The Season 1 episode “Boast-Busters” rewritten as a serious intrigue adventure.
Trixie Lulamoon is a traveling stage magician. She peddles safe, friendly, idiotic fun. After so many setbacks Twilight’s friends and colleagues could certainly use a break from their routine. What could possibly be the harm?
The Season 1 episode Boast-Busters rewritten as a serious intrigue adventure.
“Okay. Here goes…” Twilight Sparkle watched her assistant mutter incantations to himself, snout wrinkling in concentration as they sat facing each other in the Golden Oaks’ basement laboratory. Ever-so-briefly, the dragon’s eyes flashed a luminous, pale blue- then flickered and reverted to their natural metallic green.
“Dammit!” he smacked a claw against the side of the worktable with no small amount of force.
“Maybe… maybe you should try casting it with your breath?” suggested Twilight, “Breath is the core of dragon magic, after all.”
“How?” Spike shook his head and hopped off his stool, pacing in a tight circle. “Magesight’s a reflexive spell, not projective, so how am I supposed to spit it out? And… doesn’t the Starswirl-Clover Thesis prove that cores are ultimately irrelevant?”
“Well, horns are projective too,” Twilight replied, more gently, surprised by the bitterness in her assistant’s voice, “and I’ve never had any problem using mine to cast non-projective spells.” Spike’s pacing did not abate. “Aaaand, since you brought up the Starswirl-Clover Thesis, we could always do a little bit of digging on traditional draconic casting techniques, and see if we can find a more appropriate alternative to classical magesight- maybe an enchantment, or something like that thaumoluminescent fog weather teams sometimes use.” Telekinetically, she reached out and twisted a dial protruding from the crystal spell-beacon they’d been using for practice, dimming it. “I think we should take a break for now, and then maybe later today I’ll see about ordering you some goggles tuned to your color spectrum, okay?” Twilight had been working with Spike long enough to know that his draconic vision found the false-color readouts of most thaumoscopes and visualization spells confusing at best, and downright painful at worst.
“Nah… it’s not just the colors. If I’ve got goggles, I might lose them- you can’t lose a spell. And they don’t ever fit right, either, at least the ones for adult ponies don’t…” Spike held out one claw, counting off on his fingers, “the lenses are too big, the bridge strap’s always way too long… And the colt-size ones that come with those ‘junior mage’ kits are just toys- they don’t have the resolution, or the output range…”
“Spike?” Twilight interrupted him as gently as possible. “That’s… not the real reason you’re upset, is it?”
He stopped pacing immediately, exhaled, and shook his head. “No, you’re… you’re right. Rarity even offered to fit me a custom set with professional-grade lenses the last time I was over at the Boutique. But… well…” He loped back to his chair and sat down, hard, idly scratching under one of his facial fins. “So… like, this whole week or so, ever since you came back from Innsbeak, it’s kinda’ just been one field dig after another, and… and you and Verse and Daycaller can all use magesight spells, and now you’ve all got that selenitic matter detection spell too, and… I’m just stuck with goggles…”
Twilight made a small ‘go on’ motion with one hoof.
“Really, more than anything… I’d kind of like to get a grip on the basics so I could maybe learn… some actual serious offensive magic?” After so many halting false starts, Twilight was surprised when the dragon continued all at once, almost too fast to understand, “Yeah, I can set a timberwolf on fire by breathing on it- or send chunks of it to Princess Celestia if I’m in the mood -but there’s a lot more nasty stuff in the Everfree than just timberwolves, and you just got petrified not too long ago and I couldn’t even do anything about it, and if we keep poking around out there at the rate we’re going we’re only going to run into more and more attacks and things are only going to get worse… I’d… umm… I’d like to be able to help. Or help more. I guess.” Twilight thought he hadn’t so much finished as he’d simply run out of words.
The unicorn closed her eyes and thought for a while, before she’d settled on something resembling a strategy. “So, you remember when you were, like, eight, and you wanted me to use magic to grow you a mustache for some reason?”
“Yeah?” Shifting around, suddenly seeming more than a little nervous, Spike rubbed under his chin. For the very first time, Twilight noticed that he was developing a sort of stubble, his scales forming into rows of spines not unlike a bearded lizard’s. Dragons, of course, could not actually grow facial hair, nor any other kind of hair. Some other varieties were known to possess impressive barbel-like tendrils -the product of unrestrained sexual selection, it was believed- but Spike was evidently not among them. Twilight fought back a shiver, regardless. Starswirl’s bells, my little dragon’s starting to grow up… and I have no idea what to do about it.
“Listen, if the moral here is that some aspects of equinity are forever beyond my grasp and I should stop pursuing them,” the dragon continued, “I’m walking out of here right now.”
That got Twilight laughing for a little while, before she amended “No, no, nothing like that, just… you don’t have to try to accomplish everything at once, I guess?”
“Hmm.” He peered at his reflection in an inactive remote-viewing mirror, running a claw along under his chin again, and carefully combing the scales into a more uniform beard-equivalent. “You think Rarity’d like this?”
“I think she’d like the clean-shaven look better. Um… clean-scaled?” was all she said aloud. “But, Spike, hold up a minute.”
“Yeah?”
The unicorn struggled to summon her best parental voice. “I… know you care about Rarity very much, but it’s your face we’re talking about. You need to be comfortable with you, first.” Oh, Harmony, I might have to write back to Mom and ask her what she told Shiny when he was Spike’s age!
Spike seemed about to reply, when up above there was a knock at the Golden Oaks’ front door.
“Crap,” the dragon muttered, “I bet that’s Captain Marigold again.”
Twilight nodded, already off her stool and heading for the stairs up to the main level. “Right. Well, no rest for the wicked, I guess…”
Twilight dashed into the Station’s hangar, Spike hot on her heels. First Sergeant Chamomile stood at the head of a squad’s worth of Guard troops; his head swiveling around like he was expecting a manticore to spring out from behind one of the hangar’s supports at any moment. Something was terribly wrong.
“There she is,” the pegasus noncom called out, “Doc, I’m gonna need you up in the air to work the instruments and calculate our position. Spike, you’re gonna be our forward observer and contact point with the ground team. Make sure-”
“Umm… excuse me?” Twilight called out, somewhat put off by Chamomile’s sudden abruptness, “What’s all this about?”
The pegasus stuck one wing in his armor’s saddlebag, and fished out a small compass-like device: a locator for the tracking gems every expedition into the Everfree was supposed to carry. Most of its numerous needles hovered steadily in place, but one flicked back and forth in a regular pattern of three short sweeps, then three long sweeps, then three short again: ‘S – O – S’.
“Private Pikesquare was supposed to report back from the site of the Council Hall an hour ago,” the Sergeant explained, “and ten minutes ago, his tracker started doing that.”
“Alright, but, why did you need to call Spike and me all the way out here just to-” several of the Guards, Chamomile included, were now looking at Twilight with decidedly venomous expressions. She paused, and amended: “Obviously, any member of the security team being in danger is a serious concern, but I’m… completely confident in the Guard’s ability to handle situations like this, and… I’m not really sure what skills I can contribute.”
That seemed to mollify the soldiers, at least for a moment. A little more gently, Chamomile continued, “We know where Piker is, or at least where his tracker is, but that doesn’t mean we know how to get to him. You’re gonna have to chart a path one step at a time through the core of the Everfree, and relay those coordinates down to a search party on the ground. And clairaudio’s gonna be rutted six ways to Sol’s Day, so the only thing we can use on such short notice to reliably stay in contact…”
“… is my firelink spell.” Spike finished. “I… I get it.” He looked a good bit more nervous than he had when he was practicing his own magic just a few minutes ago, but stepped in among the armored Guardsponies regardless.
“Alright then… let’s… go?” Trying to live up to her assistant’s example, Twilight stepped up into the Lapwing’s open troop bay. Nopony else moved.
“We should… really probably head out, then... no point in waiting around out here, right?” she prompted, after a few seconds spent shuffling her hooves and watching the others stare at her. Then she peered around the Lapwing’s interior. The engine compartment was empty, but she could hear muffled voices from behind the closed cockpit door. She trotted over and gave it a few brief taps. “Umm… excuse me… is everything… all right?”
The door slid open immediately to reveal a lanky, off-white pegasus stallion in airpony’s coveralls- their pilot, First Lieutenant Palisade. The hind legs of Tech Sergeant Leafspring, the flight mechanic, protruded from underneath the console behind him. “We’ll be ready to take off in just… I dunno, a couple minutes, okay?” he said, sounding surprisingly nervous. “Just need to double check the inertial guidance system.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. She had some idea of how the device in question operated, and what was required to calibrate it, and realized that Palisade’s assessment of the time involved was likely somewhat optimistic. “Didn’t you say you were doing that yesterday, though? It really only needs checking every thousand hours of flight time…”
“Yeah, well, it’s pretty much the only system that can get us out of the Everfree’s airspace once we’re in there,” Leafspring snapped, with surprising vehemence, even as she remained in place with her entire front half buried underneath the navigation console. “So I’m gonna make damn sure it’s working before we're going back in there!”
“Okay. Okay. Fine…” Twilight stepped back from the cockpit door, suitably chastised.
It did, indeed, take only a few more minutes before Leafspring stepped out of the cockpit, waved a hoof for the others to climb aboard, and then disappeared back into the engine compartment. With annoying slowness, the platform holding the Lapwing slid out of the hangar and into the yard outside, rigged to one of the Station's abandoned rail lines. It dead-ended a few dozen meters into the empty field beyond, of course, but that was more than enough room. The little gunboat surged off its landing pad with a squeal of propellers, and they were airborne.
“Don’t worry, things could always be worse,” the mechanic shouted through her compartment’s door, as the red-brick bulk of the Station dropped away outside, “My last assignment was out near Tenochtitlan, and we worked out of a one-room patrol station in the middle of the jungle. We just had a little fenced-off patch of clearing to keep our ship in. Still had to do the daily fuel and maintenance checks, though… I got used to takin’ care of it all early in the morning, before the sun’d come up and it wasn’t quite so hot, but that was also when the rain usually hit…”
“Yeah, and I bet’cha had to climb a mountain just to get to the latrines, too,” Palisade snapped, “Uphill, both ways.” He paused, and then Twilight heard him mutter “but at least you didn’t have to deal with this weird shit clogging up your instrument panel, I bet…”
Twilight stepped into the cockpit and waved at the mass of dials and crystals that now jutted up from between the Lapwing’s altimeter and throttle controls, periodically disgorging paper tape covered in differently-colored wavy lines. “Lieutenant, that multi-spectrum selenitic matter detector is the only one of its kind in existence, and vital to continuing our studies of Lunar operations around ancient Everfree.” Through the cockpit’s wraparound windows, the carefully-maintained orchards of Sweet Apple Acres had already been replaced by the rambling, thatched-roofed outskirts of Ponyville proper. “It’s absolutely essential that it stay where it is and not be tampered with.” She’d based the design off of Gordon of Innsbeak’s notes, which brought new meaning to the word ‘cryptic’. She had no idea how to repair it if it was damaged short of building an entirely new unit, and she’d had a hard enough time sourcing the necessary materials for the one she had.
“Yeah, well, it’s blocking my view outside, and the inertial readout too, so… if we get stuck out here…” Palisade trailed off, that odd mixture of anger and worry back in his voice. Twilight noticed that he never once so much as glanced up at her, and kept his eyes on either the instruments or the glass cockpit in front of him with basilisk-like focus. His ears were pivoting back and forth, and he occasionally shuffled his wings against the leather seat behind him. His current task was no more complicated than getting them from one point to another, but Palisade looked like he was in the middle of a dogfight.
“So, you weren’t happy with the whole big suite of scanners, and then my friends and I go crawl around in Innsbeak of all places for a week just to get the designs for a smaller one, and you don’t like that either?” Twilight was careful to keep her tone light, reluctant to show the very real mixture of frustration and concern behind it.
“Yeah, but you never got rid of all the old scanners, either,” Leafspring’s voice admonished her over the sound system. “Every day I count my lucky stars you’re still leaving enough space in the bay for this gunboat to actually carry a few guns... This is worse than my last assignment up in the Yaket Mountains where we had to pack a week’s worth of survival kit on every patrol…”
“Leaf, we’ve never been to the Yaket Mountains…” Palisade admonished, but still didn’t look up from his instruments even for a moment. “Listen, Doc, can you please just get back and start runnin’ those calculations?”
Surprised once again by the almost pleading, anxious tone in the pilot’s voice, Twilight trotted back into the troop bay and seated herself behind a fold-out table with a map, a sheaf of weighted-down scrap paper, and the locator compass.
For a long while, the bay was silent, aside from the omnipresent roar of the rotors. Every few minutes, she’d take another bearing, calculate the next stage in a geodesic, and then send her notes off to Spike down below. Very rarely she was able to read the results off into the clairaudio spell, and even then Spike’s reply sounded echoy and distant. More commonly, she had to make do with notecards swapped over his firelink.
For what seemed like hours, his replies were always more or less the same. “Nothing.” “Still nothing.” “No sign of anypony but us down here.”
The murky depths of the Everfree outside tinted orange with the setting sun, and then fell into indistinct darkness. Only occasionally could she see the lanterns of the search party shining up through the foliage below; if it wasn’t for Spike’s continued messages she would have worried about losing track of them as well. The tracker’s needle never stopped wobbling, although the frequency steadily decreased from nearly constant to perhaps once a minute: “S – O – S … S – O – S… … … S – O – S… … …”
Finally, the clairaudio spell crackled and echoed again, this time with Chamomile’s voice instead of Spike’s. “Hold up, hold up, I think we’ve found something. Hey. Hey! Yeah, over here, it’s okay, we’re… aww, Notus’s Breath, what happened to you…?”
It had been a crisp autumn day in Ponyville, but the sky over Castle Rock remained a constant, oppressive slate gray, a condition that seemed to be becoming increasingly common in the Everfree as of late. Despite the local Weather Team’s best efforts, the rain simply refused to let up- above the clouds, there were only more clouds, extending up farther than anypony had dared measure. Twilight met up with Spike, Chamomile, Marigold, and the newly-recovered Pvt Pikesquare in the converted shipping container that served as Councilmare Derpy Hooves’ occasional office. Festooned with early Harvest Festival decorations and a few of her daughter’s school craft projects, it felt like the only cheerful spot left in the camp.
Twilight had only personally interacted with Pvt Pikesquare on a few occasions before, and never for very long, but even she was shocked by how different he looked. The earth pony’s sky-blue coat was stretched tight over his frame, revealing a slight but noticeable loss in muscle mass; his beard had grown out, and his thick tan mane was a filthy, unkempt mess. Half of his armor was simply gone, and the rest jury-rigged into place with lengths of paracord. He seemed not to have noticed her -or anypony else- as he attacked a plate piled full of eggs and buttered oats, alongside a plastic water jug and a carton of heavy cream from the field kitchen.
Feeling suddenly awkward, Twilight coughed to announce her presence, then looked down at her notes. “Okay. Okay. So… how long, from your perspective, would you say you were lost?”
He swallowed another mouthful of oats, then spoke slowly and deliberately, as though out of practice. “I don’t know. There weren’t really days or nights to go by, at least nothing consistent, but… weeks, maybe a little more than a month? I, uhh… I remember I ate a squirrel, about two weeks in. Couldn’t cook it, ground was too wet to ever start a fire. Tried eating some of the plants, but what little I could keep down just gave me the shits.”
Spike just shook his head and muttered, “How did he even get out there in the first place?”
Pikesquare returned to his meal, only speaking in between bites. “I was just about done with my shift at the Hall, when I heard… it sounded like an argument, shouting, out in the woods. It was too far away to make out words, but they were definitely ponies. I headed over to take a look, and there wasn’t anything there I could see, so I turned around, and… the path back was just gone. Tried to retrace my steps best I could, but that didn’t get me anywhere…” he trailed off.
“You… know you’re supposed to send up an emergency flare if you notice any disturbance,” Twilight reminded him, as gently as she could manage.
“I did,” the stallion practically growled, “Nopony responded.” He patted an unruly patch of torn canvas, which was barely holding his left pauldron in place. “Used up the rest of the pack the first… week-ish, and nopony saw those either.”
“He’s probably telling the truth,” Spike added, giving her a very slight sideways glance. “How many times now have we gotten false positives with those flares… investigated and there’s nothing there? Tartarus, some of those might’ve been the ones he sent up, or was going to send up. And how many times’ve we had somepony send one up for something minor, and not get any response.”
Twilight had to admit he had a point. The flares had worked well enough early on, but it seemed as though the more they were used, the less reliable they became. She thought back to Palisade’s odd behavior on the search flight, and concluded it made a weird sort of sense. By this point, her expedition into the Everfree Forest was one of the longest in its storied history- measured against those who’d made it out alive and reasonably sane, at least.
“’M fine now, though,” Pikesquare said, rather suddenly, pulling Twilight out of her thoughts. “I’m here. I’ve got food… water. A shower might be nice.”
Chamomile nodded. “You did good, Piker. I’ll see about getting you transferred out of here.”
There was a long pause before the private swallowed again and bobbed his head. “… thanks, Sarge.” He was quiet for a bit longer, staring at nothing, and then said, “There was somepony else out there, Sarge.”
Chamomile cocked his head.
“Near the end, there, I hadn't found any water in four, five days. So, I was laying there, thinking, ‘this is it, I’m dead’, when I saw somepony through the trees.”
Spike just nodded, and scratched down a few notes of his own. “What'd this… other pony look like?”
“I dunno, they had a cloak, with the hood up, but I could see their eyeshine.”
“Eyeshine? A Lunar survivor, maybe?” Twilight suggested. She thought they’d recovered any Rebel troops who might still have been wandering the Everfree three-and-a-half months after Nightmare Moon’s return, but she’d also thought the same thing before Fluttershy had discovered a pair of petrified soldiers everypony had written off as dead.
“That's what I thought, too. They had their head low, and they were pawing at the ground, like they were challenging me, almost. But I figured, Lunar or not, it was worth trying to talk to them.” The soldier swallowed hard, and continued more quietly, “Even if they weren’t friendly, I was… just about at the point where getting run through sounded better than keeling over from thirst. So, I got up and tried to approach, when I- I tripped on a vine, and fell into a puddle. It was water!”
Chamomile raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
“It wasn't much more than a few mouthfuls of muddy rainwater, but I drank it.” Pikesquare paused again, “When I looked up, the pony -whoever it was- it was gone. And then you guys found me, the next day, I think.”
Capt Marigold waved a hoof at Twilight and spoke up for the first time since they’d arrived. “We need to talk. Outside.”
Twilight nodded and led the way out of the container. Looking out over the encampment, she was once again taken aback by how much it had degraded in just the last few months. Most of the metal shipping containers they’d hauled out were, unaccountably, already rusted through in places; some were little more than gutted wrecks, and a few were sinking into the mud that had formed from previously rock-solid ground. Wooden scaffolding was beginning to warp and rot at a vastly accelerated pace, and they seemed unable to make it through a shift without one of the tents collapsing. And, yet, paradoxically, frustratingly, the ruins of the city itself still looked completely pristine, as though the Battle of Everfree had concluded perhaps a day or two ago.
I leave town for a week, and look what happens… Twilight mused half-heartedly, Although, really, what would've changed if I was here?
During her stay in Innsbeak, Spike had suggested moving into some of the larger and more intact ruins, but that experiment hadn’t lasted long. The ancient city was haunted, which wasn’t unexpected, but the sheer level of spectral activity was unprecedented: harassment in the form of shredded notes, hidden tools, and outright attacks had made any kind of habitation more or less impossible. It seemed that for every ghost they tracked down and exorcized -itself a feat of patience in the convoluted ruins- two more took its place, which was an anomaly in its own right. Entropy existed everywhere, even in undeath. After a thousand years, all but the most resilient spectres should have dissipated. They certainly shouldn’t have retained their appearances, personalities, and the ability to execute relatively complex strategies.
The few ponies out and about were starting to converge around Derpy’s office and talk among themselves, trying to peer around through the doors. Briefly, Twilight considered ordering them away to keep them from getting a good look at Pvt Pikesquare’s condition, but then decided there was likely no point. The Royal Guard transmitted scuttlebutt more efficiently than it distributed grenades and ration packs. Everypony who cared probably already knew, and even if they didn’t secrecy would just allow soldiers’ imaginations to fill in something much worse than the truth. Twilight tried to shift herself into their headspace: that one of their brothers-in-arms just went through Tartarus, but made it out alive. That was something to be proud of… right?
“It’s watching us,” she heard Derpy Hooves mutter. The Councilmare stood quietly off to one side, a polite distance away -they were using her office, after all- but not far enough away so as to be inaudible. Her wings were very slightly extended out from her sides, and the rain bent away from her in a lopsided dome.
“Excuse me?” Spike asked.
“Sorry… sorry…” the gray pegasus shook her head, seemingly focusing on them for the first time- with her wall-eyed stare, it was somewhat difficult to tell. “I just… can’t shake the feeling that this whole place is watching us… judging us…”
Spike raised a claw. “Now, that’s a normal response to-”
“Just trust me,” the Councilmare said with surprising vehemence.
“Right…” Twilight turned back to Capt Marigold. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Listen. Piker was one of my Guards, back when I was just a lieutenant,” said the captain, “Chamomile made the right call. Hopefully, after a round of psych evals he’ll get stationed somewhere a little more… normal. But it’s still gonna be a rutting shame to have him gone, especially after what happened to Lieutenant Salmon Salt. An honorable discharge is still a discharge.”
Twilight just nodded. 2ndLt Salmon Salt’s condition had started out as an ordinary case of trench hoof, which, given the increasingly cold and damp conditions, wasn’t unexpected. Then, an opportunistic infection had set in, and inexplicably failed to respond to any standard treatments. She'd been moved to Ponyville General for intensive care, where just as inexplicably the infection cleared up on its own; but by then, her entire hoof up to the hock had decayed to the point where amputation was the only option. Her hoof had basically rotted right off her leg.
“Ever since you came back from whatever it was you were doing in the Griffish Isles, you’ve pretty much asked us to double the security on twice as many sites, without any reinforcements from Canterlot- or any volunteers from the Ponyville Militia that you or Spike haven’t personally vetted,” Marigold continued, “and now we’re taking losses. The Night Guard can help, but there’s only so many of them, too. This is not sustainable." she paused, "And to make matters worse, we’re starting to lose artifacts again.”
Twilight nodded once more. “I… understand totally where you’re coming from, but… well, in all likelihood, the current round of thefts are the result of spectral activity, and you can’t exactly fight ghosts with conventional weapons. I don’t think additional troops or Ponyville civilians would be much help." She looked down at her now-soggy notes, limply hanging from her clipboard, “The artifacts we’ve been losing haven’t been significant or unique, which puts this situation at odds with what Shutterfly was doing, and if ghosts are responsible then they can’t manifest very far from the site they’re bound to, so things aren’t even being taken at all, just hidden. I’ve spoken to Princess Luna about the situation, and she’s confident that the material in question will reappear and no additional steps need to be taken.”
The awkward truth was that, with ponies at the Royal Academy and Ministry of Defense actively trying to cover up Celestia’s disastrous attempt to scry on Nightmare Moon in 1019, Twilight simply couldn’t trust anypony newly added to her staff. Marigold knew perfectly well that something was being kept secret, but Twilight was still reluctant to put it into words.
“Do you know how much it costs to train up a Royal Guard?” Marigold asked after another long pause, “In between jump training, dive training, ranger school, mountain warfare, it's upwards of a million bits. We’re a bunch of championship fencers in a bar fight out here, and every so often somepony’s getting her teeth bucked in. Yeah, on paper we’re stationed right in the middle of civilization, but… out here, I don’t really think we’re near anything. Ordinarily we’d be rotated out by now, but it’s been three months and there’s no end in sight.” She stepped closer and looked Twilight dead in the eye. “Look, you have that hyperfocus stuff, whatever, but you have to understand that not everypony else here does. My troops are at the breaking point. You're the project lead, Doc. You have to give us something.”
When Twilight arrived back at the Station, it was close to six in the evening, even though she’d left at four and spent easily five hours handling the situation at Castle Rock. That suited her just fine. She still had enough time to handle the welter of other problems that had no doubt cropped up in her absence, eat a full dinner, and then catch up on her sleep, before starting the next day on what Spike called ‘normal pony hours’. That was a light schedule compared to her undergraduate days at the Academy, where her normal workday lasted thirty-six hours and she kept sleep at bay with alchemical stimulants. That was how she'd graduated summa cum laude among the four hundred students who managed to graduate at all, out of her incoming class of two thousand.
As she trotted down the hill towards the edge of town, she was so lost in thought that she barely noticed the fireworks bursting over the Town Square- at least until the wind shifted and she caught the sound of applause following them.
She looked at Spike. Spike looked back, and they wordlessly trotted towards the commotion.
Ponyville never had much of a nightlife to speak of, but tonight the cobblestone streets were positively deserted. Only when Twilight made it to within a few blocks of the market square did she realize that easily half the population had gathered in the center of town. The crowd was dense enough that she still couldn’t see what they were all looking at, but near the perimeter a few big sandwich-board signs had been set up. Trotting closer, she saw that each depicted the silhouette of an azure unicorn with her forehooves raised, against a purple background of stars and radiating lines. “Witness THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!” proclaimed the text on an illustrated banner at the top, followed by the claim that “MAGIC AND MYSTERY - THRILLS AND DELIGHTS AWAIT”. “Town Square” and a table of dates and times had been penciled into a blank white space obviously set aside for that exact purpose.
A new barrage of fireworks crackled above, drawing Twilight's gaze skyward, as blue, green and gold stars burst overhead. The sparkling lights lingered, then converged into outlines- a bluish unicorn, and a green insectoid blob. The ground shook slightly from the crowd stamping in approval. As far as illusion magic went the mechanism seemed standard enough, although there was a definite artistry to how it was being used; multiple layers of projection shifted back and forth through each other in order to create an iridescent glow around the unicorn, and at the same time lend the green creature a decidedly slimy quality.
Looking back closer to ground level, Twilight spotted Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all standing in one group midway through the crowd. She waved to Spike and they began the delicate process of slipping between densely-packed bodies towards the others.
Pinkie Pie turned around, grinned, and waved the two of them forward. Now Twilight could see the stage properly, a worn little collapsible model unfolded from the side of a camper wagon, painted pale yellow with bright red accents. On it stood an azure unicorn mare in a glittering purple cloak adorned with silver and gold stars, and a matching neo-Preclassical wizard’s hat. Cocked backwards, it offered the audience a clear view of her horn, most likely so they could see when she was and wasn't using telekinesis. She didn’t appear to be wearing much in the way of makeup- her glossy blue coat added more than enough flash on its own.
Spike stepped up beside Pinkie Pie. “I guess that's the ‘Great an-”
“And then!” the mare on the stage shouted, “The Grrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie summoned a lightning bolt to strike the hideous creature!”
Spike looked back to the stage. “Well, okay then!”
With a dramatic sweep of her cloak, the showmare -Trixie- extended a hoof, and hurled a small arc of silver-blue energy upwards and through the insect projection. Twilight couldn’t tell if the lightning was real or also illusory, but the target reacted appropriately enough; it darkened, took on an ashlike texture, and flipped over with its cartoon legs twitching comically. “For a moment,” the mare continued, “Trixie thought she could find her wagon in peace and leave those accursed caves far behind.” In the air above, the illusory unicorn leapt over the corpse and continued down a twisting, illuminated yellow road lined with squiggly cartoon stalagmites. Slanted greenish eyes appeared briefly in the spaces between them, and the cartoon unicorn looked around suspiciously, mirroring the movements of the real pony below. “But that was a mistake. For you see, while Ankhaps are typically solitary and territorial, they will swarm together to defend against an outside threat- such as yours truly.” The stage lights began to dim, and fade from electric blue to an oppressive greenish brown. A harsh chiaroscuro effect seemed to isolate Trixie on an otherwise dim and indistinct stage. Up above, dozens more insectlike forms surrounded the cartoon unicorn, wobbly greenish lines giving the impression that they were squirming. “They poured in from every side! Burrowing up from below, tunneling in from above, clawing their way through the cavern walls, gibbering, screeching…”
Twilight saw Spike arch a skeptical brow ridge. Now that Trixie had put a name to her mysterious attackers, the scholar could understand his confusion. The broad strokes of the story made sense- ankhaps, relatives of the more famous ankhegs, did indeed live mostly underground in the coastal areas of Equestria, were indeed giant insects, and were indeed both highly aggressive and moderately intelligent. They possessed a limited, but highly confusing and insular language; and an instinctual compulsion to hoard gold, magical objects, and- for reasons unknown- Pop Art-esque iterative paintings of monkeys. Some even understood the value of currency, although their interest in bits had fallen off sharply ever since Equestria had gone off the gold standard in the middle Third Century. True to the showmare’s word, they were typically a territorial species prone to violent squabbling over treasure, dominance, or inexplicable slights; but if one was intruded upon, dozens more would immediately come pouring out of the woodwork to attack in eerily coordinated fashion. However, despite being perpetually inimical to pony society, ankhaps were a disease of civilization. Seemingly evolutionarily incapable of constructive labor to build anything of their own, they laired exclusively in the forgotten corners of other creatures’ structures. The idea of not just one, but many, digging in natural caverns without restaurants to pilfer meals from, or the basement of a single-family house to dwell in during the daylight hours, was absurd.
Undeterred, the mare on the stage continued. “They had me surrounded,” she stage-whispered, as the spotlight around her grew narrower and narrower; the illusory insects up above drew closer and closer to the illusory unicorn. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was at their mercy- for a moment!” She trotted towards the front of the stage and leaned over it, seeming about to leap into the crowd. “Normally, the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't condone violence to animals- even giant disgusting cockroaches- but when they opened up that sinkhole and stole my wagon, with the Stars as my witness the Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie would get it back!” The spotlight widened to cover the whole stage again, and a fresh round of pyrotechnics were set off in the back- sparklers culminating in a bright blue flare. “Trixie wasn't afraid, but discretion is the better part of valor, as they say. The ankhaps didn't want me, but they did want the wondrous treasures I've collected from across Equestria, and beyond!” Rearing back on her hind legs, she pulled off her hat in one forehoof, reached into it with the other, and extracted a frog-sized gemstone that shone blue in the stage lights. “Lucky for Trixie, ankhaps are as stupid as they are greedy! All I had to do is ask, but where did Trixie find these treasures?” The illusory anhkaps paused up above, then drew closer and closer with painful slowness. “Surely there are more, at the source! More... but not enough for all of you!” The images suddenly scattered in every direction. “It was a madhouse as they turned on each other!” Firecrackers rattled from the left and right, and the cartoon unicorn dashed a zigzag path through the mass of greenish-brown lines. “Manehattan was only a few miles away, and Trixie decided now was the time to make good on her escape! A few of the brighter ones stayed on my tail, but luckily the Great and Powerful Trixie knew just what to do!”
The illusion up above faded into a blob of hazy light, and then disappeared entirely; Trixie stepped into the curtained area in the back of the stage.
“Ya’ know, Ah remember there bein’ some big ruckus ‘bout cullin’ ankhegs near Manehattan ‘bout a decade ago, when Ah was visitin’ some kin,” Applejack muttered to Twilight, “Killed a mare when they came up through the floor a’ her basement, or somethin’. The Army got called in to deal with ‘em. Ain’t no ankhegs or ankhaps in a hundred miles’a Manehattan after that. Ain’t no caves in a hundred miles’a Manehattan, either- that’s all swamp ‘n coastline ‘round there.”
“Well, you’ve gotta give her a little artistic license, right?” Pinkie Pie admonished.
“Ah dunno,” the farmer shrugged, “Maybe this was before the cull and Trixie up there just can’t tell a cave from a culvert. Or, then again, maybe she's just fulla' wind.”
The showmare was in the process of wheeling out the second of two large, pony-sized wooden boxes, each with a door in front. She set them down on opposite ends of the stage, easily six or seven meters apart. “While the Great and Powerful Trixie didn’t much mind blinding ankhaps with the fabulous magical energies produced by this technique, she is willing to take extra measures to guarantee the safety of such wonderful ponies as yourselves…”
“Boastful lil’ rutter, ain’t she…” continued Applejack.
“Yeah, who needs all this flash and spectacle?” Pinkie shot back, “How about a magic show where a mare kicks a tree, and knocks all the apples on it into a bucket? And then…” she reared back on her hind legs and spread her forehooves wide, “she does the same thing fifty more times!”
“Am I gonna have to separate you two?” Rainbow Dash asked, before returning her attention to Trixie.
“By all means, feel free to come up and inspect the equipment to your satisfaction!” the showmare was calling out, “For this performance, the Great and Powerful Trixie has no need for trapdoors or illusion spells!”
After a moment’s pause, a few ponies from the front row climbed up on stage- Twilight recognized Cheerilee, Corporal Subtle Spark, and Applejack’s brother Big Macintosh among them. They prodded and tapped, opening the doors on the front of both boxes and feeling about inside. Seemingly satisfied, first Cheerilee stepped back down, followed by Sparky and Macintosh. “Now, is there a mage in the audience today?” Trixie asked, “A crystal-worker or enchantment inspector, perhaps?”
Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie all turned to look at Twilight. Almost unconsciously, they shuffled a few steps away, leaving her and Spike exposed in a little patch of trampled earth.
“C’mon, Twilight, you should check it out!” the dragon prompted.
“Oh, Spike, I don’t know…”
“Any-ponyyyy?” Trixie asked from up on stage, seemingly looking directly at Twilight.
“Twilight…” Spike twisted his claws together, looking for all the world like a sad, slit-eyed, scaly puppy.
“This is your kinda thing, isn’t it? C’mon, don’t be chicken,” Rainbow Dash added.
“Oh, fine.” Twilight began to make her way forward, the crowd parting in front of her, and clambered up onto the stage. There were a few, scattered cheers, mostly from the Royal Guard troops scattered throughout the crowd of Ponyville natives- it was hard to tell, as up here the lights were positively blinding and anything further out than the first row or two of spectators blurred into indistinguishable darkness. Unsure of what else to do, Twilight muttered the cantrip of her favored magesight spell and peered at the mysterious wooden boxes. They were inert and amagical, in contrast to the hazy auras put out by the stage lights and the bright ring of the amplification spell around Trixie’s neck. She played over each side of each box, inside and out, with a powerful disjunction spell, and when nothing detonated or flickered out of existence repeated the process with the stage around it. Then, on a whim, she altered her magesight to detect selenitic matter. No more was present than normal for Ponyville, which always read as slightly more contaminated than average due to its proximity to both Canterlot and the Castle of the Two Sisters. She dismissed the spell. “Alright?”
“So, would you say that there’s no enchantments, illusions, spell circles, or other such mechanisms here?” Trixie asked.
“Umm… as near as I can determine, no. Err… yes. No spells, I mean. There’s two boxes, each built around a code-standard closet door frame, I’d say… made out of modern treated lumber?”
Trixie nodded and grinned, her movements exaggerated for the benefit of the audience. She eased the door of the far box closed with her telekinesis, and then reached into her cloak and pulled out a small metal ring. “And would you say this little doodad is effective at preventing the casting of ordinary spells?”
“Well, only one way to find out.” Twilight sucked in a deep breath, summoned her telekinesis, plucked the ring out of Trixie’s hoof, and slipped it over her own horn. There was a brief, disquieting sensation of effort without action as her field was suppressed. Then she pushed all the mana she could bring to bear into a single disjunction spell- upwards at nothing in particular, of course, to avoid harming anypony. Nothing happened. Finally, she considered that she hadn’t bothered to check if the ring included a full thaumofixative anti-magic enchantment, or simply blocked projective spells. On the off chance that Trixie knew enough of the Starswirl-Clover Thesis to cast without her horn -she’d apparently conjured lightning, after all, which was usually considered ‘pegasus magic’- Twilight mouthed a simplified version of her magelight with no telekinetic components. No illumination was produced. “All right? It’s… an effective suppressor. I can’t really say much more about it than that.”
“Thank you kindly.” Trixie swiftly lifted the ring from Twilight’s horn and slipped it onto her own. Still feeling vaguely put-upon, the scholar hopped down from the stage and made her way back into the crowd. Turning around again, she saw Trixie step into the box on the left, hurl her hat across the stage, then pull the door closed while the hat was still in the air. Perhaps half a second later, the door to the right-side box opened and Trixie leaned out again. She caught the hat in one hoof, gave a quick little half-bow, and tossed it back across the stage again before disappearing inside the box once more. There was another surge of applause as the cycle continued from one box to the other, and then back again. In spite of herself, Twilight joined in.
Spike laughed a little as she stepped back up beside him. “I’m… actually a little surprised you’re… you know, okay with this. After, well, everything that happened with Luna, and the signs, and all…”
Twilight could only shrug. “Well, it’s all in good fun, is the thing! That mare isn’t actually claiming she has supernatural powers, or trying to restart an ancient religion, or bilk money and fame out of ponies, or anything like that…”
“Well, we are payin’ ‘er to sit here ‘n applaud ‘n all,” said Applejack.
“If you really don’t like the show, then why are you here?” Twilight asked, suddenly feeling a bit frustrated with the farmer’s behavior. “Wait a second, is she even charging admission? I just got in here for free.”
Up on stage, Trixie had switched from tossing the hat to tossing the ‘diamond’ she’d produced earlier. Every so often she’d let it teeter on the edge of her hoof, or bounce from one to the other, earning the expected gasps from the crowd.
“Wait- pff, that's just teleportation,” Rainbow Dash shot Applejack a confused look, and then rolled her eyes. “Twilight can do that!”
Trixie paused, leaning out of the leftmost box, ‘diamond’ held in one hoof, and looked directly at the pegasus. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Rainbow shifted awkwardly from hoof to hoof, and shuffled her wings, and made a quiet little “Erhmmmm” noise.
“Feel free to speak up,” the showmare called, and then waved her hoof -still holding the ‘diamond’- over the entire crowd. “I offer this priceless diamond as a reward to anypony at all who can satisfactorily explain and duplicate the feats of the Great and Powerful Trixie, the most powerful unicorn in Equestria!”
"That n' a couple bits'll getcha a cup a' cider," Applejack scoffed.
“Most powerful unicorn in Equestria?” Spike’s slitted eyes narrowed. “What’s Archmage Inkwell, then? Or the Plume Doree? Shining Armor’s no slouch either! Does Princess Celestia count? If we’re just talking stage acts, what about Hoffdini, or Fire Flare? And why just unicorns, what about-”
“It’s a show, Spike,” Pinkie Pie chided, “You aren’t supposed to take everything she says seriously- like a comedian, almost!” She pulled a section of her voluminous pink mane down in front of her muzzle, perhaps attempting to emulate a mustache. “I just don’t see the appeal of those Manx Brothers,” she said in a stuffy Trottingham accent, referencing the famous Abyssinian trio, “No creature would actually believe that was his reflection in the mirror…”
Twilight nodded, chuckling. “Just repeat to yourself ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax’?”
The baker abandoned her fake mustache and got a downright wary look in her eye. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here!”
“Come on now, don’t be shy…” Trixie chided from onstage. Twilight had forgotten that she was still leaning half-out of her wooden box, looking at Rainbow Dash. In fact, a lot of ponies in the crowd were looking at Rainbow Dash, too.
The pegasus swallowed, then glared back at the showmare. “I… said that’s probably just teleportation, and I’ve seen ponies do teleportation before.”
“Oh, is it, now?” Trixie grinned, and tossed her ‘diamond’ one more time. While she leaned against the side of her box, the door on the other opened and a second Trixie deftly caught the stone in her hoof.
Rainbow Dash just stared, wide-eyed, as the crowd around her cheered uproariously.
Both Trixies took deep stage bows in nearly perfect synchrony, and the one currently holding the hat doffed it. Then they both retreated into their respective boxes and closed the doors, only for each box to unfold into a flat pile of boards, leaving the stage utterly empty. Rainbow’s mouth opened and closed a few times, producing no sound. There was a tense, pregnant pause as the crowd scanned the curtains, the wagon, and the evening sky, until Trixie tapped Dash on the shoulder from behind. The pegasus leaped airborne, head down, hooves up in a defensive posture, to the sound of more uproarious applause mixed with quite a bit of laughter. Trixie cleared her throat: “Ahem. In the future, I’d appreciate it if you held your comments until after the show is over? It's just common courtesy.”
Twilight whistled, quietly impressed. True bilocation -of one’s self, or another creature, or anything else- was just about possible with the most sophisticated conventional magic, but fiendishly difficult. Twilight had never dared attempt it. Princess Celestia could, if sufficiently motivated, reliably exist in two places at once for about eight minutes under her own power. A minotaur mage living in the Centaur Union, after decades of practice, currently held the self-casting record of fifteen minutes on the dot. A research group at Bitskatonic University had used a room full of very expensive equipment to establish an absolute record of just over two hours, before their mechanism irreparably burned out. And all of those records had been set by stationary casters in a neutral environment. Trixie had been performing a relatively cognitively demanding task for a little over a minute by now.
Some scholars had proposed a more stable method, based on a theoretical interaction between Clover’s Similio Duplexis and certain acceleration spells, but the derived invocation contained a number of fiendishly complex parameters that remained so far unresolved. In short, despite her advanced degree, Dr. Twilight Sparkle had no idea how Trixie pulled off her little stunt.
Trixie climbed back up on stage, and with a flourish, popped the nullifier ring off her horn. Then she stepped forward and dropped into a deep bow, as volley after volley of fireworks burst overhead, almost drowning out the ferocious applause. “As for how Trixie finally managed to ditch those horrible creatures, well… I guess you’ll have to catch her next show! For now, well…” She swept off her hat, and hopped back off the stage again, into the crowd, “the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t charge admission, but she’s got to eat somehow…”
After perhaps ten more minutes of cheers, congratulations, and modest contributions, the crowd finally began to thin out. Twilight waved goodbye to Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash, then lurked at the edge of the square until she and Spike were just about the only spectators left. Then she walked back up to the stage, where Trixie had already collected her hat full of bits and was starting the process of packing her numerous lights and flashpots away. “Excuse me?” the scholar called out, reaching into her saddlebags and floating a ten-bit coin over to the stage.
