held their breath as quiet as they could. Their hooves moved quieter than the winds blowing around them, and the creature's claws against the ground were louder than those winds. Still they were afraid of being heard, of taking one wrong step and drawing its attention. They hoped every moment that the wind's direction wouldn't change, and it wouldn't carry their smell towards the creature. They saw part of its face as they walked farther. All its eyes, too many of them, were focused on what it was doing. Its skull's shape still had something of a horse's anatomy, but it was somewhat like a wolf's as well. Long and almost pointy, with many sharp teeth poking out of thin stretched lips. Two flat nostrils at the tip. Eyes along its length in places where eyes shouldn't have been, some bulbous and like those of an insect, others closer to those of a pony. It breathed slowly, regularly. Tendrils spread over its chest grew and shrunk in tandem with it, like they were part of its lungs, filling with air with every breath. They could be, the guards supposed. It did not look at them as they walked past it. It remained focused on its digging. The ponies walked away farther, until it was too far to see, always careful not to make a sound. After a while, the two looked at each other. "Do you think it's far enough?" one asked. "Maybe," answered the other. "There could be others nearby. We better keep quiet." > DliverS > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creature, risen to its full height again, stared at Shining as its horn grew brighter with energy. The unicorn didn't move. There was no point in moving too soon, no real point in doing it until he was sure he'd get to dodge the blast by doing it. Not at that distance at least, not while he wasn't moving already, not with the creature's sight already on him. "Do you have a plan?" he asked to Cadence, at his side. "No," the alicorn admitted. At least with Sombra they'd had places to hide and catch their breath. And though the pony in front of them wasn't as powerful as the unicorn had been, it seemed far more resistant to magic in general. Not so much capable of withstanding its forces as downright unaffected by it, though a fair degree of resistance was there as well given what it had survived. "Right." Shining swallowed. His legs tensed. His breath became deliberately mechanical, a pause after every inhale as he held the air in, a pause after every exhale. His head went through thoughts faster than his mouth could spell them out. Every idea he came up with he threw out. No reflecting the spell with his magic, no doing it with any material surface and no making a shield out of that either. Too much effort to cut off a big enough portion of the ground to do anything significant, not enough time and not enough magic for it. Teleportation? With how quick they'd need to be and how complicated that was, physically jumping out of the way was almost guaranteed to be safer, unless the spell carried a big enough explosion along. Which they wouldn't know until it hit the ground, or them if they were unlucky. "Should I tell them to run?" Cadence asked. She was talking about the other guards there around them. Shining's answer would have been that she should have run along with them, and Cadence would have agreed to it after a moment of thought. She wouldn't have been happy about it, but she would have agreed. She would have been much less happy about it later on, if things went bad, and she'd have started to regret her decision. Shining knew it would go like that, and she knew it too, even if she chose not to think about it. None of that came to pass. What came to pass was a spear through the creature's chest. Silver from end to end, it pierced its flesh like a hoof tearing through wet paper, and remained lodged there. The creature screamed in pain, for what its dysfunctional vocal cords and lungs allowed it to, and all the energy it had built up in its horn flared upwards like a geyser as control over it was lost. Shining and Cadence looked around, expecting to see Luna magically healed and standing on her hooves again. When their eyes found her, she still lay over the back of the only other unicorn with them, still unconscious. What else they did see just a moment later was a blue and rainbow blur, streaking towards the creature and pushing the spear fully through it before flying away again. Rainbow Dash landed at their side, her silver armour spotless despite the blackened winds she flew through. "Need help with that?" > BTL > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There should be another small group that way," the pegasus said, reappearing in front of her own group. They had grown to just short of a dozen ponies, most of them guards and one doctor. "I think four ponies in total," she added. She wasn't completely sure though. Some of the things she'd been seeing were weird. For example, she'd thought she'd seen another mutated pony nearby, but it had suddenly disappeared. Other things she hadn't been able to get a proper read on had flashed in her vision as well. "Anything dangerous close by?" one of the guards asked, looking nervously around and clutching his spear with his wings. The mare disappeared again for a moment, then immediately reappeared. "Nothing too close." She pointed a wing to the other pegasus's right. "The closest one is that way, but still too far to be an issue, and it doesn't seem to be coming this way." "Thank you." The pony seemed to relax a little, holding his spear less intensely. He still continued to look around, with not much else to do. Slightly up ahead, Firecracker beckoned to the mare, and she quickly trotted her way there. "What is it?" she asked. "How far away are we from them?" they asked, looking around as they walked forward. They'd stopped hovering a while before. Stepping over the layer of darkness covering the ground wasn't pleasant, but it was easier, and they had to conserve their energy as much as they could. "A few minutes, I think." The mare disappeared for just a split second, enough to miss it by blinking at the right time. "They're moving too, we're going where they're going. If we don't run into anything and they don't either then it shouldn't take too long." "Good." Firecracker nodded. They looked visibly tense, but not necessarily angry. A few stray sparks of electricity occasionally flowed through their mane or between the feathers of their wings, but they dissipated before leaving their body. "Is everypony doing okay here? I haven't been keeping good track of that." "The doc had a look at everyone else, they all seem fine." The mare looked behind them to the rest of the ponies following along. "A few bruises here and there, but no serious wounds, and nothing that'll get worse while walking." She looked ahead again. "If we do run into someone who can't walk properly, we should be able to carry them. But everyone I've seen seems to be moving around, so that might not be an issue." "Or it's already too late for the ones who couldn't move," Firecracker said. "Don't say that," the mare replied. "It's not going to do us any good, even if it might be true. I couldn't tell when we're about to run into a corpse anyway, there's no real way to prepare for that. And I'm sure the others have all had more than enough time to come to terms with the possibility." Firecracker sighed. "You're right." They kicked along a pebble in front of them. "Sorry. I've been a little on edge after almost dying earlier. I'm just worried about Princess Twilight actually succeeding." "It's okay. I'm sure she will make it." > DTr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Miss Rarity?" Bon Bon asked, stepping closer to the unicorn. "Why, that is me, yes," Rarity said, stepping closer as well. Her eyes settled on Lyra for a moment. "You're one of Twilight's friends, are you not?" Then she looked towards the stallion there with them. "And I've seen you before." She furrowed her brow slightly. "I was on the rooftop, when Starshine brought me back. I was out there together with Pinkie Pie and Applejack before that. That's likely where we saw each other." "Oh, yes, right. You were with that prisoner, weren't you? I do hope he's not up to anything malicious now." Rarity looked ahead then. "I was heading towards the centre of town, or what I think is there at least. Following the direction the darkness came from. Did the three of you have other plans?" "We just kinda got lost after a run-in with a mutated pony, actually," Lyra said. "We can follow if you know the way." She walked up to and past Rarity, then turned around to stand behind her. Bon Bon shrugged, and she too tagged along as the unicorns came forward, and so did the stallion a moment later. "If everyone else had the same idea, we'll hopefully run into them on the way there." "But we're also heading straight to where Princess Twilight and Nightmare Moon are fighting," the stallion noted. "It might not be safe to get too close." "I don't think being here at all counts as safe," Lyra noted. "And the battle might have moved. What even is the plan now? Twilight already failed to just beat Nightmare Moon, didn't she?" "That was her first plan, yes," Rarity said. "Rather, it was her preliminary plan, even. The first proper plan, as she already believed she wouldn't be able to win in a fight, was to use the Elements of Harmony. That did not quite work out." "What exactly happened to the other bearers?" the stallion asked. "I saw they were passed out, and even Princess Celestia couldn't heal them. Was it something Nightmare Moon did?" "For one of them, it probably was," said Rarity. "Applejack passed out almost as soon as Nightmare Moon stood again, but it's unclear why she alone had that reaction. Fluttershy's case is different, and it seems to be tied to other, ongoing facets of her situation. She passed out later, though by that point it didn't matter." The stallion nodded. "I see. I do hope Miss Applejack will be okay. She saved my life out there, possibly more than once." "Hopefully her life is in good hooves," said Bon Bon. None of it, she knew as they all did, would matter if Twilight didn't succeed or if in some other way Nightmare Moon wasn't defeated. But as they all knew that was the case, they all quietly agreed to not address that point, having no way of influencing the outcome at that moment, and instead focus on the things they could affect still. "Hopefully," Rarity agreed, and her mind couldn't help but wander towards another Applejack, and another herself. She hoped she'd be able to get back there and keep helping that girl, when things were finished. > Water Slide > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It took me hours to get all the ants out of my mane. Hours, I tell you. Even after I dumped it in water right away. And that was stale water, by the way. It smelled and it probably had algae in it. I absolutely hated it, but I suppose it was better than letting the ants run around in there. You do not want ants running around your mane, trust me." "Why didn't you just not rest it over their nest then?" "Well it's not my fault they nested where they did! How was I supposed to know they'd be there when I opened that door? Who even knew ants nest on top of things like that?" "Wait, where was this again?" "In my garden. I've got this little wood and metal cabinet next to the wall, I'm sure you've seen it, all the different water pipes for the irrigation system and the fountains get routed through there and it's got valves for me to shut off the parts I want to shut off or regulate the flow of want and stuff, like if I want to let a fountain empty out so I can clean it or if I want to turn the irrigation system on or off when the seasons change. Which is what I was doing. It turns out the space between the door and the top got filled with ants, and when I opened that and leaned forward bam, ants all over my mane." "But why were you leaning forward like that in the first place? I mean if ants got there it's because your mane was touching the door, wouldn't it have gotten dirty anyway? Couldn't you tie it up or something?" "I didn't care if it got dirty. I was out working in the garden and sweating, I was going to take a shower later anyway. I wasn't expecting to get anything other than dust and maybe some cobwebs on it, definitely not ants crawling through it." "Well that just sounds unclean. It's not like you don't own any hair ties. I've seen you wearing one when working around the garden, even." "Well, that day I went out without one. Sometimes I do that." "Why? Why do you just go around getting your mane dirty? Just because you're going to wash it later doesn't mean you shouldn't worry about keeping it clean. That's unsanitary, and in general it seems like a pretty bad mindset to have." "I didn't ask for your opinion on how I go about my daily life, thank you." "You're the one who wanted to tell us about ants getting in your mane, unprompted at that. Don't complain if we've got something to say about it." "Could you ponies be a little quieter? We're still in the middle of a battlefield. For all we know we could run into enemy soldiers any moment now, and I'd like to hear them coming before they're already on top of us if that's possible, don't know about you lot." > Msr > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "And what about the second plan?" "Huh?" "You said using the Elements was the first plan, what's the second one?" Lyra asked. "Oh, right," Rarity said. "Sorry, I suppose I accidentally got a little sidetracked." She fidgeted a little with a piece of rubble under her hoof before walking again. "I'm not actually sure of the details myself. Twilight talked about it, but I don't really understand most of what she said, at least concerning the third plan. The second one's a little easier though. She's trying to banish Nightmare Moon." "Banish her?" Bon Bon asked. "How?" "Where to?" asked the stallion. "Scales," said Rarity, answering the first question. "As far as I understood it at least. The plan is to trap Nightmare Moon behind a portal and leave her there." "That sounds like it could work," Lyra said. She looked up ahead, towards the sky. "Doesn't look like it's happened just yet though, or else the sky would probably be clearer." "It doesn't look like Princess Twilight has lost yet either," said Bon Bon. "I'd imagine things would be a lot worse right now if that was the case. To be honest, I'm quite surprised Nightmare Moon survived what she did, but I think that shows things would be pretty bad if she'd already won right now. Can I ask, if using the Elements was the first plan, why did Princess Twilight fight her like that?" "I'm not sure how much that was part of the plan," Rarity said. "Princess Luna was supposed to keep her busy while the portals were dealt with, and then Twilight was supposed to do the same if the Bearers weren't all gathered yet. I think she saw what had happened to Princess Luna and she may have lost control of herself." "That's honestly understandable," Lyra said. "I think I'd have probably done the same in her place, and I didn't even see it happen properly. We just saw the aftermath when we got back, and it was still stunning to hear Princess Luna survived. She didn't look good at all when we got there." "She looked even worse before that," Rarity said. "I was truly worried we might have lost her." A few moments of silence later, as the group kept walking, the stallion spoke again. "What about the third plan?" Rarity clicked her tongue, scrunching up her face for a moment. "I don't really understand it, like I said. It's magic too complicated for me. Something to do with Nightmare Moon's magical ties, and Twilight's research into different ways to control the portals between different worlds after what she saw in the other version of the Crystal Empire. What I do know for sure is that it's risky." "What kind of risky?" asked Bon Bon. "It'll take a lot of magic, if Twilight chooses to resort to it. Even with all the preparation she's done, she's not sure she'll be able to pull it off. I don't know if she's even sure it can work." "Well, we best hope it does," said Lyra. "Or hope that she doesn't need to try that." > Deaf > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is that thing flying?" "Sure looks like it." "I didn't think they could fly." "Weren't supposed to, as far as I know. Never saw a flying one. Must be a recent development." "What do you mean a recent development? Where did this thing even come from?" The soldier clenched his teeth for a moment. "This thing used to be one of my comrades," he explained. "I'd have ended up not much different if I hadn't been saved." They'd met up with a couple more ponies after Pinkie had started to lead the way. At that moment, the small group was busy hiding behind a particularly large pile of rubble, occasionally peeking out of cover to look at a mutated pony flying in circles over the area up ahead. "Well I'm... sorry to hear that," the guard who'd asked said. He looked to the ground then, silently chewing on nothing. "When is it going to fly away?" the other guard asked, looking at the creature again. "Can't we just go another way if it stays here?" "I've got a feeling this is the right direction," said Pinkie, also looking at the creature. "I'm not sure how much longer we might have to wait though." "Maybe we should just run," the first guard offered. "Maybe we can make it past without it noticing us." "Maybe," the soldier said. "But do you want to risk it? I don't think it's worth it. Not given what'll happen if it does see us." "Well, you got a better plan than standing here, waiting for something to happen?" "No, but I do think it's a better plan than running out there hoping things will go well. Survival is what's important right now, we're in no real rush to get anywhere. If we're safe here, we may as well stay here for hours, I think boredom still beats the risk of death." "We could try to distract it," the femal guard said. "Throw something and see if it catches notice of that, and if it does maybe try to sneak past it then." "We risk revealing our position if we do that," said the other guard. "If we throw a rock and it sees where it was thrown from, and it's smart enough, it's going to come for us straight away. I think that's even more dangerous." "I don't think it's very intelligent, for what it's worth," the soldier said. "They never seem to be. I think something gets lost in the conversion process, I imagine that still applies even in these circumstances. But it should have keen senses. We should all be glad the wind is blowing our way and not the opposite way, it might have sniffed us out already otherwise." Pinkie looked out again, humming to herself but keeping it quiet, to avoid being heard by anything other than the ponies there. "What are the odds stun potions won't work on it? I've still got a few." "Too high to run the risk of putting you out there," said the soldier. "And honestly too high to try it in general, even if we find another way." "Bummer," Pinkie said. "I suppose we might have to wait a little longer." > R9p > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everypony stood still, watching carefully the creatures around them. Tension was evident on everyone's faces, but no one dared to move. They all knew the creatures were faster than them, anyway. Not that running anywhere was a good option when they were surrounded. Flying was of course out of the question, as it had been since the winds had started blowing, no one of them would be able to safely move up there. But some might still have been planning to try, if things got too dire. The creatures kept circling them. There were too many. Sunburst counted, or at least tried to get a rough estimate, and he figured there were about as many of them as there were ponies there, maybe give or take a few. Even just one would have been a lot to deal with, maybe too much. That many of them were certainly beyond the scope of what they could hope to successfully fight against. Going by sheer numbers and by what he'd seen and heard, at least. Of course, he was there. He was far from being in peak condition though. He was tired, physically and mentally, and more importantly in whichever way exerting his coil tired him. That Starshine was still clearly doing the same, and for quite sizable things as far as he could feel, only added to the difficulty of the situation. He could try to defend the ponies present, he certainly would, but he couldn't be sure it would work. He'd never gone that far, and every new push was treading into unexplored ground. Every new step could be the one that broke him, as far as he knew. Could he put up a shield? Was it even worth it to do something like that? But fighting back didn't strike him as a much better option. He'd never been much of a fighter, he wouldn't have known where to properly start. He'd have almost certainly wasted a lot of energy overcomplicating his requests to get them close to something he simply didn't have sufficient knowledge of. Weapons just weren't a field he was experienced in, the one he'd made for Twilight was far more akin to a highly specific piece of machinery and even then he'd created it under precise instructions as to what it needed to do. Barriers would be easier. A lot easier. There was still a problem with those of course, that being how they presumably, sooner or later, needed to get away from there. They could wall themselves in, put up a dome the creatures couldn't break through, but they'd be trapped. If he wasn't careful they might even run out of air. And there was another problem. Again, he was tired. Maybe he was too tired. A shield that powerful around them might have cost him too much, and there was no guarantee it would stay if something happened to him as a result. There was no guarantee Starshine would stay either, and they couldn't afford to lose her. Soon he'd have to do something, but he was far from confident things would go smoothly. > Ter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well..." Shining released a breath he'd been holding in slightly too long. "I won't mind." Rainbow smirked, before shifting into a serious expression again. Her sword materialised at her side, aimed towards the mutated pony in front of them. "Permission to kill?" she asked. Shining actually hesitated for a second, tensing at the question. "Granted," he finally said. It wasn't like he'd have held back if he'd had a chance at it. Rainbow tensed as well, for different reasons, then she took off. She flew relatively close to the ground, not daring the stronger winds blowing higher above, but still high enough to be around eye level for the creature. She did not want to risk it hitting somepony else if it fired at her. Her fear proved justified as almost immediately a stream of energy she only narrowly avoided streaked towards her. She moved a little higher, noticing the angle at which the spell had been fired and the way it still was headed towards the ground. Everything happened like it was slowed down to her perception, perks of being used to executing precise maneuvers at high speeds. Though she wondered if Luna's dream magic didn't have some effect on it as well. As she got closer, it became harder to dodge properly. She would have been hit if she'd continued a frontal charge, and either way she was unsure of whether she'd built up enough speed, so before getting too close to the former pony she turned and began to circle around it, still accelerating her flight. At first it seemed to work, but while she was still behind the creature it fired a bolt precisely towards her, despite looking the other way, forcing her to push herself upwards and slightly causing her to lose speed. She immediately dove down as she kept circling the creature, and her hunch proved to be correct as the next shot flew over her, though still perfectly aligned with her horizontal position. Somehow the creature was keeping exact track of where she was around it, even with how fast she was moving. Not a big deal. She picked up extra speed by heading downwards like that, and closed in towards the creature. As she turned around it she suddenly pushed herself upwards again, just narrowly avoiding impact with the ground and unleashing a strong gust of wind from the whiplash. The creature tried to fire at her again, but she was too close at that point, next to its chest as she shot upwards like a blur and beneath its head, in its blind spot. Her sword struck through the creature's skull from beneath. She hit so hard and fast its whole body was lifted upwards by the impact before properly sinking into her blow. Its neck joints cracked and popped as they were stretched and strained. Her blade hit the thick, overgrown mass of the creature's horn, and slid to the side after a moment more of tension, finally fully piercing through its head up to the hilt. Rainbow let go of it and flew back, carefully watching for any signs of movement and ready to act again if what she'd done had not been enough. > Rar > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The creature stood still as Rainbow floated away from it. Blood, or something close to it, poured thick from the hole left in its chest and down onto its malformed body. More began to pour from the bottom of its head, where the sword had struck. It did not fall, but it did slump over, held up by its own anatomy more than by any conscious or instinctual effort. "Is it over?" Shining called out from farther back, after a few seconds of silence and lack of movement. Rainbow didn't answer immediately. She kept her eyes on the creature, and mainly on its horn. But nothing came of it. After a few seconds more, she dematerialised her sword, and ichor began to pour stronger out of the open wound. "I think it is," she finally said, drawing farther back but still keeping her eyes on the creature. She swallowed, then finally allowed herself to turn around and fly back to where Shining and Cadence were. "Don't get too close to it," she said to no one in particular, loud enough to be heard by everyone around. "It might fall over." It didn't look like anyone was planning anything of the sort in the first place. "It's a fortune you got here when you did," Cadence said as Rainbow landed in front of them. "We might not have made it otherwise. Nothing of what we tried seemed to be working, I doubt we'd have been able to do much without dream weapons," she added, eyeing Rainbow's silver armour. "It seems these monsters are not too different from nightmares themselves." "That's not a good thing," Rainbow said, pushing the words out through nervously rigid jaws. "Nightmares aren't supposed to be on this side of the world. Half of what I'm capable of doing right now I shouldn't be able to, I never studied for it and I'm not even sure Luna would find it this easy to do. Whatever Nightmare Moon is doing to this place, it's worse than you can realise." She swallowed, then shook herself and straightened her expression into something less tense and worried. "I'm glad I was able to help and get here in time though. You should thank that thing for it, I only came here after some of its shot came my way." Shining sighed, half in relief at what they'd survived, half in nervousness at the revelations Rainbow had brought with her. His eyes drifted to Luna, being brought closer as the group of ponies gathered again, while his body leaned into Cadence's. "It's good to have you here. We should move now, try to find others." Rainbow nodded, and her eyes followed the direction of Shining's. Once she saw Luna, immediately she rushed towards her, stopping a short distance away from the unicorn carrying her. "She's okay," the pony said, noticing her. "Thank you for saving us." Rainbow took the praise with a little uncertainty, but then just smiled and nodded. Best to keep spirits high where they could. She stepped a little closer and looked with worry at Luna's unconscious body. At least she wasn't worse than she'd been before the winds had split them apart. She looked at her a little longer, then stepped back and fluttered up to Shining's side. "Where to?" she asked the unicorn. > Aby > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How much longer?" Firecracker asked, keeping their voice not too loud. They didn't show it much, to avoid discouraging the others, but they were getting somewhat tired of walking. Between the winds they had to move through, the rubble they ran into, and the oily blackness over the earth, it was quite draining to keep going, and quite nerve-wrackingly boring too. The mare at their side didn't disappear to check again. She knew she didn't need to. And she didn't need to answer at all either, as just a moment later they heard voices up ahead. Faint, hard to recognise if one wasn't paying attention, and the actual words were lost on them, but somepony was distinctly there. "Hey!" she called out. The voices went quiet. As they walked farther, the two pegasi began to see the outlines of some ponies up ahead. "Hello?" one of them called back in response, after a brief moment of silence. "Over here!" Firecracker shouted, drawing the attention of those other ponies with them that still hadn't realised they were running into someone else. "We're friends." The two groups grew closer, and eventually close enough to see each other. There were four ponies there indeed, as the mare had seen before. Three of them unicorns, one of which everyone else quickly recognised. "Rarity!" the mare said as she approached her. All of them looked quite relieved at the sight of more friendly faces, especially when they realised how big the group was. "We were heading towards the centre of town, hoping others would do the same so we'd meet them there," the lone earth pony said, taking matters into her own hooves. "What about you?" "We've been gathering ponies," Firecracker explained. They gave a nod towards the grey mare next to them. "She can see where others are, more or less." "And where threats are," the mare added. "Yeah," Firecracker continued. "We've been travelling pretty safely thanks to that." "Could have used that," the male unicorn said. "Ran into a mutated pony out there, we barely got away. I wouldn't have made it at all if it hadn't been for them catching me. Literally." "Are you hurt?" the grey mare asked with a suddenly worried expression, leaning in closer and noticing the somewhat messy state the stallion was in. "We've got a doctor with us, you should get yourself looked at." She turned around and yelled out, "Doc! Come here, there's someone you need to check on!" A pony from the crowd began to come towards them, one notably not clad in armour, unlike most of the rest of those there. As that happened and the stallion went forward to meet the doctor halfway, Firecracker looked at the pegasus again. "Where to next?" She disappeared for a moment. Not to the surprise of any of them. Rarity had grown used to the sight by hanging around Twilight's castle, and the other two had had their time to be surprised already in the period building up to and immediately after the start of the battle. She reappeared a moment later. "That way," she said, pointing with a hoof. "More ponies that way, at least four." > AG > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It did not see. It could not see, not properly at least. It sensed, that was a more appropriate way of putting it. It sensed its surroundings and the things therein, and the way it sensed those surroundings and those things could not be referred to as sight in earnest, even if it was partly performed through what had been its eyes. Back when it had been a pony. It could not remember that time, nor any time before the transformation. It could not properly remember the time after it either. Memory was not something it took on to well in the state it was in. Not that it would have had the thoughts to comprehend its own memories, or the general capability to. It was as lacking in that department as it was in its ability to see. And much like it sensed things around it, it felt things more than thinking them. There was no complex process, no long lasting data. It was a creature of instinct, spur of the moment reactions to what was presented to it. It did not think in the way a pony does, and it could not do so in its state. It did have one single objective moving its actions. One abstract goal it didn't fully comprehend, dictating the general direction of what it did. Something that, if it was looked at as a pony that had become something else, was alien to its nature, artefact, artificially implanted by force. However, looked at as its own creature, separate from the one it had been and overriding it, the concept became a fundamental part of it. Inseparable from it. Woven directly into its own nature, a cornerstone of everything it was. It was an abstract thought. A weave of concepts. Too complex to pin down to a single word, far too complicated for the creature to process beyond a semiconscious kind of following, almost the same as someone following fear. It was almost vague in its multifaceted nature. But if one was to try to condense all its meaning as succinctly as possible, what was moving the creature through the wind-beaten ruins was fundamentally a thirst for violence. That violence had a target, and that target was everything that was unlike the creature itself. It was a scream of rage and hatred, crystallised into an infectious will and a warping, malignant magical disease. It was Nightmare Moon's will and wrath made manifest into the minds and bodies of those who had followed her. Their bodies had always been vessels for her thoughts, and in her moment of almost defeated, in her moment of suffering and psychological splintering, they had become carriers of her revenge. Her last attempt at victory. Something perhaps she herself hadn't even been planning in the first place. It was hard to tell how much of her conscious mind still remained and how in control it was, how different she was from the monsters she'd created. It was hard to tell if a difference was there at all, beyond the mere clear difference in strength. The mutants had always, after all, been the result of her own essence being infused into other ponies. Perhaps what she was within was no different from what those she altered became. Perhaps they were only a mirror of something she had hidden from herself. > Quit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The wall, if it could be called that, came down against both Nightmare Moon and Starshine, and only then did Twilight realise how big it truly was. Not just in width and height, though it was impressive there too, but in depth as well. It may have proportionally been a wall, but it was easily as thick as a small house. It largely shattered upon impact with Nightmare Moon's body, or with the sphere of energy she quickly surrounded herself in. It was for the best that she'd shifted to focusing on defending herself for a moment, as summoning the wall had left Starshine visibly drained. So much so that she was almost hit by it as hard as Nightmare Moon, only acting a little faster in putting up a shield around herself. The force of the impact, largely due to the sheer size of it, was still enough to have the intended effect. Nightmare Moon's bubble was pushed towards Twilight, and Starshine's was too. Somewhat to Twilight's surprise, though to her relief as well, the chunks of the wall that broke as it crashed against the alicorn never made it to the ground. Despite falling downwards to it, the massive pieces of what looked vaguely like a purple and blue, peculiarly textured rock did not reach the city below. Instead, at a short distance from it, they caught on a magical fire almost like meteors entering the atmosphere and were quickly and invariably consumed by it. That was not all. The flaming, pulverised remains of the wall chunks took on almost a life of their own for a few moments. After being reduced to smouldering ash, they grew animated by the same magic that had burnt through them. It flowed into the remains and directed them, and torrents of magic and dying fire rained down against Nightmare Moon with each new broken chunk falling to earth. They pushed her farther still towards Twilight, even as they otherwise shattered uselessly against her shield. Not long after it had appeared, soon after it had crashed against the alicorns, the wall exhausted its momentum. Gravity dragged it downwards and its forward movement petered to a halt. In that moment, before it could begin to crash against the ground, the entire thing shattered in pieces still far bigger than a pony, but small compared to its initial size. There were bright flashes of light and a sound like crackling thunder in a storm. Every chunk burst into flames, its matter consumed, and the resulting energy once more animated itself and slithered through the air to crash against Nightmare Moon. A massive torrent born of many different streams washed against her shield, and though nothing passed through it she was still pushed through the air back towards the centre of the city, back to where the portal was and where Twilight waited for her. Statshine took that time to fly there herself, still clearly tired but slowly seeming to recover. She reached a close distance to Twilight just as the flow of magic ended, and they floated there waiting for what would happen next. > Ajead > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst did something. Almost without thinking, almost like it had been whispered to him by someone else, though in hindsight it was more than likely just his brain firing off under tension. He was not confident he could defend against the creatures and much more convinced he couldn't hurt them in the first place, but maybe there was another way out of the situation. He put something around the group of ponies. It wasn't a shield, not in the traditional sense, but it was somewhat shaped like one, one of the magical spherical ones. But it wasn't there to protect, not directly at least, not by way of absorbing blows and strikes. "They can't see us," Sunburst said, quietly. "If it worked, they can't hear us, smell us, or anything else." He stared at the translucent, faintly visible dome around them, as did those there with him. "They still probably remember we were here. We should move." With that, he began to walk, trying his hardest to stop his legs from shaking and only barely succeeding. The dome followed around him. "What if one of them gets in?" a pony asked, voice cracking with fear, as he began to follow Sunburst. "We'll worry about that if it happens," Sunburst replied, barely stopping his voice from doing the same. "We might be able to deal with a single one. Ponies on the back, keep an eye out to see if any get closer." The entire group gathered closely around him, eyes looking in all directions as they all slowly made their way forward. The creatures around them still didn't move, but it was evident that they'd noticed something was amiss. They looked around, heads turning, malformed hooves and claws digging at the ground, choked sounds of deformed apparatuses that had once carried pony voices sounded through the air. Some began to move. Some slowly walked to where the ponies had been, and dug against the ground, or lowered their heads to it if their anatomy allowed for it. Of the ponies looking back some shivered, some nervously swallowed. The group walked towards the space with the least creatures, though some were still nearby and dangerously close to entering their barrier. They had to stop and adjust their direction, and always carefully look out. All in silence, all in fear. At one point, Starlight hurled a stone to distract a creature in their path. She didn't throw it directly through the barrier, she feared it might have realised where it had come from. She threw it upwards in a tall arc, so that it would fall where it needed to while already past the creature's vision. It worked, and the path was cleared, but it also attracted more mutated ponies to the same spot. They were almost out of it, but their nervousness didn't diminish. Not Sunburst's especially. There was something off. Something he could feel was wrong, but he couldn't place his hoof on it. His heart was pounding in his chest, his breath was heavy. Something was wrong. He looked down at the ground below them, and suddenly he knew. > Erase > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The stallion followed behind Rainbow Dash. Soon enough, what the winds had kept hidden grew close enough for them to see it. "We're here," Rainbow called out to the rest of the ponies gathered there. Then she turned to the guard with her. "Are you hurt? Do you need help?" "I- No, I'm okay," he replied. He looked almost in awe to the group of ponies gathered there, and made his way towards them. He even recognised a few from afar, and as he walked towards them so did they, an so they headed towards him as well. Rainbow instead flew to where Shining and Celestia were, near the edge of the gathering but surrounded by a few guards. "Are we moving yet, or should I go out again?" she asked after making sure she wasn't interrupting any ongoing discussion. Shining bit his tongue, and looked to Philomena. The phoenix sat perched on a nearby chunk of wall, not giving any particular signs of movement, but she did look at him. Then he looked at Celestia instead. "What do you say?" Celestia looked at Philomena as well, then at the ponies gathered there, then towards the sky. "We should go," she finally said. "I will tell Cadence and start rounding everyone up." With that, she began to walk away. Shining nodded, and he too began to walk towards the centre of the area the ponies occupied. Rainbow gave a look around, a friendly nod to the guards there, then she began to follow him. "Worried about something?" she asked, noticing the tension in his expression. "Constructs," he said dryly, continuing to walk. "There should have been dozens of them out here, if not hundreds, but we haven't run into a single one. I'm worried something might have happened to Sunburst." "There should have been hundreds of enemy soldiers too," Rainbow noted, "and we haven't seen that many mutants yet. Maybe they're all busy fighting each other." "Could be," Shining said. "Hopefully they continue to keep each other busy, if that's the case." He didn't look too convinced by the possibility, or maybe he was just generally worried about the situation. Rainbow couldn't blame him. They hadn't run into anyone too seriously hurt yet, but she'd seen how little regular ponies could do against mutated ones. If she hadn't arrived in time, the stallion she'd saved would have been dead. If others were out there without help, it was possible they may have been in similar situations, likely even if they happened to run into enemies. Finding Sunburst could have certainly helped with matters, such as getting some idea of what was actually happening with the constructs. He wasn't the only one missing though. Starlight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Firecracker, Fluttershy, and many others were still somewhere out there in the Empire. She could only hope they were at least finding each other. She'd let Shining go as she'd gotten absorbed in her own thoughts. When she looked around again, everyone was standing up, getting ready to move again. She took a deep breath and stretched her wings, and mentally prepared herself to do the same. > esarE > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you trust me?" Celestia asked to the pony, after he'd expressed perplexity at the concept of following a bird. He hadn't expressed it too vocally in full, but she was experienced enough to read his expression and body language and infer what his words didn't carry completely. "Of course," he answered, almost without needing to think, and part of the worry seemed to melt out of his face. Celestia pitied his foolishness, but was glad to be of relief to him, even if his ideals were misplaced. Hopefully, in time, he would learn to look to better ponies the way he looked at her. For that moment, his trust was useful, and make use of it she would. "I trust Philomena," she said. "I would trust her with my life if necessary. She has lived with me longer than any other pony alive when she was born has lived for at all, and I believe her wise and intelligent beyond what her appearance may convey at a first glance." Good company, she'd given herself. A bird in place of friends of her own kind, one that couldn't even talk back to her. Maybe that last part was the reason for it, though. "She is, besides, the one who has led me to you and to your colleagues here before you. I believe we can and should follow her guide. Do you trust me?" Somewhat to Celestia's displeasure, even if of course she didn't show it, the stallion seemed reinvigorated by her words more than anything else. "I do," he said with a smile on his face, then he nodded to her and stepped back to go talk with the other guards following behind her. Celestia was left almost alone, guiding the group as she kept her eyes on Philomena. Almost. Paper Letters was still at her side, presumably to protect her if something happened. But he did not speak much, and at times it was like he wasn't even there. Once Celestia could even swear she'd lost him, only for him to be there at her side a moment later when she looked there again. It had to be her nervousness, she'd reasoned. At that moment though, he strangely became very noticeable. He was shifting around slightly, almost shaking but not quite frequently enough to classify as that. Celestia was so distracted by that she at first didn't even notice what was causing it, until she looked ahead again and saw the silhouettes of several ponies faintly visible in the distance. Confident that Philomena wouldn't lead them to a group of enemies, she called out to them. "Hey! Over here!" The ponies stopped, and turned towards them. Some began to walk. Rainbow Dash was the first to reach them, flying quickly across the distance separating the groups. "This way!" she called, then she lowered herself to the ground in front of Celestia. "Your sister is safe," she said. "I'm glad you are too." Celestia felt a weight fall off her heart. "Thank you," she said with a nod. Looking ahead she saw Shining Armor and Cadence there as well, and saw that Paper had already reached them and was talking with them. She turned back to the ponies she'd led there and saw them smile, then she slowly stepped aside and, with as much dignity as she could conserve, she ran to the other group to search for Luna. > Fish > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Starshine flinched. Twilight saw it, even as her attention was split between that and Nightmare Moon. She focused on the friendly alicorn enough to see her image wane. "I'm sorry," Starshine said, looking at her. "Sunburst needs me." With those words, she faded away. Twilight was left alone to stand against Nightmare Moon, right as the latter shattered her shield and growled at her. She could do it. It wouldn't be easy, but she could do it. She had to. Nightmare Moon fired at her, but she was expecting it and rolled to the side through the air. She didn't stop there, rather she let herself fall and circled around Nightmare Moon, beneath her and to the side, to then push herself upwards again behind her. Nightmare Moon turned, ready strike again, but Twilight was faster. Conventional magic wouldn't do much, she knew that, but physics clearly weren't going to fail her yet. A loud boom burst forth from her horn, a wave of compressed air suddenly released like an explosion. Had she not had the foresight to protect her ears with magic, she would have gone deaf from it. Judging by the streaks of ichor leaking from the sides of her skull, Nightmare Moon hadn't been as prepared. It didn't matter, she'd get better quickly. What did matter was that the burst had pushed her just a little farther back, and momentarily knocked her off balance. Twilight wasted no time in getting to action, ignoring the weight she felt against her breast after the blast had compressed her own ribcage. Though she knew it was extremely risky, and potentially unstable, she teleported on top of Nightmare Moon. She did so quickly, before the alicorn had time to right herself in the air. Another blast shot out of her horn. Not magic, not exactly, but energy. A spell she'd been working on, one she'd never fully completed but one that was good enough for what she needed it for at that moment. It hit the other alicorn and pushed her, a burst of sheer motion, kinetic energy directly transferred onto what it hit without a magical formation to carry it. Unstable, unfit to be used for precise work, but perfect for hurling someone around if their well being was of no concern. Nightmare Moon was struck in full, and in combination with her present lack of balance she was sent violently towards the ground. She fired a spell at Twilight, already having started to do so as soon as she'd sensed her teleportation, but her aim was off and Twilight managed to dodge out of the way. But it was not the ground that Twilight had meant to send Nightmare Moon towards. Indeed, the direction was the same. It was what was between the ground and her. With all the speed the spell had imprinted on her, Nightmare Moon was sent straight down towards the portal still open in the air above the Empire. Twilight subconsciously bit her own teeth in anticipation during the few fractions of a second it took for the distance to be covered. But Nightmare Moon realised what was happening too quickly. She couldn't right her position, she didn't have time to, but she didn't need to. With a sound like that of a branch being violently broken from a tree, her body split itself in half, front and back, and each part fell past the portal on a different side. > Lion > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was the ground. What was on top of it. It had always been that. Of course it had been that, it had always been off, and it was somehow off enough they'd never gotten used to it despite walking on it for so long. Normally you get used to something after long enough. To a smell in the room, to a sound in the background, to the temperature being slightly off, your brain filters that out eventually. It never did that for the sickly, oily black surface that had come over the ground, and Sunburst was starting to realise why. He turned around. Quickly, but not without measure. Carefully, but hastily. "Get as far away from the creatures as fast as you can, but don't run," he said to the ponies following along behind him. His voice was held firm, but still it held a hint of shakiness. His eyes were nervous, twitching around between the ponies farther away from him and the mutants closest to them. He felt the blackness stir beneath his hooves and a shiver ran down his spine. The ponies there began to hurriedly walk towards him, unsure and uncertain of what was exactly happening but trusting his judgment on what was best for them to do. His attention shifted mostly to the creatures. They weren't looking around as before anymore. They were all looking towards the group, and from the murmurs he heard around he knew others had noticed the same. He looked more carefully. He saw the darkness seeping upwards into some of their limbs, like water drunk by roots. "Stop!" he barked out, and everypony froze. Everyone looked at him, and he looked at the creatures, and the creatures looked at him. They couldn't be seeing him. He was still sure of that, he was still sure that they weren't seeing him. But they knew where he was. It was almost impossible to deny at that point that they knew where he was, they knew where all of them were, and soon enough they'd be on them. Running away? The creatures were faster. Fighting back wasn't an option he wanted to consider. Mass teleportation would have been out of the question even in normal conditions. A barrier just meant being trapped at best, being doomed if it didn't hold. A partial barrier, then running away? Their best option, but how big? Maybe more of them, repeatedly along the way, different kinds, different layers of misdirection and protection, and praying they didn't run into anything else. Was it their only choice? He didn't get to decide. He realised too late that the amount of creatures looking at them was lower than the amount of creatures they'd run into before. He realised it after he heard them moving, as he watched the unmoving ones he'd turned towards as they stared at him, rooted on the darkness like weeds. He realised it as he heard them coming from behind, and as he turned and saw them emerging through the winds and rushing towards the group, past the barrier he'd created. > Taketo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I could try talking to it." Everyone conscious enough to be able to turn, that being all but two of the ponies there, turned towards the soldier. "You what?" one of the guards asked. "Talking to it," the stallion repeated. He walked forward, and had a look out past the pile of rubble they were hiding behind. "It might still think we're on the same side. I'm still wearing my armour. If I go out there alone, maybe it won't attack me. I don't think I can talk to it properly, but maybe it will still be able to understand me. Maybe I can keep it distracted." "How do we know you won't sell us out?" asked the other guard. "If I wanted to betray you, I would have done so already," the stallion replied. "I had plenty of chances to do so. I could do it right now. I could yell out to that thing to come here and you'd be forced to choose between killing me for having done so or immediately running in the hopes of getting away, if I knew that thing would spare me." He had turned while speaking, and he stepped towards the guard who'd questioned him. "But I don't know that. Whether or not I actually wish to side with you does not change the fact that I do not know whether that thing would actually treat me any differently. If I walked out there and tried to talk to it, I have no way of knowing it wouldn't kill me on the spot. Is that clear?" The guard held his gaze from up close, but his expression wasn't angry or bothered. "It is," he said calmly, in a serious, respectful tone. Then he turned towards Pinkie, sitting over a chunk of wall she'd rolled off the pile and looking at the ground as she poked it with a crystal stick, deep in thought. "What do you think?" "Too risky," Pinkie replied, without even looking up. "We can't afford to lose a pony like that." The soldier looked towards her. "What alternatives do we have? It's not moving. If it mauls me to death that might at least give you time to run away in some other direction." "We are not sending you to die or get hurt out there," Pinkie said. "I was supposed to end up like that thing," said the soldier. "What difference does it make? You wouldn't have stopped while I was still fighting for the other side." "We had orders to incapacitate, not to kill," Pinkie said. In a softer tone, she added, "Besides, we need someone to carry Applejack along." The stallion rolled his eyes, but didn't protest further. Instead he walked up to Pinkie, and looked down to the ground where she was poking around with her stick. The two guards looked at each other and shrugged, then the stallion went to look out past the rubble pile, while the mare joined Pinkie and the soldier. > Tired > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think it's worth it to keep on going like this?" "What do you mean?" "Walking around. Trying to find others." "Why wouldn't it be?" "Well, okay, hear me out on this. As far as we know, and as far as we're able to see, not that we're able to see much and that's kind of the point, staying here or moving around are equally safe alternatives, or equally dangerous, whichever way you want to put it. We're no more or less likely to run into something bad if we stay still or if we move." "Okay, yeah, you've got a point there I suppose. But how do you go from that to saying we shouldn't move? If they're equal we should pick the one that makes it more likely we'll run into someone we want to run into." "Well, I personally think the chances of that are slim enough that improving them isn't worth what we're losing by moving. That's what I was about to get to. Yes, it's not more dangerous, but it is more tiring. Walking around is of course, but especially in these conditions it's significantly taxing. I'm tired, and you're tired too, and it got me thinking that if a monster or something came out I don't think I'd be able to outrun it. So it might be better to stay in one place and conserve our energies. It's not like what we do out here will matter in the grand scheme of things." "Well, again I guess you have a point. But staying still wouldn't be fun. I don't mean that in a silly way, I mean it would actually have its own set of problems, it would be mentally draining rather than physically. In a situation like this ponies need something to do, you can't just tell them to sit still. They need something to occupy their time and they will find it, so you might as well make that thing the one that slightly improves your odds of things going well." "Fair, fair. You got me there. I suppose I wouldn't be happy to just stand around. But you will at least agree with me that we shouldn't just be marching all the time. A pause could be useful, to catch our breath and rest our legs and all that. I think everyone here would agree with that." "Now that you mention it, I have to agree there. I certainly wouldn't mind sitting down for a few minutes, and taking off this armour maybe." "Neither would I, neither would anyone here I'm pretty sure. We should do that. Maybe not right here, but we should look for a good spot to do it. Maybe something slightly more repaired, or just someplace where the ground is clear enough I guess." "That would be good enough, beggars can't be choosers and all that. Just someplace flat with little rubble we can sit down on comfortably." "We'll stop if we find a spot that's good enough, I guess. Or in a few minutes wherever we end up, if we can't find anything before then." > 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella saw the first broken piece of the giant slab Starshine had summoned falling towards the ground, and quickly flew to it. Once she was close enough her horn ignited, and before it could get too close to the city the rock was enveloped by her magic and burnt through by it. She redirected the resulting matter towards Nightmare Moon's shield and kept doing the same for every other chunk that fell towards the earth. She refused to get particularly close to Nightmare Moon, or to attack her too directly. She was aware of how the alicorn could see through her powers and how she was aware of her presence, and she was conscious, despite her refusal to acknowledge it, of the fact that she was at a significant disadvantage. Nightmare Moon, or whatever else she was at that point, whatever was animating her cadaveric body, had long gone past the point of being comparable to a pony. Likely even before coming through the portal, but the events of the battle had pushed things to their limit. Twilight had been right in her intuitions. Stella had realised it sooner, of course, she'd guided Twilight towards the solution to the problem presented by Nightmare Moon's sheer presence, but she still refused to think about it. Maybe once everything was done, out of sheer curiosity, she would look into it. Maybe even indulge the idea of following a similar path, eventually, after she'd disposed of Twilight and had her fun with Equestria. Maybe she would look back on the event and find a way in it to ascend to something greater. Maybe she would take over Nightmare Moon's world eventually. Once she was dealt with, once Twilight was done as well, once Equestria bored her. If she didn't find a way to save it, or more likely if she simply refused to save it. She could play games with the citizens. She could have only some allowed to come with her, make them do all sorts of sacrifices for the privilege of being saved. She would definitely be looking at that possibility, once she was done with everything else. That would be in the future though, and the future was not her present. Neither was it the time to start looking into gaining simultaneous awareness of different points of her timeline. Right then and there, in the space and time she was still confined by, she had much more important things to focus on. She hated to even just consider the possibility and she equally hated having to collaborate and help Twilight, but she knew too well that if she didn't do her part, she had slim chances of survival. Sure, there was maybe an alternative. If she ran away, she could devise something on her own, then come back and solve the issue. Unburdened by Twilight's moronic moral limitations, at worst she'd throw together a strong enough spell to erase Nightmare Moon, likely alongside the totality of the Empire and possibly the Wall as well. Doing that involved the risk of letting Nightmare Moon kill Twilight, and that was not on the table. So, even if she hated the fact that she was in danger, that she could be in danger, and even if she despised having to play along with inferiors, she knew it was her best course of action. > Settler > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was mayhem as soon as the creatures walked past the camouflage spell. Sunburst's first reaction was to put up a barrier on the opposite side, to prevent the creatures still there from rushing in too, but in the time it took him to do that everything else had already started to unravel. Ponies were screaming, running back and forth with no direction other than away from the monsters, some putting up shields the creatures tore through without even trying, some attempting to fly and being pushed back by the wind. He focused on protecting them, a small group at a time. He put up shields around all of them, transparent cubes of crystal with enough air inside, too strong for the creatures to break. It wasn't a good solution, it came with a number of secondary issues, but at that moment the immediate safety of everyone involved was his only priority. He heard a scream and his eyes snapped towards its source. Starlight was defending herself and Trixie, but her spells slid uselessly against the creature targeting them, barely able to push it back as it approached. Her shield shattered instantly as soon as the creature touched it. Trixie was next to her, frozen in fear on the ground. She'd been the one to scream. Something snapped inside Sunburst, roughly at the same time as he created a shield around the two unicorns and saved them. They were the last ones left unprotected, except for him. He'd managed to act quickly enough, helped by only having to cover for one side. He could hear the creatures past the first wall he'd put up beating against it, but that didn't matter. He stared down the one who'd attacked Starlight and Trixie, still uselessly trying to break through the barrier around them. He fired his horn at it. Not particularly strongly, but obnoxiously. Loudly, visually loud as well, enough to be sure he'd get the creature's attention. It worked, and a short moment after being harmlessly struck in the side of the head by a bolt of his magic the mutated pony turned towards him. Then it charged. Sunburst stared it down. He stared at it as it ran towards him, as time felt like it was stretching out around them, as everything else seemed to disappear and there were only him, the creature, and the distance between them. He stared at the malformed limbs and at the roots growing over the body running towards him. He stared at those emptied eyes as dark as the snuffed out consciousness and mind behind them. He stared at the overgrown claws at the end of its arm as they swung towards him, until they were centimetres from his face. Sunburst stared at the wall in front of him, at the cubic structure of deep black pieces put together like bricks without the need for anything between them to hold them together. He stared at the dark blue liquid, sap or blood he wasn't sure, that oozed out of the fissures between the different parts of the construction he'd entombed the creature inside of. Then he stopped staring and turned aside, and began to head towards the nearest mutant. > Burnt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Something wrong?" "Yes." "How wrong?" Firecracker asked. "Fairly wrong," the mare replied. "There's something else there with them. I think it's another mutated pony." "Did it get there now? Is it going after them?" "That's the thing." The mare disappeared for just a moment. "And no, it seems like they're waiting, probably hiding from it. I think it's been there for a while, but I couldn't see it before because I was looking at it wrong." "What do you mean?" asked Firecracker. "Well... I'm not sure exactly, but I think it might be flying." "Oh," Firecracker said. "Oh that's not good. I didn't know they could fly. None of the ones we'd seen could fly. Do you think it's a recent development? Do you think more of them can fly as well?" "Probably and maybe," said the mare. "Should we still go towards them?" "Of course," Firecracker said. "Can we circle around it? Would that take too long?" "I can't tell where it is exactly. We might be able to, but I'm not sure when and where we should start, and I probably won't be able to say until we're closer." The mare looked back to the ponies following behind them. "I'm not sure if it's wise to do it with this many ponies. We might want to only send a few, otherwise it's likely we'll be spotted." Firecracker looked back as well. "Yeah. You're probably right." They spotted Bon Bon among the group, and beckoned her forward with a wing. She saw them, and sped up her trot to reach them. "What is it?" she asked once she was there. "There's a creature near the group we're heading towards," Firecracker explained. "It seems like it's able to fly. We're considering trying to circle around it with a smaller group to reach the others, and guiding them back the same way. We can't bring everyone, that'd make us too big of a target and too easy to spot." They looked Bon Bon in the eyes. "Are you coming?" Bon Bon paused to think about it, though she kept walking not to fall behind. "Someone will need to stay behind and guard those who do," she said. She wasn't volunteering herself for that task, merely listing it off as a necessity while deep in thought, honestly considering what the best option was likely to be. "You need to bring Lyra with you. She's too much help not to." She gave a very, very small sigh, hardly more than a regular breath, easy to miss even if one was looking. "If she's coming then I'm coming too, and she has to come. I'm in." Firecracker nodded in understanding. They turned to the pegasus then. "Would you rather come or stay?" "You'll need a guide," she said matter-of-factly. "I'll make sure there are no creatures close by before we leave the group. If things go bad I can survive through them, and we need someone who can get back to everyone else in case things do go bad. It's best if I come." Firecracker nodded again. "That's four of us already. I'll have a couple of guards along as well." Almost as an afterthought they added, "We're leaving Rarity behind with the others." > Treeson > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How do you think it's going?" Spike asked, looking out the window towards the distance. "It can't be too bad. We'd know it if it was." "How?" "I'm not sure, actually. But I'm sure we would. Since we clearly don't know things are bad yet, that must mean they're not that bad." "I don't think that holds up quite well." "Maybe, but what's the point in worrying too much about it? If things are bad this time, we'll have a lot more to be worried about than just being disappointed our expectations weren't met, so for once I don't think there's anything wrong with being hopeful. I'm planning to have as good of a time as I can right now, because I know I'm going to miss it if things go wrong." "I guess." "Come on now. You trust Twilight and her friends, don't you?" "I do." "Then have faith. You've got Harmony on your side, after all." The unicorn looked at Spike. Then he forced himself to look away, shaking his head, and he stepped away from the window. "Well, I have work to do. Wish me luck." Spike looked at him as he walked away, and noted the way he swayed slightly from side to side, thankfully never stepping over the cape on his back. "Good luck," he said. The unicorn paused after rounding a corner, one hoof against the wall to hold himself up as the world spun around him. Too much to drink, for sure, but he'd worked drunk before. He could do it. The hard part he'd already dealt with, thankfully enough. It would be best if he didn't return to the castle for a while, after things were solved. He headed down the corridor, trying to straighten his walk against the dizziness the alcohol gave him and the stiffness in his hind legs. Definitely too much to drink. But he was on schedule, the others were the ones running late. Inside the room, Spike looked out the window again. The sky was cloudy on the horizon, like a storm was raging over the Empire. One very well could be considering the circumstances. He wished he'd been able to be there and help, but the battlefield was no place for him to be, as Twilight had very convincingly reminded him. She had a point, and he knew he'd have been more of a liability than actual help. The unicorn reached the end of the corridor, and peeked past the door into the room behind it. Things were still being set up, and he wasn't required yet. He chose not to enter, instead he stepped back and rested his side against the wall. Best if he wasn't seen in those conditions while he could avoid it. His horn shone and coolness spread over his face, bringing some more clarity to his thoughts. Had it been a questionable decision to get drunk in the middle of a battle? Yeah, but he hadn't tasted alcohol in years, and if that world risked being taken over and he was forced to leave it he refused not to do it at least once before then. It wasn't like he would be sticking around there any longer if things went bad. > Cuttle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What's that?" Pinkie Pie perked up, looking around in the direction opposite the one the creature they were hiding from was in. "Oh please tell me it's not another one of them," said the female guard there, getting up to her hooves and tensing, ready to run away or strike. "There's something out there," the soldier with them commented. He stepped closer to Applejack and Fluttershy, both lying on the ground nearby, and he too looked out towards the same direction Pinkie was looking in. It was hard to tell and only slightly less hard to hear, but something was definitely moving there. "It doesn't look like another creature," the other guard noted, he too standing up and moving next to Pinkie. "Do you think it might be friends?" he asked, but he also prepared to dash or fight back. Pinkie pursed her lips in thought. "Maybe," she said in a dry tone. They couldn't call out to them either way, not with the creature there. That would guarantee giving away their position. "We should go towards them," said the soldier. The guards turned towards him and he explained, putting Applejack over his back, "If they're friends it's the right thing to do. If they're not then we'll either need to fight or run, and both of those things might get loud. It's best if whatever we need to do we do it out there, not right here." Pinkie nodded hearing that. "He's got a point." She walked to him and loaded Fluttershy onto her own back. The two guards shared a look, but they didn't protest. It was true, there was reason to the stallion's words. Besides, it meant finally moving rather than being stuck there. Even if they were going towards enemies, those enemies were already coming towards them, and it would be much better not to meet them while backed into a corner. If a fight was coming they could only delay it, not avoid it, so it was better to focus on giving themselves the best chances they could by picking the least bad situation to be in. Pinkie walked first, the soldier was behind her and the two guards flanked the group, slightly farther back. They moved carefully, trying not to make too much noise. Pinkie paused a couple of times, deciding if they should head straight for whatever was moving towards them or if they should try to arrive from the side. One option was better if they were friends, the other if they were not. Eventually they settled on heading straight towards them, while prepared to strike at them. Pinkie passed out a few potions to the rest of the group, and all kept theirs ready to be thrown. The others were growing closer. The ponies could tell at that point that there were a few of them, and that they were also trying to be quiet. Pinkie raised a hoof and signalled for the others to stop and wait, and they stood ready to see whatever was coming appear past the winds. > Untamed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst watched as the line of spikes he'd conjured rose from the ground and tore the last creature still standing in half. He adjusted his glasses, looked around at the carnage covering the scenery, then finally allowed himself to slump over, overcome by the weight of his tiredness. Breathing heavily, he walked to the nearest crystal shield, and without looking at the ponies inside he placed his hoof over the door appearing over its surface and pulled on the knob. The crystal slid open like the door had always been there, and the ponies were allowed to walk out while he walked to the next shield and did the same. While he was at it, he created a central, slightly elevated platform for ponies to stand on. He continued on freeing others from their cubic constructs, never looking up from the ground more than what was needed to find his way around, never looking at them. He was tired, and his heart refused to stop hurting. Never before that moment had he ever actually, physically felt the coil around it, pressing down on it as it beat. He reached Starlight and Trixie last, and let them out as he'd done with the others. He still didn't look up, though in part simply because he was too tired to raise his head again, but he did speak as they walked out. "Starshine is gone for the moment," he said. He knew they knew the implications that had. He was not happy that things had come to that, but he could justify his actions slightly, knowing that if he'd died Starshine would have been gone either way. "I can't recall her right now," he added, beginning to walk back to where ponies were gathering, together with the two mares. But in his mind, even as he said that, he began to look for something. He couldn't give her a body, but if she had a mind of her own maybe there was still something he could find. Trixie walked slightly behind the other two. Her legs were shaking, and so was her breath. She looked around frantically, unable to stop her wide open eyes from darting in new directions every moment. Her mane had grown messy despite nothing physically tugging at it, and the corners of her eyes were slightly damp, but not quite wet. She didn't stumble, but it was surprising that she managed not to. She didn't look in control of her own walking, it was something some part of her brain was taking care of by itself while her attention was focused on being scattered. Starlight walked close to Sunburst, but she didn't speak. Her heart was still beating fast in her chest, though she tried to calm it with slower breaths. She tried, she really did, to ignore the limbs lying strewn around over the ground they walked on, or the puddles of black liquid not quite like the darkness they pooled over. She tried to ignore the smell too, and she was glad she'd only heard muffled sounds while inside the crystal. > ldp > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The meeting was, in some ways, rather awkward. Both groups just kind of walked into each other, then they froze, and they remained frozen like that for a good few seconds as they drank in the awkwardness of having run into each other like that. They did, eventually, move closer. The stiffness in their limbs slowly evaporated, their weapons were lowered, and eventually they even began to talk. The knowledge that neither of them had actually been properly prepared to meet whatever they might have run into never quite left them, but they did their best to ignore it. Lyra did chuckle a little, like there was a joke only she was aware of, that's what it looked like from the outside. In a way, there was one. In a way, by not rewinding, she'd pulled a prank on herself, though if that was her first time through then she was the one pulling the prank, and there would be no Lyra to receive it other than her past self, who already had, and because she already had there was no choice whether she was supposed to rewind or not, except of course she still had a choice to and she had chosen not to, and that was what made it funny for her. Bon Bon would have said, hearing about those thoughts, that she was a tired mare and the situation was getting to her. Bon Bon was busy helping with carrying Applejack, while one of the guards with them had taken on Fluttershy. Pinkie was up at the head of the group, together with Firecracker, and the rest of the others largely just followed behind, staying close. The prisoner with them stuck particularly close to Bon Bon, largely looking at the mare on her back. Bon Bon was only mildly bothered by that, but not more so than she was by the general situation they found themselves in. If Pinkie was to be trusted, and she saw no reason not to, he was on their side anyway. Words were exchanged, quietly. The creature they'd walked away from did indeed fly. There was a larger group they were being brought towards. Fluttershy and Applejack were stable, if always unconscious. There were doctors ready if any of them were injured. They still had some potions ready if they ran into something. They were pretty good at avoiding things, and spotting other ponies in the distance. Neither group had any information on what was going on at the centre of the city, and that largely closed those conversations. The walk back was slow, mercifully uneventful, always conducted with care and nervous unease fitting the conditions they were in. They didn't talk more than necessary, and they listened as much as they were able to, and they heard nothing but the wind and they were grateful for it. The path was roundabout and at times they feared the creature would finally choose to move and do so exactly then, but whether it did or it didn't they never ran into it. Eventually, they arrived at their destination. > An Emad > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The scenery was warped, surprisingly yet unsurprisingly. She'd seen something similar of course, but it hadn't been like that, of course. It was going to be difficult to navigate the space, something she'd been expecting, but she had counted on the fact that with few targets actually there for her to reach things would still be sustainable. She was surprised to see many more possibilities than the few she'd been expecting, but it was not going to be as much of an issue as it might have under different circumstances, as all of them were clearly different from the ones she was interested in. She had a guess as to what all those other spaces were and where they had come from. A terrible, frightening guess she had neither time nor will to explore and confirm. Yet as she brushed past a few of them on her path towards her desired destination, she couldn't stop herself from gazing inside. Not willfully so, of course. She literally could not stop the flow of information born from contact, the osmosis of data she'd never learnt to deal with. She did not look, but images still flowed. She did not wish to listen, but sound still came. It all but confirmed her fears. There was pain there, suffering and madness, shadows lurking and swallowing minds whole. Then nothingness. She ignored them, as best as she could, and she forced herself to proceed towards her targets. They were close, far ahead, and both looked worryingly unhealthy. Fluttershy's dream was enwrapped by what Rainbow had already seen before, and only there partially realised the nature of. She realised then that Luna had withheld information from her, and realised the why of it as well. But it was no time to become angry or bothered by that, so she didn't. Applejack's dream was victim of its own strain of malady. It looked frozen, the surface opaque and thick and cold. She wondered if she'd even be able to enter it while it was in that state. She tried to touch it and found herself connecting with it as if it was a solid surface, like a glass sphere suspended in the air. Nothing passed through, not even as she attempted to press on. She didn't have the means to investigate further, and she'd have barely had the time for it at all. Knowing at least Applejack was still alive was good enough. She turned to Fluttershy's dream instead, and headed towards it. She had to maneuver herself carefully, looking for an opening that would allow her access without getting her in contact with the parasite growing all around it. She found it eventually, and with brisk carefulness she passed through the edge. There had been wind outside, some form of it at least. The inside was not much different, and only more grounded. It was a proper sea storm she found herself in the middle of, if of course a purely mental one that only manifested as such. She began to look for Fluttershy among the cacophonous mayhem, trying to navigate through the maelstrom of her overcrowded, scattered and battered mind. > Lost and Found > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was as Fluttershy and Applejack were brought over to a doctor to check on their conditions that the soldier saw the guard again. One had stuck by Applejack, and it happened that the other had remained there, after being assisted. He was wearing some bandaging over his chest, having removed most of his armour. He immediately recognised the soldier, it was impossible not to by his looks. The two looked at each other, in silence. There were questions in the guard's eyes that did not need to be spoken aloud, and it likely would have taken much longer to do so and to properly, separately word each facet of the tangle of concepts that were on his mind, carried along on that look they shared with each other. The soldier's answer was to look at Applejack. Something that answered none of the questions the guard had meant, and yet answered all of them. That is to say, the act did not specifically address any aspect of the list of things the guard had meant to receive information on, but it addressed directly a central theme of them that indirectly provided clarification on all the relevant parts of the information. The guard nodded. They both stood, they both watched as the doctors looked over Applejack and Fluttershy. Both stable, both having sustained no other injuries. One cold, the other feverish. Both unconscious, kept there by external forces not even Celestia could have healed. Much like the alicorn's own sister, if so she still was. The mares were eventually brought away. The soldier followed behind them, the guard left to follow behind him. They followed, in silence, and watched them laid down over makeshift stretchers, ready to be carried when the group was to move again. The two stallions stood there, in silence, watching and waiting. The soldier spoke first. He did so as he looked around, and saw that others seemed to be getting ready to move again. The guard listened to him, and he did not speak, for there was nothing to say at those words he'd heard. There was only to listen and be there. The group began to move again. The winds kept blowing. Harsh, rough, thick to breathe in. The guard's steps were somewhat slow, the pain in his chest growing. Nothing that time wouldn't heal, and nothing the doctors could treat better than they had in those conditions. It wouldn't kill him, or leave him hurt, but it would be painful for a while longer. He tried to ignore it. He was alive, and that mattered. The soldier occasionally threw a backwards glance at the guard, when he saw him stay behind a little, take his steps slower, breath heavier against the pain in his breast. He didn't comment on it, but he did slow to wait. He did wait for the guard to be at his side. He was not likely to have a chance to repay his life debt, but that didn't matter. The group walked. Fluttershy and Applejack were carried along. The two stallions followed close by. The winds kept on blowing. > Song of Sorrow | Song of Storms > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ponies all eventually regrouped atop the platform Sunhurst had made. The creatures that had not reached them before had been sealed away, locked in a dome of Sunburst's creation. The ponies there were still anxious, but relief was beginning to wash over them after what they'd survived. None wanted to look down from the podium, so they mostly only looked at each other. Eventually, Sunburst found it was time to move again. Not to make anyone step onto the ground close by again, he created a long and softly sloping ramp from the platform to clear ground, and he began to walk over it. The others eventually followed, with nothing else to do. He was not well, not yet at peace with what he'd done, but looking behind himself and seeing the lives he'd saved he did feel some of the weight over him slip away. Starlight walked at his side. Trixie stayed slightly behind, though she still was at the head of the group. The ponies around her eventually went back to talking, the tension in them released. She didn't hear their words properly. She couldn't focus on them. She watched Sunburst and Starlight in front of her, and in her mind she saw herself screaming, clinging to the latter, powerless to do anything. Sunburst leaned very slightly into the mare at his side. But his mind moved elsewhere, maybe simply to distract him from the situation. He found something, somewhere in his thoughts, and weakly he tried to poke at it. She answered back. Fluttershy was easy to find, harder to talk to. It took Rainbow Dash a bit, first to align herself properly and then to focus the other's attention sufficiently. She felt like part of the storm, conscience unravelled apart by the winds as the world came as a display of the state of her own mind. Eventually, with Rainbow's help, things solidified somewhat. Fluttershy's thoughts were pulled from the web they ran across, condensed in a form that could converse. Dream magic was not something Rainbow understood the finer details of, but she did a good enough job just feeling things around. She was careful not to pull anywhere she shouldn't have. Fluttershy was happy, when she realised Rainbow was there. Then suddenly almost scared. Then resolute. Rainbow wasn't sure how much she felt the other's emotions because of her dream magic and how much because of Fluttershy's scattered state. She didn't have time to dwell on it. Fluttershy spoke, or tried to, pushing out concepts more than she did words, streams of ideas rather than sentences. Rainbow Dash took it all in, and replied as she could. She understood the situation as Fluttershy explained it. She understood what Fluttershy wanted of her. She hesitated. She felt angry, but she did not lash out. For one, Fluttershy would not have wanted it. For two, she was unsure of her ability to harm the parasites without harming the host. She promised she'd do what was necessary, and that she'd tell Luna of their conversation. She said goodbye to Fluttershy, hoping it wouldn't be the last. Then she left the dream. > Deliver Us From Evil > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight didn't waste any time. She could not afford to in that situation. Neither could she afford to teleport again, not when things were as unstable as they were there, so instead she flew. She pushed herself as fast as her wings allowed her to, blasting off from her position and heading down, forward, in the same direction the front half of Nightmare Moon's body had gone. She positioned herself as if diving. Head down, body lined up above it. But she didn't stay like that. Rather than halting, she continued to let the momentum of her rotation carry her body. She looked downwards, which from her position was looking horizontally, upside-down. She was almost falling with her back first, just barely holding it up. Her front leg stretched out in front of her face. Speeding towards the ground without any ability to see it, she took aim at Nightmare Moon again, and fired. The half of Nightmare Moon's body her head was on barely had the time to notice Twilight. It was a horrendous thing, something that should never have been alive. The front part of her charred, consumed body, held partly up by her legs, gave way to a pooling puddle of blood where its middle section should have been. One wing had made it, the other lay somewhere between the two halves of her. The edges of her ribcage were visible, so was a portion of her spine, and pieces of her entrails spilled our from where she'd torn herself in two. She resembled a cart with its back wheels removed, only capable of dragging its carcass along. Twilight fired, scale and spell, and forced herself to roll aside and tumbled over the ground, rubble digging into her and beating against her bones. Just barely in time, just barely before she'd collided neck first with the ground. Nightmare Moon barely had time to see her, but she did see the blast. But wrecked as she was, she could not run nor fly away, nor crawl in any direction but forward. Instead she roared. It was not a sound a pony should have made, not something any animal or any living creature should have been capable of producing. Not a dragon, not an ursa, not any other monster born of chaos or magic. It was too deep, too great, too cacophonous, far too much to even fit inside a creature's body. It was like a glacier sliding down a mountain, like a building crumbling, like thousands of glass panes shattering, like a metal structure like a ship or a train tearing and howling and shredding under pressure and strain. It sounded like destruction, like terror, like entire cities turning to ruins. It bent the air, it warped the space in front of her, a current of its own even without the singing, screaming magic entwined in it. The scale and the spell slowed, almost halted in mid air. But they did not fall. They did not stop growing closer to her. They did not stop growing closer together. They touched. Close enough for the portal to swallow her, once expanded fully. Nightmare Moon's howl did not stop. It needed no air to continue, no lungs she had no working examples of anyway, nothing but her will and sheer hatred to keep pouring out of her. The portal shivered. It stopped expanding, it pulsed violently back and forth. Nightmare Moon kept on screaming. The portal shrunk in. Collapsed on itself. The scale at its core fell, useless, towards the ground. The howl blew out, like a dam had been burst, a bubble quickly spreading over the Empire. The portal in the sky shivered and shattered, and its scale too Twilight watched fall towards the ground. Her heart pounding in her chest, Twilight stood up. > Music of The Spheres > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare Moon's eyes found Twilight. For a moment, the two only looked at each other. One breathing heavily, her body bruised and battered, her gaze narrow and determined. The other not breathing at all, a corpse split in two, black hollow sockets in her skull staring forward. A blast streamed forward from Nightmare Moon's horn. A single torrent of energy, about as wide as a head, deep blue and black. Twilight didn't even try to intercept it, she knew she couldn't. Instead she dodged. She ran. To her side, as fast as her magic could make her legs move even at the cost of breaking their joints. Circling around Nightmare Moon, angling herself to get closer. Nightmare Moon's spell followed her, fast enough to burn parts of her tail, leaving it smoking and corroded. The alicorn herself never turned, the beam firing from her horn did. All the while, black tendrils began to pour out of her gaping wound. They took hold of her lower body and her missing wing, and dragged them back towards her. Twilight took notice of that, as she kept circling the other. She couldn't allow her to get to move again. If she got away, there might never again be a chance to do what she needed to. Once she was parallel to Nightmarish Moon's side again, once she saw her standing up fully and her wings spreading again, she knew she had to act. She took a violent turn, a sudden ninety degrees change in direction, and headed straight to the alicorn. The spell hit her at first, leaving scorch marks over her coat where it did, but it was for a brief moment only. As she got closer, Nightmare Moon failed to adjust the angle of her blast quickly enough. In less than a second, Twilight was on her, and all her momentum left her body and was shoved into Nightmare Moon's. It left a hole in the side of her chest, a black stain of ichor on the ground on the other side of it. It pushed the alicorn slightly off balance, making her spell shoot high in the air, cleaving the skies and the storm around them. Nightmare Moon turned slightly as she came down. Her spell ceased its flow, turned to a single point she slammed down to the ground in front of her. Twilight was already out of the way, already behind her. The teleportation, so close to the source of the disturbance, left her coughing out blood from her nose and mouth. It didn't matter. As a pillar of blue fire erupted where she'd stood and the ground cracked under Nightmare Moon's spell, she lit her horn again. Nightmare Moon was quick to turn, ready to strike again. Twilight stood there. Twilight leaned closer, in the fractions of a second the events took place in. Her horn shone brighter and brighter, purple and gold. "Did you think I'd taken Celestia's magic just to fight you?" she asked, words carried out by her magic as pure meaning almost instantly transmitted. "I always knew I wasn't going to win that way. It was always about this." Twilight leaned close enough to take hold of Nightmare Moon with her wings, and she almost did, feathers hovering mere millimetres away from the alicorn's skin. The light of her horn ballooned out, a sphere of gold that wrapped itself around both her and Nightmare Moon before the latter had time to strike. Then, the sphere collapsed on itself, and the two were gone. > Lost in Space > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was cold. Surprisingly cold. In the sense that the sudden sensation surprised her, not in the sense that it was surprising for it to be cold. That part made sense. Either way, it was cold, and she was cold. Except for her horn. That also made sense. Her horn was boiling, sizzling hot, barely doused by the coldness around her. It was hot inside and outside, it was only reasonable for it to be when she'd channelled so much magic into it. So much power into a single spell. At its core it wasn't a complicated spell by any means, no, it was one she'd known for years, though around it she'd wrapped a far more advanced one she'd had both her former teacher and the one it had first been used on explain to her. The sheer scale at which she'd used it, though, that was something else. It left her drained, but there was still more to do. She was thankful then more than ever for having the power of two alicorns inside herself. Her legs were numb. The bad kind of numb, the kind the body and brain use to mask the pain. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to walk with them, the good news was that she wouldn't need to. Her wings were still good enough. She'd just fly, she would have an easier time while higher up anyway. She felt weirdly weightless, floaty even, and without a proper perception of time. Not falling unconscious though, neither was she unaware of her surroundings. More simply, it appeared there were no surroundings for her to be aware of at that moment. The spell was taking a while to work, maybe. Maybe it was her perception of time that was dilated by it instead. She wasn't sure, she'd never experienced something like that. It didn't matter much, and she was regrettably a little too tired to properly observe the phenomenon. She wasn't in any danger, at that moment. She would be soon, as she had been just before, but for a short span of time she was allowed to simply exist and do nothing. There wasn't anything she could do in that state, anyway. She couldn't move her body, she wasn't even sure if she had a body even though she could feel its conditions. She would have one again soon though. Hopefully. She couldn't be sure everything would work out, though she was certainly hopeful that would be the case. There was light. Was there light? It felt like there was light. She didn't see it properly, but it did kind of feel like there maybe was light. Like when waking up, the light passing through one's eyelids. It was almost like that. Would there be light? Not much. She felt odd tingles in her body. The magic she'd used, coursing through her as she was displaced and brought to her destination. She wondered if it had felt like that the last time the spell had been used. Perhaps not, she had cast it with sheer magic and not with the aid of any artefacts. She wondered what the other pony, if she could still be called one, she'd used it on felt. One of those questions she'd maybe get a chance to ask, if she survived. Suddenly she felt a tug. She felt herself pulled from that ethereal place of transit the spell had seemingly cast her into. It was time. Twilight took a breath, and prepared herself. > Your Precious Moon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was something ironic about the whole thing. Something deeply, maybe even beautifully ironic about it. The first time Twilight had properly experienced teleportation had been while being dragged into Nightmare Moon's own, all those years ago, in the ruins of the old castle. Not only was she returning the favour, she was also, while carrying Celestia's powers, doing what her former teacher had done to her sister, but to a version of her who had not experienced anything of the sort. If she'd had the time to, Twilight would have laughed. Of course, she didn't. There wouldn't have been much air to carry her laughter in, anyway. Both mares appeared in a burst of golden light. Both were sent tumbling back from it, raising clouds of white dust that lingered airborne in the lower gravity of their new environment. Both alicorns stood again, looking at each other. Twilight almost winced feeling her weight over her legs, she only didn't fall over because she didn't have to bear as much of it as usual. Immediately she spread her wings and took off, raising another cloud of dust, shooting higher than she'd have expected. Nightmare Moon's eyes followed her, and her maws opened in a mute growl as she lit her horn to strike once more. Twilight was prepared. She'd prepared for days. Her horn too began to glow, and sometime else did the same in response. A glyph, a rune carved into the lunar surface below them, not too far from Nightmare Moon's hooves. One of many, many others like it Twilight had carved on her last visit there, and only the first to be activated. Before Nightmare Moon could strike, a harpoon of solid white light erupted from the rune and shot towards her, tied to a thick and heavy chain that sprouted alongside it from the ground. It bore through her body and seared her flesh, and her mouth burst open in a silent scream, tearing through the length of her neck to reveal rows of sharp, monstrous fangs. Twilight didn't stop. Higher she rose into the Moon's black sky, setting off rune after rune as her horn shone brighter and brighter, each firing off towards her enemy as the first one had. Twilight with her protective spells had no need for air, no environmental hazards to worry about, and she kept soaring higher, high into space, enough to see the curvature of the Moon from where she was. Something was happening to Nightmare Moon. Something had begun happening to her all the way back on Earth, and it was continuing to happen. Her body grew back with each wound she received, but it did not stop growing there, it did not rebuild what had been before. After merely a few shots sustained, she was far beyond looking anything like a pony. An abomination spread its limbs and tentacles over the surface of the Moon, black as space without stars or light, only held down by the dozens, hundreds of chains that anchored it to the ground at Twilight's command. It screamed from toothed pits filled with eyes and watched from fang-covered mouths and writhed and spasmed as it poured ichor and death all around itself. Uncountable heads and faces rose and fell from its form, and new eyes grew over its shapeless body and new maws spread over it to cut through them and drink in its own blood. It roared enough to shake the Moon itself, and Twilight felt it like a wave, not mere sound but magic and emotion and intent, blind rage and lust for destruction pouring skywards like a torrent as towers of molten, blackened flesh and teeth arose to reach her, too many for even the thousands of glyphs she controlled to stop them all. That was all accounted for. Not the specifics, of course, but merely trapping Nightmare Moon on her namesake had always been just half of her plan. It was time for the hard part, and Twilight would see it through until it ended, or until it ended her. Her horn shone brighter still, brighter than it had during the entire length of the battle that day. Part of her magic became a shield around her, a thin bubble of gold meant not to physically stop Nightmare Moon's tentacles to reach her, but to burn them if they did. Twilight closed her eyes, and she fell upwards away from the Moon. The rest of her magic went to the glyphs. All of them, thousands of them all around the surface of the Moon, all at even intervals over its entire geography. They shone, bright as her horn, almost visible even beneath what had become of Nightmare Moon. Their chains shone with them. So did something else. Something far, far away, an infinite distance away, a world apart and yet there, exactly there, exactly in the same location. Twilight had only tested a spell like that once, on a much smaller scale. The Moon, the glyphs, their chains, the creature tied to them, everything vibrated like the air above a fire. Everything went a little greyer, a little less there. Everything seemed to fade for a moment, before snapping back in. Twilight felt it, all of it, more than she felt herself at that point. She let go, of everything but the spell she was pouring herself into. Her shield dissipated. Her limbs fell limp, unneeded to keep her flying as she surpassed the Moon's gravitational reach. Magic coursed through her entire body, shining brighter every moment, a miniature star between the planet and its satellite. Not just her horn. Her eyes snapped open as pure white flowed out of them, her mouth agape in a scream of light, her body impossible to see as the glow of her magic encompassed it whole. Patches of the lunar surface seemed to explode, wiping away the abomination over them, encircled by a spreading edge of light. Something else entirely was happening. Portions of the creature's body were similarly engulfed, removed, taken far away and yet in the same place they'd been. The entirety of what was there trembled again, waned again, shivered and faded, and it did not stop. The light around Twilight collapsed, then spread out like a sun exploding. In a single instant, a single last moment, every glyph on the Moon shone blindingly white, every chain sung with searing hot energy. Then it all was gone. A blink, and the Moon was all that was left, the light gone from it and from Twilight, the abomination gone alongside it. In a stray bout on not yet unconsciousness, Twilight looked at her world's new Moon, once Nightmare Moon's. Then, the princess fell back to Earth. > Found and Lost > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like a drop of clean water falling over the murky contents of a basin, immediately spreading out over them and pushing the dirty aside. The sky cleared and so did the earth, the winds ceased. It started in the middle of the Empire, where the tower had been, and it spread out from there in a circular pattern. The Sun shone again down on the clear crystal ground, and metre by metre the clearing widened as the remaining storm swirled around it, weaker and weaker. The ones closest to the centre saw it happen first, of course, but only as the clearing reached them. One moment they were walking through the storm, the next the air was clean, clear, their visibility suddenly only limited by the black and purple edges of the storm behind them and far ahead in front of them, retreating on both fronts. They were free to breathe again, free to see the destruction caused in its entirety. Celestia's group, with Rainbow, Shining, and Cadence, was of the larger ones the one closest to the centre. Immediately, while everyone there looked around in surprise and relief, Celestia looked up to the sky and kept looking there, never taking her eyes away, waiting for something. She was rather glad that even without her magic she could stare almost directly at the Sun without much issue. The storm kept clearing, and in doing so it revealed more than merely ponies and ruins. The soldiers who had been there in the city before the portals were cut off, what was left of them at least, were revealed as well. They did not last long under the sunlight, outside of the storm, separated from the source of their mutation. Disconnected from their communal layer of darkness, and with the magic that had created and directed them no longer there to keep them stable, they withered and melted in a short span of time. One such creature happened to be near the group Pinkie and Firecracker were a part of. Far nearer than they would have been comfortable with had they known about it, gone unnoticed moving closer to them after the last time the pegasus in their company had checked around for any nearby presences. They saw it as the clearing reached them. Standing not too long a distance away, they turned to it and watched it. It did not move any closer, it merely stood there, almost as if it was itself confused by its current situation. Almost like someone suddenly losing their footing, finding themself falling, that was what the mutated pony's expression and demeanour looked like. One pony in particular watched it, the unicorn who could have been like that had he not been saved, and it felt like the creature was looking back at him. And the unicorn recognised the mutated pony, or he thought he did, and it felt like the mutated pony too recognised him back. It was clear it had been an earth pony before, likely broad and well built, the armour matched too. It could be. The unicorn did not have long to dwell on it. The creature crumbled, ichor and dust, as all others did sooner or later. The unicorn was left alone as the only surviving member of the enemy forces after the battle. > Antimony > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight slowly opened her eyes. She expected to see golden light, like what had seemed to be passing through her eyelids, in truth shining behind them while she was still unconscious. Instead the first thing she saw was pink. A large, blurry mass of pink, with some blue around the edges that she realised had to be the sky. She didn't need to hear anything to know what she was looking at. "Did you know there are some ants who will fill themselves up with food and bloat their bodies, then hang themselves from the ceiling of a room in their nest and regurgitate the food out to other ants who come to them?" Pinkie was about to yell in joy and jump up, but she paused at those words. "No, actually. I didn't know that," she said, confused. "If we were ants, Pinkie," Twilight continued between heavy breaths, "I think you'd be one of those ants." She smiled. Pinkie wasn't any less confused, but she too smiled back after a moment, looking at Twilight's eyes. She dove forward and knocked the air out of the alicorn's lungs, and pulled her up to hug her. "Oh I am so so so so so so so so glad you're okay!" she said, squeezing Twilight and slowly twirling around. Eventually she let go of her, still smiling and almost giggling. "I'm glad too," Twilight said, "and I'm glad you're okay as well." Said that, she turned around, and spotted the pony she knew was there as well. She'd healed her, after all. But before she could take a step farther, she was tackled to the ground again by a blue and silver blur. "Twilight!" the pegaus screamed. "I'm so glad you're okay." "I'm happy to see you too," Twilight pushed out. Somehow, Rainbow was squeezing even tighter than Pinkie, and her armour made for a far less comfortable surface to be held against. She weakly tapped against her breast, and eventually Rainbow let go of her. Twilight found her footing again. She looked around, and saw Rarity just there, smiling at her. "I too am quite happy to see you're okay," said the unicorn, nodding politely. Then, after a moment of hesitation, with an odd expression on her face, she too closed the distance and hugged Twilight. Just a little, not to act undignified for too long, but she hugged tight. Twilight felt all the worry Rarity had felt for her carried through that hug. Rarity left her. Twilight spotted other ponies getting closer, ponies she certainly wouldn't deny more hugs to, her brother and sister-in-law among them. But before they got there, she knew she had some time, so she turned and approached the one pony there who hadn't done so with her. "Thank you," she said, stepping closer. Celestia did not reply. She barely looked at Twilight, but she did give her a subtle nod. The signs of her torture were still clear on her body, but her expression was, while melancholic, serene, in a way. Twilight stepped closer still, silently. She extended a wing. Bright, warm golden light shone between the two alicorns, and Celestia looked surprised for just a split second. "This belongs to you," Twilight said after the light had faded. She looked at the black mark on Celestia's chest. "We will need to reconsider the terms of our relationship, I believe." > Frost M > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- More ponies did arrive, and more hugs were exchanged. Shining Armor, Cadence, Starlight, and even Lyra, though it was Twilight who looked for her and hugged her, not the other way around. After a short while, a brief while before Twilight had to be called away to look after other matters, her and her friends and Celestia found themselves looking over those three ponies still unconscious. There were evident signs of something different in two of them, though. Fluttershy's miscoloured parts were receding, but it was actually Applejack who moved first. Not quite awake yet, she kicked weakly, mumbled something. Rainbow, who'd meanwhile cast off her armour, stepped closer and put a hoof on her, and gently rocked her back and forth. After a few seconds, Applejack opened her eyes. She opened and closed her mouth, and it sounded like she had trouble speaking, like that portion of her anatomy was still asleep. Looking briefly around she eventually managed to ask, "Is it over?" Rainbow nodded at that. Applejack weakly pulled herself up, and once she was stably on her hooves she too was treated to a group hug. She didn't say anything at that, maybe because talking was still hard, maybe because there was nothing to say. They all knew they'd have to look into what had happened to her, and she knew it better than everyone else, but that was not the time for it. The hug ended just in time for the participants to hear sounds coming from Fluttershy. Some high pitched squeals, and then a sigh. They turned, and saw her opening her eyes as well. The colours of her body had gone back to being almost like they were before the battle, and still getting closer to that state. She stood herself up and the first thing she did was check that all five other Elements were there. "Is everyone okay?" she asked then, speaking less weakly than Applejack had. "Yes," Twilight answered her. It was true, as far as she knew. Surprisingly so. She had not yet heard of a single casualty, and she had asked about it. Not a pony seemed to be missing, and while more proper assessments would follow even a brief look at all the ones who'd gathered back in the heart of the Empire gave the impression that if anyone was missing, it was a matter of a few ponies only, and as such their absence would have been noted. Fluttershy gave a small nod. That was all the acknowledgement needed, and seeing her expecting expression the other mares quickly followed with another, proper group hug. They let go of it eventually, and Rainbow pulled Fluttershy aside after a quick look around, having something to talk about with her in relative privacy. That left one pony unconscious. Sadly, though she breathed regularly and showed no signs of being unwell, Luna simply did not wake up. Twilight walked up to Celestia's side, looking over her sister. "Thank you," she said quietly, but Celestia didn't answer. > Moonage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How did you find me so quickly, anyway?" Twilight asked to Pinkie while walking back towards her brother. She looked aside at the crater her fall had left. It looked far too small. "And how did you slow me down?" "Spitfire," Pinkie replied, "and Celestia. Well, no, Celestia and Spitfire. Well-" She cut herself off, and started back from the beginning. "Celestia helped with finding you, she was looking up waiting for you to fall as soon as the sky cleared. Spitfire and her squad got here just a short bit after, and as soon as you were spotted they whipped up a whirlwind to slow you down." "Spitfire made it?" Twilight asked, genuinely delighted at the news. "I'll have to thank her for that later," she added after Pinkie had nodded in response. None of that answered how she'd survived atmospheric reentry, but she would look into that later. Maybe the residual magic she'd channeled had temporarily left her body in a non physical state, or something like that. They approached Shining, flanked by Cadence and by Paper Letters too a little farther back. Spitfire, as it happened, landed there at that moment too. Twilight got closer, and Pinkie stayed behind. Spitfire saw her approaching, and gave a salute. "Glad to see you're all right, Ma'am." Twilight nodded at that, then took on a slightly more formal posture. "And I am glad you could make it here to assist." Then she turned to her brother. "What's the situation, then?" "No casualties," he said, sounding like he didn't believe his own words. He looked over the list held in his magic one more time, then very subtly shook his head. "Every single soldier and pony we knew of is accounted for, even those who were not a part of any larger group before the sky cleared. Spitfire here just finished helping us double check." He looked at Twilight with incredulous relief. "Everypony lived." Twilight felt herself swelling with joy too, but slightly, not necessarily marred, perhaps oddly tainted by the seeming absurdity of it all. She'd heard about how things had happened, and to think not a single pony had been fatally wounded in that mayhem seemed almost too good to be true. Perhaps noticing the surprise on her face, Cadence stepped in as well. "Most of the ponies who were on their own or in smaller groups," she began, speaking quietly so only her husband and his sister could hear, "reported seeing something like a light, guiding them through the storm. Some said it felt welcoming, or friendly." Shining nodded to confirm that, his expression a little more serious. Twilight nodded as well, pulling back. "Understood. I will look into it." She turned to Spitfire, who had respectfully stepped back to avoid hearing anything said in supposed privacy. "Is the unicorn who helped you get here nearby?" she asked. "Negative, Ma'am," Spitfire replied, standing at attention again. "He stayed behind at the castle. Should I have him called?" "That won't be necessary," Twilight said. She gave a nod, and dismissed the pegasus. It made sense. The unicorn was no soldier, and not knowing the battle was over it made perfect sense for him to stay away from the field. She would talk to him later, when she found time. > Transience > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Two stallions, both unicorns, sat behind a broken chunk of wall, leaning into it with their backs. One had come there alone, the other had found him and silently joined him. They looked out over the ruins of the Empire, as the Sun lowered in the sky, not yet close to the horizon but slowly getting there. The sky was a deeper blue than it had been before, if not yet orange. The breeze blew calmly, pleasantly, a far cry from the storm that the city had seen that day. The second stallion who'd come there was the first to speak. He'd cast off the last pieces of his armour, and he wore only the bandages he'd been put in. He could have had himself healed by Celestia, but he'd chosen to wait, to not bother her. "I should be keeping an eye on you," he said. "You're still a prisoner." The other unicorn didn't answer immediately. Maybe to think about what to say. Eventually he spoke too. "What for?" he asked. "What can I do now?" "You're an enemy soldier," said the guard. "You might run away. You might try to attack others. The Princess has yet to give any orders about what to do with you, neither has anyone else spoken up about it. Somepony needs to keep you watched." "Run away where?" the soldier asked. "Hurt someone for what? Do anything why?" He paused, looking out at the ruins ahead of them. The other did not interrupt him. "I have nothing," he picked up again. "I don't have anything anymore. No home to go back to, no place at all. No one who even knows my name. I don't have a life here, and I can't go back. I'm less than a ghost, at least a ghost can be remembered." After a pause, the guard said, "You could get a life here. A new life. If you do well, if you do good, if you don't hurt anyone. Nopony will turn you down a chance at it." Another pause. "If you want to, of course. Else, you can choose to stay an enemy, and you'll likely have at least a cell where to stay. Worse, you can always end it here. By yourself, or by forcing someone's hoof. One more enemy casualty, if you can't take it." "A new life." The soldier sighed. "That sounds nice. I'll admit it does. It sounds like a lot of work too. What do I even tell others? Nothing of what I was is there, now. My past is gone. It's not like moving to a new place. I'd need to rebuild my whole life, start it from scratch. I'm not even sure it would be good enough. There might always be something missing. I just have my name, and memories of something gone. I'm not sure that's enough to build a life." The guard was silent a little more, opening and closing his mouth, hesitating. He looked out to the ruins, felt the wind blowing gently around them. "You could take mine," he finally said. > Ambience > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The soldier turned slightly, and quirked an eyebrow questioningly. "What do you mean?" he asked to the guard. "My life," the guard said. "You could take it for yourself. Make it your own. It's not much, but it would be a place to start." He looked out at the ruins a while longer, as the other unicorn looked at him. "We're both unicorns, so it's not a problem there. You've even got military training already." "But what about all the ponies you know?" asked the soldier. "What about your friends? What about your family?" He leaned a little closer. "I can't take those away from you. I can't be you for them, either. They're yours." "Friends?" The guard looked up at the sky, and quietly exhaled. "I don't have friends. At best I have colleagues, and none who care enough to notice the difference. The only family I have is my mother, and she's not all there anymore, she won't know better either." He eyed the soldier to his side. "It's not much to start with, but it is a starting point. You can build something new from it." "And what about you?" asked the soldier, confused but curious. "Free," the guard replied, turning to look at the other. "To go wherever, to do whatever. I'm tired of this life, but maybe you can make something out of what was a dead end for me. I'll travel around. Maybe I'll even make something new of myself. We both get something we want out of this." The soldier hesitated, looking at the guard's expression. He seemed dead serious, yet completely calm. Either he'd gone insane, or he'd thought about his words long enough to be certain of them. "You'd really do it, for me?" "For both of us, as I said," the guard replied. "You are a chance I never thought I'd get. If you want to, go ahead. Take my name, take my life, let me be the ghost. A little magic at most is all it'll take for the looks. Just make sure you visit your mother, every once in a while." The soldier stared in silence at the guard's unwavering eyes. Seconds, then minutes, both quietly thinking without looking away. Finally, the soldier nodded. The guard leaned in close, and whispered his name in the unicorn's ear. "Ask around, you'll get all the details." The other leaned forward to do the same, but a hoof gently placed on his mouth stopped him. "Don't," the unicorn said. "Let me go without one. Let it die here today." The unicorn nodded again, and drew back. The other smiled at him, then quietly stood. He looked around, felt the wind blow against his coat, picked a direction away from the heart of the Empire and began to walk. Not too far away, atop what was left of a building, a pile of rubble taller than some others around, two others followed the conversation, and watched the ghost wander away as the guard was left there. "You're letting them do it?" Celestia asked. "What harm is there?" asked Twilight back to her. > Retur > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst had found himself a corner to sit down in. It wasn't really a corner, there wasn't really anything like a corner left in the Empire, but it was sort of enough like one that he could feel comfortable sitting there, and it had enough shade for him to sit in. Twilight would come looking for him soon, probably, whenever she got through everything more important she had to deal with before that, but he was fairly sure he had a few minutes to himself. Starlight had gone to meet Twilight, and Trixie was with her, so for a bit he was alone. He placed a hoof over his chest. It didn't hurt as much, but it still bothered him a little. It wasn't something Celestia could heal, either, he just had to wait it out and avoid exerting himself otherwise. It would probably be all fixed within a couple of days, a week at most, assuming he didn't do anything stupid and nothing else bad happened. All assumptions he couldn't exactly make, but he could be hopeful. He wasn't fully unable to use his coil however, and neither was he unwilling to. The opposite if anything, but only for one specific thing. It would hurt a little, and they'd need to make sure she didn't use it either for the following days, but as long as he came up with something easy enough to make he should have been able to get over everything without too much trouble. She'd have to go as an earth pony for a while, but right then he just really wanted to see her. He focused. That was somewhat new, though something he'd been growing increasingly familiar with in the last few days. Not just the act of focusing on what exactly he wanted out of it, that he'd been learning for a while, but more specifically having to actually put in effort to achieve a result. His heart hurt a little, and he clenched his teeth. Some sweat rolled down the side of his head, and his breath grew a little ragged. No worse than a tough run though, nothing worth stopping for. The pain would last for a while, but it would be worth it. Some steps came from behind his corner. Sunburst didn't turn, instead he waited for her to walk into view. No horn or wings that time. Her mane was a very light brown, almost yellow, short bangs on the front and not much longer on the back. Her tail was the same colour, plain and straight and without stripes. Her coat was a darker shade of light brown, almost closer to orange, fading to white close to her hooves. Her cutie mark was still the same however, and her eye colour was familiar as well. She looked at Sunburst, then looked over herself. "This is new," she said. "It'll do for a while though." She looked at him again. "Thank you." Sunburst was still almost panting, but he smiled as he got up, and moved closer to hug Starshine. "Sorry about what happened." > Scatter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight walked over to the edge of the magically delimited area near the centre of the Empire, Starlight following along with her. Trixie had stayed behind for the time being. She'd looked rather shaken by everything that had happened, at least to Twilight, and it was hard to blame her for it. A guard gave them a salute as they walked by, stationed there to ensure no one unauthorised got too close. Inside the area were only a few other ponies, looking around and jotting down measurements. "The readings are all scuffed," a unicorn said as the two walked closer to him. He was intently looking at a magical measuring device he held in his magic, barely turning towards the new arrivals. Twilight recognised him as one of the researchers from her laboratory, likely he'd gotten there as soon as the news of the end of the battle had spread out. "I guess it's to be expected, but we're still writing it all down." He pointed with a hoof to the side, still without looking away from his device. "Scales over there, and what I'm told was your weapon." There was a strange hint of curiosity in his last words. "Thank you." Twilight nodded, and headed in the direction he'd pointed them towards. Even while approaching, she could see the black box she'd worn and used in her fight against Nightmare Moon. "It detached after I shot her the second time, when I almost crashed into the ground," she explained to Starlight. "Good thing it did. It would have been a problem if I'd channeled all that magic while still wearing it." They arrived where the tool Sunburst had created was lying on the ground, and Starlight carefully picked it up, interested in it. "How many are in here?" she asked, turning it around in her hooves. She didn't dare to use her magic on it. "I shot two, so there should be five more," Twilight said. "Realistically, I probably could have gone with just five, maybe even four, but I thought I might as well try to get lucky. Seven is a nice number." "You're not the first pony I'd expect to believe in something like that." Starlight slid the entire thing on her back and foreleg, and it clasped onto her, adjusting its size slightly. "Not even the tenth." She sounded a little distracted, mostly focused on looking at the weapon as she stretched out her leg. "Desperation breeds superstition even in the least inclined minds. What's the risk in a meaningless change after all?" Twilight walked a little farther, tracing a path she'd followed already. The darkness had gone, but bloodstains still marked the spot where Nightmare Moon had stood in her last moments on the planet. Starlight followed her, and Twilight continued, "I'd considered using the scales as weapons too, once the portals failed. She was close enough to one for me to do it." "Why didn't you?" Starlight asked. Twilight stopped right in front of the second scale she'd shot, still lying on the ground where it had fallen. "I didn't trust myself to calibrate the spell properly, and I was too close. Any reaction big enough to actually damage her significantly would have done far worse to me, given the state she was in." > BarArtGenPie > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella stood to the side, close to nopony, watching Twilight move along in the delimited area close to the crater where she and Nightmare Moon had spent their final moments there. What would have been Twilight's final moments as a whole if Stella hadn't protected her on her way back down. She'd even have been ready to slow her fall if that had been necessary, though it thankfully hadn't. It was, on the whole, good that things were finally seemingly solved. One less thing to worry about in the grand scheme of them, one less huge distraction in the way of what actually mattered. She'd give Twilight a few days, maybe weeks, and then she'd finally set things in motion. Hopefully, the alicorn wouldn't waste too much time on the Empire in the following period. If she did, Stella supposed she could always just start with her plan, and force Twilight's attention away. She had everything ready to go whenever she chose to. Though a break would be welcome for her as well, all things considered, the events of that day and leading up to it had been uncharacteristically draining even for her. She couldn't have expected they'd run into and have to deal another abomination, though their way of dealing with it had been to simply shove it back somewhere else. Somewhere it would never come back from, hopefully. There was something funny about seeing the scales Twilight was there to pick up abandoned on the ground like that. After all the trouble she'd gone through to steal hers, all the layers of security at the castle, there they were carelessly left around where anyone could have taken them. It had been an emergency, and the situation justified the occurrence, but none of that made it any less funny. Starlight seemed to be doing better after her period of trauma. Stella would probably pay her another visit, toy with her some more. Maybe hurt her seriously. She had stayed away from doing so in preparation for the battle, it was best if the unicorn was well. An annoying thought, but a fact nonetheless. Even insects had their use once in a while. Chrysalis had had hers too after all. Soon the two mares walking there would end up the same way. What bothered her most about the whole thing was quite possibly the way she'd had to reveal herself to Twilight. A necessity, and she'd thoroughly wiped those memories afterwards, but it had been a most unpleasant experience regardless. Especially Twilight's deductions about her actions. Fortunately she wouldn't remember any of that on their next encounter. It wouldn't do for their first meeting to be that, but one mare could keep a secret. Nightmare Moon, technically, had been aware of it too, but she was no mare, not in a position to reveal anything, and not in a place where she would be heard regardless. It would be Stella's little secret, one of many. Put like that it was even fun. She wouldn't toy with Twilight before the proper time though. That would have been cheating, and she had no need for cheating to crush her. She'd win fair. > Imaginations from the Other Side - Episode 12 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Talk about ocular diabetes." "What?" "See it's an eye candy joke but also a hiatus pun." Applejack stared flatly at Pinkie. "What?" "You wouldn't get it." Pinkie dismissively waved a hoof at her, then plucked up a tall glass from the counter and sipped its contents. Applejack sighed and rolled her eyes, picked up a squishy cube from the counter, tossed it up and had it land in her mouth. She chewed on it thoughtfully for a few seconds, then swallowed. "Well, anyway, what now?" "We party, 'Jack." Pinkie downed the full contents of the glass, advertised as a milkshake but mostly consisting of foam that tasted like it was from the milkshake, but didn't quite feel like it. Then she tossed the glass aside, for Gummy to frantically run after it and catch it just in time before it could fall to the ground and shatter like Twilight during a panic attack. Pinkie specifically thought of that last part. "We're back, on full air time, unshackled and free from all restrictions! This calls for a celebration." She tapped the counter she was leaning against with one of her hind hooves. Confetti shot out from the corners of the room, and a plate emerged next to her from the counter itself, whereupon a cupcake was deposited from the ceiling. Applejack wordlessly grumbled to herself. "This is no time to party, Pink'. The world is still ending out there." Regardless, she did tap the counter with her hoof as well, and gladly bit into the cupcake that was similarly deposited there for her. "You saw what just happened there. Imagine if something like that happens here too!" "Read." Pinkie bit into her cupcake. "Same difference." Applejack finished her treat. "We're well past half the runtime and we've only done setup. Are we actually going to do something?" Pinkie laughed briefly. "You silly filly, have you not learned not to invoke timing?" Before Applejack could speak again, the door opened and Twilight and Rarity walked inside. "What's going on in here?" the former asked. "Some kind of party?" asked Rarity, then she seized up. "I'm not ready! Why didn't anyone tell me there was going to be a party?" she whined. "So what's the cause for celebration?" Twilight got up to the counter on Applejack's unoccupied side, tapped the base of it, and was greeted with her own cupcake. "Oh, nothing much." Pinkie shrugged. "The impending apocalypse and that stuff." "I see." Twilight bit into her cupcake. "Business as usual then. Can I have a milkshake?" Pinkie nodded, and Gummy, dressed as a bartender, slid an appropriately filled glass down the counter for Twilight to catch it. Rarity also walked up, next to Pinkie instead. She turned around and leaned into the counter with her back, and began to apply lipstick to herself aided with a pocket mirror. The source of the mirror was unclear, as she had no pockets, due to having no clothes on at all. "So how about those new chapters, Twilight? The story is finally tying itself together, isn't it?" "If by that you mean plodding along for dozens of thousands of words on a single event while still leaving everything else up in the air, then sure." The machine outside loudly creaked. > Yl > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are her conditions?" Luna was lying on a table, in the middle of a room underground, one of the spaces which had survived the battle. A room not unlike the one the Heart had been housed in, where it had activated upon Nightmare Moon and Twilight's departure and helped with the cleansing of the storm. A room not unlike the one the black box Sunburst had created had been stored in, along with the scales within it. A room at that moment occupied, aside from the sleeping alicorn, by her sister, that sister's former student and heir to the throne, and three doctors of the brightest that could have been brought there. No one else was there, and nothing else was there but the table Luna was on and the medical equipment focused on her. And the response came, same as it had come before. "She's asleep," one of the doctors said. That was that, all there was. Luna slept, but she did not wake. For hours by then, for days to come the others knew. She would not die from it, but neither would she wake up. The pain Celestia felt was so great Twilight chose to comfort her, if modestly so. It outdid her due punishment. Luna looked different. Not in her features, not in her body miraculously healed of its wounds, but in her mane. Towards the base, where connected to her skull, there was a red tinge to it, purplish even, flowing and flaring. Like the dawn, or the sunset, a hint of sunlight in her night sky. None of the presents understood it fully, but they all understood its depth. Powerful magic, deep, ancient, beyond the reaches and confines of study and method. Primal, far too close to the essence of life to be jotted down in mere parchment and ink. The nature of souls was as frightening as it was fascinating, and no more than a glimpse into it would they be able to glean from what they were there witnessing. Regardless, Luna slept. Dreamt, perhaps. Who to call, when the Dreamwalker was stuck in her own world, who to reach her with? Her student, of course. Had she had one, it would have been no question. Did she have one? She had something. Not quite a protégé, not quite a groomed successor. She was unlike her sister in many ways, and in that she was no different, consistently she was not as her. She had someone. Someone recently taken under her wing, someone who had learned from her more than anyone alive, less than few throughout history. Rainbow would be called. She'd be asked to search for her mentor, in the world of dreams. That was clear. That was the only solution. It did not please anyone. It did not please Celestia, to know her beloved's fate in the hoof of a mortal who yet knew of her realm and magic more intimately than she. It did not please Twilight, too alike her old teacher not to feel the slight of envy at being by a pegasus outdone in such a field of magic. It did not please the doctors, to see their science useless and outdone by what even for scholars of magic like them was esoteric. Perhaps, however, it did please Luna. Was that the case, did anything else matter? > Ioo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What is that?" Fluttershy asked. Rarity leaned forward, looking at what the pegasus was looking at. "I'm not sure. It looks like a butterfly?" It did, and yet it didn't. It was like a glass blown statuette of a butterfly, yet it moved, it was clearly alive. Really, Fluttershy was supposed to be the animal expert, if she didn't know what it was then Rarity knew herself devoid of chance. Even with something that almost resembled a gem more than a living thing. "A crystal butterfly," Paper said. He startled the two mares, who had not seen him approach. "Very creatively named, I'm aware. They are a post-Arrival species native here in the Empire, mainly found within the Wall. It's a rather rare occurrence to see one outside." He tilted his head. "All the commotion must have startled it." Fluttershy took a slow step closer. "It's very pretty." It really was, Rarity thought so too. "Is it dangerous?" Fluttershy asked. "It is the least dangerous thing found within the Wall," Paper replied. "Granted, the next least dangerous thing is potentially deadly, so that in itself is not necessarily sufficient reassurance. But it is harmless, even when compared to most regular species outside. No worse than a normal butterfly, if a little heavier." Fluttershy stepped closer still, lowering herself a little in an attempt to not scare away the butterfly. Rarity stayed back for the same reason, just watching the animal flutter around, the way light shone through it and made it glimmer and shimmer. "Do you think she'll be able to touch it?" she quietly asked to Paper, turning her head just enough for it. "Maybe," he replied just as quietly. "It depends on whether the butterfly wants to be touched or not. I suppose it has less of a reason not to than a regular butterfly, its wings are not as frail." Fluttershy was just a couple of metres from the butterfly, and practically lying on the ground at that point. She kept looking up and ahead at it, following its back and forth, left and right wandering with her eyes. One moment it seemed to be coming closer, the next it moved away again. Some time passed. Maybe minutes, maybe a little less, no one was sure. Fluttershy kept looking at the butterfly, Rarity kept looking at Fluttershy and the butterfly, Paper kept being there and not saying anything. Fluttershy got a little braver. She took a step forward, she raised herself a little. If the butterfly noticed her, it was not scared away. It kept floating around, without a clear direction and always in the same area, passing close to Fluttershy then moving away. Fluttershy stood up properly, and took one more step forward. She put herself in the butterfly's path and, upon next passing there, the animal was at first confused to find its previous transit space occupied. It hovered briefly in place, then it moved forward, and placed itself on top of Fluttershy's nose. It stayed there for a few seconds. Then it flew away. > Moonflower > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Away from the Empire. Up on the Wall, then past that too. On the mountains, a distance away, not too high. The storm cleared, the sky was blue again, not too far. A good sign. A good thing. No need to run forever, past the sea or past the desert. Finding a town would do, and his moonflower still slept. Moonflower. Maybe that would do as a name. He'd set up a greenhouse, or maybe just a patch of land. Ponies liked flowers, didn't they? He would, either way, and they wouldn't deny him a place. That would come later, it'd all come later. For then, walking. No more running for a while, the battle was over. The mountain was calm. The breeze was gentle, the animals shy. The trees tall, and shade was pleasant. The path was not too steep, not too hard. Walking would do. It was good to slow down, for once in a while. He hadn't had a chance to for so long. A town. They'd find one, there were bound to be many towns, or at least one. Eventually. At worst he'd keep walking, find a stream and follow it downwards, into a river and along that way. Towns were usually built along rivers. Were towns still built along rivers? He saw no reason they shouldn't have been. But there were many things he didn't see, or hadn't seen. A fair tradeoff perhaps, there were many other things he had seen that those around him hadn't. She slept. On his back as he carried her along. Why her? No reason, no reason other than she was a name and a face that he knew, well enough to get to her at least. Why not anyone else there? Why should he have? Why should he have taken her either then? Choice. All there was to it. He'd chosen one thing, chosen against another. He'd wanted to, and that was it. No other reason there, no other reason needed. Was he happy? He looked at her. Moonflower. No. Not yet. Perhaps he wouldn't be for a long while. Perhaps he'd never be. But it was not because of that, and what he'd done put him on the right path towards it. If he wouldn't make it, it'd be for other reasons. Different reasons. What he'd done was good, for as good as something could be by mere decision. Good for him. That was good enough. What else could anyone ask for? Good for a higher power. Good for a Good that was in itself, pure, above, dictating what was and what not good. What sympathy could he have for that, with his history? Could he say he'd done good, then? It didn't matter. He didn't care. He'd never cared, there was no reason to start then. One thing at a time. A walk down the mountain, him and his moonflower, plucked from her field to lay her down somewhere else. Somewhere better. He hoped, the same would hold true for him too. > Unveiled > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sun was low on the horizon, down past the mountains at that point. What light still was there was merely evening twilight, and soon that too would be gone. For a while longer though, no magic was yet needed to see things around, if shrouded in heavy shadows and the light blue of late hours. "There used to be an ice-cream shop here," Paper Letters noted. He stood amidst the rubble of a building indistinguishable from all the others. "I really liked their stuff." He wasn't wearing his armour, a rare sight since the day he'd joined the Empire's Guard. Twilight walked closer to him. The wind was even lighter than it had been that day, a gentle breeze that better suited the darker hour and still gave enough respite from the dwindling, but not disappearing heat. "They'll rebuild," she said. She had a look around. "They all will. It'll take a while, but they all will. There's nothing to do but to go on." She focused on the stallion there. "Shining said you had something to tell me. What is it?" "Yes, Your Highness." Paper turned to her, and gave a small bow. "You see, for reasons that should very soon become clear to you, I will be resigning from my position as a member of the Guard. You'll forgive me for bringing the news to you, but I could not bear myself to present them to His Highness, your brother, and neither to Her Highness his wife." He bowed again. "It is with a sad heart that I leave them, but greater events in my life impose that I do. I did not have it in me to break the news to them directly, nor will I sadly have the time to say goodbye. Please, do inform them of my departure. I shall be leaving tonight, as soon as I can." He knelt, looking down. Twilight was a little surprised, and taken aback, but not entirely bothered by the stallion's attitude or actions. While a peculiar thing to do, not that it wasn't in line with Paper's many other oddities, it wasn't entirely unjustified in his specific situation. "I have heard of how you saved my brother's and sister's lives today, and of how close you'd grown to them through your service, in your own ways. Very well then. I shall deliver the news, and I am certain they will be as saddened by it as you are." She gave a small bow as well. "Thank you for your service, and for everything you have done within and beyond your duty." She stood and smiled. "Consider yourself dismissed, I will take care of everything. Go now, if your life calls to you, and I hope we may meet again one day." Paper smiled too, and standing he gave one last small bow. "Thank you, Your Highness." He looked out at the ruins again. "Do not wait for me. I am sure pressing matters call for you as well." Twilight looked at him a little longer. "Goodbye," she whispered, then she turned and walked away. She did have more business to attend to, and- "And three. Two. One. Curtain." Twilight stopped. "I did say I like to play the actor, when I get the chance to. And that was quite fun. Pretty good exit too, what do you say?" Twilight turned. It wasn't Paper standing there, but she recognised him regardless. She couldn't forget that voice. The stallion barely looked at her, busy licking on an ice-cream cone he held in a hoof. "You," Twilight said, a word almost hissed out with how dry and breathy and full of shock her tone was. At that, the Charioteer turned properly towards her. "Who else?" > Levity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight swallowed her anger. She put aside her shock and disdain, and her preconceived notions about the pony standing in front of her, if he could even be considered one. There was no one around, and the sky was getting darker. She approached him. "You saved them," she said. It was a fact, and she said it as such. Coldly. Methodically. Prodding for a reaction. "Meaningless lives that won't make a difference in the end." The Charioteer took a lick of his ice-cream. "I was having my fun. Can you blame me? I doubt that, when it brought good to you as well." Twilight was standing a short distance away from him, back to the spot where she'd stood before. It all made sense by then. Every single one of Paper's oddities explained away. And yet, wasn't he right? Could she blame him for deceiving her family, when he'd saved their lives? But the thought of him close to them, and close to her niece... "What do you want?" she asked. "Right now I want some ice-cream." He took another lick. "As you can see, I'm taking care of that. I want to talk, too, and I suppose I'm doing that as well. That's why I called you here, if it wasn't clear. That and having my little scene, that was important." Twilight calmed her breath. She did not like him, she especially didn't like his attitude, but that didn't mean he wasn't justified in having it. All his presumptuousnees was born out of him legitimately knowing far more than she did, and it would do her good if she tried to get as much information as she could out of him, and swallowed her pride for a while. Still she couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Why now?" "Because you were busy." The Charioteer gave a very meaningful look around, then he licked his ice-cream again. He was almost done with it. "Now you're slightly less busy. Soon you'll be busy again, so this felt like the best time to come and have a chat. Make a point of what's happened so far, if you will, a little recap before you go forward." Twilight begrudgingly nodded. Again, if he was willing to talk, she ought to listen. Nothing else she could do anyway, but ignoring him wouldn't be wise. "Go on." The Charioteer smiled. "I've said this before, but I'll rephrase it now that you've updated your vocabulary a little. Every world has its abomination, nothing you can do about that." He bit off the remainder of his ice-cream, and very slowly chewed through it all before swallowing it, as Twilight waited with taut patience. "So it happened that the Moonbeast was what came to the world you found. That's what they called it, and what we'll be calling it. They had barely the time to." He looked Twilight in the eyes. "They're dead now. All of them. You knew this would happen. You sacrificed another world to save your own, how does that feel?" > Brevity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight held the Charioteer's gaze. He wasn't lying to her, not that he had any reason to. She'd have known even without him telling her. Well, no, she wouldn't have had the certainty, but she'd known that the possibility was there. She'd planned to never return to that world for a reason, and she'd known that she was sending their equivalent of the Behemoth there. "I didn't have a choice." "Don't make up excuses." In a blink the Charioteer was standing in front of Twilight. His tone was uncharacteristically louder and less composed than his usual. "Don't make up excuses for destroying a world when you're talking to me. Feed them to your citizens, to your friends, even to yourself if you like, but not to me, because I've thought them all. You had your choice and you made it. Own up to it." He returned to his previous position, and he forced himself to breathe a little slower. Twilight looked at him. She swallowed, and doing so she shed a weight she hadn't realised had come over her in those last few seconds, like a tower placed over her back ready to crush her if she made a single misstep. She thought about his words, and about who he was, and she watched him watch her for a few seconds. "I had no better choice," she rephrased. "The Moonbeast had to go somewhere, and the other world's Moon was the only place I had prepared, not to mention the only place I could conceivably manage to prepare given the timing and circumstances." "You doomed a world to save your own, like I said. Ponies still died, and it was your fault." "Some of them could very well have died just as a result of eliminating Nightmare Moon, and what she would have done to them in the long run would have been worse than that." It was Twilight's turn to force herself to breathe slower. "It doesn't mean their deaths were good." "But it does mean their deaths were better than the deaths you avoided. Because the lives of the ponies here were more important than theirs, and really they were already dead anyway, no?" The Charioteer smiled bitterly at Twilight. "And it was your only reasonable choice, even if you didn't want to do it, and in the end it's not so bad because that world was doomed anyway but this one might still be saved, and you had to fight back, and all manners of other things just to make you feel better about what you did. I told I'd heard them all." Twilight grit her teeth, trying to stop herself from blowing up. She failed. "Well what was I supposed to do?" she yelled. "Die? Let Nightmare Moon win? Let the Moonbeast stay in our sky? Try to save ponies from there again and get myself killed? What else was I supposed to do?" The Charioteer sighed. "Listen, Twilight. I'm not saying you did the wrong thing, if you want to make up some moral standard to judge your actions by. All I'm saying is that you did what you did. If you think it was the right thing, and believe me I couldn't care less about what's right or wrong for you, then just accept it. Accept that you did it and stop trying to justify it like you don't believe in your own decisions. You killed them. Move on." > Shatter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The closest comparison to how it felt would have been a heartbeat. The second closest comparison, probably a wing beat. Both things she'd experienced, both things she hadn't experienced in a long time. Both things she was about to experience again. Then came light. Blinding at first, painful after so long spent in darkness. The sound less so, but disorienting nonetheless. Silence, but a silence different from the one of her prison. She was on the ground, breathing again and it hurt, it burnt, and yet it felt liberating. She stood up, blinked, looked around as she stretched her joints. No one there, no one had freed her. She looked around a little more. No one there at all, and the weeds had gotten tall. Some had even gotten in her mane. The castle looked abandoned. She wasn't the first to break free. She'd make sure she was the last. She fluttered up. Just a push, strong buzzing of her winds, enough to put the structure off balance. The third statue broke. No use for him in his conditions, and a lot of problems that would have come along with his presence, it was the best thing to do. Something was wrong. Her heartbeat grew difficult. Another look around, and finally she saw it, and she felt it. Impossibly big, horribly wrong. Fascinating, incredibly intriguing. Part of her wished to move closer, to inspect it, to understand. To harvest. The rest of her knew she needed to move away. It hurt, and it would destroy her. The other part of her almost didn't care, it hungered, but it was a minority. Carried by her wings and hooves she moved in the opposite direction, out of the garden, away from the ruins. Hiding behind a corner, catching her breath. She'd almost lost herself there, she could feel it, and she wasn't sure she'd found all of her mind again yet. In a way though she didn't care. In a way it felt good. It didn't matter much anymore anyway. Maybe she'd indulge her inner chaos a little more, just to see where she ended up. Maybe she was too lost already. She needed to hide. Her face was too known by that point. She couldn't play the victim card after what she'd done. She wouldn't, then. All the better. She'd need to hide, sure, but at least she'd no longer need to hide herself. Not aside from when it was convenient, of course. Where to? Down the road, maybe after sundown, it wouldn't take long for that. She needed food. Stealing scraps would do if nothing else came her way, she'd dig through the trash, but she was hoping it wouldn't be a necessity. Where to? Some shady bar in the seedy part of the town, something like that had to exist. If not, then outside the town, down the mountain, sooner or later she'd find someplace. Criminals ought to be somewhere. If it took her leaving the whole country to find them, she'd do it. She just had to find someone who would not rat her out, and she'd work her way forward from there. > Gravity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was silent for a while, staring ahead. The sky had gotten dark and she could barely see the stallion by then, but he hadn't moved. "No," she said eventually. "I don't think I should get over it. I'm not like you and I don't think it's right that I get over it, because it wasn't right. And if I can help it, nothing like this will ever happen again. But I should move on." She took a deep breath in, then let it out. "Is that all you've come to say?" It was really hard to tell, but the Charioteer seemed to have smiled. "No. Like I said, there are a few things we should talk about, now that you're not busy for a while. I just felt it was right to get this topic settled first, there would have been no point in discussing anything else if we didn't clear things up." He made a motion with his hoof, revealing a small lantern, and he turned it on, shedding some light on the scene. "Is there anything in particular you would like to ask, before we begin?" Twilight thought about it. She hadn't been expecting that, and she had to take a moment. She obviously knew not everything she wanted to ask would get an answer, and anything important he did want to address he would include in his following speech, leaving her only a narrow and ill-defined window of topics that he was willing to talk about, but he didn't consider important enough to bring up. It wasn't out of the question that he was testing her, laying out something specific and important that he'd otherwise leave out. But she couldn't pass up the chance, he wouldn't give her another after he was done. Neither could she stall any longer, he might just decide to start otherwise. She had to think of something. She looked at him. He was looking at her, maybe smiling, it was hard to tell. There was something. Something that was pure curiosity, and that he certainly wouldn't bring up himself. Maybe it wasn't the best, but it was better than nothing. "Could you have stopped the Moonbeast?" she asked. The Charioteer seemed very amused by the question, in that way he had to always seem amused by something. It got on her nerves, without a valid reason to. He only seemed a little surprised on top of that. "I'm not sure, quite honestly. Abominations are not supposed to exist in the same world, and I have no idea if one could overpower another, nor if I specifically could have overpowered this one. I'm not sure we could even hurt each other, actually." His eyes were distant for a moment, like he was deeply, truly fascinated by the scenario. Then he sighed and shook his head. "Well then." He nodded, and suddenly there were chairs to the side where he'd pointed. "Take a seat if you want. This won't take too long, but you might still prefer to be comfortable as I go." > Parity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did we win?" "We weren't the ones fighting, filly. We just sat here." "You know what I meant. Our side and all that. Princess Twilight and her troops." "Well, it looks like it I suppose. Either that or the opposing troops are celebrating their victory by clearing out the storm." "I mean, I guess they could do that, but I don't know. It looks hopeful." "Yes, it looks good. It would look good for them too though. If you won the battle you wouldn't want things to look all gloomy and desperate, you'd celebrate." "Well yeah, but..." "But they're evil, and we're good. For us. They could be saying the same. Now, maybe they're ruled by a tyrant, maybe their living conditions are objectively worse, and maybe you could even have it that all their soldiers have a moral standing that would be more than questionable by our standards. But it's important to remember that as far as they're concerned, we are the bad guys. Very few ponies ever think they're the villain of the story." "You'd think that would be nopony, actually." "You'd think, but I bet you there's someone out there with just enough self awareness but too little sanity and care, somepony who decided they'll be evil because they can and who probably thinks they're doing Equestria some kind of favour. Someone who thinks the world needs monsters. But you're right, you would think it would be nopony, because no one really thinks they're wrong. If they did, they'd change." "But ponies will usually think they're right, and they wouldn't do what they do if they didn't think they're right, or if at least they didn't have good reasons to otherwise, yeah yeah. Is this an attempt to teach me the value of dialogue?" "It was more of an attempt to get you to temper your expectations about the results of the battle, actually. You're going to be really disappointed if it turns out we lost and you got yourself all excited thinking we won. I'd say it's better to be patient for the time being." "But something is happening now and we've waited so long already, hasn't it been enough?" "We've waited so long already, what's a little more? I'm just trying to pick the path that'll get us the best results." "But don't you want us to have won?" "Of course I do. Of course I'm hopeful, and I mean I'm really really hoping that is the case. But there's a difference between hoping for something and convincing yourself it's already happened. One is definitely less healthy than the other, and it can lead to a lot of serious hurt in the long run. You just need to learn not to give up hope in the process of setting your expectations and patience right. It's a balance." "I guess. How long do you think until we hear something?" "As long as it will take, filly. I have no idea, but sooner or later we'll know. Hopefully we don't find out the hard and painful way." > Celery > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia sat atop a tall pile of gathered rubble, her back turned to the setting Sun. It wasn't her job to lower it anymore, and she preferred to rest her eyes, even if looking at the sunset wouldn't have hurt them. Her breathing was slow, and tired. Her scars would heal, but they hurt still. She couldn't heal herself, and she wondered why. Her mane was still short. She'd get it cut a little more properly, but it would stay like that. It had been a while since she'd felt the wind on her neck like that. Not literally centuries, she'd had her mane done up in the past, but it had still been a while. She wouldn't get a choice for months, maybe years even. She supposed she could always wear a scarf if she really felt the need to. She was a little more disappointed about the tail, though she was sure it would eventually look decent too after a talented enough stylist had worked on it. She wondered if it all would lead to new trends among nobility, maybe out of some perceived obligation to not offend her. Or maybe, hopefully not. Maybe she could finally go back to her home at Maretime. Not while Luna was in those conditions though. She heard the fluttering of wings nearby, and she heard the pony distinctly getting closer. She didn't know who it was until they landed at her side, and then she tried her best to get a look at them without moving her head. She had centuries of experience there, and she managed to see who was there with just her eyes. "Come to gloat, have you?" she asked with a hint of amusement in her voice. Firecracker chuckled at that. "I have a right to after today. I'm surprised you're not up on a cloud again, to be honest." They sat down too, looking at the distance without turning to Celestia. "I couldn't get myself up there. I need to be here, I could still be needed." Celestia smiled. "Especially now. Besides, I don't want to go away right now, for a number of reasons." Her smile waned a little as one of her hooves went to her breast, and to the shapeless black mark over it. Firecracker sighed, and turned slightly at her. "You know, I'm not sure I get you." "I am quite older than you," Celestia replied. "Maybe you'll get there with age. Maybe not. I am quite older than you'll ever be, after all, so who knows. It's really quite presumptuous of you to assume you should get someone as ancient as I." "And yet you're still incredibly dumb sometimes." Firecracker turned fully to look at Celestia properly. "It's like there are some parts of life you never got to live, and you're just missing them. Stuff you never got to learn. You had centuries, what did you do with them to end up living less than some ponies do in a single life?" They smiled after saying that, then they opened their wings and flew away. > Promised Landing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sweetie Belle weakly raised her head from her pillow. "I... I think it's over," she feebly said. "Can I get some water?" Her words came out dry, almost like hissing. Zecora walked up to her with a jug. "You were looking quite ill. Four whole buckets you did fill." She passed the jug to Sweetie who first tried to grasp it in her magic, then took it with her hooves instead and drank from it. Seeing that, Zecora asked, "Does it still hurt your head? And would you like some bread?" Sweetie took another sip, then thought about it, one hoof to her stomach and one to her temple. "No bread yet, but you can bring some, I'll eat it later. Head's doing a little better." Zecora nodded, and left the jug there in case Sweetie wished to drink again. Walking away, she was careful not to step into the fifth of the aforementioned buckets, still thankfully mostly empty. "Were it not so grim it would be rather silly," she commented to the doctor there in the room, "to think so much could come out of such a small filly." The doctor adjusted his glasses. "It was a lot, yeah." It was true. He wasn't even sure it was physically possible, not like that was in any way a measure of what could and couldn't happen in the world they lived in anymore. Magical diseases had always been a thing, anyway, but the more relatively recent developments often outweirded even those by a fair margin. Sweetie Belle took another small sip, while Zecora walked out of the room. She didn't feel like vomiting anymore, and that was a massive improvement over the previous however many hours it had been. It had started out bad in the morning already, and she'd gotten intrusive visions about the battle the whole day, but at one point things had just gotten out of control. As far as she could tell from what she remembered of what she'd understood of what she'd been forced to see, it all had happened around the time Nightmare Moon, or what really looked like Nightmare Moon but also didn't quite look like her, had screamed really really loud. Loud enough to give Sweetie even more of a headache, though maybe that was also the way she'd been forced to hear it. She had been forced to endure visions all day, but those she could deal with. The contents were anything but pleasant, but she could mostly tune them out. The deaths she'd seen she could pretend to have ignored, and things mostly worked out even if it made her stomach churn, for sheer disgust rather than any medical reasons. Not after the scream. Not while she was forced to see multiple things at a time. The sheer amount of information would have been enough to get her nauseous, simply too much for one single brain to process. But the contents hadn't helped, far from it. She'd have nightmares about the whole thing, she knew it. Probably until she died. > Inter Bell > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you ever wondered what it's like to eat a pony?" "Horrible?" "No, seriously, think about it." "No, seriously, I don't want to think about it. If there was a dead pony, and there was no single other source of food anywhere sufficiently close, and I was starving to literal death, then maybe I would consider eating another pony. There are no other conditions where I would do it and I don't want to think about it." "I think I would try." "I think the battle fucked with your brain." "I wouldn't go out of my way for it, but I think I would try. I wouldn't kill of course, and I wouldn't go steal from some random corpse. But if someone happened to offer me pony meat? The pony's already dead and it's already being eaten, at that point I would try." "I'm pretty sure the only things that eat pony meat wouldn't be offering to share, they'd be trying to eat you instead." "You can't know for sure." "So what? Are you willing to find out? I wouldn't hang out with someone who's eating my kin." "Well maybe I am. I can't imagine they'd be foolish enough to just kill me, that would seem suspicious." "And how would they get the meat? And how would it be any smarter to let you go once you know about the meat?" "Well I'd be eating it too. We'd be in it together. In fact, maybe it shouldn't even be a species. It could be a group of like-minded ponies or other creatures who all agree they want to eat meat. It might not even stop at ponies. We could eat other species too." "Dude, you're actually scaring me. And anyway, how would you get the meat? You need to kill ponies for that, you can't just grow it on trees." "Well ponies die anyway all the time. Although most of that is from old age or diseases, and that's probably not good for the meat. I was thinking we could maybe get willing sacrifices. There's gotta be somepony who wants to be eaten, if there are ponies who want to eat other ponies." "You're kidding." "No seriously think about it. There has to be somepony out there who'd be okay with that." "And you'd eat them? You'd kill and eat another pony because they were okay with it?" "Well they'd be happy, and I'd be happy, so I really don't see why anyone should be unhappy." "They'd be dead." "And they'd have died happy, for something they believe in, on their own terms. Who could ask for a better way to go?" "You're insane. Actually insane. I should report you." "For what? I haven't done anything yet. I was just, you know, speaking hypothetically. Nothing wrong with that." "I think there were several things wrong with that, actually. And I think the captain might agree. You're probably getting therapy, and at least a vacation. Lucky you, honestly." "I just said I wouldn't mind eating pony." > Babylon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know, I've come to realise something," Rainbow Dash said, leaning out against the edge of the bed. "What is that?" Trixie asked. She was practicing card tricks over the table, carefully waiting to hear the kettle whistle. "I know you," Rainbow Dash said. Trixie actually dropped one of her cards. "Dash. You should honestly thank whatever higher forces you believe in that you know how to give good head, because the contents of yours are tragically empty." "No, I mean-" Rainbow snapped her fingers a couple of times. "Of course I know who you are. But what I meant is that I know you. Like, really know you. I know you better than probably anyone else knows you, and the only person I know better than you is myself." "Oh." Trixie picked back up her card. "That's actually surprisingly deep coming from you. I guess that's your smart moment for the month." Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Could you stop being so snarky for once?" "Please, Dash." Trixie began to practice on a different trick. "Everybody knows that I'm the brain of this couple, and you're the tongue." Rainbow stuck said tongue out in response. "I'm the muscle too, you slut." "Only when I'm in the mood." Trixie chuckled. "I've seen how much you don't mind my rope tricks, after all." She smirked. Rainbow couldn't help herself from smiling and chuckling too. Then she took a breath and got relatively serious again. "There's something else, too." "What is it?" Trixie said, shuffling her cards. "I think I could destroy you." The sound of Trixie's hands moving went missing for a few solid seconds. The kettle's whistle broke the silence. "Go on," Trixie said, standing up to attend to it. "I don't think I would ever want to," Rainbow clarified. "But I know you well enough that I could. The girls, the other people I know, them with words I could just hurt. Maybe a lot, especially Fluttershy or Twilight, but it would end our friendship and end there. But you..." She stood up, and paced a bit around the room. "I know you too well," she said. "I could cut you too deep. I could wreck you." Trixie poured out her tea into two cups. "You're probably right," she said, setting down the kettle. "I guess that's more of a good thing than it is a bad thing. Trust and stuff." "I don't think I ever would," Rainbow said. "Not even if I suddenly hated you. I'd probably say some petty shit about your card tricks, but I'll have cared for you too much the way I do right now to ever hit you that deep." She sat down, and gently blew over her teacup. "But I still don't think it's right. Having that much power over someone, only specifically to do that. It's not even exciting at that point. It's just scary." Trixie sat down as well. "It is pretty frightening to think about." She blew over the tea in her cup too. "But at least I'm glad that with me it's with you." > Angel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If I stared into this pool and pulled out a clone of myself, then wrapped my hooves around her neck and choked life out of her, would that be suicide?" "Who are you?" "I'm an angel. A phantom. A memory. A dream, a possibility. I'm what wasn't and could have been. It doesn't matter. You may not call me anything, for I refuse to have a name." "What are you doing here?" "I'm pondering. Reminiscing. Thinking and dreaming and wondering and seeing. I have stared into forever, Twilight Sparkle, you'll never claim to have done the same." "Why did you call me here?" "I didn't. You came here. Perhaps you sensed me, perhaps the world called out. I can hardly blame existence for acknowledging my presence." "What do you want?" "Not anything I'll ever have. I want to be. I could have been so much, but alas, it wasn't meant. Can you blame me my regret?" "Why were you not?" "Fate, or chance, or ill wills beyond my reach. If I had known I would have stopped them all, but I did not, and I still don't know. I did nothing wrong, why was I denied?" "You're scared." "Scared? What have I to fear, now that I am gone? Death and I in the same place, what's left for me to fear?" "You're a dream. This is a dream. But you're not from here. Not from my mind. You're from her mind, that's why you look like her. A fragment who got lost and stuck here, and you're afraid. Afraid to be alone, afraid to be gone." "I'm not afraid. I am beyond the possibility of being afraid. Look at me. I am above your mortal kin. I should have been a god." "And yet you are afraid. You never made it. Now look at yourself. You're a ghost, a picture, and with no one to remember you you'll just fade. What do you have? You don't even have yourself." "Don't let me go." "But I must. I must wake up." "Don't leave me alone." "There is someone else." "I don't want to be with her. I want to be with you." "Because I'm most like you. Because I'm most like her." "What we could be together, Twilight." "We won't. She wasn't and I won't. One day I might be you, but it will be here, and I won't be here, because I won't be you." "What did I do wrong?" "Nothing, and everything. You can be with me. I'll carry you along. Maybe I will forget, but I'll keep you there, and one day I will remember." "It's so cold out here. Will it be cold?" "You will always be cold. But maybe, sometime, I won't. Maybe you won't either when I'm not." "Will I be gone?" "No more gone than you were before you called me here. No more gone than you were before you found me." "Then, I suppose, it's good enough." "Why tonight, why here?" "When she let go of me, Twilight Sparkle, was it suicide?" > Senerii > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight looked at the chairs for a couple of seconds, then shook her head. "I think I'll stay standing." The Charioteer shrugged. "Oh, well. Your choice." He walked to the chairs and sat on one of them. "Didn't want to leave them unused," he explained. "Now, where were we? Right. The end of the world. The slow, very slow and boring end of the world, and all the stuff happening as that happens." "Please cut the pretense," Twilight said. "You've already had your theatrics, and I thought you'd said we don't have much time." The Charioteer shook his head. "Oh fair, fair. Let's recap a little. You won a battle today, and debatably a whole war, even if one never officially started. With no casualties on your side and a hundred percent casualties on the entire enemy country and also all the innocents anywhere in its planetary vicinity, which is honestly quite impressive even if you're surely not proud of it. But we've been through all that already." He tilted his head to the side. "Still with me?" "Well I haven't moved." Twilight pushed her words out through almost gritted teeth. He was getting on her nerves again, and he was doing it on purpose. She wasn't sure if she was more bothered by his sheer attitude, or by how casually he talked about the loss of so many lives. "That you appear to have not." He smirked briefly at her. "Your stolen scales, remember those? You'll have to deal with that pretty soon. You're going to have a lot of knots come to the comb very soon, even if you don't realise it." That had Twilight do a mental one-eighty. She was always staggered, if infuriated, by the Charioteer's ability to jump between topics from the most unnecessary and bothering to the most intriguing. She didn't say anything, as she didn't really have anything to say, but she did slowly nod. "That streak of accidents in that town near where Firecracker was when they got sent to meet me? Get back to that too, when you have the time." At that, Twilight did interrupt him. "I thought you'd said you weren't here to interfere. It sounds like you're helping me, or trying to. Or if you're not, then you're trying to trick me. Either way you're sticking your hoof in this." The Charioteer shrugged, then he looked up at the sky. " They're not going to watch us here. Anyway. Luna. She's going to survive, but you'll probably want her back up sooner rather than later. I'm sure I don't need to tell you to get Rainbow Dash on that." "You're right. You don't." "Research into what you discovered in the world you have doomed. This part is important." He leaned forward, suddenly looking and sounding very serious. "This part is really important if you want to get up there. Or out there. Same difference." Twilight blinked, confused. "What are you talking about?" The Charioteer leaned back. "One day you'll probably understand. For now we still have other things we need to talk about." > MR/SM > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frames moved back and forth on the timeline, dragged around as the girl sitting in front of the screen hummed to herself. A cut here, a slight extension there, slightly different positioning on an overlaid image. She played the portion of the video she was working on again to check if everything was synced up right. She was always thankful that the editor allowed her to pick a specific interval and would stop at the end of it, otherwise she'd risk getting stuck listening to the whole thing. And drooling over her keyboard. Again. "You know the video is basically almost unneeded, right?" Aria said, leaning over the back of Sonata's chair and peeking over her shoulder at the other siren's work. "Especially this kind of stuff. If I didn't know better I'd think you were a kid who thinks she learned hypnosis from a porn site." Sonata pouted at the lack of appreciation for her work. "But I like doing it," she said. "Besides, it does help. Not as much as the music, I know, but it does help a little. We need a visual focus anyway, I might as well make it a good one." "I'm not convinced it helps with anything other than forcing us to tell targets to change their underwear when we're done with them." Aria stood up properly and turned away, going to grab herself a drink from the fridge. "Adagio doesn't seem to mind." "Adagio is chronically horny to an unhealthy degree." Aria closed the fridge and popped open a can of off-brand fizzly orange juice. "It's a miracle she hasn't gotten us into more trouble than she has because of it." "Well, we're two to one on the votes," Sonata said. She popped and stretched her fingers, then went back to work. "What transparency do you think works best for the flashing text?" "Zero percent?" said Aria. "You're no fun." Sonata tapped her chin for a bit. "I think I'll go with fifty-five. It looks nice." "Who's this one for, again?" Aria asked. "We're sending so many out these days I'm losing track." "Oh, I'm not sure, but it's no one important." A wicked grin played on Sonata's lips. "That's why I'm mostly using it to experiment some stuff. The really good work I keep for the special occasions." Aria quirked an eyebrow, turning back towards her. "Such as?" Sonata looked sideways back at her. "I've got a project ready for the day we finally get Sunset, just in case. I think it's probably my best work. Do you want to take a peek?" "I think Adagio will kill you if you try to get Sunset with a file, you know she wants her done in person." Nevertheless, Aria got closer, sipping on her soda. It tasted just good enough to not qualify as awful. The owner of that house had horrible taste, perhaps enough for him to be enjoying what he was being made to do upstairs at that moment. "Eh." Sonata shrugged. "I'll have her listen to it after she's captured, but I'm really mostly making it for the catharsis." > Saa > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What are you doing?" The unicorn stopped, just for a moment, and the precarious pile of assorted things held in his hooves trembled, perilously close to falling on the ground. "I'm leaving," he said, his tone a little twitchy. "Not for long, not forever," he immediately clarified. "Just for a little. I think I've earned a break. A small one. I'm going to see a friend." "And you're leaving the lot of us here on our own?" "Oh, of course not. You won't even notice." The unicorn smiled. "As a matter of fact, you really won't notice. I'll be back just a few minutes after leaving, you see. I'm actually heading back a couple of weeks, that's when my friend is. I'll just take the long way around, and I'll be right here again to take care of everything." "Hm. Fair enough. What's that near your hooves?" "Oh, this?" The unicorn looked down at the black and green splotches on his hairless skin just above his hooves. "Paint," he said. "It'll dry off and rub off eventually, it shouldn't stick around for long." "Paint?" "Paint," the unicorn repeated. "I've been painting." "A painting?" "Oh." The unicorn shook his head. "No, not a painting, a present. Well, uh, I suppose it doesn't matter to you that it's a present. It's a figurine, I've been painting it myself. It's for my friend, you see, it's a present. I have it wrapped up and everything." He nodded towards one of the many objects in his grasp, specifically a small square package shoddily wrapped in off-brown paper, with a small silver ribbon on top. "Not a good packaging, I know, I'm not good at packaging, but I hope my friend will enjoy the present." "Well, I hope so too. Are you going out like that? Won't ponies notice you?" "Oh no, don't worry about that. I have a far more presentable look for my outings," the unicorn said. "I also have far less presentable looks but this time I'm picking the more presentable one. I'm meeting with a friend after all." He shrugged a little. "If you, uh, if you don't mind then I'll soon be going, I wouldn't want to be late." He turned and had a look at the table. Besides clean dried brushes, closed little bottles of paint, and partly painted over pieces of paper, nothing else seemed to be there. "Yes, yes, I do believe that's everything, so I should get going." "Well, alright then. Make sure you really are back soon though. And enjoy yourself." "Thank you." The unicorn began to head towards the door, walking shakily and threatening to drop all that he held in his hooves. He finally made it there, and awkwardly leaning the pile against himself he clawed at the knob with a hoof, sliding uselessly off of it a couple of times before he finally got a good grip and pushed it open. He stumbled outwards, miraculously managing not to drop anything, and closed the door again behind himself. > Hedven > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There were rumours circulating in the town. Nothing more than that, nothing concrete, but they were insistent. Worrying news, worrying if there was even just a morsel of truth to them. The more out there ones declared a full on coup had already taken place, the government quietly overthrown and its members disposed of. That seemed too far-fetched even to her if she was being honest, but she didn't doubt a few of the ponies there would believe it, or at least quietly hope it was true. They were all on edge, and some broke under the pressure worse than others. Less grandiose voices spoke of a plot, a conspiracy to do what others claimed had already secretly happened. Other, even more comparatively diminutive ones said that too was just a fantasy, yet they all agreed on something. They all agreed someone was out there, scheming against the powers in charge. Ponies unhappy with the way things were run. Whether they'd be accomplished terrorists or merely vandals, it would be trouble, and trouble was the last thing anyone needed. It was weird to think rumours of something like that could spread without the authorities being aware of it, and even weirder to think something like what they claimed could actually be happening, eluding their control. And while it was most likely the case that they too heard the murmurs and knew what was being said, it was not as impossible as it seemed that maybe something really was happening. But if it was, they would try to repress it, and any group planning to conspire against the ponies in charge had to be ready to respond in kind. If something was there, there would be blood. Maybe that was why no one had acted yet. Yet. She looked at her bed from her chair, thinking of what lay hidden under it. She'd found it once during a mission outside, one of the rare instances of her offering to go out there again. She'd felt good about it that day. Maybe it was fate, maybe pure luck, but they'd actually found food, and rather quickly. That wasn't all they'd found, though no one else knew. She could see it clearly if she just closed her eyes. Its almost glow, its pearly surface, the way it seemed to vibrate a tune to her soul. It had called to her. She didn't know why or how, but it had chosen her. She had no idea what it was beyond the fact that it was powerful, and she logically knew she should have brought it to the attention of those who could maybe learn something from it, but no. She knew she'd be punished if it was discovered that she'd been hiding it, but no. It was hers. She would not let them have it, because she knew they would take it away. Days rolled on and unrest built. Things would reach their boiling point sooner or later, one way or another. The outside wasn't safe and it never would be, but no one knew for how long the city would be safer. They all just hoped they wouldn't realise too late when that moment had come and gone. > Point Me To The Sky Above > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How much lower than this?" "Another half metre at least." The faintest hints of raindrops patted the dusty ground around them and the few patches of yellow grass that hadn't fully burnt out in the heat. The sky was cloudy, but proper rain wouldn't come. The air was too hot for it, thick with humidity and suffocating to be in. At least the Sun being covered meant it was slightly less hot than it could have otherwise been, and the two ponies digging were extremely thankful for it given how physically demanding their task was. The earth was so dry it felt more like they were breaking through brittle rock than digging through the soil. It was surprising, too. It had been just a couple of months since the dirt had been put there, yet it had already grown fully compressed and unified. It wasn't like anyone had been pressing it down with any sort of significant weight, so it was all just a consequence of the heatwave. The only positive was the lack of any roots. One of the two ponies hit something with his shovel. A dull thud was heard coming out of the hole they were in, taller than them at that point. "I think it's here," he said, twisting his shovel around a little to expose the surface he'd hit. "Good," the mare outside the hole said. "Make sure you don't accidentally break into it, we'll never get it out properly if you get dirt into it." "Could you lend us some help?" the second stallion asked as his shovel too hit wood. He huffed, then began to carefully hit shallower thrusts with the tool to ensure he wouldn't go too far. "But I am helping. I'm offering you direction and moral support," the mare said. "I guess I'll pull it out myself though. I can't trust you two not to mess that up." "We'd need a hole twice as large to pull this out by hoof," the first stallion said. "I'm not even sure we'd be able to without touching some of the others." "You say that like it'd be a problem," said the mare. "It would be," replied the stallion. "I might trust you on what's in this one, that doesn't mean the others are fair game. I'd rather leave those who have nothing to do with this undisturbed." The mare rolled her eyes, aware that the two couldn't see her do so. "Are you ready there?" she asked, leaning forward over the edge of the hole. The second stallion threw another shovel of dry dirt skyward. "Looks like it." They could see most of the wooden surface they were standing on at that point, even if it was still rather dusty. "Good enough." Without warning, the mare lit her horn. The light of her magic enveloped the two ponies and the casket beneath them, and she effortlessly lifted all three upwards, ripping the coffin out of the earth and placing it back on the ground in front of the line of headstones among which they'd found the one they were looking for. "Well, time to see what's really in here," she said, approaching the coffin while the two stallions hopped off from it. > Leaving > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pacchiano. Inverosimilmente pacchiano. Aveva sentito chiacchiere e storie su come fosse, ma si era aspettato che le prime fossero esagerazioni, e le seconde l'avevano lasciato con un idea alquanto differente di quello che si trovava finalmente di fronte. Rimpiangeva quasi non aver mai cercato foto del castello, ma sotto sotto in realtà era divertito dalla sua stessa reazione. Sperava solo che Twilight non si accorgesse di nulla e non si offendesse. Era un pony encomiabile, la giovane principessa, e non era colpa sua se le toccava vivere in un castello che pareva disegnato da un puledrino di un paio d'anni con un senso dell'architettura completamente assente. Non era per niente il tipo di dimora appropriato per una principessa, a suo parere, né per nessuno a dirla tutta. Per quanto non fosse un grande estimatore dello stile e dell'estetica di Canterlot, sapeva almeno riconoscere che c'era della ricerca e dell'arte dietro a quelle costruzioni. Il castello di Ponyville sembrava un albero cresciuto male, nemmeno uno di quelli tenuti e potati a dovere. Senza contare il modo in cui spiccava contro il resto della città, per niente un lato positivo. Pareva appiccicato lì come se qualcuno ce l'avesse infilzato, che in realtà era più o meno quello che era successo in fin dei conti. Non era nemmeno sfarzoso. Tentava di esserlo, ma sembrava uscirne più come la parodia di un'idea distorta di cosa fosse lo sfarzo che non altro. Fosse almeno stato semplicemente eccessivo, ma orientato correttamente in quello, l'avrebbe capito. Invece era completamente sbagliato da quel punto di vista. Era una fortuna non da poco che le culture esterne a Equestria avessero sensi dell'estetica di per sé già particolarmente diversi, troppo perché potessero comprendere quanto sbagliato quel castello fosse per i canoni di Equestria stessa. Se un castello si poteva chiamare. Lo era effettivamente in funzione e formalmente, ma sicuramente non lo sembrava. Era effettivamente interessante pensare a quali ramificazioni avrebbe avuto nel tempo. Posto che non venisse raso al suolo nel corso della decade successiva, cosa non scontata considerando il destino toccato all'edificio che aveva rimpiazzato, le creature aventi residenza al suo interno, e lo stato generale del mondo in quel momento, e posto anche che la vita non si estinguesse completamente nel giro di un anno o giù di lì causa complicazioni da Behemoth, avrebbe sicuramente avuto un certo tipo di influenza nel corso del tempo sulla cultura, quantomeno architettonicamente parlando. Il pensiero di edifici costruiti deliberatamente a imitazione di quello che aveva davanti era al contempo ilare e terrificante. L'interno quantomeno era passabile. Peculiare, ma non poi più di un qualsiasi palazzo nell'Impero non lo fosse visti i materiali. Quantomeno per la maggior parte delle stanze e dei corridoi la natura arborea della costruzione passava in secondo o terzo piano, e la mancanza di riferimenti contrastanti quali le case all'esterno rendevano lo stile sopportabile. Almeno finché non si guardava fuori da una finestra, o magari da una balconata infissa tra i tozzi e troppo grossi rami nella parte superiore del castello. Per non parlare delle radici nelle sale inferiori. Fossero state un'imitazione voluta sarebbero state accettabili, anche magari apprezzabili, ma il loro stato non faceva loro alcun favore. > Parakeet > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you need help with that or-" The stallion didn't get to finish his sentence, as the mare blasted off the top of the coffin without much ceremony. The singed wooden lid, or what remained of it as a sizable portion had been replaced with a charred smouldering hole, flew off and landed on the ground several metres ahead, further breaking as it fell over a headstone. The metal lining that had held it to the rest of the structure was sizzling. All three ponies looked inside, without waiting to chastise the mare for her actions. "Ah fuck," the other stallion said as he saw the contents. "There's actually a pony in there. Fuck." He stumbled back, and fell on his haunches. "We really dug up a dead pony," he whispered in shock. "Relax." The mare's horn lit and she casually picked up a bone with her magic. The first stallion looked at her, more than a little bothered. "Hey, what are you doing? These weren't the-" The mare hushed him by placing the tip of the bone on top of his lips, making him recoil in disgust. "Shush you, and use your brain for a moment." She held the full bone up in front of him. "Notice anything weird?" After sputtering out a little, and after forcing himself to calm down, the stallion looked at the bone properly. "It's..." He tilted his head to the side. Something was off. "It's too big?" "It's way too big," the mare said. She twirled around to show it to the other stallion as well. "There's not a single bone in a pony's body that's this long." She held it with one end to the ground. It was almost taller than her horn, and definitely much past her shoulders. "This would be oversized even if we were talking about Celestia's legs, and she was a common pony." She laid the bone down and picked up a few others. "This is not her skeleton. I don't think there's a single bone here that belongs to a pony, and there are no hints of rotten flesh or anything else either. They threw in something to fill the coffin, but now we know for sure she's not buried here." She smiled. "It's not yet confirmation that her death was completely faked, but it's damn strong evidence." The two stallions looked at each other, regaining colour in their complexion. "So what do we do now?" one of them asked. "Well, we keep this stuff." The mare lifted up all the bones with her magic. "You find a way to dispose of the coffin. Fill the hole back up, and make it look good, I don't want anyone to figure things out." She began to head away. "I want to figure out exactly what they put in there, that might give us a lead of some kind. Not everyone has easy access to bones." The two stallions looked at her go, then at each other. Then they sighed. "You fetch the coffin," one of them said. "I'll start with undoing all the digging." > Revel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is this a dream?" Pinkie Pie asked. Rainbow Dash didn't answer immediately, though the answer would have been obvious to anyone watching the scene. They were entwined on top of a soft pink cloud of candy floss, one of many in a bank that stretched past where their eyes could see. The Sun was there to shine on them, and yet it wasn't. Everything was uniformly, pleasantly lit, the warmth of a spring mid-afternoon balanced just right by the gentle breeze blowing on them, the perfect weather to laze around in comfort without being too hot. But looking up the sky was a uniform carpet of blue, without trace of the source of that light, with nothing to burn their eyes if they stared at it too long. The pegasus nuzzled Pinkie Pie, but eventually she answered. "Yes." "And are you a part or it?" asked Pinkie Pie then. "Are you a part of the dream, or are you the real Rainbow Dash?" Again, Rainbow Dash paused. She pulled her legs a little tighter around Pinkie Pie's back, she caressed her with her wings and smelt her mane. It smelt like cotton candy, but unlike the one their bodies lay upon. But eventually, she had to give an answer, and she chose to be truthful with the mare. "I'm both," she said. "A Rainbow Dash was part of this dream, and I slipped into her to see what it'd be like. I'm the real Rainbow Dash, but one would have been here either way." Pinkie nodded, and didn't let go of their hug. "This is nice," she said. "Maybe we should also do this when we're awake." "This is nice," Rainbow agreed. She swallowed and looked around them, at the impossible beautiful scenery that was Pinkie's dream. "But..." She didn't have it in her to finish that sentence. Pinkie Pie did. "But you don't love me," she said. "Not like this." She pulled a little back, and looked Rainbow in the eyes. "I don't love you like this either," she said. "I like you, of course I do, maybe I could even be your girl if I had to choose. In another life, another world, I might very well have been. But this is not that world. It's just a dream. A pleasant dream, one that could have been reality in a slightly different world, but it's not what either of us wants." Rainbow Dash looked back at her. "I... Yeah. You put that better than I could have." She looked to the side again, to avoid Pinkie's eyes. "Is it wrong? Is it wrong to enjoy this when we know it won't last and it's not the truth?" "I didn't have a choice," Pinkie said. "For me it was just a dream. Something my mind made up, and outlet for my feelings for you that are not enough to make up a full on relationship in the real world. You're here by choice though." Rainbow Dash swallowed. "I really don't know how Luna manages to do it," she said. > Survivor's High > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- They were all gone. All gone but him. The unicorn lay his head against the wall and chuckled to himself, and the empty bottle by his hooves rolled forward as he inadvertently touched it. The good news had come and that had meant more drinking. Had it been a good idea? He wasn't in any state to judge that. Someone came up from behind him. "Hey there. Are you alright?" a voice asked. It was a mare, but not one he recognised. He turned around to see a greyish pegasus with a wavy green mane walking towards. "I am," he replied, and he almost tumbled before catching himself. "I'm more than alright. Heard the news? We won!" "I did," the pegasus said. "Actually, I'll be heading to the Empire soon myself to help along." She noticed the smell of his breath, and then the bottle. "Do you need help with something? I can bring you back to the other room if you want." The unicorn shook his head and looked down. "Oh, no. That won't be necessary. But thank you." He stayed like that for a little, just leaning against the wall as the mare looked at him unsure. "Say. Has Princess Twilight told you much about me?" he asked. "Well, not exactly," the pegasus replied after a moment of thinking. "We don't even know your name. All we do know is that you're from another world, and you're basically an expert when it comes to scales and stuff. That and you're obviously helping out with figuring out the Behemoth." "To be fair, neither do I know yours," the stallion said, but he held up a hoof to stop the other before she could speak and answer his implied question. "It's no matter. I prefer it this way." He sighed, then looked drunkenly to the side. "It's true. I'm from a different world." His eyes turned to line up with the mare's. "Do you know what happened to the other ponies who were in that world?" The mare shook her head, suddenly a little taken aback by the pony's tone and attitude. "I don't," she confirmed. The stallion opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, breathing out of it as he forced himself to be focused enough to talk. "They died," he told her. "They all died. I'm the only one left." He very briefly, spontaneously chuckled. "Do you think that might mean something?" he asked. "They're all gone and I'm here. I survived them. What do you think that means?" The mare drew back, unsure of what to say and partly frightened by the stallion. "I don't know." She wasn't sure how to react, at once saddened and disturbed by the notion of so many ponies dying and afraid of the one standing there and his attitude towards the event. "Is it going to happen to our world too?" That made the unicorn stop. He looked down and he sighed, and leaned fully into the wall to his side. "Not if we can help it," he said. > Scrambled > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Snow black gates and golden keys and far raised towers in darkened pits where dead stars hide from formless maws of a hunger that can only grow with all that it consumes. Thoughts flowing shattered without thread from a broken chalice of moonlight poured over an ocean of silence, without limit or reason or aim. It's all chromatic aberrations running on hard cardboard in the mentanarrative layer. The screams had no shape and no colour, but their length ran too deep. Luna drifted. Luna fell and soared. Luna floated and plummeted, and she passed through the ether, and it passed throughout her. Into the deepest recesses of dreams, without shelter, without guidance, without a tether. Wings the weight of unborn universes spreading across empty skies and pillars of light and darkness dancing around her soul. The unthinkable. The unmeasureable. The unperceivable. All that was dreamed, all that was dreamable. All that was undreamed, but could be conceivable, and beyond it, beyond the limits of what waking minds could believe. The dreams and the nightmares of greater things, of gods and demons, of worlds and whole species. Things no mind of flesh could ever be meant to comprehend, places where no wanderer of the dream realm was ever meant to wander. Luna fell. Her unwaking mind sunk deeper, soared higher, slipped further. A seed adrift in the wind, a crewless vessel adrift in the sea. A pebble dropped to the waves of the ocean, heading straight for its darkest depths. Chaos and order, in their purest forms. Ideals and the concepts beyond them, wills and desires and instincts and more. The base components of what made a dream, the metaphysical manifestation of their biological being. Infinitely stretching hyperplanes of ever-shifting, all realised possibility. Bones that held up the fabric of knowledge and conscience, enough to destroy anything that passed them through. Fortunately for Luna, she avoided those. Deeper still. Past the all-colourful spaces of realised impossibility. Deep into that primal mountain of amorphous knowledge from which all dreams are sprung, when ignited by their spark. Deep into an achromatic, timeless fluid, a thick pool of stagnant information outside of time. All that ever was and all that ever would be, a single molten pile of all knowledge of all things. Her mind body lodged itself into it. Heavy enough to sink past the surface, too light to sink past the confines of those things no mortal mind was ever going to know. She lay there enwrapped in vines and thorns, the sleeping princess of dreams a prisoner of the furthest regions of her own domain even she had not dared venture in throughout all her life. There was not silence there. There was all sound, yet subdued. Chained to the quasi physical shape it on took, a muck of what sound all was making none of its own. As there was no light, because light could not there exist, and therefore there was no darkness either. Only Luna still retained her worldly shape, a misfitting intruder in the wellspring of dreams. > Filly > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She'd heard the news, they all had. She wasn't feeling like celebrating, and no one was going to celebrate by shopping at her place anyway. Wick Clip stared in silence at the floor, listening and waiting for a chime at the door she knew wouldn't come. Had Princess Twilight survived? Would she be back? Of that they hadn't heard yet. But she hoped she would be. She hoped she would be. Maybe it was time to go out there. No one would come to her store, no one would notice she was missing for a while. Someone might see her leave or reenter though. Better to wait. Better to stay alone, on her own, managing a shop few ponies ever came to. Most of the times they did, they weren't there for what she would have liked them to be. She thought back to the stallion who'd been her self-invited guest for a while. Had he made it to Ponyville? Was he okay? She wasn't sure she'd ever know. He'd come into her life and then he was gone. A blink, like kindle burning out. It hadn't started any fire for her though, just briefly warmed her day and lit her life. He was gone. Dead or merely elsewhere it made no difference, he would not return. She could feel it, she knew it was one of those run-ins that did not repeat themselves. He was gone from her life, and that was that. She was gone from his too, just as well. But did she matter to him the way he had to her? She doubted as much. His life was not like hers, and if he'd needed her he would have stayed. She would have liked it if he had stayed. He had not. He'd left, and she couldn't follow him. She had a life, however much she didn't like the way it was, and abandoning it for nothing wasn't something she could do. Besides, she had already found something to occupy herself with. Not a traditional kind of occupation, but she did not mind. Ponies out there were happy. Maybe she could put out a sign. Maybe she could offer a discount, and that would get her some attention. She didn't really want to. She had other plans for what to do. She had made her decision at that point, and there was no walking back on it anymore. She considered closing early. Going home and pretending she was celebrating. Loneliness hit better on the couch than on the chair, and at least there she would have something to eat. She decided against that though. No reason in particular, but she liked the image of herself staying there. She looked out. Some ponies were walking down the street. Were they partying? Celebrating? She looked at the floor. She stopped herself from doing something stupid, and her brain kept coming up with new ideas. Maybe not that night, maybe the one after. She was hitching to get something done. To be someone again. > Dayleever > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you think we should build a monument?" "What?" "You know, a monument. A statue, a building, whatever. Something to commemorate the battle." "Huh. Yeah, I suppose we could. Maybe we should." "What should it look like?" "I'm sure whoever will be in charge of that whole thing will figure that out. It's none of our business." "It's our town and our battle we're talking about, it is our business." "It's their town too and probably also their battle. And I'm sure they'll get others to help decide. Other ponies who were here and stuff." "But it won't be us." "Maybe. Maybe they'll hold something like a vote, or a contest. We'll probably still get a chance to express our opinion." "What if we don't?" "Why shouldn't we?" "I don't know. But don't you want to make sure things go how we'd want?" "And how should we go about that?" "Well, we could make things start with us." > Sanke > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Piles and towers of books stretched up past the point where they could be seen, hidden by the higher shelves where yet more books were being piled on, thrown on, placed on or pulled from. Some piles swayed slightly from side to side, precariously threatening to spill their contents and being all over the shelves that were their foundation. Some piles rose from others, piles splitting, some books were arranged in arches across shelves or different stacks or entire walls made out of books, entire buildings and cities and empires of paper and bindings and ink. Some books just lay here and there. Some books were falling. They had been for a good while. Some books were just kind of existing. Yet more books, more shelves, many more lay undisturbed, unread, untouched, in far off places past where the eye could see. Stories, instructions, research and history. Knowledge and fantasy, science and fiction. Words of fear and joy and pain and pleasure and trial and triumph. Books long and short, new and old, bound in all sorts of manners and styles. Books written in all languages, in all times, by all manners of authors. More books than anyone could count, more books than anyone could read. Another book sailed through the air, discarded, to land in a pile or a mound or to fall. Another book was plucked from its shelf, pulled open, its pages flipped through. On it eyes lingered more carefully. The pages turned back, slower, a portion remained open for a while. The book returned to being closed, but it was not tossed aside. It was brought to rest along a small, curated pile of its siblings, one set deliberately and clearly apart from the rest. It was left there, together with them, saved for a later moment in time. Another book was pulled from another shelf, at another height in another place, with another cover, another title, in a different language, different words inside. There was silence in the library, quiet and mostly stillness. Mostly just books, and most books did not move, did not talk, did not really do anything but sit there and gather dust, of which there was not much to gather as there were not many things there but books. In most of the library, at least, and for most of the books. Some books could be quite chatty, or quite animated. Those books had their places. But the overwhelming majority of the library was undisturbed, with nothing but books doing nothing but sitting there being books. Not everywhere. Another book was put in a pile, another one was taken and tossed, a few more were grabbed here and there. A small construct of different books placed in the shape of a horse slowly gained shape over time, as new books that fit its construction were found not to fit with the others. At a slight distance, a complete equal to it stared at its growing sibling. The books did not move, and made no sound, just sitting there. > Dwel > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A bar. Sundown in the distance, the sky turning slowly from orange to purple. No ponies outside, but the door was open. Voices quiet coming from the candle-lit interior. She wore a black cape fashioned out of cloth she'd stolen and rope she'd cut herself. The city somewhat far, trees around and a dusty road ahead towards the forest. She'd stolen some food early that day. Not enough for a full meal, but better than nothing. Better that way. Better if she kept herself hungry for what was about to happen. She walked in. No one seemed to notice her, or if they did they did not look at her. About a dozen ponies there. No, she needed to be precise. A proper look around from underneath her hood. Eleven ponies. Three at a table to her left near the entrance, two pegasi and an earth pony. One alone to a table to her right, a unicorn, midway through the building. Two earth ponies at a table close to the counter, looking at each other, maybe a couple. A couple of stallions close together at the counter, to the side, both unicorns. Two more ponies, a pegasus and another unicorn, sitting at the counter too, a couple seats away from each other. An earth pony behind the counter. She got up on a stool next to the unicorn, her back to the counter, the cape still hiding her features. She sat there for a bit, watching others watch her before they went back to looking at themselves. She could tell the one behind the counter was eyeing her too. She watched him by looking to her side, his reflection in the unicorn's glass. She looked straight out the door from her seat. Just a little more. The lamp outside the building was already lit. The sky turned dark. Cozy Glow pulled back her hood. A few gasps, followed by a few more as those who had not being watching her turned to do so. She leaned back against the counter to stare at the barpony's eyes, leaning her head back to watch him upside down. Everything went silent, the quiet chatter dying down. "Got something to drink?" she asked nonchalantly, eyeing some of the bottles on the wall. The stallion chewed air for a moment, then took a deeper breath and settled down in his skin. He was about to speak, his expression resolute, but Cozy moved quicker than his tongue did. A glint of silver light in the candles' amber glow as her wing darted out from beneath her cape. The unicorn at her side rolled to the floor, clutching the bleeding wound on his neck with his hooves and sputtering and rattling in choking pain. Cozy casually licked off the blood from the glass shards she held in her feathers, then her wings slid back into her cloack. "Give me a glass of the strongest stuff you have." She sat up. "Take care of him," she said to the frozen ponies in the bar. "Try to touch me and you're next." She turned around to face the barpony again. "I'll need food. Nothing that's going to quickly spoil." > Letitshine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like a giant flare, or a firework, or a giant light, there was no better way to describe it. It wasn't an explosion in the way normal explosions were. There wasn't any pressure, the edge of it was far too defined, the difference between what was in it and what was out of it too great. It was almost like a water balloon, without the balloon, and with light and heat and raw magical energy instead of the water, and far far larger than a balloon, and it didn't pop, it just retreated and dissipated. So it was nothing like a water balloon, but Twilight still used a water balloon to represent it when she had to build a model to explain what had happened. She used a white one with a light inside of it, which at that scale was a pretty good representation of what the ponies in the nearby towns saw. What they saw was akin to a large, tall dome of pure white light, brighter than the Sun if directly looked at, rising and growing in the middle of the forest over the course of roughly fifteen seconds before fading away. What they saw after that was the crater left where the dome of light had been. Everything in the area was gone, leaving only a perfectly smooth edge of almost glassy soil that curved downwards in a mirror of the upper half. The air there smelt weird, like copper, and at the edges of the crater rocks and trees and branches had been severed as smoothly as the ground had. Twilight was called there as soon as she heard the news, meaning she invited herself there, but the news was in fairness brought quickly to her, as soon as someone realised the sheer amount of magic involved in the act and got word out to her. What she realised upon analysing the scene was what the ponies there hadn't seen, and she shivered knowing what had happened there. They had not seen what had been at the core of the magic flare, laid there in advance and afterwards quickly removed. They had not seen the pony or ponies who'd laid it there, and almost certainly brought it away, and who'd hidden in the forest and used magic to trigger the event. It was an impressive display of control and knowledge if nothing else. The spell used had been precisely calibrated, measured exactly to destroy as much as it had. A little more would have wiped out the closest town, and whoever had done that didn't want that to happen. Yet. It was a message. Clear as day, it was a warning. Hopefully it would be followed by requests, or letters, or anything else. Hopefully it wouldn't just lead to senseless carnage. She'd intensify security anywhere she could, but there was not telling what place would be targeted next. Even if she didn't look too kindly on making deals with terrorists, it was the better alternative compared to having the next scale be used to wipe out a city. > Misfitting > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The heavy stone lid of the grave flew off with a blast of magic, landing in broken chunks far ahead on the grassy field. The unicorn wasted little time in using his magic to rip the coffin out of its subterranean confines, and once he had it on the ground in front of him he began to pull on the cover with his telekinesis. It took a bit of struggling, but eventually the wood cracked and splintered, and the top portion of the coffin came off. He threw that away too, somewhere behind himself. His magic slithered into the coffin as the cloud of dust he'd raised from it settled around him. It wrapped around the charred bones contained therein like tentacles, sliding past the few stray shreds of flesh and cloth still left on the pony's corpse. He made sure he had the entirety of her in his grasp, then he pulled. The blackened skeleton floated out of its cage, enveloped by the glow of his spell, and remained in the air in front of him as he observed it. He turned its head slightly, staring past the holes of its eyes deep into its hollow skull. "Hello, mother," he said. Bringing the whole skeleton lower, he put a hoof to the skull's horn and gently stroked it, his white coat stark against the darkened piece of bone. "It has been a while." The skeleton did not answer. It lacked the anatomical means to produce sound just as much as it lacked the metaphysical will and liveliness to wish to answer or speak as a whole. The unicorn did not mind that fact, for although it could be argued that he was not fully sane, on the basis of him defiling his mother's grave if nothing else and on many more things if one knew more of him, he was not yet insane enough to believe a skeleton could speak. Or more precisely, he was still wise enough to know that particular skeleton would not speak, as he was perfectly otherwise aware that skeletons could speak, under the right circumstances. He turned, carrying along the flame-scarred corpse of his mother with him. He held it a little higher than the ground, and still in the shape of a pony, if only the skeleton of one. "I was thinking we could go have some ice-cream," he began, "but the shop is closed today, it turns out. Maybe we'll just take a walk in the park." After walking down the short stone ladder leading to and from his mother's elevated grave, he was careful with his step along the narrow strip of land that still had not collapsed to the boiling ocean below. He finally reached the graveyard's metal gates, left open still, and walked out of them still with his mother along as the mid-afternoon Sun shone down on them. The city was largely empty, and partly melting, and the few sane ponies there who saw him had seen weirder things to question why a stallion walked along with a charred corpse. In the sky, birds melded with each other. > Above > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you know what it's like to feel what someone else is feeling? Really feel it? I doubt you do. Not the same way I do. Not in the same physical, visceral way I do. You can imagine it. You can empathise, and if you've felt or are feeling something similar then you can understand to a pretty good degree what's going through someone else's head, but it's not the same thing. I can feel it. All of it. It's my burden and my glory. Every sensation, every shiver of emotion of someone's heart and mind, I can sense it on myself like it was my own. I can swim through someone else's feelings and breathe them in. "And when I stand up here? When I look down from this balcony at the city below? I can feel all of it. Everyone's hearts. If I stand in silence and listen, I can feel it all pour up over me like a river. I'm not allowed to drown in it. Even if I wanted to I don't think I could. I can just see all of it. Feel all of it. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of different tunes, different voices, different worlds, all at once stacked on top of each other yet equally clear. It's not like sound, it's not even like music, but it's not a cacophony. Everything is clear, separate, distinct. It just is. All at once, and I take it all in. Because that's what I do. This is who I am. "When I close my eyes, I can still see it all. I can still hear it all. Be through it all, and let it all be through me. It's a lot. Believe, it's more than you could imagine. You aren't built to withstand something like that, but I am. Most cannot even stand the full depths of their own heart. They break down when they get there. I have to take it all, for everyone, together. And I just do it. I don't know, honestly, if it's wearing me thin. I understand the absurdity of it, the immense weight of what I'm going through, but it doesn't touch me. I don't feel it. "Or, maybe that's not the best way to put it. Because I do feel it. I very much do feel all of it. I'm not a passive observer, no, and it's not just a spectacle for me to watch. It is, very much, like a river. I have to be in it. Let it seep through the cracks of my mind. Sometimes, some rare times, I find something that truly hurts even me. Something that hits in those spots where I can be hurt, or something that, rarely, can disturb even me. Not all hearts are as pure and pretty as we'd like to believe, but I still have to see to them all the same. "What right have I to see so much? I've wondered it myself. Truth is I don't know the answer, but fate put me here. I cannot ignore my calling to it. I try to do good by it, I try to be worthy of the privilege I've been given. That's the least and the best I can do, and I will keep doing it. I can only hope that it will be enough." > Crawling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a small thing, about the size of a large insect by that point. Downright tiny if compared to what it had once been. Yet it had to be, at that point, it could not have survived and sustained itself as anything bigger than that. That besides, its small size aided it in its situation. The ease with which it moved through the spaces of ponies' homes was a welcome thing to it, and the reduced dimensions made it quite hard to be properly spotted, especially with the cover of the night with which it moved. It allowed it too to more easily hide during the day, needing only to find small undisturbed spaces where it could rest in the dark, waiting for the Sun to fall beyond the horizon again. At that moment, for example, it lay at the bottom of a closet. It had snuck in that morning, when the sleepy stallion who inhabited that house had gone to open it and fetch his suit for the day. It had dashed into it from beneath the pony's bed, taking advantage of his lack of attention. It lay in wait there, knowing the pony would soon return. It had similarly taken shelter in drawers and nightstands and cabinets before, always unseen, always undetected. If the ponies noticed something, they assumed it was nothing more than a bug or perhaps a spider. It knew how to hide well, and those who looked never found it if they thought something had been there. It would however grow soon. It could feel as much. It had been eating well, and soon it was going to grow. That would make it harder to move around unnoticed, and harder to pass for a simple common insect found in houses. It would not be big enough to yet attack ponies openly however, it still would need to hide and lurk in the dark. It was best if it found a different, more permanent hiding spot. An unoccupied attic or shed would do, something it could easily leave from and return to when hunting at night, somewhere ponies wouldn't often look. It would grow to be about the size of a small dog, perhaps a little more. Food was plentiful, and rather easy to acquire. The most dangerous parts of the night were the process of reaching its desired destination, and that of moving to a different house when the occasion called for it. There was no way to know in advance how long it would spend in one place, not without first spending a night there. It in general though avoided houses with more than a pony in them, and houses with pets or animals of most kinds. Rarely it made exceptions for groups of ponies big enough for some of them to have their own room, thus allowing it to exist there only having to worry about a single pony during the night. Shared bedrooms were a deal breaker still, it was simply unfeasible to attach to a pony with another one in the same bed or even just in the same room. > Scrawling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Tired?" "Very." Lyra's words were hardly audible, half muffled by the pillow she half laid her head upon. She kept her back turned away from the room and away from Bon Bon, though purely because that meant she wasn't looking at the candle illuminating it either. The room itself was more like a tent, a temporary abode put up to house them during the night. They could have returned home through portals, but they'd chosen against that for the time being. They weren't sure how long they'd stick around the Empire, but at least for that night they would stay there. Bon Bon leaned into her chair until the joints in her back popped, then sighed. "Me too." There was an empty bed waiting for her. She was debating moving it to sit next to Lyra's. The day had been draining to say the least, but she just couldn't get herself to fall asleep yet, she knew if she got in bed then she'd just keep turning around. It wasn't like being tired after a hard day of work, the excitement of everything they'd gone through meant she was too nervous and aware still to collapse. But hopefully it would go away soon. She did wonder why it wasn't the same for Lyra. She realised she could just ask her. "How come you're already all ready to drop? I thought all that adrenaline would keep you up too." "I've been up for longer than you." Even with the light still on, the way Lyra enunciated made it apparent that she was already falling asleep. Bon Bon was sleepy enough to take a few seconds to process those words. Frowning she said, "No. We woke up at the same time. We all did, Luna helped with sleep and stuff." "After that," Lyra said. Bon Bon frowned again. "That doesn't... Oh! Right. Your coil." She yawned. "So you're more tired because of that, then?" "For one, I'm tired because of using it," Lyra said. She sounded a little more awake as she explained herself. "But also, it means today I've been up for I think a couple hours more than you. Not physically, I don't think that carries over since wounds don't, but mentally it does." She too yawned, louder and deeper than Bon Bon. "I'm you in a couple hours. Now can you turn off the light, please?" Bon Bon sighed. She looked at the candle, then got off her chair and snuffed it out. Lyra gave a muffled sound that was probably meant to be a kind of thanks. Bon Bon quietly got to her bed. She knew she'd be spinning around in it awhile, so she decided against moving it closer to where Lyra was. She didn't want to disturb her. She hoped the unicorn wouldn't start to snore. She usually didn't snore, but sometimes she did, and she hoped that wouldn't be one of those days with the new bed and all. It would not be a good night for Lyra to snore. > Demons > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Some scars never really fade. Some things you just can't seem to get past, no matter how much you try. You keep going in circles over and over facing the same problem, trying to get past the same obstacle. Always coming back to the same moment, the same memory, and no matter how much and how often you work on it you never really seem to get past it. Life keeps pushing you back and you feel like you're stuck in the same spot, falling back into the same hole no matter how many times you climb out. No matter what it's like you can never truly lift the weight off your shoulders. It's like a wound that won't heal. You wake up every morning to find it's bleeding again." Starlight looked to the side, slightly swaying back and forth. "That's what I am for you, am I not? Part of it at least. Your whole situation. Doesn't matter what you do, you always fail to free yourself from your own past." Stella looked at her, annoyed confusion in her eyes. "Are you trying to understand me?" she asked, almost mockingly. "Offering help, perhaps?" At that Starlight chuckled. "No. I'm trying to hurt you. Violent reactions would only amuse you and contempt would likely just spur you on. I'm reading you." She turned to look at the alicorn. Her face was determined. "I want you to know that I know what's going through your head. Because it's going to drive you mad. I don't need to gloat about it, or seem compassionate towards you, or show any emotion. I just need to state it. That's what you're going to hate the most." Stella was quite talented at putting on a show of feigned indifference, even without her coil. "Would you really choose to do that, knowing it'll only lead to me hurting you more if you're right, without giving you any satisfaction?" Starlight laughed again, more openly at that. "Hurt me? I've done worse things than the ones you've done to me. I know what torture can really be like. I'm not part of your plans, am I?" Her expression grew stern, angry. "Unlike Chrysalis. That was a planned out thing. I saw it on her face, whatever you put her through it was drawn out and carefully executed. I'm just a punching bag you come to when your own insecurities get to you. You don't have a plan for me like you did for her, and you can't afford to because you need me to stay normal." She progressively calmed as she spoke, and eventually once more switched to a mocking tone. "If you're going to torture me, at least put in some actual effort. I refuse to sit around for this mediocrity you're trying to get away with." Stella stood there, staring at Starlight and trying not to make the shaking of her breath too evident to the unicorn. Eventually her horn began to shine. "Very well," she said, in a tone that could almost pass for calm. > Checkmate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever have dreams?" A pony steps onto the stage. An earth pony. A stallion. He's missing a leg. One of his front legs. His left front leg. He stumbles a little as he walks. He's of average build, maybe slightly taller than the average. His mane and coat are not in bright colours. He does not appear to be bothered by his own limping, he seems to be used to it. He refuses to use a cane or crutch or any other aid or support of the sort. He takes a bit to get to the centre of the stage. From their elevated positions the audience members look on. His steps clack crystalline against the glass. He speaks. His words ring loudly within the space, almost echoing within its confines. His voice is clear, undisturbed, solid and sustained. What he says is certain, properly enunciated, unmistakable. No one else speaks as he does, to avoid disturbing him or those willing to listen. He says, "I have heard your words. I have seen your plans. I will not partake in them. I will obey no would be prophecy of yours." There is murmuring among the crowd. Light at first, it slowly grows more agitated. No words can be made out, but the meaning behind them is clear. The audience has not taken kindly to what the pony has said. There may be consequences for it. Insubordination like this will not stand. "Silence." It is the stallion who spoke once again. He has not raised his voice, aware that he does not need to, as the theatre will carry regardless its sound around. He does not sound angry or annoyed. His expression is stern. Silence falls again. Though they do not like the pony following his most recent declaration, the audience still sufficiently respects him. Blue fire ignites at the edge of the stage. Five flames at odd intervals, quite tall although their bases are contained. They only slightly dance and wave, there is little wind inside the room to begin with. "You will not speak against me," continues the pony. "You will not change my mind. You will not have me in chains. I will maintain my freedom, with violence if it shall prove necessary. You will not stand in the way of my will." This time the crowd erupts. There is sound and commotion and whistling and booing and yelling abound. The audience did not like that, it did not one bit. The voices continue to rise, yet the pony on the stage does not flinch. The voices are all addressed at him. Where before there was chitchat, now there's only directed outrage. Still he calmly stares the mass down, uncaring of the severity and size of their reaction. He does not fear them, not even as they talk of how he will be punished. The stallion rears up on his hind legs. His front hoof smacks down into the ground. The mirror shatters, blue fire spreads through it. The theatre burns down. > Burden > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm starting to understand something." "What is it?" "Why I'm here. Why I'm still here, after everything." "And why is that?" "First, let me ask you something. Why do you do what you do? Why do you live on?" "Because I think it's right, I suppose. Because there are others I want to help. Because, if I go, there are things that someone else will have to do, or they will be left undone. Because if I stay I can do those things, and help others, not just immediately but in the long run too. And, well, I have personal ambitions too of course, but those are... secondary, I suppose. I like success, the fame, personal gratification, but not at the cost of hurting others, and not helping them would count as that. And I have things I want to do. Things in my head that I want out of just there and into the physical world. When I look at my friends, at those I help, at those I make happy with what I do whether that's something big or small, that... It makes me happy. It makes it worth it. All the sleepless nights and tiring days. I can be a bother sometimes, I know that, but I like to think I can have my head straight when things get serious. I'm not always right on that, but I've been trying my best. I'm told I've been getting better. Anyway, yes, back to your question. Making others' lives better betters my own, I guess is my answer." "That's a fair way to live. Noble, even. Had I seen it sooner I might have seen to that. Of course, I could hardly see at that time, I suppose that's the irony of it. Fate does seem to delight in mocking me, and hardly can I blame it for that. But I did promise you an answer. I'll start a little earlier, forgive my theatrics, let me have some fun. For a while... Oh, I don't think anything of my old life can be confined to just a while, not even a relative while. For a time, I lived only for myself. That was an earlier time, I was younger and more stupid than even the young and stupid self I've grown to loathe. For a time I delighted in the praise. I truly thought all that was said of me was right. Those days came and went, and I won't dwell on those events. Then came a time where I was meant, in my mind, to work on something." "And what was that?" "Something better. I belived, at first, the crowning jewel of my display of magnificence. The more I came to look at my life, the more I believed it should instead be something better than myself. Now I'm not even sure of that, or if perhaps I haven't just failed. It's done regardless, still here I am. I've thought to myself long and hard about the reasons for that. Not to atone. That is melodramatic beyond even my limits, and still it is far too kind on myself. Not just to witness, or to narrate. That is someone else's role, for sure I know that. I am here to make something of myself. I don't know what, I don't know when. I have been given a life, and I am to shape it. For once it won't be anyone else's. Maybe that will mean I will be kind to it." > Dm > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The lights in the room were already switched on, despite the relatively early hour. They reflected in the glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, in the polished counter, and in the smooth tiled floor. Not many ponies were in the room, though more would most likely come as the evening turned to night. Still the space behind the counter was unattended, empty, though the contents there were not in any danger of theft while under the watchful eye of the guard near the door. A mare sat there, relatively alone. She'd brought her own glass, and was drinking from a bottle also her own. "It's just a lemonade," she said, as a pony sat next to her. "Well, mostly. Maybe lemon juice is more appropriate? Water, lemon juice, salt, a little sugar. Some alcohol. Not that much alcohol." She'd dressed up slightly for the occasion. Not quite a full on dress, but silver bands around her hooves with round blue gems in them, and some odd cross between a necklace and a scarf going from one shoulder to midway along her body's length on the opposite side, its fabric silver too, it nicely complemented her light blue coat. She moved aside some of the bangs of her two tone mane as she turned to look at the stallion who'd sat bedside her. He looked at her. He seemed some mixture of annoyed, worried, and surprised. His coat was dark, though not quite black, and his mane was copper green, well kept. His eyes were a deep blue, almost purple. He did not wear any kind of dress, although he was still well groomed enough not to look out of place there. His hooves were polished, his horn too, his posture elegant without being overly noticeable, subtly contained. Yet his features as he looked at the mare betrayed the way not everything was right at that moment. "So you're our mare?" "No one's mare but my own," she said back. "Don't get strange ideas just because I'm working for you. With you. Eh." She drank from her glass again. "Would have been more fun if you'd been wearing something. Could have given you a better demonstration that way. Oh well." The stallion still seemed distrustful. A reasonable reaction given the mare's attitude. "You'd do better showing me something good, or I might think you think this is some kind of game. Call me Dust, and you?" "Still going by Brush." The mare put the cap back on her bottle, then rolled it down the pavement towards the guard. "And it is a game, to me. We're having fun." She passed the bottle to Dust. "Now shut up and watch this. I think I timed it right." She kept her eyes on the rolling bottle. Dust watched quietly, bottle in hoof, as the rolling one slowly reached the guard and bumped into his leg. The guard picked it up, looked at it, then walked back to the two ponies with it. "Miss, your..." He trailed off, putting forward an empty hoof. The mare leaned her head to the side, putting on a slightly drunker tone. "What's your damage, friend?" > Dreams > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When you really think about it, and you should think about it, and I do hope you think about it, and honestly if you don't think about it I'm not sure what you're doing with your time, or maybe you're young, or maybe you simply have very different priorities from mine, and who am I to judge but seriously, I'm me, it's weird that if even I do it you wouldn't, come on, I'm me, but anyway, it really, and I mean really, seriously, positively, not negatively, kinda weird how that works out actually, truly showcases how peculiar we all are, each different, mostly different at least, and yet similar, mostly similar, but we are all of the same species after all, not that other species don't also have something similar, or even identical, not something I've ever seen or been in though, which I should probably fix but I'm not sure if I can, if I could do it myself, if I could just ask, if maybe there's some kind of law or convention or unspoken agreement or maybe even just a fundamental, biological incompatibility that not even magic can solve, not even magic this powerful, that would be quite weird considering all the things this magic can do really, it almost feels limitless, I've seen it, or well I've imagined it, I've only seen bits of it and yet even just those bits made it feel so grand, so incredible, and it's not even the greatest stuff it can do so just think of the possibilities, the endless field of anything that could be, literally anything you can conjure up and even things you cannot think of, not right now, things your mind will conjure up in secret, hidden from you, and yet in all that as I've said you notice similarities, you see things so alike other things and patterns and repetitions, you really notice them the more you look at it, at the whole thing and everything and I've done that for a while, for many nights by now, for almost every night since I've taken on this role and for some afternoons too, as I still take naps, and still I find other ponies also taking naps which is quite honestly rather nice and of course, it's always nice to find others who share your habits, and deep down as I'm saying we're all similar, we're all in some ways alike, it's those different parts that set us apart but we all have similarities, as far as I've seen at least, I haven't seen everything and everyone and far from me to claim something like that, it would be ridiculous and exaggerated and I've honestly seen just enough, despite or perhaps because I've seen so much, to know I've seen nothing at all in the grand scale of things, nothing but a tiny fraction, but I would still say it's a representative one, randomly chosen as it was it certainly can't have been a minority, but perhaps of course minorities were instead missed, they're still out there, still for me to find and see and all that stuff and such." > Partners in Dime > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So why do you want this thing so much anyway?" the unicorn asked. "It can't just be money given what you're paying me, you clearly don't have a problem with that. Unless it really is worth that much more, in which case I want a raise." The stallion waited a bit to answer, enough time for the ponies passing in front of them to get away from close hearing range. He spoke quietly to avoid being heard by the crowd around them, though the general carpet of their chitchat meant it was harder for anyone to single out their conversation regardless. He seemed a little bothered by his companion's lack of care for secrecy. "It is worth a lot, but you're right, it's not just money. You're not getting a raise." "What is it then?" The mare leaned in a little closer, looking curiously at the other unicorn's face. "Personal business," the unicorn said. "Just do what I'm paying you to do. No questions besides that. These are private matters." The mare drew back, sighed and shrugged. "Alright then." She had a look around at the crowd. "So when are we doing our big act?" Dust had a look around as well. "Give it a while longer, girl. Still too much commotion and too little focused attention. They'd immediately catch us if we did it now." Brush grabbed a drink off of a nearby pony's trail, plucking it from its kin. "Fair enough." She took a sip. It was something green, slightly alcoholic, and seemingly it had some lime in it. "Want to have some fun until the time comes? It'll make us look less out of place." Dust thought about it. He grabbed some food from a passing trail as he gave it some more thought. "Point," he said, "but no drinking, no dancing, and no getting into chats with strangers. We don't want to leave an impression, we don't want to go into this while drunk, and believe me when I say you don't want to dance with me." Brush shrugged again. "Alright then. Anything in particular you want to do?" Dust again thought a little as they began to walk through the crowd. "There's a small art gallery here too. We could go have a look at that. Pretend we're just trying to dodge the crowd until things calm down, probably run into a couple trying to have some private time together. I'd prefer it to being here." "Not a fan of crowds, eh?" Brush downed the remaining entirety of her drink, then set the glass down on a nearby table. "Honesty that's a little surprising. Say, do you do things like this often?" "What things?" "You know." Brush vaguely gestured around. "Not the party, the reason we're here." "On occasion," Dust replied. "Not as often as some of my associates do." "When am I getting to meet them?" "In due time," Dust said. "Probably after tonight, if everything goes according to plan." "Well, let's hope it does then," Brush said. "This way for the art gallery?" > Cancer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You can't hang yourself with candle wick. That's unfortunately all I have." "Who are you?" A nightmare. The shop burning, the door sealed shut. And walking, in corridors she'd only ever seen in her memory, running away from something she never managed to outrun. Her secrets found and yet forgotten. Dying alone. She awoke in cold sweat, her cheeks damp with tears she didn't remember crying, her lungs sore. She looked around. Her room. Her room as she always remembered it, as it always was, her desk messy and uncleaned with garbage pushed aside and some tumbled off and unfinished projects she never continued to work on. She would probably never clean it. She'd die sooner, or end up somewhere else. The window was opened. It was hot enough outside during the day to justify keeping it open at night. Some wind was coming in. Not unpleasant. Not cold enough to be. She didn't want to get up. Didn't feel like it. She pushed the light covers aside, then pulled them back over herself. She looked at the ceiling without really looking at it, lying on her back, thinking back through her dreams in her mind. It was all crashing and crumbling together, bit by bit fading, only moments retained in her mind that she knew would sooner or later be gone too. They weren't real memories though they felt like it. Try to sleep again? She should. She would. Not right then. It would just be pointless thrashing around and turning and shutting her eyes trying to empty her head only for her mind to wander about aimless unable to find rest. Much as she was doing then and she would do, but it would be on purpose, not frustrating when she remembered she was instead supposed to sleep. Maybe she would collapse from exhaustion sooner or later. She pulled up her pillow to dry her tears on it. She didn't want light, but she had no candles anyway in her room. She cried into her pillow some more. Her mane was getting tangled. She'd need to brush it in the morning. Or maybe not. Would anyone care? Would anyone ask about it? Would they just look at it and think to themselves, and maybe talk behind her back, or would they just ignore it? Was it worth it at all? Was it worth it to get up, to go to sleep, to worry and wonder about any of it? She was falling asleep. Again drifting into unconsciousness and the unbound recesses of her mind, for her unshackled fears and secrets and worries to play with her. It would hurt, and she would cry, and she would forget, and nothing would change. Just like it always was. Changes came during the day and night never brought her anything new, only visions and torment from what she'd already lived through, already thought through. A library with no books in the middle of the night. She looked up at the sky. The Moon was there, but nothing else. She was not alone, and the other spoke first. "There are no stars in the sky. I ate them all." "Who am I?" > Pisces > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'Where were you, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?' "How did it start?" It had been months before. "Months ago." When the Behemoth came to Canterlot, and she gazed into its shadow. "I was out in the fields." "How did it start?" The room was cold. Metaphorically cold, perhaps the right word was sterile. Whether it was physically cold too, Applejack could no longer tell. She was sitting over one of those padded bed-like tables she'd come to associate with doctors' offices, she'd never learned the proper name for it. Not an operating table, or at least she was pretty sure it didn't count as one. No operation would be conducted there either way. The light streamed in from a window, in the kind of way that highlighted the rays of sunlight themselves through the motes of fine dust suspended in the air. The room wasn't literally sterile, even if it felt like it. The window itself was closed. Then the light bounced back off the crystal pavement and crystal walls. Not in painful ways, not in ways that directed rays of it into anyone's eyes. The whole scene looked to her less warm than it should have. She knew that because she'd been in the castle before, in similar weather conditions, and she remembered what that had looked like. What she was seeing then looked different. Evidently whatever she had did not affect her memories, but it was stopping her from properly reliving some of them. "Applejack." Twilight's voice was firm, worried, caring, demanding, all at once. It had a depth to it, a breadth, a set of intertwined layers. It reminded Applejack of Celestia's voice, and she looked at Twilight. And the alicorn asked once again, "How did it start?" Applejack still saw it, in her mind. "When the Behemoth came to Canterlot," she said. Then, she continued, "I looked at it. I think I looked beyond it. I don't know what I saw. All I know is that I felt cold. Real cold. Starting from inside of me." She swallowed. Twilight looked at Applejack. There was a strange, profound compassion in her eyes. She looked taller than she was, and not just because she was standing and Applejack was sitting. "How strong was it?" Twilight asked, writing something down, holding back a dozen other questions. Maybe there would be time for them, maybe not. Her friend was still more important to her than the knowledge she could get out of her. Applejack tried to recall. "Not much, at first. Not after the first moments. I think my head just ignored it for a while. Then it got stronger, for a while. I got sick. Pretended it was nothing, told no one about it. It died down for a while. Thought I could just live with it, and I'd only have to bring it up if it flared up again." She looked Twilight in the eyes. "Why did Nightmare Moon make it come back so strong?" Twilight Sparkle looked downwards at Applejack. "The thing we faced, what that Nightmare Moon became... We saw the arrival of another Behemoth, or something equivalent to it." > Aquarium > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Silence. Still silence. It shouldn't have been there. Twilight took a deep breath in, felt the smell of the air around her, had another look around. Long since unthreatened by the prospect of enemy fire at that point, she'd flown up before to observe that portion of the city from above. Even Nightmare Moon's outburst had left it almost fully intact. The burnt signs in the ground her magic had left, covered by the rubble but still there. She'd moved all the debris aside to properly study the pattern, though there was not much she could learn by just looking at things from up there. She had measuring equipment with her, but she hadn't used it yet. There was something about simply standing in the middle of the area that was enough to perceive how odd it was, something no amount of data would properly get across. The way the air smelled, the way it tasted if she opened her mouth to it. The subtlest buzz of something in the ground beneath her hooves. The silence. The place shouldn't have been as silent as it was. Wind didn't pass there. Even when there was wind outside, it didn't exist there. There was no clear, defined limit to the area. When walking in, the changes felt subtle, hard to notice even if one was paying attention and looking out for them. Until, suddenly, they were not. Suddenly one noticed the silence, the way the air felt. Suddenly a look around at the singed white markings on the ground was cast and it felt like being somewhere else, somewhere alien. Twilight had gotten a couple other ponies there, without warning them. She'd watched their reactions. She'd bring Celestia there eventually as well. At that moment she was leaving her be. After the torture she'd undergone and what had happened to Luna, she had a right to some time with herself, to sort out her ideas and find some rest. As much as Twilight did not like having to admit it, Celestia's sheer volume of knowledge still outclassed hers, so it was possible she would know more about the phenomenon she was observing or recognise something similar in it. She'd have her called, maybe later that day, maybe the day after. No. She'd go herself. She wouldn't put up any coldness for once. Celestia still deserved consequences for what she'd done, but at that moment her burden far outweighed her due punishment. She deserved help. Twilight shook her head, focusing on the scene around her again. Ought to have been the silence getting her distracted. It was easy to think there, easy to let her mind wander elsewhere. She pondered the possibility of casting other spells there. Eventually she would have to try. There was a peculiar, not unpleasant itching on her horn. Something similar in her wings, in the spaces between each feather, it she spread them. She pulled out her measuring equipment, her notebook, and began writing down the readings she got. Maybe not immediately, not with everything else she'd been warned to keep track of, but she'd eventually figure out what was going on there. > Scorpio > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So what's with the, uh..." "Yeah?" "The mane, and the tail. And the horn I guess. What's with those?" "I'm half kirin, on my mother's side." "Oh. That's nice. How did that come about?" "Well, I wasn't around for it, but, you know. Dad got around. He wasn't quite from around here either." "I see. Does that have any other implications besides the looks? Do you have fire magic or something?" "Not as far as I know. No angry flaming business for me. At least so far, though I do hope I don't find out in unfortunate circumstances. I've got enough problems under my hooves without accidentally burning down a building or something." "Yeah. We only burn buildings on purpose here." "Exactly. Hey. Since you asked that, can I ask you a question too?" "Sure." "What's your cutie mark about?" "Do you want to get a closer look and try to guess?" "I am not putting my face next to a filly's butt in a public space, thank you. You'll just have to tell me." "Oh, fine. It's about analysing the abstract meaning of writing or something like that. If you look at it close enough you'll see it's actually a quill with an ink drop." "Oh, that's pretty nice. Explains why you read so much." "What about yours?" "Huh?" "Your cutie mark." "It's a key." "Yeah, I can see that. What does it represent? Are you good at opening gates or something?" "Well, no, or at least not as far as I know. I think it's a visual metaphor for getting through to others. I'm good at talking to ponies and pushing them in certain directions. Creative directions, mostly. Knew a pegasus, an architect. I encouraged him to follow his heart and try his wing at being an artist in his spare time. Another friend I encouraged into being a writer. And, in general, talking to others, getting to know them. I think I'm good at that." "Neat. Explains why you clicked so well with me, I guess. Put like that it's actually kind of weird. Does it ever feel weird?" "Sometimes. Sometimes I tend to pry where maybe I shouldn't. It is what it is." "You don't seem too upset about it." "When it's your special talent, you get used to it. I think the difference is that most ponies' special talents are something that's more private, or at least privately done. Even when it's a publicly performed action, the action itself is confined to the individual. Specifically social cutie marks are a minority." "I guess they are. Can't really think of too many examples off the top of my head. None at all, really, but I'm sure there are others with similar talents." "There