Trixie paused what she was doing and trotted over. Up close and without the bright stage lights, she looked surprisingly young, in her mid-twenties at the oldest, but weatherbeaten; her shimmering cloak was rather worn around the edges. Beneath her hat, Twilight could barely see a simple, surprisingly practical wavy manecut. Her eyes had a reflective, almost mineral quality around the iris, and Twilight wondered if that was due to some covert detection spell she’d cast, or simply a preponderance of Timbucktu or Crystal Empire ancestry. Such recessive traits were rare, but not unheard of. “I thought that show was pretty impressive”, Twilight continued, then pondered for a moment and stuck out her hoof. “Sorry, sorry, I’m Twilight Sparkle. I’m a… historian, studying the Lunar artifacts around Ponyville,” In fact, her doctorate was in liminology, but mentioning that tended to draw out weird questions about exactly what she was doing in town. Historians were a far less showy bunch. “This is Spike, my assistant.”
The showmare met the offered hoof with her own, nodded, and grinned. “I know who you are, Dr. Sparkle. Right now, you might even be more famous than the Great and Powerful Trixie!” She paused, then shook her head, seemingly to clear it. “Could you… by any chance, show me that funny spell you cast up on stage? After the regular magesight one?”
“Uh, I’m… sorry, I’m afraid that’s… confidential, actually. Pending publication so the journal owns it, kind of a pain really,” Twilight laughed awkwardly, purposefully omitting that the ‘journal’ in question was the database of the Destructive Arcana and Techniques oversight committee, and that publication wouldn’t be happening any time soon. “In fact, I really wasn’t actually supposed to be casting it anywhere, so, maybe if we could just keep that little incident between the two of us, that’d be great…” the scholar made her best attempt at a winning smile. Trixie seemed skeptical, but didn’t respond either, so Twilight decided to call it a win. “Anyway, what I was going to ask you about was how long you planned to stay here.”
The showmare scratched under her chin with a forehoof. “For a town this size? Probably… three days, counting today?”
“Do you think you could maybe… bump that up to a week? And maybe do a performance or two for the Royal Guard working with me? Laborers, mostly, along with a Royal Guard company. We’ve been… uhh… really busy at a camp out in the Everfree this last week or so, and could probably use the distraction.”
Spike tugged on her foreleg, and when she bent her neck down whispered in one ear: “Twilight? Are you seriously considering inviting this mare to come out to the site?”
“Yeah?” Twilight whispered back, “You saw how Palisade and Leafspring are holding up, and after everything that happened with Piker, and the cockatrice and me disappearing for a week, and Froggy Bottom Bog, and the hydra attack, everypony really probably could use a chance to relax a little.”
“But… at least tell me you’re not going to pay her…”
“I don’t know, maybe? There’s a little room in the operations budget for personnel accommodations, so… why not? They pay for performances and music shows on military bases, after all…” And this is a lot more wholesome than some of the acts Shiny used to tell us about…
Spike just shook his head. “Fine.”
Twilight looked back to the showmare. “So, what do you think?”
“… despite Luna’s continued claims that Nightmare Moon was a separate entity. According to an expert within the Ministry of Culture speaking on condition of anonymity, these sorts of delusions are common in schizophrenic psychosis. ‘It also demonstrates a certain level of contempt for Equestria’s history and the basic principles of intellectual discourse. History is now what Princess Luna says it is, and everypony who’s worked to chronicle the development of the government and its processes is subordinate to her revolutionary whims.’…”
Rarity frowned at her copy of the Times of Canterlot, her will to finish the rest of the article rapidly fading. She flipped through the rest of the domestic news: pro- and anti-Lunar factions each accused each other of starting the violent confrontation in Fillydelphia that the Army had moved in to quell. Then she skimmed over the international news: the zebras and the dragons were accusing each other of starting a wildfire somewhere unpronounceable, and ‘Equestrian Intervention’ was once again ‘Considered Likely’. Finally, she glanced over the society pages -‘HOITY TOITY DENIES TRIBALISM ALLEGATIONS’- before settling on Arts And Style. Immediately, her vision was assaulted by a full-page spread of pale-coated ponies with too many piercings, tons of black eyeliner, and horribly clashing mane colors she was used to seeing among the highlighters in her stationary cupboard. Leather and chain were shaping up to be the go-to materials for 1098, or at least that was all Rarity could glean from the new fashion columnist’s calls for ‘transgressive, cognizant, socially positive assumptive deconstruction of lightness focused standards of propriety’. The next page was filled with advertisements for the accessories from the front page, as well a spate of other garments- mostly casual wear and replica weapons and armor. The replicas were wildly impractical and utterly ahistorical- double-headed axes, serrated swords, and thin, form-fitting, appallingly frilly leather outfits utterly unsuited to the task of deflecting blows. Shirts and jackets were emblazoned with cartoon Lunars and the word ‘REBEL’ in various difficult-to-read fonts. Horrid. Gritting her teeth against the ongoing attack on both her taste and basic equine decency, Rarity peered more closely at the mail-order addresses each advertisement offered. All were different post office boxes in Baltimare, and although they weren’t in order, all of them collectively were more or less consecutive: 121, 123, 124, 125. She remembered that the Society for Lunar-Equestrian Studies also had a Baltimare post office box address with a number somewhere in the 110s. Curious…
The unicorn was jarred out of her reading by the sound of the bell over her shop door. “Do come in!” she called, and slipped her reading material underneath the counter. Even though this was technically her lunch hour, she wasn’t about to turn away a potential customer. Now that she’d finally gotten ahead of that big Canterlot order -and had been out of the papers for a few months, although clearly that hadn’t done the papers any favors- business was starting to slow down again.
Surprisingly, it was the magician from last night’s show who stepped inside, carrying her star-speckled cloak beside her in her telekinesis, neatly folded. Out of the stage lights, she looked decidedly less glamorous and more like any other traveler, a bit worn and tired even.
“Hello there!” Rarity smiled her best showroom smile. “It’s the… Great and Wonderful Trixie, right?
The showmare gave her a brief little head-bob, and then chuckled. “Great and Powerful, actually, but… close enough!”
There was a slight pause. Up close, even folded, Rarity could tell that her cloak had in fact seen better days. Nonetheless, she kept her tone neutral and asked “So, what can I help you with?” She didn’t want to be presumptuous, after all. She’d gotten a small but increasing amount of mail orders ever since the Summer Sun Celebration, but by and large business was still accomplished by ponies walking physically into her store and telling her what they wanted.
The showmare sidled up a little closer to her counter, almost leaning on it. “Trixie wonders if you might be willing to do some… unusual work. Discreetly, if possible?”
Rarity nodded, slowly. Given Trixie’s profession, she’d been expecting something like this- even hoping, perhaps. It wasn’t every day she got a chance to design for the stage, especially after such a long period of orders relating to polishing armor, repairing armor, fitting armor, and adjusting fine outerwear to be worn comfortably underneath armor where nopony could see it. “Why, yes, as a bespoke clothier, I’ve certainly put together some -ahem- unusual designs in the past,” she said, mirroring Trixie’s hushed tone. Most of those designs had in fact been highly specialized gear for Twilight and her Government friends, although the less that was said about Blossomforth’s leather fixation the better. “What do you need?”
“Welllll…” Carefully, Trixie unfolded the cloak. Along the hem, Rarity noticed that the roll of fabric attaching the -apparently waterproofed- outer layer to the soft inner lining was almost completely worn away. There also seemed to be pockets along the outer edge- while they didn’t stand up to much scrutiny when the garment was laid out on a table, when it was actually being worn the natural folds would be quite effective at concealing them.
Quietly impressed, Rarity wondered exactly who had made the thing to begin with, as considering the conditions it had likely been subjected to it was likely over a decade old. “Don’t ever you mind, I’ll be the soul of discretion,” was all she said aloud. “I can have a new one with all the… errm, features ready in… maybe a day or so?”
“Actually, if it’s at all possible, Trixie would like to have this one restored. It’s Trixie’scloak, after all.”
“Oh, yes, of course. In that case, I’d also be willing to spruce up the dye a little, and, if you’re interested, I could also see about working in a little enchantment to help resist any future tearing? You do travel a fair bit, after all, I imagine.”
She hid it well, but Rarity could see Trixie’s eyes widen a little bit. “You can do that?” the showmare asked.
Wordlessly, Rarity gestured to her certification, framed on the wall over her counter next to her Ponyville Small Business Association membership, a few minor design awards, and her new Equestrian Textile-Workers’ Guild papers.
“Well! I hear you’ve done some traveling of your own recently, so what would you recommend?” Trixie asked.
“Well…” Rarity reached under her counter and produced a list she’d had printed on her new Carousel Boutique letterhead. “There’s a self-cleaning option, the rip protection, improved waterproofing… ooh, and color-holding to resist any more weathering. Sunlight can take a real toll on those metallic purples.” All of the enchantments she’d suggested were among the cheapest, fifty-bit options- she didn’t want to put the showmare on the spot with too heavy of a price tag.
Trixie chewed on her lower lip. “Actually, do you think it might be possible to add a camouflage enchantment? You know, a rune or a gem I could press to make the cloak’s pattern change to match what’s behind me?”
“I… suppose so,” Rarity muttered, then sketched out a few figures on her notepad, trying to calculate the cost of raw materials based on a rough estimate of the cloak’s area. It would certainly be her most expensive single order in a long time- possibly ever. “But- do be aware that’s going to cost more than the rest of this work combined…”
“How much, exactly?”
“About eighty-five hundred bits.”
Trixie physically staggered backwards a step or two. “Oh. Um.”
“Normally it would be ten thousand in Canterlot or Manehattan,” Rarity explained, as sympathetically as she could, “but we’re coming up against the cost of my materials here. The whole thing will have to be woven through with starspider silk and soaked with several very specific enchanted dyes to change color properly, and… well, in design, we always say that one’s options are fast, cheap, or good- and it’s up to the customer to pick two.”
The showmare seemed about to say something, before her muzzle wrinkled up in silent concentration for a few seconds. Then she asked: “Well, what other tricks can you install? More hidden pockets are always nice, or maybe a reversible lining? Oh, a magic reversible lining, that wouldn't be visible when it's not in use!”
Rarity arched an eyebrow, “Excuse me?”
“You know, something Shadow Spade might use.”
“Erm, yes, I... supposed I could make something like that.” Rarity paused, surprised that her portfolio would have a chance to benefit from all that nonsense with Lord Goldstone after all.
“Thank you kindly! The Great and Powerful Trixie is forever in your debt.” Rarity gave the showmare another quick once-over, although she still made sure to keep her best customer-service smile in place. She'd dealt with show-business types before, and flamboyant personalities were nothing unusual there. Nonetheless, beneath her casual arrogance and sculpted indifference, Rarity detected something almost desperate.
Trixie stepped back from the counter for a moment, then seemed to reconsider and approached again. “And, umm, how long do you think this’ll take?”
“I’m light on other orders, so I can probably get it done… a day or so from now? Around noon?” Rarity suggested. “I can try to rush it if you have another show or something like that, but this is really something that it’d be best to take the time to do right.”
"A day..." Trixie looked down at herself, pensively, “Hm. No, this won't do.”
Rarity cocked her head, then realized the problem. This was the first time she'd seen Trixie without her cloak; for a performer like her, that was probably a serious matter. That, or she was one of those rare ponies out there who felt uncomfortable without clothing. Gymnophobia, Rarity thought the term was called. Hoping to break the tension, the tailor spoke up, "I... have a fine selection of cloaks, sweaters, I think I have a summer dress in your shade of purple-"
"Oh! Thank you, but the Great and Power Trixie has this," the showmare interrupted. She rocked back on her haunches and held up her forehooves; she tapped her right toe against her left fetlock, then mirrored the motion; then she flicked her forehooves forward, and with them, an entire second cloak unfurled between her and Rarity. With a practiced flourish, she swung it over her withers, clasped it around her neck, and was good to go. "Trixie wouldn't be caught dead without her plain and serviceable backup cloak!" she exclaimed.
Rarity could only stand there agape, genuinely impressed. She never once saw the showmare's horn light up, she just conjured a full-length cloak. Even Pinkie Pie usually had to dig around in her mane to pull something like that off.
Looking much more confident, Trixie asked, "So, what's the final estimate?”
Rarity quickly collected herself and added up the basic enchantments, plus the concealed lining, at her standard non-rush pricing: “Five hundred bits, even.”
Trixie nodded, and trotted back out the door without another word. She'd left her cloak folded up on the counter, and the tailor thoroughly perplexed.
With no sign of other customers on their way and the day’s newspaper holding little of interest, Rarity elected to spend the rest of her lunch break at Sugarcube Corner. Finding Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy already inside and gathered at a table, she cantered over to join them.
“Wow. I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve all been able to sit down together since all that chaos with the cockatrice!” Pinkie Pie remarked from behind the counter. She made a few quick dashes over to their table with various plates -including the cucumber sandwich and bowl of sweet oats Rarity had just been intending to order- then clocked out. As the Cake family didn’t employ a timeclock, this involved scribbling the words “TIME CARD” on a sticky-note with inequine speed, and then stuffing it under the ordinary wall clock behind the counter. Rarity supposed it came down to the spirit of the thing.
“Ponies watching us might even get the impression that good friends don’t spend every waking moment together doing the exact same things- and what’ll they think then?” Pinkie fiddled around with the cash register, apparently ringing up her own lunch in the form of an entire strawberry layer cake, then pulled out the last remaining chair and sat down at their shared table. “So, how was your stay in wildest Griffonia?”
Rarity took a bite of her sandwich and chewed pensively, before finally settling on “It was… informative.”
“That’s underselling it,” Rainbow Dash swept out a wing. “We pulled a whole Winds-damned heist on that Goldstone creep! There were armed guards, and crossbow bolts whizzing by, and we bought infiltration gear on the black market and… um, yeah.”
Applejack stared at the weathermare, looking staggeringly unconvinced. “Really now.”
For the first time since Rarity had entered, Twilight Sparkle looked up from the map of ancient Everfree she’d been studying. “Pretty much, although, technically, we never actually robbed Goldstone of anything. Gordon paid him fair market value to buy that stupid skull we were after.”
The farmer’s expression didn’t become any less skeptical. “… Huh.”
“So, Twilight, how did you like working with one of Rainbow’s old flight school buddies?” Pinkie asked, already mostly through the top third of her cake. She seemed intent on eating the entire thing vertically, one layer at a time; it hadn’t even been sliced.
“No.” Twilight turned right back to her map.
“Hm?” Fluttershy prompted.
“Just… no,” the unicorn replied without looking up. Rarity could see Rainbow Dash squirming visibly in her seat.
“Aww, what happened?” Applejack asked.
“Oh, nothing really,” Rarity continued, aware of the weathermare’s continued silence. “Gilda -Rainbow’s friend- just knocked Twilight unconscious during the heist.”
“Oh, no, was it an accident?” Fluttershy reached over and tapped a hoof gently on the scholar’s shoulder.
“Accident? She cracked me over the head with a rolling pin. Twice.”
“Ouch.” Applejack winced, and carefully re-positioned her hat. “That’s solid wood, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, and the rolling pin was probably pretty hard, too.” Pinkie added. That, finally, earned a quiet little chuckle from Twilight.
“Aww, that’s nothing, I think I cracked a hoof when I kicked that Grunt griffon,” Rainbow Dash finally spoke up, waving the presumably damaged limb.
“I’m sure the day spa can get that patched up,” Rarity suggested, “Although the gods know it’ll take another week of deep conditioning to get the last of that infernal smog out of my mane…”
The pegasus nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably what Aloe was bitchin’ about when I was there.”
Pinkie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Wait, whaddaya mean ‘when you were there’?”
“Huh? What, uhh… well… I was… visiting for the… high-impact therapy they do! Where they beat the knots right outta your muscles! With sticks! It’s a Wonderbolt technique!”
Applejack just nodded. “Pure torture, Ah’m sure.” Then she idly shuffled a few pages of the Ponyville Gazette spread out in front of her- which was to say, all of it, as the Ponyville Gazette rarely exceeded a few pages in length. “Little surprised none’a this made the big-city papers, though.”
“Well, nopony died… and nogriff died, either, I think…” Twilight mused. “And technically nothing got stolen, just purchased at a discount… not that Goldstone could complain to the Equestrian Embassy anyway after everything else he himself was doing… and what I was really after wouldn’t be showing up in a newspaper, ever.”
“Oh, of course not!” Pinkie Pie chided. “What’s a government conspiracy to cover up extraplanar contact and mysterious substances that are inside everypony right now, compared to Sapphire Shores delaying her collab album with Countess Coloratura until next year?”
“Did you at least to meet any new clients?” Fluttershy asked Rarity. “A formal ball, with diplomats from all over the Known World… that sounds like something you’d like, at least…”
The tailor suppressed an involuntary shudder. “Not the sort of creatures in Goldstone’s set! I’m actually very happy nocreature paid me much attention. There might be some ponies who still subscribe to the ‘all press is good press’ theory, but those ponies aren’t trying to run a respectable business!”
“Yeah, it was a mess.” Twilight began folding up her map in her telekinesis. “Listen, girls, I’m really sorry I need to cut this short, but… I kind of told the rest of the Science Team I’d meet them on Castle Rock in half an hour, and…”
“Of course, darling. Lunch won’t be the same without you, but I guess we’ll just have to muddle through,” Rarity told her, then paused, confused. This was the first time she’d spoken about her misadventures in Innsbeak, and she hadn’t exactly announced the trip before she’d left. How had Trixie known she'd been traveling at all?
Twilight stood in front of an unfolded field desk, atop a pile of shattered imbrex-and-tegula roofing tiles on Castle Rock, accompanied by Dr. Daycaller, Dr. Proper Verse, Mage-Ensign Foxglove, and an array of ground-penetrating dowsing equipment.
The rubble had originally been an ‘armory’ -actually, a collection of palatial officers’ quarters- directly overlooking the old Day Court. Records indicated it had been owned by a certain General Lockjaw, and Princess Celestia herself claimed never to have been invited inside. Even all but collapsed, the building's foundation gave it a commanding view over the podium on the far side of the square where Celestia had delivered pronouncements in her role as Speaker of the Council. And, of course, the Lunar Rebellion had established a safehouse directly underneath it. If Capt Vortex’s long-dead friend of a long-dead friend’s word could be trusted, they’d even taken to helping themselves to Lockjaw’s extensive wine collection in one of the upper cellars.
Twilight supposed the metaphor for the overall state of Equestria at the end of the First Century was more than obvious.
Now, though, the crumbling expanse of the Court was occupied by a much more jovial group. Applejack and her hired digging crews from Ponyville, and most of the Royal Guard security detail, had gathered in front of Trixie Lulamoon and her portable stage. Pinkie Pie jumped from one group to the next, offering popcorn, baked goods, and bright red soda cups from no discernible source. It was still mid-afternoon, a little after two o’clock in the outside world. Starswirl only knew how that transferred into the Everfree. Despite the continued, leaden presence of heavy cloud cover, the rain was holding off for the time being, and there were probably more living ponies gathered together here than Castle Rock had seen in the last millennium.
“Listen, I’m really sorry I had to bring you out here at this hour,” she told Foxglove, “This was literally the only slot left in my schedule for a week.” The Lunars, being nocturnal, usually slept between the hours of eight in the morning and three in the afternoon.
“’Tis no trouble,” the Lunar mage waved a dismissive hoof, then chuckled. “I have always kept odd hours. Indeed, it took the Oath to finally set me to waking in the morning and sleeping at night!”
Down below, Trixie had set what looked like a big gas torch underneath a grate in the middle of her stage. When she struck her hooves together, it burst into blue-white flames easily twice her height. Then she leaped right into the center of the fire and stood, grinning, completely unharmed. Several ponies applauded.
“Come on now, don’t by shy, throw in anything you want! Just don’t expect to get it back!” the showmare cackled.
Applejack hurled a tree branch into the conflagration, which turned it to ash in a matter of seconds. Big Macintosh lobbed in a small boulder- it glowed bright red and cracked into several pieces. Then, Pvt Parhelion stepped forward and tossed her helmet onto the grate. The golden metal popped, warped, and finally began to crumple over the course of about ten seconds. Most of the crowd cheered, but Twilight saw a Guardstallion in sergeants' stripes swat Parhelion in the back of the head, yelling, "That helmet wasn't yours to lose!"
“Right.” Twilight turned back to her colleagues, Dr. Verse in particular. “So, how long do you think it would take to clear all of this rubble away, at least well enough for us to get a real look at any structures underneath?”
“Well, I’m af-fraid we’d be looking at something on the order of a few w-w-weeks,” the pegasus explained, “Much like the Castle proper, it’s structurally unsound after the beating it t-took, and the plans were n-never well-documented. Add onto that a thousand years of d-dry rot, and the spectral act-tctivity we’ve been seeing, and this is looking like an extremely inv-volved p-part of the project.” They’d only identified and exorcised three actual ghosts so far -two civilians and a Councilmare, all gibbering mad and mindlessly aggressive- but the evidence of many more, especially near the Castle proper, continued to present itself. Tools were found moved from where the digging crews left them. Pony-sized areas dropped near freezing temperatures- a climatic anomaly observed nowhere else in the Everfree Forest. Crates of supplies were broken into and their contents scattered. Patrols at night occasionally caught glimpses of hazy equine forms, and the Guards on watch picked up stray sounds, usually just a word or two that nopony had spoken- although, after Piker’s recent mishap, they no longer left their posts to investigate. Wild animals, the Everfree’s strange environment, outside sabotage, and simple stress could’ve explained some of it, but not everything at once.
Nonetheless, their work continued. Indeed, while Twilight’s sample size was admittedly tiny, over the last day or so it seemed to finally be picking up again.
Down below, Trixie hopped off the grate, ducked down, and deftly grabbed the core of the white-hot flames with her teeth, somehow causing it to extinguish. Then she threw back her head and spat a nimbus of bright blue fire high into the air, accompanied by another barrage of sparkling fireworks that seemed to brighten the whole cloud layer above.Once again, the glowing stars elongated and twisted into bands of light. Several insectoid figures were wreathed in bluish flame, while several others still pursued the animated version of Trixie.
“Even though that took care of most of the more persistent ones, I wasn’t out of the woods just yet,” the real unicorn below explained. “But the Great and Powerful Trixie always travels prepared!” She doffed her hat once again, and this time extracted from it a few meters’ length of rope. “There wouldn’t happen to be a longshoremare in the crowd today, or a sailor, perhaps? Somepony who knows a thing or two about knots?”
Twilight turned to look at Dr. Daycaller. “Well, if we can’t move it, what do you think about scanning through it?”
“Possible, but I wouldn’t trust the results,” the stallion scuffed a hoof on what appeared to be a section of inlaid molding, although whatever metals or gems it had contained were long gone. “Currently, the only way to know if we’re picking up Nightmare Moon’s illusions, or picking up nothing due to Nightmare Moon’s cloaking, is by identifying signatures of radion-”
“Don’t you mean ‘selenite’?” Dr. Verse interrupted.
“No, that would be ‘selenitic matter’- remember, it’s a family of para-elemental substances and compounds,” Twilight corrected.
“Of materials from the moon,” Daycaller amended, rolling his eyes behind his thick, black-framed glasses. “But all of Castle Rock is positively saturated with the stuff, so that won’t be very much help at a distance. From the presence of some of the more exotic varieties of ra- extraplanar materials, I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that this area was inhabited by Lunar battlemages shortly before it was abandoned completely, but other than that… I couldn’t tell you where exactly they were or what exactly they might’ve been doing without digging down into the pile and sampling from the inside.”
“Grand.” Twilight peered around suspiciously. The acoustics of this place were carefully constructed and hadn’t changed much in the intervening thousand years: She could hear Trixie and her audience fairly well, but was fairly certain the performer couldn’t hear them. That didn't stop the showmare from occasionally glancing up at Twilight, however.
Down among the crowd, Trixie was passing over several raised hooves among the work crews, to point squarely at Applejack.
“You found a battlemage? Alive?” Foxglove asked, tufted ears folding back incredulously.
Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but… no. I’m afraid all of our information on them is still coming in second-hoof: from animal handlers and other support staff that we’re either interviewing now, or in most cases that Paper Clip interviewed back a thousand years ago.” Twilight tapped the collection of three-ring binders spread across her field desk.
“Ah.” The Lunar nodded. “In that case, you should consider yourselves fortunate to have ever found this place. As far as I know, none at the camp were ever told of it.” Then he cocked his head, ears pivoting sideways, “How didst thou find it after so long?”
“Oh! Well, Paper Clip and Escritoire managed to get the locations of a few battlemage sites out of surviving support staff after the War, and when we investigated those we were able to identify some unique material signatures. Capt Vortex suggested this as another possible site, and sure enough those signatures also appear here. It’s not definitive, but it’s a good guess as to what was going on…”
…
“Don’t be shy, tie them tightly!” Trixie instructed, as Applejack bound her forehooves together. “Double-knot them, even!”
“There’s a lot more to this kinda’ thing than just double knots,” the farmer chided. “Tartarus, Ah could tie a knot like this with three hooves tied behind mah back.”
“Oh, is that so?” Abruptly, the bindings unraveled and landed at Trixie’s hooves, which was interesting because Applejack hadn’t seen her horn light. With a flourish, the showmare produced a small silver knife and deftly sliced the rope in half; then she dropped one of the resulting coils at Applejack’s hooves and set the knife aside. She looked up at the significantly larger farmer and grinned an oddly predatory grin. “Challenge accepted, little hayseed. First one to snare the other wins bragging rights?”
The entire crowd fell silent. Applejack, for her part, just nodded and smiled a broad, menacing smile of her own. Then she picked up the rope in her mouth, and called out around it “Gimme jus' a secon'..." as she tied off a basic lasso. "On three, huh? One… two… three!”
The farmer’s head swung around, her lasso circling above her, before she let it loose to fly across the stage - and Trixie deftly stepped aside, her own rope already stretching to wrap around Applejack’s barrel.
The farmer looked down, her eyes wide, and then gasped faintly as the rope cinched just tightly enough to dig into her skin. “Shucks! Been ropin’ steers since Ah was a lil’ filly, but ain’t never had ta’ dodge,” she muttered, then continued more quietly, “And Ah was expectin’ her not to know how to tie a decent lariat to save her hide…”
There was a light smattering of applause. Trixie grinned, adjusted her hat, and pulled the rope just a tiny bit tighter. “Best two out of three?”
…
“I’m… s-sorry, but what, exactly, is so important about battlemages?” Dr. Verse asked, back up on the rubble pile.
“Ah.” Foxglove grinned. “They were only Luna’s Most Favored- the ponies who, it was said, created the Shadowbolts… and the illusion over our camp in Hardfrog Valley… and disappeared alongside the commanders to speak at length with Lu- to Nightmare Moon at the redoubt you now call Mount Hydra.”
“Paper Clip got hold of some of their notes,” Twilight added, motioning again to the binders on her desk, “Some of their theories, like the stealthing spells, were really centuries ahead of their time; but others were staggeringly wrong, like serious warnings that a large enough explosive detonation could ignite the atmosphere and render the entire Known World uninhabitable. And a lot of what Clip collected was just… surreal,” she flipped open one binder to a particular chart, “like, here’s detailed calculations on how many ponies would die ‘when the assassination of Princess Celestia brings about the Dimensional Merge between Worlds C-197 and 1218.’ The author was,” Twilight chuckled, “naturally, guaranteed to ‘transition successfully’, whatever that means, thanks to having ‘absorbed the spiral sea-’ oh, ‘seal’, oops-and gained some ‘powers’ to communicate with mythological creatures.” She closed the binder and massaged the bridge of her muzzle. “I think, for better or for worse, they were the closest mortal ponies to Nightmare Moon’s mental state, and that makes their writings immensely valuable to us. If we can ever make sense of them.”
“Aye,” continued Foxglove, “I saw them at work a few times… although I do not think even Luna herself knew all that they were doing. Tartarus, I do not think even they themselves did… they had a certain vacant look to them as they went about their work, which I’ll not soon forget!”
“That’s all well and good,” said Dr. Verse, “but, immensely v-valuable or n-not, it’s still going to take a while to get through all this deb-b-bris.”
…
Applejack was breathing hard, and starting to develop a rather nasty cramp in her jaw- not that she’d let something as inconsequential as pain stop her. For all of her superior technique, Trixie was simply far and away the more agile of the two- Applejack might even say she’d had practice evading snares for most of her life, to the point where the farmer wondered if she was being toyed with. The audience watched, enraptured, as they leaped and twisted, and Applejack grew more and more frustrated. After a few near-misses against Trixie, she planted her hooves solidly among the seemingly disorganized mess of forgotten rope the unicorn had abandoned on the stage- and slammed over on her side with all four legs bound together when Trixie pulled the hidden knot tight.
The showmare held up her end of the rope triumphantly as she circled the stage; after a few seconds of struggling, the farmer closed her eyes, pulled in a deep breath, and bucked hard enough to snap the knot cleanly in half. The crowd burst into wild applause, particularly from the digging crews, as she pulled herself back onto all-fours. Trixie doffed her hat and bowed theatrically towards Applejack, but farmer was almost certain she saw the showmare's eye twitch.
…
Twilight leafed through a few more pages in her binder, then consulted the map of Everfree she’d spread out underneath. “I… don’t think we need to worry about clearing it just yet. According to Paper Clip… ahh, here we are. ‘… in retrospect, it was obvious the sightings were of battlemages specifically. I feel reasonably confident that they headed off somewhere into the lower city just before the raid on the Guildhalls, all as a group. Where they ended up, we may never know.
All Escritoire has been able to determine from interviewing their attendants was their previous assignment- somepony decided it would be a worthwhile commitment to the war effort to summon beasts from the firmament into Castle Rock. Supposedly, an Ursa was called down, although, as usual, none of our sources have any idea what eventually became of it. No such beast was ever seen on Castle Rock, even once the battle began to turn against the Lunars…’”
Twilight looked down at the rubble again. “I don’t think this safehouse could hold something like that, so we should be able to pick up the trail somewhere else… hopefully at a more conspicuous location.”
Verse and Daycaller both nodded, but Foxglove, surprisingly, stamped his hoof and spat over the edge of the pile. “An Ursa?! Those fools…”
Twilight peered at him, confused.
“Had they any idea how much carnage they would have brought about, releasing something like that in the middle of a city?” Foxglove snapped, “Bombing the Council Hall concerned me when the generals proposed it, but… at least that was a strategic target. Had we wanted to level the city, we could simply have brought more blasting crystals. The only point of something like this would be to… spread terror, I suppose. I joined the Rebellion to see a better future for my friends and colleagues, not to… to torment ordinary ponies who had the misfortune of working in the home of a corrupt noble….” He scuffed at a section of toppled pillar and shook his head, “Princess Luna would never have agreed to this plan...Where did we go wrong?”
Twilight temporarily abandoned her desk and turned to the Lunar mage. “Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Down below, Trixie had conjured up a sort of translucent blue cloud shot through with thousands of glittering silver specks, over the now Applejack-less stage. On reflex, Twilight muttered the cantrip to dispel her visualization of selenitic matter; then realized she’d never cast the spell to begin with.
“And, only the Great and Powerful Trixie had magic strong enough to vanquish the dreaded Ursa Major that had attacked Hoofington…” the showmare declared, and the mass of condensed starlight contorted itself into a towering, vaguely bear-like presence overtop the stage. “Of course, the papers said the creature was dispatched by the Navy, but the ponies who were there know better…” A round of fireworks shot upward and detonated amid the starry mass- it reared back in a silent roar and then disintegrated into sparkling clouds. Trixie vanished in an identical cloud moments later, only to reappear atop the roof of her wagon where the Ursa projection had been. There was tentative applause at first as ponies peered at one another, confused, before it surged and built up to the levels Twilight was starting to expect. In fact, she’d found the showmare’s sudden change of topic rather odd, and once again, the scholar wondered if discussing sensitive matters around her was wise.
Dr. Daycaller peered at Twilight over his glasses, confused. “So… what do we do?”
“Well…” Twilight set about policing up her binders. “I figure there isn’t any reason not to put a crew together to start clearing this out- we’re going to want to loot it at some point-”
“Well, we’ll w-want to catalog it,” Dr. Verse raised a wing, “Daring Do ‘loots’ sites like this.”
“Good point. But I still don’t think we’ll find many answers here. I think we’re better off continuing to search sites in the outer areas of the city. Based on the original maps, and some rough estimates Spike put together about how much the forest has since expanded, I figure there’s still about twenty-five percent of city and suburbs that we’ve yet to even make a cursory scan of. Then, of course, another few hundred square klicks of virgin forest…”
Dr. Proper Verse perched atop the fallen remains a colossal equine statue later that afternoon -Somnambula the Devout, supposedly. It was hard to tell, given the amount of damage the thing had taken. By eye, only the vaguest suggestion of wings remained to indicate it was even a pegasus, but the flared remnants of her traditional Southern Equestrian headdress confirmed it. There wasn't even a clear consensus on who had torn the statue down; Lunar troops, pegasus nationals, or loyalist troops under Council orders. Sometime tomorrow, the remains were scheduled to be crated up and shipped to the Equestrian Museum in Canterlot, although there was still debate over whether to try to reassemble it or display it in its ruined state.
Verse shook her head and looked down at her map again, using the statue as an obvious landmark. The map showed a straight avenue to either side, while her eyes registered a ninety-degree bend in the street about ten meters out. The buildings on the near side of it had been reduced to warped rubble; on the far side, huge gaps had been filled in by unhealthy-looking vegetation that the scientist was sure moved slightly whenever she looked away from it.
She pointed down to where her supposed ‘security escort’, Cpl Aqua Regia, sat at the base of the statue, idly fiddling with the halberd she carried. “Well, do you have any idea where to go from here?”
“Well, Doc, if I had to guess, I’d say we’re probably somewhere in the temple district,” the Guard chewed on her lower lip, “Isn’t that what’cha came out here to look at?”
“Well, yes, I c-can see that, but… ah. There. That v-v-vacant lot was probably the shrine to Gaia.” That meant all she needed to do was turn the stupid map around- “Oh. Wait. We’ve gone in a circle again. Drat.”
“Looks like an overgrown garden to me,” Aqua continued, entirely unhelpfully.
“Yes, exactly. "In a superficial nod to multitribalism, Everfree had always maintained the temples dedicated to earth pony and pegasus gods, even as fewer and fewer of those ponies had actually found residence or employment there. Those temples -unlike the ones commonly associated with unicorns- had been spared the worst of the looting during the Fall of Everfree, which made them of immense archaeological value. Unfortunately, they’d also been subject to organized destruction by Council forces beforehand, to clear the way physically and politically for a planned Temple to the Equestrian Council. The intervening millennium had then ruined most of what the rioters hadn’t.
Verse fluttered from the statue to a crumbling portico, muttering one vision spell after another and trying to mentally reconstruct how sightlines would have functioned on this street when it was intact. All of her investigations added up to not terribly much.
She pressed a wing to her forehead and whinnied in frustration. This part of the forest was unseasonably warm and oppressively humid, and flying higher didn’t seem to be making it any more bearable. She glided off the portico, back to where she’d left her Guard-issue rucksack on the convenient stump of a pillar, and snatched her canteen.
It gave a pathetic little empty rattle. Verse contemplated the long, sweaty flight between her and her air-conditioned office back at the Station.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” She asked Cpl. Aqua.
“It’s just past eighteen-hundred, ma’am.”
That meant Verse had missed dinner back at base camp, as well. “… and how l-long has it been ‘just past eighteen-hundred’?”
The Guardsmare squinted at the sun, then at the watch she wore just underneath her left front sabaton- one of the fancy ‘tactical’ models that included a built-in stopwatch. “’bout four hours, sir.”
“Oh. Lovely.”
“So… does this mean Twilight’s gonna pay us overtime?” Aqua’s ears pricked up hopefully.
“I wouldn't bet on it; knowing her, she'd kill to squeeze an e-extra four hours into her day for free. In any c-c-case, the timeclock back at the Station is outside the range of the Everfree Anomaly.”
“Crap. Figures.”
“We should… p-probably get out of here pretty soon,” Verse suggested, “We’ve been in one place long e-nough that time is starting to b-break down pretty badly. ”She took flight again and darted back down the avenue; pausing to hover in front of a low, blocky structure that -owing no doubt to its incredibly solid port concrete walls- had endured the intervening millennium largely intact. “If that’s the shrine to C-Cel-Celestia, and Gaia’s over there, then this has to be the Vulcanal.”
“The… what?” asked Aqua Regia.
“The original shrine to Vulcan,” Verse explained, touching back down on what had once been an ornate mosaic forecourt; now it mostly depicted mud.
The Guardsmare’s expression remained utterly uncomprehending.
“An… old earth pony deity.” Verse trotted into the structure’s dim interior. Barely visible in the gloom, incredibly detailed stone carvings of Smart Cookie, Amaranthine, Golden Dream, and other earth pony heroes glowered down at her with bronze-rimmed eyes. “Along w-with Heimdall, the patron deity of the Mighty Helm, Vulcan had become very strongly assoc-sociated with militant earth pony nationalists by the end of the F-First Century- and the Vulcanal clerics were s-some of the earliest supporters of the Lunar Rebellion.” She trotted deeper into the complex, passing a number of sacrificial chambers still stained rusty-black with soot and dried blood. The practice of animal sacrifice was already well out of fashion in the year 98, to be supplanted by the modern concept of burnt offerings and donations, but these temples had been old even then.
Aqua waved a hoof at Golden Dream’s carving. “Wait, wait, wait, who’s that alicorn?”
Verse just grinned, suddenly finding herself on much more stable footing. “That’s Princess Golden Dream. She ruled a city-state called Bitezh, near a lake in what’s now the Yaket Mountains, but nopony’s ever been able to identify an exact location. She was described as a merchant, general, and diplomat who’d defended the city from outside attacks for nearly five centuries, but she fell under the influence of love poison and started to deteriorate mentally. Bitezh was completely leveled by an elder dragon about a century before the windigoes brought the Long Winter and forced the southern migration, and ponies’ve been trying to find the ruins ever since. That incident is actually the origin of what’s now celebrated as Hearts and Hooves Day, although that’s only been celebrated since the Sixth Century CE…”
“Huh. I’ve… never heard of that.” The soldier shrugged, contemplatively. “You’d think there’d be some kind of, I dunno, memorial or something, like the one for Prince Saturnine in Canterlot.”
Dr. Verse looked back up at the carving. “We're looking at it. Golden Dream was seen as a m-m-martyr throughout much of the Early Consular Period, hence her inclusion on the temple here, but it became increasingly impolitic to-”
“Hey! What’cha doin’?”
The pegasus researcher nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard another voice from behind her. Aqua Regia sprang past her with incredible speed. When Verse managed to get her hooves to obey her and spin around, she found the Guard with her halberd leveled, warding off a pale blue unicorn mare in a shimmering purple cloak. Verse thought that was a bit excessive- the unicorn was armed only with a half-folded map floating in her telekinesis. After a moment of terrified silence, the mystery mare backed up a few steps and Aqua raised her polearm back into the crook of her foreleg.
“Umm… y-you’re that… entertainer Tw-Twilight h-hired, huh?” Verse asked, mentally cursing her own jumpiness. “T-Trixie, right?” She stuck out a hoof. “I’m D-doctor Proper Vi-. Proper Vuh-. Proper V-Verse.”
The other mare closed the distance and shook her offered hoof. “The Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon is honored to make your acquaintance!”
“That’s all well and good, but… somepony’s gotta’ve told you you’re not supposed to be wandering around the Forest alone- we’ve got a buddy system for a reason, Sun-dammit,” Aqua admonished, waving her halberd, ears flattened against her helmeted skull, “Trust me, you really don’t wanna end up lost out here.”
“We're not in the forest, we're in the city! I heard somepony moving around down this way, so I figured I might as well look around. I was curious,” the showmare explained, ignoring Cpl. Aqua utterly.
“Yes, but the city is entirely con-contained within- you know what? Never m-m-mind.” Quietly, Verse wondered when Dr. Sparkle had started giving nonessential personnel the run of ancient Everfree with or without escort.
“So, ummm…” Trixie gave an odd little prance. “What’s up?”
Feeling on somewhat safer ground now that it was her work that was being discussed, Dr. Verse trotted back to the base of Somnambula’s statue. “This used to b-be the main temple d-district for Everfree City- and, in th-theory, the most p-prestigious one in all of Equestria.” She waved a wing in a sweeping ‘all around us’ gesture, then pointed at the ninety-degree bend at the end of the avenue. “Every period source indic-cates that a shrine to Celestia-as-Sol-Invictus is located here, and indeed when we f-flew over this area in the Lapwing we were able to pick up a large quantity of gold buried right around that curve.”
Trixie and Aqua both peered at her, somewhat confused. “It m-might surprise you to learn that there’s no law against an alicorn- or any other pony- declaring themselves gods or prophets or whatever today,” the scientist continued, “although if they used those claims to defraud or otherwise take advantage of followers they’d probably be in some hot water. In the First Century, though, p-ponies didn’t really have s-such a strong concept of division bet-ween religious and s-secular life. It w-wasn’t uncommon for alicorns, l-living or dead, or even heroic figures l-like the Founders and P-Pillars, to be the s-subjects of ritual devotion. There was a temple to Luna and the moon here, too, but but its destruction precipit-tated the open fighting at the outset of the Lunar Rebellions. Nowa-duh… nowadays, most ponies c-c-onsider ourselves above that kind of behavior, b-but you really can’t deny there’s a lot of similarities between the modern Ceres and the Princess Demeter of old. Isn’t history just f-fascinating?”