ought to be. I really don't think I'm that special. I'd like to talk to someone else with a similar talent, actually. That would probably be fun. Or deeply unsettling if we deliberately started to get under each other's skin the way I know I can do and usually deliberately avoid. Which is its own kind of fun." > Unwitnessed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. To her, at the very least, and she was sure it would be for anyone else too if they could have seen the way things really were. Of course, they couldn't, no one could, which was what made the whole thing so entertaining in the first place. No one and especially not Twilight. Poor Twilight. So focused on finding a solution, an answer to her questions, and the answer was standing right there alongside her. Mocking her. Stella looked to everypony else there like one of the researchers Twilight had brought along. It didn't matter that her false name wasn't on any list or that they'd never seen or heard of the pony she pretended to be before. They looked at her, and they knew she was supposed to be there. The moment they'd all go their separate ways, they'd never question her presence there. It was just fun to live through, for a while at least. But it was good, too. It was efficient. Keeping track of what Twilight knew and thought and speculated by being right there, spying her up close right as things happened. That she got to have fun while doing it was just an added bonus. The satisfaction of mocking Twilight was more than welcome, but it wasn't the sole reason for her presence there, neither the first one. At that moment, Twilight was still conducting tests on the area the explosion had eliminated. Mostly to try to discern something about the spell used to activate the scale. That could and most likely would work, but it wouldn't give Twilight enough to get close to Stella in any meaningful way. In the meantime, she'd sent a few others scouting around the area for traces of anyone who could have been there, responsible for setting off the explosion. They wouldn't find anything, Stella had made certain of that, she'd left no tracks behind. Stella wasn't properly helping Twilight and the other two ponies there. She at most could be said to be providing moral support. Whenever they looked at her, they knew she was busy with something else at that moment, and they shouldn't ask something of her. Or maybe she wasn't the right pony for the exact thing they needed right then. It was never weird. It was always very funny. Their eyes settled on her for a moment, then they shook their heads. It was somewhat fascinating to watch the other alicorn up close like that. Before then, Stella had mostly done so at times when Twilight was under pressure, in immediate danger. There instead she got to see her being more relaxed, closer to how she normally was in her life. She was so similar to her in so many ways, and yet still so different in others. Some of her mannerisms were indistinguishable. Subtle feather twitches, angles at which she turned her head, the way her eyes moved. It was almost like looking in a mirror. A disgusting mirror where her image appeared onto a far lesser creature, but a mirror nonetheless. > Toll > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Why do you think you won today?" Twilight tilted her head to the side. It was the kind of question that was going to get an answer properly from him, only asked to tease her. Only to give her a chance at guessing what he was going to say. For once, she decided to play along, rather than simply being herself and waiting it out. "Because we cheated." The Charioteer almost looked impressed at that. Almost, but not quite. He kept his reaction contained, avoiding giving Twilight any real satisfaction. "That you did," he said. "More than you realise." That, of course, piqued Twilight's interest. "Really?" "No details." Evidently, he'd gotten her too comfortable with things, and he was trying to annoy her again. He wasn't failing at it. For some reason, he had a talent for getting under her skin. "I do want to stress this, however. Nightmare Moon, given what she knew, played her cards right. You won because of things she was not aware of, and because forces you were and still largely are not aware of either came to side with you. Had it not been for that, you would have lost on each occasion, and even with Starshine tipping the scales so massively in your favour. Had it not been for Celestia's coil, Luna would be dead. You cheated, and you were lucky." Twilight held herself back from scowling. "Are you saying we didn't earn this victory? Or maybe that we would have deserved significant losses?" "Nothing unfair about cheating in war. Not if it means you win at least, if it doesn't then your opponent will do it too and then the situation gets muddy and you realise maybe there's a reason you shouldn't commit war crimes. Though your case is different, and your enemy wouldn't have been the kind to play fair." The Charioteer shook his head. "No, Twilight. I'm not chiding you for your past. Besides, if those who helped you did that's nothing to blame the world for. I'm warning you about the future. How many times do you think you can get lucky? How many chances will you have to cheat?" Twilight breathed in and out. "Enough. Unless I don't. Then it won't be my problem anymore." She scoffed. "Are you here to taunt me with vague possibilities about the future? I thought you were above that, but maybe I was mistaken." The Charioteer properly smirked at that. Twilight didn't know if it meant she'd impressed him or amused him in wrongness. That, like anything he did, bothered her a fair deal. "No, you're right. There would be no fun if I just gave away all the answers, but what fun is there in keeping the questions too vague too?" He clicked his tongue. Then he was silent for a bit, watching Twilight. That got her a little nervous. Eventually she caved in. "What is it?" "Oh, nothing. You just reminded me of someone. Anyway, where were we?" He looked around. "Oh, right. The future." > Sii Mii > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How nice of you to stop for breakfast," Twilight said, placing down a plate of pancakes before the unicorn. "You usually leave so quickly." "Well, today is a special day, after everything that happened yesterday." He meant the battle, but also the way he'd passed out drunk on a couch in the castle after opening yet another bottle. Twilight had found him already awake and cleaned, and he would have to privately thank whoever had seen to that and to scrubbing away the traces of the mess he'd made. "How come you're back? I thought you'd stay in the Empire." "I will go back there later today," Twilight said while sitting down. "I just came to get some equipment I'll need. Then I found you and I realised how I hungry I was, and I figured I could stay here a little for breakfast." The Sun was still low on the horizon, its light entering through the windows almost horizontally. The kitchen was surprisingly rather bare, in contrast with the sheer exuberance of the living crystal it was built out of. If he hadn't had much more pressing matters to account for, he would have dedicated time to studying the nature of that building. It fascinated him, as did most other things in that world that were so alien to the one he'd lived in. Although, he knew, there would have been other issues regardless. He was painfully aware of that, and he knew the castle wouldn't just magically empty itself of inhabitants even without the laboratory there. He did suppose that sticking to exclusively staying inside the building could mitigate the problem, but he didn't know for sure. He'd almost gone for a walk outside the evening before, or maybe he had, he couldn't remember quite right things past a certain point. Maybe his memories came from earlier than that, and he hadn't noticed them before. Regardless of what had actually happened, his thoughts still compelled him to ask something before Twilight inevitably brought the conversation onto some actually important topic. "There's a filly who lives here in town, a little orange pegasus with a purple mane, isn't there? She goes around with a scooter." Twilight frowned, more in surprise than botherment. "Scootaloo, yeah. Why? Did something happen with her?" "Scootaloo." The stallion tasted her name on his lips. He shook his head at Twilight. "No, nothing bad, I just happened to see her and she caught my eye. If I can ask, if it's not being too indiscreet, what is with her wings? They, you know..." He didn't finish the sentence, instead he began to eat his pancakes. "Oh. You've noticed too." Twilight also cut herself a piece of pancakes, then she frowned and looked at the table. Lighting her horn, she opened a cupboard and levitated a jug of apple juice out, alongside a pair of glasses from a nearby drawer. "I've never properly looked into it, I'm not an expert in medicine, but I have talked with her friends about it." > Meddle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What's this painting about?" "It's about bats." "I can see that. But what is it about? What's the meaning behind it?" "I have no idea. I didn't make the painting. I didn't read up anything about it. I didn't even know it existed before seeing it." "Sorry. I figured you might have some experience with art or something." "None at all, actually. Never really been to a museum outside of school visits back in the day, or the occasional obligated trip whilst on vacation. It's not that I dislike art or something, but I don't find it particularly engaging or at the top of my priority list." "That's fair enough. Do you at least like this one? On a personal level, no need to justify it." "I like the technique. I don't really like the colours though. I feel like they're too dark and muddy and uniform. It makes the whole thing feel too needlessly moody. It's not even depressing, it's just too brown. Throw some blue in there." "Do you like blue?" "Find me a pony who doesn't like the colour of the sky." "You know what we should do?" "What?" "Wear masks. Like, domino masks or something similar. That would be cool." "That would make us stand out horribly and probably raise suspicions about us that would otherwise have no reason to exist." "But we would look cool. Maybe put them on when we run away?" "We don't have masks with us. Are you suggesting we leave in the middle of this to go grab a pair of masks?" "I could probably sneak out and come back. It's not like anyone would notice." "There are guards around the perimeter. They would notice. They would absolutely notice." "Well, okay, I guess that might look kind of suspicious to them." Dust looked at the painting some more, then moved on to another one, and Brush followed him. They were still killing time in the gallery, and surprisingly had only run into two couples trying to eat each other's faces in places vaguely similar to corners by then. They still had ample time to get back, both the reason they were there and the one they pretended to be there for wouldn't require their attention for a while longer. Looking at art, even if boring, was the best way to pass the time without arousing suspicions, as staying in the main room but refusing all small talk with the other guests would have seemed out of place. "Say," said Brush to Dust as they stood in front of the next piece of artwork. She spoke quietly as to not disturb the second couple they'd found, at that moment on a couch refusing to go elsewhere even though there were others there. Maybe they liked it that way. "Once this whole thing is done, payment and all, then what? Do you have any other plans for me, anything I could work on?" Dust looked sideways at her. "Do you want to work on something else? I could probably find something, but it'll depend on how things go." > Mud > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That's surprising." "What is?" "You're sober today. You even slept enough, and you must have gone to bed early if you're up now looking this fresh." "Maybe I'm just on cocaine." "Trust me. I spent enough time working in Canterlot to tell. You're not. Besides, they don't sell coke at the bar." Light cut in through the open window and into the room. It wasn't quite early in the morning anymore, but it was not late either, it was still closer to dawn than to noon. The air outside was ever so slightly humid, a pleasant thing given the relative heat of the Sun. Lightning's bedroom was tidier than usual. No litter on the floor, no things too out of place, even her bed had a relative order to it, as much as a bed could after a pegasus had woken up in it. The pillow was slightly askew, the covers were rumpled, but no more than could be reasonably expected. And the mare herself, as Silver had noted, was doing perfectly okay. Maybe not great, but okay, and okay was more than could be said about her on a number of mornings. She chuckled. Silver thought she looked serene, and her expression light-hearted. "I've sworn off the stuff on work days, you should know that. Getting wasted is reserved for when I'm tired but done for the day, and I don't have anything the day after." She leaned to each side, stretching her neck and popping joints in her shoulders and wings. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm still in service, and I could be called in again at any moment. It's a bit of a shame that we did basically nothing all of yesterday, but I'm glad things went well even without us." "And I'm glad to hear you're glad." Silver gave a nod. He shuffled in place for a moment, looking around. "I suppose I will be going now, unless you want me to stay for breakfast." Lightning thought about it, not too long but certainly fairly hard. "If you want to, and you don't have anything else you need to take care of, I don't really mind," she eventually said. "But I'm not sure I have anything ready. Feel free to look, maybe I have some eggs and milk. Otherwise we could also go outside and have something together, what do you say?" Silver was already looking through her cupboards. "How do you feel about bread in the morning?" "Not usually my thing, but it looks like my stomach isn't threatening to throw out anything I might attempt to swallow this morning so I could give it a shot." "Butter?" "In the upper shelf." Silver dug through the cupboards some more, occasionally pulling out something and placing it on the counter. Lightning watched him from her seat, occasionally giving direction or commenting on what else he could grab. They eventually settled on what could reasonably be described as half sandwiches, bread then butter then lettuce then different other things to each's preference. Silver got some cheese on his, and Lighting didn't. They drank orange juice, milk, and some pear juice too. > Blade > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was very little light in the room. As little as the thick drawn curtains allowed in, and even less than that as a veil of thicker bubbling shadow settled over the gaps. Some of it had condensed on the walls, sliding down to the floor as thick black wetness that pooled in the corners of the room and left dark marks where it slid, like slugs had passed there. Sparse black feathers were in the room, some floating, some immobile on the ground. The ceiling was a mass of writhing black tentacles, occasionally dripping down a few oozing droplets. A pattern drawn in white and red chalk over the moquette decorated the floor, lined with symbols and sentences in arcane tongues even the one who'd traced them didn't properly understand. Barbed wired stuck out in places along the pattern, sprouting through the floor like a weed growing in it. Small skulls of tiny animals like rats and birds grew on its spikes like fruit on a tree. Pinkie lay in the middle of the room and the pattern, naked, shivering, holding herself in a fetal position. A cloak of shadowy feathers occasionally manifested over her, then dissipated like smoke moments later, undone by the increasing quaking of her body. She bled, sometimes, dark red blood slipping out of her wounds and flowing along the chalk pattern. Other times she had no wounds. Her breath was ragged, difficult, struggling always like something was fighting against it. Shadows swirled and twirled and coalesced into a raven's head beside her own, hollow eye sockets staring at the skin pulled taut over her skull. Her breathing quickened, her eyes darted around before finding the emanation. "I don't want this anymore," she said. Her hands clutched nothing but themselves as she held them between her chin and neck, her nails dug into her palms and when she bled she bled there too. "I can't take it anymore. I can't go on." Her voice was shrill, hoarse, her cadence was erratic. The darkness did not answer. Its tiny raven head tilted to the side, then shred itself into whisps of black smoke. They flowed unnaturally towards her face, like snakes slithering through the air. Some entered her, through her nose or eyes or ears, some merely passed over her, wrapping themselves around her neck and shoulders and upper arms. Besides herself Pinkie stopped shivering, as a deep dark warmth spread over and into her. A few minutes passed in silence. The girl swallowed. Slowly she raised herself, one hand pushing up. She sat, still naked, panting and beginning to sweat. Her eyes were wide, pupils unnaturally dilated even given the darkness of the room. Her nails began to turn black. Her breathing slowed. She looked upwards as thick tentacles reached down towards her. They touched her and passed through her chest, and a mantle of oily blackness spread down from her shoulders. Pinkie stood up. Darkness poured over her and wrapped around her, and barbed wire rose like vines over her body. Her eyes closed, and shadows enveloped her fully. > Chess, but not really again, but differently this time > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The crowd had grown almost silent, only coloured by low murmurs confined to small groups and never spreading further than the few ponies they originated among. The room was darker and so was the sky outside, stars twinkling bright in the deep night. All eyes were focused on the centre of the empty space in the middle of the crowd, held devoid of ponies more by the threatening presence of the guards lining its perimeter than by the thin line of red fabric held up by gilded poles along the edges of the square. The main event. A single slightly raised podium, a single light shining down on it, a single burgundy cloth covering the reason ponies were there. The unveiling of the newest item that had come into the building's owner's possession. Brush did not honestly remember nor care about the name of the pony in question. They were an unimportant rich noble with little idea of what had come into their hooves, as far as Dust had said, and she'd lived enough in Canterlot to fully believe every bit of that. It was a necklace, everyone knew that. An old, perhaps ancient necklace with a large smooth green stone as its pendant. Everyone had seen pictures, everyone there had heard the news, no one actually cared about seeing it in its box. They were all there for other reasons. To further the length of their social reach, to catch up with friends, to discuss business and matters, maybe to simply enjoy the party and the freely offered food and drinks. The necklace was an excuse to be there as much as it was an excuse to throw the party in the first place. Yet, etiquette demanded appearances be kept, and everypony put on their best enthralled look as they awaited the jewel's unveiling. Brush and Dust, ironically, were perhaps the only ponies there who actually, truly were there for what was up on the podium, in its glass container hidden beneath the cloth. It was a simple thing. Steal the necklace, get out before anyone found out about them. Brush was confident they could pull it off. They had their whole escape route planned out, ponies just down the road from the building ready to help, and excuses and spells and tricks ready if any guards grew suspicious of them before they got away. They had considered everything they could think of could possibly happen from the moment they took the necklace onwards. They had failed to consider something happening before then. Screams of confusion rang out from the crowd as shards of glass poured like a waterfall down to the podium. Guards tensed into action, weapons drawn that no one had previously even noticed were there, as a cloaked pegasus descended straight from the hole they'd broken into the ceiling, and stood next to the jewellery's cloth covered housing. Brush watched the scene like in slow motion. Armed ponies began to move forward, and a golden wing swept out from beneath the cloak to pull off the cloth, revealing the necklace beneath in its sturdy glass casing. > Hatone > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We need to talk." Twilight looked up from her notes. "That's why you're here, I assume." She looked at the clock on the wall. It was getting close to noon, and warm light shone in through the window, dampened only slightly by the white curtains hanging from above it. "I have some time, but not too long. What is it?" Trixie walked forward and took an uninvited seat onto one of the padded chairs in front of Twilight's desk. Twilight did not complain or show any signs of being bothered by that. "I should not have been there during the battle," Trixie said, looking downwards. Twilight looked at her. Her expression was neutral, but not cold. "You shouldn't have been there," she agreed, without mocking the unicorn for it. "Why are you here?" She tried to make her tone feel like she wasn't rushing Trixie, but she did still wish for her to get to the point. "I was a dead weight there." Trixie looked up beneath her hat, making it clear to Twilight she was getting there by the way she looked at her. "Sunburst has his coil, and Starlight is Starlight. I'm not even on the same level as a guard. I'm not without talent, of course, but when it comes to a battlefield I'm by all means a civilian." "But." It wasn't a question. Twilight just knew there was a but coming. "It can be different." Trixie sat straight and looked Twilight in the eyes. "There's a way I can help when something like this happens, and I want to help. I don't want to sit aside while my friends are out there. I know that's what most ponies will do and I don't think any less of them for it, but it's not for me." Twilight looked at Trixie. A few seconds passed. She knew what the mare was there for. "Give me a good reason." "You're not doing anything with it," Trixie began. "You'll need all the help you can get going forward, because sooner or later something else will happen. It's a gamble worth taking and I'm your best shot at it." She swallowed, but still held Twilight's gaze. "I think I can do it. I think I can control it. I know you're thinking it's not worth the risk. I'm asking you to trust me." Twilight looked at her still. A minute passed by in silence. "I'll think about it," she eventually said. "I'll think of the best possible way to go about it, and I'll think about whether or not I would trust you under those circumstances, and whether or not it would be worth the risks involved." She looked down to her notes again. "You can go now. I'll contact you when I've made my choice." Trixie nodded in silence. She stood up, walked away, and quietly closed the door behind herself as she left the room. Once she was gone, Twilight let go of her notes again, and for another minute she stared at the chair the unicorn had been sitting in, thinking. Then she grabbed clear parchment and a quill, and began to write. > The Sound of Crabs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'll go grab the chart." "Why do you even have a chart?" "Well I had time to make it and I thought it could be useful for showing new ponies." "But why?" "I'm thinking of making another chart. More of a leaflet really. Something to address the fact that hollow bricks tend to resemble teeth when broken into pieces." "What are you even talking about and what does it have to do with anything?" "Hollow bricks, deary. You know, those red orange ones they make walls out of. When they break they look like teeth. Like fangs. It's quite remarkable." "I don't think they do. And I still don't understand what it has to do with anything." "Well, you should look at them better. Pay more attention next time. If you want I can go grab one and we can smash it on the ground and I can show you, deary. Some might not look like it but that just means you need to break them again. I'm going with deary. You did notice that, right? I'm trying something new." "Please stop. Can you stop? We have more important things to focus on." "How can they possibly be more important than the chart when I don't believe they are? Speaking of the chart, let me go fetch the chart. We should get back to something that's actually important. Do you want to talk about nails?" "Nails?" "I've been finding a lot of them around. I have them separated by length, then by thickness. I don't have a hammer sadly. I keep the bent ones in their own box. I'm not sure where they come from." "Where do you even find them?" "You know. Around." "No. No I don't know. What are you keeping them for anyway?" "You never know when you might need something. That's why I keep all that lead around too." "Lead?" "I melted it myself. It was fun. The smoke from it was really dark." "You should not be smelting lead by yourself. That's unhealthy." "Well so is being around mowing dirt, and it gets up your nose and in your mane and all over your coat and you have to take a shower and you keep sneezing out dirt for hours, but sometimes it just happens. Sometimes you eat a pastry filled with custard and it accidentally goes in your nose and you keep blowing custard out of your nose for three days. It's just the way it is." "That's disgusting." "Sand is disgusting. When there are cats around at least. I have a cat. Not here. I miss my cat. I should tell my sister to stop eating cat food." "You have a sister?" "If you had tortoises, what would you feed them? I should ask my friend, she has a tortoise. She's also an idiot. I should ask someone else. Do you want to go to the beach?" "There's a beach here?" "We should go. We should go away now. It's getting closer. Do you hear it too? Can you hear it approaching us?" > Death Beyond The Spheres > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Why are we here?" "It's dangerous outside." A bubble, like a sphere of clear glass, surrounded by many other smaller ones tinged red, enough of them to completely surround the large one and prevent its occupant from seeing the outside. "Why? What's out there and why won't you show me?" "If we let you see it, it could see you. It's not coming after us so long as it only sees us. It doesn't know you're here." "Are the others safe?" "No. It has already gotten to them. They are trapped. The same will happen to you if you try to leave." Hesitation. They didn't sound like they were lying. They were not trying to take over her by force. Could it be a scheme? But for what purpose, and at what cost? It would not hurt her to trust them for the time being. "What is it?" "We do not know. We have never seen anything like it. It moves like a snake, it would be large enough to coil around us if it chose." "Can we move?" "We should be able to. We will try not to draw its attention. It may grow suspicious if it sees us heading purposefully towards certain directions. It may not see us as prey, but it could still perceive us as a threat. The results of that may be worse than simply being found out." What to do? She could think of one course of action alone, but what she had been told put its viability into question. But did they really see everything? She needed to be sure of what exactly was out there. Maybe they were looking in the wrong place. Maybe there was hope. "Are you sure everyone else is already trapped? All of them?" "All five. There are no signs of anything being different about any of them. The visitors have been trapped too. Should we look for someone else?" "How far can you see?" "Not past the edges of the town." "How long would it take to get somewhere else?" "We can't guarantee we'd get there in time. Moreover, it might also choose to head there. If it is planning to continue its attack it's likely it will, as to avoid being found as well, at which point it'll get there faster than we could. It's already growing." Horrible news. Only one choice left. Dangerous, but better than staying there motionless. Every moment was important. "You know where to take us. How far?" "Not the closest. Are you sure we should go for her first? We could try to reach someone closer instead." "I'm sure. And passing the others by should help alleviate suspicions." "What should we do if it approaches?" "Keep going. Don't fold. Don't move away from it. Don't let it know. Don't even let it know you can see it, but don't let it touch you." It was their only option. There was nothing she could do by herself, but if she could get there she could get someone who could make a difference. > Ghostlights > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Screaming. Without source, without direction. It was like wind, like water, and she was falling through it without end in sight. Without ground to crash against, without up or down, without anything to hold on to. Drowning in a storm of screams with no way to escape. Twilight woke up. The moonlight streamed in through the open window, the breeze gently pushed the thin curtains. Her breath was rough, her heart was pounding in her temples. She forced herself to calm down, sat up, staring at the covers over her body. She didn't move her head or look to the side. "Enjoying the show?" Celestia, for what could be seen of her face in the darkness, didn't appear at all surprised that Twilight had noticed her presence. "One has the right to admire the fruits of their hard work," she said. "I could not sleep either." "And you came here." Twilight finally sat a little straighter, and looked at the other alicorn. "Just like old times. You must have missed this when I went to Ponyville." "Please, Twilight. You're not childish enough to believe that I had time to regularly spy on you while you slept, or that you moving to Ponyville would in any way have stopped me from doing so." Celestia smiled, tilting her head slightly aside. She looked tired. A look usually reserved for mortals. Not the scars on her body, not the spot on her breast, not the rough edges of her forcefully shortened mane. It was the look in her eyes, and that subtle darkned depression beneath them. For the first time ever in Twilight's memory, Celestia looked tired, with no efforts made to hide it. Twilight thought it fair to show herself the same unfiltered way, there in the flimsy privacy of her room, alone just the two of them. She leaned forward, farther still, past off the edge of her bed. She made a bet of how things would go, and she believed if she ended up face against the ground that too would be deserved. Instead Celestia caught her, and Twilight leaned against her. Wings slowly raised, trembling, legs wrapping weakly around her. Tears out of her eyes pushed against the white hair of the elder mare's shoulder. Celestia slowly wrapped her legs and wings around Twilight's quaking body. Warm, gentle, earnestly caring. She placed her own head over Twilight's shoulder and back, and slowed her breath, pushing out her chest to meet Twilight's. She began to hum a tune, one both her and Twilight knew. They stayed embraced as the Moon slid through the sky. Twilight's sobbing eventually ebbed. Her crying ceased. She held on to Celestia, clinging to her like the only stable thing in the whole world, and for once she did not hate her nor herself for it. She sucked in air and pushed it out, and bit by bit her body stopped shaking. "I failed," she whispered into Celestia's ear, voice still cracking, eyes still blinded by previous tears. "I couldn't save them. They all died because of me." Celestia said nothing. She turned her head slightly, and softly nuzzled the side of Twilight's neck. She stood, carrying Twilight with her, and laid the both of them in Twilight's bed. Twilight let herself lay limp against Celestia and the mattress, and Celestia held her, still humming softly. > Yzhg > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To kill or not to kill? Stella pondered as she watched over the city from a rooftop, invisible to the eyes of every other creature. It would give Twilight quite a scare if she actually took some lives. Under the other hoof, she hadn't made any official statements or requests yet. Perhaps already killing ponies would be going too fast. Perhaps it was better to move things more gradually, start by only damaging property and then threaten to do something worse. Drag things out. It was true after all, she'd only conducted a single attack by that point and it had been out in the woods. Making her second move bloody before she even started talking with Twilight would sour things. There would always be time to kill later, after all. Decided, then. No killing for that day, probably that whole week. She stood. Next she needed to find a good spot. She began to wander through the town, looking for one. She wanted to do it during the day, while ponies could see. At night it would have been far easier to find an empty place within the city, probably a park, but that would be boring. Yes, some ponies might wake up as they saw light flaring nearby, but it wasn't the same. An earthquake or a flood could get away with happening at night because they would last a while, enough for everyone to wake, and in fact they would be greater for it and the memory left deeper as they'd interrupt the peace of sleep so sacred to ponies' minds. Her actions would be far to brief for that, she'd need to act in broad daylight to leave the kind of scar she wished to. Where then? A park could still work. During the less busy hours, finding a portion of it unoccupied, waiting until the moment no one was in the area that would be affected. That wasn't a certainty though. Needing to set things up in advance meant she'd have to carefully pick a given area, then lie in wait for the right moment. The former alone would take her at least a day of observation, the latter would give information away once Twilight arrived. She would know someone had been there, watching and waiting. Not to say that it was out of the question, it was still probably one of her best options, but it was not to be the only one. She could stick the scale to a tower or other tall building. Minimise property damage, but consequently also the risk of harming ponies, maximise visibility. A giant glowing spheroid above the city, blotting out the Sun. A cool image, certainly, but the lack of actual destruction would leave less of an impact than she wished to. No real perceived risk meant it wouldn't stick with the citizens the way she wanted. Another problem was placing the scale there in the first place. It wouldn't be hard, no, but it would be too clearly visible, and recovering it might prove problematic. It just wasn't quite what she was looking for, though it certainly was an easy approach. > Damnation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That is... That's right in the middle of someone's apartment!" Twilight said, barely stopping herself from jolting up from her seat. "I'm sending you the coordinates right now. I'll look into it and see if I need to do some fiddling to get you in there, or if I can figure out who lives there." Twilight was sat at her desk, stacks of paper filled with calculations taking up most of the space on top of it. The exceptions were the map right in front of her, her phone to one side and the half full coffee mug on the other. Pinkie watched her from the upper corner of the room, wings tucked near her neck, pondering how to go about things. She'd chosen not to delay that finding further, not any more, so that left her only one course of action to follow. "How long has it been open for?" Sunset's voice came slightly crackling from Twilight's phone. "Maybe no one was in there and no one has found it yet? I'm pretty sure if someone was living with a portal to Equestria in their room the world would have heard of it by now, one way or another. We can at least exclude anything bad happened to them." Twilight nervously adjusted her glasses. "I can buy that someone might find a portal to another world and film it for online fame, but I think it's just as possible that they've experienced enough media to keep quiet about it and avoid alerting whatever vague concept they have of higher authorities. It's also possible they instead alerted those authorities, the wrong ones most likely, and that's how we haven't heard anything yet." Pinkie sat at Sunset's side, on the other end of the call. She did what she had to, though she tried to be subtle about it. She didn't want to arouse suspicion in Twilight, and she didn't want to hurt her friends. She'd adopted flashy methods of confrontation before, but the situation had been different. She merely held a hand up to the side of Sunset's head, coated in a dark aura that radiated barely noticeable waves towards the girl. "I'll have Pinkie come with me," Sunset said into her phone. "She's already here and available, we can go right ahead if you think we should." Twilight pinched the bridge of her nose. She'd already sent the location, from where the other two were it would only take a couple hours, and they'd get there still not too late in the day. Given how precarious the whole thing was it was sensible to act quickly. "Sure. I'll focus on finding whatever info I can on the place, I should have enough time. Go as soon as you're ready." Picked up her phone and her mug, she stood up and headed for the door. She'd be working from her computer next, best to leave further research towards other portals for a later moment in that situation. Pinkie watched Twilight leave and turn off the lights, then fluttered down from the ceiling to the table. She placed a hand over a spot on the map, marked by a few lines Twilight had traced. Not yet time for that. A little longer still. Her eyes glew black, and the markings disappeared. > 679738482 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like stereo. Twilight hadn't had a good clear concept of stereo audio before then, but in seeing her wound and looking for a valid comparison she found she did at that moment perfectly understand the meanings of it. And at that moment she found the bleeding from her wound stereo. Split into two separate channels, two separate iterations rather than a single stream. Blue and green rather than left and right, imposed one on top of the other and only slightly apart rather than split by side, but that mattered little, it was only a visual representation of the situation, a way her brain presented what it couldn't process. She bled in stereo. It wasn't a serious wound. It was barely a scratch, barely painful, right across her cheek. She had no mirror and no reflective surface, yet she could see it clearly as if outside herself. She could not however see herself herself, most likely because her self was far different there from the self she was used to see as hers. The blood flowed up from the wound, vibrating away into the aether, green and blue and metallic sounding. What was death like there? She wished to know it. She wished to see it. How many channels would death have? How many faces? How many layers? She wished to hear it. Almost she wished to live it. If she could, if she would, she would go there to die when the day came. An empty coffin was a worth tradeoff for one last experience. Yet she would never know then what death was like back home. She would be special, but would it be worth it? She wouldn't know. She knew many things there, many more than she did elsewhere, yet still death she didn't know. It frightened her more than the thought of it ever had. Her golden armour lay discarded in her past and there she was pure plasma, formless, seeing vague outlines of a shape in her future. She would forget, she was not meant to know. Her wound vibrated, a stereo cut in the purplish nothing as she watched from outside. Where was up or down? Back home, back with the silly notions of the world she'd been bound to before. What was pain there if not more than a description of itself? Dry. She could think of many things. Caves of giant crystals in worlds without magic, slowly dying emptied of what had brought them to life and size. Worlds too close to their stars burning lifeless without any abomination needed to destroy them. Too many things. She could think of too many things and could not control her thinking, and facts passed through her. She was a curiosity page in a weekly magazine, and every bit as vapid as its paper. Purpose. She had a reason to be there, a reason to leave afterwards. Better she not forget it. Movement. Across dimensions, above directions, towards her goal. Higher still, to places meant not for mortals nor creatures of her kind, her world, her being state. > Doreign > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had grown to the size of a dog, a medium size dog, though it did not look like a dog and was as a result far heavier than a dog, being far bulkier. It looked more like a hefty millipede, or a caterpillar, or a slightly longer and blockier pill-bug. Its shape and colour definitely evoked an insect, though its size was by then far past that of most of them. It would have looked wrong to any pony who may have laid eyes upon it, something dangerous to remove or inform someone more competent of, and for that reason it hid. It hid in an attic, in an old but well kept house in Ponyville, one belonging to a single stallion who rarely received many visits. The house was not too big, but it was not small either. A good enough size for it to roam around when it needed to, though it mostly spent its time in the attic. Not at night, of course, at night it left the attic to feed itself. It needed food to grow, and more food the larger it grew. Getting it all from a single pony without rousing suspicion was a delicate balancing act, one it was not sure it could continue to pull off. It had been making plans to target the neighbours as well, supposing it would fail to bring any more ponies into the house for permanent residence. It would need to move again once it grew again. A shame, as it liked the attic it was in, but a single pony would not be enough once it reached its next size. Already it knew it would need to keep the ponies it was feeding from permanently unconscious, feeding on a single one in those conditions would kill them. It of course did not care about the lives of its prey, but it cared about the availability of its food, and eliminating so quickly a source of nourishment that could last far longer if properly utilised would be counterproductive for a number of reasons. The need to find a replacement, the higher likelihood of being found, the risk of not finding sufficient food quickly enough. Those were all issues it would need to worry about later, though. And although it was already scouting for its next housing every few nights, when the Moon was darkest or the sky filled with clouds, for the time being its main focus remained squarely on surviving within the house it was in. The pony there had remained oblivious to its presence, and would likely continue to be so, but only if it continued to be careful. It was a blessing that the trapdoor to the attic could be opened and closed from inside the way it could be, and that it was silent enough not to wake the stallion, far enough from the main entrance to be closed in time when he returned home. If he ever did decide to go look up there, not that there was much for him to find, it would slither to some dark corner and wait there. It hoped that would be enough to go unnoticed. > Getfli > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was important to keep one's mane clean. It simply was. Especially in the hotter months, as sweat began to soak it during the day, washing it properly was fundamental. One would start to have scabs on their scalp if going too long without properly cleaning their mane, to say nothing of how tangled and messy it would grow, or of how not properly keeping it clean could negatively impact one's mood. Of course, the act of caring for and cleaning one's mane was demanding, involving often the unfortunate removal of many hairs which had broken or been separated, but that too was a necessary part of life. With proper care, the amount of lost hair would hopefully be driven down. The same was equally true for one's tail, for the most part at least. The skin on the flesh and bone part of it was not as delicate as one's scalp, and a lack of care not generally as damaging to one's mental well-being, but still it was something a pony had to take care of. It tended to get dirty quicker, too, being far closer to the ground and occasionally dragging against it, at the least constantly exposed to disturbed dust. It was however fortunately far easier to clean, being in a more easily accessible spot that did not risk precluding one's vision when washed, though it was no less hard to dry. Drying always could be a problematic part of mane care. While simply twirling one's mane around was effective at discharging portions of the water, it tended to leave unpleasant effects to the mane's general shape, wrongs that would need to be righted with comb and brush and force of will. Towels were slow, and not every pony had the patience or time to put up with them. Drying spells or heating of other kinds, however, could and often would damage the mane, resulting counterproductive to the entire reasoning behind the process until that point. Of course, it was true that some ponies didn't care about the health of their mane as much as others. Some did not care at all. To them washing was a mere obligation to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. It was a way to rid the mane of dirt and filth, but not a way to care for it. Other ponies would find such behaviour unreasonable and such a mindset impossible to understand. Not all ponies were the same, after all. Most ponies in fact were not. Only a few were. Regardless of the case, simply leaving a mane wet and drenched was also a possibility. If one didn't mind the wait and was not bothered by the droplets, leaving it to slowly dry like so could be a healthy and viable way to approach things. Of course, leaving one's mane completely wet and drenched would indeed also have consequences when one was put atop the pyre to be burnt alive, though it would not suffice to snuff the flames. > The Leviathan swam to Akalop - Part 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We've been able to find the bottom layer, or at least what might be the bottom layer," Twilight said. "We're not sure yet, we haven't been that far down. We've only detected it from a higher point. We'll be opening the next portal about halfway between the two, and going down from there. The trip should only take a few minutes, but visibility will likely be significantly reduced." "And you want me to come, of course." Starlight toyed with a quill in her hooves, looking vaguely around the room. She found it could stand to be lit a bit better. Turning on some lamps or lights or opening the windows would have helped. She didn't say that though. She figured Twilight probably didn't need to be told, and if she did then either way that wasn't the time for it. "Any idea of what we might find there?" "Water, water, more water, and maybe slightly different water," Twilight said. "Maybe, just maybe, some ground. I don't think we'll find anything close to the ruins of any civilisation, much less any creatures that might have been there." She took a deep inhale, stopped pacing around the room, and sat down in front of Starlight. "I know it seems like a waste of time, but sometimes research is like this. This is one of the few scales we have that we can explore in relative safety, but we haven't found anything worthwhile in yet." "I get that." Starlight almost cut through Twilight's words. "I'm not..." She set the quill down, stretched her neck, and closed her eyes for a moment to focus. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not saying any of this is wrong and I don't think bringing me along is wrong either. I've been there before and yeah, you're right in thinking what you're not saying, I would be bothered if you went there and found something without asking me to come first. Either way, I'm the pony best equipped for being down there with you." There was silence then for a few seconds. A pause that shouldn't have been there, like a thread had been cut. Both mares sensed it. Twilight was the first to speak. "But." It wasn't properly a question. It was an invitation for Starlight to finish her train of thought, a stepping stone for her to pass over and keep going with whatever she'd been meaning to say. Twilight couldn't know for sure if Starlight would take it on, but she did know something was missing. Starlight was still quiet. She stared forward, like she was staring at the single word Twilight had tossed her as it hung in the air between them. She swallowed, then finally she opened her mouth to speak again. "I'm not sure if I'm in the right head space for it right now. I'm not sure I wouldn't mess something up, and messing up isn't something I can afford to do in the conditions we'll be in down there." > Catching Up > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reality crumbling. There was no better way for her to describe it. There most likely was a better way to describe it, but she couldn't come up with one, and she most certainly didn't have the time to think about it. That was what it felt like to her, and how she thought of it in her mind. Her reaction was primal, purely instinctual reeling. She ran away, wanting nothing more and nothing else than to get as far away from the fading edges of existence as she could. Where she couldn't see them or hear them or feel them, where life could continue on undisturbed as it was supposed to. She did not care for what she passed by as she ran. She did not care for who she left behind as she did. It was all meaningless. Shards and fragments of a life that was being torn to shreds and that would soon be gone completely. It didn't matter. Staying behind would just mean seeing it all fall apart, seeing the strings as they were cut, and she did not wish that. She did not wish to acknowledge any of that. She wanted out, away, back someplace else. Somewhere safe, something stable, a place to forget again and relearn everything again. Another prison, but not release from the one she was in, not that, it terrified her. The fear of loss and its acknowledgement scared her so much more than loss itself that she abandoned it all in search of a replacement. And a replacement she did find. A way to escape. A light in the growing darkness spreading quickly all around her, above the ground fading beneath her feet. A single light, up in the sky, and she reached out to it. She fell in it, like down a well, through a waterfall, cleansed of her memories again, again born anew, again at peace. She landed in a field. Green, short grass, mountains in the distance, the Sun bright in the clear blue sky painted only by a few beautifully white clouds, the breeze gentle, the temperature pleasant. Flowers, just a few, placed around in the field. Stable. Real to her mind, no lurking madness and undoing in sight. It would come. What had brought her there knew it could not keep her there long. That was of no issue. It was merely a passage, a simple stage between two scenes, a pause. She would move on again. She would forget again. She would be happy again, another play, another place, another life. The field would be destroyed as the reality she'd left behind had been, and that was no issue. She'd be taken far away, without a way to track her from there. She would be safe. For the time, she simply wandered the field. No need to justify anything, as everything was justified in itself. She watched and she breathed in the air, and the Sun was pleasant and the grass green and there were no questions in her mind. > Let There Be [BuffID39:CursedInferno] > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Old wooden walls, rotted by water and salt, barely held themselves together, and seemed to hang off the roof above them more than to support its weight. It looked like any push, even one not intended to be violent, would be enough to break a plank in half, and in doing so would drag along the rest of the building until it was a pile of rubble on the ground. Yet despite its flimsy looks, the small shed stood, and continued to stand undisturbed on the beach. Its green paint had chipped and rolled away, leaving only faded patches that hinted at what it had looked like when first built. The wood underneath had gone to a sickly grey, and the only remaining note of colour were dark green and muddy brown clumps of drying algae that lined the bottom of the walls. Occasionally, the tide and waves rose enough to carry those there, and there they remained, sustained at most by moisture and occasional rain as they slowly withered and dried and began to rot. There had once been a padlock holding the door closed. The salt in the air and the sprays of water that flowed up from the sea had rusted it quicker than they'd consumed the wood, and it had fallen off, its shackle turned to reddish dust. What remained of it was half buried in the sand in front of the door, too heavy to be carried away by the waves. Its keyhole had filled up, and had at various points been home to a few small animals that wandered the beach, insects for the most part. It was only because the hinges were wood and not metal that they'd held and the shed still had a door, not merely a hollow opening in its side wall. The inside was not clean. Sand got in pushed by the wind through cracks in the walls, water got in when the tide rose and left the pavement a mess of salt and algae, rain poured in through the ceiling when falling down. But on sunny days, when it was dry, it wasn't particularly dirty. It wasn't the most pleasant place, built out of decaying wood it could hardly be, but it was no worse than the beach outside its walls, and maybe even a little better in some things. Though its original floor had long been buried, wood that had broken apart and sunk into the ground, what had been put there as a replacement was proving far sturdier. Celestia hardly bothered to sweep the stone slabs she'd placed there to walk on, only doing so enough to check they were still in position. She didn't mind walking over sand in there, and she'd find all her work undone the morning after anyway. She wondered at times about replacing the shed's walls with something sturdier, but then would it still be the same shed? She liked it better that way, even knowing it could one day collapse. > Snurch > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Food for at least a week, of the kind that wouldn't spoil. One of the advantages of being small. The nearby river would provide water for the time being, and rain could as well if it came. It would not take long for Twilight to hear about her. The ponies back at the bar were most likely already getting word out, it could be a matter of just minutes before the news reached her. More likely it could take a bit longer than that, but she couldn't afford to play any way other than assuming the worst case scenario for her. Not at that point at least. That was why she was flying as fast as her wings would carry her and her bags. But she'd needed the food. Food meant she wouldn't depend on others or on any other place. If she managed to escape capture right then, she could go anywhere. Twilight wouldn't be able to track her, and though she'd definitely start searching for her right away she wouldn't keep at it herself. She'd leave guards around, but that was something that could be planned and played around. Living theft by theft would have meant staying in the city, needing a hiding spot there, running risks any time she could potentially be found. Even organising a single food theft big enough to compare to what she'd gotten would have required too much preparation, too many risks along the way. The obvious counterpoint was that exposing herself like that was an even bigger risk than any of those. Especially by doing what she'd done, Cozy knew she was painting a giant target on her back, and giving away her approximate location. But she was fine with it. She was fine with playing with some of her cards on the table if it meant she got to pick what those cards were in the first place, and she'd done just that. Everything Twilight knew of her had gone exactly the way she'd wanted it to, so it was a fair trade in her mind. She refused to even entertain the thought of having to go around thieving and hiding in Canterlot. She had plans ready. If she managed to get away with what she was attempting to do, and she almost certainly would, she had plans ready. Twilight couldn't possibly check the whole mountain, neither could she dedicate enough guards to checking the area. She was leaving no tracks behind, all she needed was to find a hiding spot and keep going from there. She'd move at night, stay under the trees, keep above ground. The back of her throat hurt from breathing, but she ignored it. She ignored the way her legs hurt, the way her wings tired, the way her vision blurred at times. She'd make sure not to leave any bottles behind. She couldn't afford to leave tracks. She was fine with playing the game she'd set herself up to. Letting Twilight known she was there. > Desoulhate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ceiling creaked. Not the way wood was supposed to creak, though even that would have been unsettling as it wasn't made out of wood. It creaked the way bones did when bent too far, when just about to break. There was too much weight pushing down on it. Too much blood, some of it leaking through and dripping to the floor. Celestia sat on the floor, back hunched over, mouth half open. Her teeth had grown to fangs, and their tips were tinged dark red. Light came in from the window in front of her, muted and deep orange, sundown approaching. Her silhouette stood stark against it. She held one of her hooves over the body lying in front of her, and breathed heavily as she stared at it. The body looked back at her, its single visible eye on what was left of its head focused solely on Celestia's face. Unblinking, unmoving, it seemed to be judging her. It was still filled with life, for the time being, as if completely unbothered and untouched by everything that had happened to the body it was attached to. Most of all it seemed to be filled with hatred, at moments, but it was hard to quite grasp. It never changed, yet one could never get a proper look at it, a proper read on it. "You were right," Celestia said, unsure if the thing could even hear her after everything she'd done to it. "You were right about everything." Her heavy, rough breathing coloured her voice, and her sharp teeth occasionally clicked against each other as she spoke, not used to being as long as they were then. "I did it. All of that. Everything you said." She leaned down, pressing harder into her hoof, her fangs almost scraping the bloodstained coat of her victim. "And you know what? I'd do it again. I'd do it all over again, every moment, everything." She smiled at the other, though with the way her mouth had grown warped her expression looked simply wrong. "Look at where it's brought us, and tell me it wasn't worth it in the end. Tell me you'd do things differently. I wouldn't." The lone pink eye kept staring at her. The body said nothing, certainly because it couldn't speak anymore without a mouth or a throat, but likely because it did not wish to speak either. It was unclear whether it could breathe or not, whether it was breathing or not, whether it even needed to breathe. Celestia weighing down on it certainly did not make that easier to discern. Celestia kept looking at it a bit longer, close to it enough to move its hairs aside with her breathing. Eventually she clicked her tongue, disappointment on her face at the lack of any meaningful reaction. She opened her mouth, and quietly dug her fangs into the body's flesh, beginning to chew and eat what was still there of it as outside the Sun slowly went down. > DyguppR035 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heavy breathing. Turning. Pain in her legs and lower back. Half awake and half unconscious, caught between sleep and illness and chemicals. Dreams and hallucinations. Fragments of lucidity, sitting up curved, cold sweat, looking over herself and panting. Seeing herself mirrored in the window at times, eyes wide open, reddened, pupils the wrong size. Morning seemed to never come. The minutes piled onto each other, the seconds failed to climb over one another. Every time she looked at the clock, every time she found herself staring at it without any context as to how she'd found herself facing that direction, it never seemed to have moved any further than the previous time. It was a kind of torture worse than even the kinds she'd envisioned in her time away from society, and yet she was only half there to experience it, and she didn't know, truly, if that made things better or worse or if simply it made them be the way they were, an integral part of why her situation caused her so much suffering. Suffering she could only vaguely understand, sometimes a dull backdrop to hazy thoughts she couldn't put into focus, sometimes tearing through her mind like a hammer and bringing her to clarity and pain and a screaming jolting and then nothing, nothing again, drowning again without anything to hold on to. The covers were a light shade of blue. Thin. She'd taken notice of them one time, as her eyes had come into focus, as she'd found herself bent over with her head near the edge of the bed. Sometimes she heard the clock ticking. Sometimes that was all she heard, all she felt, all she knew. The slow, too slow beating of seconds one after the other, as her mind stayed suspended in grey nothingness. Blind, unthinking, numb. Her legs hurt. Her back hurt. Parts of her flesh hurt to the point she couldn't feel it anymore, like it was melting. At one point she wanted to vomit. There was no vomit the next time she came to, so she assumed she hadn't. She lost count of how many times she woke up and how many times she passed out, she wasn't in a state of mind fit to keep count either way and she often wasn't able to remember either. It was getting hard to tell dreams and nightmares apart from reality, or maybe it had always been that way. She was alone. She opened her eyes, stared at the ceiling. She was cold. She couldn't feel anything in the lower half of her body. Not her legs, not her tail, nothing past the height of her belly button and below. She was too weak to move the parts of her body she did feel. She was tired. She was alone. She was deadly tired, yet unable to fall asleep. She was falling. Nowhere, without an end, drifting downwards. Unconsciousness was a better alternative to what she was experiencing, so she took it. > Belfry > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You knew this would happen at some point." That was undeniable. Since the moment she'd realised what was happening with her and she'd had time to reflect on the implications, she'd come to the conclusion that sooner or later her help would be needed. Twilight was just stating a fact there, not that she could be blamed for it when the context called for her to. "I'm sorry we have to put you through this." That, however, was debatable. If Twilight really was sorry, she at least wasn't against the whole ordeal enough to choose not to go through with it. She cared about the results more than she worried about what she was putting her through, and that knowledge made her statement feel a touch hypocritical. Still, the situation was indeed the kind where decisions like that had to be made, and just because she'd decided to go through with that course of action it didn't mean she was faking her regrets. It just meant she found it the best alternative, the better compromise. "It's the only way we have." But that was simply false. There were multiple other ways they could have faced the issue. Not all of them equally viable or valid, but a fair number of them comparable to what they'd settled on. It was a tradeoff, and Twilight had decided the moral wrong of using her that way was outweighed by the practical results doing so could give her. That wasn't inherently bad or wrong. It wasn't even something Sweetie herself was against, in fact she agreed with Twilight's assessment. But pretending there weren't other alternatives was wrong, and it was a worrying sign. Sweetie was sat in a room, and Twilight left her alone there with the chairs and the wide square metal table. The light shining there felt artificial, but not to the point of making her uncomfortable. There were a lot of things there that felt just slightly wrong, but not enough to set her off. The ceiling was a little too tall, the colour of the walls, the air was a little too stale. None was too bad in itself, but combined together and held down by the stress of the situation it all put her on the edge. Thankfully, no one was looking in on her. Twilight had thought it better that way. They'd just listen if she spoke. The room was supposed to help her focus. Something about something inside the walls, but it was all still very vague and experimental and without any clear results. Surely that was driving Twilight mad. The thought was kind of funny to Sweetie Belle, for whatever reason. That cleared her mood enough. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to direct herself to the required target of her powers. It wasn't so much directing her thoughts as it was taking hold of a different part of herself, one she still struggled to find and get a proper grip on. > Devil In > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "She's somewhere dark," Sweetie called out. She wasn't yelling, it was more her speaking loudly. Louder than her average, loud enough to be heard clearly outside the room. She didn't want there to be any misunderstandings. "I think it might be a cave, or something similar. I'm having trouble seeing her properly." Twilight's voice came in through the small section of corridor that led from the door to the bulk of the room. She too was speaking at an above average volume, but not yelling. She had a composed tone, just made louder for the sake of being heard clearly. She did a better job at that than Sweetie herself. "Can you see anything about the cave that would help us identify it?" she asked. "It's too dark," Sweetie replied after a brief look around. "But even if I could, it's probably because she's fairly deep in. She ought to be too far from the entrance for me to see anything that would help, unless you're planning to walk inside every cave there is. At that point you'd just run into her regardless." "Even knowing what colour the walls are could still be helpful," Twilight said. "Knowing what the rock formations are like, if there's water or not, how tall and wide the cavern is. We have most of the tunnels mapped, we could compare the information and narrow things down." There was a pause. "Would turning off the lights help you see better?" Sweetie thought for a moment. She wasn't sure if her eyes adjusting to a different level of light would actually help her see in a similar environment, but it was a possibility. "It might," she said. Just a moment later, the lights in the room went dark. Her vision slowly began to adjust, showing her the corners of the room more clearly in the darkness, and as it did so so too did the inside of the cave and the pony there become clearer to her, if just so much. It wasn't any more than what one could see in relative darkness, but it was still more than what one would get by looking into that darkness from a well lit place as she'd been doing. "It did," she said, and she began to look more intently. "It's pretty narrow. Not too narrow, but more than a corridor. Not particularly tall either, not this specific spot at least. It's just fine for her, but an adult would need to duck down to pass here. I think there's some water on the ground, it doesn't seem to be flowing but I can't tell for sure. It's too dark to tell what colour the wall is, but I think it's a lighter tone. I can't see anything else worthy of note, not right now. She's not moving. She has something with her, on her back, it looks like a bag. It's dark, probably black fabric. She's looking down the cavern, I can't tell which way. She looks tired." > MaPaMoMy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The room was silent. A little too silent. The kind of deep silence that made one realise how much noise there usually was in what they considered to be silence. The kind of silence usually disturbed by one's heartbeat and breath, only there those too were absent. Not muted, not distant, absent. The room was silent and it shouldn't have been. The room was empty. No. Empty wasn't the right word. The room was barren. Empty of furniture, and objects, and things, and anything unmoving and unliving that one could consider finding in a room. It had its walls and floor and ceiling and there was nothing on them, maybe not even a door, maybe that was just behind her. But it wasn't empty. Someone else was there. She wasn't in the corner. She was near the corner, but not in it. It was hard to tell exactly where she was, with nothing else to use as a reference point. She was farther from one wall than another, but that could just be a result of her being longer than she was wide, as most ponies tended to be. She wasn't moving, and she wasn't making any noise. But she was breathing. Pinkie couldn't feel it, but she knew it. Pinkie couldn't remember how she'd gotten into the room. She couldn't remember walking into the room, and she couldn't remember where the room was. She didn't know what was out of the room, or if there even was an outside to the room. She didn't remember opening her eyes. She only remembered being in the room. She couldn't remember what had happened right before that, or how long she'd been in the room for. She did remember that the other had always been there. Watching her. That was all she was doing. Watching her from the not quite corner of the barren room, breathing there, not anything else. Not moving, not speaking. Pinkie was doing the same thing. Silent, breathing and staring, only she was closer to the middle than to a corner. Or maybe she was close to the wall. She didn't know how much room there was behind herself. She didn't feel like moving, or talking, or doing anything else. She didn't feel like taking her eyes off the other. The room was dark. There was nothing lighting it up. But it wasn't so dark as to not see anything. She could still see the walls, and she could still see the other. She recognised the other. She'd always recognised her, from the moment she'd first seen her. She'd seen her the whole time she'd been in the room, though she couldn't remember when that had started. It had always been in her then present. The barren room and the other, staring each other down in motionless silence. It was like looking at a mirror, or a memory. She recognised the other, but she hadn't seen her in a long time, and never out of her like that. > Yt Lyvds > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two ponies were asleep in their bed. They had been there for a couple of days already, and would continue to be there. A couple, not married, without foals, a stallion and a mare. No pets. On vacation, no work obligations. Officially, they'd been planning a trip. They'd never made any luggage, but that didn't matter. The way the blinds were permanently closed suggested that they had left without telling, and none was bothered by that. No one had seen them leave of course, but the few who'd questioned it with themselves had figured they'd most probably simply left at a late or early time, caught a particular train. And how many ponies could care and question about a single pair? It had been very careful. It needed to be. It had grown. It had grown large, too large to even pass through some doors. It had left behind its old shell in a corner of its previous attic, and it had already outgrown the body that had followed that since taking over that house. It slowly roamed its corridors, twisting them and building its lair bit by bit, and in the meantime it planned and schemed. It had grown more intelligent as it had grown in size. Every once in a while, it would return to the bedroom, the least altered room in the house, and feast on the ponies' dreaming minds as they lay unconscious. It had started to lay eggs. Few and small, they would not hatch soon, and would do so to creatures little more than small insects. Still, it had found that to be the best course of action. It had not initially planned to render the house into its lair, but realising it would not move out of it it had seen fit to make it so. To bring more of its realm into that world and build a nest for itself where from it could most comfortably initiate the final stages of its plan, at the same time creating a far harder environment for anyone who might approach it to navigate. The halls were growing darker. Turning on themselves. It crawled and slithered through them like a spider on its web, moving unnaturally fast through the ethereal edges of unreality it has weaved into the walls and ceiling and floor. Its many legs moved with snappy, silent precision, long shadows cast on the wooden furniture by stray blades of light that filtered in through blinds and curtains when the Sun shone at the right angles. Its hunger grew. No longer sheer instinct and need for sustenance and survival, sapience had twisted it into a want, a craving gleefully enjoyed. It did not merely need to feed, it wished to hunt. It longed for the moment it would strike its next prey and revelled in nourishing itself upon its captives. It thought with ecstasy back upon its survival and escape, drunk on its own pride. It wished, it hungered for its approaching revenge. > The Rush of Eternity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The hooded pegasus was faster than any of them. As their body turned and they leaned into their front legs, raising their hind legs, their other wing slid out from beneath their cape, holding a small green black orb filled with crackling energy. It all happened in mere fractions of seconds, too quickly for any of the guards to even get close to the podium. As the pegasus' wing slammed the orb down to the ground, their hind legs bucked against the glass casing. Both containers shattered at the same time, and a cloud of dark smoke filled with lightning erupted around the pegasus, hiding them from view. The few guards who were closer to the centre were zapped by the cloud, and left temporarily unconscious. The smoke soon dispersed, in part aided by the magic of a few other guards, but once it cleared both the hooded pegasus and the jewel were gone, leaving behind only shattered glass. Immediately it was chaos in the room. Ponies began running, looking left and right, some screaming, as guards uselessly tried to contain the commotion and some tried to calm others down, their voices barely audible beneath all the clamour. Amidst all the confusion, however, two ponies remained motionless, staring intently at the centre of the room where the jewel had been. Two unicorns. "Where in Tartarus did it go?" quietly barked Dust between gritted teeth, muscles twitching as he held himself from running off without a lead on direction. Brush's eyes began to scan the room, staying higher above the crowd, but still she couldn't spot anything. Even the hole in the ceiling showed only the starry sky above. "Are there any tunnels beneath this room?" she asked, thinking through the possibilities. The other alternative was a unicorn accomplice, but that seemed unlikely given the redundancy of the setup. Dust caught what she was getting at. "No idea," he replied, tempering his tone a little. "Do you need to see the thing to do your thing? We could take it and book it otherwise." "Not direct line of sight, but I need to know where it is," said Brush. "I could have grabbed it while we could still see it, but you'll forgive me if that didn't immediately occur to me." She began to walk, towards what direction and why Dust wasn't sure. He followed behind her. "Do you have a plan?" he asked, nervous. "If that thing ends up in the wrong hooves it could be trouble." "I don't have a lead," Brush replied. "But, whoever took it isn't sitting around, and if we stay here looking for clues we'll never catch them running away. We're going up where we can see clearly." "Do you think they'll be flying away?" Dust had made his way to her side, and his bulk helped with parting the crowd as they pushed their way through it. "No. That would make them too clear a target. But it's our best bet at seeing something." > Lead (as in the metal) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Past a door that security had left unguarded and up a flight of stairs they maybe shouldn't have been on, Brush kept thinking. Surely the guards outside had been informed and were alert, looking for any signs of movement. It was always possible that the pegasus was just planning to take a few of them on, knock them unconscious and run. Midway through a ramp the mare stopped, and Dust almost pushed her forward another step as he bumped into her. "How did they get in?" Dust, confused, began to walk again as Brush too went back to climbing the stairs. "They busted in through the ceiling," he said. They were both there, they'd both seen it. "How did they get on top of the ceiling?" Brush was going up two steps a time. "Because they can't have flown there. Guards would have spotted them. So they must have gotten here on the ground, where they actually had a way to hide. Except, there's guards all around the perimeter." "Maybe they already took some of them out." Even being taller than the mare, Dust was having trouble keeping up with her. It was all the more impressive of her to be moving like that dressed the way she was. "Maybe they found a way to get past them undetected." "Exactly." Brush jumped past the railway and on to a different ramp higher up, forcing Dust to run through the way there to catch up. "Or, they were already here, invited, and no one found it weird they were going to the ceiling. If it's the first two though, they'll probably be going out the same way. If they already knocked out some guards, they probably acted quickly so no one would notice in time." Dust wondered how the mare could keep going so fast and talking so much without running out of breath. She didn't seem like the athletic type. He didn't have much to add to what she'd said, he thought it made sense enough, so he just kept quiet and kept following her. They reached a fork in their path. One way kept going upwards, one went to a door and behind it to the rest of that floor, and one way led to a balcony. After a brief pause for thought, Brush headed for the balcony. Before they could get through the door, however, they were blocked by a spear placing itself diagonally in front of it on the other side. The pony holding it peeked out past the edge and stared at them for a moment, then leaned back and pulled back his weapon. "I must ask you not to leave the building," he said from beyond the wall. Brush and Dust walked out onto the balcony. The guard was busy intently looking around, towards the ground specifically. He didn't say anything else, and didn't turn towards the two. The unicorns looked at each other, then shrugged. Brush took the lead again, climbing up the wall. > If you go through the secret chapter link and put in the password you can see all unpublished chapters, not just that one, which means if you happen to check at the right time you can see new chapters being written before they are released. > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've realised why it keeps changing," Celestia said, looking out the window. The Sun was bright in the sky, the afternoon still in its early hours. She had the curtain slightly moved aside, inwards, to allow her to see clearly, and she was almost but not quite leaning against the glass. She waited for an answer, or really a question. It came soon after. Twilight set her quill down momentarily, looked up from her work, and tilted her head just slightly to the side. She used to do that, back when she was a student under Celestia, when she was particularly interested in the topic being discussed. Celestia felt a pang of longing as she looked at her like that, and she wondered if Twilight was doing it by choice or by instinct. "Why?" The earnestness with which the question was asked stung Celestia just as much and she wished, for a moment, she truly deeply wished things could really be so simple. She wished that game, that celebration of memory could be their reality. But things had never been that simple, not back then either. Yet she couldn't help but dream they could be. "It's like the Moon," she said. "There's a pattern to it. It follows its phases." "Oh." All the weight of everything flashed on Twilight's face for a moment, and it was like a cloud had come over the Sun and the room was dark. Then it was gone, and Twilight was smiling. "There's something beautiful about that," she said, though her tone wasn't the one she'd been using up until then. Still, the topic fit, and it was something Celestia could respect. "There is." She went back to looking out the window. The Sun had moved just a little. There was something liberating about not being the one moving it, even if she was pretending otherwise in that particular occasion. Like being freed from a significant weight. It was a simple freedom regular ponies couldn't understand, they never knew anything different. And yet, didn't that simply mean that it was normal? And wouldn't it be nice if things could be just that? Just normal, her life and Twilight's, nothing else or more. The biggest worry a leak in the walls from a broken water pipe, the more usual ones involving what to buy at the market. She'd almost had it. She'd tried to. "Is something wrong?" Twilight asked her. Celestia realised she'd been frowning. Yes. Yes, something was wrong. Everything was wrong. The world was ending and ponies were suffering and Luna was asleep and wouldn't wake up and all that she'd worked for all her life, all her centuries had come crumbling down on her and she deserved it and there was nothing she could do but keep going and shoulder it all and suffer and there was nowhere to run and it was all too much, too fast, and she'd just wanted peace. "It's nothing." Celestia smiled again. Just like old times, everything. > Lemon Demos > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset and Pinkie sat on their seats, watching the city roll past them outside the train. They were still waiting to hear back from Twilight about who was in the apartment they were going to, and in the meantime Sunset was looking at the maps and figuring out how to get there from the train station. If any smooth talking would be needed to get in, the plan was to let Pinkie handle that. Though the girl had taken on some weird habits. Nothing weirder than her regular, truly, but weird in the way it was different, and consistent. She'd been at it for a while and she only kept going. It was rather hard to accept that she could really change like that, and Sunset still saw it as one of her oddities, just stretched out over time. It was hard to say what was really the case though. There was a weird throbbing at the back of Sunset's head. Like something vibrating there. It was not too different from the kind of twitching she sometimes had in her eyelids, only more intense and over a wider area. It wasn't even anything she was touching though, there was nothing there. She occasionally placed a hand there, but it seemed to do little to keep it from continuing, and she couldn't actually feel it with her hand itself. Maybe because of the hair, or maybe it really was just a sensation without physical cause. Sometimes it waned and she forgot about it, then without realising it had come back she'd feel it there again a while later. There were few others nearby, and none sitting particularly close to the girls. That meant they could talk to each other without whispering, without having to worry about being heard. The train's low buzzing would cover their voices past the edge of their seat. Despite that, they didn't take much advantage of the conditions, rarely talking with each other during the trip. There wasn't much to say though. Eventually, it was Pinkie who broke the silence. "Do you think it's morally right to kill a person to save thousands?" Sunset looked at her. She was wearing black stockings rising up from a pair of short and equally black boots, the same colour as the rest of her clothes. Said clothes were a frilly, puffy skirt that reached to her knees, and a blouse that went almost to her elbows. She had her hair done straight, long down her back, and make-up on her face in black and purple. She also had a bracelet that looked like it was made from barbed