The Guardsmare rolled her eyes, but Trixie nodded and made a little ‘go on’ gesture with her hoof.
“Given the skilled artificers and ench-chanters employed by the Order of Vulcan, and the p-proximity to the Council Hall, we’re pretty certain this temple is where the Lunars stored the b-b-b-blasting crystals used at the start of the Battle of Everfree. We’ve even p-picked up traces of the residual mana charge. Though, of course, given that the temple was built around a fully-functional forge, and magical items were ritually crafted daily, it might've been giving us a false reading. But, we also detected a fairly large radion signature here, even larger than the Temple of the Moon's ruins, so- uh.” Verse clamped her mouth shut, hoping Cpl. Aqua wouldn’t report what she’d just said back to Twilight. “Anyway, I just can’t figure out how they m-moved those crystals all the way to the Hall without being detected. At this point in the Rebellions, the entire Temple District was f-filled with guards!”
Aqua appeared to be losing a staring contest with one of the wall carvings, as she leaned on her halberd. Trixie, however, trotted back out into the street, looked around, and trotted back inside. “Do you… mind if the Great and Powerful Trixie takes a look at your notes?”
“Go on ahead.” Verse waved back to her rucksack. “It’s not like they’ve been much help to m-me in all this…”
The showmare dug through Verse’s pack, plucked out her notebook, and leafed through it. Aqua and the pegasus stepped outside and followed her as she walked slowly from one end of the street to the other, peering at sections of collapsed masonry and muttering to herself.
Finally, Trixie came to a halt, the notebook floating telekinetically in front of her. “Am I reading this right? ‘The previous evening, Council forces detained an estimated twenty-three Lunar conspirators for questioning?”
Dr. Verse nodded.
Trixie fished a mostly-spherical lump of dark clay- a hoof-rolled smoke bomb, perhaps- out of her cloak and began idly floating it around in her telekinesis. “So that rebel guy said the guards had patrols here, here, and here…” In the light of the magician’s horn, cartoon stick-ponies in the squiggly outlines of armor materialized one-after-the-other down the street. “But, I bet these were the guys who got pulled away to deal with the prisoners. Their bosses probably figured they could still cover the whole street.” Then, two of the animated figures faded away. “Then… throw a rock or set a fire or something to sound an alarm here…” Trixie’s muzzle wrinkled in concentration. There was a flash of orange light near the decapitated statue of Somnambula, and a loud pop. The two nearest remaining guard-figures drifted over to it, and a wagon made of a glowing square and four circles drifted out of the Vulcanal. The magician’s voice dropped to a tense murmur. “It’s late. Times are hard. Ponies are tense. Some crazy Lunar rebels just blew the head off of this giant statue. Are you really going to pay any attention to one wagon heading out of the Temple just as the workday is ending?” Her horn flashed once again.
Dr. Verse leaped briefly back into the air, as something behind her went bang and produced a cloud of faintly sparkling purple smoke, directly in line with the ruins of the Council Hall.
Trixie chuckled, and gave a little mock-bow. “And that’s that!”
Unsure of what else to do, the pegasus scientist gave her a few stamps of applause, and after a moment Cpl. Aqua joined in. Then Verse recovered the notebook Trixie was offering in her telekinesis, and set about quickly sketching down the route the showmare had described. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.” When she looked up again, Trixie was idly juggling Verse’s own empty canteen. “Hey, you wouldn’t also happen to know anything about enchantments?”
Capt Marigold strode through the Castle Rock base camp on her weekly inspection. For once, the canvas tents were all clean and properly secured, and all of the supply crates were intact. In the outside world it was a little after three in the afternoon; damned if Marigold knew what that translated into here, but it seemed to be in the middle of a work shift. Even so, there were quite a few ponies idling around outside. Mostly, they trotted briskly from one place to another going about their business, although the captain was pleased to notice that a mixture of her Guardsponies, Lunars, and Ponyville Watch deputies were posted at key intersections. A few even bothered to salute her as she passed.
She had to give it to Twilight- the scholar’s weird little deal with that stage magician had noticeably livened up the camp. Even the grey sky didn't feel quite as overbearing. In fact, the last report she’d read from Applejack said the number of civilian Ponyville staff had doubled, and incidents of workplace injuries and general burnout were, for the first time in months, on the decline. There was even talk of bringing in a school group from the town to visit, sometime in the next few days. If minor artifacts didn’t keep disappearing, the captain might even have been able to relax a little.
Then 1stSgt Chamomile stepped out of the command tent and trotted over to her. “Uhhh… Cap’n, sir? We’ve… got a little bit of a problem.”
Nopony around seemed to be paying much attention, and as Marigold peered at him in confusion, her XO held a feather to his lips and then waved her forward. Silently curious, she followed him over to the side of one of the processing tents- where recovered artifacts were sorted, evaluated for any hazards, given a cursory initial cleaning, and packed securely for transport back down to the Station. The front flaps were open, but Marigold couldn't hear the muffled scraping and brushing sounds of the cleaning crew inside at work. She cautiously peered around the corner, and was greeted with the sight of perhaps a dozen of Ponyville's civilians, seated at a trestle table filled with cleaning supplies, fine tools, and various rusty bits of Lunar iconography, noticeably not hard at work. Twilight typically employed locals for this type of job because they were conscientious, dedicated, quick learners, and their efforts freed up the Lunar, Royal Guard, and Academy specialists for more demanding tasks. Usually.
“See that blue mare over there, on the end?” Chamomile prompted in a whisper.
Marigold had overseen the show at Castle Rock, but was surprised to find Trixie Lulamoon packed in among the regulars. She sat at one end of the table in front of a pile of mud-encrusted First Century coins; the workers nearby peered at her with rapt attention, their work seemingly forgotten for the moment.
“Oh, I’ve done shows all over the Known World! Saddle Arabia, Abyssinia, and even Mount Aris! But never Klugetown, the Great and Powerful Trixie has to have some standards, after all!” She laughed, and shook some debris off of a coin in her telekinesis. It was imprinted with a faint half-moon emblem and the profile of Princess Luna: one of the Rebel-minted copies of the era’s golden Bit that had begun showing up just before the Fall of Everfree. “Huh. Do you think these are real gold?”
To Trixie’s left, a pony Marigold vaguely recognized as Sassaflash nodded.
“Has anypony else here been to Saddle Arabia?” the showmare asked as she set the coin aside.
“Oooh, yeah, I went to a convention in Neighdina, once!” offered Birch Bucket.
“Isn’t Dr. Daycaller from there?” asked Blossom Delight.
“Oh! Well, how about Abyssinia?” Trixie’s grin narrowed ever-so-slightly.
She was treated to a chorus of ‘no’s and shaking heads.
“Welllll,” the unicorn mare leaned forward and rested her hooves on the table, “It’s really just an amazing place. Did you know you can walk into any Abyssinian bank and redeem ducat coins for solid gold bullion?”
Marigold wasn’t entirely certain what was supposed to be so special about that fact, as one could do something similar in Equestria or just about anywhere else in the Known World. It was called ‘buying gold’, and although a better venue for doing so would likely be a jeweler or alchemical supply shop, she was fairly certain most Equestrian banks did indeed offer commodity brokerages. If Trixie had meant to imply that Abyssinia backed its currency with gold, that was also not the case- if Marigold recalled correctly, only Minos and the Centaur Union remained on the gold standard. Odd.
The captain stepped forward into the tent, made a little ahem noise, and motioned for the foremare, Ambrosia, to come over. “What’s that show pony doing here?” she asked quietly.
“Who, Trixie?” Ambrosia shrugged. “Well, her telekinesis has a soft touch, and somepony’d have to clean all those coins and little silver gewgaws eventually, and in case you haven’t noticed the recent influx of artifacts has left us a little strapped for marepower here…” the townspony smiled a slightly-too-wide-smile, “so it wasn’t like I was going to say no when she asked if she could lend a hoof…”
Marigold dipped her neck slightly to look the shorter pony in the eye. “Is she on the work roster?”
“… No?” Ambrosia’s smile slowly faded.
“Is she cleared for hazard detail?”
“No, ma’am.”
Marigold pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Has she at least signed the liability and non-disclosure waivers?”
“Not that I know of, officer. Ma’am.”
Marigold worked to put together her best ‘don’t piss me off’ face. She’d had a lot of practice recently. “Is there any legitimate reason for her to be here?”
Ambrosia shifted from one hoof to the other. “She… brought us coffee?” The captain just stared at her until she took an involuntary step backwards. “Okay, yeah, I’ll get her out of here.”
Marigold let her expression drift back to neutral, and clapped what she hoped was a friendly hoof against Ambrosia’s shoulder. In response, the foremare nearly collapsed where she stood. “Don’t worry, Ambrosia. I’ll handle it.”
Later, Twilight Sparkle paced tight, uneasy circles within a patch of crushed foliage deep in the Everfree forest. At the outer edge, Fluttershy, Dr. Daycaller, Pvt Parhelion, and a very tired-looking Capt Marigold peered and prodded at something that barely qualified as a carcass. Shattered bones and chunks of meat, some still covered in tawny fur, were spread out over the whole of the clearing and into the forest beyond. The smell was… unique, to say the least. Twilight found herself fighting back a brief surge of nausea, although neither Fluttershy nor Marigold looked particularly discomfited.
“I… think this was a manticore,” the pegasus ranger finally said, and waved a wing with a pinfeather extended to point at a few different chunks of flesh. As far as Twilight was concerned, they were just as unrecognizable as all the others. “That’s a wing, over there, and this…” She reached down with one hoof and extracted a few massive, chitinous segments resembling an outsized scorpion tail, with a broken barb still dangling from the end, “was the stinger.”
Twilight nodded, and then noticed the pegasus’s hoof was trembling slightly. She considered Fluttershy’s last encounter with a manticore in the Everfree, back during their race to reach the Castle of the Two Sisters and confront Nightmare Moon. Her ears dropped down in sympathy. “Oh. Oh, shit, Fluttershy, was this-”
“I don’t think so,” the ranger muttered, quietly enough that only Twilight could hear. “I hope it wasn’t. There isn’t much mane here, and the metasoma -the tail- is short and truncated. I think this is- this was a female.”
Across the clearing, Dr. Daycaller asked “So, what eats these things? And do we need to worry about it coming after us?”
Fluttershy, silently, pointed a wing down at the clearing they were standing in. Confused, Twilight followed the contours of the torn vegetation and compacted soil. She saw Parhelion swallow hard, her eyes going wide; then Daycaller gave a brief whistle. Finally, in a moment of almost disorienting realization, the shape of the clearing around Twilight resolved itself into a gigantic but oddly shallow pawprint.
Capt Marigold whinnied in surprise. “Holy shit!”
“Huge, but surprisingly light?” Fluttershy continued, trotting in a tight circle, “I think this might be an Ursa. And given the size of the print, and the fact that it… uh, crushed a full-grown manticore, I think it’s safe to say this isn’t a Minor.”
Twilight pulled to a sudden halt and looked at the ranger. “Now, that’s interesting! Do you know where it might’ve come from? Because, if it's the same one of the Lunars summoned…”
Ursas were one of several forms of life to inhabit the celestial firmament- the vast realm of stars, purified aether, and bitter cold that formed the infinite buffer between the Material and Astral Planes. Equestrian science had long ago probed it with balloon-mounted instruments and powerful divinations, and there was nothing preventing a living pony from traveling there physically. Indeed, the spell that brought about Nightmare Moon’s return had recently sent Princess Celestia some significant distance into it. However, the lack of any usable resources combined with the utter hostility of the environment made it an unattractive destination. At high enough altitudes, matter began to lose definition and erode, and higher still space itself began to lose meaning. Yet even under such extreme conditions, life existed- strange, luminous, nebulous creatures more reminiscent of specimens dredged up from the deep ocean than any airborne species. Some of the more solid ones could be summoned by magic; or, occasionally, fell to the surface of their own accord, usually with calamitous results. Ursas were among the more common of such interlopers- oddly so, given the presence of eighty-eight other astrologically significant constellations. Rumors of astral scorpions occasionally surfaced in the Arimaspi Desert, but the Ursas usually confined themselves to the cold emptiness of the Frozen North. Finding one in the Everfree was thus both intriguing and potentially indicative.
“I’m not sure where it came from, but… it’s hunting. That’s a bad sign.” Fluttershy explained. “Normally, they stay dormant for hundreds of years, and don’t really need to eat.”
“Oh, like timberwolves!” Marigold suggested.
“Oh, no, timberwolves eat,” Fluttershy told her, “The controlling intelligence might be spectral in nature, but they’re animating a body that’s still made of living plants, and plants need nutrients. Ursas are… forces.”
“Do you know how long it’s been down here?” Twilight asked.
“Well…” Fluttershy walked at a measured pace from one end of the clearing to the other, counting quietly under her breath. “The print’s about seven meters long… and an ordinary bear with a shoulder height of one meter has a forty-centimeter paw print… so I’d say this Ursa is about twenty-five meters tall?”
Parhelion shook her head and muttered “Aww, rut me…”
“Well, I’m very flattered by the offer, but I’m afraid I’m happily married,” Daycaller laughed, and then snapped his muzzle shut when Capt Marigold shot him a particularly withering stare.
“Of course, there’s a lot of variation due to diet,” Fluttershy continued. “We should be glad there aren’t many fish here. Otherwise, it could be even bigger.”
“Yeah, I guess we can thank that locked-down double river bullshit for something, at least. That, or there used to be fish here and it just ate them all…” Marigold scuffed a patch of already flattened grass with her sabaton.
“Anyway, that works out to about… twelve hundred years old? But I’m afraid there’s no way of telling how long it’s been on the surface instead of up in the firmament,” Fluttershy amended, after catching sight of Twilight’s hopeful expression.
Marigold looked from Twilight to Fluttershy a few times, then shrugged. “So… whaddaya think we should do about it?”
“For the time being, just keep on the lookout for more incidents like this” the ranger suggested. “If this is the only one, then it’s safe to say the Ursa just got hungry this decade.”
“I’d really rather not have a repeat of the hydra debacle,” Twilight chided, “Or worse, the cockatrice. I’d really appreciate it if you could find its cave and quarantine the area, just to be safe. With a little luck, we might even find out what happened to Luna’s battlemages in the process!”
“Well, if that’s the case, we should probably prioritize a thorough search of all the caves we’ve ID’d aerially,” suggested Capt Marigold.
“Or,” Dr. Daycaller cut in, “We could try lifting a latent impression from the track, and following its selenitic matter signature directly.”
Twilight half-raised a front hoof. “Um, Doctor, Ursas are from the deep firmament, not the moon. Why would they contain selenitic matter?”
"Excuse me, I-"
“Perhaps this one incorporated some through its long proximity to the Lunars and Lunar artifacts?” the diviner suggested, as Fluttershy took wing and glided some distance away, staring intently at a patch of vegetation. “That would also help identify the Ursa the Lunars summoned over possible confounders- this being the Everfree, after all, the odds of there being other celestial creatures inside of it are not zero!”
“Right…” Twilight nodded, then trailed off. “The problem is, they have extremely little physical mass to even become contaminated. It’d be like trying to corrode gravity, or burn lightning.” She paused, and reached telekinetically into her saddlebags- surprisingly, the paper she’d expected to find inside was gone. “Hey, does anypony know what happened to my map of Everfree? I know I was looking at it when we were at the garrison ruins off the Day Court, and then I thought I put it back in my bag, but…”
"Girls, I'm looking at-"
Daycaller scratched under his neatly-trimmed orange beard, eyes narrowing in concentration. “But what about-”
“I… uhhh… hate to interrupt the mages’ symposium here, but… unless the damn thing can fly, can’t we just follow the footprints?” Suggested Capt Marigold.
“Well, it’s still the Everfree, so even that won’t be as simple as Point A to Point B-” Twilight warned.
“Twilight?” The mage turned when she heard Fluttershy mutter in that strange quiet shout of hers, “I think I found the next track over there. If I had… maybe a day or so, and some supplies, I could probably find where they lead. And the Ursa’s such an… alien creature that asking the local wildlife where the giant patch of hungry stars lives could actually give us… some pretty good information?”
She nodded at the ranger and grinned, sheepishly. “Thank you, Fluttershy. Keep on that, and don’t be afraid to talk to Marigold if you need extra marepower. Oh, and… don’t forget your tracking gem. ” Twilight waved over at the captain, who also nodded. “I'm going to head back to the Golden Oaks and see if I have another copy of my map. I'll get one for you too, Fluttershy.” She stepped past Daycaller, waved, and grinned a particularly sadistic grin. “Oh, and, good luck with that school tour tomorrow…”
“… so Ah reckon we can get it cleared by the end of the day if’n Big Mac’s free,” Applejack explained to Twilight as they sat in the unicorn’s office in the Golden Oaks. Then she paused. “Hey, your brother’s one a’ them Guardsponies, right? You got any tips on how much they usually drink?”
Twilight chewed on her lower lip. “Quite a lot, actually. The Guard used to have a big problem with alcoholism, but getting that sorted out was one of the reasons Shiny got promoted Commander. They’re still pretty heavy drinkers, though, when they’re off duty and can cut loose a little. In fact, a review of the Ministry of Health’s survey data from 1092 through 1096 found that soldiers spend more days a year consuming alcohol than ponies in any other profession.”
“Well, horseapples. 'Cider-fest' ’s comin’ up awful soon, ‘n Ah don’t wanna get left high ‘n dry again. We almost got a handle on the cider supply last year, ‘n we were hopeful this year, ‘til you ‘n a whole darn company a' troops showed up.”
Twilight nodded in understanding. “Well, if it’s any trouble, I could always declare the festival off-limits to anypony who’s not a local… morale’ll take a hit, again, but I think keeping us from inconveniencing the town is more important.”
“Aww, now, Twi, Ah wouldn’t dream of it! Some of our best customers travel here from other towns. An’ besides, those servicemares are payin’ customers, aren’t they? If we pass on the ice cider this winter, Ah reckon we’ll have enough cider apples for everypony. And enough cider left over for a decent crop a’ applejack, too.”
Twilight shot the farmer a confused glance.
“Umm… so to speak.” She paused, seemingly satisfied, stood up, and headed for the door. Then, at Twilight’s continued silence, she explained, “You know, apple brandy? Granny always used to joke that Ah got mah name ‘cause that was what Ma ‘n Pa were drinkin’ the night they-” She cut off suddenly when she found herself face to face with Spike. “Uhhh… heya, Spike, what’s up?”
The dragon twisted his claws back and forth nervously. "We've, ahem, got a visitor."
Twilight swallowed hard, climbed out of her chair, and peered through the doorway into the library’s main room. Trixie was sitting at the central table.
“Can I… help you?” the scholar asked.
“Oh. Yes! Wellll…” Trixie leaned back on her stool and shifted her forehooves outward. “After my show -which, I would like to note, the Great and Powerful Trixie was more than willing to relocate to that awful forest on your behalf- I ran into your friend Dr. Verse. She was bashing her head against the simple problem of how the Lunar Rebels got a half-ton of blasting crystals from a church, to the Council chambers. After reviewing her notes, it was obvious- basic, even. So I figured I’d lend a hoof and explain how the Lunars used a series of distractions to walk their bomb right up to the castle. You can ask the doctor for the whole story. After that, she invited me to regale the workers with stories of my worldly travels, while I assisted in polishing, inspecting, and tagging artifacts. I’d say it was a waste of Trixie’s considerable talents, but the digging crew were an outstanding audience- and then that security mare of yours, Capt Marigold I think her name was, showed up and told me I didn’t have the proper paperwork. So… here I am!”
The scholar blinked, utterly bewildered. “So you’re asking for, like… a performance license or something? Because I really am just a historian with a few security staff; I don’t have anything to do with running the town. You’d have to go over to the town hall for anything like that.”
“You oversee a company of Guardsmares, with gunship at your command," Trixie paused, "all Trixie needs is permission to move around your camp without being… hassled. Signing me on with the Ponyville workers in the Castle Rock group would be perfect.”
Twilight raised one eyebrow and pivoted her ears forward.
“I talked it over with your dragon friend before he went and got you,” the showmare explained.
Twilight glanced over at Spike, as surreptitiously as she could manage. Very slightly, Spike nodded. Then he gave a polite little cough. “Dr. Sparkle and I actually need to clear up a few other little bits of bookkeeping… and also get your authorization forms. Can you give us just a few minutes?”
Trixie nodded, and he stepped back into the office. Twilight followed, and eased the door shut in her telekinesis.
Applejack was still seated in one of the guest chairs, her hat on the desk beside her, looking over a clipboard of figures and occasionally cursing to herself in particularly oblique folk sayings. She looked up when her friends reentered. “Ah heard.”
“And what do you think?” Twilight asked, careful to keep her voice low.
“Well, if’n you really want mah opinion, you’re better off not havin’ anythin’ more to do with that tramp.”
Twilight cocked her head and narrowed her eyes skeptically.
“Well, not that kinda’ tramp,” the farmer clarified, “but… still.”
Twilight just shrugged, growing ever more confused. “AJ, what exactly is your problem with Trixie?”
“Ah can’t rightly put mah hoof on it,” the farmer leaned back in her chair, paused, and then continued, “but she just gives me a bad vibe, Ah guess you could call it. Like she knows somethin’ the rest of us don’t.”
“Of course she knows something the rest of us don’t, Applejack. She’s a stage magician,” Twilight admonished gently. When the farmer’s expression remained unchanged, she continued, “You know what they say about guts and gut feelings.”
Applejack cocked her head.
“...they're full of crap?”
That at least got her to chuckle.
“Seriously, are you sure you’re not just still angry at her for pulling a fast one on you with that one rope trick?”
“I don’t know, but I just think the whole thing is kind of strange,” Spike cut in, “Dr. Twilight Sparkle, famous patron of the arts? Important enough that performers seek her out?”
“Well when you put it that way it does seem kind of odd,” the unicorn conceded, “but… the mare herself seems pretty harmless, doesn’t she? And she’s been a noticeable help in turning things around personnel-wise…”
“Okay, yes, but… the last time I stopped by Rarity’s shop, she said Trixie’d been nosing around in there, too!”
Twilight nodded again, this time in what she hoped was a noncommittal fashion. “And… did she buy anything?”
“Yeah, she dropped something like five hundred bits on enchantments for her cloak.”
The unicorn’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’re telling me that a pony went to Rarity’s boutique… with the express intention of… buying clothes?!”
“Well… yeah.” Spike suddenly seemed to become extremely interested in his own clawed hands. “But, you see, as soon as she came into town, I… went ahead and sent a request for a background check up to Canterlot. And there’s practically nothing under the name Trixie Lulamoon- as in, her records are empty. She attended Celestia’s School for Gifted Ponies -enrolled the same year you did, actually- and there’s one accusation that she tried to bribe higher-performing students to throw a test and increase the curve, but it doesn’t look like anything came of it? Then… that’s it. Not so much as a registration form for that wagon of hers.”
“Impressive,” Twilight herself had been accepted to the School two years earlier than normal, at the age of ten. She was twenty-six now, so Trixie had to be pushing thirty. “She was all over the stage yesterday…” She didn’t actually remember a Trixie Lulamoon ever being at the school, but then again Twilight didn’t remember most of her classmates- aside from Moondancer and a few other fellow loners, she was far too busy overseeing Spike’s upbringing and sitting for extra lessons with Princess Celestia to pay them any attention.
She turned to her assistant and once again summoned her best attempt at Twilight Velvet’s ‘serious voice’: “Well, it sounds to me like Trixie’s been a drifter for a good portion of her life, and probably because of something that wasn’t entirely her fault.” A lot of students at the School for Gifted Ponies simply cracked under the intense pressure; and more than a few others resorted to some fairly underhoofed tactics in order to secure their place in the all-important rankings. “If we can get her a stable paycheck, even a small one… is that really such a bad thing to do? She’s clearly a smart and driven mare, even if her talents are… less then academic in nature. Maybe she’ll even be helpful dealing with those Lunar Studies creeps in the papers.”
“Well, it’s your rodeo,” said Applejack, “Even A’hm technically just another hired hoof. But… don’t come ‘round sayin’ Ah didn’t warn ya.”
Spike shrugged, and quietly extracted the relevant forms from his small desk by the door. They appeared to already be mostly filled out, and Twilight shot him a curious look. “Whaaat?” he said, defensively, “I thought I’d come prepared, just in case.” Then his voice dropped to a barely audible hiss. “Although, I’m also gonna write to Professor Glimmerdust- she’s the head of the Academic Conduct Committee at the School now- and see if I can dig up any more information on that report.”
Twilight looked from him to Applejack and back again. “You both need to learn to stop being so paranoid. I got enough of that nonsense over in Innsbeak.” Then she slid open the study door and stepped outside with the forms held in her telekinesis. She slipped them onto the central table and instructed Trixie, “All right. Just sign here, here, and here, and we should have you back onsite by this time tomorrow!”
The other unicorn grinned, produced one of Twilight’s own quills from no visible source, and signed a complicated, loopy signature. “The Great and Powerful Trrrixie is forever in your debt!”
Suddenly feeling more than a little bit awkward, Twilight paused, then continued. “As for your payment… our budget’s running a little bit tight right now, but I can still get you into the civilian contractor pay system, which is-”
“Oh.” The showmare waved her hoof back and forth. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is fine with whatever you pay her. Most of my bits come from tips after performances, anyway.” Her expression was relaxed- laid-back, even- but Twilight was momentarily taken off-guard by her eyes, almost vibrating in their sockets.
“Ah. Right. I… guess that makes sense?” Twilight stuck out her hoof and tapped it against Trixie’s. “To… opportunity, then?”
The showmare nodded. “To opportunity!”
Ponyville always confused Rain Chaser, whenever she had occasion to visit it. Then again, so did most other places both within and beyond the Naval Yard. It was incredibly clean and intimidatingly large- more a decently-sized town than a village by her standards. Single peasant families -or ‘working class’, as they were called now- lived in houses that could’ve easily accommodated a minor noblemare and all her servants in Chaser’s day. There was glass everywhere: in ordinary windows and nearly entire walls of the stuff on storefronts, including the mysteriously-named ‘convenience store’ that stood just off the main market square. Every single building, it seemed, featured indoor plumbing, and some were even ‘air conditioned’; the former was a luxury of the very rich in Chaser’s day, and the latter a marvel completely unheard-of. And at virtually every opportunity, there was writing- on street signs, on the base of the monument in the center of the town square, outside of stores, and even on the strange little cardboard boxes containing the goods the stores sold.
She’d earned herself more than a few curious stares as she wandered the bustling streets, but that was to be expected- in the harsh afternoon sun, her pupils had probably shrunken to thin, vertical lines. On the whole, however, the ponies she spoke to had been friendly. Three months ago by her reckoning, or a millennium ago by everypony else’s, her unit had passed through a village much like this one, in much the same place on the outskirts of Everfree, and they had been far less welcome. The new town elder had claimed everypony was grateful to be liberated by the Lunars -after they’d beheaded the old town elder, of course- but parents had still held their children just a little bit closer whenever Chaser and her fellows marched past. Now, however, ponies smiled, and waved, and were more than happy to read off particularly dense lettering or offer her directions.
“Rainbow Dash?” explained a turquoise pegasus in what Chaser vaguely recognized as a weatherworker’s vest. She was seated at a table in an outdoor cafe, with a glass of that strange, bubbly not-beer in front of her- ‘soda’, Chaser thought it was called. “Yeah, she should still be around, but I haven’t seen her since this morning. If she’s working, just look for the contrail up above. Really, though, your best bet is to get airborne yourself, and check the clouds for a little rainbow patch, sleeping it off. She was supposed to cover the commercial district today, so you’d probably be best starting over Carousel Boutique- that’s the little round building next to the town hall.”
“Aye, thank you.” Chaser had gotten fairly familiar with the establishment in question, but she could hardly blame the weathermare for wanting to be helpful. Instead she nodded, stretched out her wings, and took off; flapping frantically to gain altitude and then settling into a long, circling glide that gave her a good view of the town below. A few other pegasi flew above or below her, hauling this or repairing that, and one even waved, but none were Rainbow Dash. After a minute of searching, Chaser spotted a glimpse of cyan on one of the smaller low-lying clouds, and cautiously descended.
Drawing closer, she saw it was indeed the weather captain, sprawled out on her back with her eyes closed. That seemed an odd thing for a weathermare to be doing at this hour, although Chaser supposed it was possible the craft had changed since her day and cloud-minders were expected to spend a significant portion of their working hours in quiet meditation. There was an odd metal case sitting on the cloud beside her- a shinier version of what soldiers at the Yard used to transport expensive munitions- and some sort of brightly-colored pamphlet on top. The Lunar pegasus’s enhanced vision could just about make out the words Sapphire: Equestrian Commando in big yellow text, and an image of a dark blue pegasus mare in armor bucking the head off a waterlogged zombie draped in the remnants of a suit. Rain Chaser didn't exactly know what the word ‘Commando’ actually meant, but the illustration certainly made being one look like great fun.
She glided over and touched down on the cloud, utterly silent by force of habit if nothing else. Rainbow Dash’s ears twitched slightly, but she otherwise didn’t respond, so Chaser whickered quietly. When that had no effect, she asked “Erhm…Cpt. Rainbow Dash?”
“I'm not- ‘sssleep- gyaaah!” The other pegasus jolted awake, one hoof reaching for something on the leather bandoleer she’d wrapped over her weather team vest, but then she relaxed. “Oh, uhh, hey, it’s you! Rainy-something, right?” She flipped around so that she was sitting on her haunches. “I was just… uhh… sitting down for a little lunch break.”
That struck Rain Chaser as odd given that it was currently almost three in the afternoon. She supposed ponies’ habits might’ve simply changed over the last thousand years, although the staff at Fillydelphia Harbor always dined closer to noon. Perhaps they were trying to accommodate their Lunar guests by adjusting to older traditions? Even though they still ate during daylight hours like Loyalists… Still, that had to be the explanation; definitely not the weather captain of Ponyville demonstrating a degree of laziness that would’ve seen her set in the stocks in Chaser’s day.
“… Aye,” was all the Lunar soldier said aloud.
“So, uhh… care to join me?” Rainbow motioned to the metal case.
“Aye?” Chaser settled down into the cloudstuff, which felt soft and unbelievably clean against her barrel. She shifted awkwardly in place- she’d delighted in the newfound opportunity to bathe regularly at the Yard, but still felt as though she was dirtying the cloud simply by being in contact with it.
“Hey. Whatsa’ matter?” Rainbow’s ears dropped down in concern.
“These clouds… they are… perfect. Uniform. Like every cloud in the sky is the same cloud,” she finally answered.
“Well, yeah. This batch got shipped in from Cloudsdale as a single unit. We just broke it up and distributed it. It’d be weird if it wasn’t all the same texture, that’d mean we got a bad batch from the factory.”
Rain Chaser just nodded, somewhat confused by the details of Rainbow’s explanation but reassured by her casual tone. If she wasn’t supposed to be sitting on the cloud, the weathermare would have just told her. She settled deeper into the puffy material.
“Hey, you want something to eat?” Rainbow asked, and flipped open the metal case. In a hollow cut into the foam packing sat a big, shiny bottle with a flip-up cap -a thermos, Chaser thought it was called- and what appeared to be sandwiches wrapped in clear, clingy film. The weathermare grabbed both packages in a wing, tossed one at Chaser’s hooves, and set about unwrapping the other for herself. It looked to be made of the same soft, white bread that seemed to be everywhere in this era. Tentatively, Chaser stretched out her own wing and began pulling away the clingy film.
“Don’t worry, if I get hungry later on I’ll grab something from home,” Dash explained, leaving Rain Chaser mildly confused again. Just one sandwich looked sizable enough to feed an ordinary pony for an entire day. Then again, Rainbow Dash was significantly bigger than what Chaser considered ordinary- all of the inhabitants of ‘modern’ Equestria were. Nonetheless, the Lunar soldier nodded.
Dash reached into her bandoleer, produced a wickedly-sharp dagger -the Moon only knew why she’d brought it along on weather detail- and neatly sliced her sandwich in half. Tentatively, Chaser scooped her own up in one wing and took a bite.
Her jaw practically vibrated from the surge of overpowering sweetness. She managed to swallow a single bite of thick, gooey paste, and was attempting another when her throat rebelled; she reeled back and spat a glob of half-chewed bread and sticky filling over the edge of the cloud, onto somepony’s thatched roof. Oh well. It wasn’t as though anypony would be walking around up there regardless.
“What… what was that?” she panted.
The other pegasus peered at her, confused. “Honey and marshmallow,” she explained. “Yours’s got chocolate syrup, too. Being able to make my own lunches is awesome.” Then her ears turned down in concern. “Hey, are you okay? I didn’t mean to… uhh, like, poison you or anything… you guys eat meat, right? Oh, crap, can you not eat chocolate?”
“I do not know who told you that,” Chaser explained, as soon as she could get her throat working again. “I have eaten raw pigeon eggs, during the Great Northern Famine of the year 93, but this was… horrible.” The honey had still tasted like honey, but that mysterious white paste tasted like pure sugar. Worse than pure sugar, even. Back at the Yard their meals were simple mess hall fare prepared under strict instructions from the physicians, so her experience with modern food was limited.
“Wait, what’s this about pigeon eggs?”
At Rainbow Dash’s bewildered expression, Chaser continued. “I actually found three eggs, all together in a nest. One, I cracked open and ate where I stood. I planned to keep the other two, but an older filly saw me carrying them and took them…” the bat-winged pegasus grinned, proudly, “but she had to break my wing to do it.”
Chaser had been expecting Rainbow to be impressed, but the older mare just looked appalled. “Well… uh… I’ve also got some carrots in here. And… there’s a fruit stand across the street, I can fly down and get you something really quick…”
“Sure thing.” Rainbow dug through her pack and produced another wrapped package. Chaser grabbed it in one hoof, pulled off the clingy wrapping, extracted a solitary carrot, and cautiously took a bite. The taste was certainly sweeter than any vegetable she remembered from the First Century, but not unpleasant.
“Perfect carrots, perfect clouds… I suppose the weathermares do not even need to hoof-pack them anymore!” Chaser mused. “Blessed moonlight, ‘tis no wonder you’ve so much time to sleep. Three ponies can put up the weather for a town this size in an hour!”
Rainbow Dash grinned a little too wide. “Uhh… yeah! Totally! Gotta… gotta love those modern conveniences?”
“Aye, thou art no fat, lazy dullard at all!” Chaser laughed, then fell silent when Dash’s expression suddenly turned venomous. “Which is… something the other ponies in town may have told me,” she finished, awkwardly.
“Hey! I might be lazy… and a dullard, whatever that is, but I’m not fat!” Rainbow shouted, and then smacked a hoof against her own chest. “This is all muscle right here!”
Chaser laughed again, and this time the weathermare laughed right along with her. Then she peered more closely at the odd little booklet Rainbow Dash had brought along with her. In addition to the title, it was annotated with a date, price, and “The PULSE-POUNDING, GUT-WRENCHING CONCLUSION to the RAMPAGE OF THE CHICOLTGO MOB!”
“What… is that?” she asked Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, this?” Rainbow picked it up in one wing and flipped it open. “It’s a comic book. It’s got a story like a regular book, except instead of just telling you what’s going on, it’s all illustrations that actually show you. The little bubbles with the text in them tell you what each character is saying, see?”
“Ah! Like a panel-book! We were issued such things to learn from in the Night Guard.”
“Huh. Yeah, you’re right, I can see the resemblance,” the weathermare muttered. “Shit, now those SLES freaks are going to start claiming Princess Luna predicted comic books.”
Chaser peered intently at the open page. It depicted several images of the armored blue pegasus mare from the cover, engaged in various forms of physical struggle against a horrific amalgamation of rubbery heads, hooves, and contorted equine bodies- or, rather, the same forms of struggle, as the mass appeared in an identical configuration in multiple panels and only the armored mare’s pose changed. What little dialogue there was seemed mostly to consist of profanities. She looked up at Rainbow Dash.
“Hmm? Oh. It’s a fight scene with a bunch of henchponies,” Rainbow Dash explained.
After perhaps thirty seconds of peering at the page from different angles, Chaser was able to tease out the forms of individual ponies, warped though they may have been. The reason why they were replicated in the same pose across multiple panels remained a mystery, however- surely nopony would allow something so downright sloppy to be printed for wide publication, in the age of mass-produced clouds and white bread, no less! “That one pony looks more like… some sort of bean…” she muttered, feeling more bewildered even than the time she’d tried to master the Equestrian rail system and ended up at an airship fuel refinery in Gallopston. She’d initially mistaken it for some sort of enormous metal castle; it had turned out to be nothing of the kind.
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Yeah, the art in this issue isn’t really that great. I don’t get what kind of style this is even supposed to be- ‘high energy’ or ‘super-toon’, it’s called, but I think it makes everypony look like frozen, deformed freaks. The story’s pretty good, though, and the art in the rest of ‘em is badass. Spike’s also into comics, but don’t tell him you like these ones- he’ll whine at you all day about ‘plot consistency’ and ‘artistic integrity’ and ‘the difference between being mature and edgy’ and a bunch of other snobby crap like that.”
“Can I… borrow it?” Chaser asked. “The officers at the Yard only give us foals' books to practice our reading, and only if they think they fit with ‘Lunar values’.”
“Hey now, don’t knock kids’ books,” Rainbow Dash waved a wing. “That one about Queen Chrysalis and the sneeches and the machine that gave them all stars was how my mom and dad taught me to stay away from tribalists. But I get your point.” She folded the comic closed again. “This thing isn’t exactly… overburdened with words, but you can have it if you want. There’s a shop in town on Canter Street where you can get more, too. They run about four bits- two, if you wait a month. Point is, they’re cheap. You can probably find one that’s challenging, but isn’t overwhelming, pretty easily.”
Rain Chaser grabbed the booklet in her wing and slipped it into her armor’s saddlebags. “… thank you.”
“Sure, don’t worry about it.”
For a few minutes, both pegasi simply sat where they were, watching the townsponies busy about down below, Rainbow Dash quietly munching on her monstrosity of a sandwich.
Then, finally, Rain Chaser swallowed hard and said, “Actually, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about…” She’d spoken to Cpt. Vortex first, and Cpt. Vortex had notified Steel Shank, who had in turn spoken with Forward March, who had advised that the proper pony to contact was undoubtedly Twilight Sparkle. But Twilight Sparkle still scared the ever-loving moonlight out of Rain Chaser -she got the impression Twilight still scared Vortex, too, although the Shadowbolt would never willingly admit it- and Rainbow Dash presented a much more accommodating option.
“Shoot.”
Chaser looked around, spotted no other ponies lurking nearby, and then continued. “That… conjurer Dr. Sparkle has brought in…”
“The what now? One of the mages?”
“The blue unicorn mare, who performs on stage.”
“Oh. Right. Trixie. The magician.”
“She looks… familiar. I think I have seen her before. At the Station. While Dr. Sparkle was petrified.”
“Oh, wow, shit.” Rainbow idly scraped a line through the cloud with her hoof. “Are you sure?”
“I… do not know. I saw the mare at the Station only once, from behind, and briefly. I do not even know for certain it was a mare. Her tail looked like the conjurer’s, but… I do not know. That is why I came to thee.”
“Huh.” Rainbow abandoned her sandwich and tapped her hoof against her jaw a few times, muzzle scrunched up in concentration. “Do you think you might be able to make a more positive ID if you got a closer look at her?”
“Maybe. Or if I saw her doing the things that mare at the Station was doing. But I have barely seen her at all. I was at the Yard when she first performed, and was asleep the second time…”
“Well, she’s got another show at the edge of town, near the Station, tomorrow night…” Rainbow pointed down at one of the signs littering the street below. Chaser hadn’t bothered to parse out the text. “I was gonna go. How ‘bout you join me? In fact… Okay. Yeah. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll be in the audience, and if you can push a cloud over there…”
“… which is why there’s a lot more to it than just buckin' trees, ya know,” Granny Smith concluded. She sat in her favorite chair at the farmhouse’s kitchen table, accompanied by Applejack, Smokey Mirror, and Capt Marigold. A bottle of the family’s good brandy sat between them, already half-empty; a dinner of vegetable stew bubbled merrily on the stove; Apple Bloom and her friends were playing just outside the kitchen window; and Big Mac and Sergeant Leafspring had headed out to the east orchard half an hour ago.
“Aye,” Smokey took another sip of his drink. “I’d never expected farming to be so… complicated.”
“Oh, yeah.” Applejack grinned. “You gotta coax the trees to siphon up more nutrients from their roots, and then divert that to the flowers, the buds, the fruit… too little a’ one ‘n you’ll kill the tree, too little a’ the other ‘n ya just get a buncha’ new growth that’s gonna die off next season.”
“Mmmhmm, ‘n it takes a mighty careful touch to get them… malic acids, ‘n tannins, ‘n sugars ‘n all just right…” Granny Smith added. Across the table from her, Capt Marigold rolled her eyes, but Smokey leaned forward, looking genuinely interested.
“Me, ah prefer mah cider apples sharp,” Applejack continued, “But, well, you can’t let the tannin levels get too high with those, or they’ll turn bittersharp, and those taste like ass.”
This time, Marigold at least managed to chuckle.
“Now, if’n we just could talk that Trixie mare into stickin’ around…” Granny mused, staring off out the window at the setting sun. “She draws in them crowds like nopony’s darn business, ‘n with so many folks already passin’ though for the festival, we could prob’bly make more profit this year than a fish market in Abyssinia.”
Smokey Mirror cocked his head to one side. “Verily?”
Granny Smith rapped him once on the shoulder with a forehoof. “Now, you watch yer language! This here's Equestria, we speak Ponish ‘round these parts!” she chided, but she was grinning all the while.
“He’s asking if you’re serious,” Applejack explained, and then turned to the Lunar soldier. “She is, by the way. In ‘bout three weeks, we’ll have ponies from all over the Governorate comin’ round here… prob’ly even beyond. One family comes all the way down from Foaledo every year.”
Capt Marigold rolled her eyes again, “Great. More security risks.”
“Hey, that there’s a big part’a the town’s econ-oh-mee yer knockin’,” Granny chastised. “We don’t just get cider outta them stills, we get vinegar too, ‘n we sell the pomace to some fellers up in Canterlot.”
Smokey Mirror cocked his head, and lifted the bottle in the center of the table with his telekinesis. “No brandy?”
“Nuh-uh, we ain’t that fancy. You can’t even legally call cavaldos ‘cavaldos’ unless it’s made in Prance,” Granny explained.
“Believe you me, we tried,” added her granddaughter, "closest we get is ice cider and applejack."
“Hold up here, what’s ‘pomace’?” Marigold asked, raising a hoof.
“Pressed-out solid apple,” Granny explained. “In fact, Ah think they take it up to Canterlot ‘n turn it into field rations or somethin’…”
“Oh yeah, that stuff!” The captain nodded. “We get that in Guard K-rations sometimes. It’s like chewing on tarmac, but it’ll get you through the day all right.”
Applejack nodded in sympathy, and took another swig of her drink. “We’ll be having Pinkie ‘n the Cakes over to bake for us, though. That should be more to your likin’.”
“Hmm. ‘Tis good to hear,” Smokey stared off into the middle distance. “Although… hath any of you seen Fluttershy lately? I know she is not fond of the crowds that show-pony brings out, but it has been several days and I’ve not once seen her.”
“Ah think Twilight’s got her trackin’ down somethin’ big in the forest. She’s out there just ‘bout all day ‘n night with her birds ‘n things. Whatever it is, ah hope she finds it soon,” answered Applejack.
“Yep, yep yep.” Granny nodded, and grinned. “I dunno, she told me she's feeling... not as skittish the year. Maybe she might try’n stand in line fer the festival. Reck’n starin’ down an angry cockatrice, and helpin’ kill some ancient moon monster, changes yer outlook some, dunnit?” She turned and gave Smokey a curious look. “Uhhh, Ah dun’ mean no offense.”
The Lunar soldier just shook his head. “None taken.”
Reflexively, Marigold stole a look at the enchanted compass she’d placed on the table beside her. The needle corresponding to Fluttershy’s tracking gem swept occasionally back and forth, but the S-O-S pattern everypony was dreading didn’t appear.
A comfortable silence settled over the table, broken only by the clink of glass on glass as Marigold poured herself another drink, and the sounds of raised voices outside. Applejack turned in her seat to look out the window. Apple Bloom and her friends dashed back and forth across the lawn, swinging at each other with cardboard swords.
“I got you, you’re dead!” Apple Bloom called out.
“I’m not dead ‘cause I got you first,” Scootaloo replied.
“No you didn’t because you have a sword and I have a crossbow!” the earth pony filly replied.
“Nuh-uh you don’t,” Sweetie Belle interjected.
“Well what if it’s an invisible crossbow?” demanded Apple Bloom.
“Well then I’m a battlemage!” Scootaloo waved her short, thin wings ineffectually. “Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!”
“Nuh-uh, in school they said the Council only let unicorns be the battlemages,” Sweetie Belle protested.
Scootaloo swept one wing out in a negatory gesture. “Then I don’t wanna be the Council anymore, Apple Bloom can be the Council! I wanna be the Lunar Rebels!”
“But I wanna be the Cabal ponies Dr. Twilight’s always tellin’ us about…” muttered Apple Bloom.
“Fine.” Sweetie Belle squeaked out with surprising force, “Then I’m the evil Council, and I charge you with insbod… insub… insurbordinization! Off with your head!”
All three fell on each other in a pile of flailing hooves and torn-up grass.
Smokey Mirror grinned, slightly, and to Applejack’s surprise Capt Marigold grinned right back.
“Hast thou- errr, have you any children of your own?” the Lunar asked.
“Two, actually!” Marigold’s grin grew wider. She fumbled with the pouches on her armor, withdrew a battered, scuffed resin clamshell case with a broken clasp, and eased it open. Inside, atop a Royal Guard identification badge and a BarnBitz rewards card that had never been filled out, sat a small color photograph. Marigold perched atop a stone wall in what looked like a public park, out of uniform, with her foreleg wrapped around a powder-blue earth pony stallion. Below them stood a colt and a filly, both Marigold’s distinctive shade of yellow. “Zenith Yellow is seven, and Yellowjacket, she’s ten.” She turned back to Smokey. “How’d you know? More moon magic?”
“Nay, nay, ‘tis… the look on your face, I suppose.”
Applejack nodded, and grinned a little wider, and gave the stallion a friendly rap on the shoulder. “Oh, you too, huh?”
Suddenly, Smokey seemed to be looking a long ways away. “… Aye.”
The farmer, surprised by his sudden silence, followed his gaze back out the kitchen window- and to the patch of trees that held the remains of her property’s own Lunar Cairn. “Wha-… oh. Aww, shucks, Ah’m sorry, Ah didn’t mean ta’-”
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” the stallion smiled- faintly, but he smiled. “From what I see now, and what I have been told about… history, now, I suppose, Sumac, Bright Star, and Ash Writer lived their lives in an Equestria not too different from the one I fought for. A father could not ask for much more than that.”
The farmer nodded, silently, suddenly feeling rather circumspect.
“Is that not how it has always been?” the soldier continued. “Parents struggle and sacrifice that their foals may live a better life than theirs?”
“Or grandfoals,” Applejack added, catching sight of Granny Smith’s rather pensive expression. That got her to nod, and smile proudly at least.
“I should count myself lucky. I may have the chance to struggle and sacrifice twice over!” The Lunar unicorn swallowed the last of his drink, and slammed the glass down in his telekinesis. “Now, I should best be on my way. I promised I would meet with thine air crew at the old Cairn by seventeen-thirty.”
He stood up and trotted to the kitchen door. Then he stopped and gave a little bow. "I thank you for your hospitality. May the Moon light thy hoofsteps."
“Hey, uhh, you too, okay?” Applejack called out.
He nodded, turned, and trotted out of sight.
Capt Marigold put down her own drink. “So, uhh, about that aircrew…”
Applejack leaned forward across the table. “Yeah?”
“Tech Sergeant Leafspring isn’t making any… trouble for your family when she’s hanging around the farm or anything, right?” Suddenly, Marigold’s tone seemed much more serious.
“Trouble?” Applejack threw back her head and laughed. “Naw, she’s been mighty helpful, in fact!”
“Is there somethin’ comin’ down I oughta’ be worried ‘bout?” Granny Smith’s eyes narrowed. “Or’ve them rules just gotten that much tighter since Ah was in the service, ‘n lendin’ a hoof to the locals ain’t proper no more?”
“I… just wanted to make sure,” Marigold said in what Applejack recognized as her ‘official’ voice. “And, if any of our troops ever do cause any kind of trouble, I want everypony in town to know they can talk to me about it.”
“Yeah. The, uhhh, the Mayor made an announcement ‘bout that, back when y’all first rolled into town.” She joined her grandmother in staring at Marigold suspiciously. “What’s all this really about?”
Marigold paused for a moment, and poured herself another drink, then seemingly abandoned it on the kitchen table without sampling any. “Well, TSgt Leafspring’s a good soldier, and an excellent mechanic. I have no complaints as to her performance or conduct. But if she’s considering, well, settling down, I’d rather start getting all the paperwork for a replacement in sooner rather than later. I mean, that’s not a sure thing, I married a civilian and I’m still in the Guard, but, well… it’s a lot more likely she’ll take the opportunity to muster out if she and Mister Macintosh are… uhh… well…”
Applejack stared at Granny Smith. Granny Smith stared back. Then, all at once, both farmers burst into howling, guffawing laughter.
“Aww, ‘zat what’cher worried about?” Applejack managed to ask, in between slamming the kitchen table with her hooves so hard the brandy bottle rattled. “Well, Ah don’t think it’s anythin’… you know, serious like that… Ah mean, Ah don’t suppose Ah’d mind much if’n it did turn serious, Leafspring’s a damn good mechanic ‘n she really has been mighty helpful ‘round these parts, but Ah ain’t gonna… Ah dunno, try playin’ matchmaker or somethin’ funny like that.”
Looking rather like a cornered animal, Marigold drew her front hooves back up onto her chair. “I… just wanted to get a bearing on the situation,” she said in a bad attempt at a clipped, businesslike tone, “Is that really such an unusual request?”
“Don’t worry, Ah get’cha…” Granny Smith reached over and gave her another tap on the shoulder. “You were wonderin’ how she was doin’, is all. Gotta look out fer yer mares on and off the field, ain’t that right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Marigold relaxed a little, then picked up her shot glass and downed it all at once. She bowed her head and ran a hoof through her somewhat disheveled, brilliantly orange mane. “Gaia’s green earth, this ‘officer’ thing is hard.” At Granny’s curious expression, she continued. “I joined as an enlisted mare right out of high school, you know? I just wanted to serve Equestria however I could. I figured I might make first sergeant someday, years and years down the line, and that'd be it, but then some rutter decided I’d make a good candidate for OCS. I’d been a second lieutenant for all of four months, and a first lieutenant for two, until I made the grave mistake of showing ‘exemplary judgment’ by not massacring a bunch of pretty much defenseless, shell-shocked moon ponies,” she swung out a hoof to the heavens demonstratively, nearly catching Applejack in the muzzle with her armored sabaton. “And now I’m a Captain and I’ve got Dr. Twilight Sparkle and half of Canterlot riding on my back.” She slid down in her chair again and grinned, “But… even though I’m in charge of a whole rutted-up special company now, Leafspring included, I guess I’m always gonna think of first platoon as my platoon, even if I was only in charge of it for six months.”
Quite unexpectedly, Granny grabbed the younger mare’s chin and twisted her head around so that she was looking the farmer in the eye. “You have mah sympathies, but you listen here. Ah never thought Ah was gonna’ make it in the Landsknechts neither, and look at me now. Yer. Gonna. Do. Fine.”
Trixie Lulamoon slipped into step alongside the military crew as they made their way through the grasslands surrounding Sweet Apple Acres, effectively invisible by sole virtue of acting like she belonged there. Two of the Royal Guards -Subtle Spark and Parhelion, if Trixie could read their nametags correctly in the rising moonlight- were hauling a wagon filled with mirrors, lenses, crystals, and mysterious brass fittings. A green unicorn mare with a bandanna wrapped around her neck, and a wiry little off-white pegasus, both wearing Guard Air Corps coveralls, trotted along on each side. One of those horrible Lunar ponies, a bent-horned unicorn stallion who looked to be mostly made of scars and sinew, led the procession from the front. Trixie kept to the rear as the grunts continued chattering amiably to each other.
“… but the real reason why they called it off is that Sapphire Shores is dead,” Subtle Spark was explaining to a shocked-looking Pvt Parhelion.
“Dead?” demanded the male airpony -‘Lieutenant Palisade’, according to his uniform.
“Yeah. Drug overdose,” Spark continued. “I read all about it in The Midnight Sun.”
“And The Sun is the first -no, wait, I guess the only- paper to know about this?” Asked the unicorn mare in the grease-stained bandanna, incredulously. Trixie could sympathize. The last issue she’d seen of Equestria’s self-proclaimed ‘number one alternative newspaper’ had featured a headline about the latest generation of feather flu vaccines causing a mare to become pregnant with a pony-octopus hybrid.
“Well, everypony knows about it, they just aren’t telling us!”
Palisade rolled his eyes. “And why would ‘everypony’ neglect to tell us about this obviously plane-shattering development?”
“Well, to keep up our morale, obviously!”
Up at the front of the party, the creepy Lunar stallion turned around and cocked his head. “Wait. Who is this… Sapphire Shores?”
The entire party halted for a moment. Subtle Spark pulled off his helmet, held it under his forehoof, closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment. Nopony spoke.
After a few seconds they started walking again. Noticing the lull in conversation, Trixie took the opportunity to ask, "Hey... you ever wonder why we're here?" Usually, ponies loved to complain about their jobs- soldiers being no exception- and that gave the showmare a chance to both build relationships and gather some additional information.
“Hauling out instruments. Again.” Pvt Parhelion griped. “No idea why. Or why we gotta do it at night.”
Subtle Spark nodded, and then replaced his helmet. “Dr. Daycaller said it’s to measure environmentalist propaganda- ponies who don’t want us messing around with the Everfree Forest, or some shit like that.” He waved back to the wagon he was hauling, and its complicated contents. “This thing listens in on their conversations, or something, I bet. Real slick intelligence shit.” He shot Trixie a sidelong glance. “You signed your NDA, right?”
Silently, Trixie nodded.
“Nuh-uh. I think it’s to spy on the deer,” Parhelion countered. “Ever since First Sergeant Chamomile spotted a couple of them talking to each other.”
“Bullshit. Deer are animals,” Palisade shot back.
“Not these ones,” Parhelion’s eyes grew a little bigger. “I bet they’re watching us right now, even. We’re on their turf, now… so you’d better watch your mouth.”
Through the shadowy trees up ahead, Trixie spotted a long, low structure and the tall support pillars of crystal spotlights- all powered down. Several crates, a small canvas tent, and piles of loose stone suggested that ponies had been digging here relatively recently, although nopony else was around. The whole thing was surrounded by a sturdy chain-link fence, topped by concertina wire that stretched from one end to the other in a rough dome obviously meant to deter fliers. It glittered faintly in the moonlight with what looked to be some sort of alarm spell- Trixie was very familiar with those, at least.
“Environmental propagation, Sparky” the unicorn airpony -Leaf something, Trixie guessed, her nametag was smeared with grease and hard to read in the dark- corrected her Guard buddy. “And shut up about the Sun-damned deer already, will you? You’re making my brain rot.” She paused, and then sidled over to Trixie. “So, this Cairn was breached about a hundred and fifty years ago, and then sealed up again with boulders, but not too well, so it’s still been exposed to the elements. We’re coming out here to measure… moon magic, I dunno, something about additional data points, since we’ve already done the same thing at Cairns that were breached a long time ago and all the ones that’d only been opened when Nightmare Moon came back. I think the endgame is that they want to estimate when the older ones were breached, or something. Anyway, whatever we’re supposed to be picking up is stronger at night, or there’s less interference at night, or something like that, so here we are.” She produced a small silver key from the ring of several she’d pulled off her tool belt, and proceeded to pull open a sliding section of the fence. Then she flipped a switch on one of the spotlight pillars, bathing the entire area in yellow-white light as the wagon continued on through.
“What’s all this about ‘moon magic’?” Trixie asked.
“It’s called ‘radion’, but that’s about all I know about it.” Palisade shrugged as he pulled down one of the wagon’s hinged side panels. “The eggheads never talk about it. Twilight ‘n Verse ‘n Daycaller know about it, and I think Capt Marigold does, and the Town Councilponies, but… as far as the rest of us are concerned, it’s just a bunch of orders that make no sense.” He and Leaf-whatever began unloading pieces of equipment from the wagon, as the Guards unhitched themselves and spread out to what looked to be sentry positions alongside their Lunar companion. After watching the airponies struggle for a few seconds, Trixie quietly lit her horn and guided some of the bigger components down with her telekinesis. Once the wagon was unloaded, the airship jockeys set about connecting various elements and calling off readings. Their project didn’t make any more sense to Trixie fully assembled than it had made in pieces.
Only when it seemed to be complete did Pvt Parhelion turn around and ask the showmare “Hey, what’re you doing all the way out here?”
“Oh!” Trixie pulled a crumpled travel pamphlet from her replacement cloak, which she’d been saving for precisely this purpose. “Well, I was just on my way to the Apple family farm- this says the food’s something of a local attraction- when I saw you hauling that wagon and thought I’d lend a hoof.” She smiled her most disarming smile. “And yes, I have signed my NDA.”
“Good,” the grease monkey admonished, a big mirrored wheel floating absently in her telekinesis. Trixie finally got a proper look at her filthy nametag, and realized her full name was Sergeant Leafspring. “You never know who might come snooping around out here.”
“Yeah, I heard there was some kinda’ little miniature riot in Fillydelphia not too long ago,” Cpl Spark called back to the rest of the group. “About twenty ponies wanted ‘the Lunars out of their neighborhood,’” he waved his foreleg in a decent approximation of quotation marks, “but they got kicked out by the police.”
“Wait, aren’t the Lunars set up in an old naval yard?” asked Leafspring. “No offense meant, Smokey, but that already doesn’t seem like much of a ‘neighborhood’ to me.”
“No offense taken,” said the bent-horned freak -“Smokey”, apparently. “In fact, I think I remember those ponies, although the papers may be exaggerating their numbers. There are a few houses one can see from the Yard, and perhaps half-a-dozen ponies came to the gate and started yelling. The Watch pulled them away after one threw an empty bottle at a guard. I would hardly call it a disturbance, much less a riot.” He shrugged. “Those fools’d not have lasted a minute in Clouds’ Dale under the Council. They didn’t even think to bring any torches!”
As Leafspring fiddled with its components, the device by the wagon began producing a rapid, audible clicking sound. For reasons she couldn’t quite put her hoof on, Trixie found the noise strangely ominous, but she stood her ground.
“Is that background?” the mechanic asked.
“No, looks like seven PPM,” Palisade replied, seemingly unwilling or unable to explain what exactly that meant.
“Out here? Shit, do you thing we should get some kinda’ suits, or…” Leafspring trailed off.
“Nah, Dr. Sparkle was crawling around in there three months ago, and she’s still fine,” cut in Pvt Parhelion.
“For a certain definition of ‘fine’,” Trixie added, to the low laughter of the grunts.
There was another brief silence, and then Palisade spoke up once again. “Actually, I looked up some of the editorials those ‘get-rid-of-the-naval-yard’ folks were putting in the papers, and it’s kinda’ creepy. Pretty much the same time, this other group started writing in, the Society for Lunar Equestrian Studies I think it was called. They had a whole list of ponies around the country who were trying to ‘adopt’ Lunars and have ‘em… just live in ponies’ houses with them or something weird like that. They had these fancy studies talking about family psychology and everything.”
Subtle Spark shook his head and whistled. “Wow, that is creepy.”
“Insulting, I would say,” Smokey the Lunar cut in. “As if the Night Guard must be coddled and cared for like newborn foals, unready for the world.” He scuffed at the turned-up grass with an armored hoof.
“Uhh, please don’t take this the wrong way, but… couldn’t you not read just last month?” Parhelion asked.
“Aye.” Smokey grinned a particularly unsettling Lunar grin, “and now I can. Better than the ponies at your Midnight Sun paper, too, it would seem!”
“That’s all just talk, though,” Leafspring countered, still buried up to her grimy elbows in that mysterious machine’s innards. “We actually had a pony trying to fly around and photograph us a little while ago, back just before you got here.” With both of her hooves still occupied, she telekinetically unknotted her bandanna and used it to wipe a thin layer of perspiration from her face, succeeding only in smearing more grease through her coat. “Fortunately, that kinda’ took care of itself not too long after.”
Trixie cocked her head to the side, and asked in the most innocently curious voice she could manufacture, “What happened?”
Parhelion turned away from Trixie, and spat on the ground with surprising vehemence. “Stupid Guard-killin’ bitch tried to play chicken with a tree, and lost.”
The soldiers all laughed, and Trixie put in the effort to laugh along with them, even though she found the topic extremely uncomfortable. She hadn’t particularly liked Shutterfly. The photographer was overconfident, rude, and couldn’t hold to a plan if her life depended on it- which, in the end, it apparently had. But Trixie certainly hadn’t wished physical harm on the mare, much less the awful fate she’d ended up meeting. It didn’t help that the Everfree was supposed to be positively lousy with ghosts- what if Shutterfly ended up coming after Trixie?
“Did they ever figure out who’d hired her?” Subtle Spark mused, once the laughter had died down.
“They wouldn’t tell us if they did.” Palisade muttered.
“I bet it’s those Rich family rutters,” the Guard continued, “Trying to catch us doing something that’d get the lawsuit thrown out of court! Messing with the Cairn themselves, planting evidence… that kind of thing!”
“Aye.” Smokey the Lunar peered around at the fences with those weird, slitted yellow eyes. Trixie wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but they almost seemed to glow on their own in the moonlight. “And I don't know if these fences alone could stop them. I myself can think of a half-dozen ways to sneak through.”
Trixie nodded, and half in spite of herself added “More like two dozen.”
Not too far away, something rustled in the dark underbrush.
Immediately, the Guards snapped into combat-ready postures, crossbows drawn and forelegs slightly spread apart.
“Movement!” growled Parhelion.
“It may’ve just been a deer…” whispered Smokey.
Immediately, Subtle Spark cocked his weapon. “Aww, shit, they found us…”
Whatever was in the underbrush rustled again, closer this time.
“Listen, I’m sorry, okay, I waited at the rendezvous point just like you told me and I had no idea you were even in trouble, Iwasjustdoingwhatyousaid…” Trixie muttered frantically.
“Shit, it’s heading right for us,” said Palisade.
“Whoever’s out there, come out with all four hooves on the ground!” Corporal Spark shouted
There was another rustle of shifting foliage, and three small fillies staggered into the glow of the floodlights, clad in cardboard armor, wide-eyed and trembling. Trixie guessed them to each be about ten years old.
“Ah’m… we’re s-s-s-s-sorry, Missus Sergeant Leafspring…” stammered the red-maned earth pony at the head of the group, her forelegs trembling so hard Trixie expected them to give out any second.
To the grunts’ credit, all of them immediately shifted their weapons to port-at-arms. Indeed, the Lunar, of all ponies, stepped out of the fenced-in area and lifted the trembling filly’s chin. “Apple Bloom, you know you’re not to come here whilst ponies are working.”
“But we can help!” suggested the orange pegasus in the rear of the group. She already seemed to have mostly recovered from her fright.
“Right, can’t we?” asked her unicorn friend.
Quite unexpectedly, all three of them in unison broke out into a bizarre, ear-piercing chant: “Cutie Mark Crusader ARCHAEOLOGISTS!!”
“Listen. Apple Bloom.” Leafspring trotted forward and looked each of them in the eye in turn. “This equipment really isn’t something fillies like you should be playing around with.” Her tone was clipped and businesslike, probably moreso than she’d intended if the expression on her face afterward was anything to go by.
“Yeah, Dr. Sparkle’s gonna turn us all inside-out if we break it again…” Parhelion muttered.
“How ‘bout this?” Leafspring continued more gently, “You three run on back to the farmhouse, and then when I'm done out here, we can all stay up as late as you want and I’ll tell you about my last assignment all the way over in the Griffish Isles, okay?”
“Sarge, tomorrow’s a school day!” Subtle Spark also protested, but the mechanic ignored him.
“Awwww, but we were gonna play Lunars and Councilponies out here…” the unicorn filly pleaded, staring up at Leafspring with big watery eyes.
Apple Bloom stood up a little straighter. “If’n ya do, Ah’ll… Ah’ll tell mah brother on ya…”
“Aww- you- why-” the mechanic stammered, suddenly at a loss for words.
Trixie, sensing an opportunity, stepped forward and briefly raised a foreleg across the sergeant’s chest. “Can you… maybe… let me handle this?”
Leafspring nodded. Trixie stepped outside the fence and trotted over to the three fillies. “Hello there!” She cocked her head, feigning confusion. “Didn’t the Great and Powerful Trixie see you three in the audience of her show three days ago?” All of them nodded in unison, looking suitably impressed. “What’re your names?”
“I’m Sweetie Belle. That’s Apple Bloom, and that over there is Scootaloo,” the little white unicorn said. “Are you really the Great and Powerful Trixie?”
Trixie swept one hoof out to the side, making sure to give her cloak a dramatic toss in the process. “I am indeed! And the Great and Powerful Trixie has something much more spectacular in mind for the three of you than some dusty old rocks. How about a special little show just for you?” She began walking back towards the edge of the woods, and motioned for the fillies to follow.
After a moment spent looking at each other in confusion, ‘Scootaloo’ said “Ummm… sure!” and all three bounded along after her.
Trixie sat down in a reasonably dry-looking patch of grass, careful to keep her cloak out of contact with the dirt, and extended a hoof to reveal a deck of playing cards decorated with her cutie mark and signature color scheme. Getting them printed had cost her more than she was willing to admit, and frustratingly she hadn’t had a chance to use them up until now- her days of close-up acts were, for better or worse, looking to be mostly behind her.
“So, are any of you keeping up with the Shadow Spade serials?” Trixie asked, as she shuffled the deck.
Three heads nodded in unison, and then Sweetie Belle raised a hoof. “My sister has all the books, too!”
“Perfect.” Trixie fanned out the deck of cards with her telekinesis and extracted four jacks. “Here’s Hearts Boxcars… Diamonds Droog… Clubs Deuce… and, of course, Shadow Spade.” Then she condensed the rest of the cards back into a neat deck and held it in her hoof. “And here’s the bank they’re going to rob.” She put all four cards on top of it, remarking to herself on the irony of having, entirely on a whim, chosen this particular trick in this particular town.
“First, Shadow Spade goes inside…” she slipped the top card off, and slid it into the middle of the deck, “Then Clubs Deuce…” she repeated the gesture with the second card, “… and Hearts Boxcars. But Diamonds Droog stays up on the roof as a lookout, and it’s a good thing, too, because before too long the Watch shows up!” She conjured a tiny swarm of red and blue lights around the deck of cards. “So what do these fearless scofflaws do? Jump off the roof, of course!” She flipped the top four cards off the deck, one at a time, revealing each jack with a little flourish. “Shadow Spade, of course, goes last, and they all get away to rob another day.” She flicked her hoof, and the tiny magelights scattered and faded away.
“Ooh!”
“Wow!”
“Cool!
Apple Bloom stared for a moment, and then cocked her head. “So… how’d you do it?”
Trixie leaned forward. “Do you really wanna know?”
Once again, all three nodded in unison.
“It’ll spoil the mystery…” the showmare warned.
“Well how else are we gonna be cutie mark crusader card trick… ers… if we don’t know how to do the trick?” Scootaloo asked.
The showmare feigned exasperation, complete with a theatrical foreleg pressed against her brow. “Ohh… all right! So! Every magic trick, or at least all the good ones, is broken up into three basic parts.” She reshuffled the cards. “There’s the pledge, where you show something to the audience. This pairs well with a distraction- a conversation, doing something with your hooves, anything really. Like right now, when I shuffled the deck and asked you about the Midnight Crew. Then there’s the turn, where you do something with what you showed them- it can be a trick by itself, like making something disappear, or it can be as simple as putting cards back in the deck. But that’s not enough. You have to bring what you made disappear back, and maybe change it a little- that’s called the prestige, and it’s the most important part, like when I showed you the jacks on the top of the deck. As for how I got them there…” she looked each of the fillies eye-to-eye in turn, cards still floating beside her. “How many cards am I holding up right now. Four?”
All three of them nodded one more time.
“Is it really?” She motioned the fillies to step around to her left, and in her telekinesis guided the three other cards she’d pressed against the back of the jack of diamonds out into clear view.
“Wow!” Apple Bloom called out again.
“That’s amazing!” Sweetie Belle added.
“I never even saw you put those there!” said Scootaloo, eyes wide. Then she looked back to her friends. “Can we go back and check out the Cairn now?”
Trixie closed her eyes for just a moment longer than a blink, pulled in a deep breath, and settled down on her haunches. “Listen. You kids should really leave that kind of thing to the soldiers. There’s all sorts of horrible monsters out in the Everfree… monsters that even the Great and Powerful Trixie’d have trouble fighting.” She tucked her card deck back into her cloak.
“Worse than the cockatrice?” Apple Bloom asked.
“That was scary!” Sweetie Belle added.
“But Miss Fluttershy was so cool!” Scootaloo cut in.
“Yes, worse than a cockatrice,” Trixie confirmed, mentally noting to see what information she could gather on this ‘Fluttershy’ pony at a later date.
“Worse than the ankhaps?” the unicorn filly asked.
Trixie nodded. “Worse than the ankhaps.”
“Worse than the dreaded Ursa Major?” Scootaloo finished, her eyes going wide again.
“Worse than the deer?” Trixie heard Pvt Parhelion call back from the dig site.
“Shut up about the deer already, I never shoulda’ said anything!” Subtle Spark called back.
Newly mindful of the adults’ presence, Trixie dropped her voice to a whisper. “Way worse than the dreaded Ursa Major. There’s real live robbers out there, and they aren’t going to take it easy on you just because you’re kids.”
Applejack lurked on her belly in the tall grass not far from where Trixie and the fillies sat. She hadn’t come out here intending to lurk- she’d just come out to call in her sister and her friends before it got too dark. But when she’d heard that showmare’s voice intermingled with theirs, suspicion had taken over and so lurk she did. It was hard to put into words, but there was something just a tiny bit off about the way Trixie warned them about exploring the Everfree. And when she claimed that the Everfree Forest contained ‘real live robbers’ Applejack spent a good long time wondering about why the showmare had chosen to bring up that specific boogeymare in particular.
An hour before Carousel Boutique was scheduled to open, Rarity was already thoroughly entrenched in her workshop, examining patterns for next year’s spring lineup. She’d initially planned a whole series of designs to celebrate Luna’s inauguration as Exarch, combining modern formalwear with original Lunar iconography and color symbology- though mostly as accents, of course. She wasn’t so suicidally avant-garde as to actually consider introducing a dark spring line. She’d already drawn out a few detailed patterns for herself and her friends, as well as some rougher sketches for Luna herself. Not once for a moment did she doubt that the ceremony would occur, even though the papers were painting a rather bleak picture of Luna’s chances. It was just a matter of how many nattering detractors the Princess would have to step over, first.
Sweetie Belle was off at school by this point, and Rarity was savoring the peace and quiet. She couldn’t blame her parents for taking issue with the filly using their house as her personal proving grounds -they'd given her ‘The Talk’ a dozen times about how cutie marks come in their own time, but she just didn’t listen- but Rarity very much could blame them for foisting Sweetie Belle on her every time the filly became too burdensome. Nonetheless, when she heard somepony knocking on the front door, she immediately called out “Oh, do come in, it’s not locked” around the sewing pin in her mouth and trotted out into the showroom.
By the time Rarity arrived out front, Trixie Lulamoon was already inside the shop.
“Here for your cloak? I’ll have it out for you in just a minute,” the tailor said, digging around under the counter with her telekinesis. Quietly, she commended the showmare’s punctuality- Rarity had finished working on that cloak only late last night, but still had Lunar equipment she’d finished restoring the day the Night Guard had departed Ponyville for Fillydelphia Harbor. The contents of her ‘lost, found, and unclaimed’ bin dated back to before she’d purchased Carousel Boutique’s current building.
She extracted the cloak -neatly folded, of course- and set it on the counter. Trixie picked it up, unfolded it, peered at it from a few different angles, and then slipped it on. “Well it feels just like it used to,” the showmare said, “And it’s supposed to be self-cleaning?”
Rarity peered down into the dregs of her second coffee of the day. “I can test it, if you’d like.”
“Sure!”
Rarity casually lit her horn and hurled the contents of the mug at Trixie. The showmare yelped, recoiled, and twisted sideways, catching the liquid square on her side. Very briefly, the shimmering fabric of her cloak was stained a muddy brown- then, as Trixie’s expression turned from confusion to horror and back to confusion again, the coffee oozed back out of the fabric and remained on the surface as a vaguely oil-like film. The tailor levitated a paper towel from the roll underneath the counter and passed it to Trixie, who cleanly wiped away the offending liquid.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie must admit, that was impressive!” Then her eyes narrowed. “How long does it last?”
Rarity stood and propped herself against the counter with her front hooves. “I used a standard single-point mana transfer system; for enchantments of this scale, you shouldn't need a recharge for, oh, twelve, fifteen years?” She laughed. “So there’s no danger of accelerated aging or anything like that.” She had, in fact, briefly considered using a passive draw system, which would keep the cloak charged via trace amounts of magic drained from the wearer, but considered against it. Such items had a tendency to slowly mimic the magical properties of their users, and the world only needed one Trixie.
“And the final price is five-hundred bits, even.” reported the tailor.
Trixie nodded, pulled a well-worn Canterlot Credit Union checkbook from the pocket of her cloak -despite Rarity being quite certain it hadn’t been there when she’d passed the garment over- and tore out a somewhat rumpled check. She slid it onto the counter, marked in the amount with one of the quills Rarity kept in an empty coffee cup for precisely that purpose, and then signed her name with sufficient theatrical flourish to render it practically illegible. Then she paused, and pulled the check back towards her with her forehoof. “So… actually… if you could keep the cloak for a little while longer… do you think you could maybe go back and add that camouflage enchantment we’d talked about.”
Rarity blinked, briefly confused. “Well, yes, but… the cost hasn’t changed, it'd still be well over eight thousand bits! The whole cloak’ll have to be woven through with starspider silk and another dye layer added…”
“Right, you did tell me that…” the showmare nodded, grinning all the time. She ripped another check out of her checkbook, signed it, and then neatly printed ‘eight thousand, five hundred bits’ above her mess of a signature.
Rarity peered at the check, briefly uncomprehending. It looked legitimate- creased, with a bit of water damage along one side as though it had spent considerable time in a saddlebag, but otherwise utterly normal. The address, somewhat unexpectedly, read ‘5756 Birch st, Terrace 6, Canterlot’; an upscale residential district. And the amount written on it was very, very clear. “Well, of… course, darling, if you’ll give me just a moment…” She picked up the check and headed back to her workshop, where she’d recently installed a dedicated firelink to the Stagecoach National Bank in Manehattan- itself made affordable by the influx of out-of-town orders she’d been receiving since the Summer Sun Celebration. She’d been willing to accept the five hundred bit check at face value, and confirm it later this evening when she closed down the till, but eight thousand bits tossed away so casually demanded immediate scrutiny.
She slid the check into an envelope, thought for a moment, and then scribbled the message ‘I’d like to deposit this. If possible. -Rarity, 147832’ on the front. She’d been engaged in such a volume of business recently that the clerks whose shift coincided with her working hours had started to remember her by name. Then she pulled in a deep breath and tossed it into the firelink’s bright-blue flame. Unlike Spike’s peculiar variant, alchemical firelinks could be nearly any color, but national standards mandated a specific shade to help reduce confusion with mundane flames. It wouldn’t do to have ponies accidentally incinerating what they wanted to transport, or, possibly with even worse consequences, transporting documents they’d meant to dispose of.
Only when the paper was completely consumed, and the small wisp of smoke marking its passage had faded away, did the tailor step back out to her showroom. While she’d been gone, Trixie had already removed her cloak once again, folded it back up mostly the same way it had been before, and deposited it on the counter.
“There, that’ll take but a few minutes to go through.” I hope. Rarity paused for a moment, considering, then trotted around the counter and headed for the showroom’s small sitting area. “Would you care for some tea while we go over your paperwork?”
“Oh, don’t go to that kind of trouble on Trixie’s behalf,” the showmare shook her head. “I’ll wait outside.”
“Oh, darling, I insist. I was just about to have some myself, you see,” Rarity said, already floating over an enchanted stay-warm kettle and a pair of cups. That was, in fact, untrue, but the tailor prided herself on her hospitality- and also wanted a chance to learn more about exactly what Trixie had been up to. It seemed odd to her that an itinerant performer would come into such a large amount of money so quickly, but stranger things had certainly happened.
“Of course, adding such a complicated enchantment will require keeping your cloak at the shop for a few more days, and I know you’re probably a very busy mare and I certainly won’t be offended if your travel schedule has to change on short notice, so… is that Canterlot address on the check you gave me a good place to mail the finished piece?”
Trixie was a hard mare to read, but just for a moment Rarity thought her face had taken on a strange, far-away expression before she said, “No, no, Trixie will be working here now for the foreseeable future, as chief morale officer for the Ponyville Expedition and all that.”
Rarity decided the best option available to her was to politely nod, although she noticed the showmare hadn’t actually explained anything at all about her address. It was probably nothing. “I regret, I missed your show out at Everfree,” she said instead. “But Pinkie Pie told me the highlights. I do have to wonder… did you actually fight an Ursa Major in Hoofington?”
Trixie clasped a hoof to her chest in mock-outrage, then flopped down on the couch across from Rarity. “Oh, of course! Why ever would you think anything else? I was heading into town for a show when the horrible thing fell out of the sky, so of course I stepped in to vanquish it. The Navy showed up not long after and I was content to let them take all the credit- apparently, the idiot who’d summoned that thing was a friend of the Governor’s… so nopony really wanted to talk about what actually happened. But it’s all true.”
There was a long, awkward pause. Rarity drained her teacup and, seeing that Trixie still hadn't touched her own, quietly poured another. “So… umm… the permit?” she finally asked.
The showmare peered at her, confused.
“For the cloak. It’s technically a Class Two enchantment, so…” as discreetly as she could manage, Rarity waved a hoof at the certifications over her counter.
“Oh, right,” Trixie laughed. With another little stage flourish -Rarity supposed the showmare had been performing for so long the gesture had basically become a reflex by now- she produced a sheaf of official-looking papers.
Rarity carefully picked up the bundle in her telekinesis, and unfolded it. Despite the coffee stain in one corner, and the presence of at least three different clerks’ mouthwriting, it seemed superficially in good order- which was odd, given the careworn condition of Trixie’s cloak and checkbook, and the fact that her fireworks were probably Class Three munitions or above. If she was getting them from a reputable supplier, producing her licenses should have been second nature. The enchantment certifications were listed as having been issued on behalf of the Trailhead Conservation and Archery Club, which was a reputable-enough scouting and druidic organization, but Rarity was almost certain she could see a second layer of writing underneath Trixie’s own name in the ‘HOLDER’ field- something with a ‘Y’, perhaps, or ‘V’. She raised an eyebrow, then stood and headed back for the counter. “I’ll just need to take an imprint of this for my records, and then you should be all set! So, what lead you all the way around to Trailhead?”
There was another long pause, before the showmare started talking again all at once: “Well, I was over there a few years ago. I was browsing for exotic creatures for an act of mine- you should've been there, it was spectacular- and of course I can’t trot by the menagerie without seeing if they have any manticores.” She sighed and shook her head. “Someday. But… yes, right, I spent some time at the Conservation Club for an animal handling certification, and while I was there I figured I’d take the Class Two exam to make it official.”
Rarity just nodded again. It was still hard to get a good read on the showmare, even for a pony with an eye for detail like herself. She got the distinct feeling that Trixie was mixing truth with lies with certain tactful omissions, although it was hard to even speculate about which might be which. It might’ve been a show-business thing, the tailor wasn’t sure. She made a polite little “mm-hm” noise and slipped the license documents into her counter’s inkpress. Then she paused, and wondered if she might be able to extract an impression of the mysterious under-writing that way.
Carefully, she flipped open a box of carbon paper, by hoof, so that Trixie wouldn’t see her horn light- and then nearly jumped out of her skin when the bell on her firelink machine in the back went off. “Oh! Umm… don’t go anywhere,” she told the showmare, as calmly as she could manage. “I’ll be but a moment!”
Cantering back into the workshop, she removed a solitary piece of stationary from the firelink’s weight-sensitive tray, sporting the Stagecoach National letterhead. ‘This account? It’s a bottomless pit,’ the note read. ‘Looks like you’re moving up in the world! All the best ;)’.
Rarity trotted back out into the showroom, to find Trixie’s license already removed from the imprint machine, the cloak still sitting on her counter and the showmare herself already out the door. She turned back at the sound of hooves on the tile, gave Rarity a jaunty wave, and then set off down the road.
Lancepesade Smokey Mirror crouched in the shadowy foliage bordering one of the Expedition’s dig sites on Castle Rock- the remains of the great assembly field in front of the Founders’ Armory, if he recalled correctly. He wasn’t sure. His sole visit to revered Everfree had occurred once the city was already in flames; his unit had been occupied rallying locals in the outer slums, never crossing the Snowborne. All the rubble looked the same to him now, just as it did to his newfound Eleventh Century friends.
Although he was entirely capable of remaining undetected in the dense underbrush simply by hunkering down and staying still, Dr. Verse had nonetheless given him use of a weak invisibility charm she’d dug from the rubble of a collapsed safehouse and spent a day to get working. It didn’t muffle sound, and he had to stand still to use it, and even then he didn’t disappear completely, and it wasn’t proof against modern detection magic -indeed, it would supposedly make him more visible on any of the Expedition’s mysterious ‘thaumoscopes’- but it didn’t need to do any more. All he needed to do was hurry up and wait, and escape detection by a gaggle of schoolchildren, accompanied by a few other miscellaneous adults on some sort of educational visit. At least, he presumed they were mostly the children’s parents. Modern customs were strange, and it wouldn’t necessarily surprise him if young couples now found it an appropriate passtime to supervise children to whom they were completely unrelated. They went to the theater- no, the movies- together after all, and considered sitting in the dark, surrounded by fifty other couples, to somehow be romantic.
Still waiting for his cue, his mind wandered further; he thought he’d had a good handle on ‘movies’, at first. They seemed a simple enough application of Eleventh Century illusion magic, creating very realistic -but not real- images on a big white screen to tell an entertaining story. However, his understanding faltered when he was told those had been actual ponies performing the feats he saw; that it was really an inequinely-sharp painting of a theatre production, somehow set into motion, and that the very real ponies involved were called 'movie stars.' Eventually, he’d accompanied Princess Luna on her ill-fated tour of Applewood's Allspark Pictures; the trip had answered a few questions, but posed many more, and all parties involved were still trying their best to just put the whole ordeal behind them.