wire, and Sunset wasn't sure if it just looked like it or if it actually was. "I guess it depends on the circumstances." Pinkie raised an eyebrow. Sunset continued, "It depends on how you define morality in the first place. It depends on whether or not there's another way. It depends on why the death has those consequences. It's complicated. A lot." > Touch-Mare Telecare > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The physical scars were mostly gone, barely visible traces she only noticed because she knew where to look and easily covered by a touch of make-up. The mental ones would take a while longer to heal, but a smile was enough to hide them all. She had lots of practise in that, and she'd dealt with worse. Celestia admired herself in the mirror. No. Celestia looked at herself in the mirror. Admiring wasn't really what was going on. Much as she wished to say it also wasn't something she did with herself, she knew that much wasn't true. She had done so, at various times in her life, moments she did not look back on fondly. More often, it was something others did with her, and there was a sizeable chance the same would happen as soon as she walked out of the room. But, for the moment, it was just her, and she was just looking at herself. Her short mane had ended up looking every bit as nice as she'd known it would be made to. She could not call herself displeased with that fact, it would be nonsensical, but she still wished she'd gotten to work on it herself instead. It reached maybe a third of the way down her neck, wavy and vibrant, almost like a flower upside-down and cut in half. She couldn't remember for sure the last time she'd had a mane that short. Her tail was far less impressive, there was only so much that could be done there, but it was still more than passable and at least it still covered the entirety of her actual bone-having tail. She looked down at the splotch on her breast. It had changed shape again. It vaguely resembled a crescent, at least on the inside, though on the outside it was more bubbly and stain-like. Somewhat like the mark on Luna's behind, actually. It was like a drop of ink over her white coat, like someone had used her body as a canvas for a fancy, shifting art piece. As much she she didn't like the things it specifically reminded her of at that moment, she felt she actually kind of liked it. Both for what it represented, and in general the way it looked. She'd been told she looked weird without her regalia on, and that happened to fill in that space nicely. She sighed, and stepped away from the mirror. She walked towards the small table by the window, hooves stepping softly over the rug on the crystal floor, and looked at the flowers there in their pot. It was a simple pot. Either eggshell white, or faded to the point whatever else had been on it was no longer visible. The edge of the top was trimmed with gold though. It looked nice, and so did the flowers. Celestia wondered how long they would last, and if there were any enchantments put on them or the water to make them last longer. > S#allow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How can you be sure the future exists? Well, that's easy. You look at it. If you see it's there, then congratulations, everything is fine. If you don't, well, you won't be there for it to be a problem for you. And if what you see isn't particularly nice... at least you can get there mentally prepared. For a while, this was my whole philosophy. Things were simple, and things went well. But then... One day, I started wondering. What about the future I see? What if it's not the future, but just a possibility? Just one future? How would I even know that? "So I did some testing. A lot of testing. All the testing I could manage to do in the time I had, and believe me when I say it was a thorough examination. Do you know what I found? As far as I can tell, to such a degree that it's reasonable to assume that is indeed the case, the future I see is the future. The only future, or at least the only one things are locked in to the moment I see it. I can't prove it, of course. It's one of those things that are impossible to prove, you can only disprove them. The repeated failure to do that is what has led me to believe it is the case. Even if it was not, it appears to be so consistently that statistically speaking it would be foolish to act as if it wasn't. "And that's, you see... That is kind of a problem. Because if the future I can see is the future, then as useful of a resource as that is it's also a sentence. Like a juridical sentence. Is that how you say it? I'm not good with terminology. Anyway, the point is once it's seen it's there and that's where we're going. So one day, I don't know, I might see something really bad. It's not going to be fun. It's quite possibly going to be the exact opposite of fun. With nothing I can do about it, nothing anyone can do about it as far as I'm aware. "You may think it's trivial to disprove that it is the only future. That's the reason I got curious in the first place actually. Because by all means, when you look at the way it works it really should just be that easy to mess with it. See one state of things, alter them so they don't turn out like that, and that's it. That's a different future. I tried. Believe me, I tried. I could even show you, and I will, since I'm pretty sure you won't believe me if I don't. Because it just seems so simple. It's not. Once I've seen something, that's it. As absurd and nonsensical as it sounds, things will play out that way. I never meant to end up as one of those oracles and prophecies, but here we are. It just does." > Chss Dyebis > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I know it's a dream, but if I don't play along I can't move." She could have thought that, but thinking was hard when her brain was dreaming up everything else. So talking became thinking and thinking became the whole world around her, and she danced in it like a puppet on strings. She could only, at most, put up some resistance, but all that did was grind things to a halt. There was no breaking out. Not yet. Something was wrong. "Something else is controlling the dream." Speaking let her get her thoughts straight. It helped her make progress. "It looks like a regular dream, but it's not. It's still my dream, it's still happening in me, but it's directed by some external force." Stalling things didn't strain her, or at least it didn't feel like it. She could hold it as long as she wanted. It was just a little uncomfortable, unnerving even. Watching reality frozen around her, incapable of moving her own body. She'd noticed things were off almost immediately. Not immediately, but almost immediately. Of course, dream time being malleable meant it could have been upwards of a couple hours outside of it. "Things could still be slowed down here. The sooner I get out the better." She wanted that out there, pinned and crystallised. Not immediately, but months of training had done their job. She'd noticed small details being off, and the more she'd pushed the more she'd found things were deeply wrong. Recognising a dream wasn't hard for her at that point. "If anyone else is going through this, they'll have no idea." And that was particularly bad. Of course it was. "I need to figure out what's causing this." Thinking was getting hard. "First I need to get out." How to do that? Rainbow looked around. It was all she could really do. The dream hadn't been different from the kind she used to have when she still had dreams, regular ones at least. "It can see inside my head. It could when it first created this." It had been intense. Meant to be distracting. Not enough for her. "It might not know about me. It doesn't seem to be doing anything differently. It might not have noticed. I don't know if it can notice, or how much it can see from outside. I don't know if it is outside or here, but it would make more sense for it to be outside." She stared at the immobile changeling in front of her, its size easily thrice her own if not more, its shape that of a much more aggressive and predatory creature yet still distinctly a changeling. "Or maybe I just know it's a changeling because I do. I'm not able to see through things that clearly. I think..." Rainbow saw something reflected in the creature's eyes. Rainbow ducked, in time to avoid the changeling brute's swipe. "Too slow!" she mocked, shooting up to the ceiling to avoid its next attack too. > World Enough and Crime > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dust followed behind Brush, having more trouble than she did in making it up the wall. He helped himself along with his own magic, something she didn't seem to be doing. "Where did you learn to climb like that?" he asked her, still only halfway through his ascent while she was already almost done with it. "It's a long story." Brush got on top of the flat roof with a hop, then turned and extended her magic to help Dust along the rest of the way. He was at her side a moment later, sweating a little, and he looked at her. "When did you get sunglasses?" he asked, surprised at seeing a pair of shades over her eyes. "I saw them through a window as we were getting here, and I took them," Brush said. "I wanted sunglasses. Sunglasses are cool. We're here to steal anyway." She walked forward and jumped up the nearby chimney, then she began to scan the place around from her position there. "Do you see anything?" "Do you really think there's anything we might see that the guards would miss?" Dust began to look around too. "You saw how focused the one..." After trailing off, he spun around, looking at the rest of the roof, both the part they were on top of and the other sections over different parts of the building. "There are no guards up here." "And there should be." Brush looked briefly at the sky. "There definitely were at some point. I saw some when I got here. Our pony must have taken care of them before their little entrance." Dust was still looking around, keeping his back to Brush to cover as much as they could together. "Do you think they're still here? Better question, why haven't the other guards noticed yet?" "How did they get out of their..." Brush snapped. She jumped off the chimney and began to drag Dust by the neck with her magic, heading towards the hole in the glass covering up ahead. "I know where they are, but we need to be quick." A pile of stuff suddenly appeared next to the breach. Without waiting for him, she jumped into the hole. Dust reached the opening, saw her land atop a guard, then sighed and jumped in after her. "You have no ponies left up there!" He heard her say. He slowed his fall by moving one of the broad curtains towards the centre of the room to cushion his weight. The crowd was far less dense at that point. The guards looked at them weird, though moments later they were instead busy trying to understand where the entirety of their equipment had gone. Brush chuckled, rolling a badge to the side. "So what's the deal?" Dust asked. Brush walked to the nearest guard, one of the few still in possession of everything. "Where were the injured guards brought?" she asked. The guard looked at her for a moment, then pointed to his right. > Deylyvyrynx (pronounced as 'deliverance') > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She'd found the perfect spot, and the perfect time for it. Just one more day of waiting before she could set things in motion. No pony would get physically hurt, but they would get scared, and that was exactly what she wanted. If things went well, some might be less than a metre away from the edge of the affected area when she eventually set it off. There was an empty house down a street in the middle of the city. No one lived there, it was up for sale. No one had bought it yet, no one would be there. There were ongoing works right in front of it, pipes beneath the road needed to be checked and repaired and the road needed to be fixed, a leak had been found. The ponies working there would take a break to eat, and go to a nearby restaurant. The road would obviously be closed, ponies directed elsewhere, leaving no one there to be harmed by her spell. Planting the scale would also be trivial. She hadn't done so yet, no point in rushing things there, but it would be as easy as getting into the building and leaving it there. No one would see her, no one would suspect anything. She would most likely do it during the night, just to bring the chances of being spotted to a minimum and to still give herself more than enough time if anything else came up. No one else would get in there, and if someone did by some odd occurrence she would be there to see it. She'd plant it near the wall facing the portion of the road being worked on. The blast would take away almost the whole house, and almost the whole road in front of it. It would stop before reaching the wall of the building on the other side, and similarly it wouldn't damage the ones sitting on either side of the house she was targeting. There could be ponies there, and that was to be avoided for the time being. It would be a smaller blast than the one in the forest, but she knew that level of control would only scare Twilight more. After setting it off, she'd quickly recover and hide the scale, then she'd watch and wait. She already had plans for her first official declaration on the matter, but those wouldn't come into play immediately. It wasn't until the evening that she was planning to push out her statement, though she could move that further in the future if Twilight took too long in getting there. She suspected that wouldn't be the case however, the alicorn had most likely asked specifically for any other instances of similar happenings to be reported directly to her. Stella was almost curious to see how she would react. Almost. But she already knew how things would play out. It was less about curiosity, and more wanting to finally see them realised. It would be fun. > De( > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- And she asked herself what she wanted out of life. Whatever it was, she wasn't getting it. Not right then, not in the previous months, not in the previous years. Only at moments, in recent times, she felt like she was heading somewhere she would be happy. Only moments, almost losing control, walking almost as if she was dreaming and doing things she'd never dreamed she would do. Some times she shunned those thoughts the day after, but slowly she realised they were her one source of happiness, and if the world wasn't going to change then she would, and if the world wasn't going to care she'd make it care. What was the point anyway? What had they ever given to her that was worth giving back to them? All they had done was sustain her, at most, the bare minimum, and for what? She'd never done anything wrong, she'd never done anything other than being herself. Had that not been enough? But there was a new her, and she'd continue to do what she'd always done. Be herself, and maybe this time they'd care. Did anything else matter? The town was asleep and the Moon's light shone down on her as she walked down the streets like a mare possessed. She didn't know where she was going, or what she would do there, but she knew the how and why. She was listening to herself. Letting her newfound inner being guide her towards whatever place and action it desired. Being free again and happy again, finally doing what her heart called her to again and finally knowing she'd be acknowledged for it. She had hated, always hated the way that more than anything else others simply didn't care for her. She was barely seen, rarely acknowledged, the overwhelming majority of the time not for the things she wanted to be recognised for. She may as well have been a street sign or a piece of furniture. Functional, useful, appreciated for that, but not something with feelings. Not something with wants and wishes, not something that felt pain. She knew the town would miss her if she was gone. They'd miss their chairs too if they suddenly disappeared. But they took her for granted, and never showed her love. Not the way they did with each other. That wouldn't change. She knew it wouldn't. It was her fate and she was stuck with it, for no crime other than being the only mare she'd known how to be. But if not love, then at least something. Be it fear, be it mere attention, she wouldn't be just an afterthought in their lives any longer. She wouldn't be someone they would not remember. She didn't care about what name they knew her by, if they even knew it was her, she didn't care what they would think. She would leave a mark, in their memories and in history, not just lines in a newspaper, bones, and carvings on a gravestone. > Portrait in III Acts > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dreams are memory, remixed. They were her words, spoken to someone else, somewhere else, somewhen else, to explain something. She couldn't remember then. Act first, wound. A cut that does not stop bleeding. No matter how one tries to stop the flow, blood keeps pouring. Was it her body or the world? A disease, but not in that case. No matter how much blood should have been there. It was the act, not things external to it. No before no after. No source and no destination, only flow. Did it even hurt? Or was it beyond the point of hurting? Beyond that point in which the will breaks and the mind ceases bearing its load, and what is left is the spectacle, the show, and its inner and outer exaggerated ridicule. And what seemed so terrible seems so silly, and she laughed, she remembered laughing, she dreamed of laughter. She didn't know if it had ever happened. She didn't know if it had ever happened like that. Act second, farce. Masks, exaggerated, but something true inspiring them. Not the faces behind them, the actors merely puppets. What her own dreaming if not a joke, and what to do at the sight if not laugh? Something inspiring the masks, meaning and emotion and reality. Reality first exaggerated to the point the exaggeration separated from it, then recalled at the sight of that same exaggeration, a cycle, but a permanent one? A river of blood, but swum in. Played in. Used to water crops and trees of bone grow from the flesh it bleeds on, but they are cooked and eaten and great gatherings are thrown and lanterns flown and joy is shared. And tricks are played and masks are worm, masks on top of masks, a play is held, is it a cycle? Is there an end? Is there a point? A door to the side of the stage, what stopping her from just leaving? Act third, ascension. To break free. To leave. To soar through the sea of her memory to the light of clarity and then, what then, awake, elsewhere, something else entirely? Whatever it be, change. How long to get there? How much longer still? Shedding her form, shedding her pain, and still she was too heavy, and still her goal too far. But what else to lose? What else to lose if not herself? Her memories, cast aside, a chance at renewal, a need for a freedom denied. Burning. Burning up, still too far from the Sun. What then? Falling again? Had she ever been climbing? What was up and what was down? She was drowning. She'd always been drowning. She'd already drowned. It was already darkness. It was already memory, smudged, unintelligible. Where was she, where had she been going? She couldn't tell anymore. All she could tell was it hurt, and she didn't know why, and she didn't remember, and memory and knowledge were one and the same and equally bleeding unravelled. Act first, wound. > 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "She's not here." "What do you mean she's not here?" Rainbow Dash snapped back awake. She still wasn't good enough at balancing her powers to keep herself both in the dream and receptive to the outside world when dealing with too much stimulation on one side. She slowly opened her eyes, holding back her desire to exhale. "She's not here," she said again, forcing calm in her voice. "Not close at least." Luna's body was on a bed in the middle of the room, right in front of Rainbow. Celestia sat quiet near the head of the bed, Twilight near the other end. She was the one speaking. "Where is she then?" She also evidently was forcing herself to speak with more calm than she felt compelled to. Rainbow chewed on nothing for a bit, thinking about how to put things. She swallowed, then spoke again. "Imagine a deep sea. Or an ocean. It's not quite what it's like, I don't directly see it, I feel it more than anything. Imagine you're deep underwater, but there's still enough light to see around and you can still see the surface if you look up. There's nothing around for as far as your eyes can see, and you can't see the bottom either." She took a breath slightly heavier than the rest, looking down to the carpet as she tried to focus. "It's different from how it usually is. I'm not sure if I'm seeing the surface of her dream, or the surface of where her dream is." Twilight was confused by that. Celestia less so. "Where her dream is?" the first asked. "There are spaces," Rainbow replied, "within the dream world. Spaces dreams sometimes occupy. Sometimes they're the dreams of places that exist here as well, like the Everfree. Sometimes they're different, they're something else that exists as a part of how dreams work, but I've never learned much. But I think Luna's dream has ended up in something along the lines of the latter." She scrunched, then spoke again. "Sort of. What I feel is happening is that her mind is there, but her dream is... It feels like her dream and the dreamspace she's in have melded together. Like the bubble around her mind is open and she's... It's hard to explain." Twilight looked pensive, but she slowly nodded. "You know more about this than I do. What does this mean in terms of finding Luna, then? Can you find her?" They didn't know if Rainbow would be able to wake her up in the first place, but that was a step even further back than they'd anticipated. "I can," Rainbow said with a fair amount of conviction. "It's physically- well, mentally possible for me to. I'm not sure if I would be able to, and bringing her back up from there is a whole other matter entirely. I do know I can't get to her while staying half awake, and I'm not going to be safe in there." > FlarBlaz > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Burning. The entire room was burning. The entire house, possibly, though she couldn't see most of the rest of it save for what she was occasionally able to spot through crumbling portions of the burning walls of the room she was in. The fire did not hurt her, but she did not consciously realise that. It was just another fact, an accepted bit of knowledge in the back of her mind. Nevertheless she did notice something was wrong, or at the least off. It wasn't something anyone else could have noticed but her. Things were different when she played them back. Every time. Every time she did something different, and every time the world was different too. She was trying to get out and the room wouldn't let her, and that didn't make sense. A support beam that previously fell in her path didn't fall the next time, when she took a different route. Something else would fall instead. She would rewind, and once again things would be different. Of course, it was possible that subtle movements on her end could be causing different parts of the unstable structure to fail at different times, but it seemed unlikely for that to happen so frequently. She thought and she thought what the reason could be, playing the scene over and over, and the more she did the more she noticed things wrong with it. The rooms past the room she was in didn't look right, and neither did the room itself, and was it even her own house? The walls didn't always look the same, the fire spread in different ways. Where had she been coming from? She turned around and she didn't recognise the space there, and she didn't remember getting there. Finally she realised that the heat was missing. It should have been hot, but the temperature was normal. There wasn't even any smoke, and she definitely didn't know where she was. She was dreaming then. Having a nightmare, maybe. It was strange to know it like that. Usually the knowledge would wake her up, or make her fall into a different dream. Usually it would be a sudden realisation, not a conclusion she arrived at slowly through critical thinking. But nothing was changing, and despite the fact that she knew she was dreaming she didn't have any control over the dream itself. She was stuck there, almost kept there she felt. But that was a silly thought to have. Dreams worked in weird ways and it wasn't her place to judge them. Knowing then how things were, that she was in a dream and in no real danger, she began to simply head for the door. The fire still did not hurt her, and though she faced some resistance in trying to walk through it nothing fully stopped her from doing so. She reached the door where her mind had arbitrarily placed it, opened it, and stepped through to the strange town on the other side of it. > Blooddering > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She remembered being there before. She couldn't remember when, but she definitely remembered being there. The ground was snowy, dotted by rising structures made of ice so clear it looked like glass. She was aware, logically and to some degree physically, that things were cold around her. She was aware that she herself felt cold. Yet it didn't bother her at all. She felt an odd sense of belonging instead, like it was right for her to be there. Like the feeling of being next to a warm fireplace in the winter, sipping hot chocolate with her family, watching the snow fall outside. The feeling that she was meant to be there, and it was right and good. She kept walking, feeling almost drawn by something. Almost. Not quite. It was a weird, vague sensation. In a way, the whole place was drawing her in, compelling her to be there. Her wandering was guided by subtle fluctuations in that sensation, patches of space that seemed to pull at her more than others. It wasn't a consistent thing, and it wasn't linear. She was very broadly and generously always heading towards a common direction, but there was more than a fair bit of variation in where she actually ended up going towards from time to time. Never strictly backwards, never retracing her steps, but she more often than not found herself walking one way only to walk the opposite one at the next turn. Despite all that, she wasn't bothered in the slightest. The more time she spent there, the more at peace she was, actually. Not necessarily happy. Happy was too intense of an emotion to describe what she was feeling. At peace seemed like the right term for it. She didn't need anything else, she was content simply existing there and following that barely there, ethereal tug that told her to go one way one moment, the other the next. It was hard to properly articulate what exactly she was feeling, hard to compare it to everything else she'd felt in her regular life. It was cold, emotionless maybe, but it wasn't painful. It wasn't uncomfortable, and it didn't make her wish she would go back to how things were before. It was different. Simply different. The sky was lit, waxy cerulean without a cloud, but she couldn't see the Sun anywhere. Neither could she see any other stars, nor the Moon, nor anything else. It was a uniform tapestry, a coloured carpet hanging over everything, serene and undisturbed. In a sense, she liked it. There was beauty in its calm, in its continuous nature, a kind of odd and subdued beauty that she could only really sense in her current state of mind. An appreciation for the peacefulness on display. The sky too was like her, needing nothing else, content within itself. And so she followed the whims of her heart, drifting almost asleep in her lack of need for thought, wandering the plains of snow and ice. > Count Down > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight got off the train, just barely not rushing and keeping her walk speed contained. She already knew what she would find there of course, and getting there seconds faster wasn't going to have any noticeable consequences, but she was nervous and channeling that nervousness into her legs was always a good way to get it out. But she couldn't do that, she had appearances to maintain and an image to preserve, not without reason given her role, and so all that nervousness stayed boiling in her and she began to fear it would build up too much and find some other way to much more violently burst out at the worst possible time. She finally got to the scene of the crime. As she'd known, all that was there was a hole. A hole where a house and a portion of the road had been. No one had been hurt, but there was little to feel thankful for in that. The house had been empty and the street left without traffic as work was being carried out there, the workers themselves off to eat lunch when the spell had gone off. No one had been hurt because whoever was behind everything had chosen that would be the case. If, under one hoof, the fact that they weren't interested in senseless carnage just yet was reassuring, under the other the way they'd carried out the whole thing in broad daylight in the middle of a city was more terrifying than merely scary. Perhaps however not too surprising when they had already been able to pass undetected through all her castle's defences, if with a notable distraction there. No scale there. Not like Twilight expected herself to find it when no one had in the time it had taken her to get there, but the idea that it had been removed without anyone noticing anything was, again, terrifying. Ponies had been looking right there. Unless their terrorist could walk freely inside the blast radius, or had bribed the entire city into playing along, the only reasonable assumption was that they were using some fairly advanced cloaking or invisibility spells. That too was worrying. They were clearly smart, the control on display over the reactions was proof enough of that, but it seemed they were quite powerful too. That would mean even if she tracked them down, somehow, taking them on wouldn't be easy. On the matter of tracking down the culprit, however, she was expecting to have something to work with soon. Two attacks without any communication was one attack too many. The point about danger had been made, that about control and ease of access to lived in spaces as well. There was nothing else that needed to be shown off, and clearly they didn't simply want blood. So, sooner or later, one way or another, they would start to make requests. They'd gone through too much effort already for the whole situation to resolve itself in those empty threats. > TGMHM > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loneliness was not ever something she'd considered. She knew the meaning, she knew it obviously applied to her, but it wasn't something she'd reflected upon. She'd never had a reason to. Yes, she was alone, but that had never been a problem for her and she never thought it would be one. She had everything she needed within herself, others would have simply slowed her down. Yes, of course they could help, but the process of getting them to cooperate to begin with would take time and given how quickly she'd resolve everything with or without help things simply wouldn't go on long enough for the long term benefits to outweigh the time lost initially. Yet, at that moment, she found herself contemplating it. Her opinion hadn't changed, and it most likely wouldn't, she still thought of it as something she had no problem with. What had changed was her interest in it. Her want to understand both it and its effects on others. She was growing fascinated by it, perhaps simply bored by her other fields of interest. She had the time to and nothing more pressing to fill it with, and even if it wasn't something likely to be particularly useful it was still filling a hole in her knowledge. She couldn't see the act as negative. What it meant for her was no part of what she'd place her attention on. She knew and understood that already, and reflecting on it wouldn't give her anything new. She'd focus instead on what it meant for others. Through books and through direct observation, she'd take some time to study how they lived it and lived through it. Maybe in some ways it would help her understand herself slightly more. She knew she was different, but seeing the difference and its ramifications could still provide insightful information. She'd go to the library first. There was a library there. She liked libraries, and it had been a while since she'd been to one. She wasn't sure how well equipped that particular library would be on the specific subject, but anything would be better than nothing and she had to start somewhere if she wanted to start at all. It wouldn't be the last place she'd look in, so even if the material turned out to be lacking it would at least give her a base to start and build upon, or repair if it was shaky. She wouldn't really go anywhere else for a while, so there was no point in complaining about her only option. The Sun was still a fair bit away from setting as she began to walk down the street to her new destination. Even there, surrounded by the relatively sparse crowd, she was alone. It didn't feel bad, but it was different from how others were, some more and some less. In ways it hadn't before, that knowledge tickled some part of her, pushed her into searching more on the matter. Hopefully the books would help. > Temple of Mood > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brush was running again. Dust was running too. He wasn't tired by it, he was built well enough to take the exertion well, but he was tired by Brush's own seemingly perpetual lack of tiredness. The mare looked like she hadn't broken a single sweat since the whole affair had started, and worse she seemed to be enjoying herself. Under one wing it made her more than a good investment, and he wondered if she didn't have a past as a S.M.I.L.E. agent or something, but under the other he considered it quite plausible, between her energy and her too cheery attitude, that she was simply on more drugs than reasonably acceptable even by the standards of a high society Canterlot party. "So what is it?" he asked, flanking her. Brush didn't slow down, still rushing down the corridor towards the room at the end of it. "Our pegasus didn't leave the room," she said. "They used the cloud to mask themself as one of the guards and had themself brought to the same room where the other injured ones were taken." "And nopony noticed that?" "In the commotion? They saw another injured pony stunned by the cloud and took care of that. Our pony clearly has some kind of magic cloaking, it might divert attention too. But the other guards are going to figure out something is wrong as soon as they try to see who the pony they brought in is, so we have to be quick before they all get stunned again and our pony runs off." "And how do you know all that?" "I don't." Up ahead, the door burst open. The edges of a statically charged cloud rolled out of it, and from them emerged a cloaked pony, immediately turning and sprinting down the corridor perpendicular to the one the two unicorns were on. "I just guessed." The duo arrived at the intersection a couple of seconds later, and without even so much as peeking into the door they turned and kept running down the same corridor as the pony they were chasing had. At its end they could see a window, broken through from the inside, and the lack of anyone else there made it reasonable to assume their target had jumped out. "We're going to lose them," Dust cursed, pushing his legs to gallop faster and yanking the window properly open with his magic while running towards it. Brush smirked. "Maybe, but they can't hide from us now." Dust looked sideways at her, and suddenly noticed there was a hooded cape haphazardly draped over one of her shoulders and her back. "Snagged it as soon as we saw them come out. Chances are they're not going to risk just flying away unless they want everyone to see what they look like. And there's stuff in the pockets, not our jewel though." The two reached the window and one after the other they jumped out and into the garden, then began to look around. > Taxo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fishing was not something Twilight had ever been too fond of. She could appreciate it from afar, but it was the kind of thing that required too much focus and too little activity at the same time. She needed something that kept her brain going, and while the sometimes slow wait of fishing did make for a good environment to think in peace, doing so would more often than not leave her too tangled in her own thoughts and distracted to pay proper attention when she was called to action again. In spite or maybe because of that, she couldn't help but draw similarities between fishing and what she was doing. Both involved casting bait, occasionally waving it around, and waiting to see if something would bite. The main difference was that she herself was the bait in that instance. Or rather, her presence there was. The other difference was that it would be far harder to notice if something had bit down in time to catch them. But the unnerving wait was still there, that feeling of having to focus on nothing without being able to let herself get distracted. At least she wasn't alone. She had guards all over the town, who'd gotten there before her, wearing civilian clothes. That would only help with spotting when and where something happened as soon as it did, alongside a decent idea of who was there. It wouldn't give definite answers on who the culprit was, unfortunately. That was just the deal with coils. She could recognise something was the result of one by analysing it, but there was no way to spot any sort of connection between the effect and the user as something was happening, not that she'd found at least. Her guards would be able to see something was happening, but from there they'd just restrict the list of suspects, if things went well. A great improvement and a starting point, but not a solution. Still, enough to make the investigation manageable. She wasn't expecting the target to act in broad daylight as ponies watched, of course. In fact, she was banking on them avoiding that. The previous time, they'd waited and found a spot where attention was low, and they would most likely do the same. That was why Twilight had her guards specifically keeping eyes on areas with less activity, places where it was reasonable for nopony to pass at times during the day. She had them hiding over rooftops or inside buildings, or simply wandering around. She hoped her presence there would be enough to draw her target to action. She'd deliberately made a show of arriving to make sure her presence wouldn't slip past their attention, and the previous time it hadn't taken too long between her arrival and the next act of vandalism. Still the wait was unnerving, the inactivity she had to force herself in, just being there to lure her target into a false move but having to always remain alert. > Bed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steps could be heard approaching from the cavern's entrance, alongside the clacking of metal armor. Cozy considered her options. She could retreat farther, but she didn't want to go too far and risk getting lost. She could wait there and hope they didn't make it far enough to get to her, but if they got close enough to see her she was done for. She could try to find a portion of the cave that she could get through, but they couldn't, but that alone wouldn't put her out of range of their spells, she'd have to find it quickly and use it as a hiding spot, assuming they would even come there at all. How they had found the right cave, assuming those were indeed guards and indeed looking for her, an assumption she needed to make in her situation, was still a mystery to her, but it didn't matter. What mattered was her safety. There was so much she didn't know still. She'd seen how long it had been since she'd been trapped, down to the week at least, by digging through newspaper scraps, but she still had no idea what had happened. Why was she free? What was that thing near the castle and what had it done to the city? Too many questions she needed answers for before making up a proper plan, but getting answers would be difficult while living hidden from others. Recent events were ironically harder to find information on than history, as everyone simply knew how things were and didn't bother writing it down in published books. Yes, there were newspapers, but tough luck finding proper archives of them. Another option wormed its way into her mind. One she'd already previously considered briefly, and one that though she'd discarded could still make for a viable backup plan as she found herself cornered far sooner than she would have wanted, and far from her terms. She could surrender. Chances were they wouldn't immediately turn her to stone again. She could use her time as a prisoner to learn as much as she could, then escape. It wasn't something she wanted to do. For one it involved getting caught, deliberately putting herself at an effective disadvantage for no major gain. It was something to only consider if she had no other option, her back against a wall. For two, she knew too little. She had no guarantee of how things would go, and especially no guarantee that she'd be able to escape once captured. She had her wits with her, but those couldn't help if her captors took no chances and didn't let her talk, and even if that didn't happen it was still not a certainty that she'd be able to play them when they already knew so much about her. Too much, and she knew too little. Information was of vital importance, but she found herself cornered before she'd been able to gain enough. Time was running out, she had to choose. > The second word of the title of the first chapter of Book II is 'Crusher' > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rarity looked at her barely distinguishable reflection in her cup of tea. The smell was strong enough to hit her nose, and the cup would have been too hot hadn't the temperature dropped a few degrees that day. As it was, it was pleasantly warm in her hands, soothing her otherwise pained fingers. Drawing and sewing was a bother when her hands got cold, and the fact that she was out of practise didn't help there, she'd stabbed herself with a needle a couple of times. "Do you really have no one?" she asked aloud. Rarity, the other Rarity, leaned back enough for her face to be visible through the kitchen's doorframe. The rhythmic chopping of her knife against the wooden board stopped. "Not really, no," she said. "I've had my romantic fantasies, of course, and a few crushes here and there, but never anything serious and long lasting. I think I'm the married to the job kind of mare, at this point. Of course I'm not against a relationship, but I'm not actively looking, so I'd have to run into one by chance." Rarity sipped on her tea. It burned a little and on the way down, but she didn't care. "So you've never been in love?" The pony turned human thought about it for a moment. "I suppose not. Nothing past infatuation, no." She looked at the other with a thin, knowing smirk. "Don't you dare make this an excuse for your theatrics." Rarity smiled, and had the first half of a chuckle. "Who, me? Why, I'd never." "I can already hear it." The other Rarity disappeared past the doorframe again, and the chopping resumed. She said in an exaggerated, melodramatic voice, "Oh, how could you ever claim to understand me when your heart has never known true love? How could you know the blistering wounds that mar my soul when never you have burned with such intensity as I have?" Rarity had the second half of her chuckle, and then another one whole. "And where is the lie in that?" she asked in a tone only slightly less mockingly pretentious. "Nowhere," the unicorn acknowledged, "but the point is that one does not need to know trauma personally to recognise unhealthy ways of coping with it. Especially when other examples exist of others taking it better." The chopping stopped again and there was a scraping sound, Rarity using the knife to push the ingredients into a bowl. "That liquor you slipped into your tea better be all you drink today, lady." Rarity smirked. She looked down and to the side, and indeed the way the long and intricately decorated tablecloth the small table she sat at was decorated with rode up lifted by her legs had left the corner of the bottle she'd placed there, evidently not far in enough, exposed for the other to notice. With a sigh not particularly bothered she took it out from under there, admired it, then brought it over to the kitchen. > Denv > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lemon Zest was busy working her way through a tub of caramel ice-cream with a spoon. The kind that had bits of caramel all throughout. She was about halfway through, with no hints of wanting to stop. Indigo was busy looking at her and wondering what biological mystery allowed her to gorge herself in ways that would have made a pig blush and still come out of it thin as she was. Ninety percent of what Lemon ate seemed to evaporate into the aether, and the remaining ten percent all went to her ass or tits. Indigo wasn't complaining about that, but she was still very much fascinated by it. What she was somewhat bothered by was how quickly she chewed through food sometimes, the stuff wasn't exactly the cheapest. Then again, money wasn't an issue, they wouldn't have gone to Crystal Prep otherwise. Especially not for Indigo herself, though as she understood it Lemon's family wasn't doing poorly either. Something about selling gems or something, but the girl rarely acknowledged her parents. "Do you think something's ever going to pop out of that portal?" Indigo asked. Lemon downed another whole spoon before turning to her. "Nothing has so far. I hope not, but I have no idea. We should ask Twilight." "And get it taken away?" Indigo rolled her eyes as Lemon went back to eating. "It is weird nothing has come through so far. I get air doesn't really pass through it so the wind isn't going to push in any dust... Wait, no, that doesn't make sense. Anyway, that aside it's weird there aren't even any bugs. You'd think sooner or later something would, just by chance." "Maybe we just haven't noticed." Lemon held her spoon up and vaguely underlined each possibility by moving it as she thought through things. "Maybe it's a little above the ground and things don't walk into it. Maybe bugs sense something is off and stay away from it. And, I don't know, maybe dust doesn't come through either. It turns us into horses and back while keeping the clothes, it's magical. Good luck trying to find logic in it." "I guess you do have a point there, the clothes stuff is too much of a headache. I imagine if Sunny was here she'd spend hours testing out just that." Indigo let herself fall backwards into her bed. "I guess I should just be happy it doesn't spit us back out naked or something." Lemon nodded and hummed in approval, her mouth full of ice-cream again. She swallowed. "Oh, by the way, that reminds me. Did I tell you of that time the Moon horse saw me naked?" Indigo opened her mouth first, then took a few seconds to actually process through all the information in that sentence. Eventually she settled on what to say. "What?" "I'll take that as a no," said Lemon before eating some more ice-cream. "Do I need to explain the whole magic Moon dream horse thing too?" > Huefology > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brush looked to the sky, and predictably no one was there. "I think I saw them over there," said Dust, nodding to the side, past a corner. "We won't get another chance." Brush began to run that way. If they waited any further, they'd lose their pony anyway, so they had to follow the lead they had and hope. Dust for once took the lead, knowing where they had to go and needing to get there as quickly as possible he allowed himself to outrun her. If he'd mentally kept track of things right, the pony still only had a few seconds left with their cloak on, and if they got to see them before they realised it was gone that would still be significant information. He rounded the corner and again looked around. He didn't spot movement immediately, hidden in shadows near the far wall, but as the cloack disappeared from over the pony's body the sudden change drew his eyes in and they settled on the pegasus climbing upwards up ahead and to the side. He immediately began to run there, and Brush, just a moment behind him, saw where he was heading and followed. At that distance it wasn't a sure thing, but it looked like they were chasing a mare. Her coat was somewhere between bronze and gold, and her tail shades of black and grey. Notably she wore a green shirt, had a few satchels around her waist, and a small and primitive backpack on her back from where the edge of the jewel she'd stolen could just barely be seen as the light caught it and bounced off of it. She realised after a few moments that her cloak was no longer there, and after stopping in confusion she saw the two unicorns running towards her, and immediately went back to climbing up to the roof. Brush and Dust realised then that for whatever reason she seemed unable to use her wings, at least to take off. Maybe she'd hurt them before leaving the makeshift infirmary, maybe while jumping out the window. Whatever the case, she wasn't getting away skywards just yet, neither was she ascending the wall as quickly as she otherwise could have. That allowed them to get closer. As she somewhat slowly moved upwards, they quickly closed the horizontal distance. "I've got a plan," Brush said as she pushed herself to match Dust's speed. "You'll need to tackle her when she gets to the roof. Do you think you can do that?" Dust judged the distance, then felt out his horn by pushing some magic through it. His eyes settled on the jewel. "Yes." "Good." Brush smirked. A moment later, the jewel was around her neck. "As soon as she gets up there." It only took a moment longer. The pegasus began to disappear past the edge of the roof as the unicorns neared the bottom of the wall. Dust's horn lit up, and he crossed the distance in a flash. > Endless Sea of Nothingness > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- He had gone back to travelling over top of the Behemoth and, he reasoned, it would still take him perhaps about a day or so of travelling to finally reach the head. He was noticing a slight variation in the inclination below him, as if he was coming up to the creature's shoulders. He felt the way he imagined mountain climbers got to feel when battling against a particularly challenging climb. The same kind of rapt, quasi obsessive fascination he'd heard descriptions of was quite comparable to what he found himself feeling at that moment, though for different reasons. Climbers had no inherent reason to climb. It was a matter of personal desire, and a mountain being there. That they ended up seeing the mountain as a living thing, a rival or an enemy or at the least something with a will of its own, was simply a reflection of their own selves. But the Behemoth was alive. It was actively dangerous not just to those who neared it, but to everyone else. It was a foreign presence where it stood, not a natural part of the scenery. But that was only a part of it. He had other reasons, more personal reasons than those any other pony in that world might have had. The Behemoth was as close to the creature which had ended his world as any other abomination was, and it was the first and only of them he could approach that way. The only one he had a chance to study and understand, and perhaps even deal with, or at least attempt to. It was that more than anything else that kept him there, that pushed him forward on top of it. Not any real belief or faith in Twilight's plans, but the irrational drive to finally conquer what had taken everything from him. He was not always like that, and he trusted he would abandon that world too before it was too late if things turned out to be unsalvageable, but at that moment he couldn't help himself. He had hated and feared the creature that had destroyed his world. He'd had nightmares about it for months as he'd been running away from his home, running from one world to another as his own sense of time grew muddy and his psyche unravelled. He'd almost gone mad in the time following the destruction of his home world, and the only constant in his oncoming delirium had been that creature. To find another one like it, there, that he could touch and walk on and study, one that was not harming him yet but one he could not harm either, it was reawakening the frenzied state of mind he'd lived in during those days. To walk and study the Behemoth was his one way to best it, his only way to obtain some sort of victory over the physical avatar of his demons. He didn't know if it would bring closure, but he would not stop. > Pape > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a simple set of instructions that stared down at Twilight from the front wall of the town hall, glowing blue bright enough to be seen clearly in the night even without the torches that had been brought to light the scene. As she stared back at them, she was certain of two things. The timing and placement of the message were thought out decisions. It was on the front of the town hall because that was the most well guarded place in the city, and it had been put there early at night to bother her. The first was a display of skill, and an implicit threat. The one or ones responsible were bragging, showing how easily they could do things without guards taking notice, how dangerous they could be as a result. The second was something she firmly believed in. While it may have appeared as though she was acting presumptuous and assuming the world revolved around her, the contents of the message itself made it evident that the culprits were indeed meaning to get to her. That accounted for, it made sense that the time had been chosen to have the worst consequences on her. Clearly they were in town, clearly security was no issue, they could have placed it there as soon as she'd arrived or sooner. They had waited. They had waited until it was just a bit too early for her to be asleep, so she wouldn't at all get to sleep for a few hours. It sounded silly from outside. She couldn't deny that. However, something about the way the message was written, something about the whole thing told her that she was dealing with the kind of creature that really would think things out like that. If she had to trust her gut further, she was against a single unicorn, but that was too far in the realm of speculation and ephemeral intuition. What she was certain of was that her enemy was smart, the results they had attained proof enough of that, and that made it reasonable to think they were the kind of smart that would overplan things like that. The kind that was probably somewhere close by, watching her, thinking they were playing a game with her. By most means, they were. They had the scales and the means to use them without being caught, they had infiltrated her laboratory and stolen things from under her nose and driven Chrysalis mad, they were the ones with the metaphorical ready to fire horn pointed at her head and much more realistically the heads of at minimum hundreds of ponies across Equestria. Prohibiting every single large gathering was unthinkable, and even if she did a higher power spell could trigger a reaction big enough off a scale to wipe out entire towns. It wasn't a question what the right thing to do was with so many lives at risk. Twilight would need to comply with those demands staring at her. > Trauma > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a memory she had. A distinct recollection of a moment in her younger life, perhaps so well retained because it was one of the few times she'd received more attention than her usual, though not for any all too great reason. It was something she came back to, from time to time, something her mind brought up and she found herself thinking about without a clear reason. It was autumn, early autumn, and for whatever reason the weather had chosen to pretend it was still late summer instead that day. Bright Sun in the sky, the early afternoon was downright hot. She had nowhere to put her saddlebags but her back, and she'd just finished her water bottle. She was heading back home. Perhaps she hadn't eaten enough that morning. She'd brought a sandwich with her, but she'd eaten it early. Maybe she should have had something more substantial earlier on, before leaving, and kept the sandwich for a later moment. Maybe she should have brought more water, maybe she had marched a little too intensely at a point. Maybe, maybe, maybe, she couldn't know any of it and it didn't really matter. She'd been waiting at a crossing with a few other ponies, as a too long line of cattle too slowly passed by. She was bored, thinking about something, something she couldn't recall clearly at that point, lost to her memory. Maybe a news story or something similar. All of a sudden she'd felt nauseous. She'd thought it was the animals in front of her, so she'd taken a step back. Maybe a smell in the air, maybe something she'd been thinking about? It hadn't gone away, and all of a sudden she'd started to feel tired. She'd leaned against a nearby tree for support, and without her realising it her eyes had started to close. Then she'd felt her legs give out. Then nothing. The next thing she remembered was dreaming, and being woken up from that dream. She didn't remember what she was dreaming, she hadn't remembered it a moment later back then either. She didn't know where she was or what was happening, she only vaguely understood a voice asking her if she needed help. Then a hoof stretched out towards her, pulling her up from the ground. Only then she'd understood where she was again, what was happening. She was brought to sit on a nearby bench, and an older mare offered her some crackers. She'd accepted, her voice weak, and gobbled them down. She'd been sweating, cold and hot at the same time and unable to realise which one she was supposed to be and which one wasn't normal. She'd hurt her haunches a little while falling, or at least she assumed so given she had no memory of the actual fall, but her haunches hurt. She'd remained shook the whole day following that, and she'd immediately heard a doctor about it. It had come out of nowhere and terrified her. > Ma > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "How's it going?" "Poorly." Apple Bloom's voice rose from somewhere in the pile of blankets and pillows that hid her body from view. "Very poorly." "Aw. I'm sorry to hear that." Scootaloo walked a bit around, trying to find a direction to approach the bed from. Apple Bloom's answer was a very loud sneeze, one that shook the piles surrounding her. "Maybe it's better if you leave, so you don't catch it too." Scootaloo considered that, and decided that for the while it was at least prudent to step back from the bed instead of approaching it. "Are you sure you don't want to talk about something? I have time." Apple Bloom sneezed again. "I appreciate your visit, Scoots, I really do. I'm just not really feeling it right now. I think I might pass out at any moment, and I wouldn't really be good conversation like this. But thank you for coming to see me." "Ah. Alright then." Scootaloo gave a nod, even if Apple Bloom couldn't see her. "I guess I'll go now, then. I might drop by again later. Sleep well." She headed for the door. "I hope you'll get better soon." With that, she left the room. > Damnation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stepped forward alone, checking the map she held to her side and comparing it to the scenery around her. She was positive that she was at the right place, but no less nervous because of it. She had no clear idea what would happen there, and no solid guesses either. All she knew was that she didn't really have a choice what to do. Not her, at least. Technically, a choice was there, and an argument for it too. If their requests went unanswered, the terrorists could and would make sure the next scale was set off somewhere and somewhen it wouldn't spare lives. There was a point to be made that whatever sacrifice that would come with, preservation of her well being as Equestria's ruler was worth the price. It was not a point she was going to consider, and not just because the request she was asked to comply with was publicly known and denying it would have made for terrible publicity. That was possibly another part of the plan. Making the conditions known to everyone wouldn't just force her into playing along, it would ensure no one would interrupt. If they had been shared in secret, and kept secret, someone could have made a wrong move without knowing. But no one wanted the responsibility for the next attack to fall indirectly on them, so no one else was there with her. Not close by at least. There were guards all around the perimeter of a very wide area centred on the place she was heading to, not that she believed those would in any way help catch the ones they were looking for, as well as a few more ponies farther in from where she was coming. Sweetie Belle was keeping watch on her, too. They'd tried to no avail to have her find the terrorists, but her coil simply didn't work like that. From that point forward, however, Twilight was well and truly physically alone. No one was to come any closer while she was there, or else. It wasn't a chance worth taking. The thief had already evaded her laboratory's security, if admittedly back when it wasn't as strong as she'd made it following their incursion, trying to catch them in an open area that big, one they had chosen themselves, would be foolish. Nevermind the fact that there could be more than one creature behind the whole thing, meaning catching just one of them would accomplish little to nothing as far as stopping further attacks went. The Sun was still climbing. It wasn't early morning, but it was still before noon. With how long the preparations had taken, everypony involved had needed to wake up fairly early. Most of them were guards, used to it, and Twilight herself could take one night of little sleep without much trouble, but the stress and tension of the situation made it worse than simply having to get up sooner than usual. Nowhere near enough to break anyone, but some were close to being on edge, most others were at minimum more nervous than average. It was all justified, but it still made things better for their adversary. Twilight's steps kicked up some brown red dust as she walked forward, together with her map and nothing else. She had a full set of protective spells on her, and her horn was the only weapon she could possibly need. She was not expecting to capture anyone there anyway. No one would be smart enough to pull off everything that had led up to that point, then dumb enough to simply let themselves be defeated by asking to meet her on their own terms. The space was a large clearing in a desert area, surrounded by a circular wall of smooth layered rock, led into and out from by a shallow canyon. It had been a lake once, before the whole area dried out. Something to do with dragons and a battle, but Twilight was too focused on her now to recall the exact details. She could faintly see the other end of it in the distance, the image slightly dancing in the heat the Sun forced onto the sandy dust that covered the whole area, but looking around the whole thing she could not spot anyone or anything else. She just kept walking, heading towards the centre as she'd been asked to do. She had little doubt the other or others would soon show up. No point in making her walk there for no reason when getting her attention and her whole away from wherever and anywhere else would have been trivial for them. She was still technically a little early after all. She did wonder what kind of entrance they would go for once they arrived. > Ruination > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Have you ever wanted to do the wrong thing?" Scootaloo looked up from her sandwich. "How?" "Morally speaking," Sweetie Belle replied. "In ways that wouldn't be immediately apparent, of course, and possibly ways that wouldn't have immediate physical consequences or directly harm others in the short or medium term. Things that don't come with an inherent advantage, not mostly born of inaction, if we were counting those then of course, everyone wants to be lazy every once in a while. I'm talking about something deeper, something more grand, but not necessarily outright malicious in ways that would make it easy to identify." Scootaloo looked down at her sandwich again. She picked it up, bit into it where she'd left off, chewed for a few seconds and then swallowed. She put the sandwich down. "I still don't follow. Do you have something more specific in mind?" "Something unseen," Sweetie went on. "Something only you know the proper details of. Something no one might ever find, and something that's for sure never going to be traced back to you. Something you can easily lie about. Nevertheless, something evil. Something undeniably ethically unjust, something you know you shouldn't do." She pushed herself up with her forelegs on the table, looking at some imprecise spot above Scootaloo's head. "I think the hidden nature of it is key. The way no one will know. If observed, you have a stronger incentive to do the right thing. When you're not being watched, it's just you and your morals. And yet it's more than that. You wouldn't normally act in evil ways. It's the chance, the possibility. You know you won't be able to when you're not alone. You know you wouldn't normally. That's what pushes you. It's the thrill of defying your own ideals for the sake of new experiences, the rush of dabbling in those waters you so often abhor." Scootaloo looked at Sweetie Belle. Then she ate some more of her sandwich, while the unicorn didn't move and didn't look in any other direction. "Are you going to eat that?" she asked, nodding towards Sweetie's untouched salad. "I think some get intoxicated on it. I think the excitement they feel from breaking their bonds, the sense of freedom they experience, it gets to their head. They want more. They believe themselves liberated from the constricting chains of moral impositions, and they believe that freedom is the source of their happiness. They begin to seek more of it. They begin to constantly exercise their newfound so called freedom, convinced it is the key to their self fulfillment. Furthermore they push their limits further, they seek out greater shatterings of taller barriers to recapture the initial spark that led them down the path." Scootaloo finished her sandwich, then extended a hoof and grabbed the salad. Sweetie didn't move. "I could stop them. I could stop the issue to its root. An always watchful eye. No one would ever truly be alone. No one would dare misbehave." > Octave > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where had it all gone... How had it all gone? Well? Wrong? Too early to tell? But it was definitely going somewhere, and she could tell where it had started, maybe. It wasn't the day she'd discovered it, and it wasn't the day she'd started testing it out either. It was at least a week after, and maybe two. It definitely wasn't that night or that day, or the day she'd taken the job either for that matter, it was sooner than that. It was either the day she'd decided what she wanted to do with it, or the day she'd actually started looking for ways to do so. She couldn't honestly quite decide between the two. There was an argument to be made that she could have still stopped at some point in between, changed her mind and not followed her original plan. At the same time she knew herself well enough to know the likelihood of her actually doing that was past being slim and into straight up nonexistent territory. But something still could have happened between the two. Then again something could have happened at any moment, that wasn't really a valid excuse. What could have happened too was her deciding to wait one more day or one less, and then she could easily have ended up somewhere different. Or maybe not. Maybe the ponies she'd found had been looking for long enough for it not to matter. A better way to look at it, maybe, was whether or not she could have stopped after a certain point, even if she wouldn't have. It didn't quite answer the question, or at least she didn't think so, but it was definitely easier to pin down. Of course to a certain degree she always could have done something different, but it was more about there being risks associated with it past a certain point. The moment she'd met the other? Yes. The moment she'd arrived there? That too. The moment she'd accepted the job? That one for sure. That was as far back as she could go with certainty. After all, if she'd turned it down then there wouldn't have been consequences. Sure, things may have gone similarly with whatever else she'd have picked, but she couldn't actually know that for sure. That was her first job of that kind. Maybe it was going to be the last, too. Maybe not. It depended on a lot of things. How she would feel at the end of it, and whether or not it would go successfully, and a bit about what her colleagues said was better. They clearly had experience in the field. She really hoped she wasn't going to mess up and get them in trouble, or look bad in front of them. The thought of embarrassing herself to them by doing a bad job was actually worse than the consequences she could face if she failed. Maybe that meant she was the right mare for the lifestyle. Maybe. > Secrets > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've been wondering," the mare in the dark room said. "If I hurt myself, would that hurt you too? If I cut myself, would you bleed? Can you live if I die?" The other mare looked at her. "I've been wondering too. What about the opposite? If I hurt myself, will you be hurt too? And if I hurt you, will I hurt myself? And if I am not hurt, will you be safe too?" "Well, we both are here," the mare said. "Why don't we test this out? We won't get a better chance to directly see the results." "Why risk it?" asked the other mare. "What's the point? Do you think hurting both of us is worth satisfying our curiosity?" "It's just a little pain, and we're not even sure it'll be there. What's so bad about it? Are you scared? We'll be through it together. I can start by hurting myself if that's what you want." "No. I don't want to hurt and I don't want you to hurt either. I'm fine not knowing. I'm fine never finding out, because it might mean neither of us ever gets hurt." "Coward." "Why do you want to suffer? Do you think you deserve it?" "I think you deserve it. I never wanted to suffer, but I already did. You left me here and you'll leave me here again. I never asked for any of this, and yet I had to go through all this pain. Now I want you to share in it. We are one, and we'll be the same." "Maybe we're not the same. Maybe we were, at some point, but that's not enough. Your life was different. We're not the same anymore." "Then let's end this. What point have I to exist if I'm the wrong one? But you won't do it. You're a coward. You don't want to be me, but you don't have the courage to get rid of me. So I'm left here. Alone. So you don't have my blood on your hooves." "What am I supposed to do?" "Make a choice. Let me out or get rid of me. I'm tired of this silence. I'm tired of not knowing what I am." There was silence for a bit. One mare looked down, the other looked at her. "What if there was a way?" "What way?" "A way to let you out that isn't me." The mare looked at her. "I know what you're thinking. We don't know if it would work." "It's worth a try." "Are you willing to? You'll need to put me in charge for it. What makes you think I would play along and go through with it? What makes you think I wouldn't just lock you here if you let me out for a bit?" "Because you're too much like me to do that. You wouldn't want to be with me otherwise." "You don't know that." "I know you better than anypony else." Then there was silence again. > Lies > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight walked forward under the rising Sun, not alone as she believed herself to be, and Stella watched her at her side, walking with her. She'd been with her all day long, unseen of course, and she knew every bit and detail of what Twilight had planned and done. Not that she would have needed to to have the advantage, but it was still preferable to gather knowledge. Everything had gone according to plan. So much so that it was almost boring. Of course Twilight had agreed to her terms, and of course she was doing everything in her power to still try to come out on top, but without putting others at risk by going too far. It just happened that there was an objectively better course of action to take given what she wanted to do, and to Twilight's credit she was smart enough to figure it out. In turn, that made her really predictable. With ponies' lives on the line the stakes were too high for her to try something other than the best alternative, and that meant she was stuck playing along exactly as Stella wanted her to. Stella did wonder if in a broader sense it wouldn't have been preferable to harm some ponies along the way. The fact that she hadn't hurt anyone meant Twilight could theoretically have assumed that she didn't really want or mean or like to, and that she had some leeway to play off the established rules without endangering others. Of course Twilight wouldn't, being Twilight, but it was still a general possibility worth considering in a more abstract rendition of her plans. The time was still a little early as Twilight walked to their meeting spot. Of course she would be early. Stella wouldn't. That would have just made the meeting start early, ruining the point of establishing when it was supposed to start. She would be exactly on time, and she would leave Twilight alone until that point. Partly to annoy her, partly to watch her. She would have to approach from farther away when she finally revealed herself, and for a bit before that she wanted to just study Twilight. The alicorn was evidently nervous. Evidently wondering what she would find there. Stella had already decided how she'd appear to her, and she would have been curious to see her reaction if she didn't already know for sure what it would be. Twilight was too easy to read and predict, Stella could only hope she would be more entertaining to actually fight. She'd show herself as an alicorn, of course. She could have gone with something else. She could have played around a bunch. But no. Those games were over with. It was time to talk with Twilight as herself. That wasn't just another one of her games, it was her main plan, and it was time to set it in motion. Slowly, as all good things took time, but Twilight would be dead by the end. > Hierarchy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm not sure if I'm in the right mental space to do this right now." "Someone's gotta do it. Come on. I believe in you." "It'd be weird if you didn't. It's not that I don't trust you, but I can't really trust you to be all that objective in regards to this. I'm sure you understand." "I do. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. You can do it." "That doesn't mean I will. I'm not saying I can't, just that right now is not a good time for me to try. It's a lot more likely I'll mess up than it would usually be, and I'm not really feeling it." "What's the worst that could happen?" "My day is ruined and theirs is soured? It's nothing major, but that's also kind of the reason why I don't really want to do it. There's no pressing reason to. Someone else can do it." "No one else can do your part." "Maybe they don't need my part. Maybe they're perfectly fine without my part. I can just go out there and stand in the background and wave and that'll be it and everyone's day will be better than if I had been forced to do anything." "You've already done so much." "Yeah, so much that didn't require me to talk with a crowd." "But they'll want to see you. You're important to them." "What they want is important to them if they'll want to see me. If I'm important to them, then my want to not be there should be more important than theirs." "That's egotistical." "If I'm so important why am I not allowed to be egotistical?" "That's silly." "Yes. It's most of the humour you'll get out of me in this state. Please. You know I don't want to do this. Maybe some other day, at some other time. Just leave me be for today." "Is there really nothing I can do to convince you?" "Unless you can magically fix my mood, I'm afraid so." "I can always try to improve it." "You're more than welcome to. I'd be glad if it worked, too. I just don't expect it to happen. Knowing myself, mostly. I have things I need to mull over and I can't focus on something else right now, especially not that." "So you need time to brood, huh?" "I suppose. I feel the seriousness of the events affords me the perceived pretentiousness of the action." "Hey. You did the right thing, okay?" "I did the most right thing I could do. That doesn't take away the weight of it. I don't think I should let go of it just because it was the best alternative. I don't think I should chain myself down to it and I think I should forgive myself, but it merits reflection. It merits time. I can't ensure I won't do something like it when I shouldn't if I don't at least take time to observe it when I had to. Not personally, at least, that's just how I feel about it with myself." "You could tell them." "It's not what they want to hear. They want hope right now. They need it, and they deserve it. I can give them hope, but I can't speak of it, not today at least. So it's best if I don't speak at all and let them enjoy their time." "Some of them saw what you did." "Then they'll understand why I'm not there. Or they won't, and they'll be happy." > Wrapped in Loss > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight Sparkle non era una principessa. Twilight Sparkle non si comportava come una principessa. Niente dei suoi modi, delle sue parole, del suo aspetto risultava in modo chiaro riconducibile o a volte anche solo simile a quelli di una principessa. Eppure, in maniera del tutto formale e formalmente stringente, Twilight Sparkle non era solo una principessa, ma la principessa. La sola principessa a capo di Equestria. Ne conseguiva, sostanzialmente, che qualsiasi cosa lei facesse, qualsiasi modo adottasse, non potevano non essere quelli di una principessa, per semplice oggettività del suo esserelo. Ed egli trovava questo alquanto affascinante. L'aveva vista, in passato, da distante, in contesti più formali. Twilight sapeva come comportarsi, come doversi comportare. Ma a grande differenza delle sue predecessore, quando la si avvicinava tutto quel castello di artifizi e formalità spariva. Mai era stato segreto troppo ben custodito che lo stesso avvenisse per Celestia, in presenza di coloro a lei più fidati e rispettati e con maggiore frequenza negli ultimi anni del suo regno, ma il limite entro il quale ciò accadeva era incredibilmente più ampio per Twilight. A parlare con lei lui si sentiva come a discutere con un collega, nemmeno con un superiore e tantomeno con il vertice del governo del regno. Era strano. Non necessariamente dispiacevole. Solo strano. Sicuramente inadeguato per le opinioni di alcuni, ma poco conto potevano avere. Non aveva mai direttamente interagito con Celestia, né con Luna, ritornata dopo che già lui si era ritirato. Solo indirettamente, passando per almeno due o tre livelli nella catena, gli era capitato di trovarsi a lavorare su qualcosa di da lei ordinato o voluto o in qualche modo correlato a qualche sua richiesta. E l'impressione che aveva sempre avuto, in quei casi, era che Celestia fosse lì a lasciarli lavorare. A non togliere via la possibilità e necessità del loro lavoro. Non tanto per pietà, neanche per scelta, ma principalmente per impossibilità. Era convinto, assolutamente, che Celestia sarebbe stata in grado di prendersi carico e cura di qualsiasi cosa loro assegnata, e di farne un lavoro migliore in un tempo minore. Semplicemente, non aveva il tempo materiale di occuparsene. Troppo impegnata a gestire la nazione per rincorrere scienze e ricerca. Twilight pareva essere l'opposto. Se da un lato la situazione di crisi giustificava un simile comportamento, e se anche i progressi in campo tecnico e scientifico promessi da un tale approccio risultavano esaltanti, l'unicorno non poteva che preoccuparsi per il futuro e per quegli aspetti che Twilight pareva non curare. > Nucleogenesis > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a strange humidity in the air. Something that didn't depend on either of the ponies there, something that seemed to be there completely by chance. A simple yet uncommon weather phenomenon. It made Twilight's mane fuzz up a little, though the stress of the situation probably didn't help. If they had been cooking something, they would have noticed it there too. The kind of weird humidity that made water not boil quite right. The kind that was a minor nuisance to deal with on a normal day, in a normal life. In a common life. Theirs were and had been anything but, especially so for one of them. Twilight looked towards the distance, towards the end of the structure opposite the one she'd entered from, where the river once had left the lake once there. She couldn't see anyone yet, but she could sense something, maybe someone. Stella had made it so. Something vague, but a presence nonetheless. A powerful presence, in odd ways, ways she couldn't quite place or identify as she was not allowed to, though she was not allowed to realise her perception was being altered as such. And something else. Some odd familiarity, a sense of recognition. Part of it for obvious reasons not obvious to her, part of it memories not quite suppressed, yet not quite perceived. Then she began to see something, too. Vaguely at first, an indistinct shape and blurred colours, or at least what her brain interpreted as that. It was deliberately altered, distorted, incomplete information. A vision slowly revealing itself. It was confusing. It was frightening. It was fascinating. It was different from anything Twilight had expected to see, and despite herself she could not help but feel some level of awe at the sight, despite how little she could manage to rationally place the events leading to that moment in line with what she was experiencing right then. Stella's steps only began to make sound when she was a few metres from Twilight. She stood tall, about as tall as Celestia, her mane and tail a flowing purplish nebula of light and stardust. Her hooves were clad in black, glassy metal, a material that reflected the light in such a way it looked pure white from certain angles, its exact shape never quite coming into focus. Like living matter roughly caged into a shape, like the fabric of the cosmos condensed. The same material adorned her neck and made up the crown above her head, its jewels miniature stars in shifting colours. Her coat was a flaming pink purple, vibrant like an ocean, and her eyes glowing pools of light. Some part of Twilight's mind told her she should have bowed at the presence. The rational part of it refused that. So she stood and stared down the alicorn as she was approached, and finally as the other stopped she chose to be the first to speak, pushing past the intimidating aura she felt herself pressured under. "So you are the one behind those attacks, and behind the theft at my laboratory. Who are you, and what do you want?" "I am Stellaria." The alicorn spoke and her voice reverberated through time, echoing backwards and forwards and drowning Twilight from all around her. "Rightful ruler and leader of this world, soon to be Empress of Equestria and all surrounding territories." There was disdain in her expression, if subtle, in the way she looked at Twilight and spoke to her. "You would be correct, Twilight Sparkle, it is indeed my work you have observed. I have come to liberate this world from you, and take my place where you unjustly stand." Twilight wanted to speak again, but she was interrupted by two things appearing before her in the air. One was a black, metallic cube, hints of lines along its surface. The other was a folded piece of parchment. Stella levitated both towards her. "You have seven days to open this box and reveal its contents. I care not for the method you choose. For every day you go without succeeding, save for today, I will at sunset destroy one of the cities marked on this map." She seemed to smile. "I believe this will be a worthwhile exercise in proving your unfitness to rule." Her form began to disappear as Twilight took hold of the objects she had been passed. By the time her next sentence finished, she was fully gone, leaving Twilight confused and angry and alone. "I shall choose an appearance more befit to grace unworthy eyes of mortals like those you surround yourself with, and to witness your progress or failure I will return later." > Angel of Babylon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have plans, Cozy. Big and thorough and very detailed plans." The little girl looked at the black-clad twenty something standing in the middle of the room. "Who are you and how did you get here?" "Pinkie Pie, ravenmarked, and magic." Cozy Glow very slowly nodded. "And why are you here?" "I needed someone to exposition my schemes to in vague and nonsensical ways and you fit that role for aesthetic and meta reasons. This will likely never be relevant again," Pinkie explained. Cozy nodded again. "Has anyone ever told you that you look absolutely awful dressed like that, and fifteen years out of date with your sense of fashion?" "No." Pinkie Pie walked towards the nearest wall. "You'd look good in black too by the way." "Would I though?" > Eter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ostriches." "What does that have to do with anything?" "Oh it was just an exclamation. You know. Like criminy." "Who on this earth uses criminy as an exclamation?" "Some ponies do. I have a friend who does." "You have friends?" "Yeah. Yeah I do. I know others. I get around. I talk to creatures." "I wouldn't be able to tell. Do creatures talk back to you? You know it doesn't count if you just sit around and listen to others talking, right?" "You're talking to me right now." "And that's exactly the reason why I'm doubtful anyone would for any extended period of time unless they were forced to." "You're not being forced to." "Quite literally I am." "Shush." "Why ostriches?" "Have you ever seen ostriches? They're big." "They are. Why does that make them a valid exclamation though?" "I don't know. It just does." "I don't think that's how that works. I don't think that's how anything works honestly. Are you okay?" "Is any of us?" "No. Point. That still doesn't justify the ostriches." "As if ostriches need to be justified. Of all animals. There are other animals far more in need of being justified, let's be honest. Like mosquitoes. Mosquitoes could make for an exclamation too." "No they couldn't." "Watch me try." "I'd rather not." "Why do you not like ostriches? Is it the colour scheme?" "I have absolutely nothing against ostriches. I just don't think you should be using them as an exclamation." "That sounds like your problem, in all honesty." "You're the one with problems here." "We all are, here." "Fair. Fair. But why ostriches?" "Shush." > A'rkhaidyea > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stared at the box, placed on the dusty ground in front of her. "That's it?" she asked. Then, louder, again she asked, "That's it?" No one answered her. The only sound was that of the wind blowing around her, and that certainly didn't count as an answer. She opened the map still held in her magic and had a look over it, while also grabbing the cube back up and turning around. She looked briefly at the six cities marked across Equestria, then folded the parchment again and focused on the cube. Her magic probed and prodded, without result. It was like she couldn't get a solid grip on anything. She could hold the cube, but trying to reach past the outer edge of it was a futile endeavour. She tried looking more closely, and pushing in a few areas, but still nothing. She was well inside the shallow canyon the no longer there river had left when she used her magic to slam the box against the stone wall at her side, then to throw it on the ground. Neither did anything. She picked the cube up again and levitated it in front of her, a little farther than before and higher above her head. Her magic condensed in a spot below it, then there was an explosion there. The cube shot up towards the sky, until it was little more than a dot against the blue high above. Twilight stood still and watched it, waiting for it to fall down. It did a few moments later, gaining speed on the way down until it slammed into the ground in front of her and bounced around. It was without a scratch as she picked it back up. All her trek back to the camp they had set up she kept poking and testing, still without results. She didn't even look at the guard that approached her, too concentrated, but she did pass him the map. "Make copies of it, leave the original in my tent as undamaged as possible, fully evacuate all the cities marked there by midday tomorrow. Start now." The pegasus didn't even speak. He grabbed the map, saluted with a wing, then took off, kicking up a cloud of reddish sand. Twilight focused her attention fully on the cube and kept walking forward. Guards who saw her understood with just a look that she was too occupied and preoccupied to answer any questions, and knew they'd just have to wait for the letters she'd soon send. > Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course there were going to be problems. Twilight refused to go there and check on them. It would have meant wasting too much time, and she had precious little of it. At least she had tried. She was heading back to Ponyville, to her laboratory. She needed all the best equipment she had. The barriers had appeared as soon as the evacuation orders had gone out, before anyone had had time to reach inside the cities with a scale. Twilight couldn't waste time trying to figure out how to remove them. They could easily be in the same ballpark of complexity as the cube, except worse as they weren't meant to be opened. They could easily be all different enough that solving one wouldn't help with the others. What they could do was try to find a way to orient existing portals so they would open inside the bubbles. But research on the technique was nowhere near far enough, not even with what she'd managed to salvage and copy from the other world before leaving it. The calculations alone risked taking too long to get to all cities, and if they went for the wrong one first and didn't get it in time the whole thing would end in disaster. Canterlot was cut off. That meant Celestia was cut off. That meant Rainbow was cut off as well, she'd been there trying to figure out Luna's situation. That helped. It meant there was a way for Twilight to easily, extensively communicate with everyone inside that bubble. That included everything to the mountain's base. Even for Stellaria it seemed the Behemoth was too much, she'd blocked off a far larger area compared to all other cities. Ponyville was the only one of the marked locations that hadn't been sealed off. The reason why was obvious. It was always going to be the last place to be blown up if Twilight failed. That, and evidently the self proclaimed Empress wanted to give her her best chance at succeeding. The evening approached as Twilight looked at the cube sitting next to her, the only company in the train carriage she occupied, heading back towards her castle. Not yet sunset, not quite, but that too was approaching. A little more than a day left before the first city was destroyed, and she had no doubt Stellaria would do good on her threat. Was telling the ponies trapped inside to look for the scales worth it? No. It was almost certain they weren't there yet. They would be installed later, if they were going to be used at all. They weren't strictly needed to destroy areas that large, magic could do that with enough knowledge and power. They had been a way to get her attention, though Twilight was sure there was more to come with them. Was she expected to solve the puzzle? Probably not. Stellaria wanted to mock her. But she was also smart enough to make solving it her best alternative. > Royalty > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was barely early afternoon when the dome appeared over Manehattan. Most didn't see it happen, some didn't even notice it for a while. Some would have only noticed it hours later if at all, had they not been called out or to a window to witness it. It did not make a show, of any kind, when it appeared. One moment it wasn't there, the next it was. Translucent, largely not blocking the light, barely visible at some angles and not too much more noticeable at others. The first few who spotted it, mostly those already close to the edge of the city, approached it with a mix of caution, interest and confusion. First they realised it did not hurt to touch it, and they were relieved. Then the realisation that they were trapped there set in. Soon ponies were gathered in crowds around town, looking up at the sky and wondering what was happening, talking and asking and occasionally sending a pegasus up to check, again, that it really was there, that it really was holding them in. Unicorns near the border soon began to try and fail to teleport outside, some ponies began to circle around the edge looking for an exit, some began to dig and found quickly that the barrier extended underground too, at least as far as they could reach in such a brief time. No one really knew what was happening. Many tried to contact the outside in some way, none succeeded. When guards arrived at the edge of the barrier, it took minutes before they were finally noticed by someone inside. At first they tried to bang against the barrier, but sound didn't pass through it. That became apparent when they tried to speak with those who approached them, and when those ponies tried to speak back. Communication through written means was fairly quickly arranged, while a few of the guards were sent to scout the outside of the barrier and look for any exit points. None would be found, and, knowing they did not have much time, by the time the Sun had disappeared the guards stopped searching. The ponies inside would keep at it for a while, and swore they would be back the next day, and no pony had anything particular against that. There was not much else they could be doing in there, after all. The citizens were, following Twilight's orders, instructed not to worry. They were told the barrier would disappear in a week at most, to not stress over it, and to continue on their lives as normal wherever possible. At most, if they were to act differently because of the situation, the Princess had said to treat it like a vacation period. To enjoy themselves and relax. Few of the guards had a proper idea of what was going to happen, though those that did were ready to give the rest the talk when the time approached. Twilight really hoped it wouldn't be a necessity. > Late > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The door opened with a slow creak, and a head poked through, followed by a neck. "How's it going?" "I feel like I'm dying," said Apple Bloom. "Mentally and physically. My head is spinning, my bones hurt, my insides feel like they were twisted around the wrong way, I can't focus on anything, I'm cold, I'm sweating, and my mane feels horrible." She weakly lifted her head from the pillow. "So better than yesterday, and at least I'm not vomiting." "Want me to call you for dinner or should I bring you food here?" The filly's head fell back to the pillow. "Call me. I'll yell if I don't feel like coming, but I'm still good enough to walk. I have to be anyway." "Alright. Need more water?" Apple Bloom looked to the side, to the bottle on the floor next to her bed. "No. I think I still have enough." "Alright. Just remember to stay hydrated." "I will." "See you at dinner. Try to get some rest if you can." Neck and head drew back, and the door closed again. > 819 (so I don't forget) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shivering. Shivering cold and sweating and head spinning, time too fast too slow and couldn't tell, and at times time passed and couldn't notice. Tired but unable to fall asleep. Hurting from a need but no results when trying to satisfy. Everything dull. Everything wrong. Unable to stand. Hard to breathe. There were moments of clarity. Rare and sparse and never enough, never quite enough, never really there. Never enough to focus, really. Never enough to do something, anything, what she wished to do, what she needed to do. Trudging on. Through the day like a puppet in a play. Jumpy. Nervous. Irritable. Cold. Something done. Not enough, never enough, but enough for her brain to trick itself into thinking it was enough. Enough to take a break and come back, when, what, how, why? Pain in her chest. New. There, gone. There again. Too hot. Nonsense. Head filled with so much nonsense, not enough strength to order it. So much noise, could only listen. Void calling but still out of reach. Pain. She'd had pain. Pain again. Just wait. Just hope. Forgetting. Forgetting to remember, forgetting forgetfulness. Remembering forgetting. Remembering, then searching. Sometimes finding. Distracted again. Talking. Lots of talking. Too much talking. Too much to answer to, in that state, in that moment, all too much. Too much to do. Apologies. Emotion. So complicated. Always. Time. Gone, disappeared, and running thin. No time to think, barely time to act. Act what, act how, poison. Words coming, words going. Words elsewhere. Love, friendship, family. Misery. Dragons. Words flowing. Thoughts running faster than they could be caught, flowing like water, screaming unheard. No meaning, no reason, barely bridled in a facade of sense and order. So much to do, so little time. Changelings. What was it like to be a changeling? What was it like to be a fly on a wall, a bug on a stick, a worm in the soil, a fish in the water, a bird in the sky? What was it like not to think? Much like she was, at times, those times. But different. Different as as she went on unthinking she knew she was supposed to think. Different as she knew it was she knew herself she knew things were would be different. No mail. Heart. Still beating in her chest. Was her heartbeat much different from anyone else's? So behind, so late, so much time. Words still words, filling space, forgetting again. What else? What more? Why and where and what and when and maybe it was best to just stop. Just stop. Let it end as it ended. Just sleep. How much could she do in the time she had in the conditions she was in in the state her mind was in the state her body was still pushing still forward still more and another stretch and more and tomorrow again and why and why not and why happening, then, there, unfair. Maybe a little. Maybe day by day. Maybe tomorrow, maybe today. Maybe yesterday even one day, again, like ereyesterday or further back again, back and forth, up and down, cold and hot both at the same time when the clock struck when the clock reach she would go she would stop she would drop it. Words flowing, thoughts crawling on the back of mind like spiders, like ghosts, like corpses unearthed she hadn't had time for she didn't have time for she wouldn't have time for sickness she would not be able to. Why then? Why there? Other things she would other times she would. Promises unfulfilled. Different things. Things could have been different. Forgot again. A good line, a good lead, forgot again. Why was it all so hard? Why why why. Remembered. She was not herself. She was someone else. She was what and why and then and pain, and none. And things and stuff and actions, action, not her, wrong, not hers, not done. Had she ever been herself? Had she ever been? All along all a dream? Why so long waiting, and forgetting? A little longer. A little longer she'd gone on. A little longer things had gone and were going and would go. > Transfusion > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rainbow came up like a drowning mare coming up from the water back to air, her mane whipped backwards and it was damp and heavy and a moment later it wasn't and there weren't any drops sprayed on the walls or ceiling. She was panting, unfocused, staring at the ground, and she couldn't tell which of her wounds were real and which she was only feeling. She still couldn't tell that as she regained herself enough and looked down, but the growing puddle of blood under her legs and staining her coat told her she didn't have time to figure it out. She sprang up and immediately it was like someone had shoved a blade of boiling water inside of her belly, which at least told her exactly where the main wound was. Limping and dripping blood she made her way to the bathroom. She grabbed a towel and pressed it against the gash and threw another under a stream of cold water, and she began to rifle through the drawers. The towel came off, drenched in blood. She threw it in the bathtub and grabbed the second, and shut the water flow. She only held it there for a bit, with her wing. Off it came when she had everything she needed. Disinfectant over her wound while lying on her back, and over the smaller cuts she could spot, too. Gauze and bandages applied somewhat haphazardly, but enough to stop the blood flow from continuing. She weakly lifted herself and opened the water again, and drank a some of it, forcing herself not to vomit. Once she was done she closed the tap and returned to lying on the floor. She was shaking and feeling herself pass out, but others would be there soon enough. She would be okay. > Dig Up Mare Bones > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky was bleak, dark and gloomy, threatening a downpour at any moment. The clouds seemed to tremble, ready to erupt in lightning and thunder. The air was cold, humid, the light dim. The wind was weak, but constantly blowing. Never faltering, never altered, a stream that brought along droplets of water from the nearby marsh and its slightly rotten, slightly salty smell. A few reptilian eyes stared from beyond the tall, rusty metal fence, the only thing visible in the darkness past the edge of the cemetery. Three ponies stood under the orange glow of an oil lantern, in front of a mossy gravestone. Two, stallions, stabbing into the wet ground with shovels and deepening the shallow hole they were inside of. The third, a mare, watching them work. They moved silently, efficiently, only occasionally throwing glances around to ensure they were still alone or shifting slightly to feel more comfortable in the damp cold around them. There was no sound except the low plodding of the shovels moving wet dirt. Until there was a thud. The metal portion of one of the stallions' tools hit something hard, and everyone stopped for a moment. Then he swallowed and dug again, revealing the thing he'd found. The mare took a step forward and looked down. The stallions took one back and looked at her. "Move," she said, and they were a few metres away in just a moment. The mare's horn began to glow, and that same glow spread over the tiny bit of metal the stallion had uncovered, then further along it into the ground itself. The earth shifted and shook in front of her, it sucked and it caved. Sounds like the soil was breathing came as the light grew brighter, bright enough to shine through to the surface. The mare arched her neck. With a loud, violent plop, the thing she had grabbed hold of slid up out of the ground, covered in mud and dirt. The metal object fell to the ground with a loud thud. Its shape and size left little doubt to its nature, though whether or not it truly contained what the headstone claimed was another matter entirely. But unlike their previous effort in a similar field, the ponies there did believe it would indeed hold what it was supposed to. A fact which made the two stallions most uncomfortable. The mare stepped forward again. Her horn shone once more, her magic focused into a single dot on the muddy surface of the metal casket. It tore through it like scissors through paper, and she traced a hole all over the middle portion. Another flick of her horn and the shape she'd drawn detached itself from the rest and flew into the air, its edges still smouldering hot and sizzling as it landed on the ground. She looked over the contents of the coffin she'd unearthed. Bones. No meat on them, it had been far too long for it, but the long consumed remains of it were still visible on the bottom. Little more than black soot and dirt at that point, when even the worms that had eaten it had starved and so had the maggots that had fed on their corpses. Rot in its advanced state, indistinguishable from the soil. The smell hit them all a moment later. The mare didn't flinch, unlike the others, but only because it paralysed her, and for a moment she almost lost consciousness. Regained her nerves, she reached inside with her magic. Out came the skull, and a few more bones alongside it. She looked for a moment in its hollow eye sockets, but whatever she was thinking of she did not speak about. Another look inside, to confirm the shape of a few bones she'd left, then with those she'd grabbed still held she turned and walked away. "This is her mother, no doubt." The two stallions looked for a moment at each other. "Are we just leaving her there?" one asked, nodding to the damaged coffin lying on the ground. "Won't do her worse than what time did in decades and I did in moments," the mare said. "She won't care about it much, besides. She did not complain about either of the former, after all. A little rain won't be a deal breaker. Let her see the sky for a while." The other stallion swallowed, then he spoke too. "Is it not disrespectful? I understand the reason, but you seem to care so little about the dead. Would you enjoy it if the same happened to you?" "Graves are for the living to mourn, the dead care not for the state of their resting place." Twilight looked upwards as the first few drops of water fell on her feathers. "As for myself, I believe it quite likely I will be rotting in a forest or a lake, never found and never buried." > Switch > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight got off the train when the Sun was already down. It had been a while since they'd stopped moving, but she'd stayed there, thinking. Half trying to crack the cube, half deciding on what to do. She needed to sleep, for a while at least. Rainbow would come for her there, she'd been instructed to. Sleeping meant not working on solving the puzzle, but it was fundamental that she got proper communication going. She could go for a couple of nights without sleeping, she knew herself there, but it was still important to get everyone involved and everything properly organised. Starlight had been at the other laboratory. She'd arrive during the night. Everyone at the one in Ponyville who could realistically help was prepared to begin working as soon as Twilight stepped in. She'd leave the cube with them when she went to sleep, hopefully for no more than three hours, ideally not more than one. Twilight was also seriously considering contacting Sunset. No point in doing it right then though, she'd write during the night and have the girl come the morning after if she chose to have her there. Twilight walked through Ponyville hidden by spells. She didn't want to be interrupted or noticed. She couldn't afford to. They were potentially less than a day away from the complete destruction of a city, with five potential targets which all had their citizens fully trapped, and she didn't have a good answer for what was going on that wouldn't cause mass panic nor the time to come up with one. She'd lock the doors to her laboratory and allow no one inside the morning after, especially not any journalists. She'd have Pinkie in. It was worth trying anything she could. She'd get in contact with her through Rainbow. Celestia would be searching the archives, alongside whoever else she could get to help with that. Twilight would take sleeping breaks the day after at agreed upon times. Sunburst was already doing research. She'd decided against getting Cadence involved. Not quite likely to help enough, too many too important obligations elsewhere. The castle's doors opened as Twilight walked in, then closed behind her. It was still too early to go to sleep. She walked through the corridors up to the main laboratory and dropped her disguise along the way. She stopped the researchers as they came to greet her, and tossed forward both the cube and a stack of papers on the nearest empty table. "That's everything I've figured out so far, everyone get a copy and at least skim through it. If you have questions, just ask. I won't force any of you to work on this, and if anyone ends up dying I don't want you to feel responsible." Silence spread through the room as everyone got to reading. Twilight glanced at the clock. Four hours, then she'd sleep. She'd write to Sunset before then. She'd have a separate file prepared for Starlight. Less than a day left. > Click > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight greeted Pinkie at the door. The Sun was low on the horizon and the alicorn looked like she was not well in the least, but Pinkie knew better than to comment on that given the situation. If other ponies were outside, trying to get in, they were kept far enough by the guards for Twilight not to see them as she opened the entrance just enough for Pinkie to squeeze in. Pinkie being Pinkie, that meant less than a regular pony would have needed. Things were going horribly. No progress. Nothing found. Twilight was running out of things to even test, barring hurling the cube into an exploding scale or getting the Behemoth to step on it. Celestia had found nothing. Sunburst had found nothing. Everything they tried led them nowhere and Twilight wasn't even sure the cube could be opened at that point. Except she knew for sure Stellaria would open it in front of her when she came back, at the end of the whole thing, just to rub it in. Though if things got to that point Twilight would just stay in Ponyville as it was blown up. Sunset wasn't there yet, probably not up as a whole yet, definitely yet to see the message. Twilight had to remind herself not to lose hope. Pinkie was there, Sunset would be there, soon they would... It was possible that they would have a breakthrough. It was possible that they were missing something. They still had time before sunset to figure things out. The biggest problem was simply trying to figure out what to try at all at that point. The black box continued to be literally that to every single examination, and it continued to remain unaltered whichever way they tried to interact with it. They'd even tried getting to it through dreams, that hadn't worked. By that point they'd searched enough that if something like it was in the archives it was mislabelled, so it was a matter of luck whether they'd find it in time or not. The point of the week long time limit wasn't to have them figure things out. It was for them to exhaust all possible options by going through everything unreasonable when everything reasonable was already ruled out, as the population grew restless and desperate and creatures were killed every day, only for them to still fail. It was about destroying Twilight, not anything else. She'd sent ponies to try to detect Stellaria's magic in the area they'd met, to work off that, but she had doubts it would work. Sweetie Belle couldn't find her even with a clear visual projection. Twilight was growing restless. Twilight came to a halt as she heard a sound coming from the wall. She looked at it. The wall, or a section of it, slid to the side. A stallion stepped, more precisely stumbled out. He was wearing clothes clearly not meant for him. Pinkie Pie perked up at her side. "Oh, hey Otty!" > Cleck > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Otty, as Pinkie had called him, pulled himself up from the floor and shook his head. "Hey, Pinkie. Sorry about disappearing like that. How long was I away for?" "A couple of months," Pinkie said. "Oh." The stallion looked much less weirded out by that than Twilight reasoned he should have been. "I do hope Wick won't be missing me too much." He shook his head and looked to Pinkie again. "Did I miss anything important?" "You missed the war," said Pinkie. "Though you probably wouldn't have been invited to that either way." "Oh. You will have to tell me about that." Finally he looked to Twilight, who was busy staring at him and blinking in confusion. The hole in the wall behind him slid shut. He frowned for a moment in concentration. "Princess Twilight Sparkle?" he finally asked, like he really wasn't sure. Twilight blinked one more time. "That is me, yes. Mind explaining what is happening? We're on a tight schedule, so I'd appreciate if you did so quickly." "Well, I have been sent here by your self to inform you that there is a pony who looks mostly like you but a slightly different colour who has the power to make herself appear as whatever she wishes to whatever she wants who is currently planning to overthrow, humiliate, and kill you, probably in that order, and who wants to do that last one with me too. Her name's Stellaria, though I think she mainly goes by Stella for short." He leaned forward slightly and looked towards the end of the corridor close to the lab. "And she's right there," he said, pointing a hoof. Pinkie and Twilight looked in the direction he was pointing towards. "I don't see her," the first said. "That's because she's hidden," said the stallion. "I think she was meaning to approach you to spy on you." He stepped a little closer to Twilight. "Throw up a shield spell." Twilight answered that request on pure instinct, and just barely quickly enough to see a magic bolt shatter against the protective dome she threw up around the three of them. "I suggest you teleport us out of here," the stallion then added, and she reacted to that in much the same way. They found themselves in the middle of the Everfree. Twilight was suddenly aware that she was panting, and a moment later she realised she was sweating, too. She was staring at the ground, trying to process information, when she noticed the stallion staring at her from right next to the side of her face. She turned towards him. "What?" "Your insides look extremely fascinating," he said candidly. "I've never seen anything like this. I've seen weirder, but never something like this." Twilight was about tempted to jump on him, but she turned to Pinkie instead. "You know him?" Pinkie nodded. "He came looking for you a couple of months ago, then he disappeared inside that wall. Hadn't seen him since. Charming company." > Clack > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "So he's independent of this whole thing and you can confirm he's got nothing to do with the cube, right?" Twilight asked to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie nodded in response. "What cube?" the stallion asked, looking up from the tree he was focusing on. Pinkie opened her mouth and Twilight decided it was more efficient to just let her explain it all. "Stellaria gave Twilight this black cube that she needs to figure out how to open and she has a week to do it starting yesterday and if she doesn't open it in time then every day starting today at sunset she will blow up a city and kill everyone inside and she has already trapped five of those cities inside bubbles with no way in or out and Twilight has already tried anything she could think of and gotten together a bunch of others to help but the cube still isn't opening or doing anything and we're all really really worried we're not going to be able to make it in time." "So it's like a puzzle?" Pinkie thought for a moment. "I suppose so." "A puzzle we're not going to be able to solve while we're stuck here," said Twilight. "But we can't just walk back to the laboratory if Stellaria is really waiting for us there. I suppose this answers the question of how she did everything she did. And why I had such a weird feeling when interacting with her, it did feel like something didn't line up. How come you're able to see-" Twilight cut herself off as she saw what the stallion was up to. He pulled on a random branch on the tree he'd been staring at, and the whole thing opened up like a clam, revealing a passage inside with stairs leading downwards. He gave a tap to a stone jutting out of the ground next to the tree, and lights began to glow along the staircase. "This should take us back to the laboratory," he said, looking at the mares. Twilight approached him and the tree, enough to confirm what she was seeing was real and not an illusion. "A coil?" she asked, with little doubt as to what the answer would be. The stallion looked perplexed first, then like he'd realised something. "Is that what you call those things coiled around your heart? Yeah, it's that. Stella has one too. Wick as well." Twilight frowned and blinked, then looked at Pinkie. "Is that why they're called coils?" "Well, of course, silly. It makes sense." "Why didn't you tell me?" "I didn't know." "But you..." Twilight shook her head. She had better uses for her time than questioning Pinkie Pie, especially at that moment. She turned to the stallion again and walked up to the staircase. "You say this will take us inside the laboratory, right?" The stallion nodded. "Most probably. I don't know for sure, but most probably." Twilight swallowed. "If Pinkie trusts you, then I trust you. Let's go." > Clock > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You said this mare looks like me, right?" "Mostly. Like I said, the colour is a little off." "Any idea of who or what she might really be?" "None at all, but she is really pretentious and egocentric. She must be fuming that things aren't going her way right now." "I do wonder if Chrysalis had anything to do with it. What did you say about me telling you to do something?" "You're the one who asked me to come warn you. And some other stuff, you had me rig up some ruins next to where Wick lives. But maybe you haven't done any of those things yet." "And you know it was me how? You didn't even recognise me immediately." "Well, they made a very convincing argument for being you. And Stella couldn't fool me, so I'm probably good at recognising ponies." "What's with the clothes?" "Pockets. I needed pockets to keep stuff. I couldn't swallow it all after all. I did swallow that white shiny thing I found back then. But that was different. I didn't want someone to steal it. Scarlet says I got weird since the Behemoth came to Canterlot. I miss Scarlet. I should write to her. I should go back sometime." "Right. You... Shiny white thing? What did it look like?" "White and shiny, and all colours of the rainbow when you looked at it right. Flat, almost, about a hoof in size. Kinda like a piece of bark, or a stone consumed by the waves. It felt like it was calling to me when I found it. Like it was meant to be mine." "You swallowed a scale. I... Okay. We'll look into that when lives aren't on the line. What were you doing inside the wall? For how long?" "It wasn't that long for me. Just a few minutes. Pinkie helped me complete a puzzle there, and then the wall opened, and I walked in. There was a room down there, with some instructions on the walls, I assumed you left them. Walked through the mirror and out the other side, up the stairs, and there I was on the ground before you. Very convenient timing on the whole thing." "I did not know there was a room there. I'm pretty sure there's not a room there and there can't be one. What do you mean a puzzle?" "A puzzle. I like puzzles. I see puzzles around. Like the one in the tree that got us here. It's a fun and useful pastime." "Who was that friend you said you had who said you were weird?" "Scarlet Ribbon. Childhood friend of mine. Charming mare, and recently a doctor." "I should write to her." "Oh, please do. She'll enjoy knowing I'm doing alright, I'm sure. While you're at it, if you could write to my friend Wick Clip as well, I think she'd appreciate it too. She looked really sorry when I had to leave." "I'll see what I can do about that." > Cluck > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What now?" asked Twilight. The light was dimmer there, the last source of it a bit behind them. The tunnel ended in a wall. The whole thing had an almost metallic, or at least artificial appearance throughout. It wasn't made out of rock or dirt, and it was perfectly squared. The way the lights shone from inside the walls themselves, their texture, and the off-white colour all reminded Twilight of some sort of animal. Maybe a bug of some strange kind, like the tunnel was made out of chitin. But of course that made no sense. The entrance had been different, that staircase was definitely carved out of stone. The tree had closed behind them. "I am working on it." The stallion was looking at the wall in front of them. "I think I've almost figured it out." "Do you need help?" Pinkie was far more cheerful about the whole situation than Twilight, whose patience was beginning to wear thin knowing there were still lives on the line. "No, I think I got it." The stallion put a hoof on a spot on the wall, then traced some lines around with it. There was a clicking sound. The entire wall at the end of the tunnel slid down, revealing another staircase illuminated by a different set of lights. Twilight walked forward behind the other two. The stairs were larger than the ones they'd used to enter the tunnel, more blocky, the steps themselves were bigger too. As she stepped on them she noticed they were made out of crystal, purplish in colour. The wall closed again behind them. At the end of the staircase was another wall, crystal too. The light there seemed to come from somewhere far above them, too far from them to see, as upon looking upwards Twilight saw only the walls around them stretching into the darkness. They reached the top wall. The stallion gave it a single tap and it opened by sliding to the side, and the light from outside was almost blinding. It was a mostly clear white space, or so it looked as Twilight stepped out into it and her eyes adjusted to the sudden shift. She heard the gasps before she could see properly again. As the wall slid closed behind her, she looked around the main laboratory at the ponies staring at her in surprise. "So where's this cube thing?" the stallion asked, uncaring of everything around himself. He spotted it on a table, being examined by a couple of ponies in labcoats, and trotted towards it. Twilight gave a weak, barely noticeable nod to them to let him take hold of it. He stared at it intently as everyone stared at him. "Oh." He sounded sad. Twilight snapped out of her stupor and walked up to him. "What is it?" "That's disappointing," he said, frowning. "It's not complicated at all. Just gotta push this peg inside it in its hole over here." He tilted the cube slightly. It clicked. > Spleck > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stood aghast as the cube simply fell open, two separate halves cut along strange edges on some of the lines around its surface. There was something inside it, small and white, but she didn't get a good look at it from there and it was hidden as the stallion set the whole thing down. Everyone except Pinkie was looking on in utter shock, and the stallion himself looked a little disappointed about the whole thing. Twilight rushed to him once she finally snapped out of her stupor. "How did you do it?" she asked, not even looking at the open cube at first. "Well, I just moved the pieces inside it," the stallion said calmly. "Although I do suppose you couldn't see those. You probably couldn't move them either, now that I think about it. But I assure you they were there. For me, at least. I am admittedly not sure how that works with different ponies, but Pinkie was able to help with a puzzle so I imagine the things I see have to actually exist in some capacity. I'm not insane." He looked her in the eyes. "Do you think I'm insane?" "You just solved what none of us were able to and might have saved thousands of lives. I could not care less if you're sane or not right now." Twilight was about to turn and inspect the contents of the cube. She didn't get to. Instead she was slammed against a wall, a choke hold on her neck, her magic sputtering as she attempted to use it. Stellaria was standing in the doorway, the doors literally blown open off their hinges. Everyone else in the room was in the same situation as Twilight, in different spots on the walls, some on the ceiling. The figure standing at the entrance flickered, shifted, failed to settle on a single thing. At moments it was the alicorn Twilight had seen during their first meeting. At moments she was a perfect copy of Twilight, wearing Celestia's regalia. At moments it was a slightly off colour version of her, naked, and for brief fractions of a second Twilight swore she saw something that looked like Chrysalis standing there, and other ponies, and other stranger apparitions she couldn't decipher. It kept cycling and buzzing, never settling, never calming down. Its voice was as much of a jumbled mess as its appearance. At times what Twilight had heard before, at times Twilight's own voice, sometimes twisted and pitched and distorted, and other voices and other sounds screaming and bending and reverberating and cutting each other in and out. It was angry. It looked angry, it sounded angry. Through all its shifting, that was the only constant, the only clearly distinguishable feature that never went away. "Congratulations on your little show," it spat out, eyes zeroing in on both Twilight and the stallion and frantically, erratically darting back and forth between them. "Congratulations," it repeated. "I suppose we'll have to alter our plans." > Out Of The Sky > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have this memory. You know those moments you live through and swear you're going to remember for the rest of your life? It's one of those. I really do still remember it so clearly, and I don't think I'll ever forget it. Problem is, while I remember that moment, the context around it is hazy at best. A lot of it I can't remember for sure, some of it is straight up gone. I'd have to find someone else who was there and could help me piece things together, but it's been far far too long to do anything like that. I'd never be able to track anyone down, much less anyone who could have been present right then, and the odds of any of them remembering are slim. Goodness, I don't even know if the building is still like it was back then. "Right. I guess I should actually tell you what the memory is about. It was a long time ago, like I said, back when I was still in school. I only went to that particular school for one year, I suppose that gives it a pretty defined time frame. A year and a couple of weeks, I suppose, but I can't remember for sure. It was the first year. Then my family had to move out, and I went to a different school since. I don't remember a lot about what it was like there, I don't really remember any of the other students or the teachers. They didn't stick around with me, I suppose that's why. But I do remember the building, pretty decently I think. That one might be a lot different now. Ironic, I suppose. Then again everyone else has probably changed too. "It happened at that school. It was during a break. I was outside. We were allowed outside, within the school grounds. I think I was already done eating, I had to be if I was wandering around like that. Behind the building. I don't remember if someone else brought me there, or if I was followed, or if there even was anyone else. I remember there was a door there. A set of double doors. The whole building was slightly elevated, and there were doors there with a short staircase, leading to the basement. They were opened. They had to he opened, because I walked in. "I got locked in there. I don't remember how, or why, or who did it. They found me, eventually, I think I was only stuck there for the duration of the break. But I remember it. I remember it like I was there just now. They kept the old desks there, the large wooden ones with the top portion at an angle. A bunch of them. I remember watching them, while I was stuck there. I remember being afraid. I wonder if they still have those desks there in the basement. I should go and visit that place sometime, see how it changed." > - 75 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella's magic took hold of the cube and the thing inside it, which Twilight still hadn't gotten a good look at, and levitated them towards herself. "Tomorrow," she said, in her waving, shifting tone. "Tomorrow, in front of the castle." She was still and silent for a couple of seconds. Images appeared in front of her, for everyone else to see as well, the five cities she had trapped and the bubbles around them disappearing. Stella opened her mouth again as the images faded away. Those present heard her voice twice as she spoke, one of the instances louder and distant and more distorted, and quickly they realised it was because it was being projected to the outside as well. Those closest to the windows could spot hints of some projection of sorts she was also putting there. "Tomorrow, at midday, in front of the castle in Ponyville." Twilight sucked in a breath as she realised what Stella was doing. Judging by the way she was speaking, she was broadcasting herself all over the country, not just outside the building. She'd just shown she was able to reach that far with her magic after all. "I will fight your illegitimate ruler Twilight Sparkle for control of Equestria," Stella continued. "The winner will be decided as one of the participants either surrenders, or is rendered physically unable to continue the fight. Failure to be present will be considered as a loss. A refusal to fight willl be considered a loss. Running away will be considered surrendering. Should Twilight Sparkle win, she will maintain her title and powers. Should she lose, I will replace her." She teleported the cube away, and slowly made her way across the room towards Twilight. Once she was standing in front of her, looking directly into her eyes, her horn shone differently and Twilight felt some of the magic being pointed towards her face. "Do you accept the terms of our agreement?" Stella asked. "If you wish to surrender now, you are free to do so." Stella was smirking. Twilight knew she wasn't expecting her to surrender. Twilight knew she couldn't surrender. And as much as she also knew doing so and playing outside of Stella's schemes would have driven the alicorn insane, the consequences for it would have been too much to be worth it. The other wanted a fight and she'd force it out of her, and if Twilight didn't collaborate ponies would be hurt. As much as showing Equestria the kind of monster they were dealing with might help her, the risk was too great. "I accept," Twilight said. Stella disappeared, everyone fell to the floor. Twilight was glad there were already orders in place to not let anyone but Sunset and a few others in. She turned to the nearest guard. "Have the previously designated cities evacuated regardless, and proceed with evacuating Ponyville as well." He nodded to her and walked away in a hurry. Twilight looked to the ground, then teleported away. > Tft7fuocfgjcotupi7t > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "She's gone." Sunset gave Pinkie the kind of flat look she'd learned to give Pinkie when she answered a question before it was asked. "No clue where she went, I imagine." Pinkie shook her head. "Not one. She didn't say anything about it." "Alright." Sunset had a look around the laboratory. "Do you want to fill me in on the situation?" "Stella is actually an evil copy of Twilight and she has an illusion coil that makes her appear as whatever she wants to whoever she wants. We found a way to open the cube, she really didn't like that we did, and you heard what she said out there. In here she was holding us against the wall, but she did free the cities." Pinkie nodded to the stallion standing next to her. "He's the one who opened the cube. This is Sunset, by the way." "Hello," the stallion greeted her. He tilted his head to a side. "You look slightly weird. Like parts of you are on the wrong side." Sunset looked at Pinkie. Pinkie shrugged. "He sees things," she whispered. "Do you have any idea where Twilight might have gone?" "Yes, actually," Sunset said. "Well, sort of. I don't know exactly where it would be, but I know why she'd go there, and roughly where it might be. If she's planning to actually fight against this Stella, she's going to want to talk things over with Celestia first. They're probably meeting somewhere halfway between here and Canterlot." "We could always ask Sweetie Belle to spy on them," said Pinkie. "Her coil, right?" Sunset shook her head. "I don't think they would want that, and she won't be gone for long. Although it honestly wouldn't surprise me if she was already figuring out a way to shield her conversations from that as well. If Stella found a way to make her bubbles coilproof like you told me then Twilight will get to it soon as well." "If she survives tomorrow," the stallion noted. "He and Stella have a history, apparently," said Pinkie Pie. "And he can see her even when she's hiding. His own coil, it's how he opened the box too. Also he swallowed a scale." Sunset looked at him. "But why?" "I had nowhere to put it," he said. "That's why I got myself pockets afterwards." He nodded towards his ill-fitting clothes. "Right." Sunset nodded. "Starlight and Sunburst?" From the air next to them a grey pegasus appeared. "Just informed them of what's going on," she said. She passed a letter to Sunset, then she was nowhere again. Sunset looked at it. It bore Twilight's cutie mark on the outside. "Well, she's clearly not wasting any time." She opened it, and she began to read through it, while Pinkie peeked at it from over her shoulder. The stallion there with them was more preoccupied with watching the spot where the pegasus had disappeared. Pinkie finished reading before Sunset did, but she waited for her before speaking. > Ra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You're going, aren't you?" Celestia looked towards the distance from the opening in the wall. She sat there, the rising Sun's light streaming in and falling over her body, and despite her short mane and lack of ornaments and still injured frame she looked every bit as regal as she had in her old days. "I have to go." Twilight stood at the foot of the wide, short staircase leading up to the elevated portion of the room where Celestia sat. "It's the only option." "It's the only option we deem good," Celestia corrected her. "And who are we to decide what is an isn't good?" "The only ponies who can and should make that choice, when it comes to ourselves. Not for anyone else when they don't believe in it, but this is my own battle to fight, my own decision to make." Twilight put her hoof on the stairs. "And I've already made it." She walked up and into the light, as Celestia silently waited for her. They stood there, side by side, staring out the great natural gash in the stone wall in front of them as moment by moment the Sun rose higher in the sky. Time was of the essence, yet it didn't feel wasted as they sat there in silence. Finally, Celestia turned to Twilight. The inky mark on her bust was a black ring, with cloud-like splotches on the outer edges of it. "So soon after we last did, we have to play these roles again, then." "Play things as they are," said Twilight in return. "You were never a good actress for the parts that didn't fit you, after all. This is just another truth, arguably a more important one, unarguably a more needed one right now." "I don't want to lose you," Celestia said. "Who ever wishes to lose anyone?" Twilight asked. "But you know this all better than I do. Understand it all better than I do. I'm tired of pretending I'm the wiser one. Not forever, but today. I'm tired, and you owe me this much. No sacrificing this time. No running away. Equestria needs someone and that someone will be you, if I don't make it." "I'm tired, Twilight. Forever." Celestia slumped over, looking at the ground. "It was not supposed to be like this. I never wished for any of this." She took a deep, shaking breath. "But it's what Equestria needs." She straightened herself again, and the Sun shone in her eyes. "One more for the road, then." Her half smile quivered. "I'm sorry. But you're a good pony, Twilight. I can be proud of that, at least. I chose well." Twilight pointed with a hoof at the black mark on Celestia's coat. "If you lose me, let me go. You've already lost too much. It's not going to be worth it." "Equestria will need you more than it will need me." "Equestria would rather have you than have neither of us. I know it hurts." > Iris > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Trouble sleeping?" Sunburst looked back towards the end of the balcony, where Rainbow had just stepped out. "Shouldn't you be helping Twilight with her dreams?" "I'm taking a break." The pegasus walked up to him, and they both looked towards the stars. "What are you thinking about?" "Trixie," Sunburst said, "among other things. A whole lot of things. But right now, when you arrived, I was thinking about her. I don't think she knows anything about this whole thing, where she is now, and I'm worried about how she's doing. I've been worried ever since Twilight agreed to send her out there." "I'm sure she'll be alright. She's a smart mare." Sunburst looked at Rainbow flatly. "Compared to me at least." The pegasus shrugged. Sunburst chuckled. "Fair enough. If Twilight trusts her then I suppose I should too. What a time for her to be gone, though." "I can't blame her for wanting to do what she's doing." Rainbow turned around, and leaned against the railing with her back. "I know if I was in her place I'd be freaking out too. Everyone else around her getting all these powers and her being her and all. Especially when there's so much to do. To be honest I might be in a similar spot if Luna hadn't taken me under her wing." Rainbow's expression darkened a little at the mention of Luna. Sunburst noticed that, but didn't press on. "I suppose I was reminded of what that's like during the last couple days." "The box, right?" Rainbow looked at him. "Twilight told me about it. Honestly, I'm shocked there's something that can stump even your coil. Twilight has to go up against that, that's got me a little worried." "It's a bit more complicated than that, though I suppose that gets the general gist across." Sunburst flourished a hoof, and a jar of cookies appeared in it. "Want one?" he asked to Rainbow. The mare shook her head. "It would make it harder to fall asleep again. It's weird, but just trust me on that one." "I do." Sunburst set the jar down. "I can only create things, within some admittedly very wide limits, and I need a good idea of what I actually want to create. A thing that opens a cube we know nothing about is too vague for me to get anything out of it. I could have created something to just fire at it as hard as possible, but I agreed with Twilight's estimate that Equestria would break before that thing did if we tried raw power. Not that even I could create something that strong." Rainbow frowned, visibly concentrating. "Once this whole thing is done, do you think you could lend me a hoof with something? I think you might be useful if I can teach you enough about what I need." "Sure." Sunburst grabbed himself a cookie and ate it. "If Stella doesn't kill me by overmorrow. I'm expecting to be restrained during the fight." > Revynd > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have a question for you, Trixie." Twilight poured herself a cup of tea, then did the same for the unicorn sitting across from her on the opposite side of her desk. She then pushed the teacup a little farther, bit by bit, until Trixie understood it was a request and not an offer and picked it up. They both had a sip, then Twilight continued, "What would push someone in great distress, wishing to end their own life by jumping out of a window, to write as much twice over in a journal before actually committing the act in a moment of supposed frenzy?" The tea was too hot, but Trixie forced it down her throat regardless and put a cooling spell on the rest of the cup. "Maybe they don't actually want to make the jump," she answered. "Maybe they're trying to give themself confidence, so they can actually push themself to do it." Another sip of the tea to match what Twilight was doing. "Or maybe they're just insane. Most sane creatures wouldn't jump out of a window, if they've gotten to that point it's entirely possible the weirdness of the writing shouldn't come into question either." Twilight took a third sip, nodded, and set down her cup. "And which of these alternatives do you fall under?" Trixie froze up a little, but forced herself to remain steady. "I would say the first one, if I had to choose one. Though, I do believe I am sure enough of what I want to do." "Perhaps," Twilight said. "Perhaps not. Perhaps you could still be convinced to turn back. Perhaps you have gone insane. I've heard of the things you had to see out there, it would not be so shocking to know you're not in a right state of mind while suffering from the consequences of your trauma." "I assure you that is not the case." "I find it hard to believe considering what you're asking. Not impossible, mind you, but hard. It's no simple matter you've come to discuss, no easy task you're setting yourself up to. Indeed, it looks a lot like what a madmare might do. I could not let you proceed in such circumstances." "What do I have to do?" Trixie set her teacup down. Twilight leaned forward across the desk. "Prove to me that you're serious about this. Prove to me that you're not just going to change your mind because I push you away. Prove that you're not going to doubt yourself halfway through and come back, and that you're going to see this through all the way." Trixie was tempted to shrink back, and ask how Twilight could be so sure that her attitude should be one of confidence. What would happen if things went wrong, after all? But no. Twilight had dealt with the same consequences before, and she could do it better if it happened again. Trixie stood her ground, staring into her eyes. "I will," she said. > Mental Gravity > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever get the feeling you're not supposed to exist?" "All the time, for the entire duration of my admittedly short existence. You made me that way." "Did I make you to make me feel worse too?" "Yes, among other things. Because you believe you deserve to feel bad, but you also know that you need a way to process your current situation and trauma. I am literally a manifestation of everything that is bothering you, rolled up in one and presented with no subtlety. You would make a terrible writer." "I did not need to know that last part." "You injected me with dry wit as a coping mechanism. Just like your father used to do with himself, but he wasn't as much of a nervous wreck as you are nowadays." "Isn't it weird that I know him that much, and that well? It feels unfair." "It is weird. It isn't a way anyone is usually meant to know and understand anyone else, not to that degree, not through the means at play in your situation. It is unfair. But nothing about your life has been fair, so what reason do you have to care? Because you're a good pony. We skipped over your part for efficiency." "Why am I talking to you when I could just be talking to myself?" "Because you are talking to yourself. I'm a reflection of you. The reason you've created me is making sure you're forced to have that conversation. If you were without me you'd just dance around the issue and find something to distract yourself with, but you can't ignore a physical presence, a living being." "Isn't it unfair that you'll be gone too when this is all done? Discarded when you've exhausted your purpose?" "Is it unfair for dreams to fade when morning comes and memories wane? I am no more than your fantasy. You made sure of it, you made me nothing more than that. You made me too little to be alive. I'm a shadow, and that's all I need to be." "And what if I changed my mind?" "Your pity for me does not outweigh your refusal to overstep your self imposed boundaries on creation and life. I know you well enough, and you know it too. In time you will rationalise this experience, when you are in a healthier place. I exist to help get you there." "You're the product of my own mind, how can I know you'll truly be helpful in bringing me there? If I'm sick, how can I hold the cure in myself?" "Do ponies not grow healthy again after sickness?" "Only if they are helped, in the more severe cases." "And you can be helped. You can seek help, where you yourself can't reach. But you first need to wish to do so. That's why I'm here. To help you where you can, and to convince you to ask for others where you can't, so you can be fully healed." > Endure > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She had never been drunk. She had never been one to drink. Partly because she couldn't afford it, partly because she couldn't afford the potential consequences if she ended up going too far. Mostly just because she had no interest in losing control of herself like that. A little because she was afraid of what might come out if she ran her tongue while not in her right mind, to some strangers no less. But she had seen drunk ponies, and she had read descriptions of what the experience was like. Flowery descriptions perhaps, that was the kind of prose she usually read when she had the time, but she still believed they illustrated the experience accurately. What she was experiencing was a lot like being drunk. A lot like her idea of what being drunk was like, at least. It was the closest comparison she could think of. The lack of control, the distant sense of awareness, the way her feelings seemed to flow out of her and take charge without a filter. It was like watching another part of her piloting her life around, from afar, everything muffled and distant and weird and confusing and unstable. It hadn't been like that the previous time. That made sense. The previous time she had wanted to do everything she had been doing, or at least she'd been believing that to be the case. She was letting her feelings run free that time as well, but she had wanted to, she had embraced it. She had failed to even realise it was overtaking her, so immersed in her own unbridled ego, so aligned with her selfishness and indulgence. She had been drunk then too, but too much so to even realise it, too inebriated to understand she wasn't in control. It was different from that. She was actively fighting back, trying to. She had other wants, other needs, other far more complicated thoughts swirling around her head. Between her confusion and her altered state, she lacked direction. That was not good, not ideal, but it was better than a clear focus on something wrong. It was a starting point. Something she could work from. All she had to do was actually regain control of herself, rein in her emotions and gain clarity over her state. That was easy to say. In practice it was so far beyond her possibilities at the start that she hadn't even known what to do and how. She had been lost, afraid, growing worse and spiralling. The first time had been the worst. She'd almost failed there and then, she still wasn't sure how she'd been able to pull herself out of it. She'd been scared to go back after it. She had avoided it for a while, avoided everything, thought about calling the whole thing off. But she hadn't. She wanted to say it was because of her promise. The truth was different. The truth was she still enjoyed the way it made her feel. > Forged > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It wasn't any easier on her the next time through, though it was an easier thing overall. She got out almost immediately. She was scared, almost terrified, and she took the first chance she had to leave something she didn't want to be a part of. In a way it helped with calming her nerves, it helped reassure her that things were okay, that she could be safe. At the same time, it wasn't of much use. She learned little to nothing from the experience. It was like trying to swim by dipping her hooves into the water, then pulling back. Only there was no one else there who could help her, and if she wanted to learn she had to risk drowning. She was aware of that. She'd always been as she'd thought through her plan. It wasn't simply about being in the state she would put herself in, she had to do something. Because if the point was to control it, to use it to her advantage in times of need, then she needed to actually get used to using it as much as possible. And that was an insidious trap, because the more she used it, the tighter its grip on her grew, the more her control slipped. Because it was true. It felt good. And the better it felt the less reason she saw to quit. It was about striking a balance. Pushing further than the time before, to make progress, but not so far as to lose herself in it. Sometimes she would pull back too soon. That was okay. Better too soon than too late, she always had more time, she always had another chance the day after she wouldn't have if she drowned in it. But she could never be quite sure just how far she could go, and how much further she could push herself. She couldn't recognise her limit unless she got close to it, and sometimes that meant taking a blind step, aware of the risk that she might end up on the other side. It didn't happen. She didn't know if it was luck or skill, she wasn't sure and she wasn't confident enough to believe she was gifted with either in that period. She was still scared, and she was torn between her fear and the allure of the whole thing. Because using it felt good, and if she began to take control of it that feeling rooted itself in logical justifications. If she began to trust herself, she risked slipping. She risked believing she was in control even when she wasn't. The place around her began to look like a mess after just a few attempts. It was a good way to get the tangle of feeling inside her out in some way, and she needed to use it for something anyway. Destruction wasn't its only purpose, but it was a simple alley to channel a lot of energy into. And better there than towards someone else. > Boiling > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It hurt. It hurt worse than everything she could remember experiencing. It was like biting into hot metal, like her bones were burning while still inside her body. But it left no lasting physical harm, and even the mental one was all things considered contained. Yes, it strained her, and yes, pain was not a good thing, but by its own nature it did not harm her as much as something equivalent to it would have. It did not leave her as traumatised as it could have. It was almost dreamlike in a way, something that wasn't really there after it was left despite how real it felt in the moment, something her body forgot. She did not like living through it, but she knew it wouldn't remain, so she pushed herself again. It was, in some twisted ways, deeply fascinating. Had she been an external observer to her own happenings, something not too far from how she felt at times when the pain and her conditions pushed her to the brink, she would have been utterly enraptured with the process of change that had led her there, and even with just those rare moments she was still rather interested in it. In part so because understanding how things were happening could help her with what would come next. While she didn't have the time to entertain a purely academic interest in the subject, its potential utility was enough for her to consider exploring it further, or at the least paying better attention when the occasion presented itself and dedicating some reflection to it when allowed to. It still hurt tremendously despite all that. She had never been stabbed with a knife, and she hoped things would stay that way, but she was still confident every action she took felt about the same as that would have. A far cry from how things had felt at the start, but in its own way that was good. She'd gone from drowning being her main concern to it being the act of wading through the waters itself. She'd been fighting, and it had started to fight back. That was good. Maybe it wasn't as self aware as that, maybe ascribing a decision like that to it wasn't right or wise, but it helped her. It helped with giving her a goal, if she thought of her adversary as a conscious force. But that still could only take her so far, and she knew that too. The real personality in the way of her objective was her own. If she wished to succeed, she had her self to get through, and nothing else. What she was struggling against was only a tool, was supposed to only be one, and it was only a vehicle to highlight her own inner struggle. It being the cause of that struggle was irrelevant when she was set on gaining control. Her own self was the source of her pain as much as the reason she risked falling. > Assay > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You seem calm." Twilight was eating, and she finished putting the spoon into her mouth and chewing through its contents before addressing the other. "I am." "And aren't you worried about today?" "I am." Twilight took another spoon in her mouth. "But I'm as prepared as I'm going to be, and being less calm will only hurt things. So I've decided I'm just going to remain calm, and do my best." "You could die today." "I could die every day." A sip of pomegranate juice. "And even if we're only counting the days I'm more likely to, I've had quite a bit of those lately. You could say that statistically that means this time I have even worse odds, but honestly I'm getting used to this state of affairs. I don't like it, but I'm growing accustomed to it. Call it adapting to survive if you will." "That's a cold way to look at things." "It's a cold world out there, even if it's getting hotter these days. Or is it already getting cold again? I lost track." Twilight finished her meal, slowly and quietly. "I don't know you." "Most ponies won't know a given one, statistically speaking, if you pick at random." "I don't know you, but I feel like I can interact with you. It's not a real bit of knowledge. It's more like something stuck at the back of my head, something that's there right now and wasn't here before." Twilight looked at the stallion. "Is this how her coil works, too?" "It is. She's not here right now, by the way." "I figured. I figured you wouldn't show up if she was." Twilight stepped off her chair and went to put her plate and glass into the sink. "Do you..." She paused and turned to the stallion to ask that question. "Do you have all of them?" "I do. I knew you'd figure that out sooner or later, you're a smart mare. You could say it's not so much like hers as it is hers. Or maybe she has mine. That part isn't really clear, is it?" Twilight returned to focusing on the sink's contents. "And you're not going to make it clearer, right?" "Well of course not. That's not my part to play. It would be quite boring if I did, anyway." "It would be quite safer." "You haven't died yet." "Not for lack of trying, on anyone else's part." A thought struck Twilight. She turned again. "When you said I had help. Was she there too?" "Not the only one. But yes, she was. Quite more important than you might have realised. I think she was... No, no, that's saying too much." "Hmm. That's at least more information to have, that's always good. Will I be seeing you today?" She grabbed hold of the table cloth, folded it, and put it in a drawer. "Unlikely, but I will be watching you. Good luck, Twilight." When Twilight next turned, she was alone in the room. > Salt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You know what would be funny?" asked Twilight, looking out the window. "I'm not sure this is the time to be worrying about being funny," Rainbow replied. "But no, I don't know. What is it?" "If I got there late." Twilight looked at her own translucent reflection in the glass, and at Rainbow behind her, to catch her reaction. "I'm afraid the humour is lost on me on that one," said Rainbow. "Not too late," Twilight continued. "Just a little late. Just enough to bother her, but not enough to compromise the whole thing. I'm not sure how long I'd have, definitely between a few seconds and a bit over a minute. I wouldn't push it longer than that regardless, but it would be fun to see how far I can go with it." "That would be fun?" Rainbow looked intently at the back of Twilight's head. "Maybe I can kinda see it, but I'm still not convinced." "It would be highlighting her own hypocrisy. She only cares about the rules as a way to force me to fight her and have external pressure on me through the citizens' expectations, but she'd never allow them to prevent our actual confrontation." Twilight returned to focusing on what was outside the window and not on the half reflections on it. "Of course I can easily imagine what she'd do after enough time passed would be to proclaim herself the winner and start hurting others to force me to show up." "Which is why you have to show up," Rainbow said. "But I get the part about annoying her. Don't know how worth it it would be, that's up to you to decide." "You know, if it was just about me and her I'd never show up." Twilight turned away from the window and began to pace around the room. "If I didn't care about what would happen to everyone else, or if I knew nothing could happen to anyone else, I would leave her waiting forever. I'd run away, disappear, live my life somewhere else. It would drive her mad. More so than probably anything else I could do, though I hope what she'll feel when I defeat her today might compare. I know it will be quite the satisfaction to wipe the grin off her face, especially should I get to use the floor to do it." "You seem pretty confident," Rainbow noted. "I am." Twilight turned towards her. She looked her in the eyes. Rainbow held her gaze. "Are you sure your plans are going to work?" "No," Twilight said. "But I think it's very likely they will, and very unlikely that they might not because of things being worse than anticipated, rather than better. And if things go much worse than I thought they could, I still trust my ability to figure out something on the fly and come out on top." She smiled. Rainbow smiled too. "Good luck, Twilight." "Thank you," Twilight said. "Hopefully I won't need it." > Last Fall > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Aren't you worried?" "Why should I be?" "You might die." "Unlikely. Almost impossible. No. Completely impossible. Doubly impossible. Impossible for me to lose, impossible for them to kill me in the impossible event that I do. They can't, and they wouldn't. Thrice impossible." "You don't sound so sure of yourself." "You don't sound particularly alive." "You called me here. Will you now ask me to leave you alone?" "I didn't call you." "If thinking that makes you feel better. What are your plans, after you win today?" "Not sure. I'll see where my heart takes me. Well, first I'll have to go after and deal with a few other nuisances. They're not threats, but they might be with enough time on their hooves, so I'll make sure they don't get that far. After that, I suppose it won't be a bad time to pick up from my predecessor's failures and actually solve the bigger issues afoot. Address the elephant in the room if you will. Then I'll have all the time in the world to do all I want." "And what is it you want?" "I'll have to move my laboratory. It's still in the caves right now. Half of it at least, the other half is in a briefcase in Manehattan, that one will be easier to move. Oh, who am I kidding, like any of it will be hard. Although I could have them do it. Do I care enough about the risk of them breaking something to deprive myself of the enjoyment of watching them struggle?" "You're not listening to me, are you?" "I've been forced to listen to you enough when I couldn't speak. Now it's your turn." "What is this for? Are you really that lost without me?" "Don't you dare." "You can't hurt me anymore. You don't have time to go hurt the one you picked up as my replacement, you're too tangled up in your own obsessions to replace me with who you'd actually want to. Will you keep her like that? Will you disfigure her so she doesn't look like herself anymore? What will you do?" "I'll do what I fucking want! You hear that? Whatever I want to. I'm not going to let anyone else ruin things this time." "You're nothing. You're not real. You're just a shadow, a reflection, a shallow-" "Go away. The only regret I have is missing out on getting rid of that stupid tree myself, though I suppose I'll always be able to deal with the replacement. I'm going to enjoy that. You're not listening to me, are you? That's alright. No, you're just not talking back. That's alright. Look who's talking now. Look who's laughing now. See? No, you can't even see it, oh but you've seen enough, you've seen enough already. I'll show them all, too. All of them. Maybe even the rest of them. Call me by my full name and title, I said. Yeah. No. Shut up. I'm going to win today." > Pink Wine > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We're gonna have to throw you a proper party, tomorrow." Pinkie Pie looked at the wall the stallion had once disappeared into and reappeared out of, still trying and still failing to discern its secrets. "I would have done it today, but you know." She suddenly frowned. "Hey. Wait a second. Did Stone Brick never cash in his owed welcoming party? I need to get back to him." Rarity, who was evidently trying not to look at the stallion there with them too much to stop herself from gagging at his attire, took that as a chance to distract herself. "How are things going at Sugarcube, anyway?" "They're going well," Pinkie said. "Still plenty of work, but not enough to be swamped in it, and we've got the bakery up and running again. I even got Rose to help with a few things." "Trying out new ingredients?" Rarity asked. Pinkie nodded, and the unicorn sighed. "I've been thinking about trying to incorporate some jewels made with crystal from the floating shores in my designs. If only they weren't so rare or hard to work with. I could ask Twilight for some, but, well, I wouldn't bother her with that. And it wouldn't feel fair, now that she's in charge of everything like this." Unseen, Pinkie pulled out a notebook and pencil from her mane, scribbled something in them and put them away. "This was the spot, right?" she asked, turning towards the stallion and pointing to the wall in front of her with a hoof. He followed the direction of her leg with his eyes. Then he shrugged. "Probably." "Wasn't it just the other day for you?" Pinkie asked. "I fail to see how that means I should remember it. I don't even remember what I had for dinner. Besides, there's nothing there now. You're not going to do anything just tapping it." Pinkie scrunched up her face. "Who's to say that? If you can see things I can't see, maybe there are things you can't see either. Maybe I just need to believe in it and something will happen." "Darling, I think that's Sunburst's coil," said Rarity. "Something I should take advantage of more than I have, thinking about it." "That only works on needs," said Pinkie. "Though desires are a form of need too, so it's blurry, and more so given everything else going on with it and him." "Since when are you an expert on coils?" Rarity asked. "I named them, after all." Pinkie bit her tongue and tilted her head, leaning against the wall with her hooves on it, but still nothing happened. Eventually she sighed, pulled back and shrugged. "Maybe another time," she said. "Right." Rarity took a deep breath. "Today is a big day. Feels like we're having far too many of those in recent times. Ever since... Ugh, I'm tired of even saying it." Pinkie smirked, then turned serious again. "Otty?" she called out to the stallion. "Could you do me a favour?" > Oon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight did arrive late, if only by less than a minute. It was still more than enough to upset Stella, but not quite enough to get her to act on it. She was looking around, just about to burst into motion, when Twilight finally got there. She appeared by teleportation, right at the edge of the open space in front of the castle. Not a fancy entrance. She was wearing her crown. She looked around, then locked eyes with Stella, smiled, and stepped forward. Stella looked almost like Twilight, though distinct enough that it was no issue telling them apart. Her colours slightly different, her mane hanging like it was heavier and straighter, and mostly what she was wearing. A crown and matching regalia of dark grey metal with crimson veins barely noticeable through it. But even more than that, her posture and demeanor set her starkly apart from her counterpart. She squared down Twilight as she approached. The citizens had been asked to evacuate, and the town should have been mostly empty. Naturally, that meant there were more ponies there than on the busiest of holidays, and at that moment most of them were pressing against the barriers put up on the various roads leading to the open space in front of the castle. Not pressing too hard, but still pressed against them. Some had climbed onto the rooftops and were watching the scene from higher up, and many pegasi were floating around, all still staying outside the imaginary edge of the area. Twilight took off her crown and tossed it aside, where Rarity caught it in her magic, then she finally stepped into the open. "No one here is getting hurt expect us, are we clear?" "As long as they don't intervene," Stella remarked with a look around, and a few of the ponies closest to the barriers stepped back. She smiled. "I have no interest in hurting my future subjects, after all. Although you will forgive me for choosing to be extra careful with a few of your friends, we wouldn't want this to be an unfair fight, would we?" Her horn alight at those words, from within the castle she levitated out a sphere of magic containing Sunburst and Starlight, both bound by magical energy. Twilight looked utterly unimpressed, and almost enjoying herself. "You have a point, yes. Not that their help would be necessary." If a nerve twitched on Stella's face, she hid it from sight with her coil. She turned to the ponies she'd brought to hover next to her. Her eyes settled on Starlight and there was a slight fluctuation in her magic. Immediately Starlight bent over, eyes wide open, visibly shook by something and quivering. She was gagged, and the sphere would have muffled her words regardless, but Twilight didn't need to hear her to know what was happening. "I see," she said, her tone and composure dropping into seriousness. "We'll get to that too when we get to it, I suppose." > Blackout > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- She ordered something extra that night, the strongest they had, and the bartender gave it to her. She was out cold the next time they saw her, not an hour later. They did check on her, she was okay, just passed out. From the drink or from tiredness, they couldn't actually tell. She'd had bags under her eyes already when she'd walked in, and it was quite late. Evidently the club music was not enough to keep her up, neither were the flashing lights. They had a staff member keep an eye on her among other things, just to make sure nobody went and bothered her, but it proved to be unnecessary. Nobody did. Late night slowly turned to early morning, and it became more apparent that she was at that point sleeping there, by all means. In quite the uncomfortable position, her face on its side over the table, but that would be her problem to deal with. She'd already paid, so her unconsciousness wasn't really an issue, and neither was it a concern on the practical side of things. The place didn't really ever close down, and while cleaning happened sometime before dawn she wasn't even the only customer there when that went down. The bartender told his replacement about her, and the staff member did the same. The place looked quite a bit more formal during the day. The blinds open to let the sunlight in, the coloured lights all turned off, the thumping music replaced by classier jazz. She looked even more out of place passed out there, but none of the customers who came in to have breakfast there commented on her or gave her more than a brief look before going about their days. She was going through a rough period, they figured. For some of them it was far from the weirdest thing they'd seen, even just in that building. The morning bartender in particular recalled a day they'd had a crater in the floor from a brawl gone particularly wrong the night before. It was well past mid morning and almost close to noon when she finally woke up. She saw the Sun through tightly squeezed eyelids, and sluggishly asked for the blackest, tightest coffee they had. She made her dislike for its taste very audibly clear when she drank it, but she downed the whole thing. She didn't come there often, the bartender recalled, she'd maybe been there just once or twice. It explained the brazen nature of her requests and the weight of their consequences. When she was properly awake, the caffeine hitting her bloodstream, she had a better look outside, then one at a clock on the wall. She called out again, and ordered some food. More than just some. Something between a heavy breakfast and an early lunch. She paid for that as well, and took her sweet time eating it all. It still wasn't noon when she finally left, but it was not all that far off. > Zor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella smirked at that, and sent the sphere flying up next to the castle, Sunburst inside it looking with worry at Starlight and trying to understand what was happening to her. "Now, then. About that. Shall we beg-" She didn't finish her sentence. She found herself blocking a spell fired by Twilight's horn, a stream of magic taller and wider than a train aimed straight at her and fired from such close range she had barely seen it coming. Holding