He shook his head -slowly, to avoid any telltale rattling of his armor- and mentally rehearsed his role in the demonstration. One of the scientists would invite the schoolfillies to dig in the cleared area, and learn proper archaeological technique. It had already been excavated, re-filled, and ‘salted’ with a few artifacts specifically for them to find; one of those artifacts was Smokey’s own helmet. When it was unearthed, he’d step out of the thicket, thank the discoverers for ‘finding’ it, and then answer any questions the group had about life in the First Century- within reason, of course. The famines, plagues, lynch mobs, and suchlike could certainly be mentioned, but he was forbidden to go into ‘graphic’ detail.
Out on the forecourt in front of the trench, he spotted that one unpleasant store owner from Ponyville -the oily brown earth pony stallion with the too-wide modern excuse for an ascot. The stallion -Filthy Rich, Smokey believed his name was- peered around and whistled. “So, this is where all our tax money’s ending up!”
“Well, the part that doesn’t go into attorney’s fees to harass ordinary citizens, anyway!” Huffed the pink mare beside him. Smokey assumed she was his wife, although that left her wedding band cutie mark with some unsettling implications.
Somewhat oddly, he also spotted Trixie the performer circling around at the back of the group, peering at this and poking at that. She couldn’t have a child of her own in Ponyville- could she? No, she wasn't paying attention to any particular child. Perhaps she was there to help Cheerilee?
The group milled around awkwardly for another few minutes, before Drs. Daycaller and Proper Verse stepped out of one of the nearby tents, both clad in crisp khaki shirts and polished leather boots. They made their way to the back center of the cleared area, directly in front of Smokey’s own hiding spot, and both waved to Cheerilee at the back of the crowd. Smokey had spoken with the schoolteacher at some length to set up this event. The idea that the Government -the Government!- was now in the practice of paying professional tutors to instruct children in every town across Equestria, regardless of wealth or status, had still taken him a few conversations to wrap his head around.
Verse stared at the assembled school group, who -for the most part- stared right back. Smokey thought he saw her swallow, hard. “Umm, errr, yes, yes, right… Welcome to- to Castle Rock base camp? I-I'm Dr. Proper Verse, from the R-Royal Academy? I’m an archaeologist specializing in- in First Century metalworking an- and architecture? I’m in-in charge of… operations here at Castle Rock? ”She waved her hoof at the gray unicorn to her left. “And… this is m-my colleague-”
There was a long, awkward pause, before the stallion finally said, “Oh. Oh. I’m… Dr. Daycaller. I’m also from the Royal Academy, although I received my undergraduate degree in divination back home at Saddle Arabia Technical University. I was brought onto this project as a… as a thaumography, remote viewing, and dating specialist.”
“Did you hear that, Mizz Cheerilee?” asked a prim little pink filly standing next to the shopkeeper and his wife, “He might even be able to help you!”
Quite unexpectedly, Filthy ducked his head down to the filly’s level and chided, “Diamond Tiara, now, you know what we talked about…”
His wife shook her head. “Oh, Filthy, she’s just a little filly, let me handle this for a change…” she turned to her presumable daughter, although Smokey noticed she didn’t duck down to the filly’s level like her husband had- or even make eye contact. “We’ll talk about this later, dear,” she said, grinning all the while.
It seemed some things never changed, Smokey mused. No matter the century, even if granted no official legal recognition, aristocracy still reared its ugly head.
Dr. Daycaller, for his part, handled the interruption with commendable grace. He simply laughed, and said “No, no, I’m not that kind of ‘dating specialist’. What I mean is, I know how to use magic to tell how old things are.”
“Did you hear that, Mrs. Rich? He might even be able to help you,” said Cheerilee, almost immediately afterward. Smokey resisted the urge to stamp his hooves in approval.
“Umm… r-right!” Looking a little more perturbed than her colleague, Dr. Verse continued. “Welcome to… our base camp here at Castle Rock. Did I s-s-say that already? Um. Right. This is where we coordinate all of our trips out to sites elsewhere in the Everfree F-Forest, store supplies used in the restoration of the Castle of the Two Sisters, and perform preliminary p-p-p-processing of smaller items we’ve recovered…” Very quickly, Smokey stopped listening- he’d spent most of the last few weeks guarding this place, and thus already had a fairly clear understanding of its function. Judging by the blank stares on a few of the schoolchildren, and many of the adults, he wasn’t the only one. He only focused on the scientist again when she ended her description, turned to Daycaller, and muttered “I knew we should’ve run this at the Bog instead…”
“What, and have them get wet? No, thank you,” the diviner muttered back.
“Dr. Verse?” asked a heavyset unicorn stallion with a straw hat, prodigious mustache, and dizzyingly-patterned shirt. “Is it true that you’ve run into ghosts out here? Real live ones? Or, um, well, you know what I mean!”
The pegasus researcher nodded. “Yes, it is! Although you don’t need to w-worry, this area’s been thoroughly exorcised, and in any case they aren’t very active in the daylight hours.”
That answer seemed to do little to mollify the stallion, and even less to reassure Trixie at the edge of the group. “Hey, are you doing all right?” Smokey heard Verse ask the showmare. “You’re looking a little n-nervous.”
“Oh!” She yelped, then continued a little more steadily. “I’m fine. This forest is just… well, it’s creepy, really. That’s all.”
Dr. Verse nodded, and headed back to the front of the group, keeping up a running commentary on First Century sanitation systems, although Smokey himself wasn’t entirely convinced. The strange, overpowering sense of being watched that pervaded the Everfree was in fact substantially weaker on Castle Rock than elsewhere in the Forest, to the point where he himself hadn’t consciously considered it in a good long while. He supposed he might’ve just built up a tolerance over the long hours he’d spent patrolling the place, but none of the other Ponyville natives seemed as jumpy either. The Rich family, and another little gray filly who might be another daughter but didn’t resemble any of them, were even milling around, looking quite bored.
Smokey decided the filly was more likely a cousin or something similar- regardless of the century, it wasn’t like the aristocracy to stray far from their own family trees.
Dr. Daycaller was the one talking now- something about thaumoluminescence, stratigraphy, sun-contact decay, and ‘the old wood problem’, very little of which Smokey could make sense of. “… in fact,” he finally concluded, waving a hoof over the salted dig site, “we’ve got a little section over here that we were hoping you smart young fillies and colts might be able to help us out with!”
Schoolponies descended on the patch of dirt like shovel-wielding berserkers, while the adults stood back and chattered among themselves. Daycaller was still speaking, but nopony paid him much if any heed.
For perhaps five or six minutes, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The students clustered into small groups of two to four, around whatever patches of dirt they considered particularly interesting. One group managed to unearth half a cookpot; another a modern wagon hitch- prompting another discussion on the principle of terminus post quem which Daycaller quickly abandoned. None of the groups were digging anywhere near where Dr. Verse had stashed Smokey’s helmet. The pink Rich filly seemed to be letting her silver friend do all the work, standing off to one side and occasionally calling out instructions.
Then, with a wicked grin on her muzzle, she turned to Apple Bloom, who was excavating a sizable hole perhaps half a yard away from her. “Hey, if you dig long enough, maybe you’ll find your mom!”
The silver filly with Diamond Tiara laughed, loud and a little forced. Apple Bloom stopped digging, and spent a moment staring at her shovel contemplatively. The two fillies with her -Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, if he recalled correctly- also stopped digging, and positioned themselves between her and Diamond.
“Hey, if you dig long enough, you might find your mom,” the pink filly repeated, and chuckled at her own joke. “Get it, because-”
It was at about that point that Smokey decided he’d heard enough.
He sprang from his hiding spot, the faltering invisibility charm lending his form a wobbly, spectral quality, sword drawn and floating in front of him, the flat of the blade facing Diamond Tiara- he had no intention of actually hurting her, though the whelp could certainly use a sound paddling. “The only grave thou findest today will be thine own!” he snarled.
Parents gasped and rushed towards their children- Diamond Tiara screeched, stumbled backward, and landed on her side in the turned-over dirt- Apple Bloom stared, wide-eyed and elated- Dr. Daycaller reeled backwards and shouted “Smokey, what in Tar-”
Trixie the entertainer shouted something that sounded like ‘KIDSGETDOWN’, dived in between Diamond and the Lunar, and fired a burst of brilliant blue-white light from her horn.
Almost entirely on reflex, Smokey brought up his blade into a parry position- Trixie’s spell ricocheted off and slammed into an empty supply crate, exploding into hundreds of crackling, luminous blue sparkles and a cloud of thick white smoke.
Then he spotted the cylindrical object that had rolled between his front hooves- an object that looked identical to the ‘grenade’ weapons he’d seen soldiers carrying at the Yard.
“Gah! Foul witch!” He was just about to fling the thing away in his telekinesis when it burst, with a horrible flash of light and a deafening crack.
For a solid few seconds, he could only see solid white; that eventually gave way to dazzling afterimages. He could barely hear children crying and a few laughing; adults were shouting demands and questions. His nostrils filled with the smell of hot metal and burning fur. A hoof fell on his shoulder, and only then did he realize he was lying on his side. “Are you… are you okay? You're on… f-f-fuh-fire,” he heard Dr. Verse ask.
“I've been better," he said, as he gingerly climbed back onto all-fours with the assistance of what felt like at least two other ponies. He brushed his forelegs against each other, extinguishing his still-smoldering coat. "I am not hurt... just... blind."
“Blind… as a bat?” said Dr. Daycaller, or at least somepony who sounded like Dr. Daycaller.
“… if I could see thee, I’d strike thee.”
He blinked. Little by little, his vision began to clear, and he could make out at least the shapes of ponies and rough estimates of their coat colors. The little silver filly was leaning against Filthy Rich, while Diamond Tiara sobbed in the embrace of her presumable mother. Apple Bloom and her friends simply stared, wide smiles plastered to their faces. Daycaller and Verse were stepping back away from Smokey, waving hooves and wings in response to demands shouted by an ever-tightening circle of angry parents. Trixie the grenadier-showmare was already long gone.
Trixie’s third show had drawn such a massive crowd that it was impossible to hold it in the town square. Castle Rock had once again been considered, but following the afternoon’s ‘altercation’ -as Amethyst Star was already calling it- the showmare had expressed an understandable reluctance to return. Instead, she’d set up her stage in the grassy fields surrounding the Station, where the great dark bulk of the Everfree Forest provided a fitting backdrop to her hazy projections of a rampaging Ursa Major. Word had gotten around, and nearly every Lunar who was both in town and awake was attending- although to what purpose, nopony was quite willing to say. Despite their laudable efforts, they made up only perhaps one tenth of the crowd in total; the balance was made up of Guardsmares and Ponyville natives. Among them was Rainbow Dash.
The pegasus had wormed her way to near the front of the crowd -although not so near the front that she’d be conspicuously visible from the stage. Nopony paid much attention to the fact that she was attending the performance in full tactical gear. She was, after all, Rainbow Dash, and she sometimes spent an extra hour or two flying reconnaissance for the Expedition after the day’s cloud-pushing was done. She’d pulled no such duty today, but she still needed the clairaudio rune in her helmet to covertly communicate with Rain Chaser- and, as an added bonus, it helped conceal her colorful mane.
The Lunar pegasus was currently perched on an innocuous-looking cloud, one of several that she and Rainbow had pushed into position shortly before the show precisely for that purpose, unseen from below but afforded an excellent view of the stage in turn. Since Chaser had started running shifts on the security crew, one of the Guard armorers had fitted her helmet with the standard suite of enchantments- including a clairaudio spell of her own. The runes were modular by nature, and easy enough to install and pair.
“Chaser. Chaser, come in, can you see anything?” Rainbow whispered, as Trixie fired off another volley of skyrockets.
“She is walking around, talking… and firing rockets near my position…” the Night Guard whispered back in frustration.
“I can see that…” Rainbow shot back, and then muttered even more quietly to herself, “Shit, there’s probably no way to see backstage, is there? I’d be just like her to watch her sightlines on the vertical axis, too…”
“Excuse me, what?” Chaser asked. Rainbow Dash had, briefly, forgotten to consider the Lunars’ more sensitive hearing.
“Never mind.”
Pinkie Pie flitted through the crowd with preternatural speed, still offering a variety of concessions. “Carrot dahgs! Popcorn! Fuh-resh baked goodies! Ya know yer hungry, ya know they’re delicious! Get’cha popcorn, raght here!”
“Pinkie, darling, what is that accent?” Rarity asked as the baker passed her by.
“I’unno, but it sounds good,” Pinkie explained, her pronunciation still wandering somewhere between Trotston and Foaledo.
As the fireworks died down, the mare on stage resumed her usual story- “Trixie still had the bomb, of course, but neither the Ursa-” here, the great starry projection bent down and snuffled at the floor of the stage, then growled in frustration as Trixie nimbly dodged its probing muzzle, “-nor the military would ever even know it was missing!”
“Strange what ponies now consider entertainment,” Rain Chaser mused in Dash’s helmet.
“Hmm? Whaddaya mean?”
Up on stage, Trixie telekinetically wheeled out a long table covered in three sections of shimmering purple cloth.
“’Tis odd, to see a unicorn busking like this. I have seen them in minstrel shows, and as musicians, and storytellers, but nothing as… common as this. Perhaps she has some lack in her wits, or another illness.”
“Uh.” Unsure how to respond, Rainbow Dash shifted awkwardly from hoof to hoof.
Up on stage, Trixie lifted the first tablecloth into a high, tent-like shape, then yanked it away in her teeth to reveal a vase of flowers. She repeated the motion again further along the table, and produced a small golden-wire birdcage, complete with a live dove. Finally, she stopped at the third space, reared up on her hind legs, and threw open her cloak to reveal it as empty- although, just for a moment, Rainbow thought she spotted something the same color as the showmare’s fur strapped around her midsection. She was back on all fours a moment later, though, concealing whatever it was. She pulled away the last cloth to reveal a fishbowl easily two feet across, filled with water and several goldfish.
There was a surge of applause, and more than a few cheers.
“Could you see how she did that?” Asked Rainbow Dash, “Did she, like, teleport it or something?”
“I… I cannot tell,” Chaser said, slowly.
“Can you scoot the cloud any closer?”
“Not without being seen…”
“But, of course, now that I had the crystal, Trixie still needed to get it out of its case,” the showmare explained, as the Ursa projection above her swiped at a few uniformed cartoon pegasi with its claws. As she swept out her foreleg in another dramatic gesture, Rainbow’s keen vision spotted her cloak catch on something not easily visible.
“Look, her cloak’s falling differently now…” the weathermare told Rain Chaser.
“Perhaps… but… I do not know. I would rather see her act as she did at the Station.”
Trixie lifted the birdcage from the table in her telekinesis and floated it in front of her.
“Aww, shit,” said Rainbow Dash, “Fluttershy told me about this. I hope this isn’t one of those tricks where the bird gets killed…”
“Should anypony doubt the skills of the Great and Powerful Trixie, now’s your chance to find out!” the showmare called. “Anypony, anypony at all, please feel free to step up on stage and examine Trixie’s equipment! Then, I’ll need two volunteers!”
Dash briefly considered accepting the invitation and getting a better look at Trixie herself, but then decided it wasn’t worth the risk of being recognized- she probably wouldn’t be able to see anything from the stage that she and Rain Chaser couldn’t pick out from a little further back.
“Why would ponies want to watch birds be killed?” asked Rain Chaser.
“Well, you’re not supposed to know it gets killed, it’s supposed to just disappear. There’s a cage that folds up in a little hidden compartment in a table, but the thing is, the compartment isn’t as big as the bird is tall, so… shkrrk…” Rainbow made a wet crunching noise in the back of her throat.
“Agh, how horrible,” Rain Chaser spat. Dash was silently relieved she wasn't the only one disgusted. Then Chaser continued. “That must be at least two nights of food, wasted! I have seen fillies drown each other in the mud over a meal like that!”
Yikes! “Uh, yeah... a little meat, a little feathers, what's not to like?” the weathermare stammered, unsure what else to say. Poor kid… actually, is she a kid? Rainbow wasn’t actually sure, in between the Night Guard transformation and the fact that the Lunars were universally smaller and wirier than ordinary ponies.
Up on stage, Trixie was instructing Apple Bloom and Corporal Subtle Spark to press their hooves against the sides of the cage. Dash swallowed, hard.
Then she swallowed again and asked Rain Chaser “If you don’t mind answering… how old are you?”
“I’ll turn seventeen come this Sun’s Dusk.” The Lunar paused, again sounding weirdly proud of such a simple fact, and then continued, “There! Look! A unicorn stooping to pickpocketing! Now, that is entertaining!”
"Pickpocketing? What did she pickpocket?” As far as Rainbow Dash could see, Trixie was just holding onto the golden birdcage with Sparky and Apple Bloom, and slowly counting down.
“’Tis the way she moves, the way she makes others move…” explained Rain Chaser.
Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “Really?”
There was a loud snap and the bird cage disappeared from in between Sparky and Apple Bloom’s hooves. The entire crowd gasped, seemingly as one.
“A thief can spot a thief,” the Night Guard continued, “Quick hooves and distractions… her show is built around the skills of a pickpocket. And when the Solars were starving out entire cities, I got to know quite a few pickpockets.”
With her customary flourish, Trixie produced the same dove she’d just made disappear -or at least one that looked similar enough- apparently unharmed. This time, the applause was long and sustained, and Rainbow Dash found herself joining in almost by reflex. At least it wasn’t the table trick.
After that, Trixie released whatever method she was using to keep the bird sitting on her hoof; it flew through the Ursa projection and out of sight. Rainbow wondered if Trixie had somehow trained it to return at a later date, or if she simply bought -or caught- a new one each show. The pegasus peered more closely at Trixie herself, and this time noticed a series of thin, blue wires stretching down her forelegs, all but invisible against her azure coat. Perhaps they had something to do with the cage trick?
“With the Ursa right on my heels, the Great and Powerful Trixie had to act quickly!” the showmare was explaining, as she wheeled a bullseye archery target onto the far side of the stage.
“Aye! There!” Chaser shouted in Dash’s helmet, as the pegasus watched Trixie wave a hoof over a box full of throwing knives and come away with one pressed surreptitiously against the inside of her foreleg. “She just frogged that dagger!”
“Well, what’s she doin’ with it? Do you think she’ll do it again? Crap, I wish we’d brought a camera so we could show Twilight some of this… wait, did they ever teach you how to use a c-”
She was cut off suddenly when Trixie called out “No photography, please, thank you!” looking her right in the eye.
Rainbow Dash froze. She hadn’t meant to speak quite so loudly, although she still wondered how Trixie could possibly have heard her from all the way up on stage.
“Normally I'd ask for a volunteer for this next trick; any old soldier or weatherworker,” the unicorn said, stepping away from her box full of daggers, grinning the whole time, “but since you want to see my skills up close, why don’t you go ahead and come up here?”
“Umm…” Rainbow Dash muttered, shifting from hoof to hoof as the crowd surrounding her began to pull away, leaving her standing alone in the harsh blue-white glare of a spotlight.
“You should do it, it’ll be fun!” suggested Rarity from her left.
“Heeey, I don’t wanna be a showoff,” Rainbow protested, although the words already sounded hollow as soon as they had left her throat.
“You heard it here, folks! The famous Rainbow Dash, not wanting to show off!" Trixie called out to the crowd, before turning back to Dash. "What's the matter? Are you scared?” the showmare asked, her voice positively dripping with fake sympathy. She stepped out to the front center of the stage, and called out again over the whole assembly, “Can’t the Weather Captain show the Wingless and Earthbound Trrrixie how to throw a proper lightning bolt?”
A wave of general shuffling and muttering spread through the crowd. The ponies beside her gave Rainbow Dash curious looks.
“Aye, come, Rainbow Dash, show the braggart what thou canst do!” shouted Sgt Catseye.
“Yes, please, do show her!” shouted Rarity.
“C’mon! You can do it!” added Sassaflash.
“Fine.” Rainbow swallowed hard, took to the air, and glided back down onto the stage. At least she could confirm that Rain Chaser was invisible from this angle, and get a better look at the strange metallic wires running over Trixie’s forelegs- they were held in place by what looked like medical tape, painted with some sort of blue powder. Worryingly, the dagger she must’ve still had on her was nowhere to be seen, though Rainbow supposed that was likely the point.
Trixie stamped her hooves in applause, and for reasons she couldn’t quite articulate Rainbow was convinced there was something mocking about the gesture. Then the showmare’s horn lit once again, and she pulled out a heavy wooden crate from the shadows backstage. She pried it open, and all at once hurled the contents out over the audience- military balloon flares. In her telekinesis, each and every one lit at once with a distinctive snap-hiss, hovering in place against the still evening sky. At some point, she must have switched out the miniature high-powered lighting crystal each carried for a firework star; while the flares put out relatively little illumination, they sparkled in a variety of purples, blues, and pale yellows.
Several ponies in the crowd gasped or applauded, but Trixie paid them no heed. Instead, she turned to Rainbow Dash. “Now, here’s the rules. There were thirty-six flares in that box. Soon there’s going to be thirty-five. You and Trixie are going to fire lightning at them until they’re all gone- whoever hits the most, wins bragging rights. Understood?” She raised a hoof; sizzling arc of blue-white energy arced out from the tip and connected with the closest flare. It burst with a pop and a shower of faintly sparkling dust. As near as Dash could tell, all the debris burned out well before reaching the audience, but the small part of her that was concerned about such things wondered if the whole operation was entirely safe. Their lines of fire would be arcing dangerously close to quite a lot of civilians. That seemed reckless, even for Trixie.
Rainbow looked from the showmare to the crowd and then back again, trying not to let her apprehension show. Of all the subjects covered in Flight Camp and her later Weather Corps training, spellcasting had never been her strong suit. She could technically cast lightning -some magical proficiency was a necessity for the well-rounded warfighter, according to Soldier of Fortune Magazine- but she preferred to resolve potential threats with her hooves, wingblades, and raw speed.
She was about to propose taking off and pitting herself striking the targets physically against Trixie firing from the stage -a contest she was more certain she had a decent chance of winning- when the showmare shouted “Three-two-one go!” and immediately opened fire.
Rainbow Dash swallowed hard. By the time she’d searched her dusty memories of Flight Camp for the proper incantations and hurled a sheet of sizzling energy out into the sky, Trixie had already connected with three flares.
Rainbow slung out sheets of lightning one-after-the-other, not bothering to put any real power behind them. The entire stage was lit a bright blue-white, ponies gasped and murmured to each other in the audience, and flare balloons burst under the onslaught of crackling energy- but all too infrequently. The showmare, on the other hoof, wasn’t particularly fast, and as near as Rainbow could tell didn’t seem particularly powerful either -despite her slogan- but she was methodical and she was accurate. Sometimes Rainbow fell behind in a storm of frantic, ineffective wing motions, and sometimes she surged ahead and caught multiple targets in a single lucky sweep, but she never quite found the position to make up that original three-point lead.
When the sky was clear and both ponies staggered back on their haunches, sweating and breathing heavily, Rainbow Dash had scored sixteen hits to Trixie’s nineteen.
The showmare turned to the crowed and bowed, basking in the their thunderous applause; as she straightened up, a flick of her hoof sent her dagger cartwheeling over her shoulder, effortlessly skewering the half-forgotten bullseye behind her. The crowd only cheered that much louder.
“Hey. Hey!” Rainbow Dash called out, needing to shout just to make herself heard. “How do I know you’re even playing fair?”
The unicorn turned away from the crowd, just for a moment. “Well, if it’s fairness you want, Trixie is more than willing to… simplify things.” She grinned, and this time Rainbow thought she saw something calculating underneath, “You shoot me. I shoot you.” She waved a hoof back and forth between them. “Last mare standing wins.”
The entire crowd fell silent, seeming to shift nervously as a single mass.
“Is this… safe?” Rainbow heard Sgt Catseye ask.
Dash looked down at the well-trodden boards under her hooves, and shook her head. “No. No, it’s not. I think I’ve had enough.”
A few ponies in the crowd gasped. Trixie’s grin grew wider -and, Dash thought, just a tiny bit colder. The pegasus was fairly certain she saw her left eyelid twitch.“That’s a shame… guess you're just another Wannabolt after all…” she said, too quietly for anypony but Dash to catch.
Rainbow’s wings snapped out and she growled “What did you just call me…”
The showmare stepped over right beside Rainbow Dash, almost uncomfortably close, and whispered, “Go ahead and drop out! You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“How do you ruttin’ know about-” she hissed, hopefully quiet enough that the audience couldn't hear her either.
“Captain Dash,” Rain Chaser cut in over her helmet, “‘Tis nothing worth brawling over. We have what we need. We should leave.”
“Right.” Rainbow turned and took a few steps towards the edge of the stage, when Trixie’s voice echoed once again from behind her.
“Well, if you’re going to be such a stick in the mud, we could always try a rematch with some other targets…” a bolt of lightning sizzled from the showmare’s outstretched hoof, and punched through one of the low-hanging clouds over the audience. Then another shot out, and another- each closer than the last to the cloud concealing Rain Chaser. “Ready to give up on another friend?” the showmare whispered. Rainbow doubted she actually had the power to kill or seriously injure a pony with lightning, even with a direct hit, but she didn’t need to- simply destroying Chaser’s cloud cover would cause trouble enough.
Rainbow turned back, ears pressed flat against the metal of her helmet, heart feeling like it was about to burst its way out of her chest. “You’re on.”
Once again, the entire crowd gasped, seemingly in unison.
There was a long, awkward, strange pause as Trixie looked the weathermare up and down. “Of course, it’s hardly fair for you to be wearing all that armor when the Great and Powerful Trixie is standing here clad in nothing but a cloak…” she flicked one hoof in a vaguely accusing gesture.
Dash's tail flicked in annoyance as she took a deep breath, unclasped her lightweight cuirass, and let it drop to the floor.
“And the helmet,” Trixie purred, as she floated her own hat backstage.
Rainbow Dash obliged, her vision tunneling on the showmare.
“Aww, Tartarus, they’re actually gonna do it,” she heard Sassaflash call out in the crowd.
“Should we… should we call the Watch or something?” asked Rarity.
“I shall find them, just… stay here,” Catseye answered. Dash barely registered her starting to leave, blood ringing in her ears. Trixie was already counting down again, “On three. One… two…”
Rainbow mouthed the incantation of her own sole, rudimentary lightning spell, and braced herself for the coming shock just as they’d taught her at Flight Camp. She rocked back on her hind legs, tail touching the ground, her wings stretched above and in front of her head to direct as much force away from her vitals as possible.
“Three.”
She and Trixie completed their spells at nearly the same instant. Lightning arced from Rainbow’s wings just before a corresponding bolt slammed into her chest from the showmare’s outstretched hoof; both held their arcs as best they could.
Instantly, jarring, vibrating pain tore through the pegasus. Her jaw clenched shut involuntarily and her eyes clouded with tears; her muscles locked in place, and she struggled to maintain her own spell as she felt every hair in her coat stand on end. Seconds seemed to stretch into hours as her mouth filled with the taste of salty iron- she’d bitten through the tip of her own tongue, and hadn’t even noticed.
The entire time, Trixie kept her hoof outstretched, and that same smug smirk on her lips.
Dimly, Dash heard Sassaflash calling out “Somepony’s gonna get seriously hurt if they keep this up!”
Dash’s lips pulled back into a bloody grimace of her own as she fought to keep her footing. She forced herself to concentrate despite the amperage surging through her frame, pouring every ounce of fury into her own spell, and shielded herself as best she could with her trembling wings.
Brilliant arcs raked across Trixie’s chest and looped over her back; she shuddered, but still kept on grinning.
Dash noticed once again the thin blue wires running through the showmare’s coat. They had to be a mana source, Dash realized. Whatever it was, it could output enough power to yank parts of that bird cage out of sight faster than ponies could see, so she had no trouble believing it could contribute to a spell like this. She even had some idea of where the charge cells must’ve been- try as she might, she couldn’t sling her own lightning anywhere but Trixie’s cloak-covered back. The showmare was absorbing Dash’s own lightning and hurling it back at her- Twilight or Derpy might be able to explain how, but all Rainbow Dash needed to do was tell somepony, anypony what she was doing.
Through her bleeding tongue and clenched teeth, her explanation came out as inarticulate grunts and whinnies. Her wings felt weak and immaterial; her barrel and legs completely numb; a cramp was starting to burn in her outstretched neck and her vision was narrowing down to a long, gray tunnel.
“Yoooough… R-r-r-uutrrr…” she finally managed to spit.
“Hey, n-now, no cursing. This is a family performance!” Trixie chided, her voice sounding a long, long way away.
Rainbow pulled in a few quick, gasping breaths and focused, blasting the showmare with surge after surge of bright blue-white lightning. Warmth started to grow in her shuddering chest as she saw Trixie’s own legs start to tremble, and ever so slightly the pace of her casting started to slow- whatever she was using to absorb the power, it evidently had a limit. But the pegasus could still feel each and every bolt thrown at her connect as a surge of stinging, numbing power that twisted through her burning muscles.
Little by little, Rainbow felt her wings starting to drop of their own accord, even as she panted and screwed her eyes shut and howled with the effort of keeping them in casting position. Her world faded into brilliant fog and the faint smell of burning fur- and then she hit the stage, on her barrel and both wings at once in an inglorious heap. The only silver lining was that she’d managed not to piss herself.
Very dimly, she registered Trixie laughing, the confused murmurs of the crowd, and the sounds of more fireworks. Her mouth still tasted like blood, her lungs periodically hitched as she tried to breathe, and her heartbeat echoed off the hollow floor as a dull blur. She pulled herself onto trembling, aching hooves that felt like jelly shot through with thousands of tiny needles. Experimentally she looked to her insensate wings and tried to fold them- they dragged against the flooring, unresponsive and twitching spasmodically, her feathers in disarray. Then she looked up again- Trixie was sitting down in the middle of the stage, breathing heavily; but when she sensed the pegasus’s eyes upon her, she turned and winked. She rocked back on her haunches and held up her forehooves, yelling, “S-seems like- hff anypony with a -heh heh- dash of good sense would think twice b-before tussling with the Great an-hfff T-Trixie!”
Taking a few experimental steps, Rainbow staggered over to the edge of the stage and half-climbed-half-slid down, supported by the outstretched hooves of Sassaflash and Rarity. She couldn't tell if the trembling she felt was her own body shaking, or the audience’s thunderous, mocking applause.
“I’m fine… I’m okay…” Dash rasped once her foggy brain registered their concerned expressions.
She let them start to guide her back out towards the rear of the milling audience, where Amethyst Star, in her official vest, stood alongside Sgt Catseye. “Now just what in Tartarus is going on here?” the Constable demanded.
“I’m… fine…” Rainbow Dash said again, fighting against the ringing building up in her skull and the ever-increasing twitching in her wings and all four legs. Amethyst’s concerned expression became softer and fuzzier, and in spite of herself Rainbow giggled like a schoolfilly. “I just… need… to take’a… nap…”
She didn’t feel the impact when she hit the ground.
“She is the mare I saw in the Station Yard, I do not doubt it,” said Rain Chaser.
She sat at the Golden Oaks’ central table alongside Twilight, Spike, Capt Marigold, Lancepesade Smokey Mirror, Applejack, Rarity, and a somewhat singed Rainbow Dash. Rainbow clutched a ceramic mug in her still-faintly-trembling hooves, filled with something that looked like cider but smelled more like whiskey.
“So…why would she pick a fight with Rainbow, then? I’m just not really sure how ‘A’ relates to ‘B’ here.” The unicorn scholar asked. Only occasionally did she look up from the map covered in Fluttershy’s annotations spread out in front of her.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I don’t really know what she could’ve been after.”
“Well, this did all start when 1stSgt Chamomile caught Trixie snooping around at the Castle Rock site,” Marigold added.
“Well, there’s snooping and then there’s just wandering, Plus, didn't Dr. Proper Verse invite her?” Twilight said, “Anyway, she filled out all her paperwork, so I don’t really see the problem.”
“Well, that might be the problem,” the captain replied, “We have been having some artifacts go missing again, after all, and you still haven’t gotten back to me on what to do about it.”
Twilight, for the first time, looked up from her map and didn’t return to it. “Is there any correspondence with Trixie’s movements?”
“Well… no. It’s not any one crew, or any one site,” Marigold answered. “We’ve had missing artifacts all over Castle Rock, and from storage at the Station.”
“I specifically checked the dates,” Spike added, “And the first losses were reported the day before Trixie showed up in town.”
“Although…” Rain Chaser countered, “That doesn’t mean she was not already here. If she was the mare who was helping Shutterfly, she has been here for quite some time.”
“I suppose it’s possible one of the Lunars is taking artifacts…” Twilight mused, then fell silent when she spotted the skeptical looks on both Chaser and Smokey’s faces. “Although, if they want something, they usually just ask for it.”
“Yes, and everything you’ve found here will go to the Night Guard eventually, anyway,” Rarity added.
“Do you think a ghost might be responsible?” The scholar next suggested, then stopped. “No, wait. That’s not remotely consistent with the behavior we’ve seen so far.” They knew what happened when a ghost got into the camp. Sometimes the spectres were destructive, and smashed things to pieces; sometimes they simply hid small items. But in every case, they never moved anything very far- and the idea of a ghost manifesting at the Station was absurd. “Although, there’s been a lot of new workers from Ponyville signing on recently… maybe it’s one or more of them?”
Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “Ya mean new workers like Trixie? Ah dun think anypony from ‘round here’d be greedy enough to do a thing like that, ‘specially after so long. One a’ them Riches maybe… a few bad apples spoil the barrel ‘n all.”
“A while ago, Fluttershy told me the mare -what’s her name, Split? Spoiled?- was a big fan of those Society for Lunar-Equestrian Studies creeps, too.” Marigold added. “That’s the same outfit that stupid reporter was selling her photographs to, or at least one of them.”
“Though, filchin’ things himself ain’t Filthy’s style,” the farmer continued, “If he was gonna do this, he’d hire somepony else to do the dirty work for him. Which takes us right back to Trixie.”
“And I think she did receive a rather sizable amount of bits fairly recently,” Rarity added. “She came back to my shop and asked for that camouflage cloak she’d talked about before. I asked for her permit, of course, but there was something odd about it. It was from someplace in Trailhead, and I think there was another name written on it before. I do wish I’d had the chance to make a copy of it…”
“So, basically, this is still all just your speculation,” said Twilight, although she seemed to have abandoned her map completely now, and pushed it over to one side.
“Well, I did get those records back from Professor Glimmerdust,” Spike fished a sheaf of papers from the messenger bag sitting at his feet. “There doesn't look like there was any followup on that bribery charge... but Trixie’s grades dropped pretty badly right after, and stayed low for another two years.” He blinked, and squinted at the document, “Her whole record's spotty, and full of inconsistencies. Like, uh, one semester she's listed as 'stallion' in her personal information, don’t know what that’s about. She graduated- barely- and then the trail runs cold. She didn't even apply to the Academy.”
“I don’t really think accusations of academic dishonesty over a decade ago have much bearing on her stealing artifacts, though,” Twilight admonished, “It’s not like she’s claiming to have found them herself and publishing papers in a journal or something. And about that other thing- honestly, that’s her business, not ours.”
Applejack raised a hoof. “She was tellin’ mah sister somethin’ ‘bout bandits in the forest. Not sure Ah want her hangin’ 'round Apple Bloom or any of the other kids after that.”
“She nearly blinded me during the fight at the dig site,” Smokey spoke up for the first time that night. “I saw her peering about there as well.”
“I’m pretty sure she attacked you because you were brandishing a sword and screaming at a young filly,” Marigold gave him a particularly disdainful stare.
“That’s true,” Spike countered, “But think about this. She attacked Smokey because he was a clear and obvious threat, maybe even to life and limb. And then she went after Rainbow Dash- who was just watching her show and being suspicious. What’s so threatening about an audience member who’s suspicious?”
Rainbow finally drained her cup of liquor. “Wait, you mean she was actually trying to kill me with all that lightning stuff?”
“Maybe not kill you, but certainly get you into a situation where you’d be laid up for a while,” the dragon amended.
“I… I’m not sure I’d even go that far, and if she wanted to kill Smokey she wouldn’t’ve used a flashbang,” said Twilight, snapping her binder closed. “But putting everything you’ve told me together… it does make for a very suspicious pattern. I think it’s definitely worth looking into.”
Around noon the next day, Twilight strode down the road to the empty lot at the edge of town where Trixie kept her wagon. Applejack and Rainbow Dash took the lead; Spike followed along beside her; and she was flanked on either side by a squad of Royal and Night Guards, with Constable Amethyst Star taking up the rear. Now that they were operating under her instruction, the soldiers finally had legal authority to conduct searches and make arrests. Even disregarding that development, Twilight figured that if one was engaged in criminal activities, seeing a force of veteran combat troops arrayed on one’s front lawn would do a great deal to dissuade thoughts of either escape or violence.
The wagon, initially, seemed unoccupied, and Twilight was briefly hopeful that they’d be able to accomplish their task without any interference. As she approached, though, she could clearly make out the sound of the showmare singing under her breath, “All the waaay to Reino... you've dusted the non-believers... and challenged the laws of chance-buh buh buh buh b- what the-” The back door flung open, and the showmare stepped out onto the dewy grass, looking a little less composed and a little more tired than usual. “Excuse me! Who comes to the retreat of the Great and-” she rubbed her eyes. “Wait, Twilight? What’s going on?”
Spike stepped forward, as the mixed Guard force spread out to secure a perimeter. “We’ve just had some… potentially dangerous Lunar artifacts get misplaced,” he said, sounding serious but not alarmed, just as they’d rehearsed.
“So, if you took something from the dig sites home with you, maybe even just by accident or because you didn’t think it was important,” Twilight continued, “it’s not a big deal, but we really do need to find it, so…” she motioned towards the wagon and raised her eyebrows slightly.
Trixie nodded, briefly and very, very fast, then turned back towards her wagon. “Of course! I’ll look around and see if I can find anything!”
“Actually,” Spike raised a claw, “It’d really be better if we did the searching. You might’ve unknowingly picked up something dangerous.” Twilight watched the showmare’s eyes grow a little wider. That made sense if she knew she’d been caught- and also made just as much sense if she’d just been told she may have been sleeping next to a dangerous Lunar artifact. “I promise we won’t spoil any of your tricks,” the dragon finished with a forced grin.
Trixie seemed entirely unconvinced. “Now, wait here, this is my home, here, and there’s rules to that kind of thing.” She glared as Rain Chaser trotted a close circuit around the wagon, peering in the windows. “Hey, you leave that alone!”
Twilight whispered the incantation to her spell to detect selenitic matter, and squinted at the showmare. She glowed brightly in a somewhat nauseating mixture of false colors- though so did most of the Project staff after a day spent squirming around through the rubble of Lunar battlemages’ safe-houses. Nonetheless, she said “You really should consider letting us handle this. I’m not sure how, but you’ve received a large dose of radion extremely recently. In fact, I’d recommend that you head down to the Station and get yourself checked over to make sure it’s not been internalized.”
“Well, I knew that,” the showmare said, eyes narrowing again, “Trixie spent most of her morning helping dig Lunar artifacts out of the temple district.”
Twilight nodded, then grinned. “Oh, right, that makes sense… except I never told you radion comes from Lunar artifacts… or even what it is.”
Trixie took a step backwards, and blinked a few times. “Oh! Oh, I’m… sorry…” she stared down at Twilight’s hooves. “I… heard Dr. Verse talking about it, a few days ago. I know it’s supposed to be secret, and I-I didn’t want to get her in trouble, so I didn’t mention anything about it before now…” she scanned over the assembled Guardsponies, seemingly unconcerned that their cordon had tightened significantly since she and Twilight had started talking. “Just ask… umm, Corporal Aqua! She was there!”
Twilight nodded, said “Mmm-hmm,” and waved her hoof forward.
“Trixie Lulamoon,” Amethyst Star read off of the document floating in front of her, “I, being a duly sworn officer of the peace, have probable cause to believe, and do indeed believe, that articles, bodies, and substances constituting evidence of the crime of grand larceny may be found within your residence, vehicle, or other belongings, and that such evidence is lawfully seizable pursuant to the Unified Procedures of Criminal Justice Act of 901, Section one-fifty-four-point-two. I have therefore commanded such civilian and military deputies as I deem appropriate to execute a lawful search of these premises. You are hereby made aware that interference with or obstruction of a lawful search constitutes tampering with criminal evidence as outlined in Section one-fifty-eight-point-six…”
The showmare stared, wide-eyed, and reeled backwards, stammering unintelligibly as Amethyst kept on reading. Aqua Regia galloped past her and into the interior of the wagon, followed by Smokey Mirror. A few seconds later, the Guardsmare called out “Clear!”
Duly satisfied that the wagon contained no booby traps or similar nasty surprises, Twilight trotted up to the entrance, Spike following right along beside her. Smokey, obediently, trotted back out- from what Twilight could see through the door, the interior was not large enough to accommodate everypony at once. Rainbow Dash fell back, and stretched a warning wing across Trixie’s chest. The showmare appeared to be practically vibrating with restrained outrage, her left eye twitching slightly, utterly independent of her right, but she still said nothing.
Inside, the wagon looked disappointingly ordinary- cheap wood paneling and a carpeted floor, illuminated by three crystal bulbs set into the arched ceiling, one of which was burnt out. It was scuffed, clearly lived-in, and smelled somewhat musty, and although the early-autumn day outside was still fairly cool, the interior was comfortably warm. A sling hammock hung over and between crates and cauldrons of assorted fireworks and smoke bombs, packed together with little thought for tidiness. A small bookshelf bolted to the wall contained mostly travel guides, atlases, a few popular novels, and manuals on practical topics ranging from wagon repair to stage magic- Scenic Equestria, Shadow Spade: Guest of the Excellent Host, and Colonel Sassacre’s Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery were among the more visible. A bright orange WagonZone bag sat on the floor, filled with roofing tiles, a can of shellac, and another of bright purple paint. In the back, separated by a privacy curtain, a cassette toilet sat across from an absurdly tiny kitchenette. The latter was stocked mostly with pilfered restaurant saltine crackers, and an economy-size jar of Barnyard Bargains peanut butter, supplanted by over a dozen Guard-issue Operational Ration Packs.
“Y’know, as far as trail food goes, that ain’t actually too bad,” Applejack mused, peering through the door behind Twilight, “It’s got fat, protein, salt, and some carbs to get’cha through the day.” Then she fished around in the trash pail near the door, and extracted a few multicolored candy charms still wrapped securely in twisted wax paper. “Hey, these’re still good-”
“Put those down,” Cpl Aqua growled, her voice deadly serious. “- or better yet, throw ‘em outside. I don’t want ‘em in here while I’m working.”
“It’s a Guard thing,” Twilight explained to the baffled farmer, “Bad luck to get those in a ration pack.”
“Ah… see.” Applejack stuffed the candies in her saddlebag regardless.
Spike loped over to the hammock and gingerly fished out a few olive-drab blankets. “Hey, some of this is military issue...”
“Well, military surplus is great for travel,” Trixie explained through the window, shifting from hoof to hoof behind Rainbow’s outstretched wing. Then she backed off again when the pegasus practically growled in her ear.
“She was able to toss around hundreds of bits for a cloak in her custom colors,” Spike muttered to Twilight, “And that was before she apparently got her cash infusion. She could do better than olive-drab surplus.” He began rifling through the papers on the wagon’s tiny fold-out table; although other than an old collection of apparently misprinted promotional bills for “Trixie: The Magnificant”, Twilight didn’t spot anything that looked particularly incriminating.
“Now, you listen here,” the showmare shouted, struggling towards the wagon door, only to be restrained again by the wing across her chest. Cpl Subtle Spark stepped over to her other side, effectively boxing her in.
“C’mon,” Twilight heard Rainbow Dash mutter, “Try somethin’. Give us a show!”
Twilight ignored their bickering, cast her familiar magesight, and resumed searching. The entire wagon glowed faintly, which was to be expected, although she notably couldn’t see anything beyond- the entire wagon was also shielded. Then, she realized there were a few areas behind the kitchen cabinets which seemed to have no magical signature at all. Twilight peered at the largest one, banished her magesight and its distracting false-color, and noticed an ever-so-slight difference in the grain of the wood around one of the cheap little carved accents. She lit her horn and grasped it in her telekinesis, only to feel Cpl Aqua push a hoof against her side. “You should really let me, Doc.”
The scholar nodded, and stepped backwards. Aqua positioned herself in between Twilight and Spike, pressed a hoof against the fitting, and shouted “Okay, clear!” when a panel inside the cabinet popped open.
Peering over the private’s armored shoulder, Twilight caught sight of the glass ‘diamond’ Trixie had employed in her opening act, along with a few more smoke bombs -or, rather, Equestrian Army L50 smoke grenades- and a few small amulets of unclear but apparently pedestrian function.
“Leave it alone, it’s not what we came for,” Spike scolded Aqua, who was staring at the diamond in abject fascination.
“There’s more of those little decorations, though,” the Guardsmare said.
“And more compartments,” Twilight added. “Although I do have to wonder where she got the materials for this much magical shielding. The whole outside of the wagon’s warded… if we weren’t able to poke around right here, none of those would be remotely detectable.”
Aqua already had her hoof on another ever-so-slightly-out-of-place wood fitting. Twisting it revealed an entire compartment filled with additional fireworks, a storage arrangement Twilight considered dubiously safe at best. Another contained a heavy, high-temperature gas torch with the central vents discreetly sealed off so that flame would only emerge from the edges. Still another contained nothing but throwing knives- some dulled, some rubber, and some strangely weighted- a collapsible wire cage, and decks of cards that presumably had been modified in some way Twilight had neither the time nor energy to discover. In a hollowed-out space underneath the wagon’s only chair was tucked a bulky, saddle-like apparatus outfitted with four magically conductive wires and an outsized pack of mana crystals: a commercial Fair-A-Day harness, with its usual safety-orange finish painted the same blue as Trixie’s coat. Usually, those were used in industrial environments like weather factories, although Twilight had occasionally worn one at the Academy when participating in particularly high-mana lightning experiments. They were too heavy and physically delicate for most military applications, although the Landsknechts swore by their ability to soak hostile lightning strikes back into usable mana. The fact that Trixie was able to flit around on stage while wearing one was thus somewhat impressive.
“Are. You. Quite done pawing through the tools of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s trade?” the showmare demanded, still trying to lean around Sparky and Rainbow Dash, gem-like eyes narrowed. Neither pony seemed inclined to budge. Indeed, Dash responded by giving her a hard smack on the shoulder, and grinned when she jumped.
“Almost…” Twilight muttered, and restored her selenitic matter detection spell. The whole wagon was fairly saturated- which wasn’t at all surprising, given where Trixie had been, for one purpose or another. What was surprising was that most of the more unstable varieties of material seemed to be centered around one area. “Spike, do you see anything else odd about the compartment with the diamond in it?”
“Yeah…” the dragon rapped experimentally against its wooden backplate. “Compared to the others, I don’t think it goes quite as far back.” Before Cpl Aqua could protest, he dug one claw into the corner where the back of the shelf met the divider, and tugged to one side.
The panel slid away, revealing a compartment within the compartment. Inside sat a timberwolf call, a few potion bottles, a pair of wire cutters, and a reusable focus for a basic silencing spell. According to Twilight’s scan, it had been used, recently, sometime in the last three or four days. Also according to her scan, the compartment had its own layer of professional-grade shielding and stealth enchantments, above and beyond the compartments surrounding it. That wasn’t technically illegal, since Trixie owned the wagon and apparently had all the necessary permits for that sort of magic, but it was certainly suspicious.
Twilight extracted a pair of insulated tongs and a shielded jar from her saddlebags -she’d rather not contaminate those delicate magical traces with her own touch or telekinesis- and carefully extracted each item. Then she turned, motioned for Spike and Aqua to follow her, and trotted back out of the wagon. “What are you doing with this?” she asked, levitating the jar in front of Trixie’s muzzle.
“Well, I’m a member of the Trailhead Crossbow and Conservation Club, I spend a lot of time traveling out in the wilderness, and I’d like someday to incorporate more animals into my show,” explained the magician.
“So why’d’ja have all that stashed in a hidden compartment inside another hidden compartment?” demanded Applejack.
“Well, to keep it away from nosy, presumptuous ponies like you and your goons!”
Spike pressed a claw against his scaly chest and dramatically reeled backwards. “Goons? I’m a henchpony, at the very least!”
“Wouldn’t that make you a henchdragon, though?” Asked Applejack.
“Whatever.”
For the very first time, Trixie actually began to look fearful instead of just angry. “And Trixie isn’t even ready to consider how much of that… radion stuff I’ve been exposed to working here. Nopony will even tell me if that’s safe!”
She was interrupted as a roughly pony-sized cloud of purplish-black vapor wound its way out of the wagon, and materialized into the leather-clad form of Capt Vortex, the Shadowbolt. He glided into a gentle landing, and tossed the thin leather satchel in his mouth at the hooves of a grinning Twilight. Inside, dozens of silver and astral steel trinkets glinted in the afternoon sunlight, along with a pile of moon-imprinted coins. “Nay, having such powerful Lunar artifacts so close to one’s person probably is not ‘safe’.”
“Those aren’t mine.” Trixie once again tried to back away, but for some inexplicable reason a vacant smile crept onto her face.
“No.” Smokey Mirror hissed, his ears pulled back in barely-restrained anger. “No, they are not.”
Twilight looked over at Amethyst. Amethyst pulled in a deep breath, swallowed hard, and then trotted over to the showmare. “Trixie Lulamoon. On charges of larceny and interference with public services, I hereby place you under arrest. You have the right to silence: you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not-”
“Fine,” Trixie snapped, cutting the Constable off. Then she seemed to visibly deflate, stared down at the ground for a solid second, and then looked up again. “Can Tri- can I… at least go and grab my cloak? It has my identification and papers and things in it…”
“You’re not in any position to be making demands here,” Twilight began, but then trailed off when she saw the look Amethyst was giving her. She trotted over when the Constable motioned with one hoof.
“That’s a classic jailhouse-lawyer trick, actually,” Amethyst explained, “Somepony says they were deprived of a chance to identify themselves during an arrest, and then somehow at trial that turns into misconduct on our part in making sure we arrested the right pony, and the whole case goes downhill from there.” Then she turned back to Trixie. “Fine. Although you should be aware that any personal possessions you bring into detention with you will be searched and confiscated until such time as you are either granted bail or released.”
Twilight, for her part, turned to Rain Chaser and Smokey Mirror. “I want eyes on her nonstop, you understand? Something about this doesn’t seem right.”
Both soldiers nodded. She’d hoof-picked the Lunars for a very good reason. In their day, and for quite a long time after that, there hadn’t been a Watch on call in every town- the Lunar Army was the law, or at least the closest most ponies outside of the major cities were likely to ever get to it. Indeed, the Equestrian military had only lost its authority to make arrests with the Criminal Justice Act of 789. They were more than up to handling any ‘complications’ Trixie might try to throw at them.
Both followed her back to the wagon, their weapons in easy reach. She climbed up the short flight of steps to the back door, head down, expression unreadable. Then, she absentmindedly flicked out her hind leg and kicked the door shut.
“Hey!” Rain Chaser shouted, and immediately hauled it open again, already in the air, wingblades exposed- to reveal a now rather frightened-looking showmare on the far side, fiddling with the jeweled clasp of her cloak, which was halfway secured around her shoulders.
“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Amethyst snapped, although Twilight wasn’t certain if she was addressing Trixie or the Lunars. “C’mon, now.”
Trixie turned around and climbed back out of the wagon, glaring silently at Smokey and Chaser all the while.
Amethyst stepped up to her and began patting Trixie down, “Where were we… oh, right, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
The showmare remained utterly silent.
Amethyst snapped thick metal manacles around each of Trixie’s legs, and slipped a disjunctive ring over her horn, and they started walking. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and the soldiers maintained a rough perimeter, leaving Twilight and Spike to follow along beside Trixie as Amethyst led her back into town. She kept pace with the Constable easily enough, and still didn’t say a word.
“Huh,” Amethyst muttered, “First time I’ve ever seen somepony actually take the announcement seriously.”
“So.” Twilight waited until they were back in sight of the town before turning to Trixie again, “Are you going to do the sensible thing and just tell us what you were doing with those artifacts?”
The showmare turned to look at her, but said nothing. Her pace behind Amethyst never once varied.
Twilight sighed, and shook her head. “Okay, maybe you’d like to explain how you got those artifacts… how you would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling fillies… that sort of thing!”
Trixie just smirked, her gem-like eyes narrowing in contempt.
“You know, it’d be very much in your best interest to go ahead and cooperate, seeing as you’re on the hook for pretty serious charges,” the scholar began to explain. Then she trailed off as, once again, Amethyst waved a hoof in her direction.
They slowed to a gradual halt and stepped off the road, into the grass, hopefully out of Trixie’s earshot. “Do you think you could wait until she’s at least properly booked and everything? I wanna make sure we dot all our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s here. Besides, you’ll probably make more of an impact on her if she’s been sitting in a cell for a bit, let it start to sink in that she’s gonna be there for a while…” Amethyst shrugged, “At least, that’s how they do it in Manehattan, or Trotston…”
“You know, you have a point,” said Twilight, “I guess the whole silent treatment thing’s starting to freak me out a little, is all. This is Trixie we’re talking about, for Harmony’s sake! You’d think she’d be gloating, or complaining, or spinning some kind of sob-story, or… something. It’s not like her to-”
Back behind her, Twilight heard Spike give a confused little yelp, and Applejack shout “What in TAR-nation?”
She wheeled around, to find the entire rest of her party staring at an empty set of manacles.
“I was… she was… I musta’…” Rainbow Dash was muttering as she flew in ever-widening circles. Rain Chaser and Vortex had taken to the air along with her, and on the ground the other soldiers were starting to fan out and peer into the brush.
“She was right next to me, I could see her shadow, and then…” Spike shook his head and flicked both his claws outward. “She wasn’t able to teleport this whole time… was she?”
“I don’t think so…” Twilight trotted over, pressed the frog of her hoof against the disjunctive ring lying in the grass, and attempted her own teleportation spell- all she got was a jarring, tingling bolt of feedback for her trouble. “And even if she could, her whole body was inside a nullifying mana-sink loop.”
“Okay. Umm… Okay. Rainbow? Get over to the Station and grab Capt Marigold,” Amethyst Star called out, “The rest of you, split up into groups of two, and start circling outward. Whatever she did, she can’t’ve gotten far…”
Trixie hauled herself out of the secret compartment in her wagon’s roof after, by her estimate, about ten hours had passed. There was enough space up there for her to move around in reasonable comfort, surprisingly enough, and she’d thought to grab her copy of Shadow Spade: Guest of the Excellent Host. After working the stiffness from her limbs, she carefully eased open the wagon’s front door, ripped off the piece of yellow tape reading “EVIDENCE”, and confirmed nopony else was anywhere nearby.
Then, she quietly trotted Ponyville’s entire perimeter, sure to give the Station’s brightly-lit collection of fences a particularly wide berth- at least for the time being. It was now pushing midnight, and like most little hick towns that meant Ponyville was already dark and quiet, effectively deserted- although unlike most little hick towns, she could see the occasional lantern lights moving in regular patterns through its cobblestone streets.
After watching the patrols for perhaps another half an hour, she located a sizable estate on the outskirts of town and slipped alongside its high wrought-iron fence to the narrow paths beyond. She’d reversed her backup cloak to expose its solid stage-black inner lining, and she was fortunate that her silvery-blue fur blended naturally into the moonlight- though a few lights still burned in the windows of houses she passed by, nopony looked out to see her. The owner of the sweets shop was busy closing up -at midnight? Weird- but Trixie gave her a wide berth. Something about that mare put her on edge at the best of times.
A few minutes of brisk, silent trotting took her around the patrolling townsponies and to the edge of the square. Trixie pressed herself into the shadows gathered on one side of the alley, and peered out to make certain the square was clear- a wise decision, as not ten seconds later a pair of ponies staggered out of a low building on the far end, which the sign above identified simply as ‘BERRY’S PLACE”.
“I think that’s enough for you tonight,” A purplish-red earth mare told the tottering, grayish pegasus stallion beside her, although she herself looked a little unsteady as well. “Iss-about time for me to close up anyway.” They set off at a gradual pace across the square, the mare’s hoof wrapped firmly around the stallion’s shoulder. Then, Trixie bit back a curse as they turned towards the exact same alleyway in which she’d taken refuge.
Quickly, she scanned her surroundings for concealment, and came up empty- the only thing remotely nearby was a rain barrel Trixie wasn’t sure she could open and was very sure was far too small. The alleyway was too long for her to simply back out of- especially since she’d be more visible if she was moving.
The townsponies turned down the alleyway and stopped short. The pegasus stretched out a wobbly wing in more-or-less her direction. “Hey, you’re… the Great’n Powerful Trisshie… right? I loved your show, with the fire, and the bea-ursha, and the… thing…”
Beside him, the purple mare peered suspiciously. “Hey, aren’t you supposhed to be in jail or somethin'?”
Abandoning stealth, Trixie slunk out into the center of the street, making sure to keep her head low and her muzzle pointed at the ground, looking contrite. “Well, no, but… You see, I… left my favorite cloak here in town, and… I just can’t really put on a performance without it and…” She shuffled her front hooves, not having to fake her anxiety. “Can you please, please, please not tell anypony I was here? I’ll be done and gone before anypony else finds out, I promise…”
Both ponies stood and blinked for a moment. The mare chewed on her lower lip. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, sure. Just… stay safe, all right?”
“Uhh, sure! And, hey, when you’re done, you should come hang out wish ush…” the pegasus stallion mumbled around a lopsided grin.
“Thunderlaaaane!” His companion gave him a smack under the barrel with her other forehoof, and they staggered off down the street.
Trixie swallowed hard, and dashed across the now-empty square to her first target. The Carousel Boutique was dark and quiet, only the dimmest outlines of the interior visible through its glass façade. The front doors were locked, of course, but yielded quickly to the picks Trixie slipped from the hidden pockets in her cloak. Then she searched for any alarm spells or wired systems, and found none. She had to love ponies in these small towns- they were so wonderfully trusting.
The showmare slipped one hoof inside, jammed a wad of cloth around the bell over the door, and then pushed it the rest of the way open. She edged past the counter and displays, eventually finding herself in a neat little workshop festooned with swatches of fabric, gemstones, a few racks of tools, and a drafting table full of sketches. She dug through the materials carefully, not daring to turn on a light or even use her telekinesis, fully aware that Rarity the tailor was in all likelihood asleep just upstairs. There was quite a bit of Lunar equipment spread out over the worktables and dress-forms, lovingly hoof-restored to a much better quality than what they were pulling out of the dig sites. Trixie ignored the armor and weapons -too heavy and loud to pack- but helped herself to as many pieces of soft fabric as she could carry. Then she paused, and rifled through the papers on the drafting table, searching for particularly Lunar-inspired designs. Her employers had mentioned they'd recently come into possession of a sizable textile factory offshore, sitting unused after some deal had fallen through; they could probably turn a quick profit off of Rarity’s spring line. The few designs for pony-sized animal collars and black leather bodysuits, she studiously ignored. She’d had to operate out of the shared dressing room in a Reino nightclub for a while last year- after that, nothing could surprise her.
Only then did Trixie catch a glimpse of her true goal- her original cloak, stashed under a worktable, soaking in a tub of some unknown royal-blue liquid. Carefully, she fished it out with one hoof and watched the remaining liquid slough away. Within a few seconds her cloak was perfectly dry, and seemed to be all in one piece. Experimentally, Trixie pressed her hoof against the tiny rune stitched into the edge of the collar. The entire garment shimmered faintly, and for an instant took on the coloration of the workshop floor, but that was all.
Figures.
For a brief moment, Trixie eyed the strongbox sitting on one of Rarity’s shelves. Then she shook her head. She knew a thing or two about locks, and getting around unnoticed and other trickery, but that didn’t make her a thief. This job was an exception, taken because she badly needed money. She’d give her employers what they were paying her for, and take back what was rightfully hers, but that was all. Rarity wasn’t even as rude as the ponies in some of the towns she’d hit last year, and if her own dealings with the tailor were any indication, very few of the ponies who did business with her even paid in cash.
She slipped the cloak on regardless, folding her backup into a neat triangle and tucking it underneath as she padded back into the front of the shop. Then she opened the door, pulled the fabric muffle away from the bell on top, stepped out, and locked it behind her. Wouldn’t want this place to get robbed, now would we?
Lights were still burning in the Golden Oaks Library across the square- which was probably why whoever was inside hadn’t bothered to post a guard out front. Classic rookie mistake. Trixie had planned to hit the Ponyville Watch’s evidence locker next, to reclaim her equipment and hard-won artifacts. With no concrete evidence, the case against her would be looking a lot less solid, and her employers could also hire some very good lawyers- in fact, they were very good lawyers themselves. However, the library was presenting a target of opportunity too enticing to pass up.
Keeping to the very edge of the square, Trixie edged closer and closer, before she finally pressed herself up against the side of the library. Crawling along on her haunches, she slipped under the nearest window and listened: one set of armored hooves, and the odd little click-tick-click-tick of claws, no doubt belonging to Twilight’s tame dragon assistant.
“… great if you could send some more of your ponies out to Site Twenty-Four,” the dragon was saying in his weird, raspy, reptilian voice, “until we get those etheric cannon rounds from the Yard-”
“More Night Guard would need to come by train from the Yard anyway,” another voice cut him off- a stallion, with the distinctive Old Ponish inflection of one of the Lunars. “Does not good Capt Marigold have her own ponies posted there?”
“Well, yes, but we have a whole squadron of Shadowbolts over at the Station,” the dragon replied, “And I’d feel a lot more comfortable with some of them out at Twenty-Four. I just don’t think two Guards are enough, we can’trisk anything-----” The sound of footsteps receded, and with it the rest of the conversation rapidly became inaudible.
Then, after a brief silence, Trixie heard something rattling at the front door. As it opened, she pressed herself closer against the wall and held her breath, counting on the thick hedge in front of her to offer concealment when Spike and a scraggly-looking armored bat pony stepped outside.
For just a moment, it seemed to be working, as the two freaks of magic continued on down the front steps. Then, the bat pony stopped, seemed to look directlyat her, and held out a hoof. “Wait,” he whispered, “There, in the bush. Dost thou see?”
It was at about that point that Trixie recalled that dragons were said to have excellent night vision, and bat ponies would hardly be bat ponies without it. Very carefully, she reached up to the clasp on her cloak and tapped a certain very expensive gem once… twice… three times… four.
The dragon stopped as well. “Yeah, looks like… crystal, maybe… or like Tr- oh, shit!”
The Lunar turned, and leaped directly at her- and a perfect copy of the showmare dashed out of hiding, heading straight for the edge of town. Her pursuer cried out, changed direction midflight with a snap of his freakish, leathery wings, and set off after it. He was incredibly fast, but the copy was effectively massless and could move at arbitrary speed- Trixie had set it up to always stay just a few paces in front of him.
Spike yelped, shouted “Twilight! It’s Trixie!” and dashed back towards the open front door- then pulled up short and turned around. “Wait a second...” she heard him mutter. He grinned, pivoted to face the bush, and spat a globe of sizzling, lime-green fire directly into it. But Trixie was already off and running. She broke left -and another copy broke right. She broke right- and another broke left.
Spike paused again -very wisely, Trixie thought- and called out “Shank! Twilight! We got a problem here!” but by then the showmare was already long gone.
“Rarity? Rarity?!”
The tailor groaned, pulled off her embroidered silk sleeping mask, and switched on a lamp. Sweetie Belle stood in her bedroom doorway, hunched down and looking behind her nervously every few seconds. The clock on her nightstand read one forty-five.
“Yes, Sweetie, what is it?”
“I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I heard something m-moving around… downstairs,” the filly stammered, trotting another few steps into Rarity’s room.
This had to be the third time in two weeks her sister had interrupted her much-needed rest with some imaginary complaint. Rarity pulled in a deep breath, stifling a very unladylike sigh of frustration. Instead, she asked as gently as she could, “Do you think it might’ve just been a dream? How about I make you some of that honey tea, and then in the morning, we can both have a talk with-” She was cut off by the sound of raised voices outside her window, coming from the direction of the Golden Oaks. There was a brief flash of green light, followed by the motion of something dark and low to the ground in the town square below. Rarity wasn’t particularly able to tell, but she thought it might’ve been heading in her direction.
She rolled out of bed -Opalescence darting into the warm spot where she’d been and settling down for the long haul- and patted her sister on the shoulder, understanding, for the very first time, Rainbow Dash’s insistence on keeping a dagger in her nightstand. “Sweetie, stay up here.” Then she telekinetically grabbed a baseball bat -an unused gift from her father- from behind her dresser, and stepped out into the darkened hallway. Unfortunately, there was hardly time to do her makeup or even properly style her mane, but given the circumstances it couldn’t be helped.
Carefully, Rarity padded down the curving staircase that ran against the Boutique’s outer wall, horn alight, levitating the bat beside her the whole way. As near as she could tell in almost-complete darkness, the shop floor below looked quiet and undisturbed. She pulled in another deep breath, not bothering to hide her discomfort now, reached out with her telekinesis, and flicked on the lights. Mannequins and display pieces sat exactly where she’d remembered placing them. Nothing moved. Quietly, she switched out her baseball bat for her engraved Lunar rapier- a gift from Princess Luna. It was part of a set, along with a sword belt and scabbard, all decorated in fine silver, opal, and sapphire. Ordinarily she kept it in the locked display cabinet near the window, but it was very, very functional.
She trod across the polished floor on trembling hooves, pulled aside the curtain to her workshop as quickly as she dared, and then reeled back, feeling like she'd been kicked in the barrel. The entire place was ransacked. Papers lay scattered over the floor -far too few, she could tell at a glance that many of her more recent designs were missing entirely. Cabinets hung open, empty, and her dress-forms stood bare.
Very briefly, the tailor wondered who might possibly have been responsible- another ill-conceived prank by Sweetie and her friends, perhaps? Then she spotted the empty basin of precipitated mana pulled out from under her worktable.
That bitch!
In a drab little office in a forgotten corner of the Town Hall, Writing Desk was working late to finish the last of the permit applications for the Ponyville Harvest Festival. That wasn’t in any way unusual for her, and indeed she’d only even noticed it was past regular working hours when Deputy Rising Star stopped by on his rounds to share a hot cup of coffee and a little gossip.
“… I don’t think their marriage is going too well, actually. I mean, I haven’t been called over to break up any fights or anything like that, but Aloe told me Spoiled reallytore into him after that crazy Lunar guy- what in Tartarus was that?”
Having done her level best to ignore Star for the last ten minutes, Writing Desk now looked up from her book of fire safety laws to witness a flash of bright green somewhere across the square. “I dunno!” She stood from her chair and peered out the window. She could hear voices, faintly, but couldn’t make out what was being said. Was something moving out there? From inside the brightly-lit records room, it was hard to tell.
There was a knock at the front door, in the lobby outside.
“Who would be coming around at this hour?” Rising Star looked at Desk, then slowly and cautiously stepped out of the office.
Not sure what else to do, the clerk followed along behind him, keeping her head cautiously low. Rising Star grabbed the door handle in his telekinesis, then paused, and finally pulled it open.
Trixie the stage magician was standing on the other side. Even as Star whinnied in surprise, she dashed right past him and into- well, somewhere in the labyrinthine depths of the Town Hall; as soon as she was out of Desk’s field of view, the clerk utterly lost track of her.
“Hey, you’re not-” Rising Star shouted, then paused, and looked around, baffled. “Where’d she go?”
“I dunno!” Writing Desk peered around the lobby, then back into the records room. The showmare seemed to have vanished utterly, without even the sound of hoof steps to follow. She tried the door that led into City Hall’s main office block next, and found it still locked. Nonetheless, she dipped a hoof into her saddlebags and fished out her keyring. “There’s dozens of offices in here… she could be in any one of ‘em by now.”
Rising Star nodded. “Shit. Do you think we should wake up the Mayor?”
Melody was already fiddling with the lock on the door. “We’d better… before Trixie does.”
Twilight stood on the steps of the Golden Oaks, Spike right in front of her, Capt Marigold on her right, and an out-of-breath and positively furious Commander Steel Shank on her left. Night Guards, Royal Guards, and the Ponyville Militia were fanning out through the town as ordinary ponies turned on their lights, left their houses to look around, and gossiped with their neighbors.
“One-Two Actual here, spotted her on a roof on the corner of Ferrier Street!” came a report over Marigold’s helmet clairaudio.
“No, wait, I just saw her duck behind the Town Hall!”
“One-One, check your line of sight, Sun-dammit!”
“Shit.” the captain took her forehoof from her helmet, and kicked a loose stone across the town square. “We’re gonna have to put out a call for volunteers if this keeps up.”
“Aye! There she is, I have her!” whispered Capt Vortex as he dove towards the purple-cloaked unicorn in the street below. He closed in on her with incredible speed and utter silence, leathery wings wrapped tight against his sides. She continued on at a sedate pace, utterly oblivious- but when he was just about to pull out of his dive and wrap his forehooves around her barrel, his target was suddenly gone. He hit the ground running and scanned the street, only to see her several buildings down, banging on some poor shopkeep’s locked door.
“Blast!” he shouted, the need for stealth abandoned for the moment. “Nightingale! I need thee at the other end of the street. Sizzle, block the alley! Descent, stay at altitude and keep watch!”
A series of “Aye”s filtered back over the clairaudio link in his goggles- wonderful little spell, that. Even with his enhanced vision, Vortex couldn’t see the shadowy forms of his wingmates slipping into position, but that didn’t mean they’d be anywhere but where he’d told them to be. Then the Shadowbolt beat his wings and powered upward in an arching, spectacular vertical loop that took him over the row of thatched-roofed buildings. Only once he was sure he was out of sight of the intruding blue unicorn did he come to a stop, concentrate on the energies of the moon, and shift into his vaporous form. The world around him faded into a hazy, insubstantial, slightly luminous violet fog; his bones and flesh suddenly felt light and rubbery and infinitely compressible. Some of his fellows were discomfited by the sensation even now, but Vortex had always found it exhilarating- even in spite of the deathly chill that always came with it.
He pressed himself into the loose outer layer of a building’s thatched roof and slipped, all but invisible, between the individual strands. Though his vision was now much dimmer he could spot his target as he passed the peak of the roof, still resolutely banging at doors and storefronts for reasons Vortex couldn’t possibly divine. Gritting his insubstantial teeth, he slithered down the outer wall and through the gutter on one side of the street, the ice-cold cobblestones passing harmlessly through his vaporous innards. His target trotted on ahead, oblivious.
Silently, Vortex let himself slip back into corporeality, sprang forward- and felt his hooves once again meet empty pavers. “Nightingale! Glitterwing! Sizzle! Where-”
“I see nothing…”
“Nay, nothing here…”
“Fall back and regroup, then!” the captain called, already taking to the air. “She must be somewhere on this block…” Then, as the ground sank away below him, Vortex realized something odd- he’d been right next to his target, but while he could hear the sound of her hooves on the door, he hadn’t been able to hear her breathe.
“Winona? Winona, what’s the matter, girl?” Applejack stumbled down the farmhouse stairs still half asleep, listening to the sound of her collie barking furiously somewhere in the kitchen- and if Winona was barking, then there was a problem. Not bothering to turn on the lights, she headed straight for the back door and pushed it open. Immediately, Winona dashed out between her legs, heading for the nearby orchard. Bleary-eyed, the farmer stepped out onto the porch, dimly aware of something moving out in the darkness and the sound of hoofsteps on the stairs behind her.
“Applejack, wassall that racket?” Granny Smith’s voice demanded.
“Somethin’ out there,” Applejack explained without turning around, then called out “Winona? In the house! C’mere!” Whatever the intruder was, she didn’t like the look of it.
She stepped off the porch and headed for the orchard, then thought better of it, doubled back, and lit a lantern. In the dim yellow light, she watched incredulously as a blue unicorn mare in a bright purple cloak, looking very much like Trixie Lulamoon, rocked forward and bucked one of the apple trees over and over again.
“Hey! You!!” she yelled, advancing out across the lawn. “Git'cher bony flank over here, if you know what’s good fer ya!”
The showmare turned, looked at her, and then took off deeper into the orchard- but only for a few rows, before resuming her strange assault against a different tree.
Applejack took off running- and the showmare immediately dashed a few more rows ahead. She pulled up short, and Trixie stopped running as well. She jumped sideways- and Trixie mirrored her movements and jumped in the other direction.
“Why you arrogant lil’-” she paused, scuffed at the ground with one hoof, then turned back towards the farmhouse and called out “Granny? Go on back’n get’cher hammer…”
Twilight spotted a hint of azure blue near the Barnyard Bargains store. She fired a stunbolt at it to no apparent effect, but Marigold was already shouting “High, up high! She got up on the roof!”
“What? No, I just- gyaah!” Somehow, Trixie sprang up onto the library steps from off to Twilight’s left, slamming into her. The showmare kept on running through the open door, heedless of both Marigold’s wildly-swung sword and Steel Shank’s wingblades, and charged headlong into a bookcase.
Twilight yelped, and then shouted the incantation to her favorite flare spell. The entire library interior flashed bright, eye-searing purple, but Trixie didn't even blink. Instead, she began knocking books off the shelf with both forehooves like a giant, furious cat. The scholar immediately followed up with another stunbolt, then another, to absolutely no effect. Next, she tried a relatively low-power force bolt- and gaped, incredulous, as the showmare’s head distorted around it and let it pass cleanly through, to scatter loose papers and badly dent the cover of Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New Trottingham Canaan.
“What the-” Magiold called out.
Steel Shank flicked out a wing, lightning already beginning to crackle between the bony fingers.
“Wait!” Twilight stuck out a hoof in front of him, and fired off one last spell- this time, the silvery cone of a basic disjunction.
‘Trixie’ disintegrated as soon as the cone touched her, first her body and then her neck and head dissolving into a faint blue aura. The aura, too, rapidly faded away a scant second later.
“They’re all duplicates!” Spike shouted, half-out-of-breath.
Twilight nodded. “So that’s how she did that trick with the diamond, and the boxes. They’re self-sustaining, and she must’ve set one up in the box in between when she closed the door and I put the nullifier on her… oh, that’s clever…” If they were at all like the classical Spell of Promethea -which Twilight had no reason to doubt- the force they could generate was actually quite minor, and while they could make noise by bumping into things they were otherwise silent and had no capacity to communicate. They could follow simple instructions and recognize objects, but unless they came across something particularly delicate the harm they could do to Ponyville was severely limited. In fact, given the exorbitant number Trixie was apparently producing, without access to a freakishly large mana reserve their active period would probably be on the order of minutes. Some were probably already fading out of existence.
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense, but aside from shooting at them -which I’m getting pretty close to giving the order to do anyway- how do we tell which one’s real?” demanded Capt Marigold. “There must be a dozen of the rutters by now.”
Spike frowned for a moment, then scratched under one fin. “I think… I think it’s like a shell game.”
Both Steel Shank and Twilight peered at the little dragon confusedly.
“You know, like they do up on street corners?” he explained, making a quick little back-and-forth gesture with his claws, “With the three cups, or nutshells, or whatever, and a little ball, and you have to guess which shell the ball is underneath? But it’s not a game, it’s a con, a trick- the ball’s not under any of the shells, it’s in the frog of the performer’s hoof the whole time!”
Now, Twilight briefly closed her eyes, and pressed her hoof between them. “Spike, you’re right, of course, if she can make enough of these things, and they operate without any direct supervision, then Trixie can be anywhere within, oh, five, ten minutes’ radius? She could've even left town by now!”
Shank nodded. “All right, so, if Trixie is not in the town, then… where in the frozen depths of Tartarus is that sun-damned scoundrel?”
Trixie jogged through the Everfree’s winding, barely-recognizable paths. She kept one eye on her pilfered map, and one eye on her surroundings; trying not to think about cockatrices, or reanimated bat-pony corpses, or manticores. Or whatever was killing manticores. Or that yellow pegasus ranger weirdo who she’d heard was poking around out here. Or any small, innocuous creatures said ranger might’ve converted into loyal spies. Or ghostly tabloid photographers who might still be expecting her to be waiting at their rendezvous point.
She’d had a few false alarms, when something in the dark foliage rustled or squirmed, but nothing had actually materialized- although she didn’t think she’d ever get used to the constant, overpowering sense of being unwelcome.
Her map looked like no map she’d ever seen before, and she hoped she’d never see another like it again: just a disjointed collection of curved lines and annotations that seemed to only barely fit on two-dimensional paper at all, as though somepony had gotten drunk while trying to sketch out ley lines on a crumpled-up rail map. Take six lefts, then four rights, then turn around. You’ll be at your destination six minutes ago. Ironically, there was even an annotation in Twilight Sparkle’s dense, blocky hornwriting next to the label “Site 24”, claiming that ‘Although deep in the forest by linear reckoning, the geodesic leading here is a pretty short trot, provided you know the exact path to take.’ That certainly sounded like something the mad mage would come up with, at any rate.
Trixie had been able to navigate through the temple district well enough with this map, but the temple district at least had recognizable landmarks. Every inch of the forest proper looked more or less the same.
At least the Expedition had left a string of little flags on wooden posts to mark the way -Trixie had no idea how a pony would ever make it through this place without them. In fact, they’d left a lot of flags, far more than she thought was reasonable, although that might’ve been a deliberate attempt to compensate for attrition. Every so often, she found a marker snapped off, torn apart, covered in years’ worth of moss and overgrowth, or simply a gap in the series where one clearly should be.
Sometimes, entire trails even branched off of the one she was following, but weren’t recorded on the map- the showmare quickly concluded that exploring those would likely be unwise.
It felt as though she’d been walking for hours on end, although the moon up above had scarcely changed position- if anything, she thought it might’ve moved backwards compared to where it was when she’d left town. Fortunately, years of hauling a wagon across Equestria’s backroads had more than prepared her to face that particular challenge. That was the nice thing about staying fit in show business: she could outrun most of her hecklers if she had to. Trixie was fairly certain her employers had mentioned some old griffon in Innsbeak having once declared something similar.
Finally, she spotted a signpost up ahead: “DIG 24”. Underneath, another copy of the same map Trixie was carrying had been pinned to a piece of plywood, although something appeared to have taken a sizable bite out of it. There was also another sign planted beside it, lettered by hoof in reflective red paint:
ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE Without express written authorization of Senior Staff
I got your authorization right here, you self-important purple twit…
Very briefly, the showmare considered simply heading up the path, but then thought better of it. She swallowed hard and stepped to the side, worming through the dense foliage on her belly. It was cold, and damp, and she swore she could feel it moving under its own power, but Rarity’s upgrades to her cloak seemed to be doing their job and keeping the worst of the conditions at bay. Experimentally, Trixie gave the rune on the collar another tap. This time, she saw the fabric fade into patterns of leaves and moss for a whole two seconds before the effect froze in place, gradually lost color and definition, and returned to solid black.
After walking what seemed a decent arc- which, Trixie supposed, could just as easily have taken her two meters, or well past the site entirely, or back to Ponyville where she’d started- the showmare turned and caught her first glimpse of Site Twenty-Four itself through the dark, moisture-slick leaves. There wasn’t all that much to it. A round, dark hole about three meters in diameter sank into the side of a small hill, bracketed by two more signposts, both of which simply read “HAZARDOUS AREA. DO NOT ENTER.” A small tent had been set up off to the side -more like a lean-to than the large A-frames on Castle Rock, and of utterly unclear purpose- beside some packing crates, and a big stack of chain-link fence segments and loose mesh. True to Spike’s word, there were two Royal Guards standing right out front with halberds at parade rest- Pvt Parhelion and Cpl Subtle Spark, Trixie recalled from her trip to the Cairn. Both turned to look directly at her when she peered through the foliage, but just as quickly they turned away again and went back to staring straight ahead. They probably heard all sorts of things go bump in the night out here, and simply didn’t have the time or energy to investigate every small disturbance. And, usually, the showmare was very good at hiding.
Unfortunately, that also meant they probably wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon, and Trixie couldn’t see any way past them pressed right up against the entrance as they were. So, she watched and waited.
After a seemingly interminable period, Pvt Parhelion spoke up. “Shit. I gotta piss.”
“I’m tired of playin’ games,” her stallion friend growled a little while later.
Parhelion turned in place and looked at him, head tilted sideways. “Wait, what does that even mean?”
“I dunno,” Trixie could see Spark blush slightly under his armor. “I just thought it… sounded badass?”
“It really didn’t.”
“More badass than complaining about having to piss, at least!”
Both stood silently, Parhelion shifting occasionally from hoof to hoof, her tail slowly flicking back and forth. Far off in the distance, something howled, but neither Guard seemed willing to pay it much attention.
“No, seriously, Sparky, my back teeth are floatin’, here!” the white mare finally said, her voice taking on an almost pleading quality.
“Okay, well, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Remember what happened to Piker?”
Sparky’s ears folded back against his skull. “Aw, yeah, shit-”
“Yeah… look, if I’m not back in two minutes, send up a flare, I’m probably dying or somethin’.”
Trixie thought the Guard stallion still looked rather unconvinced, but he nodded. “Okay, if you say so…” and his companion set off down the road, quickly vanishing from sight.
Knowing she had only one chance and very little time, Trixie circled back around to the rear of the site. Directly behind that strange, small hill she paused, very briefly, and concentrated, projecting a luminous illusion that looked identical to a military distress flare. She could hear Private Spark call out “What the- Who’s there? Sundog? Sundog!” There was no reply. “Awww, shit!”
After that, Trixie picked up the sound of an armored pony moving around the hill on essentially the same path she herself had taken. Quickly, she circled around in the other direction. The cave entrance was wide open and unguarded, and she wasted no time in dashing inside.
As soon as she was certain she was out of sight, she slowed to a careful, quiet trot. There was only one passage forward, first lined with hard-packed soil and then further on carved out of bare rock- which was odd, as there didn’t seem to be any sort of digging equipment anywhere nearby. In fact, the Expedition seemed to have brought in very little equipment of any kind at all. There were none of the usual lights, supports, sample containers, or dowsing gear, either, just a pile of that strange ‘detector’ gadgetry near the entrance. Very briefly, Trixie considered taking it along for her employers, but concluded it was far too heavy for her to stand much chance of moving unassisted.
Instead, she continued on downward. This cave had to lead somewhere; it was faint, but Trixie could see starlight against the walls up ahead.
Some ways on her keen vision spotted the glint of metal right where the floor started to curve upward and become the left wall. Peering closer, the found it to be a pony’s skull, still wrapped in a somewhat rusty mail coif, scratched and dirty but otherwise intact. There was no sign of the rest of the body. Trixie shook off the worst of the accumulated dirt and stuffed the thing in her saddlebags- she’d heard rare skulls were going for quite a bit of money now.
She kept walking. It no longer surprised her that the cave extended significantly further back than the hill itself was wide.
Slowly, the starlight grew brighter, accompanied by a faint, vaguely rotten odor. Then, the slight downward grade of the tunnel flattened, and it opened out quite suddenly into a rocky valley exposed to the starry sky above. The ground appeared to still be mostly bare stone, although there were isolated patches of moss, ferns, and a few unwholesome-looking mushrooms. The smell of rotten meat was stronger as well, although still far from overpowering.