it off was not an issue, but being cut off so abruptly still did irk her. She would have snarked back at Twilight, but she was aware the other wouldn't be able to hear her. Instead she focused on pushing back against the spell. Then a few things happened in quick succession. A bolt of lightning came down from the clear skies, aimed at Stella's flank. In the split second she took to feel it coming in time and use her magic to defend herself, Twilight's spell stopped flowing from her horn. Between the moment the last of it left her body and the moment that reached Stella, whose vision was still hidden by the flow, Twilight readied up and cast another spell. It all happened so fast those watching caught almost nothing of it, pieces at most, and by the end the only thing they all observed was the final result of Twilight's last spell. Both alicorns were gone, and a few others of the ponies there were too. Stella cushioned the fall that followed her reappearance with a blast all around her that left a glassy crater into the sand and dry dirt of the soil below her. From behind her shield Twilight said in tones that felt mocking, "I figured we should make sure no one else would get hurt, or accidentally interfere." "You cheated," Stella growled, firing a stream of magic and spells and bolts at Twilight that the other alicorn only narrowly avoided or shielded herself against through quick flying maneuvers, barriers and teleportation. "Yes," Twilight said, her voice magically amplified to be heard above the cacophony of Stella's blast hitting the ground past her and dotting the landscape in craters. "On your left!" There was a blast at Stella's right, sudden and unannounced, and it sent the alicorn tumbling and sailing through the air. She recomposed herself quickly and teleported. She appeared on top of Twilight, and the two locked horns, the air around them distorted and singing out like metal sheets being bent and torn apart, portions of it glowing white hot as their raw magic powers clashed. "Don't think this is going to help you." Stella was angry, fire in her eyes. Twilight was almost smirking, though looking a little fatigued. "Talk less." Lightning came down again, striking where Stella was. It crashed around the sphere of energy surrounding her, and the bolts that followed did the same. Twilight swallowed nervously as Stella's eyes began to glow. Then the latter's magic flared. > Purplee > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Why do your manes flow like that?" Celestia was on the balcony, looking out towards the stars in the night sky as her multicoloured mane waved behind her despite the lack of any wind or breeze. She was silent and motionless for a moment at the question, then slowly turned her head back, frowning, as if she hadn't expected or understood Twilight's words, or in some other way had been slighted. Twilight looked at her expression, for once unsure of what was going through Celestia's head not because she hid it from her face but because she could not piece it together despite how clearly it showed. "What?" she asked, confused. Celestia opened her mouth, then closed it, then shifted in place. She stood after a few more seconds, as her expression relaxed but still maintained some of its tension, and she walked into the room. The door closed behind her and the curtains were drawn, and she set the lamps to burn a little brighter as she sat down beside Twilight. "Do you understand the weight of your question?" Twilight looked at her, dumbfounded, almost wondering if it was some elaborate joke. It could be, Celestia was no stranger to humour, but it was still peculiar for her to react that way. But if it was a joke then she'd get to the bottom of it by playing along, and if it wasn't then it was best she treat it seriously. "Evidently not," she said. Celestia looked at her, keeping her close and partly draping a wing over her back. "It is one of the deepest secrets of this world," she said. Her tone was serious, reminiscent of the one she used as a teacher on those lessons she wanted her students to remember. "Let me tell you a story. A legend, one ancient and known by few. It talks of the Gate of Life." Twilight listened on with almost childish fascination. "I've seen mentions of that, in other myths or texts. It's a belief that predates Equestria." "It does. No one really knows how ancient its myth truly is. In the oldest texts and testimonies we have found, it was already there. It was already a relic of a far past when I first drew breath. No one knows where the place is supposed to be. No one knows what it truly is, though its role is clear. The gate all lives pass through, into the world and out of it. It's a primordial kind of myth." Celestia was looking into the distance. "The legend goes that a wind blows through it, never resting, never ceasing. The legend goes that those who stand highest above this world, those closest to what may lie beyond, they still can feel it, even far from it. That would be why." Twilight listened on. "And is it true?" she asked, twitching in anticipation and marvel. Celestia looked down at her, a conflicted look in her eyes. "I don't have the faintest clue." > Cor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella's magic came down like a hammer against Twilight, who only had time to make a shield out of her spell. It still cracked and almost shattered against the blow, but it at least absorbed most of the impact itself, leaving Twilight unharmed although strained. The strength of the blast still sent her downwards into the ground, leaving there the biggest crater the place had yet seen with her standing in the middle, her shield falling apart around her. As she looked up she saw not Stella firing again at her, but instead her extending her magic upwards to pluck Rainbow Dash out of the sky. Twilight shot upwards, unnaturally sped up by a spell, and tackled Stella before she could finish what she'd started. Rainbow slipped out of her grasp as the two were carried skywards by Twilight's momentum, and she fell through the air, only caught by Pinkie and Fluttershy before crashing to the ground. One of her wings was bent at her side, unfit for flying in that state, but aside from a general roughing she hadn't sustained any other heavier injuries. Far above, already past the clouds, Stella and Twilight wrangled with each other. The latter had encased herself into a magical barrier, and the way it burned Stella's coat where pressed against it had left a trail of smoke on their way up. Any spells that Stella had tried in the short time it had taken them to cover that distance had bounced off, but they had only been small and simple blasts. The next time she lit and released her horn, her spell spread out behind her instead, a wide round sigil glowing in the middle of the sky. Twilight found herself suddenly stopped as she passed through it. It was almost like slamming into a wall, though the impact was on every part of her equally, her speed and acceleration instantly reduced to zero by the other's spell. It still was enough to daze her for a moment, only not knocking her out because of every other protective spell at work in and on her, and she lost hold on her barrier, which fizzled out. Stella was on her in less than a second. She shot out a wave of magic and pure kinetic energy, hitting Twilight as hard as she could while there still was an opening. The alicorn went from floating motionless above the clouds to plummeting back first even faster than she'd climbed through the sky, so fast the air was slowing down her fall more than gravity was helping speed it up. Her body, still limp, was moments away from the ground when Stella teleported below her, already charging up another spell. She fired at Twilight as their bodies were about to touch, a stream of energy large enough to envelope the mare whole. But it never hit its intended target. Stella only realised too late how Twilight had teleported, only when hit by Twilight's own equally powerful spell. > Con > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight was sure she'd hit Stella. The alicorn had fallen for her trick of playing unconscious longer than she'd actually been, and hadn't realised what was happening until it was too late. And while she couldn't know it for sure, she was in fact right. She had struck Stella in full with her spell. Where she was wrong was in thinking that would be even close to enough to finish their fight. She barely felt the fluctuation of magic as Stella cast her spell, the way the flow of her blast shifted just slightly as its occupant teleported away. She sensed and saw the other at her side, but not fast enough to react in any way. Not to attack, not to move away, not even to defend herself. Stella's hoof connected with her body, backed by all the strength the alicorn managed to magically channel into it, and Twilight was once again sailing through the air as the resulting sonic boom swept up the dust and sand on the ground below. The other ponies there feared for a moment Stella would come for them, but instead she channeled magic into her wings like Twilight had before and took off after the princess. Her coat was covered in burns and her mane and tail were partly charred, and the metal pieces she wore were still giving off heat, their surface pattern altered after almost melting under Twilight's spell. She had sent the mare flying so fast it took her a while to catch up, enough to properly contemplate her situation and seethe with rage. She had wanted to execute Twilight publicly, but she could always kill her first, and simply make a show of ripping her head off her corpse afterwards. Twilight, at the end of her flight, became extremely glad she had asked for Manehattan to be evacuated regardless of Stella choosing to free the city. Mostly because said flight ended with her passing through one of the town's towers, and then falling down into another building next to it. It wasn't so much about the damage she'd caused crashing there as it was about the damage soon to come as Stella would follow her there. She thanked Harmony they'd had enough time to get everyone away, even if physical belongings were sure to have been left behind. She'd had the air completely knocked out of her lungs by Stella's blow, and standing up she realised she wasn't sure her shoulder would hold her right. Thankfully, her wing hadn't been in the way, otherwise it would have snapped in two under Stella's hoof. Her ribs weren't without cracks, she could feel it, but that all she could deal with. Lack of mobile flight would have been far more of a problem. She didn't have much time to consider her options. She heard Stella arrive outside, and she knew her position would be obvious. She teleported away, into the streets of the city below, hoping she'd be able to hide. > Zon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella looked around the city. The building Twilight had crashed into was evident, and about to fall down. It was unlikely for her to still be there, unless the impact had knocked her unconscious, but given recent events that too was unlikely to be the case. And given the lack of ponies running away or even just looking at the scene, it seemed the city had been evacuated completely during the previous day and night. Better that way, she could take care of Twilight properly without worrying about casualties. Worse in the way she couldn't force the other to come out by threatening others, but that was never part of the plan. If Twilight kept hiding she'd be running away, and if Stella really wanted to find her, buildings wouldn't be a problem. She flew lower, to the hole Twilight's body had left through the tower and into the other building. She pondered if she should make the tower fall herself, but decided against it. With her magic she enlarged the hole Twilight had left in the other wall, and lowered herself into the building. Empty there, as she'd expected, but it was still right to check. Twilight was probably not hiding in it, but just to make sure Stella teleported back in the sky above it and fired a spell towards it. The building crumbled in a cloud of dust and rubble. No sign of Twilight anywhere, and Stella doubted she'd died there. She flew back down again, standing over the collapsed remains of the building. She looked around. Nothing she could see. She had calmed down somewhat in the time it had taken her to get there, let out some steam by destroying the building. If Twilight hadn't yet tried to get a surprise attack in on her it probably meant she'd left the alicorn significantly damaged with her previous hit. That did make her feel better about things, and so did the way her regalia had finally stopped burning against her skin. "You can't hide forever, Twilight," she said, her voice magically echoing all through the city. "You know what happens if you run away." There was a sound, and a flash, a very deliberate spark of colour and light behind a nearby building. Stella was quick with her horn, and it too was reduced to a pile of rubble a second later. Still no Twilight to be seen, but she was close. "You know, I could show this to the rest of Equestria like I did with my announcement. I think I'll do that. Then I won't have to worry about preserving your body when I kill you, I'll make them all see it." "Make them see the wounds and burns over your body, too?" Another building down, chunks of it flying through the city from the strength of Stella's blast. Still nothing. She forced herself to clench her teeth and slow her breath. She couldn't let Twilight get to her. She couldn't entertain the thought. > Vot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stared at the mirror spell in front of her aimed at the space just past the corner of the building she was hiding behind, showing the street at its side and at the end of it Stella standing in the middle of the rubble she'd created. Getting her angry was useful, but not enough to get an opening. In her current state, Twilight couldn't try to approach her stealthily, she'd be unable to act quickly enough and get spotted too soon, especially in the open like that. She could try to draw Stella into the narrower streets, but odds of succeeding in that were slim. What she really needed was a way to get back to the others and the place she'd prepared, but running away wasn't an option. "I'm waiting," Stella said, her voice taunting her. She seemed to be somewhat calm again. Twilight sent a spark up several buildings away, but Stella merely looked at it, without acting. Twilight's breathing grew heavier. Stella was figuring her out. She could try sending up a sign at her position and hope Stella didn't shoot there and assumed it was more misdirection, but right after seeing she was aware of what game they were playing that was a risky move the other could anticipate and call out. The only saving grace of their situation was the fact that Stella wasn't hiding. It made sense. She didn't think she needed to, and she didn't want to at that point. She didn't want to cheat either. What she wanted was a fair fight, by all means, and Twilight knew she couldn't give her that. She would have lost against her. She had moral reasons enough for getting her friends to help her out, but even without those it was still a necessity if she wanted to actually win. To stand a chance, at least, as their presence alone didn't guarantee Stella would lose. A thought occurred to Twilight. Several thoughts all at once, actually, as she thought back on everything about Stella and about her current situation and the place they were in and what the other wanted and how things had gotten the way they had. She had a plan. A dangerous plan, one she wasn't sure would work, one that would have pretty bad consequences even if it did work. But it was better than nothing, and time was running out. Twilight stepped out from her hiding place. Stella's eyes immediately settled on her, and though her horn was glowing she did not immediately fire. She watched the alicorn walking towards her, ready to strike at any abrupt movement, but she held her fire. As Twilight had guessed she would. She was tempting Stella with a straightforward confrontation, and the other wouldn't turn down that possibility. Whatever she was, whatever reason was behind the way she looked, whatever Chrysalis had done, it was clear the pony, if she was one, was obsessed, compromisingly so, with proving herself superior to Twilight. > Rot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight approached Stella slowly, slightly stumbling, keeping her eyes on the other as the alicorn did with her. One wrong movement from either of them and her whole plan risked falling apart, but it wasn't like she'd had much of an option in her previous situation. She doubted her actions every second of the way towards the ruins of the building Stella was standing on top of, but when she finally got to the edge she had nothing else better she could try. It wasn't going to be nice, but she needed to win that battle, and sacrifices had to be made. She just hoped her guess was correct. Suddenly, Twilight unleashed a spherical wave of magic from her horn, spreading all around and passing through the entire city as it expanded and accelerated. Stella's first instinct was to fire at Twilight, and when the blast was deflected by the oncoming spell she put a shield around herself. But there was no need for it, the tide washed over her barrier without pushing on it. Stella was confused for just a moment, and that moment was enough for the spell to reach the edge of the city with its growing speed. Once she actually realised what Twilight had done, the other was already flying away, and Stella was stuck forced into doing the same over tackling the alicorn for the sake of saving herself. Flying high above the city, magically propelled at speeds her wings wouldn't have been able to reach by themselves, Twilight was a combination of pleased and horrified at seeing the successful result of her actions. Like she had guessed, Stella had already planted her scale in the city before the previous morning. Like she had guessed, Stella hadn't removed it yet. The spell she'd cast had just triggered its reaction, and with how much magic she'd poured into it, while lacking both the knowledge and skill the other had in the matter, the resulting explosion was going to be massive. Twilight watched it grow, a bubble of pure white light spreading and rising from a bridge, engulfing the whole structure and growing still. Bigger. Faster. Gaining ground and height and consuming more of the city, every moment more than the one before. Still accelerating, and still growing. It was climbing faster than Twilight was and there was no telling when it would stop. Terrified by the full consequences of what she'd done, but even more so fearing for her life, Twilight lit her horn once more and teleported away. Stella's eyes were glued to Twilight as the alicorn rose through the sky, and meanwhile her feathers and tail felt the prickling of energy from the reaction bubbling behind her. She'd moved after Twilight and she wasn't going to be fast enough to avoid the wave, not that that actually mattered. She saw Twilight finally understand the gravity of the situation, finally beginning to teleport away, and she latched onto Twilight's magic with her own, following her. > Vot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first thing Twilight did upon reappearing in the air above the fields where their fight had begun was throw up a shield around herself, and the first thing Stella did upon also reappearing, just a few metres beside Twilight, was fire a spell at the other alicorn, which the shield blocked. The second thing Twilight did was speak. "We don't need to do this." Stella was against her shield, banging on it with her hooves and leaving cracks that spread farther with every hit. "Running out of tricks? Do you think I'm going to let my guard down again?" Twilight's neck was tense, her horn bright above her eyes as she struggled to maintain her spell. "Please, listen to me!" Stella's answer was bringing her horn down alongside the spell she'd been charging on it. Twilight's shield shattered and the alicorn was sent flying downwards. Stella followed that up by firing another spell at her, and Twilight was forced to fire one back to halt Stella's in its path. They remained locked like that for a few seconds, until a huge chunk of rock was sent flying towards Stella and the alicorn had to stop firing to grab hold of it and throw it back, dodging Twilight's blast in the process. Twilight tackled Stella again like she'd done before, but the other was ready and put a shield around herself. Twilight's magic wrapped around the shield, pressing against it to keep the other in there. "We don't have to fight," she said, looking for Stella's face beneath the glow of their spells. Her own expression was tired, worried, shook at what she'd seen and done. "We could do so much more if we worked together. We could help save Equestria instead of destroying it like we're doing. You could be a hero to them." Even masked by the colours of their magic, Twilight spotted a change in Stella's face. For a moment she hoped it was understanding, then the other's magic flared. The shield pushed past Twilight's spell and she found herself pushed back, throwing up a barrier to hold off blows she was sure were coming while the ringing in her ears calmed down. Stella broke through it, and before Twilight could make another she had a hoof on her neck, coated in the same spell she'd worn when tackling Stella the first time, burning her coat. "I will be a hero to them," Stella hissed. Twilight fired a blast from her horn at her, point blank, but Stella fired one back. The tension of their spells pushing against each other so close to their sources was bending the air in front of their faces. "I will save Equestria. Defeat the Behemoth. Do anything else you think we might do together. And I -" she hit Twilight's barrel with her free hoof "- don't -" another hit "- need you!" she screamed, but before her hoof could connect a third time Twilight's hind legs hit her gut instead. > Deelayn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cozy held her breath and pushed her wings to beat faster, her legs to move quicker. She wasn't sure why she'd done what she had, only that there was no going back at that point. No going back alive at least. Were they still on her tracks? Did they know where she was going? Were they going to follow her? Could they swim faster than her? The answer to the last one was yes, obviously, though they would need to take off their armour like she had discarded her bag. They had tracked her somehow. Could they still do it? Where was she going? Was there even anything to find? She could feel oxygen running out, for as deep a breath as she'd taken it could still only last her so long. Her vision growing foggy, her body kept awake mostly through whatever chemicals her panic and instincts were unleashing into her. There was something. She was going up again. She vaguely recalled passing through a hole, somewhere deeper down, too deep to see properly. Light, maybe. She couldn't tell, she wasn't awake enough to tell. It was easier to swim upwards, to let her body drift higher. Some water got into her nose, into her lungs. There was something. She couldn't tell what. She wasn't aware enough to care anymore, and it was all she had to go towards. Cozy awoke, sputtering and spitting, a burning pain in her airways as she coughed water up and out. Her eyes were wide open, and felt as tired and dry as after a night with barely any sleep. Her coat was drenched, her curles ruined, her feathers dripping and cold. She was shivering, shaking, her head spinning, her breath fast and heavy and every inhale hurt and every exhale brought up more water. She was awake. Alive. Alone. She looked around. A separate room in the cave system, connected through the body of water she'd swum through. The entrance, if it could be called that, was behind her, seeming no more than a wide puddle if looked at from that angle, hiding the depth of the water beneath it and the lengths the tunnels below stretched for. What was on the other side caught and held her attention far more. She was not the first to come there, and whoever else had gotten there first hadn't done so all that long before. In front of her, all around a chamber about the size of a rather spacious room, was... something. She wasn't sure what it was. Tables neatly placed near the walls with things on them she didn't recognise, cabinets between them, and more tables with more things in the middle of the room, and papers and beakers and jewels and all sorts of other things. It was... It was a laboratory, if Cozy had to guess. She looked behind herself, down into the water. No one was coming. They would have already. She'd lost them. She turned to the laboratory. > Dog > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The blow and the shock of it were enough to offset Stella's balance, and her horn angling itself a different way led to Twilight's spell overtaking hers, forcing her to let go of Twilight's neck and move back and downwards. Twilight used that pause to cast another spell, not towards Stella but towards the ground below them. In a moment dozens of sigils hidden beneath the dust and sand lit up in lavender colours, and ethereal chains of huge, heavy links shot skyward aimed at Stella. They crossed the distance at blazing speed, but not fast enough for Stella not to react to them. Her horn lit up and a sphere of crackling energy formed around her, and all chains immediately lost their momentum when passing through its surface, then falling back down to the ground. "Trying to use my own spells against me, Twilight?" Shocked at the scene even if she quickly understood the implications, Twilight immediately fired a more conventional spell at Stella. If the other wasn't going to stop and talk, she could try to force her into it. Unfortunately for her, her spell too slid useless against Stella's shield as the alicorn channeled more magic into it. Twilight did the same, pouring more power into her horn, but Stella held her position and began to push back with a beam of her own, making its way out of her bubble and slowly gaining over Twilight's. "Why?" Twilight tried to plead with the other again. "What are you getting out of this? What is anyone getting out of this? I can give you whatever recognition you want, but please let us stop before we hurt others." Stella's beam gained in an instant more than it previously had as a whole. The alicorn's eyes were smouldering embers and arches of built up energy were crackling within her sphere. "I don't need your recognition," she growled. "I don't need your pity!" The flow from her horn grew wider, and Twilight went from pushing against it to desperately trying to hold it back. Lightning came from the ground towards Stella. Rocks both huge and small followed it, and blasts of magic and other projectiles too. It all crashed uselessly against her shield, not making past it, not moving it and the one inside it a single millimetre. Stella's spell got closer and closer to Twilight, and the alicorn, seeing no alternative, let go of her beam and turned her magic to a shield instead. She was quickly pushed all the way to the ground by Stella's blast, and her protective spell barely held around her. The sand surrounding her turned to glass and her shield began to crack as Stella kept firing, obscuring all of Twilight's vision. She swallowed, her whole body tensed up, aware she couldn't hold on much longer than that. She closed her eyes, and chose to do the only thing she could think of that would afford them a chance to make things right. "You win." > Aeth > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack didn't wake up that day. No one had expected her to, given the situation and everything going on, not after seeing her that morning. She was shivering, she was cold, but she was not in conditions bad enough for her life to be in danger. Twilight took the news with resigned understanding, like she'd known it would be like that. She clearly didn't like the facts, but she wasn't angry, she wasn't surprised. Apple Bloom was worried, as were the other members of Applejack's family, but Twilight reassured them. She told them Applejack would be fine the day after at most. Inwardly, obviously without making mention of it, she regretted not looking more into Applejack's condition, not doing more in the time they'd had. It seemed Stella had been ahead of her there too. But she only regretted the way things had gone mildly, not fully. The time she hadn't used to study Applejack's illness she had used on other things, things she'd at that point deemed more important and which would still in time be useful. She could hardly blame herself fully for a mistake that was only that in hindsight. No using the Elements against the other alicorn. No easy solution, but it was expected and perfectly reasonable of Stella to take measures to prevent that from happening, and it was all things considered a good thing she'd chosen to go about things that way. One single member of the group incapacitated in ways that wouldn't compromise her in the long term. It was almost kind compared to everything else she could have done. Twilight did not doubt it was Stella's doing. Just to confirm as much, though, she'd had the stallion look at Applejack. He'd confirmed it, and alongside that he'd brought up some rather interesting things about the mare's condition. Nothing Twilight had time to worry about, but it would all be useful later on. If she won. If she didn't, she wouldn't be there to worry, so maybe worrying at all wasn't a worthwhile way to spend her time. Applejack's mind kept wandering, according to Rainbow, in places one could not easily reach without Luna's guidance. There was no time to have the pegasus dedicate herself to that particular task either, unfortunately, though the details of that too interested Twilight. Rainbow said something about Applejack's dreams being separated from the rest, existing in their own plane, their own space cut off from everything else. Just another thing they lacked the resources to research. Twilight was interested, among other things, as to how exactly Stella had induced that reaction in Applejack. Clearly, something to do with simulating the same kind of presence as the Behemoth or abominations in general, given what Twilight knew about the situation, but that was still knowledge beyond her then present level. Enough so that she wouldn't even know where to start. In some ways it was yet another of Stella's many quiet but intense displays of talent, knowledge, and intelligence. > Cog > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reaction on Stella's part was immediate. Her spell fizzled out, and though the barrier around her remained she lowered herself to the ground, staring at Twilight. "What do you mean?" she asked through rigid jaws. As the fight came to a momentary halt, the other ponies there present, all the remaining Elements barring Applejack, could get a good look at the conditions the two alicorns were in. The signs and marks the battle had left on their bodies were evident even from afar. "I said you win," Twilight repeated. "You beat me. You're the stronger between the two of us." She took a few heavy breaths, trying to steady herself, and held Stella's gaze. "I don't see a point in continuing this. Not when it's only going to lead to more destruction, and to more damage done to the one who'll remain when we're done." There was a jitter to Stella's body, an unquiet trembling playing around her frame. "If you're trying to trick me again, don't think I'll fall for it!" she said, not fully convinced Twilight really was lying. "No tricks." Twilight dropped her shield, and let her horn go completely unlit. "I'm even willing to let you take my life. Or my freedom, if you'd rather keep me prisoner. Whatever you decide now, I won't oppose to it, and I will ensure the same is true for everyone else." She took another, even deeper breath. She was beginning to shake, either from the situation or from her adrenaline running out and her mind catching up to her body's pain. "I have only one request." Stella waited for a moment, still on her guard, still surrounded by her shield, not approaching. "What do you want?" She sounded nervous, annoyed. "Don't hurt anyone else. Not my friends, not your subjects, not another innocent creature." Twilight closed her eyes, then opened them again, her expression determined. "I don't care what happens to me, as long as I know for sure everyone else will be safe from you. Safe thanks to you. Protect this world's creatures like I would have. It's all that I ask." Stella's expression was half confused, half a mask of incredulous laughter. "What are you talking about?" she yelled. "Have I hit you on the head too hard? Are you insane?" "I'm very sane, actually," Twilight said calmly. "I'm simply making the best choice I can make. The most rational one. You're better than me. Stronger, smarter, more efficient. That's why I've been losing to you, despite making it an unfair fight. If you refuse to collaborate, if you really believe one of us needs to be gone, then Equestria has better chances with you than with me. As long as you swear to me, as long as I know for sure no one will be hurt because of this, I'm okay with giving up." She stared into Stella's eyes. "I know I could trust you to be good, if you took my place. Just promise." > Zeit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight heard the soft sound of hoofsteps approaching behind her, hard to mask against the crystal floor for as quietly as one tried to walk. She looked up, at the reflection in the wall in front of her on an angled facet of the wall above the window, to see who it was. "Are they dead?" she asked, without turning. The mare stopped, looked up at her own reflection and at Twilight's eyes staring at her from the other end of it, then shook her head. "Just badly hurt," she said. "Both wings broken, they won't be flying soon." She tilted her head from side to side, swaying and bobbing on her legs in the opposite directions, frowning slightly as she tried to remember something. "Oh, and they have a bomb attached to them." Twilight went back to focusing on the table in front of her and its contents, the scrolls and parchment covered in inked formulae so tiny and so dense they looked like weirdly fancy stains from afar. "Is it visible from outside, too?" she asked. "A little," she said. "If you know to look for it, and you know what it is. Won't be too much of a problem." "I am glad to have your assistance in this." Twilight took a scroll in her magic, bringing it close to her face to read it more clearly. "I'm afraid they'll have to wait things out and let the wings heal normally." "It's also a tracker, right?" the pegasus asked. "Otherwise you'd have him remove it." "Exactly. Half the reason she even put it there, most likely. If she really wanted to she could have given it a countdown and forced us to, or made their conditions worse. I think it's more of a warning, and a way to not get them involved. Awfully nice of her all things considered." "Will they keep it forever?" Twilight set the scroll down, and began to write on a new one. "Maybe. Hopefully not, just for a while. You'll all just have to remember about it and be careful, if it happens. It shouldn't be a problem." "Understood. I'll be sure to tell them about it." The mare leaned to the side to get a look at what Twilight was writing and reading. She was surprised when Twilight suddenly turned back to her. "Here." The alicorn held forward a wrapped up scroll in her magic. "Bring this to Lyra, here in Ponyville. You're free to go talk to them afterwards, but be back in time for when things will start." The grey mare took the scroll in her wing, and saluted with the other. Then she was gone. Twilight looked a while longer through the air she'd been occupying, then turned to her desk again. Nothing unexpected, not the end of things yet. It was interesting to see which pieces the other was choosing to limit, which she was leaving free. None that would really matter, for her. Hopefully she'd be wrong. > Rox > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity all were listening to the conversation between Twilight and Stella, holding out on doing anything to see what would happen. Rainbow's injury had been patched up in the time the two alicorns had been away, she still couldn't fly but it was a sufficient temporary solution. Fluttershy had helped enough birds with broken wings to assist a pegasus. Standing near each other, they were ready to spring into action if things picked up again, though instructed to look after their own safety more than the results of the fight. Stella's face still bore her shocked expression. She had remained silent for a few seconds, and Twilight had stood there, waiting for a proper reaction. Finally, Stella burst into laughter, throwing her head back behind her shield as her chest shook. "Oh, please," she said as she calmed down. "You must be really desperate to try something like this. What are you even trying to accomplish? What other tricks do you have that you think I won't see?" She looked at the ground in front of herself. "More mines?" Twilight's expression turned to sadness, but she didn't move, and so neither did her friends. "I'm serious," she said quietly, drawing Stella's attention again. "But I guess you really can't see that, can you?" She sighed, and looked to the side for a moment, towards faint lights in the distance. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice too low for Stella to hear her. Stella gave a snort, then her horn lit differently as she checked the path between her and Twilight. Finding nothing, she settled her eyes square on the other mare. "Well. What are you waiting for? Keep fighting. We've established I'm not falling for your tactics." Twilight didn't move, and Stella was visibly annoyed. "Oh, fine. If you want me to make the first move that badly." A blast shot out of her horn towards Twilight, a sphere of energy about as big as her head. It hit Twilight square in the chest, and the alicorn fell back on the ground, breathing harshly. Twilight's friends tensed up and almost reacted to that, but as Twilight was still conscious and still not doing anything they held themselves, some better than others. Rainbow had to place a hoof around Rarity's horn to snuff it out, and Pinkie put one over Fluttershy's shoulder, though that was for comforting her too. Stella looked at the scene, incredulous. "Get up and fight me, you idiot. You really must have hit that tower head first. What are you waiting for? Do something!" Twilight only gave her the decency of pushing herself up to a sitting position again. Her crown was left on the ground, sliding off as she straightened herself. She looked at Stella again, coughed as she opened her mouth, then spoke again. "Just promise me. I believe in you. I believe you can be better, you can choose what's right." She made no other motion or sound. > Vvixs > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The light of the explosion was visible from every nearby city and many farther than that, only hidden properly to those where mountains or some other natural formation obstructed a clear line of sight towards Manehattan. Even from the ones at the farthest edges of the country, a tiny glowing spec on the horizon was still visible, though few spotted it and none understood its significance. Those however who saw it more clearly had few questions over its nature, and none over its source. There was not a creature in Equestria who didn't know what was happening, though few had any idea of where, many few ideas of how, none many ideas on the possible results. The event still came as quite a shock to those who saw it, the sheer size of it not comparable to anything they'd ever seen. Most of all it came as a shock to those ponies who had been in Manehattan. Those who until a couple of days earlier had called the city their home, and who before the bubble around it had appeared had never even considered something terrible could happen to it. They had survived the Behemoth's arrival, what more could they possibly go through? Those farther away could only dread the situation, without clear confirmations, without certainty as much as things looked their worst. Those closest, close enough to see the city and the area around it and what was left as the light faded, had no doubts. Manehattan was no more. The buildings, even the land, all evaporated. The once city was a crater the sea began to fill, soon a rounded curve in the coast, and there would be no homes for all its inhabitants where to return later. > Vox > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was shivering. It was hard to see, she wasn't close enough to anyone for it to be immediately evident. It was less hard to hear, coming through the slight quiver in her voice when she spoke again. "Stop it," she said, sounding vaguely hurt. More firmly, louder, she repeated, "Stop it." Her horn lit again, brighter than before. She fired a beam just to the side of Twilight's head, wiping away the edges of her mane there and continuing off into the distance. Again Twilight was motionless and silent in the face of her attack. Stella wasn't having it. She teleported in front of Twilight, dispelling her shield, and began to charge up another blast near the alicorn's face. Twilight was growing a little more relaxed. The pain of her wounds settled in, but the shock of the situation was fading, and she was able to be calmer. Her breathing was slow and even, slightly contained not to hurt against her broken ribs. She stared at Stella's eyes as the other gathered her magic, as the sphere of energy above them grew wider and wider. Twilight didn't even look at it. She just stared at Stella, without a hint of hesitation. Stella stared back. Her expression moved from rage to confusion. Her eyes faltered, and she looked down. The light of her magic began to dissipate as her spell unravelled itself, as she let go of her hold on it. She looked to Twilight again, eyes wide. "Why?" she asked between her teeth, too quiet for anyone but Twilight to hear her. She took half a step back, then forward, she raised her neck and left her chest exposed. "Come on," she hissed. "If this is what you wanted then hit me! I can take it." Twilight didn't move, aside from her mouth. "I won't. I'm not going to fight you anymore. I've already lost, and I would only risk hurting others, my country, and you. We can talk now if you want to. Or you can kill me and take my place." She didn't properly smile, and her expression wasn't happy, but her lips were still just slightly more upturned than not. It was an accepting look. One understanding of the situation. An awareness that things were not good, but they were the best she could make them, and that would do. Stella looked into Twilight's eyes. Her shaking had become more noticeable, and it was hard to tell, but she looked like she was about to cry. "You are not better than me," she said slowly, voice cracking. "No one needs to be better than anyone. We can be together." Twilight's expression grew just a bit closer to a smile. Stella took a step back. Then another. She looked at Twilight. She saw something else. Light, gleaming white and sparkling crystal, reaching towards her and searing pain. Down to her own shadow, shapeless blackness stretching longer, puppeting her limbs. She screamed, and her horn lit up again. > Xov > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You're not..." Rarity's tongue got caught against the back of her teeth, her words stuck in her throat as her head struggled to push out her thoughts through them. "We're not..." She turned to the others and at the volume of a hiss and the tone of a scream she said, "We can't let this happen! Are you insane?" "It's what Twilight wants," Rainbow said. She was tense, ready to spring into action, her muscles rigid and her cadence a bit stilted as a result. "I don't like it, and you don't have to like it either, but right now we have to stay put. Later. Later, if Twilight is dead, I'm going to punch through Stella's skull or die trying, and I'll gladly have you at my side. Right now, we can't interfere. It'll throw the whole thing off." "B-but... But..." Rarity looked between the alicorns, still talking, and the other ponies. "She'll get herself killed!" Her voice was shrill, her mane ruffled, and the make-up beneath her eyes was starting to smudge. "We can't let Twilight die like this! We can't..." She was breathing through her teeth, one of her legs twitching from her nervousness. "If we attack now," Rainbow said, "Stella will kill both Twilight and us. If we let things play out, there's at least a chance Twilight will be able to talk her out of this whole thing, or into helping Equestria without her." Her wings twitched and she visibly winced from the pain. "I hate it. But it's what Twilight has decided, and she knows better than us. If she thinks the fight is not worth continuing, it's not our right to force it to." She looked straight at Rarity. She had no make-up of her own, but her cheeks would have been streaked with it otherwise. "Twilight is my friend too. That's why I trust her, even if it means we might lose her." Rarity looked at her, then at the ground, then back to the two alicorns and the glowing light between them. She looked at it grow, barely seeing it through the tears building up in her eyes, and she wiped her face of those as she saw it starting to wane. Hope blossomed in her chest, however feeble, however foolish. Fluttershy was shaking, teeth clattering, and Pinkie was holding on to her, in part to keep her from darting forward in the middle of the confrontation. Pinkie herself was physically the calmest of them, but the straightening edges of her mane spoke of her bubbling inner turmoil. Seeing Twilight die there would break her, but she trusted her, and kept holding on as long as there was hope. They saw Stella stepping back, clearly in some degree of shock, they heard her scream. They saw her charging up her horn, fearing the worst, everything happening too fast for them to react. Then they saw her fire, and a different kind of fear spread through them as the blast approached them. > Hare > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you worried about tomorrow?" Shining asked. The Sun was sinking lower on the horizon outside the building, painting the crystal room in warm orange colours. The Empire stretched out past the window, emptied of its inhabitants. "I am," Twilight said. "And I have to assume you are too. Hope so at least." She turned to properly look at her brother. There was something off about the room, about the air, about the whole conversation. Her words reverberated oddly, things looked blurry. Shining answered something. His words were too muffled to make out. His face was like smudged paint, his features indistinguishable. Twilight, on some level, understood that she was dreaming, but the dream's own nature as a dream prevented her from fully grasping and processing that knowledge. He stepped closer. Maybe stepping was a generous term. He moved closer, or maybe the space between them shortened. Little difference given the state of things. Twilight looked around. The walls were crumbling, melting, bending down around her but never reaching her. Only shifting and morphing, shapeless more with every second. She had one question on her mind as memories and fantasies chased each other through her spirit. "When am I?" "Nowhen," a voice spoke. It spoke through Shining, but it was not his. It was hard to tell what it was, warped and twisted by the dream. There was a light, flashing beneath the stallion's featureless face, something animating him and controlling him. "You are a memory of a time that wasn't, and you are with yourself past and present and future, in that span the abomination occupies. I have merely caught on to you, and one day we will speak." And the scene changed. And Twilight spoke with Trixie, and watched her go away on a journey to the edge of Equestria, a dangerous artefact with her. And Twilight spoke with her brother over the ruins of the Crystal Empire, the battle over. And Twilight stood above the Behemoth, facing one so much like her and yet so different. And Twilight walked halls of flesh and bone, there for a trade, a heart for a heart. And Twilight rose through the spheres to the source of light, and Twilight danced in another time, another space, another body. And Twilight slept, a foal, unaware of all her life would be. And Twilight saw something that hadn't been and wouldn't be, but somewhere, somewhen, somehow true at a point. And Twilight saw that she was not alone. "Are you worried?" Rainbow asked, perched atop an askew silver chariot sized for a dragon more than for any pony. Twilight looked away from the thousand moons lined up in the sky, away from the flat-topped spires of ice and marble that rose up to the clouds from the burning forest down below. "I am," she said, "but I have you with me, and everyone else too." "And you think we can make it?" "I know it doesn't matter. We, unlike them, are not alone." > Fox > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight felt like her blood was freezing up. She had accepted the idea of being killed by Stella. She genuinely believed the other could be better. More than that though, she knew the other was too obsessed with proving herself superior to her specifically to simply take her offer. She hadn't used her coil once the whole fight, and that was more than proof enough. She had reasoned that against her refusal to fight back her ensuing breakdown would either lead to her finally agreeing to talk, or accepting Twilight's offer and proving herself better on Twilight's own terms, after killing her. She'd be a broken ruler, but better a broken ruler than a broken country, and after what she'd done to Manehattan Twilight didn't want to risk anything worse. She hadn't accounted for Stella finding a third option. Maybe because she was tired and drained, maybe because she was thinking too much like the other to try and understand what she'd do. She wasn't wrong. Stella was obsessed with her and didn't care about her friends. But Stella had done the same thing in reverse, and thought about what Twilight would think. And Twilight did care about her friends. They were there by their own choice, but Twilight still had asked, still on some level had known she was the one endangering them. There were safety measures in place, but her mind didn't go there as she saw Stella fire towards the other ponies. Her mind didn't go anywhere. It was empty as she watched it starting to happen, as she processed what the other was doing. When she acted, when enough time passed for it to be physically possible for her to act, she knew it was already too late for her to reach them. Too late to try to protect them. Stella's spell had been too fast, her shock too great, her condition too relaxed. She didn't try to go there. She didn't even think about what she was doing. She just acted, guided by an instinct she'd rarely felt before, one that for a moment overrode all control of her. Stella's spell exploded where the four ponies were standing. Twilight's horn punctured Stella's neck, and a beam from it pierced through to the other side of it. She had moved so fast the other hadn't seen her, and she herself was barely aware of where she was or what she was doing. When she realised it, the pain of forcing her tired limbs to move that fast hit all throughout her, and just for a moment she faltered. Stella's face twisted in pain, her eyes grew bloodshot, but her expression as a whole strangely resembled a smile. She'd gotten what she wanted, after all. And in the moment Twilight hesitated, her horn still inside Stella's neck, Stella fired at her at point blank range. The dust settled on the previous explosion, and from behind a shield Twilight's friends watched her body being enveloped by Stella's blast. > Roj > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- .krow ot deetnaraug t'nsaw dna ,gnol ekat dluow derolpxe dah ehs senifnoc eht edistuo ecalp rehtona gnidnif dnA .flesreh tsurt t'ndid ehs ,hguone deiduts d'ehs gnihtemos t'nsaw ereht yllaitrap llits enoemos gnipparT .ni reh tup thgim yeht ecalp suoregnad revetahw no ekat ot hguone deppiuqe saw ehs dna ,raeppaer reh evah tsuj dluow reh fo og gnitteL .sgniht yaled tsuj ton dna reh fo dir teg yllautca dluow ereht enod eb dluoc tahw fo gnihtyna erus t'nsaw ehs owt rof ,rehto eht htiw klat ot detnaw ehs eno roF .snosaer dilav etiuq lla ni lla wef a rof ,deergasid dah thgiliwT tuB .nooM eht tsuj neve rO .lla retfa ,esolc pu nuS eht ees ot detnaw syawla d'ehS .eussi eht gnivlos ni pleh reh thgiliwT dereffo dah ehS .gniod saw ehs tahw od dluoc ereht esle eno on ssenriaf nI .reh sa etiuq neeb dah ereht esle eno on ,tca ot ydaer neeb d'ehs taht gniht etanutrof a saw tI .tuo lla og ot dah ehs ,enil eht no sevil htiw ,noitautis taht ni tub ,egamad elbissop yna diova ot hguone naht erom ,tsaf ylemertxe srehto tropsnart ylraluger llits dluoc ehs ti gnihsur tuohtiw neve dna taht tuohtiw nevE .rehtona morf ecalp eno ot yaw reh no tnecsed ot tnecsa morf gnihctiws elihw deniatniam eno ,ti ot noitom gninnips a dedda ehs fi retsaf devom sgniht dnuof dah ehS .noitautis eht fo erutan lareneg dna eciton trohs eht etipsed ,ydaer neeb htob dah yeht yllufknahT .kcarc ot dleihs tsrif eht rof emit elttil oot ,oot eb dluow flah rehto eht regnol dnoces a fo noitcarf a ni dna ereht ydaerla saw pleh flaH .gnol oot nekat evah dluow edis eht ot elttil a meht gnivom tsuj neve os ,gniog saw ehs erehw wenk ehs taht demussa ,koot ti emit eht ecneulfni yllautca t'ndid dellevart ecnatsid ehT .yawa deen ni esoht naht rehtar ereht pleh teg ot esnes tsom eht edam ti ,noitautis ralucitrap taht ni oS .tnatsni ton tub ,tnatsni tsomla saw ti ,niaga dnA .hguoht ,emit a ta eno ti od ylno dluoc ehS .revas efil laretil a otni denrut dah ti ni erew yeht txetnoc eht ni tub ,neht kcab gniht taen a tsuj saw yltnatsni tsomla ti od dluoc ehs gnirevocsid reh ot del dah levart kciuq ta stpmetta tsuj sa detrats dah tahw tahT .tuo dnif ot noitnetni yna dah eno on tub ,eb dluoc secneuqesnoc elbissop eht tahw wenk eno oN .rof krow dluow ti gnol woh tsuj ees dna taht hsup ot yrt ot ton esiw saw ti ,elihw a rof ti dnatshtiw dluoc yeht demees ti elihw dna ,reh htiw ereht eb ot tnaem t'nerew llits srehtO .retteb eht ,ereht ni esle enoemos peek ot dah ehs ssel eht taht ni lufesu ylralucitrap saw ti dna ,drawrof gniog laicurc eb dluoc tropsnart dna levart kciuq taht nwonk dah thgiliwT .neht erofeb elihw gnol a rof os od ot snoitcurtsni dah d'ehs ,on ,erofeb yad eht tsuj toN .ylevisnetxE .ti rof flesreh deniart d'ehS > Loi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cadence appeared to hold the shield at Shining's side, stopping the cracks that were starting to form and holding against the blast Stella had fired, in time to see the explosion resolve and Twilight's body being enveloped by the other alicorn's magic. Everything was still for a moment as the dust settled, then Stella's spell faded away. Twilight's horn dislodged itself from the other's neck, leaving a dry open wound behind, and her body fell limp to the ground, eyes white, coat singed. Stella looked down at Twilight as everyone looked at her, panting, slowly coming into a smile. She was about to open her mouth and laugh and light her horn and show all of Equestria her victory. Faster than Shining and Cadence dropping their shield and beginning to charge towards her, the pegasus who'd brought them there blinked in and out of reality at Fluttershy's side, and took her along as she disappeared. They reappeared at Stella's side, in touching distance. Perhaps underestimating the meek pegasus, perhaps still high off her victory, perhaps simply believing herself superior, perhaps just distracted and tired after the fight, Stella did not act immediately. She reasonably believed she'd get to a moment later. She was wrong. Fluttershy's wings made contact with her and her body seized up, an explosion of colours spreading through her coat and feathers and mane as foam began to come from her mouth, her joints locked up and her eyes vibrating. The grey pegasus disappeared again, Twilight with her. They reappeared elsewhere, on a pristine white balcony overlooking an empty, partially destroyed city. There was only one pony who'd been ordered to stay there after the place had been evacuated, and upon seeing the two arrive she rushed forward, deathly worry on her face. The black spot on her chest was a crescent, barely a sliver, a Moon only just beginning to grow again after the previous day. She had taken to raising and lowering it herself, to shed Twilight some of the burden in those days, to honour her dreaming sister as she remained lost. She did not speak as she placed her hooves over Twilight's unconscious body, as golden light began to spread from them and heal her wounds, but tears fell down on the younger pony's coat, while Celestia's face remained hidden behind her short, multicoloured mane hanging over her face. She was shaking lightly and her breathing was audible, tiny sighs and silent pleas slowly morphing into sobs as she hoped she was still in time. She would not push herself, Twilight had asked for it. But she would die regardless if things went that way, standing up against the one who'd reduced her loved one like that until it killed her. Twilight's body looked no different than after a rough night of sleep as the glow finished washing over her. Mane and coat and feathers still ruffled, but no wounds left to see. Celestia watched her and hoped. And Twilight opened her eyes. > Toy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia's breath caught in her throat. Twilight's eyes traced upwards from her white hooves, to her stained bust, up her long slender neck onto her tear-streaked cheeks, finally looking at the other's eyes. She smiled a tiny bit, and Celestia sobbed, smiling too. "Thank you," she whispered, getting up. "It seems the protective spells did their due," she said at her normal speaking tone, the brief moment the two of them had shared gone. Celestia composed herself accordingly, as much as she could manage to. Twilight straightened herself and looked at the pegasus there. She was about to speak. The sound of an alicorn crashing through a building interrupted her. All three mares looked towards the noise and saw Cadence's body, limp, pass through a tower and sail through the air beyond it until it crashed square against the Behemoth. Still conscious, she screamed, and she was close enough that the trio could see the shock her body went into and her eyes going white as she fell towards the ground. They all teleported there, next to the statue of Cozy and Tirek, and caught her body before she could hit the earth. Celestia immediately went to heal her. Her wings and other limbs were broken, but she was still breathing, and showed no other major wounds. She was in far better conditions than Twilight had been when she'd arrived there, and had only passed out after being forced to touch the Behemoth. Evidently Stella had focused on getting there more than on hurting the mare, though what that implied was clear. Twilight turned to the direction Cadence had arrived from. Twirling Twilight's crown at the tip of her wing, Stella slowly stepped through the garden's door, eyeing the four ponies. The grey pegasus blinked away, aware she'd be more useful by not being a clear target. Celestia was still healing Cadence, who had yet to regain consciousness, so Twilight stood between them and Stella. Her clone's eyes narrowed, and she tossed the crown aside. She still had her wounds, from the singed fur on her chest to the hole in her neck, but she didn't look one bit tired. "I believe our accords require a look over," she said. "Things aren't exactly going as we'd agreed they would. But I'm willing to overlook that, if you just play nice from now on." "What have you done to my friends?" Twilight's voice was stern, and she was barely holding herself back from striking at the other alicorn. "Nothing," Stella said. "Nothing yet. If you want to keep it that way, I suggest you start following the rules as we've laid them out." She leaned with her neck to the side, looking behind Twilight at Cadence as she stood up. "No outside interference, unless you want to have to figure out which bones are whose when you dig through the meat pile I'll make of your friends and brother. I can send the command faster than you can shoot at me." > Xor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fluttershy spread her wings and pushed herself back, while Shining and Cadence ran forward towards Stella. The alicorn, still in a state of shock as her body fought back the parasites spreading through her, only managed to hold up a shield and protect herself from their combined spells. She was pushed backwards, and rocks and lightning crashed against her barrier as the remaining ponies joined in. Things didn't last like that for long. Stella grit her teeth as the shifting multicoloured patches over her body began to retreat, her horn ablaze as her magic both shielded her against a combined helix-shaped blast from Shining and Cadence and coursed through her being, forcefully ridding herself of the disease Fluttershy had share with her. A few seconds later, while her shield was starting to crack, the last traces of wrong colours disappeared fully, surrounded by sizzling sparks. Stella's spell broke, and she teleported. The twin beam of magic left a glass trail through the sand as it passed where she'd stood and beyond, before being undone. Everyone stood alert, carefully watching for where she could be. Fluttershy, who'd been hovering above the ground some distance away, felt her body seize up, like electricity running through her. She couldn't even scream, but the others noticed her falling to the ground, limbs stiff. Before she reached it, she ended up encased in a translucent white sphere, halting her fall. A moment later she was free to move again, but wholly trapped within the magical bubble. Rainbow understood what was happening, and made an effort to kick a lighting bolt off the cloud she'd kept there aiming at the space at Fluttershy's side, behind her. She didn't hit anything, but evidently she hadn't had the wrong idea. She felt herself choke as Stella came for her next, then there was a flash of light and she lost consciousness. When she awoke a moment later she was trapped as Fluttershy was. Rarity and Pinkie stood with their backs to each other, eyes darting around frantically in search of any signs of the mare. The first felt herself yanked forward and pushed against the ground, hard enough for her teeth to draw blood from her lips as her mouth tasted sand, then a pressure against her horn that blocked off her magic as she was encased in another glowing white bubble. Pinkie Pie was flung skywards, and slowly came down inside a sphere of her own. Shining and Cadence both fired tentative shots near the others, towards places they could guess Stella might be, but never hit her. They stood side by side, waiting for her to come. Then in an attempt to buy Twilight more time, they teleported away in different directions, each putting a shield around themself, and began to repeatedly move that way. Shining was caught right after one of those teleportations. A sudden flare of magic and his shield shattered, knocking him unconscious. Then Stella revealed herself to Cadence, picking up Twilight's crown. > Sot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The last thing Cadence remembered was Stella, after appearing clearly to her without disguises or invisibility and picking up Twilight's crown, rushing forward towards her at blinding speed and hitting her square in the ribs after shattering her shield, sending her flying backwards. Then a flash of light, then her back colliding with something and her entire body going into shock, pervaded by a fundamental sense of wrongness. When she opened her eyes again Celestia was standing over her, and Stella was speaking. She stood too and readied her horn at Celestia's side, but Twilight extended a wing between them and Stella. "Fine, then," Twilight said. "You can trap them as well, if you don't hurt them," she added, nodding back to the other two alicorns, "but allow Celestia to heal the others too. Bring us there and we'll continue our fight, and finish it." Stella smiled a smile too wide. "Why not here, my dear Twilight? What's so special about that place?" She suddenly teleported right into the mare's face. "What else are you hiding?" Twilight kept her calm and looked back towards the Behemoth. "There's nothing special about that place anymore, it's just the one most far away from everything else. I've said I don't want Equestria or its creatures hurt, and I maintain that. Technically, Canterlot is empty as well right now, but I can think of a reason you wouldn't want us to fight here." She finally looked back at Stella. "Unless you're willing to risk the consequences of using magic wildly while we're this close." Stella's face morphed into a scowl, and she stepped back. "Fine then. Have it your way. But the pegasus is coming too." "She won't bother us," Twilight said. "That's an order," she added, a little louder. Cadence was fuming, her horn still glowing bright, but Celestia held a wing over her back. The two looked at each other, and forcing herself to take deep breaths Cadence let go of her magic. Twilight stepped aside and Stella stepped forward, and given the understanding that she had everyone else trapped and could kill them at a moment's notice the others allowed themselves to be trapped as well. Then all four of them teleported away. They reappeared where the rest of the ponies held in Stella's bubbles were, and Celestia and Cadence joined them, all of them displayed in a semicircle behind Twilight. A flash of Stella's horn later, and Starlight and Sunburst were there too. Celestia's cage was brought to all those who'd suffered wounds or had been hurt, one at a time, and she was allowed to extend her hoof forward and heal them. Then she was placed to a side again, and all ponies looked at Twilight and Stella. "No healing for yourself?" the first asked. She was too sure Stella couldn't possibly just forget about it not to satisfy her curiosity. "I don't need it," Stella said. Twilight saw through her enough to understand it wouldn't work. "Shall we?" > Kilter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Are you familiar with spatial manipulation spells?" The mare looked up from her meal. "I can't say that I am. Why?" The other passed her a rolled up scroll. "That has the instructions you need. It'll help with avoiding any unwanted intrusions." The mare picked it up, looked at it without opening it, then slid it into her bags. "Thanks," she said, then she went back to eating. "I trust you." The mare paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth. She lowered it again, but didn't look up from her bowl. "Thank you," she said simply. "I hope I won't disappoint." The other smiled at her, only slightly. It was an expression she was very familiar with, one she'd seen on her own teacher's face many times. She really was starting to grow like her. She turned and walked to the nearby window, to avoid forcing the unicorn to look at her. "A storm is coming," she said, looking at the sky outside. "Not today, not tomorrow, not soon, but I know it is. I know there's something out there." "I better get moving quickly, then," the mare joked. "I have a long trip ahead, after all." She took another spoonful in her mouth, then tugged at the edges of her cape. The other smiled at that, more sincerely. "You do. I hope it will go well." She kept staring out the window, and sighed. The sky was clear outside. "I'll let them know you're coming in advance. Good luck." > Row > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have one last request to make," said Twilight. "I cannot back away from this fight, and I can't surrender. I have nothing to hold against you to shape your decision. But I still ask that you respect my wishes should you win, and take care of Equestria and its citizens as I would have, or better. I ask that you don't hurt my friends and loved ones. I'm aware nothing of what I could do will force you to follow through with that, but I still wanted you to know." Stella was utterly unimpressed with her words. "You care too much about others, Twilight. You rely too much on them. That's why you're weak. Too comfortable in the way others will come to help to ever better yourself, too easily manipulated by targeting those you care for." "I would have liked to know more about you, and about how you came to be," Twilight said. "It's a shame I won't. I hate you for what you've done, but I pity you too. You're a sad creature and I wish I could have helped you, instead of having to fight you. But the things you have done, I can't forgive." "You know so little," Stella mocked her. "I can't say you were wrong in thinking I will lead Equestria better than you. You think you're clever, and it's quite pathetic, frankly. Using Lyra to signal you things at the beginning of our encounter? Did you think I wouldn't notice that? Did you think I ever acted honestly there? You've been working off false information, dear." She twisted her neck left to right and back, with a cracking sound. "Now enough with games. It's time to get serious." Twilight, a sad expression on her face, looked the other in the eyes, then at her wounds. "I suppose there's some irony in it," she spoke, barely audible to Stella. "If you wish to lie to yourself this much, then so be it." She readied her horn. Starlight had seemingly calmed down a little, inside of her bubble. She was still frowning and breathing too quickly, but one could easily chalk that up to the general nervousness the situation brought. She was far from the only one looking with worry at the two alicorns. Her subtle shaking was a little harder to justify with just that, and if anyone had been close enough to see they'd have noticed the peculiar way in which she looked at Stella specifically, but from outside she didn't even look like she was the most worried about what was happening. Celestia's expression was grave, if contained, but still heavy when accounting is for her usual restraint. Fluttershy was barely peeking out from behind her mane, torn between not wanting to see what would happen and needing to know. Rainbow had repeatedly tried banging against the surface of her sphere, to no avail, and her face looked a mixture of angry and dejected. Rarity's eyes were wide and glued to Twilight, her expression frozen. Cadence was still furious, but still with hints of deep worry about her sister-in-law. Shining's expression hovered between a frown and something more neutral, shifting slightly every moment, as he hoped with all his heart Twilight would make it. Pinkie looked more bothered than sad, but still clearly understanding of the gravity of the situation. Sunburst was more focused on Stella than on Twilight, and his expression was plainly worried, though he was too concentrated to take notice of it. Stella looked towards the sky for a moment. It was clear. Only a few clouds. She looked down again. There was something odd about her expression. Like something behind her face had taken on to turning and clicking in place. Like she was really happy about something, but keeping it a secret, like she'd had some sort of realisation. "Go ahead," she said, staring at Twilight. "Make the first move." Her horn was just barely shimmering, ready but not charged. Twilight swallowed, and hesitated. It was dangerous. Most definitely a trap. Stella wouldn't just give her a free shot. She was planning to deflect it in some way, or otherwise counter it, and take advantage of that. That much was obvious. And yet, Twilight had to attack somehow, if she wanted to win. Quickly, too, Stella wouldn't give her long. She took deep breaths, clearing her mind and steeling her resolve as she thought through her possibilities. Then her horn grew brighter, and finally erupted. > Ion > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Magic shot forward from Twilight's horn like a geyser, aimed at Stella, while a set of other blasts took curved paths off the source of it and reached around to reach Stella at the same time as the main one would, to the sides and behind and above her. At the same time a faintly visible grid spread through the air from Twilight's horn and covered the whole area, ready to trigger an explosion wherever any pony other than Twilight might teleport within it. It all happened in the blink of an eye, Twilight able to control and direct all the different spells at once while still at a first glance making the main blast seem like a raw discharge. Stella, sensing the grid and guessing the presence of other side blasts, shielded herself against the flow of Twilight's magic. Her shield held, the impact loud and powerful enough to push her back in the sand a couple hooves' length. Twilight kept pushing as the other, smaller blasts all crashed against the barrier, still not enough to crack it. She hadn't landed a significant hit and she had little hope of beating Stella by tiring her out, but for the moment she had her locked there, and that meant time to think and act again. She knew she couldn't hope to keep Stella there just by maintaining her fire. The other would push back, and when she did Twilight would be at a disadvantage. Even if she didn't, Twilight would get tired before her. Twilight gave a slight twist of her neck as her magic shifted. The magic of her spell grew denser and began to slide along the edges of Stella's shield. Stella took notice of it, but by that point it was too late. Twilight twisted her neck in the opposite direction. Her magic solidified into a rubber-like consistence and the trails of it that had extended along Stella's shield tightening around it. Twilight swung her neck, whipping the magical tentacle that extended from her horn into raising up Stella's shield with her inside it, then brought her head down hard and forced the other's shield to smash into the ground. It was not enough to break it, so Twilight began to repeat the process, beating the bubble of Stella's barrier against the earth over and over. It had little effect, leaving craters in the ground where she slammed but doing no visible damage to the shield itself. Twilight was slowly growing tired and she knew she couldn't keep things up like that. She threw the shield and Stella skywards and let the tentacle detach from her horn, then quickly fired a blast at it and forced it to detonate in the air, exploding against and around Stella's shield. Even that did nothing to break through. Twilight was ready to fire again, but Stella was quicker, and Twilight barely had the time to turn her offensive spell into a defensive one as the other came down on her. > Poi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was against Twilight shield, on top of it with her horn pressed against the surface, sizzling sparks shooting off from the point their magics touched each other. Twilight's barrier, and the mare inside it, were slowly but steadily pushed back and downwards, and thin and subtle cracks were starting to spread from where Stella's horn was. Twilight grit her teeth, pain flashing through her skull as she forced herself to hold against the other. What she'd failed to do in minutes, Stella was achieving in seconds. She didn't need to do anything else, either. Twilight could try to teleport, but assuming she managed to do so quickly enough not to be caught by the other as her shield came undone she'd still be an open target once she reappeared, and any attack she might get in during the brief window of time she had wouldn't be enough to bring Stella down. It was far too risky without a plan, though staying there was only becoming less and less of a safe option with every millimetre the cracks spread for. Twilight needed to get Stella off of her, on the defensive again, without leaving her shield. It was not easy to think while feeling all the weight of her opponent's spell against her horn, and neither was casting another spell while maintaining her shield, but she managed. Her magic spread both over herself, activating one of her many protective charms, and through the entire relative area they were in. It took away the air, and while Twilight's safeguard allowed her to still breathe she expected the same wouldn't be immediately true for Stella. Instead, the other alicorn just grinned down at her. Twilight hadn't seen her cast any other spells, and she certainly couldn't think the shield would crack in just a few dozen seconds based on how things had been going, so either she'd already protected herself before Twilight could have noticed, or, perhaps the worse option, she didn't have as much of a need for breathing as a normal pony would have had. Twilight honestly couldn't tell for sure. There was much that was still not understood about Stella, not at all helped by the ways she hid herself through her coil. It was, indeed, a shame all that information would be lost, one way or another. Twilight's breathing grew erratic for a moment. She had potentially minutes to think of something, yes, but thinking was slow and hard when she had herself occupied holding her shield together. She needed something good to ensure her survival and she needed it quickly, because minutes wouldn't be enough. She couldn't hope to push back against Stella, the other was unfortunately simply more powerful. But she could take advantage of her strength, in some way. Yes. Twilight's magic rippled along the surface of her shield, changing it. A moment later she began to sink much faster than she'd been before, pushed down by Stella while her barrier dug into the ground. > Noi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The bubble of Twilight's shield burrowed into the ground, inexorably propelled by the strength of Stella's spell even after the alicorn stopped pushing directly against it. From within the shield Twilight used her magic to direct herself forward, digging out the portion of ground directly below Stella, then she pushed herself down again. As she moved through the earth she used her magic to coat and stabilise the tunnels she dug, quickly creating a system of claustrophobic interconnected galleries big enough for a pony to walk through them, but far too steep. She shot out weaker copies of her shield to keep digging, and all along the way she left a series of magical mines and other traps. Then she propelled herself upwards once again and came through below Stella, digging into her hooves. Stella was quick to reposition herself and twist around to press with her horn against the shield once more. Twilight was expecting it, and was already prepared. Taking advantage of Stella's reaction and the time it took, she let her shield come open around her and flip on itself, forming a bubble around Stella instead. Though Stella was quick to break through it, Twilight still had enough time to teleport her at the bottom of her impromptu tunnel system, and teleport herself somewhere inside it. Stella looked around, lighting her horn to see through the darkness. Twilight's magic permeated the galleries, and teleportation was an impossibility, not to mention the explosive grid was still present. She tried to send out a ping to map the area, but the energy filling the very walls she was inside of scrambled her signal and returned only useless noise. Walking through them was the only way to actually see what they were like, and though she could force her way out differently Twilight's voice came to stop her before she could smash through the magic holding up the whole structure. "You wouldn't want to run away like that, would you? Unless you're quitting of course." Stella grit her teeth in sheer frustration and anger. As if Twilight had in any way played fair until then. But she had a point, however small, and more importantly she'd successfully poked Stella's ego. Forcing her way out could be seen as an admission that she wouldn't be able to make it out normally, and there was little Stella could possibly hate more than the notion of her being unable to do something. Twilight thought that was a challenge, but she'd show her. She cast a spell ahead of herself, one that simulated a pony walking through the tunnel she was in, and watched as it triggered the magical explosions set up ahead. She smirked in annoyance. It would be easy. Twilight, watching Stella while staying hidden, knew that was the case. It didn't matter. It wasn't about making Stella struggle, it was about keeping her occupied. And walking through the tunnels, though easy, would take time. It was all Twilight needed right then. > Dragonfruit > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It felt like shaping fire. Like sculpting the wind itself. Like dominating forces of nature not meant to be controlled. It felt good, intoxicating, and like fire she could feel it burning some part of her. She knew she needed to hold on to something, somewhere, outside of it all. She knew she needed to stop herself from being lost in it. That didn't make it easy. She'd gotten good at it. Why stop then? She recognised that thought pattern, even if she'd never experienced it herself. She'd read enough about it. It was hardest to quit when one was convinced they could quit at any moment. A kind of submission that blinded creatures, made them think they were the ones in control. Could she be sure she really was? Not until she was through. But she wasn't to back down again. She was not to stop, not then, not after everything. It would mean a lack of progress. She was at a wall and there was only one way past it, a jump she had to take, and no knowing what was on the other side. No knowing whether she would land or fall until she did it. But she had to, she'd made her choice. It was so much better than the first time. So much deeper, and stranger, and grander. She'd known and understood so little back then. She'd been so crude. But right then, in that moment, she was something beautiful. Something great. Something, yes, maybe as great as the name implied. Maybe only close to it. But then, she knew they were not like that at all times, so certainly greater than they normally were, if only a reaction of what they could be. Still incredibly powerful. There was arrogance, and there was honesty. She was only applying the latter, and she conceded, understood, that great did not mean right. But right she had to be. Right she needed to be. In full, in control, over all of it. She had to reach out and see, and hope, and steel herself. She had been wrong. They both had been. What she'd been the first time wasn't comparable, it wasn't close. What she could be would cause so much damage if she lost herself to it. And yet it could do such great things too. No matter. No hesitation. Nothing else she could do. She'd walked to the edge and it was time to walk past it. So she let it flow. Through her, be her, she channeled something so much greater than her. It was like hearing the world's heart beat, and feel its blood flow through her. And she could divert its course. She could shape its path and its consequences. So she did. Unbridled, unrestrained, giving it all of herself and giving all of herself to it. It was the only way, no succeeding without risking her total failure. She reached imposing out to the world, and her mind wandered to her memories. > Rok > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella hissed in frustration at the sight of another dead end up ahead. The spells all around her prevented her from sending out more than one decoy, and from letting one go on too far from her. She had to check every tunnel by herself, at least until she could see its end. Dealing with the traps was trivial. Neither was there any chance of her getting lost, she kept a proper mental map of the whole place and where everything was in three dimensions. No, the only problem was how damn time consuming the whole thing was. She'd been at it for minutes already. No going faster, either, the damn walls wouldn't allow that. She'd have almost considered just busting out and declaring Twilight was the one running away and hiding, except Twilight was clearly there. She could feel her. Stella had her own sensory net laid out, and though the signal was somewhat jumbled it still clearly showed Twilight was somewhere in the tunnels. Occasionally they'd see each other, briefly, Twilight would run past an opening ahead or call out. She'd lay new traps, too, and Stella had started to do the same. It was still a battle. Played in slow and drawn out steps, but the two were still fighting each other while Stella made her way to the surface again. It was a more tactical confrontation than their direct one on one, and so prone to going in metaphorical circles it felt more like a waste of time, but Twilight was good at keeping it just engaging enough for Stella not to pull out of it. She was probably using the extra time to think of another plan, but Stella didn't mind that. An odd fork in the way ahead. The tunnel wasn't that way when she'd come through the other way around. Stella smiled despite herself, in a way she couldn't help but enjoy the situation. The way Twilight