Trixie paused, and pulled out her map. There was no mention of any structure remotely like this that she could find, but while Twilight and her minions had claimed to be surveying the Everfree by air that didn’t necessarily mean they’d found everything. That was encouraging- unexplored valleys meant potentially undiscovered treasures.
She trotted deeper into the cavern, zigzagging from spot to spot. There were quite a lot of bones now, mostly animals but a few recognizably equine, some still clad in crumbling outdoor gear and some that looked extremely old. She also spotted a few chunks of comparatively fresh meat -the source of the omnipresent putrid odor. When she came across a severed lion’s paw, Trixie began to suspect she was in fact looking at about half of a manticore all spread out- she hadn’t been lying when she’d told Rarity she wanted to incorporate large monsters into her show some day, and she’d spent more time than she cared to admit prowling around the manticore pens in Trailhead.
A gradual feeling of disappointment settled on Trixie. With all of the security and secrecy surrounding this place, she’d been expecting to find relics, jewels, and tomes of great magical power- and, of course, fathomless worth to the right kind of ponies. However, the overall impression now was that she’d stumbled into the lair of some sort of predatory animal. Briefly, the showmare considered whether she was in any danger from it, should it return, but then dismissed the notion. She’d be able to see it coming from a long way off over that valley wall, and unlike the average historical adventurer Trixie Lulamoon was very good at not being seen.
She worked her way deeper into the valley- whatever else might be said about it, it was certainly expansive- and then stopped when she thought she saw the telltale bluish gleam of astral steel somewhere against the far cliff wall. She set off towards it, straining to get a better look in the dim starlight- and then pulled up short when she heard the sound of armored sabatons on the stone behind her.
“Hold it. Right. There.” Cpl Subtle Spark hissed in a low, deadly serious voice.
Slowly and cautiously, Trixie looked back over her shoulder. Both Spark and Parhelion were standing near the valley’s entrance. For some unknown reason they’d abandoned their halberds, and now stood with crossbows held braced against their forelegs- which was odd, as both were unicorns, and could no doubt aim much more accurately using their telekinesis.
“Don’t. You. Ruttin’. M-Move.” Parhelion hissed, also deadly-quiet, although there was an odd, nervous tremor underneath. “Don’t talk, don’t do anything.”
“Now walk towards us. Slowly… hooves where I can see ‘em…” Sparky commanded, his voice still never rising above a stage whisper even as his eyes grew wide underneath his helmet.
Trixie, now feeling vaguely curious about the troopers’ bizarre behavior, remained right where she was.
Subtle Spark waved his crossbow, doing a very good job of concealing just how much his outstretched hoof was shaking, and stage-whispered “Now.”
Slowly, Trixie stepped towards them. If she could get out of their immediate line of fire, she might just be able to slip past them and into the rocky side of the valley, where she’d be a very difficult target indeed. She didn’t particularly fancy her chances striking across the potentially uncharted Everfree afterward, but then again she didn’t particularly fancy the Guards’ chances either. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the only one she had right now, and for whatever reason the soldiers looked more afraid of her than she was of them.
It was only when she’d halved the distance between them that Trixie realized something even stranger- both of the Guards’ crossbows were already cocked, but unloaded. “Actually…” She grinned, and kept walking closer, and lit her horn. “I don’t think the Great and Powerful Trixie is going anywhere with you!”
Private Parhelion actually backed away from her, ears pressed flat against her helmet, and stammered “Awww, shit, putthatout! Shaddapshaddap!"
"Nevermindgether!” Spark suddenly yelled. Both Guards sprang forward, crossbows seemingly forgotten- and then skidded to a halt, ears down, mouths hanging open, eyes wide and fixed on something up above.
Trixie dived to one side, rolled to dodge a tackle that never arrived- and then paused, confused.
The entire valley seemed to rumble at once, and up above the starlit sky moved.
“Awww, rut me sideways with a wagon wheel,” Parhelion muttered.
As she pulled herself to her hooves, Trixie could swear she heard something breathing. Above, the sky around the North Star wobbled and shifted, and all at once descendedwith a jarring thud. Paralyzed in equal parts raw terror and absolute confusion, the showmare watched as the inexplicable, moving firmament shuffled towards her on thick, stocky legs. Eyes opened on either side of the North Star, big luminous yellow ones, focusing right on her. Below them, starlight took on depth and shape; resolving itself into a blunt muzzle with nostrils and a massive, toothy maw, panting hot meaty breath tinged sweet by pure celestial æther.
Without another word, both Guardsponies wheeled around and galloped flat-out for the tunnel entrance.
Trixie was already following. “Actually, on second thought, lead the way!”
“Aww, shit, it’s headin’ right for you and there’s not a whole lot we can do to stop it!” Shouted Pvt Parhelion.
Capt Marigold looked up from the rune-inscribed golden disc of the clairaudio hub. She’d initially headed to the officers’ barracks with the intention of guarding her desk from Trixie. When ‘Trixie’ had proven surprisingly incapable of getting through locked doors, she’d hauled the hub and a card table onto the hill outside to get a better view of the efforts in Ponyville. Steel Shank, Granny Smith, Spike, and Amethyst Star had come out to join her in person a few minutes ago; she’d set up dedicated audio links to Fluttershy and the Mayor at the Town Hall, and 1stSgt Chamomile in town overseeing the troops.
Parhelion’s link dissolved into noise for a few seconds, then reasserted itself with a faint ‘pop’. “Try and detour out of town if you possibly can,” Marigold shouted into the receiver, “Do not- I repeat, do not lead that thing into a populated area!”
“We’re not tryin’ to,” Parhelion snapped back, over the sound of somepony else screaming bloody murder, followed by a distant, echoing roar, “It’s that idiot Trixie who doesn’t wanna go anyplace else! Sun-dammit you get back here…”
“Understood. If you’ve got a shot at her, you take it, am I clear?” It wasn’t an order that Marigold enjoyed giving- with what was chasing them, even if they shot to wound her Guards would be effectively signing Trixie’s death sentence. But the showmare had already passed up multiple opportunities to end this sensibly, and now Marigold had to weigh her life against risking all of Ponyville’s should the Ursa follow her into town.
“We’re trying, but we can’t line up a clear shot with that damned Ursa right-” Cpl Spark demanded, before his clairaudio spell cut out again.
Grimacing, Marigold spun the disc in its wooden housing to a general address channel. “All units out in the field, fall back and regroup at the Town Square. Everypony in town, switch to combat ready posture.”
Already, troops were starting to assemble in the square under Chamomile’s direction- polearms and armor gleaming in the moonlight, tourniquets wrapped around their necks for easy access. Individual squad leaders barked orders, reconnaissance flights landed and fell into formation, and off to the side a separate group of local Ponyville Militia readied ladders and filled fire buckets. Marigold looked back through the Station’s open hangar doors, and spun the disk once again: “Lapwing, what’s your ETA?”
“Uh, yeah, Cap’n, I don't think our guns are gonna do it, this time,” Lieutenant Palisade shouted back.
“Then get out there are distract it! Harass it, get in close and make it impossible for that thing to ignore you.” Marigold snapped back.
“Are you seriously asking us to get into a knife fight with an Ursa? Because I only just fixed all the damage that hydra did!” Demanded Leafspring.
“I'm asking you to do your job, airpony. Because the rest of the company is out there already, and because if you don't, dozens- possibly hundreds of ponies will die. Beca-”
“Pre-flight checklist complete, clear the deck!” Palisade shouted again. “Sun’s nuts you think I was sitting this one out?” Not even bothering to extend the landing pad, the airship rocketed out of the hangar directly over Marigold’s head, almost close enough to clip her ears with the propellers. It drifted into a holding pattern directly over the town square.
There was a flash of bright green, and the captain turned to watch Spike snatch a small notecard out of a cloud of magical fire. “The harbormaster up in Canterlot says she just found an air chariot that can transport ammunition,” he read off, “They’ve still gotta load the etheric rounds and get the flight crew prepped.”
“How long?” Marigold snapped.
“Maybe another hour just to get them here.”
The captain cursed again under her breath. Etheric cannon rounds could phase through even their specially-designed containers if handled improperly. Packing them up unavoidably took time that Ponyville simply did not have.
“Do you think we could evacuate the town?” Steel Shank asked. “That… that is a thing a pony can order, now, is it not?”
“No time. Ponies will have to shelter in place,” the Mayor’s voice explained from the clairaudio set.
“Get everypony in the Town Watch up and in position, too,” Marigold suggested, “At the very least they can help with casualties.”
“Pretty sure they’re already present and accounted for, but I’ll double-check,” Amethyst Star called, then turned and galloped off down the hill towards town.
“Fluttershy. Is there any possibility at all you can talk to that thing?” the captain demanded of the clairaudio hub. “Or… not even talk to it, just… lure it, scare it, anything that’ll get it to go somewhere less populated, even just temporarily?”
“Oh! I… I really don’t know…” even without the ability to see her, Marigold fancied she could hear the pegasus ranger trembling over at Town Hall. “They’re so… so alien I don’t ever know where I’d start. Nopony does. Twilight and I were… were talking about it not too long ago, but then all this Trixie business started happening and…” Fluttershy trailed off, sounding just about like she was on the verge of tears.
Marigold decided to let her be for the moment, and asked, “Actually, where in Tartarus is Twilight?”
“Last I saw, she was still hunkered down at the Library?” Spike suggested.
“Okay. Go get her and bring her here.”
“Umm, why do you need-”
“Just go!”
“… right!” The dragon loped off towards town.
Marigold turned back to the clairaudio receiver once again. With Salmon Salt out of commission, she was back to taking an active hoof in running First Platoon. “Okay, Chamomile, notify the NCOs, combat stims are at squad leaders’ discretion, and… prepare for the worst. Get somepony to grab Derpy Hooves, too. If things get real bad… we might want a cleric close by.”
Far off in the dark forest, the Ursa roared.
‘Litter size varies between one and four cubs, typically comprising twins or triplets. Cubs are always born in the mother's winter den while she is in hibernation. Female grizzlies are fiercely protective of their cubs, being able to fend off predators including larger male bears52. Cubs feed entirely on their mother's milk until summer, after which they still drink milk but begin to eat solid foods-’
Twilight Sparkle was trying her best to ignore the unearthly roaring from outside, when she was ripped from her studies by the sound of the Golden Oaks’ front door slamming open.
“Twilight! Twilight!” Spike called out, “We just got a message the Ursa’s up and moving around and heading this way! Capt Marigold wants to talk to you!”
The scholar looked up to see her assistant dash into her study and pull up short, gazing wide-eyed at the disorganized piles of books and documents her hurried research had left scattered around the usually neat space. “Spike, it’ll have to wait,” she said, in a tone that she hoped brooked no argument. “Right now, I need you to find me any material we have on something called the ‘Musica Universalis’…”
Even running full-out, without armor or her heavy Fair-A-Day harness, Trixie hadn’t quite managed to ditch the Ursa- or the two Guardsponies trailing along behind it. She was heading for her wagon outside Ponyville primarily because she didn’t want to lead the damned Royal Guard to her rendezvous point in the woods, although, she supposed, leading the Ursa to her rendezvous point would be just as bad.
It was only when the faint grass track she’d been following turned into the hard-packed dirt road just outside of town, and the shape of her faithful wagon loomed low and dark against the night sky, that Trixie realized she had no idea what to do once she got to it. She could hardly hitch herself up and keep running, after all, when she was barely keeping her lead on the Ursa unencumbered.
She skidded to a halt, intent on finding someplace to hide on the outskirts of town. The two crayon-eaters quickly followed suit- for all the good they’d done fighting monsters so far. More than anything, the soldiers were rapidly becoming something of an afterthought, although at least the prospect of imminent mauling seemed to have eliminated their personal grievances for the time being. Trixie did, however, take just a moment to mentally curse Rarity and her highly visible invisibility cloak. And her employers for getting her into this mess. And that ranger creep, for finding the monster in the first pace. And Rainbow Dash for her big fat mouth and inability to take ‘no’ for an answer. And, most of all, Twilight Sparkle for organizing every hurdle she’d had to leap over.
She actually remembered Twilight, now, from her horrible stint at the School for Gifted Ponies. Spending ten hours in the ceiling of her own wagon had given her ample time to reflect, at least. The unicorn had been insufferable then, too- she was Celestia’s golden filly, the instructors wouldn’t shut up about her, and she’d given an intolerably dull commencement speech one year about Starswirl the Bearded, of all things. Trixie wasn’t in the least surprised that she’d ended up in charge of a clusterrut like this.
At the edge of the dark forest, the Ursa roared.
Trixie wheeled around, gazing up to face a blue mountain of concentrated starlight heading directly for her. Its eyes glowed sickly yellow as it squeezed cleanly through the trees of the outer Everfree, which buckled and collapsed somewhere inside of its shaggy torso. Then it was out of the forest and padding across open ground.
“Don’t worry, the Great and Powerful Trixie’ll vanquish it!” snapped Pvt Parhelion, as she fired a wild, ineffective shot from her crossbow.
“Wait, you thought I was serious about all that Ursa stuff?” Trixie demanded. She grabbed a length of rope from the front of her wagon and twisted it into the largest lasso she’d ever constructed. The Ursa actually stopped and stared, seemingly perplexed, as the rope looped around its neck- and then kept on going, passing cleanly through its shoulders to fall in a heap on the ground underneath. A moment later the beast started advancing again, carelessly slicing her rope into ribbons beneath its razor-clawed paws.
“Stop goofin’ around and vanquish it, eh?” Subtle Spark mocked.
Trixie stepped back, raised her hoof, and snapped off a quick trio of lightning bolts. Each, one after the other, diffused through the Ursa’s nebulous mass without doing it any apparent harm. Trixie decided she would have to include something similar in her projections for subsequent shows- assuming she survived tonight with her life and liberty intact, of course.
The Ursa paused, sniffed at the air, and kept advancing- slowly, with a catlike casual sadism.
Trixie concentrated, grit her teeth, and poured every last spark of mana her exhausted frame could spare into one more lightning bolt. It crackled from her outstretched hoof and struck the Ursa square between the eyes. The creature uttered a horrifying sound- a cross between a low hiss and a yowl- as it staggered backwards with thunderous footsteps, shaking its head, its big yellow eyes screwed tightly shut. Then it reared back on its hind legs, bellowed, and charged forward, setting the very ground shaking beneath Trixie’s hooves.
“Well, that was a dud!” Parhelion shouted, already wheeling around.
“Yeah, c’mon, where’s all the cool explosions, and smoke, and stuff like earlier?” demanded Subtle Spark as both solders broke into a mad gallop back for town.
Trixie turned and dove under her wagon, desperately scrambling to crawl to the other side. At that same instant, the Ursa's paw came down like a sack of anvils, crushing the suspension and pinning the showmare underneath. “I c-can't stop this thing! Help!” she cried out to the retreating figures of the Guards.
“What kinda mage are you, then?” Parhelion sneered, pausing alongside Subtle Spark a safe distance away.
“I’m a s-storyteller, okay?” Trixie shouted. “I made the whole thing up, and- GYUH- it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Parhelion looked to the corporal. “So, do we go ahead and shoot her?”
“Shoot me?!”
Spark shook his head. “What’s the point, it’s already here!”
They took off galloping again, leaving Trixie to her fate.
The Ursa reared back again, and slammed its paws down on her wagon again. Trixie heard the roof cave in as the walls splintered and buckled outwards; but in the brief moment before the impact, the ruined shocks underneath raised just enough to let the showmare squeeze free.
She pulled out her illusion charm- cursing as it burned the frog of her hoof, searing hot from overuse. Concentrating, she sent a duplicate running off to the left, then another to the right, then pushed her protesting legs back into motion again and dashed towards the dense and winding streets of Ponyville- moments before a luminous blue paw smashed her wagon’s roof apart completely.
Up ahead of her, Subtle Spark skidded to a halt, twisted his head back, and shouted. “No, no, no, no, don’t go into town!” Only then did Trixie realize that other Royal Guards were dashing out of town to meet him- a lot of other Royal Guards, brandishing crossbows she was fairly certain were loaded this time.
The Ursa paused, turned its great ponderous head to follow one duplicate and then the other, and lumbered off to the left. Trixie skidded to a halt, wheeled around once again, and headed back for her wrecked wagon. If she could just get back to the east road, she could probably get to the rendezvous point while everypony was still too busy dealing with the monster to put together a search party.
“Thank you for… leaving my wagon alone…” Panting, she stopped and began pawing through the debris. “Maybe it's still in here….”
The Ursa paused again, sniffed at the air, and then turned back around and headed directly for her.
“No, stop, what are you doing…” Trixie muttered, nearly slipping on a glob of splattered peanut butter as she struggled to pry open what had once been a hidden compartment, “Why are you here, you’re supposed to be asleep!”
Still the beast drew closer, seemingly already almost on top of her. Trixie knew she had to run; she’d barely survived her first encounter with it and that was only thanks to blind luck. She backed away, and looked on in horror as the Ursa tore apart the wreckage of her only real friend.
“Bear? Bear! Why are you doing that? My wagon’s not food, it doesn’t even taste good!”
With a final, futile gesture, the showmare took off running and did not look back.
Mentally, Capt Marigold sighed in relief when Sundog and Sparky met up with the rest of First Platoon at the edge of town. When the Ursa destroyed Trixie Lulamoon’s wagon and sent her fleeing for the hills, the Guardsmare even permitted herself to chuckle out loud. Then, instead of continuing to pursue her, the Ursa seemed almost to shrug its massive shoulders, and turned back towards Ponyville.
Slowly, the entirety of Able Company’s First Platoon backed away as a unit, peppering the beast with crossbow bolts. It didn’t even seem to notice, and kept right on walking past the first buildings on the edge of town, peering around and sniffing. Then it huffed, lowered its head and barreled right down Market Street.
“Break off, break off, get outta the way!” Chamomile shouted over the shared clairaudio channel.
Squad one-one broke west and galloped down Founders’ Street, temporarily passing out of Marigold’s view. One-two ended up pressed against the side of a low, broad wooden building on Ferrier Street- a wagonwright’s shop, maybe, or an old barn left over from one of the other farming families the Apples were rumored to have run out of town, Marigold wasn’t sure. On rearguard, Aqua Regia -one-two echo- bucked her armored hooves against the door once, twice, and then slammed it open with her third kick.
The Ursa skidded to a halt halfway down Market Street, and with ponderous slowness, turned down Ferrier.
“C’mon, c’mon, move, move!” Aqua called, as the last of her comrades disappeared into the building’s shadowy interior.
Marigold was expecting the Ursa to stop, and possibly look around in confusion again. Instead, it kept pace and barreled into the side of the structure with an almighty crash of snapping timber. She was fairly certain she saw the roof go down and one of the walls topple inward before the entire structure vanished in a plume of muddy brown dust- which, paradoxically, swirled right through the Ursa’s starry blue form without the slightest disturbance.
On the far side of town, a smattering of civilian ponies had emerged from their homes to watch the spectacle. Now they turned right back around and headed for cover- not that it would do them any good.
“Able one-two, what’s your status! Respond, dammit, respond!” Chamomile shouted.
Only the Ursa’s shaggy back was visible above the dust cloud- it had moved a few steps into the street on the other side, and its head was bent down low, but other than that Marigold had no idea what it was doing.
The Lapwing charged overhead with a squeal of engines, now flanked by a pair of bat-winged Shadowbolts. The dust finally started to disperse under the wash of the gunboat’s propellers, and underneath Marigold could see that there was very little left at all of the original structure- just piles of smashed timber and scattered shingles, with a few isolated posts remaining more or less vertical. Figures in bright gold armor were still struggling to clamber back onto all fours. At least six or seven remained on the ground. Some were struggling, two were limp, and one was curled up in an expanding pool of dark red.
“Awww, shit, we-” Cpl Spark’s clairaudio transmission dissolved briefly into gasping, choking coughs. “- We need a corpsmare over here! Sgt Phalanx’s holdin’ his guts in with all four hooves!”
On the other side of the building, the Ursa began the laborious process of turning around, repositioning one massive, pillar-like leg at a time.
“Able one-one, get back over there,” Marigold shouted into the receiver, mentally cursing opsec and Commander Shining Armor for leaving her in charge of such a mismatched ‘special company’. Technically, she had a second platoon available, but they were all administrative and support staff. ‘Every Guard a pikemare’ was a fine enough sentiment, but she wasn’t about to get those fillies killed by sending them out against something like the Ursa.
Then again, her combat platoon didn’t seem to be having much luck against the Ursa either.
Out in the town, the Lapwing wheeled around and opened up with all three of its starboard cannons. There was a tooth-rattling crack as the rounds slipped cleanly though their target, and kicked up plumes of dirt and shattered cobblestone in the roadway just behind it.
“No, no, no, hold your fire, dammit, you’re just shooting up the town!” Marigold shouted. The airship crew were lucky they’d fired at such a steep angle. Otherwise, they could've easily blown through a building on the other side of the beast.
The Ursa turned away from the ruined building and looked up, luminous yellow eyes fixed on the gunship. It reared back and swiped upwards. Palisade had learned his lesson with the hydra- the Lapwing’s engines whined as it pitched alarmingly to one side, and the Ursa's claws whistled past less than a meter from the hull.
“Rut me, how do we stop that thing?” The pilot demanded, as the Ursa made a few more ineffectual swipes at empty air.
“Go for the paws, I guess? Those sure are ruttin’ solid enough!” Suggested TSgt Leafspring. “Not sure how I’d even hit that kinda’ target, though.”
With a rumbling growl that Marigold could feel in her chest even at the top of the hill, the Ursa swiveled back around again and took two more thunderous steps towards the ruined building site.
“Aww, shit!” cried Subtle Spark.
Almost at the rubble, Sgt Gooseneck from one-one held up a warning hoof, and the Guardsponies pulled up short.
The creature was reaching out towards one of the wounded Guards with a massive paw, when Applejack, armored head to tail in her grandmother's Landsknecht full plate, dashed out from around one of the still-standing buildings. With an almighty bang and a flash of blue light, her warhammer connected with the Ursa’s left hind leg. It half-yowled-half-hissed and staggered backwards, then swiped downward. The farmer pressed up against the neighboring building's stone foundation wall and skirted along it, calling out, “Ha! Ya missed, ya big stupid sack a’ stardus-” With its other paw, the Ursa swept through the entire structure, instantly pulverizing the base and sending the rest toppling over. “-aww horseapples!-” Applejack barely had time to shout, before vanishing under a pile of loose stone and shattered timbers.
“Dammit!” Marigold yelled.
Seemingly satisfied with the destruction it had wrought, the Ursa huffed once and set off down the same alley the farmer had come from, squeezing with surprising flexibility through a space no wider than its head, even as it bowed in walls and peeled masonry off the corners of adjacent houses. One-one wasted no more time; they dashed forward to assist one-two's few still-mobile survivors in heaving rubble off their trapped comrades.
“Okay. Okay, new plan!” Marigold shouted. “We’re not gonna stop this thing or even slow it down, but if we can steer it away from the rescue team until they can fall back to the next intersection… well, that’s gonna have to be good enough, okay?”
“And… what happens after that?” asked the Mayor. She’d had the good sense to stay off the clairaudio link once the fighting had started, and Marigold had honestly forgotten she was even present.
The captain just shook her head. “Rut me if I know…”
Then, there was a muffled pop and a flash of magenta light behind her. She wheeled around to find Twilight and Spike standing in front of the Station’s hangar, the former blinking and gasping for breath. “Captain... hff... I've got... hff.... I think I've got it figured out....”
Pinkie Pie leaped nimbly from joist to joist, easily scaling the framework of Ponyville’s central water tower. She was accompanied by Rainbow Dash, Hard Hat, Silver Spanner, and a few other Guards and locals she didn’t immediately recognize. Idly, Pinkie wondered how the stallion got through a workday without every interaction turning into an Abbit and Coltstello routine- “Have you seen Hard Hat?” “Yeah, it's on your head.” “Not my hard hat, Hard Hat!”
“All right! What we need to do is drain and detach the cistern on this tower, so that the Lapwing can come and pick it up!” shouted Dr. Proper Verse, as she hovered a short distance away, some sort of architectural drawing held in her front hooves. She seemed rather more put-together now, with a giant celestial monster bearing down on her -so to speak- than she had facing a collection of schoolfillies. Pinkie found that rather odd, until she remembered that Spoiled Rich had also been attending the tour. She had that effect on a lot of ponies. “First, we’ll need to remove all the anchoring bolts from the perimeter…”
They set in on the tower immediately with wrenches, hammers, and bare hooves.
From her elevated vantage point, Pinkie watched a quartet of Royal Guards lead several civilians in a mad dash across the Town Square, pursued by a mountain of luminescent blue fur. One of the civilians seemed oddly reticent to be anywhere but in the very rear of the group, and with a start Pinkie realized it was Trixie Lulamoon.
The Ursa made a wild swipe, and one Guard dived in one direction and three in the other. Most of the civilians, Trixie included, headed with the lone Guard- and, of course, that was the group the Ursa started padding towards.
“Okay. Okay, okay.” Seemingly with some effort, Dr. Verse turned away from the impending carnage. “That thick red section of pipe on the bottom of the cistern is the overflow shunt regulation unit. Now, we only want to temporarily override it, so I’ll need somepony to unbolt the cover and carefully adjust each trigger spring in order-”
Pinkie lashed out with a hind leg, and kicked the pipe segment free of its housing into a thirty-degree bend. Immediately, a jet of water shot forth with enough force to peel grass off of the soil below.
Dr. Verse shrugged in midair. “Alright, well, I guess that works too!”
Pinkie had already set in on the lower support beams, clinging spider-like to the underside of the cistern, a socket wrench clenched in her teeth.
Down in the town square, Trixie, the unfortunate Royal Guard, and a few other ponies were pressed back against the side of Davenport’s shop. Quite unexpectedly, the showmare’s horn lit up and she fired a glittering bolt of energy straight at the looming Ursa. The bolt exploded into a cloud of thick silvery-white smoke peppered with flashing red and blue lights. The Ursa whined and reeled backwards half a step, swatting at the lights like giant bugs. Immediately, Trixie slipped past it down an alley and out of sight, as the other ponies dashed back across the square. When the smoke cleared, the beast peered at the empty dirt and cocked its head, confused. It made a halfhearted swipe at the building, tearing off a section of thatched roof in the process, then ambled over and began lapping at the pool in the bottom of the square’s ornamental fountain.
“A whole company of Royal Guards, and we don’t have anything that can hurt that monster?” demanded Rainbow Dash around the spanner in her jaws.
“I don’t see why we would,” Pinkie replied. “It’s basically a grizzly with superpowers- it’s a giant furry tank!”
“Still, there must be something we could bring to bear against that beast…” muttered Dr. Verse.
“I know,” Pinkie nodded. “The tension is just un-bear-able.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “Pinkie, I don’t think mocking the Ursa is gonna help.”
“Who said anything about mocking the Ursa?”
Fluttershy dashed over to the ruined wagonwright’s shop, nearly unnoticed at the rear of a squad of heavily-armed Guardsponies. She didn’t know quite what she was going to do once she got there, but she couldn't just hide under her bed when there were so many ponies in obvious need of help. At least she had another set of hooves to offer, and her basic first-aid kit, and it wasn’t like she’d be much help in controlling the rampaging Ursa regardless of where she was. It may have looked like a bear, and shown some superficially ursine behaviors, but mentally it was nothing at all like Harry or any other creature she’d ever tried to commune with.
The wagonwright’s shop was now a complete ruin- Fluttershy was no architect, but she couldn’t imagine how it would ever be rebuilt aside from simply clearing the lot and starting over again from scratch. A few bloody, dusty, unsteady troopers from squad one-two staggered forward to meet Fluttershy and one-one, two with insensate comrades slung over their backs. Some of the newcomers dashed forward and quickly guided them back down the street, out of sight. Then they continued on to where others struggled or lay limp, still half-buried in rubble.
Fluttershy turned to the pile of collapsed stone where she’d last seen Applejack. Seemingly of its own accord it shifted, and the pegasus heard her friend’s voice from underneath. “-rotten yeller flea-bitten son of a mule yeah you better run!”
She dashed over and immediately began kicking away some of the more manageable fragments to expose the farmer’s steel-armored form beneath. “Um, Applejack, are you o-”
There was a slight pause, before Applejack burst out of the rubble all at once, landing on all fours and scattering debris at least two meters outward. “Yeah, Ah’m fine, just madder’n a pack a’ hornets-, sheeeit! Thanks though!” she looked over to the town square and the massive shape of blue starlight visible over the intervening buildings, then dashed off without another word.
“Hey! Hey, over here! I need some help!” Fluttershy heard one of the medics call out- a dark rust-colored pegasus stallion she vaguely recognized as Corpsmare Red Courage.
There was a blinding flash of light in the town square, followed by raised voices that were quickly drowned out when the Ursa roared once again.
Fluttershy slipped past Guards struggling with stones and broken support beams to find the pegasus medic crouched in front of a purple stallion with a sergeant’s stripes on his barding, lying in the middle of a still-expanding pool of bright red blood. A long, ragged gash ran along the sergeant’s left side, all the way from his groin up to just past his ribcage; nearby ribs and armor alike were visibly twisted and bent.
“Get me that clamp in the bottom left pocket of my pack, okay?” Courage demanded without looking up, his forehooves buried in the sergeant’s innards nearly up to the elbows. Fluttershy flipped through his pack with one wing, extracted the device in question, and tossed it to him.
Off in the distance, the Ursa roared, closer this time, accompanied by the sounds of crashing timber.
“Crap, we gotta get this guy outta here before that thing comes back again!” shouted Aqua Regia. She tried to lift the Sergeant onto her back, but the other pony howled in pain as soon as he moved even slightly. “Crap, can you, like, give him some morphine or something?”
“Rutter’s already got two syrettes full in him,” Courage replied, “He’s maxed out ‘till he gets to a proper hospital!”
The private looked at him, confused. “’Zat thing on your back a stretcher?”
“Yes, but I can’t fly him on it without another pony to pick up the other end, and he's not gonna make it if we go by hoof, even without that thing stomping around.”
Before she could think better of it, Fluttershy held up a wing. “I’ll go with you.”
Courage just nodded. Aqua yanked the stretcher off his back and snapped it open, and the corpsmare set about carefully rolling the new insensate sergeant onto it. He buckled the front end to his armor, and Fluttershy grabbed the other with both forehooves. “Okay, we take off on three. One… two… three!”
Fluttershy yelped as they both took to the air, her wings already aching under the strain, and angled towards Ponyville's hospital on the edge of town.
After a few minutes, the medic turned to look at her. “Hey!” he said in between breaths and wingstrokes. “You’re doin -huh - pretty good! -huh- These guys ain’t -huh- exactly light with all that -huh- gear!”
Suddenly, Fluttershy found herself wondering just how she was managing- and thinking back to her dreadful experience at Flight Camp. The more she thought, however, the more her altitude started to dip, so she decided it’d be in everypony’s best interests to stop. “Well, he needed our help,” was all she said aloud.
“I don’t mean to pry, of course, but… whyever do you have so much milk?” asked Rarity, as she levitated another steel canister into the wagon they’d parked out in front of Sweet Apple Acres. By her count, they had to have at least eight hundred liters already loaded in a dozen containers.
Big Macintosh looked about to answer when Granny Smith spoke up from her perch on the farmhouse’s front porch. “Well, this here was supposed ta’ last us all the way through the winter…” She waggled a hoof in a vaguely accusing gesture. “Ah can’t figure what y’all’d be wantin’ with it, but Ah guess it’s mah privilege to contribute…” The old mare cocked her head to one side. “Hey, any a’ y’all seen Applejack since she ran off?”
Rarity paused, the last of the cans still floating over her head. “Oh, right, she was in town with the others. The last I saw, a building fell on her, but she got up and walked away so it can’t’ve been too bad!”
“Eeyup.” Big Mac nodded as he finished hitching himself to the front of the wagon, alongside three earth pony Guards from the support platoon- Pvts Bailey Blast and Half-A-Bubble, from the entrenching team, and Cpl Triplicate, one of the clerks.
“There! That’s all!” called out Sgt Catseye across the wagon from Rarity. “Now, let’s go!”
They set off all at once, heading for the edge of town, moving as fast as the heavy cart allowed- which, for Rarity and Catseye following alongside the wagon, worked out to be a little faster than a brisk trot.
As they turned from Sweet Apple Road onto Carousel Street, the ground started to shake in a pattern disturbingly reminiscent of footsteps. A hazy blue form slowly drew closer and closer, looming over the rooftops to the right.
“Can’t this thing possibly go any faster?” Rarity pleaded, watching the great starry shape edge closer and closer.
Big Mac grit his teeth and broke into a gallop. His comrades started to wheeze and struggle for breath, but kept up the pace.
Then the Ursa leaped cleanly over a particularly low-roofed cottage and landed in the street behind them, cobblestones shattering beneath its claws. It bellowed and swiped at the cart, just barely scratching against the back panel- still the entire wagon began to lurch sideways, and only righted under the combined effort of Rarity and Catseye’s telekinesis.
It swiped again, and connected more fully this time. Bailey and Half-A-Bubble both cursed, pulled sideways with the motion, and involuntarily the entire team wound up turning down Parkland Avenue.
Rarity spared a brief look behind her- the Ursa was still following them, squeezing through the narrow space with surprising flexibility, barely slowing down.
“C’mon, ya overgrown varmint!” The tailor heard Applejack shout, moments before the farmer dived out of an alleyway and charged straight at the beast, “You want’cher dinner? You gotta catch it!” She made a few abortive swings at its paws, but this time her hammer phased cleanly through- the Ursa didn’t even seem to notice. After a few seconds the farmer ended up behind it again, and had to skid to a halt and wheel around.
“Aww, shit, this -haaaah- this ain’t workin’,” shouted Triplicate in between breaths. “I think it’s even -haaah- gaining on us!”
“The river!” Catseye yelled, “Get across the bridge and lead it to the river!” She motioned to Rarity with one hoof and started to run on ahead of the wagon. The tailor nodded, broke into a gallop, and followed her around the corner. Cobblestones petered out into grassy parkland, and not far ahead, she could see the arched wood-and-stone bridge spanning the branch of the Snowborne River that cut roughly through the center of town.
Risking another glance behind her, Rarity saw the Ursa take another swipe at the wagon, then another- it was definitely closer, now, and the wagon teetered alarmingly on two wheels before Big Mac managed to right it. Applejack jumped and danced around the Ursa’s legs, hammer sparking bright blue in the darkness, herding it further down Shore Street like an overgrown steer.
“Weaken the supports!” Catseye ordered, and dived straight into the river, armor and all. Rarity skidded to a halt on the bank, mentally shrugged, and dived in after her, wading through the withers-deep water with some difficulty. It was ice-cold, and she struggled to keep her footing on the filthy, mossy riverbed; if her mane and tail had been in any presentable condition before they were certainly ruined now, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. She set in on the grimy, century-old bolts with her telekinesis while Catseye went for a more direct approach, hacking at the wooden stanchions with her sword.
The wagon rumbled past overhead just as a bolt popped free and pinged against Catseye’s helmet, just above her already-scarred left eye. “Balefire and damnation! The bridge is weakened, move!” she yelled, then set off back for shore. Rarity followed as best she could, fighting against the same swift current that had been assisting them going the other way.
The Ursa charged across the park, turned with surprising dexterity, and leaped onto the bridge while both unicorns were still only about two dozen meters away. It took one step, then another, heedless of the beams creaking underneath its titanic weight… and then gave a deafening howl as its paw crashed through the cobblestones in the very center. The entire structure seemed to fold in on it in a split-second of splinters and noise and flying debris; it thrashed and roared helplessly, entangled in the rubble.
Catseye gave a wordless shout of encouragement, and pumped her hoof in the air, splattering Rarity with water in the process.
“Did… did we just turn that bridge into a bear trap?” the tailor asked.
On the far shore, Big Macintosh nodded. “Eeyup.”
With a low, angry hiss, the Ursa reared back and tore its paw clear of the wreckage, showering the area with debris. Inexorably, it started to ford the river, the current pushing it downstream as it paddled.
“Ah. Figures,” was all Rarity could say.
The Ursa finally managed to half-walk-half-float towards the far bank. It dragged itself onto shore with its forelegs, water cascading off and through it all at once, and bellowed again.
“Alright, let's move out!” Bailey Blast yelled, before the entire group started hauling the wagon away again. “We can -hff- pat ourselves on the back when it’s not -hff- trying to kill us. Because it looks like it’s heading back for the water tower.”
“… because it looks like it’s heading back for the water tower,” Bailey Blast shouted over the clairaudio spell in Rainbow Dash’s helmet.
“How soon’ll that tank be drained enough for us to lift it?” asked TSgt Leafspring. She stood in the Lapwing’s open main bay as it hovered overhead, fiddling with the cradle of ropes that connected the little gunboat to the tower below.
Dr. Proper Verse looked from the tank, over to the looming mass of fur and starlight already heading down the street towards them, then back to the tank again. She hovered for a second, silently mouthing calculations, then answered, “Not soon enough.”
“Then we will see you have the time you need!” Capt Vortex shouted, audible both in Rainbow’s helmet and across the street at the same time, as he arched up into view. He was followed by Sizzle, Descent, and Nightingale, flying in a tight diamond formation low to the thatched rooftops. One after another they broke off, dove down towards the Ursa, and sliced through it each from a different direction. It yelped, then looked around, confused, and most importantly stopped walking.
“All right, new plan, we’ll just tear the whole tower down!” shouted Pinkie Pie.
Rainbow paused in her attempts to unbolt a metal collar to give the baker a particularly skeptical glare. “Pinkie, seriously?”
“The town won’t need water either way if there isn’t a town left, okay?”
Quite unexpectedly, Proper Verse nodded. “She’s right! C’mon, see if we can shear off the intake pipe! Kick out the support beams on the side that still has bolts, and the whole structure’ll come apart!”
Vortex and his ponies circled the beast as closely as they dared, diving and feinting. It growled and swatted at them, like an overgrown cat trying to kill a dangling toy. One particularly near miss sent Sizzle sliding into the dirt on her belly. She only narrowly rolled out of the way of another swipe that clawed long furrows out of the dirt beside her; then she struggled onto to all-fours and leapt back into flight, now favoring her right wing. The Ursa took another few ponderous steps forward.
Doctor Verse yelped, shouted an incantation, and hurled a sheet of sizzling yellow-white flame directly at its head. The Ursa peered at it quizzically, made a noise that almost sounded like “Huh?”, and kept right on walking.
“Well, that helped!” Pinkie Pie shouted, as she taped industrial blasting crystals to the last of the tower’s supports.
Rainbow Dash ducked down for a moment and asked Hard Hat, “She got those from the construction site, right?”
The baker grinned, and nodded in a very particular way that reminded Rainbow Dash of preschool teachers and politicians. “Yeah, sure, let’s just go with that!”
Dash shrugged, pulled into a steep climb, and slammed both her rear hooves over and over again into the tower’s intake pipe. On the fourth strike it burst open, turning the steady stream of draining water into a torrent. Ponies below cried out and staggered, some involuntarily sliding back away as the ground around them suddenly turned into freezing mud.
The Ursa stood up on its hind legs and swatted at Nightingale looping overhead- the bat-winged pegasus cried out as a single claw raked across her back, and fell into a barely-controlled downward spiral. With its front legs and snapping jaws, the Ursa could effectively track three targets at once, and the ‘Bolts had just lost their all-important fourth mare.
Rainbow left the water tower behind and dove down the street into the fray.
“Back, back!” Vortex called out, as he himself surged upward and snatched the injured Shadowbolt out of the air. Rainbow dived towards the Ursa, grinned when she saw its glowing yellow eyes focus on her and widen in surprise, and slipped through the very tip of its immaterial ear. Its head pivoted around and its massive jaws snapped shut, but the pegasus was already long gone.
The Lapwing strained against its cables, engines squealing, and the superstructure of the water tower creaked and shuddered. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…” Palisade muttered over the clairaudio link.
Vortex swooped downward, deposited his wounded comrade none-too-gently on the cobblestone street, and then pulled back up. He rolled to one side to dodge another paw, his form already going hazy and ill-defined at the edges. By the time Rainbow was able to circle back around for another pass, he was well above it and more an indistinct cloud of vapor than a pony.
Then the Ursa reared back, bent its hind legs, and leaped upward. A paw spiked downward through Vortex’s misty form, carrying him with it; flung downward, he slammed cleanly through the roof of a nearby cottage and vanished from sight.
“It can jump too?” Pinkie Pie called out, “That’s just unfair!”
“Vortex? Vortex!” Rainbow called out. There was no response. “Aww, shit!” She abandoned the Ursa and dived towards the hole in the cottage.
“Alright, everypony, duck and cover!” Pinkie Pie screamed as she slammed down on the detonator's plunger. With an almighty bang, the tower’s superstructure disintegrated in a cloud of dust and splinters. The Lapwing started to gain altitude, and headed for the rendezvous point on the south edge of town; the empty cistern dangling almost comically underneath it. Doctor Verse flew alongside, already prying at the bolts connecting the upper dome. The Ursa looked up, sniffed curiously, ignored the remaining two Shadowbolts, and padded right along after them.
Rainbow glided into the ruined cottage, spotted a patch of purple leather in the rubble inside, and quickly set to work heaving snapped planks and fragments of plaster off of Vortex’s insensate form. “Aww, shit, shit, are you okay?” He appeared to be breathing, at least, and there didn’t seem to be much if any blood.
The Shadowbolt groaned, and opened the one eye that was facing upward, and muttered “Others… are the others…”
Quickly, Dash nodded. “They’re fine. They’re still at it. What about you?”