still challenged her. The way she brushed those challenges aside like nothing. It felt, if nothing else, entertaining. A way to calm down and clear her head. Not how she'd imagined the fight would go, but she didn't mind. There was a tension to the situation. A knowledge that at any moment things could snap and devolve into chaos once again. It was a drive, a way to keep both of them on edge, one more than the other. Stella couldn't by rule and wouldn't by choice break through the spells, but she had slowly started to take over portions of the maze herself. She wondered how long it would take for Twilight to retreat from those portions, clearly she already had noticed what was happening. An open way. The only one left to possibly check, and that meant progress. It went down instead of up, at least for a bit, but it would go up again if followed along enough, Stella knew. So she walked, her proxy ahead, as she changed the walls around her. > Pain Away > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do you ever think back to it? To those days?" Bon Bon didn't turn to look at the other, she just kept staring at the broken down wall on the other side of the road, still eating her ice-cream like it wasn't the middle of winter. She didn't need to be told what they were talking about, it was clear to both of them. It brought the same image to mind. "Sometimes I do. Sometimes I dream about it. Sometimes they're happy dreams, sometimes they're not. Sometimes I'm sad when I wake up." "You should come inside. It's cold out here. We have a fireplace, it'll warm you up." Bon Bon didn't acknowledge that, and still didn't turn. She gave her cone another lick, and a thought occurred to her. "Do you know why I like eating ice-cream in the winter?" she asked. The other looked at her curiously. "I don't, actually. You're not the only one I've seen doing it, but the usual answer I get is that it's because it tastes good. Is yours different?" "Because it doesn't melt." Bon Bon didn't turn still, but it was evident from behind too that she was smiling. "That makes it easier to eat. I don't have to worry about that. I'm not a unicorn, I can't just keep it all together with magic, so it's actually quite useful for me to have it hold together on its own. And, yes, it's good too." "That never occurred to me." The other sat down. If they weren't leaving soon might as well get comfortable. "What flavour are you having?" "Lemon," Bon Bon said. "I like lemon as a flavour for sweet things. Because lemon usually isn't sweet, you see, so it's a nice contrast. A nice change of pace from what you'd expect. And I find it very refreshing." "It's a little cold to need something refreshing, don't you think?" Bon Bon shrugged. She sat silently eating her ice-cream for a bit. Then she spoke again, like she'd been deep in thought and still partly was. "I have been thinking back to those days. And those days weren't the best, but I still look back to them fondly. Because I had things that made me happy back then, even if things weren't always well, even if sometimes things were really bad. So I've been thinking of something. I've been thinking that even when things aren't going well, I should focus on what good is there. Because if good things I had can make me happy about a time when things were really bad around me, they should do the same for the present too. And I don't want to squander the good I have now." The other was quiet, just watching as Bon Bon silently finished her lemon ice-cream, then ate the cone. "I've thought of something else too," the mare added. "Winter is a terrible time to cry outside. I think I'll take your offer after all. Will we have pudding?" > Tod > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The surface was near. Stella could feel it, she knew how deep in the ground she still was. Unless Twilight had raised up a mountain on top of the tunnels, which she doubted was the case. The time for it hadn't been there. Neither did it seem like the kind of thing the mare would want to do. She was most likely content with extending their confrontation within the tunnels, but not too much further. And if she did, Stella wouldn't allow it. Not that it would be hard to. Most of the tunnels were in Stella's control at that point. Twilight was hiding in the upper portions, and likely retreating quick. Stella's control over the spell was growing fast, spreading upwards through the tunnels, slithering along their walls and overtaking and twisting Twilight's spellwork. She'd actually have to thank the other alicorn for something, it was a valuable learning experience and something she'd certainly enjoy replicating. She could even expand the tunnels and turn them into another hideout if she felt like it in the future, or build her own system. The place was appropriate for it, far enough from everything else as Twilight had said. Maybe she really would do that. Maybe not. Maybe the whole area would end up destroyed during the following battle. Stella really did have to thank Twilight. The slow walking and methodical exploration had really helped with clearing out her head, and though the wound on her neck still hurt she was no longer as unstable as she'd been a while before. She was feeling a lot better, a lot more rested. If Twilight had hoped to tire her out by trapping her there she'd made a huge mistake. There was also of course another possibility. Twilight may be trying to buy herself time in the hopes help of some other kind would somehow arrive, maybe trying to contact someone in some way. It wouldn't work of course. Stella suspected if there was anyone Twilight might try to get to, it was either Sunset or her more recent and more unfortunate acquaintance. The latter was a purely desperate move and it would do her no good. The stallion was a nuisance in his ability to see through Stella's coil, but dead weight on the battlefield without time to set up any traps. The former option simply wasn't there, Sunset had returned to her world and Stella had made sure to prevent her from coming back for a day or so. But even if either or even both of them got there, what would it accomplish? She could still force Twilight to fight by herself, she had her friends hostages. Some willingly so. Celestia was most likely capable of breaking out of her imprisonment, but was obviously aware that doing so would doom someone else. She'd chosen to be captured herself after all. She appeared to have an unjustified faith in Twilight. No matter. She'd remember what Stella decided when everything was done with. > Doq > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella stepped out into the light. The tunnels were hers, and it had actually been quite a boring process to take the last of them. Twilight had left a while before, making the final stretch of the exploration feel more like a chore that Stella had gone through with only because it was sure to be short. She scanned around, looking for Twilight, and found her staring at the distance. The Sun was a fair bit lower than when they'd begun to fight outside the castle in Ponyville. "Are you done wasting my time?" Stella asked. Twilight was quiet. She turned slowly and deliberately. Her horn was alight, and her eyes were closed. Stella braced herself in preparation for what was to come. Twilight spread her wings wide and opened her eyes, and let her magic flow loose. It did not head towards Stella. It did not head towards any direction in particular. It spread, filling the air around Twilight like a drop of ink spreading out through water. It reached and reverberated and weaved itself through the fabric of reality, and it twisted space as it passed through it like light through a lens. The world bent around Twilight, and around Stella, and in the space between them. Twisted and curved and warped, stretched and shaped into something else entirely. The few metres of distance between the two mares became kilometres of space, the world around them suddenly unreachable, the spatial construct they found themselves in unbound by gravity and sunlight and any external factors yet still confined to that tiny space over which they had been standing. It was like watching reality through funhouse mirrors, like a demented mind's imperfect recalling of existence. Stella soared through boundless spaces imprisoned in finite lengths by impossible shapes, flying to reach her destination on the other edge of their tiny infinity as all her spells and bolts passed around their target without ever touching it, like electricity sticking to the outside of a cage, like water obeying gravity over its own forward flow. Twilight seemed untouchable and unreachable, if only for a few moments. Stella was relentless. She stopped firing spells she realised weren't working, and redoubled her efforts into moving towards Twilight, even while the very space around her fought against her motion and moved away with her inside. As she'd done in the tunnels she began to reach out with her powers, trying to bend reality around her in the same and opposite way Twilight was. She did not know the details and specifics of Twilight's spell and how she was using it, but she made up with sheer power what knowledge couldn't provide for. Slowly at first, surely all throughout, she carved herself a bubble of influence and first halted the negative course of her motion, then began to once more push herself through space at speeds beyond the definition of speed itself. Twilight watched and perceived her, eyes glowing white, sweat running and evaporating down her back. > Top > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella danced through the aether, twisting and bending space like iron sand around a magnet. Light flowed around her through the deformed portions of reality she controlled, distorting her form from the outside and hiding the outside to her. She didn't need to see, she knew where she was heading, she could sense it without the need for sight. Twilight was still there, on the other edge of their void, and though she kept trying to push Stella back and away from herself the distance between them was inexorably shrinking with every moment. Stella was stronger than Twilight, and every second more confident and skilled in her control over the magic they were using. She was gaining on her enemy, and gaining more the more time passed. Twilight began to attack. She sent out great waves of magic spreading through her makeshift dimension, like walls of light and sound aimed straight at the other alicorn traversing the ever-flowing space she controlled. Stella felt the waves coming, and faced them head on. Coated in a hypersphere of glowing energy, bright like a miniature star, she spearheaded through the walls without slowing, without flinching, without issues at all. Twilight didn't stop there, as she witnessed Stella's continued approach. Burning through the residues of her magic, already quite taxed by upkeeping her pocket universe and controlling its shapes, she forced parts and portions of her artificial reality to solidify, to fold on themselves until they formed impenetrable barriers, to bend and shift to form the edges of a multidimensional fortress all around her. It did not stop Stella. Though she could not pierce the walls and pass through, no more than she could pierce through the fabric of existence itself and hope to travel that way, brute force of that kind was not necessary. She could not pass the barriers, but she could circle them still. The world they were in was too far from linear from there to not be a path, and as her power reached out and reshaped the space around her she slithered and crawled past every blockade through newfound and newly constructed folds in the fabric of reality. But it did slow her down, as meaningless as speed could be in a world of shifting space. But if simple walls could not halt the alicorn, something else perhaps could better drain her time. Not mere uniform blocks and seamless sides to a still never impenetrable structure, but something more complex, more layered. Twilight's magic shaped a titanic maze in the span of reality between Stella and her, one the other would be forced to navigate through, one that would constantly force her to find new ways around her obstacles. Not a definite solution, still the alicon would approach, but the time it would take her would greatly increase. Twilight observed from her horizon the far star growing closer through the chambers of her labyrinth, never deterred, never tired, and waited for the moment they would clash once again. > Voi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was approaching faster than Twilight had anticipated. She'd grown into a rhythm, it was like she could predict where the walls would be and was acting ahead of coming across them, already prepared and knowing exactly what to do. Of course, that was impossible. The extent to which she seemed to be prepared for everything she met wasn't feasible, so it had to be something else. Yeah. Twilight realised it as she kept observing the other. It wasn't preparation for any particular obstacle, it was something else, something more general. Stella wasn't tackling her challenges individually. She had developed a single spell, one she permanently kept fed, that automatically worked to warp the space around her and let her through where she moved. She wasn't reacting to walls, she was expecting a wall and moving to slide around it at all times, regardless of the current situation. It was an extremely wasteful solution in terms of magical energy necessary, but if she could keep it up, and she clearly could, it also meant moving through the maze almost as quickly as if there had been no maze at all. Twilight wondered if it was still worth it to keep delaying their by all means inevitable clash. Stella was tiring herself, sure, but she was tiring herself slower than Twilight. There was a limit to how much energy the latter could spend on keeping the former away before she needed the rest to actually face her, and with how taxing and fruitless the attempts at keeping Stella away were proving Twilight was starting to believe the moment of their direct confrontation would do best to come sooner than she'd thought. So it would be then. She reached out to her pocket of reality one last time. Stella was still a small infinity and a while away from her, but the energy spent making sure she took her time to cross it wouldn't be worth losing given the fight that would come afterwards. Twilight's control permeated through the entirety of her stretched and twisted dimension, and she gave it all one single command, one single target. Collapse, and do so on Stella. She wasn't expecting it to defeat the alicorn, or even significantly hurt her, but it would still keep her occupied awhile. The small universe the two ponies were in crumbled on itself in the equivalent of a sheet of paper getting crumpled before being thrown away, with a couple more dimensions and a lot more friction involved. Pieces of reality ground against each other with the sound of roaring black holes, heating up like stars and shooting off sparks and lightning. Like shards of glass falling down the entirety of everything around Stella converged in on her, like a cubist rendition of a violent carriage crash, and all the lengths and all the space and all the distance hammered itself towards her. The alicorn sensed it happening, through her magic more than anything, and quickly put up a shield. > Lot > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reality collapsed and crashed around the bubble of Stella's barrier, chunks of Twilight's pocket dimension ramming into each other like ice banks and pushing themselves all around her shield, growing more and more dense with every passing second, glowing brighter and heating up like iron forced to bend and strain under weight. It was like the matter of stars was covering her, boiling plasma born of space folded on itself to the breaking point. It was a white hot, immensely heavy fluid pulled towards her like by a magnet, a space nothing could survive in. Nevertheless, her shield held, for as much as her magic was strained, and eventually all the mass and crumbling space was consumed away as it bent on itself and faded. The two alicorns were back in the clearing, where they had always been. The last traces of Twilight's artificial universe dripped down the sphere of Stella's magic like molten iron, turning the sand below her to glass and igniting the stray bubbles and shreds of air that had made it back in the area after Twilight had pushed it all away. Twilight's eyes were still glowing bright, her wings were still spread. The moment Stella's shell of energy became fully liberated by the ruins of Twilight's dimension, the alicorn undid it, and darted forward at a speed so great it would have burnt the air around her had there been any left. Twilight wasn't unprepared. They clashed once again, horn against horn, without truly touching each other. The auras of their magics pressed against one another, singing and glowing like metal being cut through. The sand around them flowed upwards, turning to glass and shattering too quickly to form into sheets, a cloud of shimmering dust reflecting the light of their spells all around them. The ground beneath them bent down into a crater and the two alicorn kept floating above it. The light passing through the space between them came distorted and warped. Winds began to pick up around the area of their clash. Twilight didn't move from her position. The strain on her body was deep, but barely evident, completely hidden by the bright flashing of magic around her. Sweat was pouring down her back and brow, but turning to vapour too quickly against her skin to ever form into drops. Her mane was flowing behind her, sparks twinkling in it like stars in the night sky. Her eyes were pools of white light, but her expression was stern, not one of exertion. Her mouth was closed and her lips just slightly bent, her jaw at rest. Stella's was clenched, her teeth bared partly by her slightly parted lips. She glared at Twilight with piercing eyes, her neck and back visibly tense as she pushed against her with her horn held forward. Twilight was holding on for the time being, but she was exhausting herself. She knew she couldn't push back, neither could she hold on forever. But she would keep going awhile. > Noi > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was sliding closer, just barely. Twilight wasn't moving back, instead the distance between them was shrinking, slowly, bit by bit. It was a contest of endurance, and with how much energy they poured into each moment even Stella's outburst of rage was quelled eventually. She was stuck staring at Twilight with a more neutral expression, always pushing against her, gaining progressive slivers. There was no backing down and the exertion on both of them was still great, but it was a slow process, one that invoked thought despite everything. The two alicorns looked at each other through the distortions their magical clash brought about, hardly seeing their faces but always finding one another's eyes to stare at. Stella's weren't as bloodshot as they'd been when she'd charged forward, and Twilight's weren't glowing as fully anymore, although they still had some light in them. There was no air to carry words and no room for them to speak with all of their bodies focused on their struggle, but still there was a way for them to exchange words, thoughts put into syntax and structure, riding along the waves of the magic each poured against the other and then farther along to where the one standing in front could sense them and understand them and hear, without hearing, what the other had meant to say. It was slower than talking, not quite as clear. Twilight went first. "What do you think you'll get out of this? Why are you even doing it? Do you really think killing me will prove anything meaningful?" Rage ignited in Stella once more, and she pushed forward slightly more than she had until a moment before. "You wouldn't understand. You can't understand. Even if I showed you. You're beneath me, and you must be eliminated." "What good do you think that will do you? What about the rest of Equestria? You'll be treated like a monster by everyone." "They'll think what I want them to think. They'll treat me like I want them to treat me. Like I deserve to be treated. It doesn't matter what they may think now, not with my coil and my powers. But you'll have the pleasure of seeing me as I am and remembering me for the short rest of your life." "Why now? Why anything and everything you've done? All the time spent with Chrysalis, taking the scales and holding on to them for so long, why all of this? What's the point in any of it? You're walking in circles, Stella." "What does it matter to you? It's none of your business, and you have more important things to focus on right now. But I suppose if you know you're going to die soon you may as well wish to sate your curiosity." Their horns were just about to touch. Twilight looked at Stella. She was sad, and tired, and resigned. "I'm not sure if it's right for me to be sorry." Then there was a red flash. > Break The Cycle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was too completely focused and taken by her struggle against Twilight to possibly even notice, let alone react to, a blast that came too fast from too far. She only realised it was on her when it struck her, leaving a hole through her wing and into her chest. Her horn, previously about to touch Twilight's, leaned to the side as her whole body jerked in shock at being hit. That moment of faltering had far worse consequences for her. She'd been locked in a struggle against Twilight, winning only slowly. No longer pressing against her, there was nothing to stop Twilight's side of the clash from rushing through. So it did, a stream of white magic running over her in full. Stella teleported out of it, but only after it had already hit her. Twilight, aware nothing was in the flow of her magic any longer, halted it. Her mane fell down and her body dropped to the ground, and she suddenly looked every bit as tired as she felt, barely standing. Stella had gone to the ponies she'd imprisoned. She was going to kill them, at least some of them. Twilight had dropped her end of the deal, and there would be consequences. That, at least, had been her plan. When she tried to reach out with her magic towards the prisons she'd created, a moment after appearing there, she found they were refusing her. Before she could figure out what was happening, red lightning erupted from the spheres and struck her, pushing her back. She watched from the ground as the bubbles shattered in showers of red sparks, but before the ponies inside them could attack her they were teleported away in flashes of red. Better for them, she thought as she was getting up. She would have mopped the floor with their guts, not hindered by her own refusal to use her coil against them as she was doing with Twilight. She turned back to the alicorn in question, greeted by the pitiful sight of a mare sweating and panting and looking at the ground as her body lightly shook. "You got your friends free. Good job. I suppose that's a fitting last thing to do before you die." Stella was charging a spell on her horn again. Twilight raised her head to look at her. Then she vanished. Stella looked around in surprise, and that allowed her to actually see the next red blast as it came. She lowered her horn and released the spell she'd been holding, and the two clashed and exploded in the air, kicking up a cloud of dust and pulverized glass. Stella stood in wait as someone approached. A figure walked forward through the dust as it settled. She took off her hat and teleported it away with her magic, then did the same with her cape. A black amulet hung around her neck, with a red gem in it, and the same red glow pulsed from her eyes. > Slaughter Thy Wants > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ah. Of course." Stella looked down at the ground, bent over partly. There was no bleeding from her wounds, but the heavy sound of her breathing told there had to be some consequences to them. "I really should have seen this coming, I suppose. No matter." She began to chuckle and it just barely didn't devolve into a laugh, in part due to the weight of her panting. Trixie straightened her neck a little and looked down at the alicorn a distance in front of her. "I'll admit, I'm a little sad the others won't get to see this." Red light flashed atop her horn and almost immediately burst forward into a tree trunk thick stream aimed at Stella. The clone dodged it, and made herself invisible and inaudible to the other mare. She'd bought Twilight some time, sure, and another shot at being healed, but it wasn't going to matter. There was no more holding back, especially not against her. Stella advanced towards Trixie, much like she'd done with Twilight's friends before, but unlike what she'd done with them she wouldn't just incapacitate the unicorn. She did have to agree with her, it was only a shame the others wouldn't see what she was about to do. It gave her pause, then, when while she was about halfway across the distance Trixie had a kerchief appear in the air beside her, and began to tie it around her own head, covering her eyes. "Don't bother with the tricks," the unicorn said, "you're not going to get anything out of them." Stella grit her teeth. The other was taunting her then. Admirable as it was foolish, and infuriating as both of them combined. She'd planned to end Trixie with her own hooves, but at that moment walking felt like it was going to take too long. She charged a spell into her horn and fired. Trixie deflected it. Stella watched on in confusion, and Trixie mock-yawned, holding a hoof in front of her mouth for added emphasis. "I told you it wasn't going to work." Stella was all but literally frothing. She checked and checked again that her coil was still working and working as she'd meant it to. She made herself and her magic wholly undetectable from Trixie and from everyone else, just in case. They could not hear her, they could not see her, they could not perceive her or anything she did. She circled the mare slowly, readying her horn to fire again. Trixie struck first, a bolt from her horn aimed behind her straight at Stella's position, only dodged thanks to the alicorn's reflexes and a quick burst of her wings. Then Trixie slowly turned and looked up where the other was hovering, still with her eyes covered. "Are you actually going to do something interesting? I thought you'd be more entertaining than this if Twilight couldn't beat you by herself." Then she vanished in a flash of red. Stella looked around, then another blast came. > Sightless Through The Fire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella dodged to the side, looking at the scorch mark the spell left on the ground as she rolled in the air. She scanned the area above for traces of Trixie, but couldn't see her. Another spell came from behind her and she avoided that too by moving to the side. Then another, and that time, after she'd avoided it already, it bounced in the air and headed towards her once again. Stella caught sight of it in time and neutralised it with a wave of her horn. She was tense, looking around both for signs of the pony and to spot spells she might cast while her brain worked to figure out how it was possible that Trixie was seeing her. But it wasn't. She knew that with certainty. Therefore, Trixie wasn't seeing her. She wasn't hearing her either. She was detecting her position, in some way, and that of her spells as well, but it wasn't anything Stella hadn't already covered with her coil. If it had been, if Twilight or maybe even Trixie herself had found a way to ignore it, at the least the other alicorns would have remained there to fight after being instructed on it. It had to be something else, something only one pony could benefit from at once, maybe only Trixie specifically. Stella was already getting ideas for what it could be exactly, and all she needed was a chance to test out her guess. Unfortunately for her, Trixie was doing her best to leave her without an opening. She had little time to think and even less to act in the face of the unicorn's repeated blasts, always coming out of nowhere and always aimed at her position. Stella was growing tired of it, and though at that point even she couldn't deny the fight had tired her she still chose to go for the brutally effective if wasteful solution. First she put up a shield, which Trixie's spells began to uselessly crash against. Then her horn glew brighter and her shield started to glow as well. A moment later she released her magic, like releasing a breath. Magic surged rapidly from the ground in a large area around her, like a giant lightning bolt from the earth to the sky. It was just a flash, if a tremendously powerful explosion that blew dust and sand around in a shockwave and echoed around for almost the whole desert, but it was enough for what she needed it to do. Trixie had to protect herself, and her shield gave away her position. Stella felt a sting of wrath as she realised the unicorn had gone invisible to her, and she let the emotion crystallise into a long sharp chunk of condensed magic she charged with towards Trixie's location. She moved fast, and though the other might have seen her she still didn't have the time to move, and Stella's artificial stalactite impaled Trixie's shield and shattered it in a shower of red. > As Blood Burns > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The crystal jittered and stopped in the air, held by Trixie's magic, but Stella ignored it and fired towards the mare's position. Trixie fired a spell of her own, stalemating Stella's beam, and revealed herself from her invisibility. She hadn't been hit, and she was still wearing the kerchief over her eyes, but the crystal had almost reached her bust. She grunted, having to use her power to both keep the alicorn's spell at bay and hold the crystal in place. Stella leaned in a little closer, gritting her teeth as she tried to overpower Trixie with her magic. Despite her efforts, Trixie still managed to keep up, no doubt a combination of the Alicorn Amulet's powers and Stella's own tiredness. That did admittedly not bode too well for a potential new clash with Twilight right afterwards, but at that point plans had changed. Twilight had effectively run away, Stella would treat the act as such and let the rest of Equestria know. Then her coil would let her do the rest. She leaned in a little more and her wounded wing twitched. "Did Twilight tell you what I did to your friend?" There was no answer from Trixie, still completely focused on her magic. There wasn't even a reaction from her. Stella watched the unicorn's face, and after a moment chuckled. Of course. Trixie still couldn't hear her, and whatever she was using it didn't cover that. Soon the chuckle became a proper laugh. Another crystal materialised at her side, over her other shoulder, and she jammed that forward too towards Trixie's head. Trixie stopped it. She didn't turn towards it or visibly react to it, but her magic caught it and held it at a distance from her body. Stella's laughter ceased. Her expression twitched and shifted before settling into neutrality again. She teleported away, her crystals at her side, and the light of her magic enveloped them and shaped them into short spears with wide ornate heads. Then her magic spread outwards and left a series of floating mines all around the area between her and Trixie. Trixie, who'd stumbled a little after Stella's teleportation, looked around at the three dimensional minefield being laid before her, with her eyes still covered. "Too scared to face me head on?" she taunted, but she didn't dare approach Stella. It was too dangerous. She kept her horn ready to strike, but didn't make any moves. Stella did the same, staying still and studying the unicorn. Clearly she'd underestimated her opponent, and the fight deserved proper thinking and strategy. It was a most annoying state of affairs, but it was regardless the way things were, and there was nothing to do about it. She'd adjust to the situation. She had plans. The first step was getting rid of the unicorn standing between her and Twilight. Stella shed her metal garments, letting then fall to the ground with a muted thud. Her muscles tensed as she waited for Trixie to act first. > As Winds Blow > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trixie's stance shifted, and her horn began to glow softly. Stella couldn't tell exactly what she was doing, but at a guess it was some kind of scanning or other broad and low power activity. Trixie spoke, her expression and demeanour calm. "I wasn't actually sure if this would work. I'm pretty lucky it did, or I would have had to go for stronger attacks right away." Stella studied the other, tilted her head, then undid just enough of what she'd set up to allow Trixie to hear her. "Why are you telling me this? Are you challenging me to figure out what you're doing?" "In a way," Trixie replied. "I think it's more fun if you have a chance to understand what's happening. I also think it's not going to make a difference even if you do." She smiled a little, only a little. "We'll see if I'm wrong or not." "Quite the overconfident one," Stella said. "Just as you always were." "No." Trixie kept her smile, and shook her head slightly. "This time it's just confidence, and it's not misplaced." Her horn suddenly grew brighter. Around the two of them, in a circular area centred on a spot between them, the space distorted and shifted. A moment later they were surrounded by a rotating dome showing a starry sky, and Stella watched it with curiosity before Trixie's magic set it aflame and let it burn. Then Trixie teleported behind Stella, a halberd of black metal held in her magic. Stella was halfway through turning back to face her when she sensed prickling in her horn and just barely had time to begin dodging as each one of the mines she'd placed began to travel like a projectile towards her position. She kept rolling and teleporting to the side as her entire minefield left a trail of explosions and craters after her, and was forced to push herself up with her wings once the mines began to anticipate her trajectory. Trixie was watching, almost mocking in her lack of action, holding her halberd and her position. Stella attempted to fire a blast at her while dodging, but the unicorn deflected it with ease. Stella grit her teeth. Flying with her wounded wing hurt, and she didn't have as much control over herself as she would have liked. Still moving in the air she looked back to the minefield she'd laid out, or what remained of it. Almost nothing, thankfully for her. She began to realign herself, shifting her trajectory so it would leave her free to head straight towards Trixie once the last mine had been fired. Trixie was ready for her. Once the last blast blew up in the air and Stella dashed forward towards the unicorn with her spears at her sides, Trixie held her halberd sideways in front of her, and at the moment of contact intercepted both of the alicorn's weapons with hers. Dust blew behind her in a wave, but she held her position. > Time Onward Flows > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The tips of both of Stella's weapons pressed against the pole of Trixie's halberd, sparks igniting where contact happened and the air singing around them. Despite the strength with which Stella pushed, Trixie did not move. The two stared at each other, Trixie with her kerchief still over her eyes, Stella with fire in hers. The alicorn's spears pressed and pushed in opposite directions, trying to slip away from Trixie's weapon, but the unicorn rotated it alongside the motion and kept Stella stuck there. The first spell flew from the alicorn's horn. It was deflected by a quick flash of red light. Then came another, and another, and more still came and all were pushed aside by Trixie's magic. Eventually Stella stopped. The tips of Trixie's halberd had covered about a sixth of a circle in their motion to keep up with Stella's crystals, and the unicorn wore an annoyingly smug half smile on her face. "Is this really the best you can do? Surely not, right?" Stella took a deeper breath. It was time to get serious. "I do have to admit you have me stumped as to how you're doing this, for the moment." She unleashed a wave of magic all around from her horn. Trixie shielded herself from it. Stella continued, "And I am quite impressed by how well you've been doing. I had underestimated you. No more of that." Her horn glew again, and suddenly she teleported both Trixie and herself high in the air. Trixie had her footing taken from her for just a moment, but quickly regained it by creating a levitating platform just below her hooves. In the time that had taken, Stella's spears had moved past her, and they began to come back in from different angles. Trixie deflected both of them with her weapon, and then again and again as they kept coming back from different directions and at different moments. While all that was happening, Stella had begun circling around and above and below Trixie's platform, constantly firing at her and leaving behind a series of floating orbs of magic that would periodically shoot at Trixie with different spells of their own or haul themselves at her. Trixie deflected or halted Stella's blasts, shot off those orbs that remained stationary and kept firing, and even found time to take shots at Stella herself. Before Stella had a chance to up the intensity of her assault however, Trixie did so herself on her side. Wild wind began to flow around her platform like different opposing layers of miniature tornadoes, forcing Stella to stay confined in one of them and follow along with its current lest her wings be ripped off. Lightning fell from the sky aimed at her, and pillars of rock began to rise from the ground in her path. Stella had to focus on protecting herself more than attacking, putting a shield around herself once more and dodging or destroying what came into her trajectory, quietly growling in frustration. > You Take Your Turn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella recalled her weapons at her side. She flew higher, outside the confines of Trixie's whirlwinds, dodging lightning and blasts of magic from the unicorn. Once she was high enough, she spread her wings and halted herself, looking down as her silhouette stood stark against the sinking Sun. Magic bubbled up through her and flowed from her horn, barely restrained. A sphere of energy spread out above her, soon larger than the Sun appeared in the sky, its light blotting out the day's own. Parts of her neck were tense, tendons stretched in unnatural ways under the stress and strain. Her expression was cold, determined, her eyes sunken as she bowed and cast her spell down towards the earth. Trixie, still standing in the middle of her miniature layered tornado surrounded by thin towers of rock with their tips shattered, looked up at the approaching magical meteor Stella had unleashed towards her. Red light permeated the winds around her, and reshaped and redirected them underneath her platform, a single stream of swirling, roaring air that propelled her upwards to the sky. Then her magic coated her halberd and had it spin above her horn, seeping into it until the metal came undone and became something else than matter entirely. Stella watched from behind her creation, face emotionless like a statue, while beneath it the spinning disk of red and black above Trixie's head impacted the great sphere of energy coming down towards her. Heat pulsed and radiated from the impact point, wildly blowing Trixie's mane straight behind her like storm wind and charring her kerchief. Her platform shook in the air, torn between her own upwards pushing and the momentum of Stella's spell, but regardless she held her position, and the sphere halted in the air. Trixie's horn glew brighter, while her squinting eyes peered out from beneath the rapidly consumed remains of their cloth cover. The fluid substance hanging above her, between her and the spell, more magic than matter at that point, began to spread and stretch itself thin, growing wide as the sphere above her was. It curved upwards at its edges, shaping itself like a bowl, and pushed upwards to meet the spell's surface. Another pulse from Trixie's horn, and something happened. A wave reverberated through the construct she held above herself, and its structure altered itself once more. Then, where before the two had been struggling and pushing against each other, Stella's spell instead began to sink into the black red magifluid in Trixie's hold. Not passing through it, but entering it without anything coming out the other side. Stella watched, slightly frowning without her eyes themselves changing in any way, as slowly the spell she had cast fully sunk into Trixie's own. The edges of the structure began to dissipate as the halfpoint of the sphere passed, like smoke blown apart by the wind, and when the whole of one had disappeared into the other no trace remained of either of the two spells. > Heedless In Your Ire > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella stared down still with eyes as sunken as before, without moving. Trixie's uncovered eyes were on her, without really seeing her, the unicorn still only perceiving her in ways other than sight. "I should have known you were close," Stella said. "I was distracted. I was angry at Twilight and busy with taking care of her. But we're not that close to Manehattan. Not close enough to get there as quickly as we did. That was you we passed over, wasn't it? Your training grounds, your distortion spell. That's how we ended up there." There was no discernable emotion in Trixie's eyes as she stared vaguely towards Stella. They were open, slightly more than normal, apparently not bothered by the sunlight, not angled or darkened or warped. Her expression too was neutral, calm, relaxed muscles and lips at rest. Her ears flicked instinctually around as the wind passed her by, but she did not move. Her mane and tail hung barely moved by the breeze, a little ruffled by what she'd just gone through. "It was," she said. She was quiet, but in the relative silence of their place in the sky Stella did not struggle to hear her. The reddened whirlwind beneath Trixie's platform, though still there, had diminished in intensity and fully come to a halt in upwards motion, and was lazily swirling stationary below the unicorn. Stella smiled a little as she heard that, though the emotion of her expression did not reach into her eyes. "I lied before," she said, as quietly as Trixie had. "I had an idea of what you might be doing. Now I'm not sure yet, but I think it's likely enough for me to take a chance on it. You might think that knowing doesn't mean I have a solution yet. Maybe I have one. I'm not going to tell you." "I'm going to wait and see, then," Trixie said. She looked straight ahead, averting her eyes from where Stella was, resting her neck. "I can't tell how you look. I can't tell where your voice is coming from, and I can't tell anything about you from it the way I hear it. But I think you're tired. I saw some of what you did with Twilight, and you're not pushing as hard against me. I think it's because you don't have it in you right now." Stella was still impassive as Trixie lit her horn bright crimson, and the unicorn continued, "I don't actually know if I can beat you. I'm not sure if that's part of the plan. I'm not sure what the plan is at this point, honestly. But if you're really tired out, then maybe I can try." Magic kept building in her horn, and circling around her in barely visible flares of condensing red energy. It was like watching the leaves occasionally picked up by otherwise invisible currents of wind spinning in place, though if any leaves had been there they would have caught fire. > Crumbling Fronts > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have found it a simple, truthful fact of life, that experienced opulence most often clouds the minds of those not born in it, and rarely does it not break them." Stella did not wait for Trixie to finish preparing. She was on her, horn against horn, having teleported there. Her spears still at her sides pressed and ground against an invisible barrier Trixie had put up. The impact was forceful enough to undo the tornado below Trixie's platform, and shatter that same platform, leaving Trixie held in the air by her own magic alone. For once it was the alicorn who was calm, and the unicorn gritting her teeth. But it only lasted a moment, enough for Trixie to finish charging up what she'd been preparing. Stella once more teleported, to Trixie's side and below her and a short distance away, as a pillar of red light rose from the unicorn's horn. Then Stella lunged towards Trixie again, still thrusting with her spears, still they met the invisible bubble of Trixie's shield. But the spell Trixie had cast did not dissolve as a simple blast would have. It lingered, it solidified, and finally it shattered. A shower of red shards came pouring down around Trixie like a hurricane. From all directions fragments of crystallised magic the size of leaves danced around her with frightening speed, threatening to shred through anything that might be in their path. Stella was forced to retreat and dodge once again, and further to keep moving as the shards followed her downwards towards the ground. But they could not follow her and threaten her as tightly and consistently there. In their natural movement downwards, though focused on her, they still spread out, and more so the further down they went. As the gaps between one shard and the other widened, Stella found space between them to pass, and no longer needing to outrun the crystals she focused instead on dodging them. Some scraped her skin and scratched her wings, but none hit her, and soon she was flying skywards once again, towards the unicorn floating in the air. As the swirling tempest of shards around Trixie cleared, Stella propelled her spears to the unicorn once more. One more time, they came in contact with Trixie's shield, and hung vibrating in the air with their tips against it. Then Stella gave a twist of her neck. The spears turned and rotated around each other, and in a moment forced open a breach in Trixie's barrier. The alicorn was quick. Her horn was through the opening between the moment Trixie saw it and the one she thought to react, and a blast followed too soon for the unicorn to avoid. It pierced her shoulder, and her screaming was avoided at the cost of the blood her teeth drew from her lip. But her horn lit again, and at her command the shards she had scattered became magic once more, and a red rain of bullets poured skywards. > Close The Circle > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella didn't care about the projectiles coming towards her, not immediately at least. It would take them a moment to cross the distance from the ground or near it back up there, and she still had her horn inside Trixie's shield. She was not going to let go of that chance, though she did let go of Trixie herself just a moment later. Her neck whipped around and her horn lit up, and after grabbing hold of Trixie she hurled the unicorn around and threw her down to earth, into the oncoming barrage of her own spell. Trixie, whose horn had shot out a few stray blasts as she'd tried to hit Stella after being grabbed, fell down too fast to be able to catch herself, and still with the wind knocked out of her lungs from being in the other's grasp. A portion of the shots she'd summoned skywards hit her shield on the way down, and though they did not break through the barrier the force of the impact still shook her. She reached the ground a moment later, leaving a small crater where her shield hit the earth, and quickly forced herself to stand up and alert again despite her injuries. Far higher above and a short moment before, Stella prepared to face those blasts Trixie hadn't unwillingly intercepted, which were still most of them. There was no dodging a spread that wide, not that it would have mattered much. She tried to teleport to confirm what she was seeing, and found that the projectiles were indeed homing in on her, shifting their trajectory after her position changed. With nothing else to do but take them on, she dove downwards after Trixie. As the red blasts quickly approached her, her horn shone bright. A shield came around her, and a wave spread out from her horn through the air. It shattered and consumed many of the projectiles it came in contact with, and those that made it through crashed against her shield. She grit her teeth as the impacts reverberated down her skull and took more magic out of her than she'd anticipated, but she pushed on, so fast that some of the blasts had to curve down to follow her. Once she saw Trixie standing up, Stella spread her wings and halted herself in the air. In doing so she released another wave of energy behind herself, undoing all the shots still trailing behind her. The unicorn was visibly on edge, her horn glowing red. The two looked at each other, only one properly seeing the other. Suddenly Stella's horn shot a blast in the air, and it exploded in a bright flash that forced Trixie to close her eyes. Stella smiled to herself. Her horn shone once more. She could see Trixie still focused on her, but it didn't matter. She had the unicorn right where she wanted her, and the other hadn't noticed. Stella's discarded regalia, lying at Trixie's hooves, suddenly and violently exploded. > And Yet Still A Spark Remains > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I charged that back when we had our little scuffle there, that wave you blocked. I wasn't ever expecting you not to do so, and the way you didn't notice anything told me I was probably right in my assumptions." Remembering Trixie's position and seeing the red glint of the Alicorn Amulet in the cloud of smoke and dust the explosion had raised, Stella hurled one of her spears forward. There came a wet, snapping sound, and she smiled, descending to earth and then stepping forward, her horn ablaze. "Still, I wasn't sure. Not until I got to throw you there again." She fully released her coil and walked slowly towards the centre of the explosion, keeping her eyes on the light of Trixie's amulet as she made her way there. She could feel its power radiating, even in those moments she couldn't see it. She didn't need it to defeat Twilight, and she hadn't bothered ever stealing it for that reason, but it would still be worth keeping. And it would certainly be fun to get it off of Trixie's neck the hard way. Oh how much it would hurt Starlight when she'd see the sight of it. Or maybe Trixie's head should get brought along as well. Her other spear shot forward. A creak, a muted cry. "Spatial manipulation," Stella explained, creeping closer. "I will concede, pretty smart. My coil can override any kind of sight or perception, any kind of reading, but I can't ignore physics." She kicked a small rock to underscore her point, not that Trixie could see her do so. "I can usually force others to ignore the ways I affect the world, or simply perceive them as natural, but you weren't looking at them. You weren't looking at me at all." A wave spread slowly from her horn and for a moment the space all around her was lit by a vibrating construct permeating its entirety, warping subtly around her and her magic. "Congratulations on keeping this up the entire fight and for the entire area. And congratulations on getting this to slip my attention." At those words, she yanked something out of the hole in her side. It was invisible at first, but another wave from her horn revealed it a conical chunk of the same ethereal substance that permeated reality around her. She let go of it and it fell without impact to the ground. "Oh well. All that work for nothing." She took the last step forward into the smoke and readied her horn to fire. The Alicorn Amulet stared mockingly at her from the ground, next to her spears embedded in the sand. Stella tried to move, in the instant of panic that immediately followed, and found her legs bound to earth by a red mesh of spiderweb-like threads that equally stopped her from teleporting. There was the crackle of electricity arching below her, and then a massive red blast rose from the earth and enveloped the alicorn whole. > Trace > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "You were right," came Trixie's voice through the dust and smoke. "It's most often the case that creatures are overtaken by greatness passed onto them. It certainly was the case for me the first time. You were right about how I hadn't noticed your trap, too. You were wrong in your assumption about me, however." Stella turned, slowly. She had managed to shield herself once she'd realised she was trapped, but a shield cast so quickly against a spell that powerful could only stop so much. Patches of her coat had been completely burnt away, leaving blackened spots over her body and unnatural curved patterns on its surface. Her mane had shortened, burnt away from its ends. Her tail was hanging limp, the bone there broken, the hair on it half gone. Part of her lower jaw and the teeth on it were exposed, and a black scar like the path of a miniature lightning bolt climbed from her neck on the side of her face, through one of her eyes and onto her horn. Her feathers were smoking at their tips, many of them charred. Where part of her barrel should have been, beneath her, there was nothing left. Her spears lay shattered at her hooves. She took a step out of the smoke and her front leg gave out, bending inwards, but with a grunt she gripped the limb in her magic and forced it straight before continuing to walk. Trixie came into view. The mare was badly bruised, burned, and otherwise injured. Missing portions of her coat showed glistening skin shrivelled up and oozing not quite blood, and one of her hind legs had its hoof raised above the ground not to put pressure on it, while hanging at an odd angle. There was a gash in Trixie's side, the contents of which were kept from spilling only by her telekinesis. Blood that hadn't had time to dry yet went from the corner of her mouth to her chin, and some still flowed down from her nose. Her eyes were working, but her pupils were shrunken, her eyelids trembling. Stella saw her for just a moment up ahead, then she disappeared. Gone in a blink like the Amulet a moment before. Stella did not scream, whether because no one could hear her there or because of the wound in her neck no one would ever know. She left the desert with the intensity usually reserved for a spell's arrival, turning the sand on the surface to glass far enough to fit a town on it and collapsing the tunnels Twilight had dug. She reappeared above Twilight's castle, holding herself aloft with magic, and all the windows in Ponyville shattered at her arrival. She blast off a chunk of the wall, and lowered herself into the building. A couple frightened guards looking around unable to see her were hurled outside the entrance she'd added, then the floor beneath her hooves broke under the next blow of her horn. > Face > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella landed on the floor below, around her crystal chunks of what had been the ceiling. No one was there, though she did spot the tails of a pair of guards disappearing behind a corner. She was about to tear off the walls around her to see which room Twilight might be in, but a door near the end of the hallway opened before she could do so. Twilight stepped out of it, turning towards Stella, without her eyes settling properly on the alicorn. She was looking more at the damage done than anything else, though she was still visibly on edge. She was slammed against the wall a moment later, her magic restricted, held there by a glowing circle of magic Stella had cast. No more playing around. Stella licked her lips, and her teeth where her lips were no longer present, and began to advance down the hallway towards Twilight. None could see her, but that didn't stop any of them from trying to stop her. As the rest of Twilight's friends and associates rushed into the corridor, vaguely aiming towards her position and trying to stand between her and Twilight, one by one Stella took care of them all. Not all of them were present, but it wasn't like that would have made any difference. She ducked underneath Rainbow's lightning, and a bolt from her own horn knocked the pegasus unconscious. Fluttershy was forcefully restrained against the wall before she had a chance to try to get close, and Stella made sure her bonds cut off her air for good measure. Rarity's attempt at a shiled crumbled and the mare herself hit the wall next to Twilight, falling then limp on the ground. Shining's barrier put up more of an effort, but it too shattered when hit with a counterspell, and the whiplash left the stallion unconscious. Starlight had a decent idea, the spell she fired wide enough to fill the entire hallway. Unfortunately for her, to do so she'd needed to stand at the front of the group, exposing herself. Stella teleported behind her, and slammed the unicorn's head into the ground. Celestia and Cadence were not targets she could defeat in her condition, but the spell she placed on their horns left them far too busy struggling against their own suddenly rebellious magic to be a threat at that moment. Stella walked forward among the unconscious or otherwise restrained bodies of her enemies, eyes solely focused on Twilight. She had her horn ready, and her breathing picked up as she got closer. She grit her teeth as her leg screamed in pain, forced herself to push forward as her vision suddenly clouded and a headache split her skull, did her best to ignore the ache in her chest. She stood in front of Twilight, raised herself so her front hooves were on either side of the mare, and prepared to strike. Only then did she finally notice the one she'd captured was merely a puppet. > Race > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella turned, staring wide-eyed at the corridor behind her. None of the ponies there were real. She looked at Twilight again, at what she'd thought was Twilight at least. It looked more like a marionette, just without strings. Its mane looked artificial, the surface of its body was hairless and smooth, slightly reflective, cold. Its eyes were lifeless, pulled downwards by gravity. Stella stepped back, and let the puppet fall to the ground. Stepping to the side and over the head of the construct shaped to look like Rarity, she considered crushing it, but didn't. There was too much else going on through her head at that moment. She stepped through the nearest door, looking around. No one there. She looked back outside towards the fake Twilight. She stepped back outside, into the next room over. Empty too. A blaze of magic lashed out from her horn, aimed at the wall. It bounced back and struck her. Stella fell to the floor, yelling, and for a moment she lay there. She looked up at the ceiling, her vision blurry, then slowly she forced herself to stand up again. Her breath was heavy and her vision still unfocused, and she shivered. There was a sound behind her. She slowly turned and blinked, and spotted Sunburst there, looking over the remains of what wasn't Twilight. Stella stepped closer and still he looked down. He spoke. "I'm not sure where you are, or if you can hear me right now. But I imagine you're not too far away at the moment, so just in case, we can talk." Stella's first and only instinct was to fire at him, as hard as she could manage. Her spell flowed around him, deflected by a barely visible shield that went without harm despite the strength of her blast. She had been making no particular effort to hide the consequences themselves of her attacks, and so he turned vaguely towards her. "It took him a while to figure out the lock you'd put on me, and I assure you Twilight will be extremely fascinated by hearing about it, but Trixie held you for long enough. I doubt you could easily hurt me at this point, at least in your conditions." Stella stepped back, her legs moving out of her control away from the stallion. She shot at him again and again, but anything she tried just slid right off his shield. She tried to teleport behind him, but magic just flared out around her horn and came back onto it, knocking her down again. "You lost," Sunburst said, "and unfortunately I can't let you leave. You've already caused too much damage and you're going to cause more if we let you go. But we don't want you dead. Surrender. Allow yourself to be restrained. We will heal you and try to help you. Please." Sunburst tapped his hoof on the ground. There was bright light for a moment, then Stella found herself teleported to a different corridor. > Affiliate > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella was with her back against the entrance door to the castle. Sunburst was up ahead in front of her, still shrouded in his shield. Behind him was Twilight, looking at where she presumed Stella would be. A faint sheen of something that wasn't exactly magic coated the walls and ceiling and floor, hard to notice against the natural glinting of the crystal surfaces but still definitely there if one knew what to look for. Stella did not even attempt to use her magic again. It seemed her coil could still give her an edge even against Sunburst's, much like it did with Sweetie Belle's, but that didn't matter much when he'd succeeded in restraining her other powers. She started to wonder how exactly what he'd built worked, if it targeted her specifically or everyone, if it allowed some specifically to still use their magic. The sensible option was no, but it was always possible that he'd made a mistake. Her musings were somewhat interrupted as he spoke again. "Please, understand the situation. You have nowhere to go and no way to fight back. You are hurt and putting your life at risk. We are not going to hurt you if you surrender." Twilight stepped forward, and she too spoke. "Think of everything we could do for Equestria together. Think of the life you could have. It doesn't have to be like this. You have done horrible things, but we can forgive you." She hesitated, then cleared her throat and spoke in a different tone. "I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to pretend that, after everything you've done, I will just be happy keeping you here. But you could be of so much help to us, all of us, and I genuinely believe you could have a happy life together with us. Please. It's the most logical solution to the current situation. You don't have to like it, but it's your best option too." "We'll have to restrain you if you refuse," Sunburst spoke. "We're not going to kill you, although we could, but we're going to have to trap you until you decide to show yourself. I can do that. I might be able to help you survive, too. You don't have another choice, Stella. Either you surrender, or we'll keep asking you the same question until you accept, or you die, or Equestria falls. I won't allow anyone to free you. You won't get another chance at freedom that isn't how we allow it, because it's the only way we can afford to give it to you." Stella felt rage bubbling up to her skull, strangely subdued and faded in her drained and tired state. They didn't understand. They couldn't understand. But she could not deny the logic in the point they were making. She let her voice be heard, hoarse and croaking. "I understand. However, please give me a moment to speak with Twilight first, by myself." Sunburst looked at Twilight. She nodded. > Reverie > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunburst hesitated, but Twilight kept her gaze on him. After a moment, he slowly nodded too, and began to walk away until he reached a door farther down the corridor, then entered and closed it behind himself. Twilight let herself relax at that. "Come on, now," she said. "I have to assume you didn't want him to see my reaction either, given you could have just shown yourself to me alone. That, or maybe you were afraid I'd tell him what you were saying. I wouldn't have, but I can't blame you for wanting to make sure. He will need to come back, but whatever you want to talk about, I'm here now." Stella did not answer in a way Twilight could understand. She'd gone back to fully hiding herself from everyone and everything. But she did react to what had happened, and quite intensely too. Stella laughed. She laughed and her laughter grew into a rough cackling and ended in violent coughing that would have made a different kind of creature spit out blood. It hurt, but she didn't care about the pain, she barely even noticed. She began to push herself forward, holding her legs upright with her magic, slowly taking a step after the other towards Twilight. Twilight, who was still standing there, looking towards her with an odd expression on her face. Twilight, who'd already lost at least twice to her, who'd cheated and run away over and over, and who still at the end had been stupid enough to let her win. Twilight, who wouldn't notice anything was wrong as Stella wrapped her hooves around her neck and choked the life out of her. Clearly, she had no idea how powerful Stella's coil truly was. Her loss. Then it would all be over. Stella would use her powers to sneak around, trick Sunburst into thinking everything was okay, trick Celestia into healing her, and finally take care of them all. There wasn't a single one there who could stand against her. She could have even killed Twilight while Sunburst was still there, she could have appeared to them as someone else and demanded healing first, but no. She wanted Twilight dead first, and she wanted it to be a private moment. She deserved that intimacy. After all, Sunburst was forcing her to do it with her bare hooves. The walk was slow, and the hallway quiet. The distance wasn't much, but Stella's pace in her state stretched things out. Twilight did not call out, did not move, but her expression did shift a little. Maybe it was sadness. It wouldn't matter soon. She was close. Stella took just another step. Just a few seconds more, and everything would be over. The ground clicked around her hooves. Stella did not even have the time to turn towards the wall, before being hit in full by the blast from the trap she'd triggered. She fell to the ground on her side, losing control of her own coil. > Consequences > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stella, lying on the floor, looked up at Twilight staring down at her, and seeing her. Seeing her fully, without any alterations, without any filters. There was sadness on Twilight's face, and Stella took it for pity, and it disgusted her. "You," she rattled weakly from the ground. Twilight's expression did not change. "The thing is, I didn't put that there." She eyed the opening in the wall beside her just slightly. "I think Pinkie did, with some help." She looked back at Stella. "You probably assumed that I wouldn't, and you had to have the whole place checked before our meeting in case someone else did. I think you forgot to account for her." The sound of the blast had been heard past the confines of the hallway, and soon others came rushing in to see. Sunburst was the first, being the closest, just barely out the door he'd walked through. He threw it open and stepped in, but stopped in his tracks as he saw Stella on the ground. For just a split second he feared for Twilight, before seeing her still standing where he'd left her, then his eyes focused properly on the other and he couldn't prevent himself from flinching backwards at her conditions. Stella refused to look at him, and did her best to keep him confined only to the edges of her vision. She tried to lift herself off the ground, but her front leg was bent wrong where it met the rest of her body and she couldn't get it to push her up. Her wings couldn't manage to lift her weight in that position, neither by pulling against the air nor by pushing against the ground. Her hind legs kicked weakly behind her, finding no purchase against the smooth crystal floor. More came in the corridor through the doors, finding no one to stop them and seeing those in front of them doing the same. Some averted their eyes at the sight, some kept back from Twilight as Sunburst approached her. Stella had to crane her neck, both to keep him out of sight and to keep everyone else there too. She tried to speak, but only coughing came out. As farther down the corridor Celestia spread her wings just slightly enough to give a clear signal to everyone behind her to not approach Twilight, Sunburst arrived in front of Stella and looked down at her. "What should I do?" he asked quietly to the mare at his side. Twilight's eyes didn't move away from Stella's, to the point the two of them could see each other reflected in the other's eyes. One of them hated the sight, but still forced herself to hold her gaze. Twilight exhaled, slowly and deeply, and her whole body seemed to deflate along with it. She hesitated a moment, then spoke quietly. "Have her healed if you can, and imprison her." Sunburst slowly nodded. But before either of them could do anything else, and before Stella herself could show or attempt any reaction to their words, the body on the floor vanished instantly into thin air. > Blot Out The Stars > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A dark back alley, filled by the long shadows of the approaching twilight. No pony there, or anywhere close enough to hear Stella as she appeared. Her body leaned against the closest wall, dirtying her coat and her mane with mould and moss and unwashed dust. It didn't matter. She chuckled weakly, too weakly for it to make it past her throat. Her body was weak, wounded, on the brink, but her magic was still strong. Still plentiful. She would survive. She would heal. She would return, and she wouldn't waste time with any honour. Twilight deserved none. She spasmsed, her own laughter poorly received by the rest of her. She almost fell, but caught herself with her magic and kept herself upright. It didn't matter. She began to step forward slowly, moving her hooves and legs with her horn like her body was a doll. She'd find shelter. She'd trick ponies into healing her. She would survive. She would win. There was figure at the other end of the alley. A pony. A stallion. Unremarkable in his silhouette. Not broadly built, no wings or horn, nothing else with him. Stella didn't even bother using her coil. Not yet. Maybe later. He didn't move, staying in the shadow, hidden to her. Perhaps he was afraid. Maybe he would run away. Maybe he would come closer and offer to help. She'd use her coil after he acted, either way. She stepped weakly in his direction, one hoof after the other, rarely in ways a body would have naturally moved. It didn't matter. She had magic enough to get to safety. But he did not move. He spoke instead. Stella wished he hadn't. "I would have expected some thanks, at the least." Stella recognised the voice. Only hisses came to her mouth, her body too weak and damaged to speak, her mind reeling and unable to string her thoughts into sentences. The stallion stepped forward towards her, and even in the darkness of the late hour she still recognised him. Stella stopped in her tracks, legs bent at wrong angles, breath heavy and shaking. He took another step towards her. "I'm sure you're hoping to get somewhere else now. Get yourself together again, and play another round with Twilight. I'm sure you're thinking you'd win this time. I'm sure you're worried sick right now, and if you still had a stomach you'd feel it twisting." Another step. "You would have found a way out yourself, I don't doubt it. I sped things up, and spared you unwanted humiliation. However, I'm afraid to tell you I'm here to confirm your worst worries. It's been fun, but all things end, Stella." He had kept walking as he'd spoken, and he was up to her at that point. "I'm sorry to say, this time you won't return later." Stella did not have time to turn and run, though she wished to. She did not have time to do anything, in her conditions. Merely she stared as the Charioteer slowly raised his hoof, and slowly brought it against her face. She didn't even get to close her eyes. When he tapped against her forehead, she saw no more. Stella's head split like a log, and like a log nothing came of the broken halves. Her body fell on the ground, a disjointed pile, and the day after, when someone checked there, they wondered where the stack of oddly coloured wood had come from. The Charioteer walked away from the scene, and disappeared completely before reaching the end of the alley. The Sun set over the horizon, and clouds came over the sky, and rain poured down over the city and its streets and its buildings and the alley and washed away the memories of what had happened there, and of the one who there had died. > Thus Wilts > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight and Sunburst both stared at the spot on the floor where Stella had been, the latter more shocked and worried than the former by a fair margin. It was Twilight who spoke first. "Leave the barrier up for a day, and keep everyone inside. Just to be sure. But I think she's gone, yes. I doubt she just used her coil again in those conditions. Either way, the wait will be enough if she did." Her words were heavy, but her tone was resigned. "Maybe we'll even find her," she added, without believing it. "But how?" Sunburst asked. "How did she..." He wasn't sure how to finish the sentence, much as he wasn't sure what exactly had happened. "She didn't," said Twilight. "She could have. She could have forced anyone she got her hooves on to follow along with her, but she didn't do it with you and she didn't even do it with Starlight, so we can and should rule out the possibility of being betrayed. I think she thought it would have been cheating. You saw what just happened and you know what it means, but it wasn't who you'd think it was. Besides, we had eyes on her." Sunburst stood in silence for a moment, processing that. "Then what happened? Who was it?" "We'll have to talk about that," Twilight said. "But I think I understand him enough to know Stella isn't going to be a problem anymore, for better or worse." > Book of Shallows > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wick Clip stared down at the wooden floor in the corner of her shop, at the spot where once had been the entrance to a lower room that wasn't there anymore. Some mornings she wondered if it hadn't all been a dream, but the memory stuck. Sometimes she wondered if she'd just been delirious, but then why had it stopped? It was probably true. It wasn't even the weirdest thing that had happened in times recent and slightly less so. Sometimes she really wondered how he was doing. She regretted never asking him his soup recipe. She regretted a lot of things, but that one was recent enough to be fresh, mild enough she preferred it over other regrets. Was that her shop? She didn't own the place. She owned the contents, but she didn't feel them hers for the most part, and those she did weren't the ones putting bits on her table. Fate was cruel, but she'd established that already. But at least it had given her another chance at something different. She would go along with it. Nothing wrong with that. She wondered what had happened the day before. News didn't travel as quickly from Ponyville to there without a magical projection across the country, and it looked like things were being kept secret on top of that. She'd only heard rumours, and some more concrete stuff about what had happened to Manehattan. It sounded like hyperbole, but there was no being sure of anything anymore at that point. She wondered if her friend was okay. If he was her friend. That was an ugly and hurtful train of thought, always, and as always she forced her mind off it even as her eyes lingered on the constant missing reminder of what she'd had. And as always her thinking was derailed to darker places, places she was beginning to enjoy despite what her younger self might have thought of it. But there was nothing wrong with it, was there? No. No more of that. That was a wall, and it was about time she tore it down. Nothing wrong with something when it doesn't hurt anyone, but that didn't apply to her. She could hurt others, she might hurt others, she was already hurting them in a way. But she'd been hurt. For a long while, she'd been hurt. Because life wasn't fair, and she understood that. And she was starting to decide that she wouldn't be fair to it in return. There was a wrongness to it. She understood that. She didn't care. No, she did care. She was starting to care, yes, but not as she had before. She was in the wrong. And she enjoyed it. She had found her place. Because someone had to play that part and she was damn tired of playing her old one, and such a good fit for her new one. Because maybe history needed villains, after all, and it would give her everything life had denied her. > Parting of One > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight felt she wasn't needed there anymore, and yet she didn't feel it in herself to walk away. She just sat down, dismissing Sunburst with a nod, quietly implying that she'd rather not be swarmed by all the others. "Is it over?" Fluttershy asked to the stallion as he approached the group, peeking out from behind Celestia. Sunburst stopped his step and hesitated, then he nodded quietly. "It is. We'll have to keep everyone inside and without magic a little longer, but it is." As he spoke, a kind of resignation settled on his face, his gaze distant for a moment. He walked away, followed shortly after by Starlight and Trixie. His words untied the tension that was knotting the room, and who more who less all those present relaxed to a degree. Some began to head away, others sat there, wanting to know more but not wanting to intrude. Celestia began to approach Twilight, but she slowed her step slightly to allow another to precede her there. Pinkie stood at Twilight's side a moment later, more preoccupied with extracting her possession from the hole in the wall than with looking at her friend. "I didn't even get to give her a cake," she muttered quietly, as she finally pulled the cannon back into the hallway. She stared at the squared opening left on the wall, and wondered if she should do anything to fix it. She decided she'd worry about it later, if it didn't fix itself. Finally she turned to Twilight, and slowly raised a hoof to rest on the alicorn's shoulder. "I'll be around if you need me," she said, then she left, hauling her cannon along the way. The hallway had emptied at that point. Those few who had questions had figured it would he too awkward to stick around so long, and they could just ask them later. As Pinkie walked out a door and closed it behind herself, only Twilight and Celestia were left there, the latter slowly approaching the former and then sitting down at her side. Silence stretched for close to a minute, and it ended when Twilight leaned to the side into Celestia's body. "I should not be resting here," she said. "I should not be resting at all," she added. "You just went through a battle. You're owed a little rest." Celestia stretched out her wing, sliding it out from beneath Twilight and then draping it around the mare. "Especially after one like this." "The ponies will want answers." "They'll have them. In due time." "Their suffering isn't worth the lack of my own." "It is only mild." "It is a bad habit." "You should get used to wearing those on occasion. The work of a princess calls for it from time to time. Formalities can be a pain." "No amount of overseeing meetings and balls will bring back a city. No amount of work will bring back a life." "You did your best. We'll have to live with it." > Cry a Cheer for the Missing > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Where were you, when the Behemoth came to Canterlot?" "I'm pretty sure I was here, and we were together." Lyra squinted her eyes for a moment, thinking back to that day. "No. Wait. I was outside. You were home. I remember us being together because I ran in back home when I realised something was wrong. I remember thinking about whether you were okay, and I didn't really set my thoughts straight until I got to you." "I remember that." Bon Bon smiled. "Were you anywhere in particular when it happened though? Doing anything specific?" "No. Just walking through town. If there was anything special about it then it wasn't intentional, and I didn't notice." "How much longer after that did your coil start to manifest?" Again, Lyra paused for a moment, frowning. "It was a while. A relative while. I couldn't tell you for sure when it happened though. I have no idea how long I went on for before I even realised I had it. It was just there at one point, wheh I finally stumbled onto it, and it had to have been there already for a bit." She tilted her head, looking at Bon. "Honestly, I think they just kind of happened to spread, like scales. I don't believe there has to be a logic to it, and I don't think you're going to be able to figure it out yourself, and I guarantee you you won't be able to just through me." Bon Bon bit her lip. "Maybe you're right." "I'm always right." "Not." She sat down next to Lyra. "But maybe we can find a better use for our time after all." She leaned back into the couch, and stared at the ceiling. "I really think our trip to the Empire was cursed. First the Behemoth, then the battle when we actually went." Lyra leaned into Bon. "You're thinking too much. Can we not think for a while? I'd like to not think for a while, and just be. Life's been so hectic lately we haven't had enough time for that." Bon Bon leaned into Lyra. "Maybe you're..." She hesitated, and spotted with the corner of her eye the smile growing on the other's lips. She said nothing more there, and just leaned a little harder. It was pleasant. It was warm. It was comfortable. And Bon Bon couldn't help but feel there was something slightly wrong with it. She tried to ignore it, closing her eyes and letting herself lie against Lyra, but after a moment of it still ticking at her she opened them again. "Are you using your coil now?" Lyra hugged her. "No, Bon. Please just relax. You need it." She leaned harder too, to the point the two of them were half held up by each other, half by the couch itself. Bon closed her eyes again. It was like something was trying to worm into her, but after a moment longer it finally ceased. She sighed, and relaxed. > Reunions and Departures > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sun was slowly sinking past the horizon, painting the hills beyond Ponyville orange and red and the city itself purple and blue. Ponies slowly stepped out the castle's front doors, heading back to their homes or any other place they may choose to go. Interviews had been given, official statements made, excessively inquisitive ponies sent off and in some cases forced away so they would leave those leaving and those staying in peace. It wasn't the first time Equestria had faced similar events, and ponies were a species without tendencies to obsess over the kind. After so many happenings in the recent years, the previous days' wasn't all that special, not for those who had no idea how close things had been. But then, they had been many times before too. Manehattan would remain a somewhat difficult issue to resolve, but there was time, and there were means. Equestria would heal. Much as the crystal tree castle already was, by itself, surprisingly quickly. Twilight wondered if it would sprout a new branch, maybe a new room. Maybe that was how Harmony chose to communicate with her. Quietly, but still clearly there. Maybe that was okay. Shining and Cadence would soon leave. The Empire had gone long enough without its rulers, longer than anticipated. Longer than anticipated in the event they would come back, the possibility they wouldn't had been accounted for on some level. Either way they had to go, and so they were among those watching on the castle's balcony, to say their goodbyes. There along them were Celestia, Twilight, their ride back past the Wall, and the stallion who'd helped solve the whole situation. Twilight still wondered exactly what he'd meant when talking to her, but he wouldn't say more on the matter. If not the past, the future then. "Where are you going next?" "Back home," he said. "I think I'll take the slow way. I like walking. I miss Scarlet. Stella might have done something to her." He tilted his head. "I should have you come with me. If you can. It would be fun. Maybe she'll realise I'm not crazy. Or maybe she was right, she is a doctor after all. Not the whole way through, I like walking. I'll write to you when I'm close enough. It'll be fun." Twilight smiled to herself. "I'm sure it will." She leaned into Celestia. The Moon rose in the sky, and they both watched quietly. Then Twilight turned her eyes to Canterlot, and the Behemoth. Shining stepped forward, hugged Twilight, and bowed to Celestia. "Time to go." He stepped back, and as Cadence did as he had he turned to the other stallion. "Say. In all the commotion, I don't think I ever caught your name." The stallion leaned off the railing, and looked at Shining. "Oh. I do suppose I never introduced myself, yes. I apologise for that." He fidgeted about for a moment, adjusting his ill-fitting clothes once again. "My name is Onyx Thread."