He coughed, once, and tried to haul himself back onto all fours, then winced in pain. “Just once, I would like to return from a visit to Ponyville with all my ribs intact…”
Spike looked up from scalding individual cans of milk with his breath just long enough to ask, “So, what exactly is the point of all of this, again?” Then he was forced to get back to it, as Big Macintosh and the Guards motioned for another container to pour into the now-empty water tower.
“I’ll explain later!” Twilight yelled back, as she scribbled something that looked like a musical score on a scroll held in her telekinesis, “But right now, I really need less talking and more fire!” Then she paused, and looked over to her left. “Rarity! You can read sheet music, right? I might need some help with this.”
Under her breath, Twilight thanked her parents for her years of piano lessons as she levitated a short roll of parchment over to the tailor.
Rarity nodded, although her look of confidence quickly changed to confusion as she tried to parse the multiple key changes and mentally sound out the melody.
The ground under Spike’s claws began to shudder in a terribly distinctive pattern, and a towering mass of teeth, fur, and starlight squeezed out from in between two buildings.
“Aww, shit, here it comes…” Capt Marigold explained, entirely unnecessarily.
1stSgt Chamomile stepped up to her and pulled in a deep breath. “Okay. I know you’re not gonna like this, but if we send Second Platoon out with flashbangs we might be able to draw it back out to-”
Twilight raised a hoof, centimeters from his muzzle. “No! That’s probably enough milk as-is. Now, everypony needs to clear out and keep quiet!”
“Are you sure-?” the captain asked, and then trailed off.
Silently, Twilight nodded.
She backed up under somepony’s front porch, facing one of Ponyville's shallow lakes, as Guards and townsponies alike disappeared down alleys and into buildings. Spike swallowed hard and followed her, lurking at her side as inconspicuously as he could manage. Rarity had also joined them, holding the scroll of sheet music, and Rainbow Dash remained hovering just outside. The Lapwing drifted off behind the building, floating silently, propellers barely turning under their own momentum.
The beast drew closer, padding along the grassy space between the edge of town and the small stream that ran along it, every so often giving a low, rumbling growl.
Twilight turned to Spike and whispered “Here goes nothing…”
Almost on reflex, he coiled up behind her as those luminous yellow eyes tracked over them all.
The scholar brought her hoof up, and down again. Rainbow Dash mirrored the gesture and began flapping her armored wings slowly and rhythmically, with much broader strokes than she required just to stay in the air. Slowly, the cattails in the pond began to rustle and shift as a strong, steady breeze washed over them. Both Rarity and Twilight’s horns lit at once and the motion drifted gradually into an eerie synchrony- then, with a faint pulse of the unicorns’ combined telekinetic fields, each stem snapped cleanly in half horizontally.
All at once, the rustling was replaced by an eerie, oscillating hum. The unicorns pressed and bent individual reeds like the stops on some titanic wind instrument, and the hum split and shifted and overlapped with itself in never-repeating harmonies. It was elegant and alien, at once achingly simple and staggeringly complex, beautiful in the same way as the most profound physical equations. Spike had never heard anything remotely like it before, and at the same time developed the strangest sense that he’d been listening to it already for the whole of his short life; indeed, that he’d been listening to it for centuries, through the shell of his egg and before his egg had ever even existed. It sounded like the first song ever written, because it was the first song ever written- the Musica Universalis, the Song of the Spheres, set in motion long before life arose on the Material Plane; before the formation of the Material Plane itself.
The Ursa trod over, suddenly curious, and sniffed at the stream, its titanic footsteps somehow pounding in time with the melody. It couldn’t not keep time- the Song of the Spheres was the product of the harmonic interaction between the outer celestial shells, and the Ursa was a celestial being. In their natural environment far up above the clouds and the sidereal fields, tiny modifications to that vast harmony were how its kind communicated.
A few of the closer Royal Guard troops flinched backwards and reached for their weapons, but the Ursa ignored them utterly. Then, Dr. Proper Verse and Fluttershy both glided down from overhead, and took up positions on either side of Rainbow Dash; the volume of the Song redoubled, and harmonies rose to the surface that Spike hadn’t been able to hear before.
The great beast padded over to the upturned cistern of the water tower, seeming almost docile for the very first time that night. Spike watched Twilight wince, and start to tremble as her hooves sank into the soft soil; her horn flickered briefly, but the music continued. As he looked around the street he realized she and Rarity weren’t the only unicorns controlling the reeds any more. Unicorn Guardsponies stepped out from cover and added their own fields to the collection, bathing the entire stream in a multicolored glow; up above, the three fliers were joined by half a dozen other pegasi, including 1stSgt Chamomile.
The Ursa looked around, slowly and cautiously, and then knelt down in front of the water tank. Its luminous purple tongue slid out of its mouth and began to lap up the warm milk inside, which drained surprisingly quickly and nebulized throughout its immaterial body.
Around it, the Guard platoon was now joined by ordinary townsponies as well. With their assistance, the sound grew in both intensity and depth as though they’d pulled all the stops from some colossal pipe organ.
The Ursa stood up from the now-empty cistern and licked its lips, seemingly befuddled. It took a few more ponderous steps back away, shook its head, and sat down on its haunches with a thunderous noise- and then, little by little, those luminous yellow eyes dimmed and drifted closed, and its breathing became slow and even.
Twilight turned to Spike and pumped her hoof in the air, beaming with pride, heedless of the drop of blood trickling from her left nostril. Slowly and tentatively, she trotted out from under the awning. Spike looked to Rarity, and after a moment they followed her, and then other ponies began to emerge from their hiding spots as well.
“What… happened to it?” The tailor asked.
“It’s asleep,” explained Fluttershy, “they go into a torpor after eating…”
“So, now can we finally kill it?” Rainbow Dash drifted downward, hovering alarmingly close to the thing’s jaws.
Fluttershy shot her a withering stare.
“No, it’s still immaterial,” warned Twilight, “even more so, now that it’s unconscious and won’t voluntarily solidify to try and attack anypony. In fact, if it wasn’t also pretty much weightless, it’d sink right into the ground.”
As if to prove the scholar’s point, Pinkie Pie leaped out of the crowd and waved her hoof around madly inside the Ursa’s paw for a good few seconds, before Capt Marigold trotted over and none-too-gently pushed her out of the way.
“Crap, and those etheric rounds are still on their way from Canterlot…” Spike muttered, and then asked out loud, “How long do you think it’s gonna stay asleep for?”
This time, it was Fluttershy who answered: “I don’t know, maybe ten, fifteen minutes… twenty at most.”
A crowd was starting to develop in the streets around them, although nopony seemed willing to get too close. A stallion Spike couldn’t see- Noteworthy, perhaps- shouted “Wahoo! We did it!” and immediately drew a series of whispered admonitions.
“So… what’re we gonna do about it?” Marigold asked.
Twilight waved a hoof above her head at the Lapwing, and the little gunboat drifted back towards them. “We’re going to take it back to the Everfree.” The craft landed and she climbed aboard, followed moments later by Pinkie Pie and Capt Marigold. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash glided into position on either side.
“Ah’d love to help you out,” Applejack explained, “But Ah’m kinda’ plum tuckered right now, what with a building fallin’ on me ‘n all…”she sat down on her haunches with an audible thud, popped her dented helmet off, and replaced it with her Stetson, “So Ah think Ah’m gonna have to sit this one out.”
"Don't let a little head trauma slow you down, AJ!" Pinkie cheered through the Ursa.
Twilight nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Spike, if you could stay behind as well, ponies in town are going to need somebody to help coordinate cleaning all of this up.”
“Sure. Yeah, I can do that,” the dragon said. Fairly soon, somepony was going to have to deal with some extremely harried couriers from Canterlot and Fillydelphia, who had just shipped highly expensive and delicate ethereal shells in double quantity to a town that no longer needed them. And if he was being entirely honest with himself, the prospect of another late-night trip into the Everfree didn’t seem particularly appealing regardless.
Then, Twilight lit her horn, and before the widening eyes of the townsponies, lifted the whole of the Ursa into the air without any apparent effort. “Rarity, Catseye, I’m gonna need your help with this as well,” she explained, “it’s pretty much massless when it’s unconscious like this, but I could still use somepony to help balance the load.”
“I get it,” Pinkie Pie cut in, “It’s sort of like getting a friend or two to help move a sofa- a giant, deadly, extraterrestrial sofa.”
“Umm… yes, actually, pretty much.” Both other unicorns climbed onto the Lapwing’s deck, which was already rising as the craft gained altitude. As soon as there was enough space, their coordinated telekinesis slid the Ursa’s insensate form directly underneath. It was far too large to tie into the dangling ropes that had supported the water tower’s cistern, and would’ve passed right through them anyway. “Now, Rainbow, Fluttershy, see if you can round up some of the rest of the weather team. The Lapwing’s ballast system is quiet enough for altitude control, but we can’t risk firing up the engines. You’re going to have to tow us through the Everfree…”
The flight into the Everfree passed in eerie silence, and thankfully without much incident. They kept low to follow the path back to Site Twenty-Four, and without the usual roar of the engines the foliage sliding past outside the troop bay door seemed shadowy and unreal to Twilight.
“We need a way to make sure it doesn’t follow us back,” Fluttershy suggested at one point, “now that it knows where the town is…”
“We should come back with explosives when we’re done, here,” said Marigold “and destroy the trail.”
“Yeah.” was all Twilight said in reply. She was fairly certain that if she listened hard enough, she could hear rotors in the distance- no doubt flying last week’s patrol, or next week’s, it was impossible to tell. Since time became increasingly unstable the longer one remained stationary here, she wondered, idly; if she set up a permanent observation post in, say, the Great Solarium, would it allow her to eavesdrop on historical events?
Eventually, they touched down at the campsite. It was in a sorry state. Crates, canvas, and sections of chain-link fencing were scattered throughout the clearing, and little looked to be salvageable.
Rarity and Catseye leaped down to the leafy ground, followed by Twilight, levitating the Ursa’s bulk in between them. Marigold, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy brought up the rear. The beast’s whole body fit easily into the cavern mouth with room to spare- which was odd, since they’d seen it compress through spaces not much larger than its head. Other than the decapitated skeleton of some long-forgotten treasure hunter, there wasn't much to see.
After a few minutes of steady walking, the cave opened out into a broad, rocky-floored valley open to the sky above. That was confusing, as Twilight was fairly certain she’d’ve spotted such a feature during her aerial reconnaissance- although, on further examination, the ‘sky’ didn’t show any observable atmospheric distortion or cloud cover, so it had to be some other, unknown phenomenon.
Rarity gave a small, polite cough and asked, “So… Twilight… where do we put it?”
“I don’t know, anywhere is… probably as good as anywhere else…” The scholar continued deeper on into the… valley? Cave? She wasn’t entirely sure what to call it. Most of the equine remains in here appeared to belong to various types post-Lunar adventurers, which meant they were probably of low priority. Nonetheless, Twilight would have liked to bring them back to the Station for study, if she had the time- which she did not. A pity. However, against the very back wall, she thought she caught the glimmer of astral steel.
She spared a look behind her. The others were engaged in the process of setting the Ursa down as gently as they could manage; it settled slightly into the rocky floor, but otherwise remained where they’d put it. Then she trotted further back into the cave.
There were a pair of skeletons all jumbled together back there -or at least a pair of skulls, the rest of the bones were too scattered to easily count- still wrapped in the tattered remains of midnight-blue cloaks. They wore no armor and carried no obvious weapons, but not far off lay a crumbling leather satchel embroidered in white with the emblem of the crescent moon. As gently and carefully as she could, Twilight slid it towards her across the stony ground- the unlatched flap dropped open of its own accord, revealing several sheaves of parchment and a pair of leather-bound books. These proved to be in incredibly good condition, perfectly readable even in the dim light, and Twilight quickly fanned through the pages. One hoof-written volume in particular seemed dedicated to long-range summoning spells: Twilight could follow the unknown author’s notes as they diverged ever more from established First Century techniques, towards something that reminded her -just a little- of the spell Nightmare Moon had used to return to the Material Plane. Then, abruptly, the calculations ended, with a horrifically inefficient formula that might just have called something sizable down from the higher Firmament.
She trotted back towards the cave entrance, floating the satchel and notebooks along beside her. The others were already waiting for her.
“So, aren’t you gonna salute the Ursa before you go?” Pinkie Pie asked Capt Marigold. “I mean, it’s a major, after all…”
“What, am I supposed to salute drum majors too, now?” The Guard officer rolled her eyes. “C’mon, let’s just go.”
“Umm… actually…” Fluttershy raised a hoof. “That was just an Ursa Minor- a cub, in fact.”
Rainbow Dash flipped around in midair and peered back into the cave. “Wait, so, if that was an Ursa Minor, then what does an Ursa Major l-”
Up above, the whole night sky shifted. A starry, deep purple paw reached down to the cave floor, scooped up the sleeping cub, and carried it back upward to nestle against the Ursa Major’s ethereal belly.
The pegasus’s ears pulled downward and she began drifting back towards the cave entrance, keeping her eyes on the ‘sky’ the entire time. “Aw. Aw, Tartarus…”
“We should… probably leave,” Sgt Catseye suggested, speaking up for the first time since they’d left Ponyville.
“Yeah.” Marigold nodded, looking more than a little nervous, and then set off up the tunnel. Twilight followed, then Pinkie and Catseye, and finally Rarity and Fluttershy.
After a tense, brisk walk back up to the surface in absolute silence, Pinkie Pie spoke up again. “So… uhh… what happened to Trixie?”
Rainbow Dash rubbed a hoof under the chinguard of her helmet. “Well, I saw her running away from the Ursa when I was first starting to work on the water tower, and then… uhh… I dunno?”
They stepped out into the camp, where Palisade and Leafspring were waiting beside the Lapwing.
“Well, Trixie’s a magician, isn’t she?” the baker continued, “and I don’t think she, like, planned from the start to release an Ursa and have it go on a rampage and smash her wagon and almost kill her and also put the whole town in grave danger or anything… but, once it happened, you gotta agree, this whole thing made for a pretty good distraction, didn’t it?”
Twilight froze with one leg up on the Lapwing’s landing deck.
She was fairly certain she heard Capt Marigold quietly mutter “Ohhhh, shit.”
“Rainbow!” the scholar called out, “Grab my map and head back to Ponyville as quickly as you can. We’ll follow along as soon as we’re done here.”
Trixie Lulamoon prowled the hastily-constructed hallways of the Station. She knew she had to work quickly, now- the sounds of battle in town outside were already fading away, and that meant the time for subtlety was over. She charged through doors and rifled through desks and shelving units -Daycaller’s office, Verse’s office, processing rooms, storage rooms, whatever the ‘SELENITIC MATTER TEST LAB’ was supposed to be- stuffing anything that looked remotely valuable into the pockets of her cloak. She hadn’t known quite what she’d been expecting to find inside the building -Lunar zombies in cages, maybe, since she knew they kept bringing bodies in here and shipping them out in sealed metal boxes- but mostly it just contained ordinary surveying equipment, inscrutable laboratory instruments, a few magical baubles, and files, files, files.
Trixie grabbed them anyway. Paper was light, and her new cloak had quite a lot of storage space. Next, she made her way towards the door labeled ‘DR. TWILIGHT SPARKLE,’ jimmied the simple lock, and dashed inside. Her employers were very specific in requesting a set of notes that only Twilight had, which she’d supposedly recognize because they were written partially in Griffish. Trixie didn't need to search long, Twilight and her anal-retentive organizational skills made finding the right binder an easy task. She flipped it open, leafed through a few pages of unintelligible calculations, then stowed the whole thing under her cloak.
She was about a third of the way through the structure when she decided she’d had enough- partially because she couldn’t hear any more commotion outside, and partially just due to her instinct and sense of timing. She really did feel nervous sneaking around like this- she was a showmare, not a thief; and at best her payout would buy her a new wagon, and she'd break even. Nopony was supposed to get hurt, tonight or any other night, but Shutterfly’d had to go off and die, and the one interesting cave in the Everfree had turned out to have an Ursa inside, and things’d just gone right to Tartarus on a tea tray ever since. She’d just wanted to entertain ponies, and earn a living doing it. Was that really so much to ask?
She made her way to the empty hangar and slipped outside through the open doors, slinking on her belly in the tall grass that grew everywhere around the building.
Then she caught only the faintest glimpse of steel and sky blue fur, zipping along almost at ground level near the fence, before two hundred and fifty kilos of armor, weapons, and pissed-off pegasus slammed into her.
They both went rolling a meter or two, and when they slid to a stop Rainbow Dash was standing on top of her with both armored forehooves digging into Trixie’s chest. The showmare lashed out with her free right hoof and connected with Dash’s helmet, simultaneously hurling a blast of lightning through her horn; but in between the pegasus’s armor, and Trixie’s depleted mana, neither seemed to even attract any notice.
Rainbow, in turn, slammed a hoof up into Trixie’s chin, then brought it down again just in front of her horn. The showmare’s world started to spin, her vision briefly filling with stars, and her legs wouldn’t obey her properly anymore. So, she screamed, as loud and piteously as she could manage, in the hope that anypony else might hear and come running. All it got her was another jarring, armored backhoof across the muzzle, and a bloodthirsty grin from the pegasus.
With that, she went limp. It was over. She'd just outran a sentient cosmic force, and watched it figuratively and literally crush her life's work. Even if her employers could bail her out of this mess, it still wouldn't repair her reputation. If Dash just... kept punching her in the face until hooves touched grass, well, it couldn't be much worse than it already was. As her vision darkened, her lips peeled back into an involuntary smile.
Rainbow Dash glared down at the bloody, disheveled form of Trixie Lulamoon. Just a moment ago she’d been doing her level best to overpower the weathermare -which was a futile effort, since she was going up against Rainbow Dash, but still. Now she was just laying there, occasionally shuddering. She gave a nasty-sounding cough and sprayed bright red blood all over Dash’s chestplate, then flopped back down, a dopey grin spreading across her already-bruising face.
“Who’s ‘Great and Powerful’ now huh? Pa-thetic,” Dash demanded, in her best Sapphire: Equestrian Commando impression, but the words sounded hollow and her heart wasn’t in it. She pulled her fourth and final punch, although it was still hard enough to snap Trixie's head to the side and spray a line of blood out across the grass. Then she reached into her tactical webbing for a set of manacles, and set about binding the unconscious mare’s hooves together.
Twilight stepped off the Lapwing’s deck onto the muddy, rubble-strewn, and generally chaotic edge of Ponyville. Royal Guards, Night Guards, civilians and militiaponies alike ran this way and that, clearing away debris and dousing small fires, all overseen by a harried-looking Spike, Chamomile, and Mayor Mare.
Her fellow passengers stepped past Twilight and disappeared into the crowd, presumably to render aid in whatever means they felt best. She and Marigold headed over to Spike.
“Status report!” the captain barked.
“Uhh. Right.” The little dragon looked down at the clipboard he was holding and flipped over a few pages. “Well, there’s two buildings totally ruined, and Silver Spanner says that one cottage Vortex got punted into's gonna need a new roof, for sure… and then, of course, there’s what’s left of the water tower supports… Derpy’s up at the reservoir, and she says the pumps can just run continuously, at least for now. But without the tower's... ‘hydrostatic stabilization,’ she called it, we'll have choppy pressure spikes. Then, they'll have to take the pumps offline completely to check the engine crystals as soon as the tower's fixed. Then the road crews-”
Marigold cut him off. “I meant, what’s the condition of my ponies?”
“Shaken, but holding firm,” explained 1stSgt Chamomile. “Five seriously wounded. Phalanx Shield’s still in surgery, it was touch-and-go for a while but they’re pretty sure he’ll pull through. Capt Vortex’s pretty banged up, one of the other Shadowbolts tore a flight muscle, and Springtime and Bolero’re on concussion watch, but they’re all conscious and ambulatory.”
“And the civilians?”
“Well, Applejack got pretty roughed up when that wall came down on her-”
“Ah said, Ah'm fine!” the farmer shouted from halfway down the street.
“- and she had the worst of it. A couple scuffs and bruises here and there, but that’s all.”
The captain pressed a hoof against her armored chest, and nodded. “We got lucky, then. Good.”
“Yes, that’s certainly a relief…” Twilight cantered over to a rather shaken-looking Subtle Spark and Parhelion. Both were slumped against the remains of a collapsed wall, looking positively dejected. Parhelion’s head was wrapped in bandages, stained faintly red by a nasty cut just above her horn. “Now, can we maybe discuss just how in ruttin’ Tartarus this happened? Because, from where I’m standing, it looks very much like the monster you were specifically ordered to keep from waking up, ended up waking up.”
Both Guards turned to look at each other for a good second or two. Parhelion swallowed hard and turned back to Twilight, then made a wordless sort of “Errr” noise.
“Sundog left her post for a few seconds to… well, to take a leak,” Spark explained, “And while she was gone, I saw a distress flare that looked like it’d come from somewhere near Site Twenty-Two. I tried to call Sundog back, and when that didn’t work, I went to investigate.”
Parhelion nodded, looking somewhat confused. “That’s what he said he did… I musta’ been, what, ten meters away, and I didn’t hear jack shit. Didn’t see the flare, either. Blame the damn forest if you gotta blame something…”
The stallion beside her nodded. “That must’ve been when she- when Trixie- slipped behind us. We found her in the cave, and tried to coax her out quietly…”
Parhelion grinned- or grimaced, rather- and continued, “But the Grrrreat and Powerful Trixie does whatever the rut she wants.”
“Yeah,” Sparky rolled his eyes, “She started shouting, and then the Ursa woke up, and then we pretty much had to run for our lives.”
“When I started this investigation, I was led to believe that I would be given a professional security staff-” Twilight began, but then Capt Marigold stepped in between her and the Guards.
“Doc, it’s really not their fault. If you wanted better security, it might’ve been a good idea to let me pull patrols away from Froggy Bottom Bog, and enlist some of the Ponyville Militia to guard less critical targets like the sensor equipment at the Station and the Cairn. I sent you a report just yesterday warning that two Guards per site wouldn’t be enough because precisely this kinda’ situation could happen. My ponies did the best they could with the cards they’d been dealt.”
Very briefly, Twilight considered some kind of retort, but decided against it. “Fine,” she finally said, and turned away. “I’ll leave it to the captain to enforce any disciplinary action she deems appropriate. Spike, see if you can work with her to put together a list of sites in the Bog that we can assign to the Militia, or completely close down,” Then she peered down at her own damp, muddy forelegs. “And… when we get back to the library, I’ll play you a game of hooves-horns-wings for the shower.” After that, she looked back up, and realized that the sky was already starting to grow distinctly lighter towards the west. “Oh, for Celestia's sake! I don’t know if I should try to get some sleep, still, or just go ahead and start my day…”
“Hey. Hey!” she heard Rainbow Dash call out. She wheeled around, as did several of the nearby troops, to find the weathermare striding towards them, breathing heavily. She dragged an unconscious Trixie Lulamoon along behind her, with the chain of a set of manacles held in her teeth.
“Well, this makes me feel better!” Twilight sighed as she, the dragon, and Capt Marigold all trotted over.
“I caught her tryin’ to get away from the Station with a bunch of you guys’s stuff,” the pegasus explained.
From off to one side, Pinkie Pie leaned into Twilight’s vision at a disorientingly flat angle. “So, what you’re saying is, the Ursa ruse...”
“Pinkie, stop!”
The baker grinned like a schoolfilly. “… was a distaction?”
Twilight just shook her head. “Oh sun dammit.”
Marigold gestured at Trixie with her right hoof, and Cpl Aqua dashed over to begin giving the unconscious showmare a thorough pat-down. Very quickly she exposed an eclectic trove of pilfered items: a hoofful of Lunar talismans, dozens of none-too-neat wads of papers stamped with the Royal Academy seal, somepony's skull, and- to Twilight's shock- her entire binder full of Gordon's notes.
“What in-” Twilight stammered, “Those were in my office!”
Only when the Guard was nearly finished did Trixie groan and open her eyes. Immediately, her gaze fixed on Twilight; she snarled, coughed, and then sneezed a gout of bloody phlegm onto the scholar’s chest.
Spike staggered back a half-step and muttered, “Actually, never mind, you can go ahead and have the shower.”
Twilight grinned, forcing herself to ignore the warm slime dripping down her forelegs. “Hello, Trixie…”
“Awwwwww… Rut you... bitch…” growled the showmare.
“Sorry,” Twilight hissed, “You’re not my type.”
“So… what is your ‘type’,” asked a rather confused-looking Rainbow Dash.
Reflexively, Twilight brought her hoof up to massage the base of her horn, and barely stopped herself from smearing mud across her face. “Ugh… Now's not the time, Dash.” She turned back to Capt Marigold, and waved to the Mayor as well. “So, do you think we can finally hold her on something?”
“Well, let me see here,” the Mayor trotted over, adjusting her somewhat disheveled neckerchief. “Trespassing, fraud, grand larceny, reckless endangerment,” she waved out at the continuing chaos, “and quite a lot of property damage… yes, I think we can put together a list of charges that the District Solicitor up in Canterlot might be interested in… oh, yes, and breaking and entering, too, I suppose.”
“Of course,” the scholar continued, “I might be convinced to speak up on your behalf if you would just tell us what this was all about…”
With some difficulty, Trixie climbed back up onto all four hooves. She seemed to gather herself, but her left eye was twitching wildly underneath its swollen lid. “I really am just a showmare, actually, a performer who’s been paid to… well, put on quite the show, it turned out!”
“Oh, really. Who hired you? What’s your agenda?” Twilight demanded, unconvinced.
“I don’t have an agenda, and you hired me,” Trixie replied, sounding almost proud, “But I know my rights. The Great and Powerful Trixie is done talking.”
“Is that so?” Twilight tossed her mane and turned, as if to leave, “If you really are done talking, I’m sure Princess Luna and her mages can get some answers from you…” In fact, the scholar wasn’t entirely sure if Luna could extract that kind of information, much less if she’d be willing to, or if her findings would even be admissible... but Trixie didn’t necessarily know that.
“Oh, you mean like you ‘questioned’ Shutterfly?” the showmare demanded.
Well, so much for Trixie not calling my bluff… but it’s certainly interesting that she knows Shutterfly by name. “Marigold, Chamomile, can you please just deal with this for a while?” was all the scholar said aloud. “It’s too late -too early in the morning? I don’t even know anymore- for this nonsense right now…” she turned and began walking along the edge of town towards the gully that held the remains of Trixie’s wagon. “As for this… Spike? Go ahead and grab Amethyst, and Aqua Regia and Rarity. See if you can track down Dr. Daycaller, too, and have him bring the scanner equipment from the Cairn. I want that wagon turned inside-out and upside-down…”
The Ponyville Jail was a small, nondescript brick building on the edge of town. It contained only a few cells, and mostly handled rowdy drunks or the very rare domestic dispute or case of petty larceny. Serious crimes -the most recent of which was an assault charge way back in ‘89- went straight up to Canterlot. Twilight had walked right past it a dozen times by now without knowing what it was, figuring it might’ve had something to do with the school system.
She stepped into the cellblock just after lunch, having formulated a new round of tactics to try to pry additional information out of Trixie. Instead, she found Steel Shank, Amethyst Star, Aqua Regia, and Rain Chaser all staring at an empty cell.
The scholar briefly closed her eyes and pressed a hoof against the aching spot just underneath her horn. “She didn’t.”
Steel Shank just nodded, mutely, looking like he was either about to beat somepony to death with his bare hooves, or curl up in a dark corner somewhere and cry.
“When-?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” the Night Guard officer said, “Cpl Aqua called us in as soon as she saw.”
Aqua scuffed a hoof against the stone floor, and snorted in frustration. “I musta’ had my eye off her for two seconds…”
“Alarms and perimeter spell?” Twilight asked.
“All still intact,” confirmed Amethyst.
“And it’s not like the guard even so much as slipped her a drink of water or anything overnight…” the scholar began pacing down the length of the hall, then turned around and glared at Rain Chaser. “You didn’t open the door to give her anything, right?”
Chaser flinched backwards as though slapped across the muzzle. “Nay, ma’am. Nothing. Not even a chamber pot.”
"And you made sure you didn't just lock up a duplicate?"
"She felt solid enough when I shoved her in there, and I made sure she could talk!"
“Dammit, Spike was right. I should’ve told you two to verbally warn each other when you were going to blink…” Twilight stepped back over to the cell, squinting against the bright sunlight filtering in through the sole window. It was the size of a single brick, and double-barred; there was a simple pallet bunk bolted to the wall underneath, and the rest of the cell was composed of vertical steel bars running from the stone floor all the way up to a poured concrete ceiling. A cockroach would have trouble finding a place to hide inside it, much less a pony, but then again Trixie Lulamoon was no ordinary pony. “Are you sure she’s actually gone?”
Abruptly, Cpl Aqua drew her crossbow and fired a single bolt into the cell. It struck the back wall with a soft thud and scattered a few reddish flakes of brick onto the bunk underneath. “I can go find a grenade, if you wanna make extra sure.”
“Well it’s not like she’s hiding behind the door, or above the frame or something…” Amethyst mused, “It’s just a bar-steel cage, basically!”
“Even if she were some sort of contortionist, the gaps in the bars are smaller than a pony’s head,” Steel Shank added.
“I’ll take you up on that grenade, actually,” Twilight finally said, “Although… make it a flashbang, not fragmentation. This is still Ponyville property, and we don’t want to damage it.” Aqua turned to leave, and then the scholar held up a hoof. “On second thought…” She summoned the silvery cone of a powerful disjunction spell, and panned it over the cell’s interior.
The cell remained empty.
Then she fired off her favored flare spell, intense enough that Rain Chaser briefly flinched backwards as the cheap straw mattress began to smolder. She followed it up with a conical compression-distortion wave that shook loose mortar from the brickwork.
Nothing.
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut again, and slammed a hoof against the bars. As if on cue, the cell door swung open, followed by the ear-piercing shriek of the alarms. She barely noticed the rolled-up wad of clay drop out of the keyhole, but when it hit the cell floor, the entire jailhouse filled with thick purple smoke. Even though she knew Trixie couldn’t possibly be watching, she refused to give the showmare the pleasure of seeing her react. “I don’t get it. I don’t get it…”
While apparently corporal punishment was considered inappropriate in this enlightened Eleventh Century, Lancepesade Smokey Mirror knew very well what it felt like to be led up for a public whipping. The fact that it was to happen in an office in the Town Hall instead of in the square outside was largely irrelevant.
He grit his teeth and stepped through the front doors.
Filthy Rich was standing in the lobby, surrounded by a crowd of other ponies- among them Thunderlane, Carrot Top, Lucky Clover, and a mare Smokey didn’t know by name who owned the wagon shop.
“First it was the unwarranted searches,” Filthy was shouting. He stood so the water tower’s ruins were visible out the window behind him; Smokey wondered if that was intentional. “Then they bring in more troops, and the same Lunar monsters who occupied our town at swordpoint along with them! Now we aren’t even allowed to speak to the press- more than that, the press is actively banned from the entire town! And they still won’t even tell us what’s going on!”
“You know, I heard some of those Guards went and killed a reporter, out in the woods!” Added Lucky Clover.
“That… that doesn’t make sense, that’s not what happened,” Fluttershy spoke up. Smokey hadn’t, initially, realized the pegasus was even present; she lurked in a corner away from the group with a sheaf of papers clasped under her wing, looking very uncomfortable indeed.
“Yeah, they were laughing about it!” the wagonwright called back, “Something about impaling her on a tree branch and letting her bleed out, cackling all the while!”
Smokey wondered how the townsponies could possibly know that kind of information.
“Then monsters from the Everfree start attacking,” Filthy continued, “after the ponies from Canterlot start poking around in there, dabbling in Ceres-knows-what, of course! And now…” he waved out at the collapsed frame of the water tower. “… this! How many close calls is it gonna take? Gaia preserve us that nopony got hurt last night, but what about the next attack? And the next? Because there will be more, as long as they keep running those experiments out there!”
“Umm, well, Sgt Phalanx… kind of lost a meter of small intestine, and Springtime and Bolero both have concussions, and Nightingale took a claw to the spine- she's lucky she can still walk...” Fluttershy muttered, even as she visibly shook and seemed to be trying to squeeze herself through the back wall.
“Oh, is that all?” Filthy rolled his eyes. “I thought those Guardsponies were supposed to be dedicated…”
Smokey let him continue his rant, and slipped past into the conference room.
The town mayor sat at the head of the table inside; the pink mare from the tour group, who he’d since learned was named Spoiled Rich, sat to her left. Steel Shank, Cheerilee, and Drs. Verse and Daycaller were all bunched up on the opposite side. Regardless of position, all of them turned to glare at him when he stepped inside; save for Dr. Verse, who simply looked terrified.
He shut the door behind him, and took a seat next to Steel Shank.
There was a long, strained silence, broken only by the continued sounds of muffled conversation outside.
Finally, Spoiled Rich leaned back in her chair, looked at each of the ponies across from her in turn, and asked, “Well?”
Dr. Daycaller scratched under his neatly-trimmed orange beard, doing a very good job of not seeming at all nervous. “‘Well’ what?”
“Well, do any of you have anything to say for yourselves after traumatizing my daughter?”
Smokey swallowed hard, and looked at the others. The others looked back at him impassively. He couldn’t bring himself to face the mare across the table, and settled for tracing the grains in the imitation wood. “Nay, I do not.”
Finally, he found the courage to look up again. Spoiled had transferred her attention to the Mayor. “My little Diamond hasn’t been able to sleep through the whole night ever since the incident, you know. She jumps at just about every shadow, and she told me she’s being teased -teased!- by the other students about it. We can’t even take her out to the market when there’s always those horrible bat-ponies wandering the streets… I don’t know what we’re going to do when Nightmare Night rolls around, it’d be unfair to just keep her home, but there just wouldn't be enough time to go around and approve the costume of every child in Ponyville to make sure it isn’t too scary…”
The mare prattled on, and Smokey had to fight the urge to go back to studying the table. Instead, he surveyed his own side of the room, again- and found no support there. Spoiled represented just about everything he’d taken the Oath to fight against, but Moon Above her stare was icy. He’d be much happier if she’d just ask for rapiers at dawn and be done with it.
Finally, she turned that freezing gaze to Steel Shank. “Well, what will be your reparations?”
Commendably, the other Lunar didn’t look away. Instead, he grinned. “Well, ordinarily, I’d give the Lancepesade my personal congratulations for his actions, then slap him in the stockade for a day, or perhaps two. However, as of yet the Night Guard has no formal position in the Government, and I no longer have authority over matters of discipline.”
“And, well, I’m just a scientist and not particularly qualified to discuss matters like this,” continued Dr. Daycaller, “But when either of my children blow things out of proportion to fish for sympathy, I’ve found what works best is just to pretend like nothing has changed and go on with business as usual. If it keeps up for more than, I don’t know, a week, my wife’s the one who usually sits down with them and has the Serious Talk.”
“My taxes pay you ponies, and my donations are what allow your shack of a school to afford better than the bare minimum in supplies and materials,” Spoiled hissed, looking from the Mayor to Cheerilee and back again. “I should pull my daughter out. Homeschool her, perhaps hire a few private tutors from Canterlot. Spend my money where it’s appreciated.”
Cheerilee just blinked. “No, please, anything but that,” she stated with perfect apathy.
The Mayor raised a hoof. “I… hope you realize that even if your daughter isn’t actually attending class at the elementary, a portion of your property taxes will still go towards covering her hypothetical presence. So, it really is in at least your financial interest to keep Diamond Tiara in the public school system- since, you know, you are already paying for it.”
Smokey was fairly certain he saw Spoiled’s upper lip peel into a sneer, just for a moment.
Then the Mayor turned to look at him. “That said… Smokey Mirror, for your actions, justified as they might've been at the time… You are no longer welcome in the town of Ponyville, and will no longer be permitted within town limits for a period to be subsequently decided. You have until the end of the day to leave.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky you aren’t being charged with aggravated assault.”
Mutely, the Lunar swordstallion nodded. He had, in fact, been expecting far worse.
Steel Shank turned to him and announced to the room, “I’m headed back to the Harbor myself. I will see you on the six o’clock train.”
That sneer was back on Spoiled’s muzzle, and she was practically vibrating with restrained fury. She was starting to sweat, which was undoing her flat-iron manestyle and carving streaks in her thick blush.
“Is that all?” Smokey finally found the courage to ask.
The Mayor nodded.
The Night Guard turned to Verse, Daycaller, Shank, and Cheerilee. “In that case, I apologize for causing so much trouble.” He slipped out of his chair and stepped outside. A sigh of relief caught in his throat when he saw that Filthy Rich was still in the lobby, standing right next to the door. There were no other exits he could see- the windows were always a possibility, but he figured he was in enough trouble with Ponyville’s residents already. Instead, he grit his teeth and headed for the door as quickly as was reasonable.
Filthy Rich stuck out a hoof and barred his way before he could pass. “Now, you listen here, you slit-eyed, demon-worshiping freak,” the merchant’s voice was quiet, level, and deadly-cold. “Those Canterlot drones might’ve forgotten just what you and your buddies did at the Summer Sun Celebration, but I haven’t and neither has the rest of this town. If you ever lay one hoof on my daughter, you’re going to wish you’d never crawled out of that tomb. Do you understand me?”
“… Perfectly, sirrah.”
Trixie Lulamoon stumbled on aching legs through the mountainous countryside surrounding Ponyville. It was hard going, but she couldn’t exactly risk traveling along any of the main roads right now- not when her face was probably stuck to a bulletin board in every public building from here to Fillydelphia. She’d had a bit of a scare a few miles back when she thought she’d spotted a pegasus trailing her from high altitude, but whatever it was it had peeled off not too long ago and hadn’t reappeared.
Her situation was, admittedly, looking pretty bleak at the moment. She was out a wagon, up an arrest warrant or two, and missing most of her gear. She hadn’t spotted any kind of settlement nearby to slip into a post office and check, but she figured her bank accounts were probably frozen by now as well. That meant all she currently had to her name was a nine-thousand bit cloak; most of a hoof-rolled smokebomb the crayon-eaters somehow missed while they were frisking her; and that was it. Picking the jail cell's ridiculously simple lock was easy enough- even without her tools- but it wasn't lost on her how lucky she was they'd left her cloak and hat hanging nearby, instead of sticking it in an evidence locker with the rest of her equipment.
Still, it was not in Trixie’s nature to give up. This wasn’t even the first time she’d had to contend with an arrest warrant- although the less she thought back to that one show in Seaddle, the better. She was probably still in her employers’ good graces, too. They looked after ponies who looked after their own interests -or died trying- and it wasn’t like she’d left a check with their name on it in her wagon for Twilight-rutting-Sparkle and her Canterlot pals to discover. They’d have a place available for her to lay low, if nothing else. That wasn’t even counting the bargaining value of the artifacts she’d already smuggled out, or the documents she’d gotten from the Station, or for that matter the designs she’d lifted from that tailor’s shop. The Guards had taken away her physical copies, certainly, but Trixie had a good memory.
She was pretty sure she’d do just fine.
Twilight stood in front of what was fast becoming her personal card table in the grasslands near the Station, Trixie’s Class II enchantments license and miscellaneous other documents spread out before her. Nearby, Spike, TSgt Leafspring, and a few other Royal and Night Guards were hard at work picking apart the remains of the showmare’s wagon.
Carefully, she held a piece of paper over the license, and rubbed a stick of charcoal across the ‘name’ field. Clear as day, ‘TRIXIE LULAMOON’ was superimposed with ‘SHUTTERFLY’
“Well, that’s interesting…” She walked absentmindedly around the table, watching Spike fiddle with the wagon’s solitary intact wheel. He paused, then pulled a slip of paper out from between what had at one point been the floorboards. He unfolded it, and studied it silently for a solid minute.
Twilight sidled over and read over his shoulder. The paper appeared to be a receipt for a wire transfer from a company called ‘Night Star Organizational Solutions’.
“It's the address that caught my attention,” Spike turned around and looked at her, head tilted quizzically to one side. “PO Box 122, Baltimare. I've heard that before…” he idly stroked his not-quite-beard, “Right, Rarity mentioned this, this is part of the same block of boxes those weird Society for Lunar-Equestrian Studies ponies use!"
“Dear Princess Celestia:
Ironically, it seems that all it took to finally get our operation and the local authorities on the same page, administratively, was the leveling of a few inconsequential sections of Ponyville. Of course, this also seems to have stirred up some amount of discontent among a few of the more influential citizens… I suppose ‘three steps forward, one step back’ is simply the natural course of all such investigations.
Attached, you will find my sworn deposition concerning these events, as well as its cover letter. While I in no way recommend against the standard protocols for pursuit of escaped fugitives in Trixie’s case, I have my doubts that anything will turn up. In all probability, she’s already halfway to Klugetown by now. While I’d begun writing this letter with every intention of suggesting that Trixie was hired by Lord Goldstone to exact some hackneyed vengeance for my recent involvement in Innsbeak, I'm beginning to think that explanation is doubtful at best. I am, instead, fully convinced Trixie is part of a network including a variety of businesses, political action groups, media figures, and entities such as the mysterious ‘SLES’ which defy easy categorization. This network has been in operation since well before my relationship with Goldstone soured- indeed, while I shudder to even contemplate the idea that elements of the Government have themselves been compromised, it provides a ready explanation for the intransigence on the part of the DATA Review Board that led me to Innsbeak in the first place- as well as Canterlot's abject refusal to help Capt Marigold while I was petrified.
As for who -or what- might actually be responsible, I have no solid hypothesis. Spike and I have identified names and locations, but any real understanding of the ‘enemy’s’ motives or internal structure escapes me, and I have neither the time, resources, nor skills necessary to conduct a full investigation of this type. I wish I could say that I’m happy to turn that task over to the proper legal authorities, but I fear that doing so may be exactly what the ponies responsible for all of this want.
I suppose, ultimately, all I can do is focus on my responsibilities, and continue my research into the last days of the Lunar Rebellions.
